Comments on: Can you explain away Christianity?

By: CD-Host

CD-Host — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 11:30:20 +0000

The ideas of the New School came from Walter Bauer (of the Bauer lexicon). Essentially the idea is to step outside the later apologists for how Christianity evolved and reconstruct it entirely without assumptions. So for example no distinction is made between literature that later came to be seen as heretical and literature that later came to be seen as orthodox except for those the people of that time period are making themselves; i.e. no reading the future back into the past. The modern proponents are people like Elaine Pagels, Bart Ehrmann, Birger Pearson; Karen King, John Turner... 1) If you allow for Orthodoxy emerged from heresy, you can put together a time line consistent with the literature. Generally you see a variety of heretical views first and then an orthodox response which becomes dominant. The idea that there was a pre-existing orthodoxy that people diverged from is propaganda. This plays out in the small and the large. So here are 3 progressions all sort of matched up (1 goes 1 for all 3...) So for orthodox Christianity would argue fora progression of: Hasidean Judaism Palestinian Judaism Jewish Christianity Orthodox Christianity Christian Gnosticism Classical Liberal Christianity would argue for: Hasidean Judaism Pharisaic and/or Essene Judaism Jewish Christianity Pauline Christianity Orthodox Christianity & Christian Gnosticism While the New School would tend to have a progression like: Hellenized Judaism Hellenistic Judaism Gnosticising Jews Christian Gnosticism Orthodox Christianity 2) Because Christianity emerged from a collection of sects geography really matters. Sects evolve in different places and later join the Christian movement. What you see in Palestine is not what you are going to see in Asia minor is not what you are going to see Alexandria. You have to work case separately. 3) You see proto-Christian themes as early as the end of the Maccabean wars (163 BCE). The literature develops organically responding to political events. 4) Christianity emerged from fringe Judaism not mainstream Judaism. I can keep going but this is the basic drift. I'm thinking a wikipedia article might be the best way to do this. It is funny but nobody has written a "new school" article yet.

By: Polycarp

Polycarp — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:49:00 +0000

I would agree with you about the weaken position based on the early arguments. I am unfamiliar with the New School theory, and would welcome your understanding of it.

By: CD-Host

CD-Host — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 22:37:24 +0000

Polycarp –
Well I’d be happy to stay in character and address any specific from the above.
OTOH, I don’t disagree that it is a questionable theory. I ended up in the New School because I felt the evidence for the classical scholarly position was too weak. In particular if this theory were true you would expect to see the debates in early Christianity be about the divinity of Jesus while what you really see are debates about his humanity. There are no first century of early 2nd century authors who assert a fully human Jesus as being related to Christianity.

By: Polycarp

Polycarp — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:03:32 +0000

To me, while it does not explain away Christianity, it does add to an explanation of Christianity. I have heard this theory in variation several times – not as clear as this.

Of course, it does not answer, for me, all the questions that remain.

By: CD-Host

CD-Host — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 19:56:06 +0000

Hi . OK well now the answers to the questions from the classic scholarly school:
1) The pre-Pauline Christians aren’t believes in Jesus but believers in the teachings of Jesus. Like what you see with Ebionites.
2) The minimal historical information you find in a variety of sources: Josephus (edited), Tacitus… is essentially true. The legends did mostly happen
3) Paul shifts the focus among god fearers to a belief in a sect as taught by Jesus to a sect about Jesus. Paul’s jesus is however essentially ahistorical (as demonstrated by the complete disinterest in the life of the actual Jesus).
4) Among Paul’s sect (Christians) the stories about the historical Jesus get recast into the Pauline motif. This is what explains the development of the Gospel. It is at this point you have the historical Jesus and the theological Jesus merging in a meaningful way. At the same tine Judea is destroyed in the 69-73 war so the original sect is mostly destroyed.
5) The Pauline sect is rejected by Judaism and moves further away from it. The gospel stories having Jesus rejected by the Jewish community reflect this.
So in the classic view people aren’t “dying” for a belief in Jesus until well into the 2nd century and the Jesus they are dying for is not the historical figure. Those that die in the 1st century die because they are parts of sects in rebellion and believe in the teachings of Jesus.

By: Polycarp

Polycarp — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:54:07 +0000

But that is where we will come to differ – in that I decide to trust the historical accounts of the persecutions. I do not see the early Christians, such as Ignatius, wanting to advertise the early persecutions because it would draw more attention to themselves. Further, they generally met with these things with a willing face, see it as a sign of their salvation.

We look at Revelation, Diognetus, and the works of Ignatius and Polycarp and see that Christians were persecuted from and early time.

I take Pliney’s account of what he has done to the Christian community very seriously, not about politics, but about the refuse of this community to submit to the pagan gods.

People do die for their faith, but do so many in the first generation of belief?

I would agree concerning the later persecutions – especially the last great persecution.

By: Neil

Neil — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:35:29 +0000

And those later persecutions had a very clear motive — by the latter second century and onwards Christianity was becoming a force strong enough to threaten the unity of the empire, and many church leaders were wielding political influence in ways that attracted mass persecutions. Naturally the Christians would promote these as martyrdoms for thier faith with no suggestion of the varying point of view of the State authorities. Bloody riots and progroms were sometimes carried out by pagans against Christians and Christians against pagans. We have seen similar things in parts of Indonesia in recent years, but the precarious context in 3rd century Rome in particular made them as much political as religious in impact and motivation.

By: Neil

Neil — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:29:21 +0000

Among the earliest of Christian martyrs were those who believed the God of the Old Testament was a spiriritually blinded creator god of this world, the ten commandments, and the Jews — while they, the Christians, were dying for their allegiance to a higher god who sent his son. (The Marcionites — from early to mid second century). They rejected the gospels as we know them.
But as for persecutions, we have very little evidence indeed from earliest times. The Neronian persecution after the Fire of Rome was almost certainly a very late Christian interopolators figment of imagination. Not a single secular or Christian source knows a thing of this passage in Tacitus until very late indeed. This is an extremely odd “oversight” given the numbers of opportunities Christians had to advertize their persecution moments.
The strories of persecutions in Acts are not supported by historical evidence. Indeed historical evidence as we do have suggests there was no real parting between Jews and Christians until around the 90’s c.e.
Pliny mentions sporadic persecutions but nothing consistent and ongoing, and not for being Christian so much as for stubbornly refusing to demonstrated their due reverence to the State authority.
The evidence is simply lackging until we get into very late records, some of which retroject persecutions into earlier times for which we have no contemporary evidence at all. So the accounts must remain suspect in historical terms according to normal historical enquiry. It became self-serving propaganda for later Christians to boast of their past heritage of persecutions.
People die for all sorts of reasons. Many Africans in recent times have died believing in faith in their shamans that they would not die if they fought against enemies with bullets. Mormons and JW’s have been ready to die for their faiths also in recent times. People will die for their faith if their faith is such an integral part of their identity, that to live is to deny their identities. It proves nothing about the truth or otherwise of what they are dying for. Pagans also were sometimes martyred for their faith, such as Dionysiacs in ancient Rome. That proves nothing about the claims or reality of the god Dionysus.
People’s lives are identified with something, something gives their lives meaning, (whether it is Christianity or any other religion or philosophy) and not all, but many will rather die than give that up. It will even give their death meaning.
In Roman times many philosophers were followed as quasi-religious figures. There is a famous story of one emperor testing the character of one by threatening to execute him if he did not give up his philosophical practices, and when the philosopher refused, preferring (like Socrates) to die rather than live what to him would be a lie, was rewarded for his sincerity instead. But philosophers were not all so lucky, and some, such as Socrates himself, chose death to abide by their principles rather than life and live against their principles.
There are many among us like that when put to the test. It’s about how important personal integrity is to us — and sometimes peer pressure, too. (Some would rather die than face the disgrace of failure by returning to their meaningful group alive.) It matters not what the religious or philosophical belief is, but the meaning given to the believer.

By: Polycarp

Polycarp — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:41:12 +0000

Neil, are you in the home of Joseph Prince?

Anyway, my view on the Christian in society is this:
http://thechurchofjesuschrist.us/2008/10/for-the-christians-are-distinguished-from-other-men-the-epistle-to-diognetus/

By: Polycarp

Polycarp — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:37:35 +0000

Neil, this was just an exercise in faith – once which I hope people should know other points. I like to do that – sometimes – bringing people to a point that they have to either explain something or explain something away. As I said, I enjoyed your post because it it attempted to explain Christianity in a different way which would have explained away my view of it.

We do have records of Christians (regardless of factions, as we do have a tendency to create them and then demonize them) being persecuted by others, such as Rome. Yes, today we do have people willing to die for their religion, how can you explain them doing so from the very start. Islam was not born the same way Christianity was – Islam was born with others dying.

I am interested in hearing some of these hypothesizes.

The Reply buttons on this theme, I think, has you click the replay and then go to the comment box, instead of the comment box popping up when you hit the reply button. (I think).

By: Neil

Neil — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 10:23:52 +0000

By the way, I quite like the look of the elderly Hindu lady in your page here. I see thousands of such every week here where I live, along with their Indian, Tamil and Malay menfolk. They are some of the loveliest and gentlest people I know, and I love watching their camaraderie. We also have here in Singapore many more Buddhists and Taosts, and many Moslems too. K love these people. They are some of the gentlest and kindest I have met. Christians, in so many more cases, however, appear to be a somewhat tense and defensive minority, feeling some obligation to be against this world of darkness and trying to change it all, and seeing themselves as the sole lights. They are an unhappy mix in an otherwise peaceful and well integrated community, to a large extent, at least from the Christians I know personally here.

By: Neil

Neil — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 10:14:48 +0000

I don’t understand what you mean by “explaining away”. My interest is in “explaining”, not “explaining away”. I enjoy studying origins, history. What’s with this “explaining away” stuff?
As for your claim that many people died for the stories of the gospels and Acts, what is the evidence for this, and when? Besides, many equally are willing to die for the Hebrew scriptures and the Koran. Many are willing to die for many very noble causes, and some are willing to die for ignoble ones being deceived. Willingness to die for something proves nothing about the veracity of the source. Besides, the earliest accounts we have of Church Fathers about martyrdoms are to a large extent complaints that rival Christian factions (who did not believe the gospel narratives as they did, and rejected Acts) were being martyred as “false” martyrs for a “false faith”.
But any academic strudy of mythmaking will tell you in the 101 class that myths are created to explain an existing practice or belief or state of affairs. They are the afterthoughts. We see this repeatedly throughout ancient history and in modern societies too. A new city is built, a new custom or ritual has been underway, and the communites will soon created mythical stories, sometimes building on historical persons, and giving them god-like roles, to create an authenticating narrative to support what they do.
I can see hypothesize several very plausible scenarios for the development of Christianity as one of the several responses of the Jews to the fall of the temple in 70 c.e.
(unable to reply next to your ‘leave a reply’ buttons

By: Polycarp

Polycarp — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 04:18:10 +0000

CD,

I believe that the old adage of ‘The man with the argument is at the mercy of the man with the experience’ would eventually come into play. While it may be pure mass hysteria, I still believe in the experience of Christianity, which as sustained me over and above the many who I have seen be less than Christ like. While there are plenty of ways to explain away a lot of things concerning Christianity, in the end, something must had happened to cause Christians to become the force that they did.

If I was choosing, I would like to hear more about the Classical scholarly. I like to learn, and believe that all things can help me to be better.

By: CD-Host

CD-Host — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 03:47:35 +0000

I hadn’t noticed this thread. There are a few ways to explain it away.

Classical mythicist view. Miracles and myth stories existed for centuries before the historical events. That is a proto-Christian religion develops and the history attaches to it later (Arthur Drews, Acharya S…)
Modern mythicist. Miracles and myth stories are evolving as semi-recent historical fictions attach to them (Earl Doherty, Robert Price…)
New School. There is a broad philosophical movement within Judaism which is attaching itself to both historical myth and elements of quasi-historical myth. (Birger Pearson, John Turner, me)
Modern scholarly. Some limited historical story which accretes myth quickly. (Morton Smith, A.N. Wilson…)
Classical scholarly. Early Christianity takes a turn almost immediately after the death of Jesus but the Christianity of Paul spreads among the God fearers and reconciliation doesn’t happen until the 2nd century.
If you want to do an extended dialogue on this I’d be happy to do this. It won’t go fast though. And a lot of it is very speculative. We have terrible records of 1st century Christianity so it is a very difficult reconstruction from 2nd and 3rd century sources. But there has been substantial progress in the last 150 years.

By: Polycarp

Polycarp — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:27:24 +0000

I personally believe that faith must have a measure of doubt to be valid, Neil, so I question mine a great deal.

By: Polycarp

Polycarp — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:26:39 +0000

But, how can we explain away the earliest of writings, sectarian and secular, concerning the Jesus movement? I take a very conservative stance, of course, but let’s say that Acts was a creative method of storytelling. The problem remains is that a large amount of people bought into them to even die for them.

By: Neil

Neil — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:22:47 +0000

Nice I’ve stimulated at least a wee bit of challenge in someone, thanks — I simply write, though, to share my interests and reading with others at a similar place to me — a thorough requestioning of the old faith on their way out of the fold. Note trying to be provocative or anything. Just sharing what to me are critical thoughts with like-minded folks.
Cheers.
N

By: Neil

Neil — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:19:20 +0000

Your references to Paul and Stephen are simply references to stories written long after the supposed events happened. They are just stories, based on other similar stories in the gospels, in the Old Testament and in the Apocrypha. Myths to give narrative explanations of origins of religions or nations always come along long after the religion or nation or practice has been well under way for some time. That’s just a truism of the process and reason for myth-making.

By: Polycarp

Polycarp — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:18:44 +0000

Neil, just to set the record straight, I rather enjoyed your post, as well as Joe’s. I believe in being challenged, and for the little bit of time that I have been reading your blog, I have been a wee bit challenged.

By: Polycarp

Polycarp — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:16:48 +0000

I would say it is an issue because I am a Christian. I cannot see how it, even as a historical event, could be easily explained away.

By: Neil

Neil — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:09:53 +0000

Why would “explaining away” Christianity be any more an issue than “explaining away” Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism? Freethinking?