Theos-Talk Archives (August 1996 Message tl00135)

As an answer to my argument that the enemies of Christians would have
seized on the opportunity to attack them, had the existence and life of
Jesus been a total fabrication, Jerry H-E writes:


>Abrantes and I came to the agreement that the winner of a
>struggle gets to write its history.  In this case, the Christians
>won over their critics.  As a result, there is precious little
>documentation concerning Christianity's forerunners and rivals
>except from the early church father's point of view.  (snip)

>Therefore, I agree that the question of the historicity of Jesus
>was "too good of an opportunity to miss,"  and I submit that it
>indeed was not passed up.  But by the fourth century, the
>political tide changed and the Church saw to it that most of
>those challenges were erased from historical memory.  Of course
>we have records of refutations written from the point of view of
>the victorious Church: but concerning the records of the loosing
>factions, we have only the slightest traces of evidence that they
>ever existed at all.
>
>

Yes - the winners DO writes the history books. But here we are dealing with
a massive cover-up of what surely would have been a major controversy. That
is much more difficult. Before the discovery at Nag Hammadi, a lot was known
of the gnostics from the writings of the Church Fathers because gnosticism
was a major controversy and its challenge had to be met.  Is Jerry
suggesting that these same people ignored a controversy on the existence of
Jesus, or did they attack it first and then burn their own writings. The
latter is highly implausible.

I submit that the evidence indicates that that particular controversy (about
the existence of Jesus, or him having lived 100 BC), never existed in the
early first or second centuries. And this can be taken as indicating that
there was enough evidence in those days to refute such accusations should
these arise. Of course, much of what the person we call Jesus can be
debated, and the  canonical gospels are hardly a reliable source of
information. But it's tough to explain away the entire person as HPB or GRS
Meade have tried in the light of the above evidence.

Paul K.

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