h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Interesting, now we've just been speaking about this. This looks like the Arian point of view!

Damn I hate you Constantine, and you too Pope Gregory .

If there wasn't really a solid doctrine at first, but rather a lot of arguement about how many parts god had, which seems the likely situation to me, then the ideas that attract the most followers are probably going to be the ones that become solid doctrine later. If this involves nicking ideas from other religions then that's nothing new.

Hi BHIM!

I wouldn't blame Constantine. He was just caught in the middle. It's quite possible he favoured the ideas of Arius, but the bishops at Nicea decided to reject them.

I don't think the divinity of Jesus can easily be edited out of the Bible. If it were a question of one, two, or even five isolated expressions, they might be explained away individually. But if you extract all the relevant passages and look at them together, especially the highlights in St John's Gospel, the doctrine stands out. It wouldn't be necessary to pinch any ideas from outside.

So clear was this to the earliest Christians that the very first disputes in the second century (led by the docetists) were whether Jesus was really a man or just the appearance of one - because it was clear that he was God.

And how much later, after the supposed life of Christ, were these gospels written?

Andrew, how is it *clear* that Jesus was God?

Because a bunch of guys a couple of hundred years later said so?

And all Christians then believed this?

I'm afraid you'll have to do a bit better than this to convince anyone.


az

Hi Az

On dates of the Gospels, as St Ignatius of Antioch was probably addressing the Docetists around the year 110, although the date is disputed, it would appear that the apparatus for such an argument, i.e. the doctrines, and presumably the scriptures, were around by then.

There is a papyrus in the John Rylands Museum that contains a fragment of St John's Gospel, and it is dated with some certainty between 115 and 135, so that appears to be the later limit. There are fragments dated even earlier, but they are more open to debate. I believe the New Testament was completed not too long before that, before the year 100, and this does not seem unreasonable.



I limited myself to saying it was clear *to them*, i.e the early Christians, the point being that the doctrine is an original one, not a later invention or import.

This is a bit off the current discussion, but I'm posting it because this thread has a tradition of multiple discussions at the same time.

I vaguely recal hearing that the origion of Halloween is in some Pagan tradition about the day halfway between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Solstice. Does anyone here (especially the Pagans/Heathens/Druids/etc.) know what the significance is and if so, could they please explain it?

Thanks, Andrew S, for your valuable information about the dates of the Gospels...

http://www.livius.org/men-mh/messiah/messiah_06.html#Maccabaean

'Under the Ptolemaean and Seleucid kings, Judah was exposed to the Greek culture, which was polytheistic and therefore more foreign than the Persian civilization had been. Nonetheless, several cities were rebuilt in Greek fashion and many Jews accepted the Greek way of life. For example, a high-priest named Jesus wanted to be called Jason. He also built a gymnasium and an ephebeion in Jerusalem, Greek institutions that made more than one pious Jew feel uneasy. Even worse, Jewish athletes took part in the Tyrian games, which were organized to honor the god Melqart-Hercules.'

alji

http://www.sol.com.au/kor/7_01.htm

There was a documentary on BBC4 a few weeks ago which asserted that Jesus spent time in India. They even visited his tomb in Srinagar, which was pretty much as described in the article. One thing in the programme which isn't in the article; the 3 wise men 'from the east' have an uncanny similarity to modern lamas searching for a new-born baby holy man.

Personally, I've always been struck between the similarites between correct behaviour, as taught by Buddhists and JC in the Bible.

Any thoughts, anyone?

I stand corrected, Andrew. The gospels weren't written a couple of hundred years later, but a hundred years later.

I still don't see how this changes things much. Gospels written a hundred years after the death of a supposed messiah. A hundred years after the supposed fact, can these really be taken as 'Holy Truth'?

<>

How is it an original doctrine, or rather, an original Truth, having been written a hundred years later? By people who had had no contact with Jesus.

You say it was clear 'to them', but don't you also believe in the Gospels yourself?

Is it clear to you that Jesus is God? And if so, why?


az

RDO. You could do worse than look here: http://www.samhain.com

Thanks, Toxxin.

Pedro7:

Interesting, although your link seems to suggest that the similarities in the Apocrypha, which I have virtually no knowlege of. Also, this seems illogical--if the grave is from JofN's period, there weren't any Muslims in the area when it was made:
((The tomb itself is oriented East-West consistent with the Jewish tradition, despite the fact it is within a Muslim area.))

Also--the Shroud of Turin is hardly valid historical evidence, and how can they claim Jesus was crucified if he lived to be 80 and died in Kasmir? Crucifixion was generally deadly, and if they are suggesting his travels occured after he died and was ressurected, how could he die again?

As a heathen, I don't celebrate it, but here is a link to one of the better articles about the origins of this essentially Christian festival.

http://www.wyrdwords.vispa.com/APT/articles/essays/wheel.html

You might like to look at the rest of the site

Please remember that just because a festival is celebrated at the same time of year as another festival, that does not mean it is the same festival.

There is no evidence that the Irish Samhain festival had any of the trappiings of modern Halloween, which is essentially a day of the dead.

Many neo-pagans, however, think it does, and this seems to be a product of poor and mis-information.

Detailed folk-lore research does not support the connection, however.

See Hutton's "Stations of the Sun".

Jez

azahar, why do you not believe that information could be reliably transmitted within that space of time? My grandmother was born 100 years before my niece (1886-1986) but I am confident of the truth of the family knowledge of my grandmother's life, as is Rachel, who has knowledge handed down from her mother (my sister) and my mother, *her* grandmother. Hitler was born around the same time as far as I know, and died 59 years ago. We know a great deal about Hitler, and anything written forty years from now by, say, someone born in 1986, who never knew Hitler is likely to be very reliable, even though it was written 100 years after Adolf died!
<>
Probably they didn't, but they would have known people who did, almost certainly!

Heh, they book's written by my history tutor. Small world eh?

Thanks again. It seems it isn't just neo-pagans who think it: NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day and the History Channel seem to be claiming it as well:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/halloween/holiday_origins1.html

Which is likely where I got the idea.

RDO, 1st of all I think the shroud of Turin is just a red herring. Secondly, the muslim buried there was a devotee of Jesus, who lived much much later(either 10th or 16th century, can't remember which). If you google 'jesus in srinagar' there a quite a few sites which give some info about the (surprisingly widespread) tradition that Jesus did go to India. Also, calling himself 'Son of God' referred to the level of goodness(?) he had attained thru meditation etc. Not sure I buy into it totally but it does seem a whole lot more likely, to me anyway, than him being the human son of a triple-O god.

I also like it because it links the west and east in the ancient world, which I think has largely been ignored due to cultural factors(ie us being better than them cos we had better, bigger guns).

Hello Az and Adelaide



We're edging closer! Jesus was preaching around the year 30. St John's Gospel was traditionally written by the apostle himself, by then very old, in Ephesus sometime around the year 100. This is consistent with a papyrus dating from c.125 found in Egypt. But St John's Gospel and letters were also traditionally the last books of the New Testament to be written. Other books date from before that, from about the year 50 onwards (the likely date of I Thessalonians), only 20 years after Jesus.



True. But one of the starting points is that I believe the New Testament books are reliable about Jesus. They were written between 20 and 70 years later, by people belonging to a faith community that traced itself back to Jesus himself. Some of them had known him.



If you believe the Gospel other things are likely to follow. If you agree with that statement (whether or not you actually agree with the Gospel itself) we could go on to look at what it says about him, if you like.

"Not sure I buy into it totally but it does seem a whole lot more likely, to me anyway, than him being the human son of a triple-O god."

Of course, both sets of claims are based on very flimsy evidence--why try determining which is less improbable when even more probable alternatives exist--ones that don't require flimsy to nonexistant evidence of decades of journeying or divinity?