Robert Tulip

Analysis of the symbolism of the penis opens psychoanalytic questions of repressed sexuality. Christian moral teachings tend to avoid such topics. The angry repression in Ehrman's use of this penis rooster image is very interesting, as it illustrates how his fundamentalist evangelical past bubbles up through his subconscious, sublimated into an incoherent claim that Christ historicism is triumphant. Ehrman seems to find it offensive that Acharya deconstructs Christian phallocracy, or perhaps that should be foolocracy.

The use of the rooster to symbolise Peter in the fourth century Roman sarcophagus that I linked at my last post is clear evidence that the rooster (or cock) was well known as Peter's symbol, together with the keys of heaven. The rooster story is attested in all four gospels, but amusingly, Mark flatly contradicts the other three, as discussed in some detail here.

If you are having trouble opening the images I linked of Saint Peter and the Rooster, try using google images, which is how I found them. I found that all of the urls work, but two lead to sites rather than straight to the images.

Considering the foolocracy symbolism of the Peter penis image, Peter is also considered a champion of the triumph of orthodox belief over gnostic knowledge as the path of salvation. Understanding this feature of church evolution is central to the mythicist deconstruction of faith. The triumph of dogma illustrates how the political process of numbers was decisive. There were far more ignorant believers than knowledgeable scholars, so the successful clique within the church was the small group of heresiologists who demonised knowledge, in order to ally with the vast number of illiterate people outside the church.

This pack of brainless dickheaded foolocrats systematically destroyed the wisdom tradition that had produced the Christ myth. They left us only with fragments and distortions that have survived the mill of time. The task now for mythicist scholarship is to logically reconstruct the process of Biblical evolution, showing how ideas and social movements produced texts that were subsequently censored in ways that still leaves hints of their original intent.

For example, Christ's condemnation of Saint Peter as "Satan" is an interesting alarm bell regarding the question of whether the church has been true to its origins. So too, Christ's prophecy that Peter would be a serial liar illustrates the contempt that the gnostics had for the true believers.

Jeffrey Gibson

The rooster is a symbol of an event in Peter's life. It does not symbolize Peter -- otherwise all that would be needed to represent him on the in any piece of art would be a rooster. It's not there in the other representations of events in his life. So all it does is give us a clue not who Peter is, but what Gospel event is being portrayed.

In any case, Please show me one image from Christian art where Peter is represented by a phallus and please cite a text where is is labed "Saviour of the world".

Jeffrey

aa5874

Please, please, please!! What is your mother language?

Is not Ehrman being accused of making factual errors?

See http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1026

Bart Ehrman is being accused of making factual errors in some kind of a mother language.

I have also identified contradictory statements in "Did Jesus Exists?" that are factual errors.

At page 180, Ehrman claimed that the Gospels are among the best attested books of the ancient world but in the same chapter--page 184 admitted it was true that the Gospels are riddled with other kinds of problems and that they relate events that almost certainly did not happen.

I am at a loss for words after reading "Did Jesus Exist?".

Carrier was absolutely right.

Adam

And you were absolutely wrong--everything Stephanie Fisher and Maurice Casey said about Ehrman destroys MJ. Ehrman vastly understated the case against Mythicism.

MrMacSon

Nothing destroys the proposition for Jesus being mythical.

Nothing supports the proposition that Jesus is historical.

Moreover, a historical human Jesus destroys the resurrection proposition.

aa5874

You appear to be confused. Carrier was absolutely right.

You seem to have some kind of mother language problem.

Please refer to "Did Jesus Exist?" page 180, 182 and 184.

Page 180 "Did Jesus Exist?" Ehrman contradicts himself. He admits he does not know what was originally written but still claims the unknown is well attested.

And in the same chapter he admits the Gospels and the New Testament are really riddled with events that most likely did not happen.

Ehrman, perhaps in his mother language, will show that the Gospels were not well attested.

Page 182 "Did Jesus Exist?" Page 184 "Did Jesus Exist?" It is clear that Carrier is absolutely right. Ehrman made claims that are contradictory.

Ehrman will clinically destroy his own assertion that the Gospels were well attested by identifying many events that were not historically accurate.

1. There was no worldwide census.

2. Jesus was not born in Bethlehem.

3. Pilate did not offer to release Barabbas.

4. The triumphal entry is not historically accurate.

5. Jesus was not raised from the dead.

6. The story of the woman taken in adultery was not originally in the Gospels.

7. The authors of the Gospels were not Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

8. The genealogies in the NT cannot be reconciled.

9. The post resurrection visits by Jesus cannot be reconciled.

10. The donkey riding event is historically problematic.

The Gospels are not well attested at all.

Ehrman has completely contradicted himself in his own "Did Jesus Exist?"

Robert Tulip

That is an interesting semiotic argument. It is rather like saying that the cross is not a symbol of Christ, but of his death. However in both these cases, the sign defines core themes of identity, and so they are commonly seen as signs of the person, not just the event. http://www.christiansymbols.net/apostles_13.php says “Another symbol of Peter is the rooster.”

The Bible tells us that Peter wept bitterly when he heard the rooster, apparently because it showed somehow that Christ had a window into his soul as a serial liar. In this shattering existential moment of truth, the rooster symbolises Peter’s identity as cowardly Christ-denier. These are character traits that emerged when he was put to the test. Peter sought to shrug it off by claiming to be repentant but the incident was generally interpreted as indicating his frail sinful nature.

I do not think it is correct to separate this event from “who Peter is”, because the Bible presents it as definitive and revealing of an existential identity. Indeed, that is how the rooster has traditionally served, with Pope Gregory allegedly calling the rooster the emblem of Saint Peter. The fourth century Roman sarcophagus uses the rooster to say “this is Peter”, not just to illustrate the moment of denial. More modern portrayals quite simply use the rooster as Peter’s symbol.I doubt you will find any, but that is hardly relevant. It is like asking for a Biblical statement that Jesus was not born of a virgin, and then somehow using this absence as evidence for the virgin birth. The absence of phallic imagery in the Bible simply reflects the Christian effort to sublimate the desires of the flesh into a transcendental mysticism. It does not mean these natural energies have somehow disappeared.

The mythicist project is about deconstructing the inner meaning of mythical literature such as the Gospels. The cult of male supremacy is central to Abrahamic faiths, but goes hand in hand with sexual repression. The church held that possession of a penis was essential to mediate between man and god, although the penis itself was not seen as the explicit sign of Christian virility. The reaction against paganism included rejection of phallic images. The Hindu lingam is seen by scholars as manifestly sexual in origin, but this reading is denied by those who advocate a false supernatural version of reality.

Again, it is interesting to consider this material against the theoretical framework of Freudian analysis of the cultural repression of sexuality. The uncontrolled ecstatic nature of sexuality has to be controlled in the creative process of constructing civilization, as Freud argues in The Future of an Illusion and in Civilization and its Discontents. This control process causes an inability to see the natural origins of mythical ideas, which are sublimated into a transcendental narrative whose ground is imaginary rather than real.

avi

English translation:

aa5874

I am extremely delighted that you mention Bible Jesus because it shows that you may have some problems with a mother tongue--Bible Jesus is not a figure of history but a figure of Faith.

You seem not to understand that it was because of Bible Jesus that HJers like Ehrman are on a Quest for an HJ of Nazareth.

HJers Reject Bible Jesus of Nazareth.

It is accepted among Scholars, universally, that Bible Jesus is a product of Embellishments, implausibilities and loads of fiction.

Bible Jesus of Nazareth is a Jesus of Faith like the angel Gabriel, Satan the Devil, the Holy Ghost, Adam, Eve and Gods.

You appear not to understand a mother language.

If people here make you to be a BJer it is probably because you appear to them as one who accept Mythology as actual history.

Please, see the Quest for the Historical Jesus.

If Bible Jesus was a figure of history there would be no need for a Quest for HJ.

Effectively, Bible Jesus is MYTH Jesus of Nazareth born of a Holy Ghost, the Creator and a Transfiguring Resurrected Sea Water Walker.

And Ehrman used the same Bible in his Quest for HJ of Nazareth.

Stringbean

Erhman never had a case agianst MJ and the very facts that aa point out shows that he still does not know which side of the fence he sits on.