Solo

As I indicated in another thread, I have come to believe that 16:8 is the final verse in the authentic Mark. My main reason is that the 16:8 "silence" of the women matches the 9:10 silence of the three transfiguration witnesses (So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what the rising from the dead meant.). -

There were two kinds of "resurrection" concepts circulating in Jesus circles at the time of Mark. One coming from the Paulines, the other from the Petrine succession.

Paul believed in the resurrection in the Phariseic sense, meaning actual revival after physical death and the permanent acquisition of the transfigured body of Christ (2 Cr 3:18). The Petrines (and the historical Jesus, if he existed) denied such resurrection existed (1 Cr 15:12-19). Instead Jesus preached the coming of the kingdom through judgment, and initiated his following into the mysteries of the kingdom, which was to happen right here, on the earth. The process of initiation was known as "raising from the dead", and the Jesus cultic practice was probably familiar with the revivalism at Qumran and likely interpreted the traditions of Jonah and Hosea 6:2. As the saying "let the dead bury their dead" indicates, one kind of the "dead" were only dead metaphorically, in a cultic sense of being unrepentant spiritual deadheads. The sayings of the kingdom were to illustrate the sipritual awakeining of those who passed the test of the "baptism". (And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here ! or, lo there ! for , behold the kingdom of God is within you ! Lk 17:20-21). The followers of the earthly Jesus did not care a whit about what happened after their actual, physical decease. He who conquers , says Rev 2:11, shall not be hurt by the second death. So, Paul and the Petrine cultic Jesus following (at Corinth and elsewhere) were at loggerheads over the cornerstone of Jesus faith - whether one gets a life right here or in the after-life.

Enter Mark: he wishes to assert the Pauline resurrection in the historical setting of Jesus and his innermost circle who - still, in the second generation - deny the cross and the resurrected 2nd-time dead Jesus. So Mark creates something of Moebius strip in narration:

PART 1 - Jesus transfigures before the innermost three ("the pillars" ?). They don't get it even though they are in the presence of the transfigured Son of God. But those who read Mark - and who had a peak, NDE experience of a body dissolving in radiant light sure get it, because to them Paul defined their glorious trips and ensuing mad dances with Satan as Christ in their bodies.

PART 2 - Jesus is killed. End of story for the disciples - no belief in resurrection ! Women come to the tomb - a Pauline angel informs them : see Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified is not here. He has risen...go tell Peter and the guys (who don't get such things because to them it was not given) that Jesus will meet them in Galilee (galil hagoyim - the land of Gentiles), i.e. in the Pauline church of the Dead Man's Glory ! But the women run away in fear, and tell nothing to nobody.

But when Mark story gets around the Petrines do finally get it - guys if we are to compete against these wretched Paul uppity types we got to buy into that - the cross and all ! So they start to assert one better than Mark: Jesus did come back to show himself to Peter in flesh - sure Peter saw him first and after him 500 brothers ! You see it was Peter and not Paul who actually knew the holy man, and Paul actually persecuted us before Jesus straightened him out. Look here, Paul himself says it....1 Cr 15:3-11 ! See ???? :devil1:

Jiri

JoeWallack

The Ballad of John and Luko

JW:

Updated summary of the argument that Paul was the First to Assert that Jesus was Crucified:

Weakness of potential Historical witness evidence:

1) No extant writing by first-hand Historical witness asserting crucifixion.

2) Paul never claims Jesus' crucifixion while Contemporary to Jesus.

3) Potential second-hand Historical witness Paul, never asserts that first-hand Historical witness asserted crucifixion.

4) In the disputed Corinthians (which I think is original) Paul only says that historical witness agrees with him that Jesus died (doesn't really narrow it down, does it?). That would have been a good time to mention the crucifixion, yet not only does Paul not mention crucifixion, he phrases historical witness as opposed to him.

5) Paul does not provide any details for the crucifixion.

6) The best potential extant historical witness, Q, makes no mention of crucifixion.

7) There's an implication from Paul's letters that after he proselytizes in virgin territory, historical witness comes in to clean up his shit and convinces many that Paul is not accurately promoting Jesus. The supposed crucifixion could be part of this.

8) Paul's comment that a Christ crucified is foolishness to the Jews.

9) Subsequent Christian crucifixion Assertians seem to use Paul as a primary source.

10) The first known crucifixion narrative, in "Mark", in General has an anti-historical witness attitude and Specifically casts the best potential first-hand witness, Jesus' Disciples, as opposing the idea/prediction of Jesus' Passion, never understanding/accepting the need and not witnessing the crucifixion or subsequently promoting Jesus after.

11) There's general agreement that the ending of "Mark" showing disciples as aware of the crucifixion is Forged. The other Canonical Gospels using original "Mark" as the basic story, have differing disciple awareness of the crucifixion. This suggests that there was no historical witness of the crucifixion available to the Canonical authors.

12) Christianity is blessed with multiple Forged claims of first-hand witness to the crucifixion (I have Faith that every Ruler of the Age is covered here, Peter, Caiphais, Herod, Pilate as well as the Ending of "Mark", Amen).

13) "Mark's" related narrative is smeared with implausibility indicating a lack of historical Details.

14) Subsequent crucifixion narratives closely follow "Mark" indicating lack of available historical witness.

15) Common sense, always the best argument, tells us that if Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem it's Unlikely his movement would have been permitted to promote him in Jerusalem.

16) Statistics (most people, even than, did not die from crucifixion).

17) Possibility that Christianity censored evidence disputing crucifixion.

18) And, as the Brits say, "the cruncher":

An implication from Paul that Jesus' supposed crucifixion was disputed (thanks Spammer).

Strength of potential Revelation witness evidence:

1) Paul's emphasis in General is on Revelation as opposed to Historical witness.

2) Specifically, Paul claims the crucifixion is a Mystery understood by Revelation.

3) Paul's presumably first Epistle, 1 Thessalonians, makes No reference to Crucifixion. This suggests that at the start of Paul's Ministry he was not Asserting crucifixion because he had never been told of it either through historical witness or supposed revelation.

4) "Mark's" crucifixion narrative uses Paul's related ideas as a primary source.

5) Christian authors subsequent to Paul, including "Mark", use the Jewish Bible as a primary source for details about the crucifixion.

6) Paul may have used "crucifixion" figuratively. The means of death could have been something less such as hanging on one end (so to speak) or dying of natural causes after devoting a career to the cause on the other end.

7) Specifically, there is support in Christian and Jewish writings that Jesus was hung.

8) Paul is going away from historical witness to Gentiles who don't know Jesus. This makes it easier for Paul to say what he wants as there is no historical witness there to dispute him.

9) The better the MJ argument the greater the odds of no crucifixion.


Thus we have it on good Authority that it is Likely that Paul was the First to Assert the significance of the supposed crucifixion and Possible that Paul was the First to assert that Jesus was crucified.

I would like to see more of this type of Inventorying of assertions here at IIDB which can be used as a research and reference guide so we don't have to keep rehashing the same fershlugginer arguments based mainly on proof-texting one or a few verses.



Joseph

REVELATION, n.
A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.

cc Earl Doherty

Chili

[QUOTE=JoeWallack;5690133]
Nice twist Joe and if it makes you happy stick with it but is completely backwards. Is was in seeing Christ crucified that they had received the spirit and here Paul wonders why they returned to the flesh, which they did, and is why they were bewitched to return to the yoke of slavery and sin . . . as all witches do, always did and forever will do.

Of course the crucifixion was figurative but real nonetheless so it can be timeless in the myth.

spamandham

Although the book "Caesar's Messiah", is in general crap, it has one chapter I find compelling, which is the chapter on Constructing Jesus.

The argument goes like this: Josephus has fudged history a bit in order to demonstrate the fulfillment of the prophecies of Daniel. Jesus' ministry is set exactly 40 years prior to the fall of the temple, to symbolically parallel the 40 years in the desert prior to the inauguration of the new Jewish state - Rome.

The rest of the story, his death by crucifixion for example, is simply derived from Psalms and Isaiah. Jesus is the suffering servant. He had to die and be resurrected in order that he can come back as the conquering Messiah - which aligns with what Paul tells us; that his gospel was revealed to him via scripture, and further suggests that Paul indeed is the first to come up with the crucifixion idea.

wordy

My wild guess is that Paul and the other books are a kind of Midrash on the Jewish Bible and them a competing groups of escatologs? Millenarists or whatever. People who saw signs of the time ending and the Kingdom of God being near and they looked for evidence in the old text and they created or Christs emerged as Jesus out of the old text in the Jewish bible.

Political spin doctoring of old stories. Very effective to do such.

Between 1964??? and up to maybe 1975 or so the Political Left all over the world did the same and they created numerous competing sects that even killed politicians and planned for taking over society and they all did Midrash of the old Marxist and Maoist and Castroist texts and almost treated Che as if he was a Jesus figure.

some even prayed to Che or Mao as if they could help here and now.

I find it very likely that the same was going on during that time of our Common Era.

Humans don't change much in 2000 years. Politics is very similar still.

Sheshbazzar

I tend to agree with this view, it seems that some try too hard to pinpoint two or three sources for the NT texts we have.
Years of following up all the various ideas and themes incorporated, leads me to believe that the compositions incorporate materials from perhaps thirty or more sources, all midrashed, compiled, and edited into a (somewhat) cohesive whole, which was then under changing political circumstance, and theological strife, further interpolated, edited, and finally standardised.

I live in the Bible Belt of the Southern US, in the Appalachian foothills, and get to hear that "old time testifying" that goes on amongst family members and others, many of whom are extremely uneducated, unable to read even a single page of that Bible that is in their house, but that doesn't prevent them from getting "filled with the holy ghost" and fervently telling their own fantastic tales, to accompanying shouts of AMEN! and HALLELUIA!

I have no doubt that sans a written and standard Book, and some among them that can read it, and thus keep the rest (somewhat) "in line", it would not be long before an entirely new religion could grow up based around a folklore repetition of their "visions", "dreams", and "testimonies".
No, contact with the "outside" world gets in the way of such a thing actually taking hold (at least very often- there are some pretty wacky cults to be found back in them "hollers")
But the point being, it is quite understandable from an anthropological standpoint, how such religious movements can form, then be transformed by politics and social pressures, evolving to incorporate myriad ideas, (better to just tolerate and incorporate Uncle Jake's "testimony" and Aunt Mary's "vision", than to offend all their kin) to facilitate growth and communal support.

I believe the Bible came into being by totally natural means, oh, to be sure there were at times flashes of real insight by individuals, but regardless of supernatural claims these were all the totally natural outcomes of input.
No "god" ever actually spoke to them, or through them. Its all just one big song and dance, with the preachers as its shamans to keep it revved-up.

aa5874

Your theory that Paul was the first to assert Jesus was crucified is severely flawed.

1. If you propose that someone called Paul existed and lived in the 1st century and did start or help to start many churches, then how do you explain the reason why Paul's gospel was presented as representing the gospel of Jesus of the Synoptics, not Marcion's Jesus, the Divine only Jesus or Cerinthus' Jesus, the human only Jesus?

For your theory to be true, it would mean that every convert of the churches and the church writers completely mis-understood Paul's gospel and Paul"s Jesus.

And further, for your theory to be true, when Paul was alive and was teaching and preaching his gospel and his Jesus, Paul himself did not realise or did not care that his gospel and his Jesus were not understood.

So, when Paul told the congregation that Jesus was Spiritual, ALL the converts thought he meant Jesus was physical and Divine. And when Paul told the converts Jesus was crucified, NONE of the converts realised that the crucifixion was figurative.

If Paul really lived in the first century and was the first to assert that Jesus was crucified, it would mean that the the authors of Acts of the Apostles, and the church writers wrote complete fiction since their chronology, or history of Paul's conversion, placed it after the crucifixion, resurrection aascension of Jesus.

And therefore ALL the converts of the churches and all the pagans or skeptics did not ever read or see the Acts of the Apostles to realise the gross error. If Paul was the first then Acts and the church writers are completely in error and the converts, pagan and skeptics did ever correct or point out the errors to the author of Acts.

Now, Paul himself, as written in the NT, claimed over 500 people saw Jesus after he died annd was resurrected, now in order for your theory to be true, this information has to be rejected as an interpolation or to be given a figurative meaning, but how could this be when Paul's letters are canonised and represents the anti-Marcionite position, that is, Paul's letters are in the NT TO DESTROY the view of Marcion and Marcionites that Jesus was only Divine, not human at all, during the reign of Tiberius.

Your theory is completely flawed.

Sheshbazzar

Whch came first, the chicken or the egg?
Which came first, Acts 2:36 (Peter's) crucified Jesus, or converted Paul's crucified Jesus?
Can't be both
Anyone want some ham to go with these scrambled eggs?

aa5874

There are no scrambled eggs really with respect to Peter and Paul. There is one source for Paul, it is all apologetic.

The apologetics place Paul after Peter and place Paul after the gospel called Luke.

It has been deduced that the gospel of Luke was written after gMark or anytime after the fall of the Jewish Temple. The apologetics claim Paul died before Nero was dead, or before the fall of the Jewish Temple.

Now, if Paul was aware of gLuke, how is it he died before gLUKE was written?

It would appear the church writers wrote fiction about Paul and Peter. And there is no other credible information anywhere, it is only known that apologetics wrote fiction.

Paul when descrambled is fiction until there can be established or found some non-apologetic source that is credible unscrambled.

Sheshbazzar

Yeah, I think it is a crying shame what the church did to the record, whatever or however little it may have original consisted of, by their meddling they managed to expand it by their lies into a contradictory and ridiculous parody, so reducing it in credibility to a fraudulent farce unworthy of belief by any person of reason.

Personally I believe that there was a real Paul who did preach some form of messianic Judaism in the synagogues of the Diaspora, but barring the discovery of authentic 1st century manuscripts containing his original words, AND contemporary, independent, -non-christian- writings containing quotations that exactly cooberate each verse, nothing less will ever restore the integrity of Paul's writings.
Perhaps our extant texts do contain some authentic material, but how much? 20%? - 10%? -5%? and which? "bring my coat and my books"?

I also admit there is a very good possibility, Paul or no Paul, that every last verse of "Paul's writings" were fabricated by the christian church.
That seems to have been the opinion held by the Jewish sect of Nazarenes, and one of the reasons they were so vehemently hated by the emerging Gentile christian church.

What christianity has done to the christian NT texts has left absolutely nothing that is trustworthy enough to even hang you hat on.

Given the above, it really doesn't matter who asserts anything about Jesus or the New Testement texts, other than the fact that the story has been meddled with and corrupted, and thus a polluted and unholy thing, which no man ought ever to swallow.