Reply to If Jesus wasn’t a real historical figure, where did Christian theology come from?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]We have contemporaneous witness written account,[/b] we have written account of a witness to worshippers only a few decades later, not even a lifetime later, and we still have the same ethnic group in Syria practicing Christianity since the founding of that church was documented in the Gospels, as well as the lineage of patriarchs of the Syrian church - its on Wikipedia.  Not sure what the heck else would convince a devils advocate here[/quote]

Sorry, but I'm calling B.S. on this.  Either name it or it doesn't exist. [/quote]

The Book of John, written by Jesus's disciple John.  [/quote]

Theology, not history 
[/quote]

Eye
witness 
account
written
by
him[/quote]

John was written long after Jesus' time on Earth:

"The Gospel of John, sometimes called "the spiritual gospel," was probably composed between 90 and 100 CE. Its style and presentation clearly set it apart from the other three."
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/mmfour.html

also in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_John 
"John reached its final form around AD 90–110,[7] although it contains signs of origins dating back to AD 70 and possibly even earlier.[8] Like the three other gospels, it is anonymous, although it identifies an unnamed "disciple whom Jesus loved" as the source of its traditions.[9][10] It most likely arose within a "Johannine community",[11][12] and – as it is closely related in style and content to the three Johannine epistles – most scholars treat the four books, along with the Book of Revelation, as a single corpus of Johannine literature, albeit not from the same author.[13]"

Of course, it's a matter of faith that John was written by Jesus' diciple, John.  And when it comes to religious faith, facts are not relevant.
[/quote]

^ you left out the part that said "The apostle John, son of Zebedee – traditionally the author was identified as John the Apostle, [b]but his authorship is almost universally rejected by modern scholars.[[/b]2][4]

It's interesting how the believers place so much credence in the weight of modern scholarship that is convinced of the historicity of Jeses (as am I btw); but wants to ignore the same weight of modern scholarship that rejects the book of John as having been written by the Apostle John.

[/quote]

DP. I don't place credence on the weight of modern scholarship simply because it's modern scholarship. I place credence in it when its convincing and not when it's not. The argument for the historicity of Jesus is especially strong because it's the consensus opinion of secular historians who have no reason to presuppose his existence (and possibly reasons to suggest that he didn't exist). An atheist is unlikely to find a Catholics belief that Jesus existed interesting, but if he believed that the Gospel of John was dated to 110 AD, you'd find that more persuasive. It's the same thing.

I also don't "ignore the weight of modern of scholarship" on the question of the dating of the fourth Gospel. I examine it and, as a person with undergraduate level training in ancient history and knowledge of the texts, find it uncompelling. It rests extensively on an assumption that John's high Christology must be a later development, which is a secular assumption without much reason to support it. Indeed, I'd say that if you're going to date Philippians, where Jesus is described as having "equality with God," to the 50s, I don't think "high Christology" is a remotely reasonable basis for assigning it a later date. The assumption that high vs low Christology is useful for dating anything also rests on assumption about how Christian belief developed that can't be proven. It also used to be popular to date John even later, as late as the second half of the second century, but we've got fragments (P52) of John that are now dated earlier than that (potentially as early as 125). I think the odds that John was composed in 110 and we happen to have a fragment from 125 are low.

I also generally find secular arguments around dating and composition tend to posit unproven entities (Q or a "Johnanine Community") and then build out more and more suppositions based on them, without often considering whether or not the original theory is right. Some of that is unavoidable (all scholarship builds on prior scholarship), but some just looks very much like creating more elaborate. epicycles.

It's possible they're right (and ultimately my interest in the dating of the Gospels is primarily academic, I don't find it particularly relevant from a faith standpoint), and it's possible that John is a late first century document from a community of people none of whom knew Jesus, but I don't assume they're right because they're scholars. Scholarship changes and scholarship gets it wrong, all the time. I do my best to look at why scholars believe what they believe and evaluated it on its merits.[/quote]

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