aa5874

Galatians is a non-historical document. No source external of apologetics can show there were "Judaizers" who worship a a resurrected Jewish man as equal to God and called him LORD.

Acts is most likely fiction. The ascension of Jesus in Acts witnessed by the apostles is a dead giveaway.

Both Acts and the Pauline writings are propaganda.

Before the Fall of the Temple no external historical source can show that Jews worshiped a resurrected man as a God and claimed he was the Lord, Messiah and Saviour with the ability to REMIT the sins of Jews through his crucifixion and resurrection.

It would have been MOST unprecedented that Jews would have abandoned the very Laws of God with regards to SALVATION and worshiped as a man as a God before the Fall of the Temple and with non-Jews ALL over the Roman Empire.

There is NO history for the Pauline LORD, God, Creator, Saviour and Messiah called Jesus.

There is no history of Pauline Jewish Christian before the Fall of the Temple.

storytime

And..how could/can Jews be called "Christians"? It's a misconception of the Jewish tradition.

Paul, as a Jew would have known his Jewish tradition and his Jewish laws which would have prevented his allowance for uncircumcised and lawless Gentiles. Therefore Paul was a liar as evidenced by his own Jewish tradition. Not to mention that Jesus was sent only to the house of Israel which excluded the world of Gentiles.

storytime

Rather, there is no authentic Gentile-Jewish relationship. It was a forbidden intermarriage, so to speak.

Transient

So if it's all fiction then why did they have "Jesus" saying that he was sent only to the house of Israel since it conflicts with what Paul does?
Or were they just fiction from different sources with different ideas?
Sort of throws a spanner in Mountainman's theory tho - if one person wrote all this stuff then he did a pretty lousy job of tying it all together - I can see why everyone here does not put too much stock in Constantine inventing the whole thing - more likely he just decided to create a religion by cherrypicking from all the versions of "christianity" that were humming around - must have pissed of all the Jews tho

storytime

The WHY is solved if we look at political agendas. How did Rome want to solve the Jewish problem? What better way than to create a story whereby a hero Jesus would hand over the kingdom of the Hebrew God at Jerusalem to Gentiles. The Christ killers would become eradicated via "the son of man coming in the clouds of glory" etc.

spamandham

Acts is a literary work, IMHO of the late 2nd century. There is no reason to suppose that the author had any special knowledge of early 1st century events. Viewed from that perspective, the depicted Jewish/Christian conflict and it's resolution are not seen as glimmers of real 1st century history, but instead as late 2nd century anti-Jewish Christian propaganda. They provide rationale, in the form of an origins story, for a complete abandonment of all things Jewish.

aa5874

But, the word "Messianic" when transliterated to Greek means "Christian".

There were "Messianic" Jews and in Greek this means "Christian" Jews or those who believe or expected a Messiah or were or believed they were anointed of God.

The word "Christian" did NOT originated from belief in the Jesus story.

If the Pauline Jesus did exist he could have ONLY been a man. The Pauline Jesus as described by "Paul" CANNOT be located BEFORE the Fall of the Temple. No external source wrote about the phenomenal Pauline Jesus, the Creator of heaven and earth, equal to God and was RAISED from the dead.

The Pauline Jesus story is non-historical.

No historical source external of apologetics have located a Jew or a citizen of Roman Empire that believed in the Pauline FANTASTIC Jesus story before the Fall of the Temple.

popgoestheweasel

No that's not true. Messianic is an adjective. Christian means 'of Christ' or 'of the little Christ'

skepticdude

whether a source needs external confirmation is a debatable point in discussions about historicity. But you talk as if historiography was a concrete matter like algebra.

I agree with you that the presence of miracle claims tarnish the possibility of the author's integrity, but you appear to toss the baby out with the bathwater. Most of Mel Tari's "Like a mighty wind" is deliberate lies about miracles happening in Indonesia, but that doesn't mean every claim associated with those stories is wholly false. Therefore, there can easily have been a split among the original Christians as Acts says, even if the miracles and other nonsense the author mentions didn't happen.

Agreed.

Sure, but the fact that Acts and Paul's writings are largely propaganda doesn't close the door on whether they testify to certain basic realities of the original Christians.

Then you need to read "kooks and quacks of the Roman Empire". People back then were just as gullible as they are today. Titus's destruction of the temple would leave the Jews no proper way to worship, and for some such Jews, that version of Christianity that said Jesus was only a prophet, and which quoted Jesus as keeping the law, would have been an outlet for their need to be religious. Don't fall into the apologist trap of what "the Jews" would or would not do. Religions are filled not just with stubborn idiots that continue failing to get the message after 50 years of having it drilled into their skulls (Peter Ruckman), but also had many people who left after discovering it wasn't true (former Christians, like me).

It's a wonder you are not a Christian. You talk with over-the-top dogmatism, when historiography is not concrete and does not permit such. There IS history for Christianity. The fact that there are major problems with it does not mean it doesn't exist. You are the same as a fundamentalist Christian. You think you've discovered truth, so you proceed to talk as if there is no possible way you could ever be proven wrong in something you currently believe. If you can at least acknowledge that historiography is not a concrete science, then maybe you could back off the dogmatism. If it is your desire to convince Christians to become non-Christians, your dogmatising everything will only make them avoid and ridicule you. What's worse is that you also push away other skeptics, like me. I'm here to have a discussion, not have a freeway sign with 20-foot high letters stuffed down my throat.

Worst of all, I'm right when I criticise fundamentalists as weak-minded due to their need to blast everything that might disagree with them. The trouble is that this psychological truth doesn't care whether the person is a skeptic or religious. If you go around trying to stomp down and choke the life out of every possible source of contention that might disagree with you, the chances are great that you too are weak-minded, and therefore prefer to constantly listen to yourself bowl-over the competition in a effort to blast their brains out before they even click the first internet link. Quit acting like there is no way you could have missed something, and maybe I'll believe there's a good reason why you aren't a Christian.

So?

aa5874

The word "christian" can be used as an adjective.

You seem not to understand that the Greek word for "messiah" is also transliterated to or interpreted as "christ".


Examine gJohn 1.41.

John 1:41 - Now, "Messianic" is derivative of or related to the word "Messiah" or "Christ", hence Christian or Messianic Jews but should NOT be confused with those who believed the Jesus stories and were called Christians some time AFTER the Fall of the Temple.