Adam

That there are not eyewitnesses who wrote about Jesus is another assumption scholars have not tried to prove. I have shown in my thread Gospel Eyewitnesses that there are seven written eyewitness records about Jesus. For a list of my key posts see

in my Post #124 in Why I Am a Mythicist (sort of)
That eyewitnesses wrote about Jesus necessarily shows Jesus was not a myth. They could have written lies, of course, but these underlying sources start out with simple stories from one person's perspective and another from a writer whose interpretation of events changes while he writes about what Jesus is saying. The other earliest records are relatively free of supernatural events. This is not a recipe for myth-making, but shows a basis in the historical Jesus. Founded on such a basis, the gospels prove that Jesus must have lived.

ApostateAbe

OK, I don't have a list of names on me, but I will tell you how to find a lot of those names.

At the website of any state-accredited college in the world that has a department of New Testament history, ancient history or Biblical literature, there will be a page that lists the members of the faculty. Every one of those names represents someone who accepts the existence of the historical Jesus.

Toto

You have misinterpreted that post, evidently.

It was carefully worded to state only that the evidence for Jesus is fictional = unreliable documents, so there is no reason to believe that he existed until something better shows up. This is different from saying that since some supernatural events were attributed to Jesus, that therefore he did not exist.

Grog

I don't think it is that simple. For one, unless you are going to redate Paul, you don't have a "few decades". You have a few years, at most, between the crucifixion and Paul's conversion. By that time, Jesus Christ is already the resurrected spirit in heaven who communicates via dreams and revelations with his followers. Paul is second-hand and claims to know first-hand the actual disciples of Jesus.

So you have to explain how Paul has come by this story that "Jesus of Nazareth" (never called such by Paul) rose from the dead and atoned for the sins of the world. According to Bart Ehrman, the followers of Jesus, a man crucified as criminal by Rome, "just started to say it" and lots of other people believed it. This does not make sense to me. The evidence in Paul is recognized by scholars to not fit this picture. Keck likened making sense of the Pauline writings to "walking on thin ice' (a direct reference to Romans 13: 1-7, which plays a role in why I have come to the conclusions that I have).

Your theory does not explain how Paul can say:

Romans 13:1-7 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.

Does Paul believe Jesus of Nazareth was a "wrongdoer?"
Is it plausible to believe that Paul, with his one degree of separation, only having heard the story of Jesus from actual disciples, can possibly engage in such "slavish" praise of Roman rule? It is not just me that has noticed this problem, this is a well-recognized issue in the scholarship. Solo resolves it by diagnosing Paul as bi-polar. Some scholars claim interpolation, another (Elliott) claims a "voice under authority," another (TL Carter) says 'sarcasm."

IF Jesus of Nazareth was crucified a few years before the conversion of Paul, then it is implausible that Paul would have written Romans 13:1-7. It is a difficult passage to reconcile.

If Jesus Christ was was a concept that evolved out of ideas clearly prevalent in Judaism of that time (Daniel, Isaiah, DDS 11Q13, Wisdom of Solomon, Philo's Logos), then Ro 13:1-7 is no problem. Paul does not believe the Romans crucified Paul. Paul believes (as he states in 1 Cor 2:8) that Jesus was crucified by hostile angels.

IF you understand the context of the times and the beliefs prevalent at the time, this makes far more sense and resolves many difficulties that scholars have found troubling about Paul.



This isn't subtle. Paul says it:

angelic forces crucified Jesus (1 Cor 2:8, read Lee, 1970 for the interpretation of demonic powers in Paul).

civil authorities hold no terror for those who do good, only those who are wrongdoers (Romans 13:1-7)

Plain reading of the texts (when we consider that they are 1st Century texts translated into 20th Century English and read by us in the 21st Century).


These appear subtle only because you don't understand the context of the times.

Even if there were a "Jesus" what element could possibly be true:

--by the time of Jesus(EDIT: I mean here the "Jesus story"], the suffering servant of Isaiah was already associated with the messiah (see 11Q13)
--by the time of Jesus, a heavenly intercessor, the Word of God, was already imagined by Philo
--The suffering servant was already put to a shameful death (Wisdom of Solomon)
--the passion narrative is entirely derived from Old Testament passages and, I would argue, Josephus.
--even the doomsayer in Josephus who declared "woe to Jersusalem" at tabernacles, was taken to the jewish authorities, handed over to the Romans and flogged until his bones were bared, then killed by the Romans (accidentally--again no blame like in the gospels), and gives up the ghost was named Jesus.

What element of this requires that there be an actual person named "Jesus" for this idea to have evolved?

Steven Carr

So people who claim Popeye never existed are like creationists?

graymouser

OK, but that just establishes that you don't understand how new religious movements form, not that anything is wrong with the picture.

Paul explains precisely that the crucifixion was a problem, in 1 Cor 1:23:

"but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness,"

This is an emphasis on the problematic nature of the crucifixion.

You don't understand the context "of the times". You have a nodding acquaintance with a very small sample of the worldview of literate Jews of the time - hardly a broad understanding of popular religion.

Bringing demons into 1 Cor 2:8 makes no sense in the context of the passage, which is contrasting God's wisdom to the wisdom of men. Reading 1 Cor 2:1-16 and saying he is somehow contrasting things to a hidden spiritual realm in 2:8 and not elsewhere, makes no sense. If instead of attributing neo-Platonic ideas to Paul, we understand him primarily in the context of apocalyptic Judaism, this is clearly a reference to the Romans - who are passing away, since Jesus's resurrection inaugurated the end times.

But it's a good point that mythicism generally requires us to read Jewish apocalypticism out of Paul and instead read a much narrower neo-Platonist worldview into him. This is why I am not satisfied with any mythicist interpretations that I've seen presented.

aa5874

You statement is really unsubstantiated. The actual surviving apologetic sources show CLEARLY that the earliest Jesus stories were based on a character that was called the Son of God, who walked on water and transfigured and every event of the character is fictional.

In fact, every time more 'details' were added to the Jesus story, more fiction were added.

Please examine the short-ending of gMark and then examine the additional verses of the long-ending interpolated gMark. It is 12 verses of TOTAL fiction.

Examine gMatthew, the addition of the birth narrative CLEARLY show that early BELIEVERS accepted that Jesus was the Son of a Ghost and that he was actually raised from the dead and visited the disciples in Galilee up in a mountain.

It is HJers who need AD HOC explanations, unevidenced inventions and MUST reject the actual evidence from antiquity that Jesus was considered non-human--an offspring of a Ghost.

HJers have nothing but their imagination.

For example, HJers claim their Jesus was scarcely known. Where did they get such information ??? Which book??? Which source???

HJers do not need any evidence or source of antiquity for their Jesus.

HJers are inventing their own new Jesus from WHOLE cloth..

Grog

Really? I can think of two:

1) Mohammed started a religion based on revelations from the Archangel Gabriel.

2) Joseph Smith started a religion based on revelations from the Archangel Mormoni.

Why not:

3) Paul started a religion based on revelations from the Archangel Jesus.

(I'm not actually stating Paul started this religion, but I don't know who did exactly.)

Are Gabriel and Mormoni real?

that doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I argued.

You don't understand the context "of the times". You have a nodding acquaintance with a very small sample of the worldview of literate Jews of the time - hardly a broad understanding of popular religion.

You aren't acquainted with the scholarship then. I quoted scholars, I didn't make this up, it is in the peer-reviewed literature. I gave you the citation. You are making an assertion here that doesn't make sense. You didn't even try to put this into context with Ro 13:1-7.

Now you are misrepresenting my argument.

Juststeve

Grog:

Where did Paul say Jesus was an Archangel? Seems to me he said just the oposite, that he was born of woman, a Jew, etc.

Steve

Grog

That was a rhetorical flourish. My point is that Paul's source of Jesus-knowledge came from revelations, not that I think Paul believes Jesus was an arch-angel.