aa5874

There is no evidence that Jesus was hailed as a messiah, in the first place, and there is no extra-biblical source that confirms there must have been a small group that thought Jesus was the messiah.

All that is known from extant extra-biblical writings is that virtually all contemporary writers did not notice the events in the NT, with respect to Jesus, his mutitude of followers and his teachings.

GakuseiDon

The secret hidden in scriptures is that Jesus's death and resurrection had significance to the Gentiles. Paul seems to feel that this secret was revealed to him personally by revelation and reading the scriptures. The implication is that this was something not considered by the Christians earlier than Paul.

Who has been making that argument??? Or do you mean "earthly before death and heavenly afterwards"?

Now, this is where it gets interesting. Saying that Paul is using figurative language when he makes statements that place Jesus on earth, or that those statements are interpolations makes obvious that Paul, as we have his epistles today, makes statements placing Jesus on earth. Thus the claim that some mythicists make that Paul "doesn't place Jesus on earth" would seem to be incorrect, at least without the footnote "(assuming all those statements where Paul places Jesus on earth are figurative or interpolation)", which you don't usually see. They can claim that people are assuming that certain statements are not interpolations, or they can claim that people are assuming that certain statements are being taken at their face reading rather than figuratively. But what they can't say is that Paul's epistles, as we have them today, shows that he thought that Jesus was purely a heavenly being, and that people are just assuming that Paul regarded Jesus as historical. That claim is doing those people a disservice. The onus is on the mythicist to show how figurative language or interpolation makes better sense than the face reading.

Reading Paul as we have his epistles today, it seems more than reasonable to conclude that he regarded Jesus as historical. That is the default. Claiming interpolations and figurative language for statements not generally thought as such is not the default (until such claims are validated). The onus is on the mythicist.

I think the most reasonable approach is to compare with the literature of the time. Are there references to where the earthly myths of the gods are enacted in a "fleshly sublunar realm" or "spiritual realm"? No, none AFAIK. How about someone who is a descendent of a historical person but is purely heavenly? Again, none. And so on. Perhaps not conclusive proof, but it gives weight if you want to determine plausibility.

Minimalist

Look, I said I was sorry because you were right. If someone called me a "christian" I would regard it as a vile insult. I've already been called everything under the sun by Jesus' more rabid followers (they aren't big on this 'turn-the-other-cheek crap' ) so "satanist" might be an improvement.


And if other sources can support it, that's fine. But I don't believe in Osiris because the Book of the Dead mentions his name. Religious writing is not history.

Perhaps you have never run into them, and good for you if you haven't, but there are a lot of people out there who loudly proclaim that EVERY WORD of the OT and NT, is literally true. From water covering Mt Everest during the Flood to Jesus bringing back people from the dead. If you're interested in a specimen I can easily direct you.

Then why didn't Josephus mention him in his litany of people who were justly killed by the Romans for stirring things up? For a long time I considered Jesus to have been, at best, a composite character drawn from the folk legends about actual rebels. That really just doesn't work though. There are too many flaws in the story and the whole Passion thing reads like a bad screenplay with various plot devices inserted to move the action along, (i.e., why was Pilate in Jerusalem for Passover? Answer: the authors needed him for the supposed trial. Pilate would have had no official function at Passover. As a gentile he couldn't even enter the temple and his presence would only serve to remind the crowd that the last time their temple had been defiled it was by the Roman general, Gnaeus Pompey. Pilate, as a prefect, had no significant military force at his disposal. Had trouble broken out he would have had to call the legions from Syria....as had happened before. Want to make the Jews look bad? Invent a story where they demand Barabbas (bar abbas meaning son of the father) be released and declare that it was a tradition for the Romans to release a prisoner. Where did that come from? There is no historical substantiation. And so on. Textual criticism is fine but how about a little logical criticism to go with it?

We agree....although I think that a case can be made that, as Mark had ignored the birth while declaring Jesus to be a man, later gospel writers were pressed to fill in some of the blanks in the story. This they did....and they did not agree on those details in so doing.

Personally, had I just been stabbed multiple times I doubt that I would have made any pithy statements at all. I don't put too much stock in the statements that ancient writers put into the mouths of their subjects. The idea of the "speech" was a well-worn mechanism to convey certain points in the text. When Livy writes that "Fabius Maximus mounted the rostrum and spoke thusly to the senate..." it is safe to assume that Fabius said no such thing. When it comes to Jesus, though, we are expected to believe that there were legions of stenographers following him around writing down everything he said verbatim. Please.

Shakespeare has as much claim to validity as the other two....and better drama.

spamandham

As far as I know, your hypothesis is not disproven by any evidence, but it does not seem the simplest explanation to me, even though of late I´ve started to suspect that Christianity did not exist in any form resembling what we know prior to the resettlement of the Jews after the Hadrianic war.

spamandham

I think this needs more exploration. Romans 16:


25Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past,

26but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith;

How is this the revelation to the gentiles of a mystery regarding Jesus' death and resurrection? The mystery was kept secret for long ages past according to Paul. How could the gentile mission be a mystery hidden from long ages past? Paul is referring to something else, I think. A straightforward read of this is that Paul's gospel itself is the revealed message.

Does anyone really disagree that Paul uses language that would place Jesus on earth, if read literally? The entire introduction of Romans 1 is filled with such language. The mythicist position, as I understand it, claims that such language, to the extent it is not disputed to be authentic, is figurative rather than literal. I'm not a mythicist, so I'm certainly not going to argue this point, I'm just trying clarify my understanding of the mythicist position.

I would think that determining whether or not a passage/phrase was added later would be of interest to all, not just mythcists. But, I agree that it's up to the mythicists to explain why the uncontested passages make more sense as figurative language, assuming that is in fact their claim.

I can certainly understand this perspective, but Paul also makes statements that act as fodder for mythicism, so the overall picture seems muddled and far from conclusive.

I'm more inclined to simply conclude that Paul was insane, or his writings were so molested by later copyists that we'll probably never be able to figure out his position.

Chris Weimer

But can history be extracted from it? That's the point. The Book of the Dead doesn't even purport to be anything akin to history, so using it is a strawman.

This is what I mean - you take the gospels as "literal, gospel truth" and of course you can knock it down. That's not hard. Scholarship had moved on from such pettiness hundreds of years ago. During the 18th century, scholarship first moved into denying the divinity of Jesus, and finding explanations for the miracles. Afterwards, it moved into describing everything as "myth". In modern scholarship, there are the types of higher criticism - form criticism, source criticism, redaction criticism, supported by lower criticism - i.e. textual criticism.

No thank you. I have them on ignore. I'm interested in scholarship, so when you come in here and think that the whole game is about you and your petty dispute with people who obviously have a mental deficiency, you only make yourself look just as bad as them. You don't fight apologetics with apologetics, but that's what you're engaging in.

Why does he have to? Josephus isn't perfect - he's hardly a great source either. While he does contain history, and since his sources were nearer to the time he was writing about, and he himself was a participant in the war he writes about, he can hardly be trusted, but must be critically evaluated, as it has been shown over and over again that he's a propagandist and distorts the truth. You can see so much by comparing accounts of the same subject matter in his Antiquities and Jewish War. Steve Mason's recent work on the subject is enlightening.

1. Do you have any evidence for your assertions?

2. The example of Barabbas is yet again another example of your failure to leave the "gospel mindset" behind. If you can't operate on the scholarly level, why are you even bothering?

Did Mark actually "ignore" it? Your reasons for him doing so are quite non sequitur. Plenty of births of mere men have been discussed. Moreover, what's your point?

Yes, you can discern when authors are using a literary device - but why haven't you relegated the whole story to myth like you did for the Jesus story? Same problems, same concerns, different treatment? Isn't that a bit...hypocritical?

Even since Shakespeare got his from the other two, he's still has as much validity? Try arguing that in any academic circle, Classics, English, or Biblical, and you'll be laughed out of the establishment. Publish that in a paper and the only people who'll accept you are the post-modernists (but they'll accept anyone).

GakuseiDon

I'm not sure if we differ here. The secret isn't Jesus's death and resurrection, the secret is the implication that the Gentiles are the heirs to the promise given by God through that death and resurrection.

Just before your quote from Rom 16, we see in Rom 15:

Rom 15:8 Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, 9 and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy, as it is written:
"For this reason I will confess to You among the Gentiles, And sing to Your name."
10 And again he says:
"Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people!"
11 And again:
"Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles! Laud Him, all you peoples!"
12 And again, Isaiah says:
"There shall be a root of Jesse; And He who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, In Him the Gentiles shall hope."

That's the secret that Paul has found in scriptures and is proclaiming.

Yes, some mythicists seem to believe this. At least, they state that "Paul isn't aware of Jesus as a person on earth", or similar. Other mythicists don't, however.

I'd be interested in getting them to clarify this, also.

spamandham

[QUOTE=GakuseiDon;4524670]Paul is definitely speaking of his gentile mission in the section of the letter leading up to the part where he speaks of his revealed mystery, and he is using Jewish scriptural references to justify it, but I don't see this as indicating that the revealed mystery is "go teach Jesus to the gentiles." Instead, I see the lead up as justification for teaching the revelation of the mystery to the gentiles. The revealed mystery that is being taught to the gentiles does not seem to me to be "go teach Jesus to the gentiles", but rather, some other revealed mystery.

I think Paul tells us what mystery he is referring to in 1 Corinthians 15:

50I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

I think Paul's gospel is the message of resurrection. He refers again to his revelation in 2 Corinthians 12, and in that context, there is no discussion of a gentile mission.

Spanky

O.K., I just spent probably around an hour reading this whole thread. Why? Because I like to learn. In my readings I have come to the conclusion that the only thing reliable that points us to an historical jesus are the unreliable gospels/epistles.

12 pages of endless quibbles:frown: , 50 derails:frown: , personal attacks:frown: , putting people down:frown: , comparing this subject as only between the "learned and unlearned,":frown: appeals to authority:frown: , appeals to ones personal (lofty) knowledge:frown: , and frankly, downright ugly discourse:frown: . And to what conclusion can we arrive? At none.:frown:

I know this can be a derail in and of itself but come on, people, we can do better than this. This is a subject (if jesus was historical) that NO ONE, no, not one knows the definitive answer to. So, with that in mind maybe we can have a more civil discussion.

Nay, but instead of having good, sound, meaty discussions it seems like the only response we get is a JM versus HJ mentality. You know, us against them. IN THIS CORNER, WEIGHING IN AT 170 POUNDS, WE HAVE THE HJ'ers (insert your names). . .AND IN THIS CORNER WE HAVE, etc. etc. It seems we crawl into our own corners and bunker down, and through this mentality all arguments ensue. This is not nor should this be a creationist/evolutionist type debate. This should be simply, DID HE EXIST?


I believe everyone that frequents this area has done their share of studying in a tedious, unfruitful, subject matter. With that in mind do you think it is bad thing to listen to what they have to say? Because they think differently about this subject than us? Are there really just "learned and unlearned." Or is it really just "my corner vs. your corner." If you disagree with someone, than tell them, then, tell them why. Don't attack them and call them tinfoilers than run back to your corner. Don't appeal to authority, to historians, to scholars--they're just as human as I am, I can study the same texts they have, I can read the same books they have, I can come up with my own conclusions also. Also, if you don't have patience with other peoples knowledge or lack thereof than don't respond. . .PERIOD. As Paul said in the epistle (I don't remember which one) "what do you know that has not been taught to you, or you have that has not been given to you?"

There is no need to reply to my post. I just request, from the bottom of my being, that some of you would conduct yourselves in a manner that is becoming to a "group" of people (a forum) and that such a subject matter as this would be discussed civilly, openly, honestly, patiently, and in a way that we can all add to our knowledge.

Thank you for listening to my little rant!:wave:

Anduin

And Forrest Gump met JFK and Nixon... :devil1: