Who Do Scholars Say is a Fake Person in Christian Antiquity?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Secret Alias
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Who Do Scholars Say is a Fake Person in Christian Antiquity?

Post by Secret Alias »

Ebion - "Ebion is said to have been a pupil of Cerinthus, but may not have been a real person." https://books.google.com/books?id=STxEA ... AQ6AEIKTAA

Cerdo - "... if Cerdo was a historical person, and not (as seems likely) a heresiological creation ..." https://books.google.com/books?id=dpd7A ... oQ6AEIRTAF

Bucolus (of the epistles of Ignatius) " .. if Bucolus is a historical person ..." https://books.google.com/books?id=9ulla ... kQ6AEILzAB
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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MrMacSon
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Re: Who Do Scholars Say is a Fake Person in Christian Antiquity?

Post by MrMacSon »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Jul 11, 2018 9:37 pm
Cerdo - "... if Cerdo was a historical person, and not (as seems likely) a heresiological creation ..." https://books.google.com/books?id=dpd7A ... oQ6AEIRTAF
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That whole chapter is interesting and enlightening. As is probably the whole book -

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This book examines the role of social networks in the formation of identity among sophists, philosophers and Christians in the early Roman Empire. Membership in each category was established and evaluated socially as well as discursively. From clashes over admission to classrooms and communion to construction of the group's history, integration into the social fabric of the community served as both an index of identity and a medium through which contests over status and authority were conducted. The juxtaposition of patterns of belonging in Second Sophistic and early Christian circles reveals a shared repertoire of technologies of self-definition, authorization and institutionalization and shows how each group manipulated and adapted those strategies to its own needs. This approach provides a more rounded view of the Second Sophistic and places the early Christian formation of 'orthodoxy' in a fresh context.
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The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire: Sophists, Philosophers, and Christians
Kendra Eshleman
Cambridge University Press, Nov. 2012
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Blood
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Re: Who Do Scholars Say is a Fake Person in Christian Antiquity?

Post by Blood »

Christian scholars have no problem admitting that people in the Old Testament (Job, Daniel, Judith, Esther, Tobit, etc) were fictional, i.e. "fake."

But everybody in the New Testament is real. Don't question them.

In marketing this process is known as "protecting the brand."
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
andrewcriddle
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Re: Who Do Scholars Say is a Fake Person in Christian Antiquity?

Post by andrewcriddle »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Jul 11, 2018 9:37 pm
Bucolus (of the epistles of Ignatius) " .. if Bucolus is a historical person ..." https://books.google.com/books?id=9ulla ... kQ6AEILzAB
Bucolus is not mentioned by Ignatius. The source is (pseudo) Pionius Life of Polycarp
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/pioni ... _intro.htm
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/pioni ... 1_text.htm

Andrew Criddle
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Who Do Scholars Say is a Fake Person in Christian Antiquity?

Post by Joseph D. L. »

'Ebion' might be a traditional deviation of r. Akiva, who held the office as overseer of the poor.

Cerdo/Cerinthus, for a long time, I have seen as the 'Cephas' figure in Galatians. I have a suspicion that this was Agathobulus, but so far the evidence I have gathered is wanting at best.
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