Freethought & Rationalism Archive

rlogan · 11-12-2003, 12:19 PM

Vinnie - you gave a citation here:

"Crossan presents some pretty strong arguments on pp. 533-555 of The Birth of Christianity"

I have Crossan's book The Historical Jesus. Mine has 505 pages. Was that citation for a differrent Crossan book?

Thanks.

I see you've replied. I had a second question that followed from my original. If they did not know where the tomb was then what is stated in the gospels is myth. Along with so much else.

If no tomb was known then the point of homage is the site of crucifiction. There is no homage. Nothing.

It is not a flimsy foundation when it rests upon a complete lack of contemproary references to Jesus who was supposedly speaking before multitudes. It rests on the inconsistencies in the accounts.

Yes, it is difficult to argue the negative. But we have no positive evidence he existed in the first place - and the one thing that would prove it beyond doubt is....missing.

The brutal nature is all the more reaon to pay homage. Martyrdome. See what he did for us? We shall never forget.

Vinnie · 11-12-2003, 12:27 PM

Yuri, Bernard has an article up n the Great Omission:

http://www.concentric.net/~Mullerb/appf.shtml

I'll read it later. This site is like a free HJ book. I'm gonna have to explore it a little.

I noticed on the main page Bernard argued along a similar vein as I am attempting to do so here:

Quote:

In the gospels (and some other N.T. writings), we have "down to earth", anecdotal and "against the grain" bits & pieces. They are without any suspicious & "unreliable" features and make a lot of sense on a human, social, cultural & historical standpoint. But how can we be sure of their truthfulness? Could these insertions be outright inventions?

But if it is the case:
- Why give Jesus four brothers and at least two sisters (Mk6:3), rather than emphasize his uniqueness?
- Why start his public life right after the arrest of John the Baptist, who attracted a much larger audience: "The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him [John]" (Mk1:5a)?
- Why have Jesus declare "among those born of women there is no one greater than John [the Baptist]" (Lk7:28a/Mt11:11a)?
- Why base him among the uneducated villagers of Capernaum, his new home (Mt4:13), a poor town in Galilee?
- Why bother to have him get a "mother-in-law" (Mk1:30) out of bed?
- Why give him a few uneducated fishermen (Mk1:16-20, Ac4:13) as his main followers?
- Why have him say: "you are worth more than many sparrows" (Lk12:7/Mt10:31)?
- Why tell of his family wanting "to take charge of him" and saying: "he is out of his mind" (Mk3:21)?
- Why should the disciples be "questioning what the rising from the dead meant" (Mk9:10), after they allegedly saw an alive Moses?
- Why would the resurrection of Jairus' daughter be kept secret: "But He commanded them [disciples & parents] strictly that no one should know it" (Mk5:42b-43a) and the disciples be "strictly warned ... that they should tell no one about Him [as being the Christ!]" (Mk8:30)?
- Why write "Now as the people were in expectation, and all reasoned in their hearts about John [the Baptist], whether he was the Christ or not" (Lk3:15)?
- Why relate, after John's execution, ""Who do people say that I am?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah"" (Mk8:27b-28a), when Christ is set far above John (and John himself as Elijah: Mk9:12-13)?
- Why have Jesus disowned by his companions and crucified, charged as "king of the Jews" (Mk15:26), for Gentile Christians?
- Why would the most reliable early manuscripts of Mark's gospel end as such: "... And they [the women who allegedly witnessed the empty tomb] said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." (Mk16:8), and with no reappearance?

Many of these points, and a lot of other ones, were certainly not meant to support Jesus as the Son of God, Lord or Christ (Anointed One). And some of them were troublesome for the early Christian writers/preachers:
Paul in 1Co1:23 "but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles."
However, these many overlooked pieces of data shed a lot of light on the real Jesus and many of them tend to represent him as just a man in the context of his times, as I postulated earlier. Furthermore, and somewhat unexpected, the resulting overall picture of this "Jesus" fits too well together to be easily dismissed, as I will show later on.

Thoughts from a mythicist of HJ agnostic?

Vinnie

Vinnie · 11-12-2003, 12:36 PM

""""""""""Vinnie - you gave a citation here:
"Crossan presents some pretty strong arguments on pp. 533-555 of The Birth of Christianity"
I have Crossan's book The Historical Jesus. Mine has 505 pages. Was that citation for a differrent Crossan book?
Thanks."""""""""""

Yeah, the name of the book is The Birth of Christianity. I didn't mean he gave them of the birth of Christianity (notice my letters were capitalized = book title) even though he does that. I meant he raised strong arguments against the tomb story on those pages of his book--The Birth of Christianity.

Quote:

I see you've replied. I had a second question that followed from my original. If they did not know where the tomb was then what is stated in the gospels is myth. Along with so much else.

Myth does not neccessarily mean non-historical. At any rate, I've already agree that a large part of the setting was created by the evangelists. How much material was created is hard to determine. It was my argument that Jesus conducting a ministry to Jews was not created though.

"""""""If no tomb was known then the point of homage is the site of crucifiction. There is no homage. Nothing. """""""""

1) There is in reality no indication Paul did not do this.
2) When did Christians start paying homage and visiting the site of the crucifixion and/or the alleged tomb? Earliest attestation?

3) You still have not even looked at my thoughts on crucifixion and the embarrassing fact of Jesus' death to his followers.. Its not as simple as "everyone believed Jesus walked out of the tomb".

At any rate, I'm going to try to email a few scholars a question about veneration of the tomb//crucifixion later tonight and see what they have to say.

""""""""""It is not a flimsy foundation when it rests upon a complete lack of contemproary references to Jesus who was supposedly speaking before multitudes. It rests on the inconsistencies in the accounts. """"""""""

Do you knoiw anything at all about scholarly projection of the populations of the time period? On the large scale, Jesus was a nobody--no more or less important than the two criminals he was supposedly crucified next to.

Vinnie

rlogan · 11-12-2003, 01:44 PM

Thank you for answering Vinnie. Yes, I do have scholarly works that discuss the populations at the time. I mentioned one of them.

Yes, I did look at your argument about the cross being an embarassment. I just do not agree. I made a counterargument that the martyrdome aspect is even stronger.

It is rather convenient to dismiss the bible where you don't like it, but rely on it elsewhere. That is very poor methodology. Speaking before the multitudes is yet again something from the gospel. You just can't interpret everything in your favor. If that was also myth, then the pile is just getting deeper. Relying on anything else becomes more and more tenuous.

It does not follow that Jesus having a "ministry to Jews" from the accounts you provide makes it any more believable that he existed at all.

Toto · 11-12-2003, 01:53 PM

Peter Kirby has two books by Loisy online:

The Birth of the Christian Religion

The Origins of the New Testament

Toto · 11-12-2003, 02:09 PM

Previous threads on the meaning of the lack of early veneration of the empty tomb (I'm burned out on the topic.)

The truth about the empty tomb

Messianic memoralbilia

and there is a lot of discussion in this thread starting aroung page 3, if you can get past the formatting problems and a lot of other distractions:

Paul's Evildoings (started by Radorth)

Toto · 11-12-2003, 02:13 PM

There is an interesting explanation of the Great Omission in this article:

By land an by Sea: The We-Passages and Ancient Sea Voyages

Vinnie · 11-12-2003, 07:24 PM

Quote:

It does not follow that Jesus having a "ministry to Jews" from the accounts you provide makes it any more believable that he existed at all.

On a historical level the overall treatment shows this rather easily and without equivocation. But since you stated that I am merely "picking and choosing" what I want to believe out of the Gospels I wouldn't expect you to be able to see whether or not the argument is legitament on historical grounds.

You accuse me of having a "poor methodology" but I will say that my arguments do not consist of refuting a composite Jesus created through a conscious merging of all four and only those four contradictory canonical Gospels whom I doubt any genuine critical histoical Jesus scholars would actually endorse. My methodology allows me not to knock down such straw men and evaulaute a more realistic portrait of Jesus.

Vinnie

Vinnie · 11-12-2003, 07:30 PM

Toto, I skimmed the link. If there was no veneration of the spot of the crucifixion in the second century as you suggested then I take it the mythicist argument in here fails entirely.

That is the reason why I asked when Christian veneration of the spot and tomb started. Unless all the Gospe4ls are dated to the 2d century (which is entirely unreasonable!) then the argument fails.

Toto, which link were you referring to when you said this:

"I have produced scholarly work saying the tomb was not venerated in the first or second centuries, that Christians deliberately did not venerate holy places."?

Vinnie

Vinnie · 11-12-2003, 08:02 PM

Quote:

At any rate, I'm going to try to email a few scholars a question about veneration of the tomb//crucifixion later tonight and see what they have to say.

I decided to put that on hold for now...until someone shows me common Christian veneration of the spots in 2d century literature or explains why its lack in 2d century literature does not undercut the argument from Pauline silence as I believe it does.

At any rate. I forgot about Josephus!

"He won over many of the Jew and many of the Greeks".

Can one argue that a Christian did not interpolate this since anyone who's read the Gospels and Paul (which became popular and official at the end of the 2d century) knows that Jesus did not conduct a ministry to Gentiles? But coming from Josephus in 90 a.d. this is much more explainable.

Then at the end Josephus writes in surprise (thats how I understnad it--how else can it be taken?) that the tribe named after him still had not expired! His audience might not have expected a crucified criminal to have instigated such a large following!!!

I never thought Josephus had an accurate line of transmission at this time anyway. Just expressing outsider common knowlegde after the Gentile movement was well underway. Thats why the shorter reference which mentions James is more important.

As PK notes on his site, there is a reason for believing Jospehus would have obtained valid info regarding James!

Damn, I might be getting a 2 for 1 out of this one

Somebody shoot me down before my head gets too big over here

Vinnie

11-12-2003, 12:19 PM	#51
rlogan Banned Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Alaska Posts: 9,159	Crossan Citation? Vinnie - you gave a citation here: "Crossan presents some pretty strong arguments on pp. 533-555 of The Birth of Christianity" I have Crossan's book The Historical Jesus. Mine has 505 pages. Was that citation for a differrent Crossan book? Thanks. I see you've replied. I had a second question that followed from my original. If they did not know where the tomb was then what is stated in the gospels is myth. Along with so much else. If no tomb was known then the point of homage is the site of crucifiction. There is no homage. Nothing. It is not a flimsy foundation when it rests upon a complete lack of contemproary references to Jesus who was supposedly speaking before multitudes. It rests on the inconsistencies in the accounts. Yes, it is difficult to argue the negative. But we have no positive evidence he existed in the first place - and the one thing that would prove it beyond doubt is....missing. The brutal nature is all the more reaon to pay homage. Martyrdome. See what he did for us? We shall never forget.

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11-12-2003, 01:44 PM	#54
rlogan Banned Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Alaska Posts: 9,159	Thank you for answering Vinnie. Yes, I do have scholarly works that discuss the populations at the time. I mentioned one of them. Yes, I did look at your argument about the cross being an embarassment. I just do not agree. I made a counterargument that the martyrdome aspect is even stronger. It is rather convenient to dismiss the bible where you don't like it, but rely on it elsewhere. That is very poor methodology. Speaking before the multitudes is yet again something from the gospel. You just can't interpret everything in your favor. If that was also myth, then the pile is just getting deeper. Relying on anything else becomes more and more tenuous. It does not follow that Jesus having a "ministry to Jews" from the accounts you provide makes it any more believable that he existed at all.

11-12-2003, 01:53 PM	#55
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Peter Kirby has two books by Loisy online: The Birth of the Christian Religion The Origins of the New Testament

11-12-2003, 02:09 PM	#56
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Previous threads on the meaning of the lack of early veneration of the empty tomb (I'm burned out on the topic.) The truth about the empty tomb Messianic memoralbilia and there is a lot of discussion in this thread starting aroung page 3, if you can get past the formatting problems and a lot of other distractions: Paul's Evildoings (started by Radorth)

11-12-2003, 02:13 PM	#57
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	There is an interesting explanation of the Great Omission in this article: By land an by Sea: The We-Passages and Ancient Sea Voyages

11-12-2003, 07:30 PM	#59
Vinnie Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Waterbury, Ct, Usa Posts: 6,523	Toto, I skimmed the link. If there was no veneration of the spot of the crucifixion in the second century as you suggested then I take it the mythicist argument in here fails entirely. That is the reason why I asked when Christian veneration of the spot and tomb started. Unless all the Gospe4ls are dated to the 2d century (which is entirely unreasonable!) then the argument fails. Toto, which link were you referring to when you said this: "I have produced scholarly work saying the tomb was not venerated in the first or second centuries, that Christians deliberately did not venerate holy places."? Vinnie

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