Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Where Celsus is very close to put implicitly in doubt the historicity of Jesus is when he raises the accusation that 'the doctrine is secret' . The only way a such claim can be interpreted as an accusation , is that the secret belief is radically different from the public belief, to the point of be...

Yes, Celsus makes some claim about the "real" biography of Jesus, but it is evident that these supposed "real facts" about Jesus are themselves just alternative imaginings derived from the Gospels. "Let us imagine what a Jew- let alone a philosopher- might say to Jesus: 'Is...

Is this not also completely consistent with the claim made in 2 John 1:7? It appears to me that the claim made in 2 John 1:7 is consistent with both views. How do we rule one out and one in? Because we have examples of early people who seemed to have believed that there was a Jesus who was there bu...

And if 'gnostic' is a term that has some meaning, beyond just being associated with heretics, then those that are not clearly 'gnostic' in Irenaeus may not fall into the same doctrine for Irenaeus as those that are called 'gnostic.' This then could open the way to allowing us to consider non-'gnost...

However what about people who may have asserted that Jesus Christ was a fictional character? That is, that in theory there were (other) people who asserted Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh because he was fictional being - that the NT was a fiction story. If such people had a time machine, the...

Are you contending that these people thought that the figure of IS XS appeared in history as a god, or a deity, or a spirit, or a mythological being rather than a historical "fleshy" human being? That's right. So if Marcion, for example, had a time machine, he'd have thought he could go b...

Thanks, GakuseiDon, for giving an example showing that some ancient people did claim cases of non-existence. You're welcome. I think it's an important point to keep in mind, that there was a certain amount of skepticism about fantastic beliefs in ancient times. Origen also writes on this: http://ww...

GDon The title of your thread asked the question: Any pre-325 CE writings where Jesus' historicity was doubted? Your OP went on to define what you mean by 'historical Jesus'. ' 'By 'historical Jesus', I mean a figure living around 30 CE who inspired the Gospel stories, even if the Gospel stories th...

What about the reports (above) of those "who confess not that Jesus Christ (IS XS) is come in the flesh"? It stands to reason there were people who doubted IS XS appeared in the flesh. Yes, I agree. Could these people be doubting whether IS XS appeared in history as a human being? Yes. It...

Peter Kirby wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 1:42 pmAnd what are your thoughts on these texts and these passages?

I've never looked into the Recognitions passage. The others seem to involve questioning whether Christ has come, rather than whether Jesus existed.