Toto

Name one historian and describe the methods by which he or she determined a significant part of the gospel relating to Jesus to be factually accurate.

Or don't bother. I can tell you - there are none. There are theologians who pretend to be historians, but they don't really do history.


What is your personal opinion based on? There is no evidence that any of the gospels were written within the lifetime of anyone who lived around 30 CE.

What 'does this mean? How can you have a "preconceived belief based from study?

If you do not start with the belief that the Bible must be true, how do you justify what you have written?

outhouse

Unsubstantiated from your well known biased fringe position.


Jews had it very bad, Hellenistic gospels written to a Roman audience, do not reflect just how bad these oppressed Jews had it. They avoid it.

Out of this Jewish misery we see a Hellenistic retelling of a martyred Jewish man. That fits the time period perfectly in every aspect. No replacement theory has even come close to explain what we were left with for the origins of this movement.

Toto

You don't know what my position is.

If you want to believe this, go ahead, but if you want to post it here, please provide some documentation - some indication that a crucifixion in 30 CE fits the time period.

gurugeorge

You've got me mixed up with someone else, I don't think the Jesus in the earliest myth was heavenly-only. I think part of the myth was that he was on Earth, but in obscurity, which is why nobody knew about him until the earliest Christians thought they'd found evidence of his having been and done his stuff in:-

a) what they thought to be prophetic passages in the LXV predicting that the Messiah would come humbly in obscurity (contrary to the prevailing myth of him coming as a military conqueror), and

b) the then-recent Caligula events showed that something had changed, there was an air of optimism due to Caligula's dying before having a chance to set up the Abomination of Desolation. This tied in with a) in the idea that perhaps the Messiah had already been and done his work, but in obscurity, but his having come meant something had been initiated, set in motion. The tide was turning (so they felt).

i.e. the Messiah had "gotten one over" on the Archons by doing the opposite of what they were waiting for (a great military conqueror).

What does seem to be the case is that the earthly aspect of his coming was merely symbolic of a much larger development in the heavens. "As above so below" and all that. And those heavenly wheels turning would eventually result in his second coming as the full-blown military victor.

It's only later that the earthly part of his first coming was "filled in" (or one might more pejoratively say "confabulated").

i.e. to the earliest Christians, the supernal event was the important aspect, the earthly part just a trick. For later Christians, divorced from the mystical afflatus that inspired the early visions, the important thing was answering the question, "but what did Jesus do in the War, daddy?"

aa5874

Your response actually confirms that you promote the flawed notion of "an heavenly Jesus who was never on earth".

In addition you have already admitted your idea of Christianity is "like Doherty"

You have consistently claimed that Christianity started by visions and still have not presented any corroborative evidence from antiquity.

It is well established in the Jesus cult writings that the Pauline writers had their "visions" of the Resurrected Jesus AFTER the Son of God was crucified on earth under Pilate and AFTER

We know the chronology of the Pauline Corpus because we have the short and long gMark.

The Pauline Corpus was composed AFTER the short gMark version of the Jesus story.

The Pauline Corpus is completely compatible with the 12 added verses of the long version of gMark 16 falsely attributed to an invented author called Mark.

In fact, Jesus cult writers admitted that Paul was ALIVE after gLuke was composed.

The Long gMark 16 NAS

gurugeorge

No, I don't. I've just explained to you that I don't.

The only respect I've ever said I'm "like Doherty" is in the fact that, like him, I prefer to build my ideas on as close to an orthodox scholarly dating as I can. I also think the heavenly aspect was initially more important, yes, but I don't think there was no conception that the Messiah had been on Earth. He had indeed been, but nobody had noticed him as such. That was the point of "a secret only now revealed" - the fact that the Messiah had been, but people had missed him. That was what was taken up later in GMark as a core theme, but in a different sense (post-Diaspora, it was the stupidity of the Jews not to have noticed him that led to their defeat).

Why does visions have to imply a heavenly-only Jesus? The mystical experiences of Paul and the early Christians mentioned in the Credo are of a mythical being who is certainly divine, but also is thought of as having been on Earth at some point, as per the Credo in Corinthians. But the earliest "biography", in that Credo, is extremely sketchy, and has no hint of "discipleship", which is consistent with my idea that the earliest version of the cult was a revision of the myth of the Messiah itself, to include the idea that he'd been and done his stuff (albeit in obscurity), and not a special claim to a lineage of discipleship to the cult deity while he'd been on earth.

That wrinkle came later and was first introduced in GMark (i.e. what you are perceiving as fabrication is indeed what I would also perceive as fabrication, but by a later sub-sect of the cult that took over and eventually became dominant, basing their pretend lineage on the idea first mooted in post-Diaspora GMark - that the earliest "apostles" had in fact been personal disciples of the Messiah during that obscure period when the Messiah had been on earth. i.e. he was "filling in" some of the biography of the Messiah, and mixing that up with the early history of the cult re. its Apostles, turning them into personal disciples).

But that's not what's in the Paul writings taken by themselves. We've been through this a dozen times. You take the whole corpus as an internally consistent late invention, I don't, I take it as a mixture of materials from different sources, cobbled together, and I simply go by the orthodox datings, and look at what's reckoned to be the earliest (i.e. Paul) and try to see what it says for itself on its own, without contaminating my thought with what came later. I agree I don't have to do that, and I'm happy for you to not do that and take a different approach, but that's how I look at it. Until I change that approach, your position doesn't interest me except as an interesting alternative idea.

What the heck does that have to do with a late Paul?

aa5874

You are clearly arguing that people thought Jesus was on earth AFTER the visions.


You actually stated in earlier post that you'd expect Christianity started with visions.

Such an argument is like Doherty's.

You use sources like Doherty.

Examine some of your own earlier posts.
post #729
post #759 post #776

Again, the Jesus cult was NOT started by visions of Paul.

The Pauline writers were PERSECUTORS of the Faith and attempted to destroy the Jesus cult.

The Pauline Corpus was composed when the Jesus cult and story was already well established all over the Roman Empire in Galatia, Corinth, Ephesus, Thessalonica, Colosse, Philippi and Rome.


But, you did argue that Christianity started or most likely started from visions.

You seem confused because now you are arguing for an OBSCURE Jesus.

You are hopelessly contradicting yourself.

My position must have caused you concern or else you would not have responded. You have inteersts in maintaining the presumption of EARLY Pauline writings which is contrary to Acts of the Apostles, Aristides, Justin Martyr, Municius Felix's Octavius, Arnobius, Celsus, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Dated NT manuscripts.

You seem prepared to accept FLAWED opinion over the evidence.

You reject orthodoxy's claim of an historical Jesus yet appeal to the very same authority without a shred of evidence for early Paul.

What the heck you ask!!! You have no interest in Late Paul.

What the heck does visions of Paul have to do with the start of Christianity when Paul had visions of a RESURRECTED Jesus AFTER he was a Persecutor of the Jesus cult??

You don't want to know that the Pauline "biography" was composed AFTER the short gMark and is completely compatible with the FORGERY or False Attributed authorship of the Long gMark.

The Pauline character had the SIGNS of a BELEIVER as state in the Long gMark---Not found in the short gMark.

Long gMark 16:14-18 KJV 1. In the NT, the Resurrected Jesus Appeared to Paul. See 1 Cor. 15.

2. In the NT, Paul preached the Gospel of the Resurrected Jesus "all over" the Roman Empire. See Acts and ALL Epistles.

3. In the NT, Paul admitted he SPOKE in Tongues. 1 Cor.14.18

4. In the NT, Paul is the ONLY character who was BITTEN by a VIPER and [/b]SURVIVED. See Acts 28

5. In the NT, Paul laid hands on the sick and they recovered. See Acts 28.

The Pauline "biography" is found in the 12 forged verses of the long gMark 16 9-12.

The Pauline story was unknown to the EARLY author of the short gMark.

The Jesus cult started BEFORE the Pauline Corpus and did NOT need the Pauline Corpus up to the late 2nd century.

neilgodfrey

I confess I have not read every comment in the past 38 pages of comments.

In response to the opening question, does not the fall of Jerusalem and demise of the Temple in 70 CE suggest that a dramatic historical shift might lie behind the emergence of a new religion that records in its earliest literature so many metaphors of the fall of the Temple and end of the Mosaic order?

Clivedurdle

Maybe this will be decided if the fall of the World Trade Centre leads to a new religion....

aa5874

It is so blatantly obvious. It is not some unknown baptized character or some heavenly character that was never on earth that started the Jesus cult.

Even the NT itself does not claim Jesus started the Jesus cult.

The Fall of the Temple of the God of the Jews was the event that triggered the invention of Jesus story.

The earliest Jesus story is that the Jews REJECTED the Son of their own God and Pierced him and that was the REASON for the Fall of the Temple.

These are the words of Josephus in "Antiquities of the Jews" composed c c 93 CE.

Josephus' "[I][B]AJ 10.11.7[Examine Justin's "Dialogue with Trypho" XVI Examine Tertullian's Answer to the Jews The invention of that the Son of God, the Anointed Leader of the Jews, called Jesus was directly based on supposed prophecies in the book of Daniel that the Romans would destroy the Temple AFTER the ADVENT of the ANOINTED Leader.

It was sometime in the 2nd century that people started to BELIEVE the story was true. It was sometime in the 2nd century that people who BELIEVED the story were called Christians started the Jesus cult.

Examine Aristides' Apology