Shrill?  I'm crushed.  I thought I was being weighty and persuasive.  :)

"i somehow feel that a review is in order of who said exactly what on this issue."

Yes, a good idea.  :)

"Aside from this, you object (in slightly shrill terms) to me commenting that some of the budding religions growing up around the other 'messiahs' might have been suppressed by Christianity.  However, you appear to only think of 'suppression' in terms of the brute force crushing of dissent."

Here I think is the problem.  My point in taking issue with your use of this text is this:  in order for there to be a 'suppression' to the level necessary to obliterate all hint of any other hugely successful and popular messiah-wannabe- so as to abolish all hope of making any historical determinations from the time period requires a level of power, authority, coordination, and infrastructure that is massive.  It was possessed by regimes relatively infrequently throughout history, and even if it was possessed later by Christians it certainly was NOT possessed by Christians from its origins to about 315 AD.

To advance the notion that we can distrust everything we know about history at the time you submit... an account where a bunch of sorcerers burn their own books after Paul has converted them to Christianity.

This is a far cry from obtaining the necessary level of 'suppression' required to obliterate all confidence in the historical data.  Even if we granted the entirety of your argument on this point we would still be thousands of miles away from justifying the idea that Christianity had the capability of revising and redacting history to such an extent that we can say nothing of confidence about the time period.

Just to throw out some examples, here, but if Christians are as diabolical as you suppose, then you cannot trust Tacitus or Seutonius or Cicero.  Oh, but I'm sure you step in and object here:  "No, you just cannot trust anything written by these people that could conceivably support Christianity.  As each century turns up new ways these writers support Christianity (since each century turns up new scholars thinking about things in new ways) we must continually toss out these new bits."

Or take Josephus.  It is often said that the Testimonium Flavium is an interpolation or even an outright fraudulent insertion, but are you really prepared to say that Christians in 200 AD anticipated the arguments of an apologist writing in 2009 AD and so went into Josephus (and all the other texts) and adjusted all of the references to other Messiahs in order to fit into the apologetical script?

Then, when the adjustments were made, these Christian tyrants managed to go out and in the face of Roman emperors who were as likely to be killing THEM and burning THEIR books, and went from town to town and city to city eliminating and destroying every other copy of the same book and replacing it with the Revised Authorized Edition?  Because that is what they'd have to be able to do.

Moreover, they'd have to expect to be able to do it before they even started.  If, say, those in Rome begin redacting Josephus (as one example) they'd have to know that they can get rid of the copies of Josephus extant in Jerusalem, Antioch, etc, and Alexandria (AHA!  Now we know why it was burned down!  )  otherwise their efforts would be for naught.  After all, if you cite a passage from an author and you can't be sure that when the other person goes to check on the citation it won't reflect the Approved Version, then doing so would be useless.

But all this and more is required for your claim to be remotely viable.  And in its defense you submit... a passage where some former sorcerers burn their own books of their own volition.

As it appears to me, your claim exists solely as a reason not to consider the historical data at all.

"What was Priscillian's crime?"

heh and skipping ahead 300 years.  :)

"Priscillian, for anyone else reading,"

Let's just grant this for sake of argument and go on.  What else do you got?  You need to show this is systemic and 100% effective of not merely eliminating other viewpoints but also all records of them and their success.

"There's a survival of the fittest dynamic at work when it comes to competing religious beliefs."

Fine.  But in order for you to make this case, you're not going to be able to get away with just tossing pieces here and there.  You're going to have to throw it all out.  I mean, whatever you think you know from history is just going to have to be abandoned.  It's  par for the course that you wouldn't trust the Gospels, but if now we cannot even trust the secularists and Josephus explaining about conditions in Palestine- because at any moment some Christian might come and cite them in their defense- then its all gotta go.

I can see you tossing anything that smacks of the supernatural.  There was nothing supernatural about a bunch of messiah-wannabes walking around getting slaughtered by the Romans... until their mere existence suddenly made Christianity's emergence a marvel...

""Cosmos" by Carl Sagan, you lout."

Pretty sure I've read it.  But not at your request.  I'll dig through my stuff.

"And yeah, i read Abolition of Man.  He seemed to be recycling a lot of your arguments though - you should really speak to him about that."

I absolutely will!

"Not to burn your books and behead you though."

I'm not so sure about that. 

"Uh, why?"

Because there are sorcery books extant.  We can get a good idea of what those kinds of books from the past contained.

"Ok, be pedantic.  Yes, there were big differences between what various members of the church believed at the time, and the council was there to solve those differences."

Not so big as you suppose.  Not in my readings.  Like I said, the vote for the Nicean Creed which came out of it was 298 to 2.  Wow, huge disparity.  :)

"Easy tiger.  All i was saying was that the council was hardly an exercise in free-thinking or independent inquiry."

I don't agree with that.  I think it is a little simplistic and probably unfair.  So Antony Flew and Richard Dawkins weren't in the room.  So what?  Holding the council to standards of modern day skepticism with a resident Michael Shermer just doesn't seem fair or rational to me.

"the Da Vinci Code actually saying that the issue of Jesus' divinity was decided (as in settled) at the council, which would be accurate wouldn't it."

No, it wouldn't.  You don't get a 298 to 2 vote to affirm the creed on his divinity if that was the case.  Any knucklehead who walks into a group of like-minded individuals with his own ideas must be given full and 100% consideration?  If I walk into a church today and I say, "Jesus was an alien.  Consider my hypothesis" and they kick me out, does it follow that only at this point was Jesus 'not-an-alien' status decided by that community?  Nonsense.

"So what's your take on what happened to "the rest"?  Share."

I don't get the question.

"You are reasoning it backwards."

And you are begging the question.  The very thing I am challenging is that this 'good apologetics' is as pervasive as you continue to state.  You need to substantiate it since it is such an important plank in your whole argument.

"You know as well as i do that even within christianity in the early years there was a huge amount of dispute over the basic tennets of the emerging religion."

Do I?  How can I?  The record has been so tampered with that we cannot be sure that this really is the case.  Right?

"Christians who believed that Jesus was an ordinary human, merely chosen by God, versus christians who believed that Jesus was entirely divine, without a physical body to suffer pain."

Don't think that I haven't noticed your continual willingness to label anyone a Christian no matter what they believe as though any and all persons self-identifying in that manner legitimately holds a claim to it.  Have I mentioned that I am an atheist? 

"All of them had scriptures to back up their beliefs,"

I'm sorry Dannyboy, but you just have your facts clean wrong.  I take from your latest post that you've been doing some research.  That's commendable.  But who are your sources?

For example, the idea that there were people who were self-identifying as 'Christian' who believed that Jesus was just a man requires substantiation not just assertion.  Can you show the existence of such individuals in any number prior to Arius?

Secondly, your argumentation has effectively taken the floor out from underneath... your argumentation.  As already illustrated in my reply, I'm going to start abiding by your own principles.  Since your position is essentially that we can know next to nothing with confidence about the state of the Roman empire during... well, ever... I must submit that any evidence you do provide must be dismissed.

After all, during the times under discussion there were plenty of powers that expressed undying hatred for Christianity.  They too could have been tampering documents and destroying them.  Wait, what am I talking about?!?  Our very knowledge of these people comes from these tampered documents!

You see what you're doing?  You are picking bits and pieces from the historical record to raise against me, completely as it suits you.  In contrast, any single item that I may list is held to the highest possible standard and subjected to the most conspiratorial ruminations.  Even something as benign as... (wait for it...) the notion that there were other messiah-wanna-be's during the time whose beliefs did not take off... I mean, wow.

Your general approach seems to be:  If you describe a putative historical reality in the belief it supports your contention, it really is a historical reality.  If I do it, we must remember that 'good apologists' were omnipresent over the last 2,000 years and, forseeing that Sntjohnny would make use of this or that item centuries later, were constantly adjusting the evidence- hence none of it can be trusted.

Yet you are using the EXACT SAME sources that I am!

Yes, I know this sounds shrill, but this is really is just too much, DB.  :)

"i find it interesting that you recently wrote a blog entry denouncing the tactic of ridicule,"

It wasn't a complete denouncement.  :)

"when that is one of the most potent weapons which was employed by early christian apologists against other emergent forms of Christianity."

Have I mentioned that I am an atheist?  I'm also an evolutionist.  Did you know that?  It is just an emergent form of atheism and evolution.  In my form of atheism you can believe in God and in my form of evolution you can reject evolution.  Don't oppress me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBOQzSk14c

"In fact the discrimination which you may experience as someone "swimming against the ideological current", pales into insignificance when compared to the venom which was heaped upon those who differed on matters of doctrine from the proto-orthodox Christian Church."

This again is historical nonsense.  At least if we take for granted that history as we understand it from 30 AD to 315AD (and even then it wasn't uniform, my friend) is valid, then it is simply not the case that anything of the sort existed in any systematic way during this period.  But we must remember of course that all of our information from this time comes from 'good apologists' and so even here we cannot be sure that there really was the kind of 'venom' that you suppose.  Rather, perhaps Julian the Apostate went back and tampered with the writings of Tertullian so as to make him appear to be a lout.

In fact, that is my new position.  Anything embarrassing to my position from the historical record was inserted by Julian the Apostate.  After all, he had motive, he had opportunity, he had means... It was all inserted so as to embarrass later Christians.  It is amazing, no, that he managed to track down every copy of Tertullian so as to leave no record of the untampered ones, but there you are.

AHA!  But of course!  Marcion himself probably never even existed.  Julian needed a foil for Tertullian and thus Marcion was invented whole cloth to serve the purpose, just as Jesus himself was invented by Paul and the first Christians.

That Julian!  What a clever chap!

By the way, Julian the Apostate of course is just an invention of Augustine, Jerome, etc, and other Christians of the fifth century who needed to solidify their position as universal tyrants in the Roman empire.  The story of Julian gave them the ability to tamper all records- and recollections- so as to further their goal.

Of course, Augustine and Jerome were in fact inventions, too.  They were invented by sixth century barbarians... who in turn were invented by...

Well, you see where this is going.  It ends with both you and I being inventions ourselves.  :)  It just burns me up that someone has invented me to further their diabolical evangelistic aims. 

"Early Christians were warned in dire terms against those who differed from the proto-orthodox line,"

See above.  This is invented by Julian the Apostate.

"being told "not to meet or talk to them" (Ignatius);"

And granting for a moment the text is legitimate (although I have no idea why we should allow your texts and not mine), Ignatius lived in Antioch, no?  He wasn't a ruler there, right?  He was just some dude who was eventually arrested by the Romans and marched off to Rome to die.  Even if we grant what he said he had no power to enforce it.  It is the lack of enforceability that you continue to overlook. 

Of course, Ignatius was not invented by Julian the Apostate.  That's nonsense.  He was actually invented by Eusebius!  Why not, he invented all the other people he mentioned too.    http://www.vincentsapone.com/writings/papiaseusebius.html

Eusebius, of course, was an invention of Julian the Apostate.  But set that aside.

"The Ebionites, the Gnostics, the Marcionites - any of them might have ended up being the dominant group coming into the Council of Nicea."

This begs the question, I'm afraid.  This is a nice skeptical myth but you have to ground it in reality.  Why not also say, "the Jews, the Muslims, atheists, and space aliens -  any of them might have ended up being the dominant group...." ?

Why not go all the way?  Back to our example about the medical field self-policing.  Should we reject their authority because, well, in theory anyone could have ended up the dominant group in the dental society, the nuerosurgeons, etc...

There are of course, episodes of Star Trek that enjoy playing around with such ideas as the Nazis actually winning World War 2.  Or there are various sci-fi books that play with alternate histories in general.  And what with the multiverse, we can very well imagine that any group at any time could have become the dominant group in some parallel universe.

As such, we must disabuse any notion of there being any merit to the views of any dominant group.  Fundamentalist Christians could have just as easily come to have taken over the reins of the United Nations:  hence, we must distance ourself from any potential legitimate purpose in the UN as we find it.

This is great fun, DB!  No doubt you think I'm being shrill.  In fact, I'm enjoying the lark.  :)

"As i have said, many of these competing Christianities have been fairly successfully expunged from history"

By that d--ned Julian the Apostate, no doubt.

"Competing doctrines have been suppressed, by non-conspiracy theory methods."

Enforcement....

"Correction, where a bunch of people who Paul says used to be sorcerers burn their own books.  What if they were actually Marcionites?  Or some other "-ites" who we have never heard of because of the aforementioned book-burning?"

Once again, the author of the book of Acts is LUKE, not Paul.  And even if they were actually Marcionites

(impossible, since apparently anyone who self-identifies as anything else is entitled to the identification, hence there can never be any content legitimately constrained in the term, or any term, thus there is no way to contrast the content of 'marcionism' with any other term, say... 'Christian.'  DOH!  *facepalm* what am I thinking?    All other terms have content legitimately appropriate to them... marcionism, ebionites, atheists, communists, evolutionists... only is it in the case of the term 'Christian' that anyone who self-identifies as a 'Christian' must be permitted use of the term since, in theory, the term 'Christian' could just as easily have come to mean anything else... which of course begs the question, just what are you contrasting if 'Marcionism' could have become identical with 'Christian.'  Surely this assumes some sort of differing content by which to make the contrast.  But this is impossible, what with the term being coined by fiat.)

it was still their own books and there is no hint that they were instructed to do so by Paul, or by anyone else.

Alas, of course, they actually were instructed to do so by Paul, but knowing this would be an embarrassment, it was expunged by Eusebius, who in turn was invented by Julian the Apostate, who was in turn invented by Augustine, who in turn was invented by....

So I guess we just can't say a darned thing about this incident.  It was fabricated somewhere, most likely.  It helps make your point, so I have decided that we must call into question the integrity of this portion of the book of Acts.  Now that you don't have this to make your point, now what are you going to use?  :)

"Why?"

I think it should be clear now.

"i know where his favourite drinking place is.  We could go there together and ambush the slimy little plagariser."

I look forward to it.

"That's feeble."

No, we really do have books of sorcery.  I recall reading some Egyptian stuff.  Ah yes, now it comes to me:  the Book of the Dead.  There are others, too.  I haven't studied the matter specifically, but I have read ancient magic and sorcery books.  Ie, intact, not filtered through any 'good apologists.'

These of course were invented by Eusebius because he knew that 1700 years later I would need them in a debate with you.  So make of them what you will. 

"Yeah, and the very fact of such a creed being required ought to tell you something about the early church."

It tells me only what Julian the Apostate wants us to think about the early church.

"What non-circular mechanism (if any) do you think was used to separate the gospels which were eventually included in the new and approved Christianity,"

Ok, we can return to this later.  For now I see no way to make the argument in any way that will not be open to the retort that in this case or that we cannot believe it because of course the 'Christians' (who could have been Marcionites, Ebionites, or little green men) tampered with it, or vice versa, that that cursed Julian The Apostate threw in his own two cents.

You've basically managed to erect an argument that ended in the expunging of everything we think we know from history, DB.  At the minimum, any degree of confidence in anything we know.  That seems a hefty price to pay to me just to cast aspersions on the proposition that there were other messiahs at the time but these did not thrive- during a period before the Church existed at all, and would not exist in any powerful way for three hundred years after the time in question.

If you can chuck such a benign historical factoid I don't see what prevents you from chucking any other benign factoid I might now submit.

Sorry for any apparent shrillness.  I at least had a good time and will think of this thread often over every Guiness I imbibe.

"By the way, i'm starting on night shifts tonight, so i might not be able to come back to this until Friday.  Take your time."

Have fun.  Seems like every time you give me more time I end up squandering it.  So let's take a crack now, but of course I understand that you won't be able to get right at it.

"The fact that you insist that a worldwide conspiracy would have been necessary in order for Christianity (as we now know it) to come out on top of the ideological struggle does not necessarily make it so."

heh no, the point is that what you are alleging would require a worldwide conspiracy- and this during a 300 year period where Christians were not in positions of power.


"Well, if it offends your delicate sensibilities, i could refer to them instead as "followers of Christ"."

Not so sure that changes the substance of my criticism. 

I take from your latest post that you've been doing some research.  That's commendable.  But who are your sources?

"but rather than name the particular books so that you can give me your opinion of them, let's just stick to what each of us can substantiate eh?"

Your reticence is duly noted. 

"These were people who followed Jesus' teachings, but differed with the proto-orthodox church about his precise nature.  They are mentioned in early 2nd Century writings, clearly well before Arius."

No doubt, but what I said was:  "Can you show the existence of such individuals in any number prior to Arius?"

How many Ebionites were there?  And besides being tongue-lashed, can you provide any evidence that any Christians engaged in a campaign to forcibly suppress them and destroy their documents?

Incidentally, doesn't this war against your overall argument- how is it that we know anything about them at all if Apologist Redactors were at work?

Let's refine the problem:  as far as these messiah-wanna-be's go, in relation to these 'Christian sects' can you name any of these sects that are derived from one of the foregoing 'messiah-wanna-be's'?

What I mean is, though they rejected the Ebionites, they didn't obliterate all mention of them.  Is there some mysterious incentive to go beyond rejecting the messiah-wanna-be's and also obliterate all reference to their later followers?

Isn't it of interest to you in the slightest that virtually all of the 'sects' under discussion are variations of Christian orthodoxy?  Or, if that offends you   they more often than not trace back to Jesus.  And not, for example, Thuedas, etc.  How is it that Jesus became the fixation and not someone else?

Or is this another example of how people may have been fixated on someone other than Jesus but this was repressed, too.  :)

"The question is, how do you decide what is and is not reliable?"

That's fair enough, only it seems that the rule is:  "If DB says it is is reliable, if Sntj says it is not." 

"The point is this - documents have indisputably been lost, because we know about documents which we do not have access to."

Sure.  But why must this be construed diabolically?  Perhaps for example the reason we have little to nothing from the Ebionites is because... it won few adherents... ?  If there are only 10 Ebionites from a tiny town in Syria I don't suppose we are surprised when it has left a mark compared to the millions of Christians around the region. 

Or to put it another way, if you survey the state of ancient documents you will find that there are a lot of documents that have 'indisputably been lost.'  We are missing much of Tacitus's Annals, for example.  That these things have been lost requires no more than taking into account the winds of time during a period in our history where copies were expensive to make, time consuming, and of a very limited lifespan.  Add into there a few barbarian invasions, and there are a lot of ways to account for documents lost.  Their deliberate suppression by Christians I am afraid is not very well attested.

As I said at another time, if you want to look in history (if we can trust that d--ned Julian the Apostate, of course) the record shows that there were book burnings frequently going on- by the Romans against the Christians!

"If you agree with me that pre-Nicean opponents of orthodox christianity have lost their sacred texts disproportionately, then we might be getting somewhere."

I'm not sure that we can be certain of that at all.  Off the top of my head I can think of all sorts of orthodox Christian documents that have been lost.  (Letter to Laodicea springs immediately to mind).   The reason why 'texts may be lost disproportionately' may very well be because the numbers adhering to those texts was disproportionate to begin with, and the reason why the numbers were disproportionate may be simply because these 'sects' were not compelling to the great mass of humanity.

If you admit the possibility of that, then we might be getting somewhere. 

"i dont think i have disputed that fact even once.  Unless by 'did not take off' you mean 'were entirely without merit', which i will take issue with, because you have no way of knowing that."

Why do I have no way of knowing that?  Because the records have been suppressed?    That is in fact exactly what you have been disputing.  Otherwise, we wouldn't be here.  Are you prepared to deal with the various historical instances of the 'messiah-wanna-be's' to see exactly what can be known?  I am afraid to do so for fear that each one shall be dismissed as likely tampered.  Since it supports my case and all. 

"i have no idea where you are pulling this "Dannyboy's argument assumes that ancient apologists must have had knowledge of the future" line from, but you have repeated it several times so you obviously think it is very pertinent.  Please explain."

It's hyperbole, I think.  :)  The idea is that it is very difficult to imagine that past Christians would be in such a position to fabricate all the items in history that Christians of the 1700s and beyond (the rise of rationalism, skepticism, etc) would be pointing to.  As an example in point, consider the TF.  The TF is often cited as evidence for external evidence for the existence of Jesus which in turn is disregarded as an interpolation- as if the apologists of the third and fourth centuries had the foresight to imagine that some day skeptics would go so far as to not merely reject Christianity, but reject even the idea that the founder existed.

Your arguments come close to requiring the same thing.  Somehow, the ancient apologists managed to tamper in all the right places to buttress 20th century Christian claims.

"i love that Python scene, by the way."

It's one of my favorites.  "I want to be one."

"Again, i am not arguing for a systematic conspiracy.  The position of the orthodoxy changed over time - from what i have read the Trinitarian doctrine especially was arrived at over a long period of time."

I think we need to be careful with such assessments.  But we can go into it after we get through all this muck.

"i dont overlook it, i have addressed it.  The superior virus conversation, remember?"

Yea, but that doesn't address it.  That's just talking about the spread of a virus.  The ability to supplant other 'virii' requires that the virus in question contains the RNA to do the deed, and also that there aren't white blood cells running around targeting the very virus in question.

"which would make them all rather more qualified to become Christianity as history knows it than the groups you mention."

Qualified?  On what grounds?  Now we care about qualifications?  Well, gee, if we're going to allow qualifications into the mix I guess we have to ask precisely what qualifies a person to correctly call themselves a 'Christian.'  Right?  Is it your view that atheists and skeptics and secular humanists have more right to determine what qualifies as a 'Christian' rather than Christians themselves?  Remember the book about leukemia.  We already allow various and numerous places where folks are permitted to define the content of their descriptive term.  Why is this same courtesy not extended to Christians?

Why should the millions of orthodox Christians from 33 AD to 315 AD be held captive by skeptics to the tiny bands of folks here and there who were trying to co-opt orthodox Christianity?

And why weren't they trying to co-opt other 'sacred texts'?  Why did they constantly want to cling to the Christian texts rather than coming up with their own, or hailing back to their own messiah-wanna-be?

"That is not to say that there were not some very good practical reasons why the orthodox version prevailed, but i think you'd have a hard time arguing that those reasons were all about purity of intent or truthfulness of dogma."

I'd be happy if you were willing to at least admit that 'purity of intent' or 'truthfulness of dogma' were at least on the table. Besides, what about the proponents of the other views?  Were they all about purity of intent and truthfulness of dogma?  Or is it the case that only the orthodox Christians were mercenary?

Do you see what I'm driving at in all this?  Somehow you've managed to fixate all the worst possible scenarios on Christians, centering it on them, virtually to the exclusion of anyone else at the time, nor even the pagan Romans who were actually in charge for the 300 years when this alleged 'development' was taking place!

"but when i want to look at how one group gained ascendency over another to 'become' christianity, you wave your arms about question begging and say that such enquiries lead to automatically dismissing the winners of any contest."

Because your methodology entails exactly that.  That's my problem.

"Ok, so sue me.  It's about Paul.  Heheh"

:)

"Question 1 - do they work?  Question 2 - does the existence of books which claim to be books of sorcery remove any questions about the nature of other books which are also claimed to be books of sorcery?"

Some people say they work.  The wiccans use them.  On the assumption that they are driven purely by mercenary motives and have some 'purity of intent' etc, one must suppose that they find some kind of efficacy in them.  I do not personally reject the possibility that some 'sorcery' 'works.'  As to your second question, no it doesn't remove any questions, but remember you insisted that we didn't know anything and could not know anything.  My point is that actually I think you can know quite a bit.  You can probably at least make some educated guesses.

(Remember too that elsewhere in Acts there is actually a sorcerer featured.  See Acts 8:9 ff.  Note that according to this story, the miracles of the apostles amazed even this sorcerer who was himself so impressed by the superior 'magic' that he asked to buy the skill- just like a good sorcerer would.  :)  Note that except for chastising Simon and denying him fellowship, the apostles did not tie Simon down beat the snot out of him.  Nor did they confiscate his books and burn them.  For that matter, there is no hint either that a request was put to him to do so on his own.

But supposing that sorcery really doesn't work.  I am open to that, too.  Under that scenario, when a bunch of sorcerers are face to face with the real deal, it becomes less of a stretch to see why they'd be persuaded, and once persuaded, of a mind to part completely with materials they knew themselves to be bunk, especially in light of what appeared to be genuine.)

"and then you might feel safe to go on andress the question."

we'll put that on the back burner.  I consider all of this an extension of the Daniel thread and intended to go back to it once you were willing to concede that, Yes, there were many messianic claimants during the time period in question, and yes, all but one of them- Jesus- came to absolutely nothing.

I am ready to explore these claimants in more detail if you are- and if I can trust that you won't leap to label them all fabrications as we come to them.  :)

SJ,

Have fun.

Thank you.  Fun was had.

"The fact that you insist that a worldwide conspiracy would have been necessary in order for Christianity (as we now know it) to come out on top of the ideological struggle does not necessarily make it so."

heh no, the point is that what you are alleging would require a worldwide conspiracy- and this during a 300 year period where Christians were not in positions of power.


The mind is an interesting thing (i was thinking yesterday), and i'll tell you why.  In many ways it acts a lot like a gathering of churchmen, say for the sake of argument, like the Council of Nicea.  It doesn't really search for truth, per se, but rather it seeks out information which by and large confirms its existing dogmas, and elevates that information to a higher status than conflicting information.  It takes a lot of mental effort to break this tendency and see things as they really are.

For instance, you and i are both working off the same information, yet using it to arrive at radically different conclusions.  The facts which we both accept are as follows:

1) Jesus was one of many messiah candidates in early 1st Century Judea.
2) None of the other messiah candidates have any major religious following today.
3) Christians were not a powerful political force until the early 300s.
4) During that time several different factions of Christianity (or "religions centered upon Jesus") were in existence, which mostly did not survive.

You dont like me calling them "Christians" just because they (apparently) self-identified as such, but i think this is a form of snobbery on your part.  If you dont even accept the factual term "followers of Christ" then you are ignoring the available facts.

Anyway, my supposition that the records of fledgling religions inspired by other messiah wannabes could have lost or suppressed by Christians is drawn largely from 1, 2 and 4 (as well as the later tendency of Christian authorities to apply the buzzsaw of justice to the troublesome shrub of heresy), although i acknowledge 3 with some discussion about competing memes, and suppression not necessarily being violent but rather through being the superior virus.

You, on the other hand, draw your ammunition mostly from 1, 2 and 3, coming to the conclusion that the divinity of Jesus (not even apparent to all "Christians" at the time) is the explanation for the way that his narrative, rather than that of any of his peers, is the one to have survived the centuries.  You also acknowledge the discordant piece of evidence, but mitigate it by pointing out that accounts of these early "heresies" have at least survived, suggesting that if competing messiah-led religions had been in existence we would have some evidence of them.

In both cases, i think it is fair to say that our selection of material is influenced by our beliefs, which is why i observed that the mind is a funny thing.

The even funnier thing is that i have been on the back foot here, feeling that i had the burden of proof in this matter, but in fact we were both making positive claims, mine in response to yours.  You were the one who entered the lack of evidence for other messiahs' offspring sects as evidence that they never existed.  That surely falls under the heading of trying to prove a negative.  My response was also a positive claim made on insufficient evidential grounds.  So how about this - you withdraw the assertion that no religions sprung up around the other potential messiahs, and i will withdraw the suggestion that these hypothetical proto-religions could have been suppressed by Christians.  Whaddaya say?

And besides being tongue-lashed, can you provide any evidence that any Christians engaged in a campaign to forcibly suppress them and destroy their documents?

   i can provide no evidence that the Ebionites went through anything much worse than what is today inflicted on the modern Creationist.  Hang on, aren't you always complaining about that?

"The question is, how do you decide what is and is not reliable?"

That's fair enough, only it seems that the rule is:  "If DB says it is is reliable, if Sntj says it is not." 

i'm sure i haven't said that - if i did it would at least have been slightly more grammatical.    i will do my best not to let my prejudices get in the way of considering any evidence you lay before me sir.

As for the loss of various ancient texts, i do not necessarily "construe it diabolically" as you suggest.  Texts may well have been lost because their adherents converted of their own free will to Christianity and then burned them (or buried them or ate them, whatever).  The superior virus does not necessarily need to resort to violent or oppressive means.

The reason why 'texts may be lost disproportionately' may very well be because the numbers adhering to those texts was disproportionate to begin with, and the reason why the numbers were disproportionate may be simply because these 'sects' were not compelling to the great mass of humanity.

If you admit the possibility of that, then we might be getting somewhere. 

Freely.  Christianity is clearly a very compelling ideology, judging by the way it has spread.  It's had some lucky breaks along the way, but still.  That is unproblematic for me, because Islam is clearly very compelling too.  Compelling does not equal 'true'.

The idea is that it is very difficult to imagine that past Christians would be in such a position to fabricate all the items in history that Christians of the 1700s and beyond (the rise of rationalism, skepticism, etc) would be pointing to.  As an example in point, consider the TF.  The TF is often cited as evidence for external evidence for the existence of Jesus which in turn is disregarded as an interpolation- as if the apologists of the third and fourth centuries had the foresight to imagine that some day skeptics would go so far as to not merely reject Christianity, but reject even the idea that the founder existed.

Well, i dont know what the 'TF' is, but i would say that you are making the mistake of necessarily assuming diabolical motives on the part of interpolators.  What do you think were the motives of the person or persons unknown who forged several further letters by Paul after his death?  Were they anticipating future skepticism or were they spreading the good word (with a splash of their own opinions thrown in)?

Incidentally, i am coming around to the idea that Paul might not have been quite such a narrow-minded reactionary as he seems to be, given the possibility that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 may well be an interpolation.  Firstly it seems out of place - two verses telling women to shut up in the middle of a chapter about the gift of prophecy, and secondly it kind of contradicts what he says earlier about women keeping their heads covered while they are praying or prophecising (1 Cor 11:5).

Going back to the charge of anticipating future skepticism, i think you are ignoring the possibility that hypothetical interpolators may have thought that they were doing good work (much as, one assumes, well-educated Catholic bishops who go on African radio to announce that condoms spread HIV think that they're acting morally).

Besides, what about the proponents of the other views?  Were they all about purity of intent and truthfulness of dogma?  Or is it the case that only the orthodox Christians were mercenary?

That's just silly.  People who believe they are fighting for their faith are not automatically good any more than they are automatically bad.

Remember too that elsewhere in Acts there is actually a sorcerer featured.  See Acts 8:9 ff.  Note that according to this story, the miracles of the apostles amazed even this sorcerer who was himself so impressed by the superior 'magic' that he asked to buy the skill- just like a good sorcerer would.  :)  Note that except for chastising Simon and denying him fellowship, the apostles did not tie Simon down beat the snot out of him.  Nor did they confiscate his books and burn them.  For that matter, there is no hint either that a request was put to him to do so on his own.

Very compelling.  However, even more impressive to me is Simon Magus's later appearance in the Acts of Peter, which i assume you are familiar with.  Peter and Simon have what could be referred to as a "Debate-off" followed by a "Magic-off".  Simon kills a slave with magic, upon which Peter impressively resurrects him, the dead son of a lonely widow, and also, for good measure, a smoked tuna fish.  The Resurrection of the Smoked Tuna (surely it deserves capitals) is such an impressive miracle that i am surprised that it isn't mentioned more often by apologists.  Could the reason be embarassment?

But supposing that sorcery really doesn't work.  I am open to that, too.

i am happy but confused.  Simon killed a guy with sorcery.  He used it to fly above the city like a bird.  You can't ignore the evidence!  

Later,
Dan

Please tell me that Ehrman isn't one of your sources.

Compare and contrast this statement with one that you made less than 24hrs ago on this very board; "Stathei, I am disappointed that you rejected the link I gave just because it was posted on a conservative website." from Re: Christians and Guns 

"1) Jesus was one of many messiah candidates in early 1st Century Judea."

I wasn't aware that you were conceding this.  That there were other messiah candidates is known to us only by documents that were cared for and transmitted, ultimately, by Christians.  Perhaps these other messiahs were invented, too?

"2) None of the other messiah candidates have any major religious following today."

A nice agreement to have if you do in fact concede #1.

"3) Christians were not a powerful political force until the early 300s."

This is the first I've heard you concede this one!  You're filled with surprises!

"4) During that time several different factions of Christianity (or "religions centered upon Jesus") were in existence, which mostly did not survive."

I guess I haven't been clear.  I don't even agree to this.  There were two factions of Christianity, and their conflict is recorded already in the New Testament.  There were other groups which attempted to usurp Christianity, but I reject the notion that these were numerous or wide spread.  This is in fact something that I've been trying to point out.   Not merely is it the case that we wouldn't even know about these folks if it weren't for Christian responders, but often they were responding to local folks and the like.  They usually weren't permeating the entire Roman empire.

"If you dont even accept the factual term "followers of Christ" then you are ignoring the available facts."

Oh, I don't know about that.  What do we mean by 'followers of Christ'?

If I say "Hey, I've got this friend Dannyboy" and the gent next to me says, "I got a friend name Dannyboy, too!" and I follow it with "Dannyboy from England?"  and he replies, "No, Dannyboy from Argentina!" we do not in fact have a shared Dannyboy.

On your argumentation, if I tell the guy, "Well, its a different Dannyboy" I'm being a snob.  If he replies, "No, its the same Dannyboy!  Don't oppress me!" he's acting in line with the available facts.  Specifically what we mean by 'Christ' here is important.  It is in fact the crux of the question.

"You were the one who entered the lack of evidence for other messiahs' offspring sects as evidence that they never existed.  That surely falls under the heading of trying to prove a negative."

This is nonsense.  Our goal here is to be fact driven.  You may as well ask me to withdraw my belief that these other messiahs weren't abducted by aliens.  I would consider this possibility... if there was evidence for it.  Likewise, I would consider the possibility that other messiah claimants had gotten to first base... if there was evidence for it.  Your argument is not to produce any evidence, but merely to raise possibilities.  Well heck, anything's possible, right?

"you withdraw the assertion that no religions sprung up around the other potential messiahs,"

Not a chance.  If you want me to say, "There is no evidence that other religions sprung up around other potential messiahs" I'd be happy to.  If you want me to concede the logical possibility that nonetheless they did and for one reason or another- possibly- records of them have been lost, I will happily concede it.  I will also concede that solipsism is a logical possibility, too.

"Texts may well have been lost because their adherents converted of their own free will to Christianity and then burned them (or buried them or ate them, whatever)."

Or they simply could have become lost to time.  Without sufficient interest to continue copying the documents, no one was making copies, and the parchments eventually turned to dirt.  Not only need it not be diabolical, it need not have anything to do with Christianity or Christians at all.

"Compelling does not equal 'true'."

Agreed.  But I would caveat that with 'worthy of consideration, at any rate.'

"Well, i dont know what the 'TF' is,"

The Testimonium Flavium.  If I spelled that right.

"but i would say that you are making the mistake of necessarily assuming diabolical motives on the part of interpolators."

That's because that's exactly what you would need in order to achieve the effect you are suggesting was possible or maybe even actual.

For example, if a person deliberately alters a text if he hopes that no one catches him he has to expect that he can collect all the other texts and do away with them, or else he'd be exposed.  To stamp out a whole movement requires coordination and power and authority.  The Christian church- which you concede- did not have this.

"Incidentally, i am coming around to the idea that Paul might not have been quite such a narrow-minded reactionary as he seems to be, given the possibility that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 may well be an interpolation."

This is how I knew it was Ehrman behind your sourcing. 

"i think you are ignoring the possibility that hypothetical interpolators"

I don't think I'm ignoring any possibility.  I'm just waiting for you to back up your possibility with evidence that they were more than just that, possibilities.  If you want me to consider the idea that rival messiahs did have some success but they were supplanted by Christianity, produce your evidence to support it as an actual series of events in history.  Absent that, it comes across more like you are raising any possibility you can imagine in order to escape what the evidence does suggest.

"Very compelling.  However, even more impressive to me"

How can it be even more impressive?!?!? My example directly contradicts your implications!  You surely mean more interesting to you. 

So are you ready for a consideration of the individual messiah claimaints and their documented fates?

Ah, and you have responded to the substance.  Thank you.  However, i must declare a short interlude - i need to go and start cooking.  Working all day tomorrow (i'm in Paediatrics for a month - for my sins - and the screaming is starting to bug me.  Even if just the parents stopped screaming i'd be happy).  i'll get back to this Thursday.  Seeya, Dan

Just stopping by on my way to bed.  :)  i suppose that in any public service job, the major focus of your work is always going to be both the bane of your existence and also (paradoxically) the thing that makes it worth getting up early in the mornings.

We had some good kids in today.

We took one of my kids in today for a bump on his neck.  I guess I should have just wrung you up.

i dont do phone consultations.  Lumps are scary, but almost always nothing to worry about.  You dont want to rely on statistics with your own child tho.

(swollen lymph node and no cause for concern... which is what I had been saying all along...)

My advice - don't rub it in.  Mothers have a right to be over-cautious about these things.  If we do our best not to act like there was obviously nothing wrong with their child (fifteen to twenty times a day), for the sake of not putting them off coming in another time when there might actually be something wrong, then you can do the same.

"You are attributing to me a conspiracy theory mentality which is inaccurate."

:)

"i like the use of the word 'usurp' here, since it hides the presumption that the variant of Christianity which emerged victorious was the "true" version."

Surely there is an objective way through this?  Can we theoretically agree that the only true, legitimate, group entitled to the term 'Christian' (where by Christian we mean for the moment minimally 'follower of Christ') are those who actually followed the real Christ?

Do we allow at least- theoretically- that Jesus himself and those who were most intimate with him are the ones entitled to define what ideology etc constitutes those really acting in line with their views?

Or can people just pop up 1800 years later and say "Hey, I'm a Christian too!" while rejecting all that the term had meant for thousands of years?  (ala, the Mormons).  What's the difference between a group doing that 1800 years later and one doing it 80 years later?

"i think it is hard to know at this stage how numerous or wide-spread the followers of Marcionism or Ebionism were, but only that various apologists felt it important to attack them in order to prevent them attracting further converts."

I think some work can be done to give a ballpark figure.  I think in these two cases the 'followers' were not very numerous.  I am more confident in my recollection of that for the Ebionites than Marcion.

"You're either suggesting that these early Christian groups had the wrong Jesus"

Clearly, if one person thinks that Jesus was God and another does not, they are not in fact talking about the 'same' man.

"or you're suggesting that anyone who worships Jesus without connecting him to OT prophecies,"

Why would it be misleading?  Christ=Messiah, right?  Isn't it self evident that if a person is a Christian that this implies some connection to the OT prophecies?  Doesn't it start to get absurd to call yourself a Christian/Messiahian if in fact you don't believe any of that junk about Jesus actually being the Messiah? 

You want me to consider, really, the idea that a person like Marcion, who utterly rejected the Old Testament and believed that the God of the OT was an entirely different God (so much for monotheism!) than that of the NT still ought to be allowed to be called 'Christian,' which can only be understood at all in light of that OT?

It would be like taking the title 'Nazi' while rejecting National Socialism.  You can't even explain the term 'Nazi' without reference to National Socialism.

" i think that would qualify as snobbery, yes.  i'm trying to remember whether or not you consider modern Catholics to be 'real' Christians as well."

I think you're barking up the wrong tree.  I'm arguing for one thing and one thing only:  words matter.

"Well i am glad to hear that you are open to that possibility, since your standards of what constitutes 'evidence' necessitates you taking very seriously a whole lot of abduction stories, as well as werewolves, vampires, fairies and ghosts (things which i dismiss on practical grounds without feeling the need to examine every single reported account)."


Yes, that's right.  I am open to the possibility that these things are real.  I too 'dismiss' them on 'practical grounds' but I don't make the additional leap that since I ignore them on pragmatic grounds that I can say with confidence that these things don't exist.  That's ridiculous.

What I say is, "I haven't investigated that yet so cannot render an informed decision."

I do not believe that my own experience of reality is so exhaustive and pervasive to allow me to extrapolate from it to what is possible or likely.  That which occurs in my own experience, of course, can dictate what becomes 'practical' to look at. 

"Also, i am not asking you to 'withdraw your belief' about anything, only to withdraw definite statements of fact which require evidence that we do not have access to."

I don't see why I should.  You made the positive claim.  You made the claim that the record on the point was so cloudy and cluttered that we couldn't trust this particular point.  I wasn't trying to 'prove a negative.'  I was asking you to demonstrate your positive.  So, if you marshaled evidence for the kind of phenomena you suggested was 'possible' I'd be happy to hear it.  Without it, I see no reasony why I should back off my claim which is in fact pretty definite:  there is no evidence that any of these other messiah-wannabees made it past first base.

If there is evidence, produce it.

"In the case of the other messiah wannabes, to state categorically that they had no religious following is unwarranted, just as it would be unwarranted for me to state assuredly that Socrates never wrote anything down simply because no text survives."

There are some extremely important differences, which you will see shortly.

But I am shocked you believe we can know anything with certainty about Socrates at all if he didn't write anything.  All we have are what his disciples wrote down, right?

"i would suggest that we need to do more than just accept in good faith the surviving written accounts and move on.  We need to examine the motives, capabilities and ideologies of the various parties involved.  To some extent, that is what we have been doing in this thread."

I am glad to oblige.  Especially when it seems like my position comes out ahead in the endeavor.  :)

There is a practical problem with your approach though:  it is only the surviving written accounts that give you any access to the 'motives, capabilities, and ideologies' in the first place.  You have wandered dangerously close to dismantling your ability to explore the very things you want to explore.

"No, you needn't go that far.  i am happy for you to simply declare that there is no evidence today of any religious following of other messiah candidates, because that is the truth.  To say that there never was any such following is ideologically-driven interpretation."

I think you are wrong and I think besides the lack of evidence supporting your 'possibility-mongering' :) there is compelling evidence to believe exactly why I am right to interpret the 'silence' the way I do in this case.  I don't know about you, but I'm about ready to get to it.  :)

"The Christian Chuch's attitude to "Heresy" throughout the ages makes them a pretty strong contender for any suppression,"

And so it should be easy to provide evidence that the Church engaged in this kind of suppression, since the Church wouldn't have been embarrassed by it in the slightest.  They would have thought it justified, so there should be ample evidence that they did it.

"So on this basis do you rule out the possibility of interpolation entirely?"

No, I rule out certain reasonings for interpolations.  The ones that require amazing foresight into scholarly arguments 2000 years later, for example.  :)

"i like that you are now willing to consider motivations though."

Nothing has changed in my willingness.  I am just extremely hesitant to consider 'motivations' that remove our very basis for being able to consider them at all.  Oh, and I think if we're going to consider motivations, then we should be fair about it.  For example, the consensus (if anyone cares about that) is that the TF is not a forgery but is an interpolation that provides, minimally at least, evidence of Jesus' existence.  One reason why people  believe this is because an Arabic example of the TF exists which strips out the deity of Christ stuff.  As if the Arabs didn't have their own motives!  See what I mean?

"Prior to that there may have been numerous different versions of the gospels floating around."

This kind of argument would be more plausible if there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of development involved.  However, there is a hard limit on how much time can be considered 'prior.'  This is Tatian's Diatessaron, or harmonization of the four Gospels, which he produced c. 150-160 AD while in Rome before heading back to Assyria.

"Prior" allows most liberally about 130 years for these 'different versions of the gospels' to be 'floating around' before the 'orthodox' Christian church finally settled down to just four.   150 AD -  30 AD = 130.  It isn't as easy as that, though.  Tatian was himself a mere recent convert.  There had to have been a reason why only the four canonical gospels drew his attention in the first place.  As a student of Justin the Martyr, one must presume that Justin himself had some reason to trust the four canonical Gospels, and though he wasn't old enough himself to interact with the original apostles, he was old enough to interact with those who had known the original apostles.   At any rate, the four Gospels would have had to have risen to prominence no later than 120-130 AD, give or take.

On the other side of the coin, since no one, not even conservative scholars, believe that any Gospel was written prior to about 45 AD, you have a 'prior' span covering just 85 years, a massive portion of which is occupied by the original apostle's themselves and other eye witnesses and the rest by those who had actually known the apostle's face to face.  If we put Paul and all the other apostles except for John as dead around 65 AD and John dead c. 100-110 AD, then you only have 20 years of 'prior' for other 'gospels' to be floating around without one of the original apostles to comment on their authenticity.

Is a 20-60 year period enough time to support your all you hope to believe is possible during this time?  This 20-60 year period is the time when the apostles themselves were not around and Justin the Martyr had not himself focused on the four canonical Gospels (or 3, depending on who you ask) in order to pass it along to Tatian.  It is possible I could narrow this gap down further if I invoke someone like Papias, who as you know was a disciple of John and already, who reported to us c. 110 AD as a first hand hearer of the apostle John about the origins of Matthew and Mark.  And obviously to have reported something like that, the prominence of these two books had to have already been established and when reporting it, probably had the endorsement of John himself of these books.

If Papias had heard John himself, we may suppose that this happened prior to John's death (c. 100-110 AD) which puts this whole process back to c. 80-95 AD.

There just isn't a whole lot of time for these 'other gospels' to be floating around with equal claim to reflecting the real Jesus apart from Jesus' actual face to face followers being around to endorse or reject them.

"You're a widely read man.  i am interested in hearing your perspective, over pints or otherwise.  i am anticipating that it will involve some hefty argumentation in favour of the reliability of the text."

Yes, but some of my brethern wouldn't like the direction it goes.  You, as a reader of my Birth Pangs series, and an astute one at that, have already noticed a certain bent that you found to be unexpected.

"Here's a question for you - if it was incontrovertably proven that a particular passage in the Bible (for example 1 Cor 14:34-35) was a later addition and had definitely not been part of the original, how would that affect you?"

Incontrovertably?  Depends on the text.  :)  I wasn't thrown off by learning that Jesus and the adulterous Woman in John or the ending of Mark was probably a later addition.  In these two cases, no major doctrine was involved, and in the case of the Markan ending where some have said there is (faith healing, etc) I don't think their conclusions are warranted on other grounds.  Other texts which had less to do with practice (ie, your 1 Cor 14) and more to do with substance, like being saved by grace not by works, would call for some re-considerations.

But incontrovertably is a high standard.  :)

"i meant 'more impressive' in the magical sense, although i will also concede that it is more interesting to me to find out how reliable you consider the "apocryphal" gospels, and your precise reasoning in each case."

It isn't really that difficult.  Perhaps its easiest to go with something like Matthew and Mark to show how my processing works (already on display above).   We don't merely have a book which 'tradition' has nebulously attributed to, say, Mark.  We have a direct statement that a man named Mark reported Peter's story.  This statement was made by a man who knew the apostle John personally.  There aren't hundreds of years of potential development here.  There is between 0 and 30ish years, and we have the explicit insight into the authorship of the books.  Combine that with the near universal acceptance of just these four books as Gospels in particular, so much so that Tatian would harmonize them and no others and his harmonization would be lapped up all over the place, and the credentials of these books become strengthened.

So then we look for the same kind of corroboration for the other so-called Gospels.  Not only do very few- if any- of them come with the same kind of lineage, but they often appear later and out of nowhere, with the only hint of their existence for thousands of years constituting some Christian in one corner of the Roman empire denouncing a particular book being passed off as genuine.

I am completely open to the possibility that more very important books might one day be turned up that deserve consideration.  For example, we know that Paul wrote a book to the Laodiceans.  Because we lack the connecting lineage with this book it would never be accepted into the canon but it could provide lots of insights.  Personally, I'm a fan of the Epistle of Barnabas and have said to people that I'm disappointed that this book didn't come into favor since its apostolic credentials seem as strong as- for example- Hebrews.  But it doesn't have the lineage.  Also, the Gospel of Nicodemus I've allowed to inform me about what people were believing about Jesus' descent into Hades (the creed says 'descended into Hades' not 'descending into gehenna.')

"Bring.  It.  On.   Smile"

Ok, I'll post a new thread when I get some time to do so.