The overwhelming consistency of the NT

[Secret Alias]

The reference to the corrupted Torah (from the Dosithean point of view) as a whore from Abu'l Fath:

He said that synagogues were no different from temples of idols, and if one offered something to the synagogue, it was as though he had offered it to a temple of idols. He said that the ark containing the rolled up Scroll in the synagogue is like an overdressed harlot." He ruled that every person who recites (Scripture) or prays must cover his head, and that anyone who does not do as he says is liable to (God's) curse.

I've always thought this and other references were vaguely Pauline. Of course the head covering issue is very interesting. Exodus 28:4, 37, 40 describes the high priest wore a miẓnefet, and the ordinary priests a migba'at both forms of head covering. In traditional Israelite culture only the high priest read the Torah (the story about Agrippa is explicitly messianic as I have argued before). The high priest clearly had his head covered while reading the Torah. All of which makes the statement in Abu'l Fath startling. Clearly we are dealing with a sectarian community outside the mainstream or one that did not have priests. Very puzzling in a Samaritan community. I think it is an echo of the statement (or line of reasoning) in 1 Corinthians. It just doesn't make sense any other way.

[iskander]

Consistency and orthodoxy.

The Roman Catholic Church : international theological commission the hope of salvation for infants who die without being baptised

1.2. The Greek Fathers

11. The idea of an inheritance of sin or guilt - common in Western tradition - was foreign to this perspective, since in their view sin could only be a free, personal act

14. On the one hand, these Greek Fathers teach that children who die without Baptism do not suffer eternal damnation

1.3. The Latin Fathers

15. The fate of unbaptised infants first became the subject of sustained theological reflection in the West during the anti-Pelagian controversies of the early 5th century.

16. In countering Pelagius, Augustine was led to state that infants who die without Baptism are consigned to hell.... Why are little children brought to the baptismal font, especially infants in danger of death, if not to assure them entrance into the Kingdom of God? Why are they subjected to exorcisms and exsufflations if they do not have to be delivered from the devil?

17..... Those who are not baptized cannot enter the Kingdom of God. At the judgement, those who do not enter the Kingdom (Mt 25:34) will be condemned to hell (Mt 25:41). There is no “middle ground” between heaven and hell. “There is no middle place left, where you can put babies”.[31] Anyone “who is not with Christ must be with the devil”.[32]

18. God is just. If he condemns unbaptised children to hell, it is because they are sinners... These infants were unable to help themselves, but there is no injustice in their condemnation because all belong to “the same mass”, the mass destined for perdition. God does no injustice to those who are not elected, for all deserve hell.[36]

19. The Council of Carthage of 418 rejected the teaching of Pelagius. It condemned the opinion that infants “do not contract from Adam any trace of original sin, which must be expiated by the bath of regeneration that leads to eternal life”.

20. So great was Augustine's authority in the West, however, that the Latin Fathers (e.g., Jerome, Fulgentius, Avitus of Vienne, and Gregory the Great) did adopt his opinion. Gregory the Great asserts that God condemns even those with only original sin on their souls; even infants who have never sinned by their own will must go to “everlasting torments”. He cites Job 14:4-5 (LXX), John 3:5, and Ephesians 2:3 on our condition at birth as “children of wrath”.[42]

1.5. The Modern/Post-Tridentine Era

26. Augustine's thought enjoyed a revival in the 16th century, and with it his theory regarding the fate of unbaptised infants, as Robert Bellarmine, for example, bears witness.[51]
One consequence of this revival of Augustinianism was Jansenism. Together with Catholic theologians of the Augustinian school, the Jansenists vigorously opposed the theory of Limbo. During this period the popes (Paul III, Benedict XIV, Clement XIII)[52] defended the right of Catholics to teach Augustine's stern view that infants dying with original sin alone are damned and punished with the perpetual torment of the fire of hell, though with the “mildest pain” (Augustine) compared with what was suffered by adults who were punished for their mortal sins.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congr ... ts_en.html
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=114&start=10

[Peter Kirby]

It was probably more the converse, "If the NT was cobbled together from many and varied discrete traditions and mythologies, over a period of one to two hundred years, in a process spanning a wide geographic area, in what was therefore a chaotic or perhaps organic theological evolution, then one should expect the NT to exhibit more obvious and widespread dogmatic contradictions than it contains." I agree, that is an assumption that should be tested, but it seems logical / self-evident to me.

I would date the earliest NT text around AD 50 (at the earliest) and the latest NT text around AD 150 (at the latest), with the range easily tightening to AD 55-145 or AD 60-140 depending on how you want to split the hairs. That implies a range of 80, 90, or approximately 100 years. I don't know of anyone stumping for 200 years.

That criticism seems a bit opportunistic. It was clearly enunciated in my OP that I was referring to the NT, apostolic fathers and ante-Nicene fathers.

Not so much "opportunistic" as a case of someone reading what you had written. The sentence had the phrase "the NT." Can't be a mind reader. Thanks for this clarification.

[Peter Kirby]

The geographic area would seem to be wide in that some come from the area of Asia Minor, some from Rome, and some from Syria, among other potential locations.

Neither the date range nor the geographic range seem particularly relevant to the question of "more obvious and widespread dogmatic contradictions." Indeed, everyone would grant the geographic range bit in any case. Some would try to squeeze the range to AD 40-70 at one extreme or AD 50-100 from a more mainstream perspective, but honestly I fail to see what difference the extent of the range makes here. It's certainly not self-evident that the exact amount of time is relevant to the point.

It seems obvious to me, on a fundamental level, that the geographical footprint encompassing early Christian theological development is highly relevant. There are no cell phones or chat groups to facilitate the cross-pollination of ideas. Christianity spread quickly and was therefore highly vulnerable to the development of location-specific wrinkles with the potential to dilute what became known as proto-orthodoxy. The mere existence of proto-orthodoxy and eventual orthodoxy speaks to a core, fundamental set of beliefs that define the apostolic period and which were preserved as original / traditional beliefs.

If the Bishop of Lyons is on-message in 180 CE (from France), it speaks to uniformity of belief across the Orthodox Christian world.

So you find the dating range and geographic range relevant in some way. Fine.

I apologize for throwing you off the scent, because the relevance or irrelevance of these two things is itself... pretty irrelevant, as it turns out.

Either way, the argument doesn't argue against "mythicism"; it argues against particular notions of some particular mythicists, at best, especially those who would say that the Christian tradition was "cobbled together from many and varied discrete traditions and mythologies ... in what was therefore a chaotic or perhaps organic theological evolution."

Any "mythicism" that does not include that other premise is entirely unaffected by the argument. The argument is not an argument against "mythicism." The argument is an argument against the idea that "the NT [and/or the fathers] was [were] cobbled together from many and varied discrete traditions and mythologies, over a period of one to two hundred years, in a process spanning a wide geographic area, in what was therefore a chaotic or perhaps organic theological evolution."

That is not "mythicism." And, further, there are indeed some particular explicated varieties of "mythicism" that do not include such ideas.

The argument would have more force (as an argument against "mythicism") if "mythicism" meant, for example, the ideas of Acharya S, but that's just one particular subset of "mythicist" possibilities.

[The equivalent mirrored argument would be to argue against the historicity of Jesus by arguing against the views of N.T. Wright or the views of J.P. Meier, for example.]

[gmx]

So what is your precis of the most convincing argument that the mythicist position has put forward?

[iskander]

Revelation
Revelation 1
1The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his slaves what must soon take place; and he made it known by sending his angel to his slave John, 2who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw ...

[Peter Kirby]

So what is your precis of the most convincing argument that the mythicist position has put forward?

The 'arguments' both pro or con are, objectively considered, very unconvincing.

Belief and bias do most of the work of filling in the credibility gap (which is how you can find so many militant anti mythicists and pro mythicicists talking past each other without denting anyone's confidence).

There may be some ingenious ideas or probabilistic models that could be designed, but I doubt they do much convincing of those not wanting convincing (again, pro or con).

The data are just not there so as to settle our wondering.

Data driven reasearch will likely leave the question to one side for a very long time as an unknown ... But too few care to do data driven research in this field.

[gmx]

So what is your precis of the most convincing argument that the mythicist position has put forward?

The 'arguments' both pro or con are, objectively considered, very unconvincing.

Belief and bias do most of the work of filling in the credibility gap (which is how you can find so many militant anti mythicists and pro mythicicists talking past each other without denting anyone's confidence).

There may be some ingenious ideas or probabilistic models that could be designed, but I doubt they do much convincing of those not wanting convincing (again, pro or con).

The data are just not there so as to settle our wondering.

Data driven reasearch will likely leave the question to one side for a very long time as an unknown ... But too few care to do data driven research in this field.

That was not a response I was expecting.

As I mentioned, I gravitate to the mythicist viewpoint, but not due to any compelling evidence... moreso due to belief in a rationally explainable universe. That's the best I can come up with.

The problem with the NT field prior to 1700 was the absence of any critical examination... the problem today is almost the exact opposite; there is no safe ground whatsoever... no common foothold. Paul apparently believed only in a mythical Christ, but we don't even know for sure what letters Paul wrote. We're pretty sure someone wrote some letters in Paul's name who wasn't Paul (ie pastorals), yet why should we assume there was ever a Paul? Maybe by whatever authoring mechanism was deemed acceptable to "that community", all "letters" were written in the name of Paul, and the "genuine" instances were simply written by a different "pretender" to the latter ones. Nothing is known. All hope is lost. The entire field is a Bermuda Triangle.