Elijah

Judas of Galilee would be like the regular understanding of the messiah while the Suicide Christ would be like an anti-Judas. It’s one thing to fight not worrying about death but the whole martyr thing that Jesus supposedly started is another. Two totally different concepts originating from two different takes on what a good leader/messiah should do.

Fenris_Wulf

The problem is that when whatever personage was the historical basis was merged into the salvic Christianity there would have been a bit of recasting.
Even after a possible demilitarisation of Judas of Galilee (or other rebellious leader), there exists hints that the founder figure figure did espouse armed resistance to Rome. Even the gospels we have today aren't anywhere near Ghandiesque. So if the Jerusalem council was an offshoot of the Zealots (Paul does describe them as zealous for the law) they could still have revered Judas without going as far as the Sicaari, while Paul as the (claimed) representative of the Sadducee High priest (and possible Hasmonean?)would have had cause to persecute them. Then when he had his revelation that their leader had been the Messiah, he would recast the message according to his own Hellenised background as a salvic figure. It wasn't Judas's life as a rebel that was important, it was his sacrifice that gave redemption. In fact, his life was an embarassment to the point that Paul would never mention it.

Once again, under this scenario, you and Spin are both right.

(BTW I'm merely using Judas as an example since I wasn't convinced by Unterbrink's redating.)

Fenris_Wulf

:Cheeky: Oh, and as far as dying in battle vs Martyrdom ever heard of a place called Masaada?

aa5874

In the NT, Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus, the Messsiah, the Lord and Saviour, the son of the God of the Jews or the offspring of the Holy Ghost refer to the same creature.

I prefer to use the term "Jesus believers" to avoid the ambiguity of references to "Christians" of antiquity who may not have been followers of Jesus Christ of the NT.

If you noticed I wrote that the early church writers did not recognise any spurious letters with the name Paul. These are indications that the letters were late.

fatpie42

Are you telling me that Paul never mentions Jesus? If he mentions Jesus, does he ever use the name Jesus in regards to people he persecuted?

According to Spin (who you were responding to) Paul believes that his revelation wasn't from any human source, but was entirely divine. He takes this to mean that the specific story of Jesus's crucifixion wasn't told to Paul by human beings but was actually the supposed 'revelation from God'.

He bases this view on the following extracts from Paul's letters:
Personally, I think that these verses just show that Paul felt that his conversion had divine origin, but if Paul really only ever claims those he persecuted to believe in 'Christ' (greek word for messiah) and not 'Jesus', the specific object of devotion for Paul, then I think Spin has an interesting and compelling theory.

I'm clearly missing the point and I don't mean to be obtuse. The spurious letters in the Bible don't count because either (i) they are late or (ii) because the early church writers didn't recognise them as such.

The problem I find here is that (i) one of the best ways to decide whether a letter was likely to be written by Paul or not is how late it was written and (ii) if anyone back in the day, early church writers included, had decided that the letters were spurious, they wouldn't have made it into the Bible.

Please let me know what I'm missing here...

fatpie42

Salvation is a big topic with a variety of interpretations. Nevertheless, Paul speaks of salvation as the promise of a future resurrection into a spiritual body. I don't see how this is confusing or that it conflicts with anything else I have said.

Salvation is, of course, a specifically Christian concept (albeit with links to the concept of 'deliverance' in Judaism). However, there are theories that Dionysian ideas had a widespread influence in the period on Christian and even Jewish ideas. One of the major stories around which Dionysian worship was based involved Dionysos going through a death and resurrection.

Justin Martyr certainly saw a strong connection between Dionysus (or Bacchus in Roman religion) and the story of Jesus:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...guetrypho.html

Added later than what? Which part of the story am I expected to take as historical?

Yes I blooming well can confidently assert that the Romans did not release known murderers. The gospels claim that it was an established tradition and, once again, there's no mention of this tradition outside of the gospels, but what's more it is completely contrary to the way we know the Roman government to have acted. What we do have evidence for is Pilate saying 'yes' or 'no' to the requests for capital punishment from Rome rather than going to Jerusalem to make the decision. If Jesus is unmentioned outside the gospels and later Romans during the period of early Christianity mistakenly believe the name of the Christian saviour to be 'Christus' (presuming the Tacitus source to be genuine), how can we possibly assert that Jesus was high profile enough to cause concern for Pilate? The whole thing is absurd.

If references to prominent historical figures are late additions, doesn't that increase the likelihood that the story is wholly mythical?

I'm confused. We are told that Jesus had a huge following in Jerusalem and you want me to tell you who should have noticed? Anyone, that's who! If Jesus wasn't the focus of devotion for one of the the most popular religions of the past two millenia, you would be demanding some evidence asides from these clearly mythical scriptures.

You don't seem to realise the extent of your bias here. You seem to imagine that we cannot reasonably expect the actions of a proclaimed messiah to be recorded in Jerusalem during this time. We have accounts of several other messiahs and yet in all the documents surrounding the supposed time of Jesus' life no one mentions Jesus. Considering this complete absence of corroborating evidence, you still want to insist that Jesus was a real person. Why?

Elijah

You are comparing two totally different understandings of the messiah. Opposites. If Judas was a sacrificial messiah he shouldn’t be known as the rebellion kind. Fighting and dying isn’t a sacrifice it’s just losing.
They don’t sacrifice themselves. They choose to kill themselves instead of letting the Romans do it after trying to hold them off. You can’t generalize what Jesus did with everyone who died because of their religious beliefs. Generalizing his act isn’t going to help you understand why that act had such an impact.

Elijah

How salvation was achieved would explain the message being preached and how it was confused for a historical figure. It’s not confusing it just doesn’t look thought out on what you are suggesting if you don’t understand the nature of the salvation or how it was achieved.
So it’s just speculation on the nature of Dionysos’ understanding of salvation?

The Justin passage doesn’t relate the nature of the salvation that Bacchus is involved with to Jesus.
What is historically possible for you. If you have a problem with Pilate being there then feel free to assume it’s a later legend added in. All I concern myself with is the self sacrifice and getting your followers to try and do the same that spread the message, everything else is irrelevant to me.
I just don’t think you have any way to know that with any certainty. We just don’t have enough information about 2000 years ago and that situation to make claims like that.
Not if the exact history of the actual man is unknown and needs to be filled in with names they do know, but you would need to show they were later additions.
Again. A list of names and texts that you think should have mentioned Jesus. It’s an unreasonable expectation to think that Jesus should have been mentioned more than he was in other texts if you can’t produce the texts he should have been mentioned in. I don’t think it’s my bias here, I think you’re just repeating the evidence mantra around here without examining if there really is a lack of evidence of Jesus or just a lack of evidence all together from that time and area.

spin

Here again is what Paul says on the subject:

11 .. I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. 12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

and further

15 .. God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased 16 to reveal His Son to me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles

Does this or does this not say that "Paul states that Jesus was revealed to him by god"? Where is the interpretation here?

You give the impression that if you believed that the world was flat, you'd refuse to look photographs take of the earth from space.

After your inability to say anything meaningful in several months about your unsupported stuff about a historical core to the Jesus traditions, your display of total incomprehension as to the significance of what Paul said in Galatians -- as I have clearly demonstrated to others, given their comments here -- only topped off you dismal performance.

We await the next recitation of your "I know nothing about history but I believe in an unevidenced historical core hypothesis and I refuse to understand any other hypothesis" show.

:wave:


spin

aa5874

I am telling you that the writer called Paul used the words Jesus, Christ, Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus, the son of God and our Lord and Saviour hundreds of time referring to the same creature.

It really is not known what the writer called Paul believed except by speculation. The writer may have not believed a single word he wrote, maybe the writer only wanted to his readers to believe what was written.

Now tell me when did the writer called Paul believe those things you think he believed? In the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th century?



A theory is not really compelling based on "feelings".

The writer called Paul referred to the same creature as Jesus, Christ, Jesus Christ and Christ Jesus. In the NT, Jesus is called son of man, son of David or one of the prophets.

I don't have to write "fatpie42" everytime I refer to you.