You seem to be assuming that there’s a connection between importance and the speed with which something is written down. In the ancient world, there probably wouldn’t be. Consider a few facts.
The vast majority of the people at that time were illiterate. Hence, written records were of limited utility. Oral traditions were in much wider use. There were also many different languages spoken in the Roman Empire, which further limited the use of written documents. Also, writing materials were not particularly cheap or widely available.
Practice of Christianity was illegal. This would provide strong motivation to early Christians to avoid having any written material that would identify them as Christians.
In ancient times there were no newspapers, no magazines, no written sources intended to record events as they happened. The very idea of writing stuff down just to keep people informed simply did not exist. Generally, things were written down only after they had been bouncing around in oral tradition for a long time. That’s certainly what happened with most of the Old Testament.
It can’t be emphasized enough that ancient cultures were oral cultures. Written works had a very limited role in these cultures. It’s tough for us to imagine such a thing because everything gets written down in our culture. But in ancient times, even a writer like Plato would agree that too much writing was a bad thing because it distracted people’s minds away from memorization and spoken communication.
In that context, it’s not surprising that many things weren’t written down until long after the fact. Nobody wrote down anything about the Buddha for centuries, for instance. Hence the question to be asking is not, “Why did early Christians wait so long and write so little?” Rather, we should ask, “Why did early Christians write so much so quickly?”
No, but there’s a metric ton about a lot of people 500 years old. Heck, I’m tracing my ancestors right now, and we’ve found them being involved in the Norman Invasion of England in 1066. (Apparently, somewhere they got chased out of Ireland, Scotland and England to France for a century or so. How you get chased out of Ireland and Scotland? No idea.)
As of Constantine I, call it AD 300, this is the religion of the Empire. (Yes, 313, yes, his mother was Christian, but I’m picking an arbitrary date.)
How much shit do we have from the 1700s about? All over the place, man.
Much of which would have existed back then. Tax rolls, and so on. Anyone want to compare and contrast your typical preacher of note of the 1700s (Great Awakening, right?) with what should have been considered important?
I’m dead serious, I’m thinking everything got dragged somewhere for the Council of Nicea prep or something, and then either stuffed in a room and it molded or sank on the way, or some such thing.
ITR, we’re talking the Romans. Not the Greeks. The Romans were not an oral culture. Neither were the Jews, at that point.
To be honest, we probably have better records of Rabbi Hillel than we do of Jesus of Nazareth. Which is kind of odd. Anyone who can really read ancient records want to compare and contrast? I’m just a layman once you get down to the hard lifting.
Hm, I wouldn’t have thought there was that much documentation from that far back.
There is the book, How the Irish Saved Civilization. I haven’t read it, but I’m pretty sure that the idea is that records were lost or destroyed as being useless. They weren’t collected and summarily destroyed for the sake of suppression.
Not to say that there isn’t a decent chance that the RCC or the Eastern Orthodox Church might have done such a thing, but just going with the idea that you’re better to presume incompetence before conspiracy…
So, your argument is that HE came to earth to deliver a message and left it up to illiterate people to make sure that message was spread correctly? Absolutely brilliant. And HE created the Universe, did HE?
You seem to be mistaking what is important from a human point of view, as in ‘I need to pay my bills this month, so I should record all the checks I write’ to the single most important event after the creation.
You’d think that Jesus sitting there on the mount spouting pearls of wisdom would have said, “Hey, any of you guys writing this down? I’m not coming back again until the rapture, you know! For My Name’s sake!”. Maybe when he was turning water into wine he could also have put the knowledge of how to take dictation into his followers?
I never said suppression. My complete and total random theory is that they were collected for something like the Council of Nicea, and then… stuff happened to them, once they were all together.
Of course there wasnt anything written until later.
According to this Documentary I saw women in beards stoned anyone who said Jehova.
That would certainly put a crimp in the storytelling.
All right, without the flippancy, someone who was proclaimed as Messiah in Palestine at that time would (possibly? likely?) be crucified by the Romans as, essentially, a troublemaker. A suspected terrorist. The Jewish leaders would have had nothing to do with it (except, maybe, cheering the Romans on lest they find themselves on an adjacent cross).
There is evidence of… I wouldn’t call it censorship. Alteration of documents to make one faction of Christians or the other more correct. Bart Erlechman mentions some of it in Misquoting Jesus, and we all know the Josephus insertation. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the theoretical missing documention was shredded by one internal sect or another who decided it didn’t support their ‘wholy god’ or ‘wholy man’ side of the argument.
I did a paper in college on the historical Jesus, and I believe Jesus did really live and walk the earth. I see no reason to believe otherwise.
But I wouldn’t get caught up in arguments over what the Bible said with others. The Bible is so large and varied that one can prove anything by skipping through the chapters and verse.
The real importance of Christianity lies in the teachings of Jesus. These teachings are not really new, other masters taught them before. If one follows these teachings they will give you a better life and hope for the future. As for Paul, his love chapter in Corinthians is of great value to learning about life. The Bible as with all books contain both wheat and chaff that must be separated to find the truths of life.
I would like to take this moment to state that Lekatt has made a clear, rational, and reasonable post. I can, at this moment, say that I agree with everything he says except the Paul bit.
(I’d have to re-read that specific chapter to see if I agree with it, what verses are we talking about?)
This is the first time I have ever been able to say the above, and I feel it should be commemorated as much as the times he has said somewhat… less agreeable things.
I thought the bit in the film about Paul not thinking Jesus really lived was overstated. It is interesting that Paul’s writings doesn’t make specific references to Jesus life on earth or quote his sayings especially if he hung out with the original apostles. Maybe that only means Paul didn’t think it was the crucial part of Jesus ministry. Maybe it gives some credence to the idea that the gospels were never intended to be an historically accurate record of Jesus life.
I also noted that two of our active Christian posters didn’t agree on when Mark was probably written. Not that it’s a big deal. Just thought it was interesting.
I thought the book was just some attempt to capitalize on the popularity of other anti religion books. The film doesn’t change my mind.
What’s interesting to me in that article about Horus is that after listing about 17 points of similarity they claim half of them are bogus. Does that mean there are still 8 points of similarity? That still seems significant to me.
The actual claim of the film rather than compare JC to other figures one by one is to note common points that occur in cultural mythic figures. I believe they listed 22 points and Jesus was third with 19 of those 22. Even if they are not exact matches , noting that reoccurring pattern on man’s cultural expression makes it likely that much of what we find in the Gospels is myth. When you consider that the Gospels may not have been intended as a historical account it becomes even more likely.
Points 1 & 3 are valid. Point 2, not so much – persecution of Christianity obviously didn’t start until there were enough Christians around for the Romans to bother taking notice (much less taking offense), by which time one would expect written records if it were not for points 1 & 3.
(Admittedly, point 2 might lead to the destruction of some written materials, but all of them? One would expect people to try to conceal sacred writings before going to the extreme of destroying them.)
Points 1 and 3, not so valid. Look, the Corinthians wrote back. This is not a preliterate society, and by the time of Paul it’s widespread enough they’re sending mail back and forth.
I think you’re reading way too much of that. Nobody claimed that their society was preliterate; rather, the fact is that literacy was still generally reserved for a select few. Couple that with the lack of any mass media, any printing technology and the lack of any rapid delivery system, and it’s not hard to see why written records would be vastly less common during that time.
I’m not. What the heck do you think Paul’s Letters are? It’s the classic example of writing things down to keep people informed. A newsletter, basically.
Where does the word Trivia come from? From message boards where three roads meet. Roman.
As for rapid delivery… well, weeks isn’t slow. You ever look how far Caesar traveled in his days? From England to Turkey in a matter of a month or two.