The Historicity of Jesus - The Spread of Christianity in the 1st Century

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May I field that for a moment? I think Mikado might be referring to the fact (or idea, rather, since it's hard to pin these things down historiographically) that there were various sources either available to the early Church that are no longer available to us (the 'Q source', for instance) or that parts of the early Church accepted as canonical that were later decided not to be, along with various differences of practice and ritual. Am I close, Mikado?

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True. I think we should wait for Mikado to elucidate what exactly he meant.

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Mikado, I'm interested in learning more about the Godfearers; do you know of any good academic texts on them, in a historical or theological context?

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What Christianity's official position was on a number of major doctrinal points wasn't really "settled" until the 6th century, either (it's only Christianity becoming the official faith of the Roman Empire in the 4th century that really begins the process of making those decisions, though certain heresies like Gnosticism were already in decline by that point).  My favorite example is always Origen, the third century theologian who was a strong proponent that even the obvious metaphorical language should be taken literally.  He saw the passage "There are eunuchs who became eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven" and...well...became a eunuch for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven.

if the NT accurately portrays the existence and death of Jesus, the arguments surrounding those events, and the geographical spread of Christianity...then how can you say the NT doesn't accurately portray Christian doctrine within the early church?

In other words:  If the NT was written by imposters who weren’t representative of early church doctrine, then how did they get the history of the early church correct?

The idea is that the NT was written by people who were representative of the strand of early church doctrine that won out at the later councils and such (hence why its writings became, well, the NT), not that they were imposters.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What Christianity's official position was on a number of major doctrinal points wasn't really "settled" until the 6th century, either (it's only Christianity becoming the official faith of the Roman Empire in the 4th century that really begins the process of making those decisions, though certain heresies like Gnosticism were already in decline by that point).  My favorite example is always Origen, the third century theologian who was a strong proponent that even the obvious metaphorical language should be taken literally.  He saw the passage "There are eunuchs who became eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven" and...well...became a eunuch for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven.

if the NT accurately portrays the existence and death of Jesus, the arguments surrounding those events, and the geographical spread of Christianity...then how can you say the NT doesn't accurately portray Christian doctrine within the early church?

In other words:  If the NT was written by imposters who weren’t representative of early church doctrine, then how did they get the history of the early church correct?

The idea is that the NT was written by people who were representative of the strand of early church doctrine that won out at the later councils and such (hence why its writings became, well, the NT), not that they were imposters.

True, even in the history recorded within the NT, there were doctrinal fires that had to be put out in almost every congregation – in fact, most the epistles were written for this very purpose.

But, given the fact most books of the NT can be proven to have been in widespread use by the early 2nd Century, and given the fact of the historical accuracy of the NT we’ve been discussing in this thread, there is no reasonable argument for the NT not representing the viewpoints of the original movers and shakers of the early church…and there is no evidence that the authors of the NT performed a coup upon some supposed “original” Christians.

Well, no. I'm not saying that, and I doubt that's what Mikado is saying either; but in terms of practice and to a certain extent doctrine, there certainly were some features of the early church that you and I would have a difficult time intuitively recognizing.

Dibble, almost nobody seriously involved in Biblical scholarship or Roman history doubts or proceeds from a position of doubt on the historicity of Jesus as a person any more, if they ever did, no matter how devoutly secular they may be.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Dibble, almost nobody seriously involved in Biblical scholarship or Roman history doubts or proceeds from a position of doubt on the historicity of Jesus as a person any more, if they ever did, no matter how devoutly secular they may be.

Please remember that my original post said that I think someone the stories in the Bible are based on did likely exist - we're just sketchy on the exact details of that person's life because all writing on the subject comes well after his death.

All right. The NT has attributes of an unfolding text anyway. You have to do some historical digging to understand a lot of what's going on in it (which jmfcst is pretty good at, even though I disagree with many of the theological conclusions that he draws from this). It's silly to claim otherwise.

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I understand what you're saying, but that wasn't really the point I was making, which was historical rather than doctrinal; as you said, this is really something for another thread. I'd be interested in that thread, but for now let's get back to the subject at hand.

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The NT has attributes of an unfolding text anyway. You have to do some historical digging to understand a lot of what's going on in it (which jmfcst is pretty good at, even though I disagree with many of the theological conclusions that he draws from this). It's silly to claim otherwise.

Sorry if I am putting words into your mouth, but I don't agree with that statement in regard to some areas - I don't believe one has to have in depth knowledge of history to understand the NT, at least not doctrinally.   You might have to have some knowledge of geography to follow the geographical setting of the story, and you might have to understand terms like “legion” and “Centurion” to understand what is being described…but such knowledge is not needed for doctrinal purposes.  

The doctrines of the NT are meant to be universal, both in time and place…therefore understanding the setting and context of many of the books of the NT is irrelevant.  In fact, many of the books of the NT don’t include such information.

My wife’s old cult used to claim, “such and such passages can’t mean Paul was saying Christians are free from Moses’ dietary law, because all the churches of the NT followed Moses’ dietary law.”

It is very easy to nullify what the scripture says by assuming a context not given in scripture

Again, sorry if I am reading into your statement, I’m just very sensitive to claims that external knowledge is needed to understand the bible.

Oh, I understand this; I'm not saying that it's doctrinally or spiritually necessary, just that it's helpful if you want to engage in discussions about the text like we're doing now. I certainly don't think that a knowledge of Roman history is necessary for salvation, don't worry. Even I'm not that much of an academic elitist!

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You're the one who is claiming that portions of the law have been revoked, not I.

I've been on this forum for 10 years, and I have never treated the Law of Moses as anything other than a whole.  And I have also stated that the entire Law of Moses has been fulfilled by Christ and superceded by the New Covenant.

While I disagree with jmfcst regarding how some of the contents of the New Covenant are to be applied, he's entirely right on this, and that he admirably has never tried to pick and choose from the Mosaic Law.

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  So, the letters mean something different depending on whether you have them read to you, verses reading them yourself?!

You just spun what I said. If it's read directly to you yes, but it wasn't read word for word.

and the hits just keep on coming...You know, for someone claiming to be educated, your imagination sure does lead you to make a lot of wild and baseless claims.

The base is obvious to anybody who's ever made any study of information dissemination in primarily oral societies at all. Even if the ruling class is literate, a society that's 95-97% oral is primarily oral for purposes of looking at the spread of a populist religious movement.