jdboy

The oppression was not Rome it was the zealots that had made the temple exclusive, a den of thieves. The government of Vespasian was the jewish messiah trying to end the zealot oppression. Jesus represented that government. It was Titus that made a triumphal entry into Jerusalem

outhouse

More Gibberish? why?

jdboy

Only you can answer those questions.

For me the text of Josephus gives perspective and supports my understanding of the Jesus story.

outhouse

If we went only by Josephus, we would be blind to the man called Jesus.

jdboy

Without Josephus you are lost and everything is gibberish there is no perspective

outhouse

Welcome to the ignore list.

gurugeorge

They are corroborated in terms of the traditional chronology, and that's what I'm using (again, provisionally). "Can be made up" is not equivalent to "were made up".

But if I wasn't lying, and I started a religion on the basis of those hallucinations then those visions would be a historical datum.

Now, why would you believe I was lying? In order to believe that, you'd have to believe that it's more improbable to have visions than to lie. But that's precisely not the case. Since visions and auditory hallucinations of "gods", "spirits", etc. talking to people are phenomena that have been scientifically studied and verified, the "real thing" (i.e. people seeming to themselves to have had experiences of talking to spirits) is about equal probability, and one can go on either hypothesis.

A moment's thought should assure you that lying about visions is less common than actually having them - otherwise there would be no cachet to the lie.

i.e. unless people sometimes did have genuine visions (i.e. genuine episodes where they seemed to be talking to spirits, etc.), and unless that were a known "thing", there would be nothing impressive about a lie that one had had visions.

The only difference between now and then is that people then accepted the impressiveness and seeming reality of visionary experiences at face value, whereas now we realise they are brain farts, hallucinations, albeit of a kind distinct from psychotic episodes and the like (in that otherwise ordinary, rational people can have them).

Yes, and the problem with that is?

Once again, the evidence you present for your position of a late Paul is dependent on a lot of assumptions, and some of them don't make sense to me. I've rehearsed many times my principal objection: that writings which have a noticeable proto-Gnostic component would be fabricated at a time when "heresies" were starting to be troublesome, is a problematic notion to me. And also, see below.

Internal corroboration would do you no good anyway. That you rely on internal corroboration so much (mentioned/not mentioned) is one of the main reasons why I'm not interested in your position so much (while I'm happy that you pursue it and am always interested to see how you handle opposition).

It's a balance of probabilities thing. Visionary experiences happen, they are recorded, and some are recorded at the foundations of religion (you are ignoring my reference to Shangqing Daoism - do you think it's irrelevant because it's Chinese or something?).

Background: the notion of "gods" and "spirits" is asinine to any rational mind, no rational mind would invent such a notion, or even conceive it, unless that rational mind has had convincing experiences of things that seem to be such, and lacks the requisite degree of philosophical sophistication to question even experiences that have a strong subjective feeling of reality to them.

Furthermore, unless there were a general cultural acceptance of the validity of visions, lying that one had a vision would be a pointless exercise.

You have not even begun to answer the question, you're just rehearsing your position. Yet again.

The question is: WHY "PAUL"???

What significance does this supposedly invented character have, why does he have that particular invented biography, and why was this invented character given that specific name? Was it just a random name picked out of a hat?

Or have these sorts of questions not even occurred to you?

MrMacSon

Josephus had plenty of Jesuses to go round - 19 is the touted number.

aa5874

What?? Chronology?? Please, what chronology are you talking about?? Which "Paul" had what and when??

Please, tell us how I could determine the truth of a non-historical account?? It is most disturbing to me that you put forward the notion that non-historical events derived from visions and auditory hallucinations can be determined to be truthful.

You must know that accounts derived from visions and auditory hallucinations are completely worthless for the recovery of the past.

That is your problem. At one time you claimed that it does not matter if Paul was early or not but later claimed you were 'like Doherty'.

It matters a lot to Doherty that it is presumed the Pauline writings were early before c 66 CE.

Again, your claim is a fallacy. I make NO assumptions that the Pauline writings were LATE.

Did I not show that Acts of the Apostles does NOT mention the Pauline Corpus, does NOT acknowledge the Pauline Corpus, and does not make references to the Pauline Revealed Gospel?

It is NOT an assumption but can be seen that the Pauline Corpus was not mentioned by Acts even though he mentioned Saul/Paul over two hundred times and dedicated at least 13 chapters to the activities of Saul/Paul.

Did I not show that 2nd century writers did NOT acknowledge Paul, did NOT acknowledge that he preached Christ crucified and resurrected to the Roman Empire and did NOT acknowledge the Pauline Corpus?

What you say is completely illogical. It is precisely because there is no corroboration by the authors of the Canon that it can be easily deduced that the Pauline Corpus was unknown when the Gospels were composed.

The mere fact that the Synoptic authors have similar stories and WORD FOR WORD passages is very good evidence that fundamentally used a single source which was NOT the Pauline Corpus.

The supposed additional "details" about the post-resurrection in the Pauline Corpus was not used to enhance the Gospels.

Again, you have virtually nothing on the start of the Jesus cult but want to make presumptions about other religions of which there is really no good evidence of how they started.

We have the DSS, writings attributed to Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius and there is no evidence of Paul/Saul and a Jesus cult where a man or heavenly creature called Jesus the Christ was worshiped as a God by Jews and people of the Roman Empire in the 1st century.

What absurdity?? You openly contradict yourself. You are right now actively engaged in responding to my answers.

No, No, No!!!!

The question is WHAT STARTED CHRISTIANITY??

It was NOT the Pauline writers. They claimed they attempted to destroy the FAITH.

1 Corinthians 15:9 KJVGalatians 1 The Pauline writers did NOT start the Jesus cult. There were Christian Churches when Paul was a Persecutor.

Aristides have ANSWERED the OP 1800 years ago.

It was the BELIEF in a FABLE that God came down from heaven and was Pierced by the Jews.

Grog

And the story of Jesus ben Ananus in Jewish Wars [6.5.3] is eerily similar to the Jesus passion story.


Sources:

Mark 11
Mark 15
Matthew 27
Jewish Wars 6.5.3