skepticdude

First, he doesn't need to directly address those controversies. Whatever Jesus did to save a Gentile during his three-year ministry, Peter and James would most likely have remembered it, and it would have been the natural and final say in any dispute on Gentile salvation. How do you think Jesus managed to preach salvation to Gentiles without commenting on their relation to the Law?

Second, according to fundamentalists, the resurrected Jesus, which told the disciples to take his gospel to the Gentiles (Matthew 28:19), specifically said they were to teach the Gentiles, the same things he taught previously. The salvation Jesus preached previously was legalistic to the core (Matthew 5:20/19:17). Under fundamentalist reasoning, it is absurd to think this resurrected Jesus would spend 40 days telling the disciples to specifically preach salvation to Gentiles without answering the question of what Gentiles must do to be saved.

How do you figure he'd have told them to preach salvation to Gentiles, without telling them how Gentiles get saved? And didn't Paul admit in Galatians 2:12 that James was the leader of the Judaizers? Didn't Paul admit that Peter became a Judaizer in Galatians 2:14("why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews")?

The Apostles complain the the law is a burdensome yoke.

The Judaizers had Exodus 12 on their side which demands all Gentiles be circumcised before they may eat the passover lamb with the Jews. The Judaizers being Christians, they'd have equated the passover lamb with Jesus just as much as Paul did (1st Corinthians 5:7), and the need for circumcision (itself the sign that one stands in covenant with God) would be obvious.

It is clear that circumcision was only an issue for one apostle whose prospective Gentile converts would be less likely to join his cause if they had to slash their penises to do so. Relaxing the circumcision requirement benefitted nobody but Paul, since by Paul's own account, James and Peter were themselves Judaizers, and believed they should restrict their mission to Jews, for whom circumcision would be a non-issue when converting to Christianity (Galatians 2:9)

Acts has simply invented fake anonymous "men from Judea" and "Pharisees who had believed" as the Judaizers, in it's attempt to white-wash the fact that James and Peter and John demanded circumcision of Gentiles, and so were the ones who argued fiercely with Paul and demanded circumcision (if there is any kernal of truth to the Council of Jerusalem story at all).

Another reason why Jesus and Paul disagree, since Paul said mature Christians don't sin when they eat meat in an idol's temple, 1st Corinthians 8.

the context is eating in an idol's temple, not visiting Jewish towns.

skepticdude

There is nothing preventing it either.

I don't trust that account. Paul may just as easily have been a Gentile as Jew. It takes work to figure out which testimonies in the New Testament are likely true and which aren't.

How does this argue that the uncorroborated Jesus saying cannot have originated with Paul?

rlogan

Obvious forgery, and what it speaks to us the unbridled greed of the religious establishment.

It is one of the annoying things about apologists - the pretense that the record we have before us is just innocent old Mother Theresa altruists dedicating their lives to the downtrodden.

What they were was power-hungry evildoers.

mountainman

Dear skepticdude,

On another thread entitled early witnesses to the authorship and chronology of the NT apocrypha I am examining what I see as an entirely analogous situation.

As with your OP, the evidence that the ancients commence to cite the words of jesus from the new testament canon is very late and very sudden. If we analogously examine the quoting (according the the history of the early christians of the first three centuries) of the new testament apocryphal tractates, we see that are rarely mentioned. If Jesus was not good enough to quote, neither were the names of the books which would one day compete to be judged to be bound inside the new testament canon of books, and deemed heretical, some having been authored by the disciple of the devil.

The conservative position falls back to apostolic lineages of the major city-churches of Rome and Alexandria. It appears to be sufficient evidence to indicate that bishops wrote to other on such matters, to be read in the churches and the like, and that these documents served the needs at the time, in the absence of using direct quotations from Jesus. During this underground period in the evolution of early christianity, the words of jesus appear to have been in hibernation. In parallel, the words of the heretics, the names of the heretical texts, and most importantly the names of the early christian heretics who authored the anti-christian heretical tractates were not quoted --- or mentioned. Why not?

Best wishes,


Pete

Solo

Thanks, ercatli. I think I explained why I don't believe you may "safely" adduce to the preamble the "plain meaning" as you seem to be doing.

So, what are you saying ? You have an inside track on Luke's purpose through some oral tradition of your own ? :huh:

Not even a hint, eh ? ..... And what, may I ask, makes you feel "safe" about dating Luke in the first century ?

Look, ercatli, we all believe things that appear absurd to other people, so let's not make a big deal out of that. But I tell you where I have a problem with the "plain" reading of "eyewitnesses".

Someone by the name of Cleopas and some other unnamed eyewitness on their merry way were joined by Jesus fresh out of the tomb on the road to Emmaus. They don't recognize him because....? Yes, simple: their eyes were manipulated (Lk 24:16). So they engage him as a stranger and he gives them all sorts of useful clues and they invite him over for supper. And as he (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) breaks bread with them and blesses - magic - their eyes are unmanipulated and they recognize him. But then - poof - he vanishes out of their restored sight. So much for the reliability of eyewitness reporting on such events as resurrection. Now, are you telling me that this is an eyewitnessed report ? Who by : Cleopas and his friend ? No what I mean is: who witnessed their eyes being held in escrow ?

Dear ercatli, I value my sanity for reasons which you cannot imagine. So I tell you this: I safely conclude this event never happened and would never let anyone alone with my kids who believed this actually did happen. Even if he or she had a PhD. in Biblical Studies; well especially not them.

You are welcome.

Jiri

wordy

Slightely OT.

What we have is power struggles that seems to have been going on hidden from the Rome official record? and then when Rome does adopt the Christian faith then they escalate the cleaning up of all heretic groups. so almost no text remains from the heretics but as comments in the surviving groups victorious history of how they saved the right faith from corruption.

Is not this a bit like when Hillary and Obama fighted each other before the election to determine which to lead the Dem party and right to the end Hilary had to officially keep the hope she could change the balance and she to win. Then when that chance obviously was lost to her then she admitted defeat and as a good looser she officially support Obama as the rightful leader of the Dems and He show good riddance too but first kind of ignoring her almsot completely by nomination a lot of other guys to their posts and then finally given her the Foreign Policy card to deal with which she ? reluctantly accepted? She really wanted to be First President or at least Second him in case he get assassinated and then she could take over as President? Her real goal.

Being Foreign affair minister a kind of recognition for having many supporters reconciliation within the party?

I mean we are the same people now as then 2000 years ago so they must have had even fierce fights among them. We should expect them to behave in propagandistic ways and not expect them to tell the facts on what was going on.

so regardless if any real Jesus or Paul or James or Peter actually existed. They where all portrayed through the official lenses on what was ok to say about them unless you accept to end up dead as a Heretic.

Had not the Gnostics a Heavenly Christ long before there was a Rome notion of a Christ.



Isit not most likely that that Christ was given a "fleshed" out historical real person to fill the political purpose of supporting their take over over the Gnostic sects. The Epistle of John seems directly addressing the "spiritual" Christ opposition and toning tuning polishing it down so it could be accepted as official views. They kind of made a special version so that a lot of the "Gnostic" lay persons could convert into Christianity and still feel they remain faithful to a spiritual Christ as long as they didn't try to take over. A kind of carrot and whip. We give you a "spiritual" Christ as long as you don't try to get in power again but if you do then eternal damnation and right to Hell with anybody doing something wrong to the "holy spirit".

In same way as they kept in hidden the fact that Essenes existed they seem to have kept in hidden the Gnostics real political power. They where many where they not?

Had their own tracts that they spread and had supporters in many cities and so on.

aa5874

There was an expectation of a physical Messiah for the Jews long before the Jesus story.

Josephus, Suetonius and Tacitus all wrote of the expectations of the Jews with respect to a messianic figure.

Wars of the Jews 6.5.4 And even after the War of the Jews, there was another physical messiah, Simon bar Kokchba, around 133 CE.

Josephus did write about the history of the Jews and did not mention of any predicted spiritual messiahs, and he did make commentaries on Isaiah and Daniel.

wordy

Simon bar Kokchba, around 133 CE.seems to have existed.

But what about all these gnostics
they was known to have a spiritual christ. I could be wrong

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism

Seitsuman

I find the Gnostic outlook makes a lot of sense as long as it's realised that the language of the day was anthropomorphic and presented the internal as external. The creator Demiurge may have existed for some. For others he much more likely represented the mentality that imagines the Fundamentalist kind of deity, all blind obedience to ritual and tabu relating to this world and no spiritual understanding at all. In the common interpretation, Adam & Eve got expelled from Paradise because they got spiritual and ethical. If you actually read it, there is no getting away from the fact that Jehovah (the Gnostic evil creator) does not throw his tantrum just because they disobeyed: it's because Now they know they are gods like Us. My understanding is that this means waking up and understanding the world as it really is shows us how much better it could be. Nature gods may be powerful but human beings have a better morality. See Carl Jung's Answer to Job on this point.

Gnostic gospels are nothing but "Jesus said" and usually it is as obscure as a Zen Koan. Probably for the same reason. It's possible that the Gospel of Thomas really does contain sayings of a real Jesus. A Gnostic wouldn't care and more than a Buddhist would care whether the Buddha or some ancient Master really did do and say the things atrributed to him: it is the meaning that matters, not the history.

rlogan

That isn't just what is "most likely".

That is the DATA we have.

All these tortured explanations on the other side are for why the data we see really isn't the data that would be there if their hypothesis was true.