mountainman

Needless to say aa5874 that I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. However the issue that concerns me most is that there appears to be so few people who share this assessment of the fraudulent origins of the "Church History". Aside from those who have been instructed to ask no questions of the "Received Christian Wisdom" and its unquestionable authoritative "history", why do you think it is that the Historical Jesus remains a "sensible proposition" for many other analysts in this field?

aa5874

The HJ is a most SENSELESS proposition.

Based on the NT and Church writings Jesus was a God or equal to God, the creator of heaven and earth who merely took on the form of a man.

Once Jesus was just a man he would not have been worshiped as a God by Jews and Jesus believers.

Examine a writing under the name of Paul.

2 Thessalonianns 2.1-5 Once Jesus was a man and exalted himself as a God then the Pauline writer would have NOT forgotten that he was a MAN and would not have worshiped him as a God.

The Pauline writer VEHEMENTLY opposed worshiping men as Gods.

The Pauline writer implied that men who called themselves Gods are men of sin.

The Pauline writer may have called Jesus the SON of PERDITION, the man of sin, once Jesus was a man.

The HJ is a most SENSELESS proposition.

mountainman

Further aa5874 in regard to "Dear Justin", what do you make of the following assertion by Richard Carrier?

aa5874

It would appear that there are some errors in the chapter on Justin Martyr by Carrier.

Now, as I have said before Justin Martyr's writings appear to be independent of Eusebius. The information given by Justin are not what I would expect from Eusebius.

Examine "First Apology" 13If the Roman Church had manipulated Justin Martyr's "First Aplolgy" then I would expect Justin's writings to reflect the doctrine of the Trinity.

Virtually all the indicators that Justin Martyr's writings were fundamentally manipulated by the Roman Church are missing. The writings of Irenaeus, on the other hand, show almost total manipulation or invention solely for the benefit of "Church History."

Irenaeus had critical information that showed the Roman Church was the true Church whose first bishop was Peter the apostle of Jesus who, not suprisingly, told the very Peter that he would build his Church upon Peter, the Rock.

Of course Justin Martyr wrote no such thing. In fact, Justin was not aware that Peter did anything specifically after Jesus went to heaven. Justin had no post-ascension history whatsoever of the Apostles and Paul.

Justin Martyr has ONLY history of the actions of the Devil after Jesus ascended. It would appear that Justin thought the Devil took over the world when Jesus went to heaven.

But Irenaeus had tons of history of the Apostles, Luke, Mark, Matthew, John and Paul and that was exactly what the Roman Church needed.

We know what the Church needed for their history.

The Church needed Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings to be authentic. They need a corroborative source. By some miracle, Irenaeus has all the history of the dating, authorship, and chronology of the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings.

We know the material the Church needed is in "Against Heresies" by Irenaeus so we just have to look for all the material that is similar to "Against Heresies".

It is that simple.

Once Jesus, Peter, Mark, Luke, John and Paul did not exist someone had to invent the history of the Church.

It would appear Justin Martyr merely BELIEVED Jesus existed and his source for his belief was Hebrew Scripture and the "Memoirs of the Apostles" but he had no source for any post ascension activities of the Apostles and Paul.

And Justin Martyr invented NO post-ascension history for the Apostles and Paul.

We have some names or aliases of the inventors like Papias, Ireaneus, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius and there are more.

We know who they are because they all wrote the same things that was invented under the name of Irenaeus.