Johnny Skeptic

Message to praxeus: Claims of miralces are what are most important here, not geography and who went where. The texts basically say that the disciples went about confirming the message of his grace with signs and wonders. Many Christians state that people could have checked up on New Testament claims of miracles for themselves. Of course that is correct, but how many people who checked out claims of miracles by say 70 A.D. accepted the claims, and how many people rejected the claims? Rejection of the claims by 70 A.D. might have been widespread. Is you faith built upon how many eyewitnesses there were and how many people believed them? How many claimed eyewitnesses does it take to impress you? How does one reliably verify how many people claimed to be eyewitnesses?

Steven Avery

So it was a drama, put together by an 'emergent cult' who invented their main figure, but the other figures were real, that accidentally turned into a religious movement, all this being crafted by a secret group of collaborative writers in a foreign land, who published their books sans royalties, and had nothing to gain, but one was a Yeshiva bucher of sorts, familiar with Hebraic prophetic verses, and one gal, Lucy, put together Luke/Acts and John.

I'm just trying to get a handle on your hypothesis, if it is actually meant seriously. Doing so seems very difficult. I wonder if this is par for the course in mythicist-land.

I did ask you where Paul and Peter fit in, no response. Were they historic or fictional ?

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic
Queens, NY

Steven Avery

Dunno to a lot of your questions, none of these were issues that I raised. Maybe you can find a Christian apologist who does the evidentiary miracle motif, perhaps I'm more of a presuppositionist or something.

Am I supposed to have answers to these questions ?

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Johnny Skeptic

Well yes. The texts basically say that the disciples went about confirming the message of his grace, or in this case, the New Testament canon, by performing signs and wonders. The texts do not say that the message of his grace was confirmed with accurate geography and who went where. In the NIV, John 10:37-38 say "Do not believe me UNLESS [emphasis mine] I do what my Father does [or unless I perform miracles], But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, BELIEVE THE MIRACLES [emphasis mine], that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."
Would you care to defend the authority of the New Testament canon without mentioning miracles? If so, then you need to provide evidence that the disciples went about confirming the message of his grace with signs and wonders. Please do not use "the Bible says so" as evidence. If not, then you are supposed to have answers to my questions.

Vorkosigan

Twisting again. As long as you stay in the "truth or conspiracy" mode, you'll be unable to grasp or discuss this. I never said that Christians "invented" their main figure, but that Mark was a fiction never intended to be history. The narrative history in Mark is entirely fictional.

Making Jesus a "myth" doesn't make him "invented." He looks like a Savior/Divine mediator figure who evolved out of that "two powers in heaven" belief that dates from the post-exilic period, and turns up most strongly in everyone's favorite Psalm, 110. Early Christians were probably visionaries -- like the Taipings and the Ghost Dance movement -- who interacted with Jesus in visions, as Paul did. Such movements are common among colonized and detribalized peoples. In fact there are three such movements where the leader was titled or claimed to be the brother of Jesus. Early Christianity was just the first.

It was always a religious movement.

What "secret group?" Please point to the exact place where I mentioned a "secret group" of collaborative writers. I merely described a textual evolution.

Please explain how you know the authors of those texts received no money for them.

I have already identified several gains -- such as more converts, and in Luke's case, the presentation of a legitimating narrative that united two rival wings of the early Church. And of course, the pleasure of story-telling. People have been making up stories about Jesus for 20 centuries and don't look likely to stop, either. All over the US believers gather every Sunday and write songs and tell stories to each other about their encounters with the deity, and none of it is for concrete gain. Being an acclaimed member of a social group is also an important "gain."

It wouldn't surprise me. Christianity piggybacked around the Med among communities of diaspora Jews and God-fearers. It doesn't take much to get familiar -- all you have to do is read the Septuagint, or be told by one of the many wandering Christian preachers about it.

For the second time, the writer of Luke did not write John. Is there something wrong with my English? The writer of Luke synthesized Luke from several previous documents, including the Synoptics and John. IMHO Luke was the last canonical gospel written. Let's not have any further nonsense about Luke writing John. I have no idea where that came from.

You don't seem to have even the most basic understanding of it.

Well, yes, when your template for understanding consists of the false dichotomy "conspiracy vs truth" I can see why understanding a complex evolution can be difficult.

No, only in your head.

Sorry, I think I deleted that accidently, looking back at that post. I consider both historical.

Vorkosigan

Steven Avery

ok.. let me try to understand your theory a bit better...

When did they live ?

What was Paul and Peter's relationship to the 'emergent cult' fictional theatre composer/writer's ?

What was their relationship to the actual cult movement that began as a result of the fictional theatre narratives ?

And one more..

When Josephus said that "James the brother of Jesus, called the Christ" was executed, did he get that from his own research or the emerging cult ? Or was it simply an accidental confluence of names and titles ?

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Johnny Skeptic

Message to praxeus: The texts basically say that the disciples went about confirming the message of his grace, or in this case, the New Testament canon, by performing signs and wonders. The texts do not say that the message of his grace was confirmed with accurate geography and who went where. Any competent historian will tell you that secular history and geography do not automatically validate claims of the supernatural. In the NIV, John 10:37-38 say "Do not believe me UNLESS [emphasis mine] I do what my Father does [or unless I perform miracles], But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, BELIEVE THE MIRACLES [emphasis mine], that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."

Please list your Scripture references regarding the authorship and dates of composition of Luke and Acts. These are very important issues. How well-received were Luke and Acts when they were published? No one knows. They might have been widely rejected. It is one matter to make claims of supernatural events, but reasonably proving them is another matter entirely. The Bible depends lock, stock and barrel upon claims of the supernatural, and that most certainly includes the New Testament canon.

Would you care to defend the authority of the New Testament canon without mentioning miracles? If so, then you need to provide evidence that the disciples went about confirming the message of his grace with signs and wonders. If not, then what other means of confirming the message of his grace would you use? Is your faith built partly, largely, or solely upon tangible miracles? What about the ministry of the Holy Spirit?

The Bible admits that tampering with the texts is possible. Revelation 22:18 says "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." Whatever the original texts were, either Roman Catholics have added to them, or Protestants have taken away from them.
Martin Luther said that the book of Revelation did not deserve to be in the Bible. Why do you believe otherwise? Thomas Jefferson used to tear pages out of his Bible that he didn't like. It would be a simple matter for some skeptics to revise the Bible and go to remote jungle regions and pass it off as the "real thing." That would have been much easier centuries ago. So much for the New Testament canon, and so much for Biblical inerrancy.

Vorkosigan

I'm agnostic on their dates.

No idea.

I have already made clear that the gospels were written long after Christianity started. Please show me the exact citation where I stated that Christianity began "as a result of" the gospel narratives.

You left off one choice.

Vorkosigan

Steven Avery

So the emergent cult movement had already begun (around the fictional man Jesus?), and the group of foreign writers heard about the emergent cult, and decided to write plays and books and histories around the theme, and the emergent cult embraced the books as the true story and history of their previously fictional leader, and also embraced an additional fictional book about the first years of their existence.

Later the emergent cult added their own fictional epistles (or did they come from the writer's group?), and put them in the name of true men named Peter and Paul and James who were actually a part of the earlier beliefs in the fictional Messiah.

And all this time it was sort of a play thing, or a social help group, which later took a leninist totalitarian turn.

Do I have that right ?

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

jakejonesiv

The canon was established to uphold the orthodoxy and marginalize their opponents. It was a political maneuver.

Robert Price has an excellent chapter on the formation of the canon in his recent book, The Da Vinci Fraud.

Jake Jones