mountainman

It is not just theory -- there are ancient historical citations
to indicate that people actually thought this way in the
fourth and fifth centuries ...

"I will speak the words too of offence.
Of His own Flesh was the Lord Christ discoursing to them;
Except ye eat, He says, the Flesh of the Son of Man
and drink His Blood, ye have no Life in you:
the hearers endured not the loftiness of what was said,
they imagined of their unlearning
that He was bringing in cannibalism.

This is an unofficial description of a heresy which appears
to have been widespread in the fifth century, and documented
by the author Nestorius.

The heretics are nothing more than people laughing at Jesus.
The heretics are satirising the sacraments.
To cement this canabilistic notion one only needs to start
reading the NT apocryphal book called ...

Acts of Andrew and Matthias (Matthew)
From "The Apocryphal New Testament"
M.R. James-Translation and Notes
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924

Here the christian apostles travel to the Land of the Canibals.

Its a bit like Gulliver's Travels and Homer together.
Epic journeys to far away places.
Even to the deep dark and malevolent Land of the Canibals.

Thousands of souls are being eaten every day on the island.
But all that becomes unimportant when a christian apostle gets stuck there.
While thousands are killed around him the christian apostle steadfastly prays.
Days and weeks pass. The apostle prays and closes his eyes while
thousands are taken to their death. How helpful is this apostle
to the people in need?

But wait!

An Exciting rescue missions is attempted and carried out.
The christian apostle takes an unusual priority.
God takes an active hand.
Jesus is the pilot of a water taxi and helps with transport.
Jesus is presented as an able sailor.
He has the latest little boat.
Twin angels in the back.
Goes like a rocket.
He says to the busy apostles,
and to the entranced reader ......

"Welcome Aboard" !!

A little later on while they were at sea ....

Jesus ordered three loaves to be brought
and Andrew summoned his disciples to partake;
but they could not answer him,
for they were disturbed with the sea.

The author implies that the christian apostles were sea-sick!

ApostateAbe

I put the sentence in bold for the benefit of aa5874 who has a little trouble with comprehension, not to make a claim of certainty. I don't think of the issue in terms of embarrassment. That would be the wrong word. I think of it in terms of bias. And it is applied in both history and our daily lives. I have used it in my own historical research. You trust the US Army soldier who claims that no Modoc Indians were killed in a battle over Captain Jack's Stronghold more than the US Army soldier who claims that several Modocs were killed. If you don't know what embarrasses gospel authors, then maybe think of it in terms of bias instead. The gospel authors make their biases clear in their writings. They give defenses, they condemn, they cite the Old Testament Bible passages that they claim were fulfilled prophecies, they give moral lessons, they make clear their friends and their enemies in their storytelling.

ApostateAbe

So Jerome says Jesus had no brothers. It may help to give the date and place Jerome was alive and see if your argument still makes any sort of sense.

Toto

Shouting does not help comprehension.
Then why do you include neutral claims? How can this test you use distinguish between fact and fantasy?

But they don't seem to have made it clear whether they were engaged in storytelling or historical writing or something else, leaving modern scholars to puzzle over that.

aa5874

But, why do you think that today, the 21st century, you have a better understanding than Jerome about the relatives of Jesus.

Once James was the son of the sister of the mother of Jesus and Joseph was not the father of Jesus, then James was not the brother of Jesus regardless of who or when it was written.

If it is true that Jesus did exist, his father is unknown, the church writers claimed that Joseph was not his father but the Holy Ghost of God.

Your claim, in the 21st century, 1700 years after Jerome, that Joseph was the father of Jesus is likely to be false, so also is your claim that Jesus had a brother called James.

arnoldo

So is this all just an exercise in mental self-stimulation?

ApostateAbe

Different people have different ways of communication.
Things that are written in passing, that are written seemingly without the intent to persuade the reader of a certain claim, are the implicit claims that can be trusted as authentic. I'll give you an example to make this method more clear. A passage that is very important to my understanding of Jesus and early Christianity is 2 Peter 3:3-8. It reads,

³First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. ⁴They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." ⁵But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. ⁶By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. ⁷By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. ⁸But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

You can very readily understand the argument that the writer of this passage is making. The point is that the delay in the coming of Jesus does not make a failed prophecy, because God has a different way of reckoning time. That is the explicit bias of the author. But the author makes a sort of accidental admission: that there were people who ridiculed Christians for believing a man who made prophecies with an expired time limit. This was apparently well-known to Christians of the time or there would be no need for this Christian author to make a defense against the attack.

Well maybe that illustrates contrary bias, not neutral bias. For neutral bias, I might point to this passage, Philippians 1:

¹Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,
To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons:

It is the opening header of the epistle. The implication is that there were Christians living in Philippi. It is a neutral claim, and there is no reason to doubt it for the biases of Paul.

And this method becomes important for a verse you have already seen, Galations 1:19.

But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lord's brother.

Strange, I think it is clear what the gospels are, and I don't know which modern scholars puzzle over that difficulty. The gospels are biographies of Jesus written by Christians with the intent to evangelize for Christianity. Perhaps you can read the first passage in the gospel of Luke:

¹Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, ²just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. ³Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, ⁴so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

Toto

But we know that there was a literary genre of epistles in the Roman empire at this time, and writers deliberately added realistic sounding details.

But there is no particular reason to think it must represent historical fact.

The intent to evangelize for Christianity is clear, but that seems to override the biographical claim.

Romans of the period wrote "biographies" of famous men and also of gods and mythological figures. Which was Jesus?

ApostateAbe

The New Testament writings are evidently not intended to be fictional literature, and I would again refer you to the opening passage of the gospel of Luke.
Maybe there is a misunderstanding. The opening header makes clear that the epistle is a letter apparently written to the Christians in Philippi. If the letter was written to the Christians in Philippi, then there are Christians in Philippi. That is the method of using neutral bias to determine that there were Christians living in Philippi. It follows that the idea that there were Christians living in Philippi is a historical fact.
Jesus was a man, not necessarily a "famous" man, but he was at the center of the Christian religion, and his character evolved into a god with the development of the religion. I don't know how you would prefer to classify that, but that is apparently what the gospels are. Again, read the opening passage of the gospel of Luke.

aa5874

Well, if that is the case Jesus was the offspring of the Holy Ghost as found in gMatthew 1.18.

Your claim that Jesus was just a man must then be false.

According to New Testament writings, evidently not intended to be fiction, as you have claimed, Jesus transfigured, resurrected and ascended through the clouds.

You evidently wrote fiction when you claimed Jesus was just a man. Jesus was God and man conceived by the Holy Ghost of God according to New Testament writings.