Freethought & Rationalism Archive

spin · 06-15-2013, 07:23 AM

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Originally Posted by jgreen44

4) An authentic "proof text" was always kept in the Temple in Jerusalem, against which all other Torah scrolls would be checked. But after the destruction of the Temple this sort of proof-reading was no longer possible. Consequently, after AD 70 the textual basis of Judaism was de-emphasized in favor of a spiritual (new age) emphasis.

One of the interesting things to note from the pesherim from Qumran is that at times one version of a biblical passage can be presented for commentary, yet the commentary nonschalantly deals with a different version. The Qumran evidence shows different versions along side each other, apparently without problems, vorlage for the LXX, the masoretic text and the Samaritan, as well as other varieties.

The notion of a "proof text" per se as outlined above doesn't seem to reflect Jewish practice at the time to me.

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Originally Posted by jgreen44

2 Corinthians 3:2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. 3 You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
4 Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. 5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

James The Least · 06-15-2013, 07:34 AM

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Originally Posted by TedM

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Originally Posted by aa5874

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Originally Posted by TedM

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Originally Posted by aa

It is clear that the Jesus story started without a human Jesus. Virtually every Jesus cult writer who mentioned the birth of Jesus admitted he was the Product of a Ghost.

I"ve never understood why you take this view. The early belief was that God became a human. How can that happen? One answer that makes sense to some is that God impregnated a human woman.

I cannot understand why you take such a view when you know of no evidence that any virgin outside the NT has produced a child after being impregnated by an unknown and unseen God.

I don't 'take such a view'. I am explaining why the idea of a virgin birth developed. Whether it was applied to a real human being or a made up human being is something that the story itself doesn't answer. Yet, you seem to think it does. I've never understood why you come to that conclusion. The need for a Savior after the temple falling could have been satisfied (perhaps) by 'making up' a person and applying things like the virgin birth to him. OR it could have been satisfied by applying things like the virgin birth to a real person who had previously lived.

Are there any previous examples of a real, historical person being given a virgin birth by mythographers? Legends certainly grew about real people, no one is disputing that. But it would be very strange if Jesus was the only supposedly historical figure about whom this legend grew.

James The Least · 06-15-2013, 07:47 AM

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Originally Posted by jgreen44

I see in the New Testament a replacement of Temple oriented Judaism and all that it entailed with a new age type of Judaism.

1) Jerusalem was utterly destroyed in AD70. A few years later arises the concept of the New Jerusalem, a (new age) spiritual city currently existing in heaven but which will also appear on earth when "all is accomplished".

2) The Temple was utterly destroyed in AD70. The gospels have Jesus referring to himself as the Temple (John 2:19) and Paul refers to each individual human beng as embodying "God's temple" (more new age thinking) (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).

John 2:19 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 16 Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? 17 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple

3) With the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, Jews were no longer able to follow the law as they once did. So some Biblical justification had to be found for this new reality. Enter Paul and all of his talk about the law being a curse. Now each believer had to work out his "own salvation in fear and trembling" (more new age thinking).

4) An authentic "proof text" was always kept in the Temple in Jerusalem, against which all other Torah scrolls would be checked. But after the destruction of the Temple this sort of proof-reading was no longer possible. Consequently, after AD 70 the textual basis of Judaism was de-emphasized in favor of a spiritual (new age) emphasis.

5) Without the written law (verifiably authentic Torah scrolls), God was now revealed through the creation, including the personal revelations of individual mortal human beings.

But there was already a Jesus cult in Rome prior to the fall of the temple, according to Suetonius and Tacitus.

If you accept the traditional dating for the Pauline epistles (which is debatable), then that also supports a pre-70 Jesus cult in Rome, Greece, and Asia Minor. These letters are addressed to Gentiles, not Jews, despite the Pauline writer's bizarre pleading that "we are Jews ourselves" (in Romans, I think). Even if they were written after 70, they only vaguely allude to the fall of the Temple a couple of times.

If Christianity arose in Jerusalem among ethnic Jews post-70, as you suggest, it was the shortest-lived religious movement in all of history. By the second century, there were few to none ethnic Jews involved in Christianity. History records no ethnically Jewish Christian bishops, popes, deacons, etc., after 70.

jgreen44 · 06-15-2013, 07:50 AM

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Originally Posted by James The Least

Are there any previous examples of a real, historical person being given a virgin birth by mythographers? Legends certainly grew about real people, no one is disputing that. But it would be very strange if Jesus was the only supposedly historical figure about whom this legend grew.

Hostile to paganism, the early Christians, such as the Church Fathers embraced euhemerism in attempt to undermine the validity of pagan Gods.[27] The usefulness of euhemerist views to early Christian apologists may be summed up in Clement of Alexandria's triumphant cry in Cohortatio ad gentes: "Those to whom you bow were once men like yourselves."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euhemerus#Tomb_of_Zeus

Jaybees · 06-15-2013, 08:02 AM

It was all a race between Zoroastrianism and Xtianity. If the Persians had conquered the Romans, the former "exclusive" monotheism would now be the world's most popular superstition.

jgreen44 · 06-15-2013, 08:13 AM

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Originally Posted by James The Least

But there was already a Jesus cult in Rome prior to the fall of the temple, according to Suetonius and Tacitus.

Those were Gnostics, worshipers of the cosmic Chrestus.

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Originally Posted by James The Least

If you accept the traditional dating for the Pauline epistles (which is debatable), then that also supports a pre-70 Jesus cult in Rome, Greece, and Asia Minor.

Yes but which Jesus? A terrestrial Jesus or a cosmic Christ?

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Originally Posted by James The Least

These letters are addressed to Gentiles, not Jews, despite the Pauline writer's bizarre pleading that "we are Jews ourselves" (in Romans, I think). Even if they were written after 70, they only vaguely allude to the fall of the Temple a couple of times.

That's true. But if Paul had preached that God himself had been incarnated in a man, Paul would have been just as dead as Jesus, for blasphemy. Oddly enough his Jewish enemies never accuse Paul of blasphemy for claiming a recently deceased Judean carpenter had been God in the flesh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by James The Least

If Christianity arose in Jerusalem among ethnic Jews post-70, as you suggest, it was the shortest-lived religious movement in all of history.

I think there was a pre-existent cosmic Christ (Logos) cult. And after AD 70 the doctrines of that cult were applied to terrestrial Jesus stories some of which were described in Josephus.

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Originally Posted by James The Least

By the second century, there were few to none ethnic Jews involved in Christianity. History records no ethnically Jewish Christian bishops, popes, deacons, etc., after 70.

You seem to be getting at the idea that Christianity was a purely Hellenistic creation.

If that is the case, what is your theory for the reason(s) Christianity was invented?

James The Least · 06-15-2013, 08:26 AM

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Originally Posted by TedM

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Originally Posted by James The Least

.. The argument for an ethnically Jewish origin of the Jesus cult in Palestine would be supportable by early Aramaic/Hebrew gospels, but of course nothing like that exists. The mere fact that early Christian apologists had to invent lies about Matthew et al. "translating from Hebrew" shows how insecure they were about somebody exposing their outrageous myths.

What little I know of the subject indicates that this is a debated area, and there were texts (Gospel of the Nazerenes, for ex) for which support of Aramaic or Hebrew origin exists.

Yes, Eusebius and Jerome cite a text they call "The Gospel According to the Hebrews," which modern scholars refer to as "The Gospel of the Nazareans."
They both state that it was written "in Hebrew letters," but then Jerome also says it was written in Syriac with Hebrew letters (whatever that means). Origen refers to it as well but makes no note that it was written in Hebrew.

So, yes, this could be a Jewish gospel. Or, it could be a Syriac gospel. Or it could be a Judean God-Fearer gospel. It's striking that none of the church fathers placed any importance on the priority of this Hebrew gospel; quite the contrary. They considered it a derivative, later text written by heretics.

James The Least · 06-15-2013, 08:41 AM

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Originally Posted by jgreen44

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Originally Posted by James The Least

Are there any previous examples of a real, historical person being given a virgin birth by mythographers? Legends certainly grew about real people, no one is disputing that. But it would be very strange if Jesus was the only supposedly historical figure about whom this legend grew.

Hostile to paganism, the early Christians, such as the Church Fathers embraced euhemerism in attempt to undermine the validity of pagan Gods.[27] The usefulness of euhemerist views to early Christian apologists may be summed up in Clement of Alexandria's triumphant cry in Cohortatio ad gentes: "Those to whom you bow were once men like yourselves."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euhemerus#Tomb_of_Zeus

Rhea was impregnated by Cronus. It's beside the point anyway, since the purpose of euhemerization was to salvage the Greek gods by rationalizing them, whereas with Jesus we are talking about the opposite, a supposedly historic figure only later being mythologized.

outhouse · 06-15-2013, 08:41 AM

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Originally Posted by jgreen44

The need to preserve Judaism. It kind of back fired on them.

Doesnt have anything to do with the history of Judaism or preservation.

This was a new sect getting away from Judaism by another culture who had infiltrated Judaism and has no intention of ever following Judaism to the letter of the law.

the temple did have a impact on the movement, but this movement existed before the temple fell. The fall of the temple did help divide these two belief systems further then what they were

aa5874 · 06-15-2013, 08:42 AM

There is no history of Jews as members of a Jesus cult. There is no known history of the Jews that they worshiped a Jewish man as a God AFTER he was dead.

Even Apologetic sources that mentioned the story of Jesus claimed that it was the Jews who asked that Jesus be crucified even though Pilate found no fault with him.

We have writings attributed to Philo and Josephus and there is absolutely nothing about Jesus of Nazareth--zero.

The Jesus story was started and fabricated AFTER the desolation of the Temple and the Holy City c 70 CE

It is an extremely simple matter.

We have an abundance of evidence from antiquity.

In the earliest story of Jesus, the author claimed through his main characater, that the JEWS must repent because the Kingdom of GOD was at hand.

Not the ROMANS--Not Tiberius--Not Pilate--Not the Roman soldiers--Not the Roman people.

The Jews must repent for the Kingdom of God was nigh.

The earlist story of Jesus was written because the AUTHOR HIMSELF/HERSELF BELIEVED that the Day of Judgement was about to happen.

The coming of the Kingdom of God is found in the Words of the Lord in the book of Daniel.

It was the AUTHOR who BELIEVED the Words of the LORD in Daniel.

Daniel 7 KJV

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13 I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

14 And there was given him........... a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away , and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed..

The Jesus character in the earliest story is the Son of Man in the book of Daniel.

[u]Mark 14.61-62

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.... Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? 62 And Jesus said , I am : and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

The AUTHOR of the earliest story did directly mention the book of Daniel.

[u]Mark 13.14 KJV[u]

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But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand ,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains..

Daniel 11:31 KJV

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And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate...

After the Fall of the Temple and the desolation of Jerusalem the AUTHOR of gMark BELIEVED the day of Judgement would soon follow.

Mark 13.24-26

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But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened , and the moon shall not give her light, 25 And the stars of heaven shall fall , and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken . 26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.

Daniel 7.13 KJV

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I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him..

Joel 2:31 KJV

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The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come .

We know what started the Jesus story.

It was the Desolation of the Temple and the Holy City and the Words of the Lord in the books of the Prophets.

Joel 2 KJV

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1 Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble : for the day of the LORD cometh , for it is nigh at hand................. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come .

32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered.....

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06-15-2013, 08:02 AM	#155
Jaybees Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Hawaii Posts: 9,233	It was all a race between Zoroastrianism and Xtianity. If the Persians had conquered the Romans, the former "exclusive" monotheism would now be the world's most popular superstition.

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