Orthodox Corruption of Scripture

D.R. Edwards dedwards@bae.uky.edu
Fri, 11 Dec 1998 10:04:14 -0500 (00913410254, 000a01be2517$83e2b1a0$2ec5a380@guido2.bae.uky.edu) 

<snip>

Achilles̃

I certainly agree with your conclusion - one of the defects shared by
conservative xtian positions on one hand, and the position of the jesus
seminar
on the other - is that both have to squeeze a lot of development into a
short
time.

I won't say it's impossible, but it is certainly odd.

Fundies often claim the time period is too short for legendary development,
how
then do they explain the success of teachers in Paul's time who were
apparently
teaching that the Christ had NOT been crucified? Why does it so often sound
as
though this is a doctrine of Paul which many contemporary christians found
to
be absurd or a stumbling block? If there isn't enough time for legend to
develop, then why believe it was enough time for even a few xtians to have
forget all about Jesus the man???

Furthermore, if we accept the earlier dates for GoT, we have a gnostic
movement
inside xtianity within about 30 years of christs supposed death - NOT >150
years later when they begin to be mentioned by heresy hunters.

It just seems like the earliest xtians are too diverse to fit the
hyphothesis
that their movement originated as a result of one man who died so few years
previously, leading me to suspect that they may have been heirs to a
tradition
with a somewhat longer history, and/or heirs to more than one mostly
unrelated
traditions.

EDWARDS
I think we're in agreement that the presence of groups such as the Jewish
Christians, the Paulinists, and the (proto?) Gnostics within 50 years or
less of the supposed date of Jesus death appears not to support the
hypothesis of a historical Jesus, at least on the face of it.  This is the
intriguing thing for me.  Ed referred earlier to a similar situation
occurring with Islam, with which I'm not familiar, and this (and others)
might shed some light on the issue.

With regard to the GoT - while it might have been composed at a quite early
date (prior to Mark?), I'm not sure if it was the product of a Gnostic
movement or simply a text that was ultimately viewed by the Gnostics as
supporting their views.  As far as that goes, the Gnostics seem to have
valued Mark also.

The situation that, to my thinking, could explain the apparently rapid
development of such diverse groups would be receptiveness to the message
(however one defines "message").  In other words, if we had receptive groups
who saw the "message" of Jesus as attractive and not in conflict with their
prior views, then it might not be surprising to see them somehow integrate
Jesus into their scheme.  However, It seems natural that they would view
Jesus and his ministry more-or-less from the perspective of those prior
views.  The result could be, among other things, the divergent Christologies
we have been discussing.  The tradition you referred to earlier might then
have consisted of the groups' original views with Jesus thrown in for good
measure.  The minimum necessary elements of this explanation thus seem to be
(1) early missionary activity and (2) receptiveness.  I think these
circumstances existed - as Ed put it, Paul was selling what folks were
buying during his missionary activities.  Considering that they must have
been receptive to have bought Paul's product and that Paul did his selling
during his road trips, we seem to have at least some evidence for those two
elements.  Being away from my materials (as usual), though, I'd have to do
some digging to provide more basis for my thoughts.   And even if one can
establish that the milieu was conducive to the rapid development of diverse
Christologies, we'd still have a helluva lot of unresolved details.

I enjoyed your earlier posting, but it's going to take several cups of
coffee to be able to engage in that sort of deep thought (assuming I'm
capable of it at all).