aa5874

Your claim is erroneous because we have the EVIDENCE to show how the Jesus cult most likely started.

We do NOT have to INVENT our own Gospel like ApostateAbe.

We have the short-ending gMark.

People of antiquity BELIEVED the short-ending gMark was a true story based on so-called prophecies in Hebrew Scripture.

Hippolytus' Expository Treatise Against the Jews

Tertullian's An Answer to the Jews 8 Justin's Dialogue with Trypho XVIThe short-ending gMark is a story based on so-called prophecies where Jesus the Son of God was REJECTED by Jews and caused to be crucified.

After Jesus was crucified the Temple would Fall and then sometime soon Jesus would RETURN for the ELECT.

Sinaiticus gMark 13Later the gMark story was CHANGED and the Resurrected Jesus AUTHORIZED the preaching of the Gospel in the Interpolated Long ending gMark.

Mark 16 The Jesus cult was INITIATED by so-called prophecies in the short-ending gMark in the 2nd century NOT by a human Jesus.

sotto voce

Which bit of the Bible did he write?

The Greeks got it from the Bible, of course.

Duvduv

Here is my posting from the thread "The Anchor of 30 CE in Gospels".

We all know the story of the torn curtain of the Temple at the time Jesus died found in Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:38 and Luke 23:45.

In GMark the one verse stands between the death of Jesus and the Centurion as an interruption:

The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

In GMatthew the verse introduces two more verses of miraculous events that occurred preceding the centurion:

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split.

In GLuke the tearing of the curtain (though not top to bottom) happens before Jesus breathes his last and the introduction of the centurion:

for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

Interestingly enough the Talmud in Tractate Yoma 39B introduces some events that occurred 40 years before the destruction of the Temple which portended its imminent destruction. What I am wondering about is whether this tradition of events may have been the source for specifically anchoring the Jesus story in the gospels around the year 30 CE. Tractate Yoma says:

Our Rabbis taught: During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple the lot [‘For the Lord’] did not come up in the right hand; nor did the crimson-coloured strap become white; nor did the westernmost light shine; and the doors of the Hekal would open by themselves, until R. Johanan b. Zakkai rebuked them, saying: Hekal, Hekal, why wilt thou be the alarmer thyself? I know about thee that thou wilt be destroyed, for Zechariah ben Ido has already prophesied concerning thee: Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.

ApostateAbe

The claim that Christianity started with a human 1st-century Jesus could be falsified (to the satisfaction of most) by the discovery of a pre-1st-century document that has a myth of a character very much resembling Jesus. Does that count?

Toto

But we have pre-1st century documents with mythical characters resembling Jesus - the Septuagint describes Moses and Joshua son of Nun, and the Septuagint was the source of much of the gospels. Historicists can always claim that the earlier character is not close enough, or that the legendary process picked up elements of the earlier myth to enhance Jesus' story.

sotto voce

How was that?

ApostateAbe

Falsifiability is a matter of whether or not the theory can be falsified in the mind of a reasonable thinker, not a matter of whether or not it can be falsified in the minds of the defenders. If the theory of a historical Jesus is falsifiable, then a reasonable thinker would change his or her mind in potential light of evidence to the contrary.

Suppose there was a document reflecting pre-1st-century myth of a mythical character who was born from a virgin, was baptized, had twelve disciples, was crucified, and was resurrected. A reasonable person would take that document as evidence that Jesus was merely myth.

But, be careful, falsifiability does not mean the capability to be falsified by bad arguments. Moses and Joshua don't qualify, because there is actually a very big difference between either Moses or Joshua and a mythical character who was born from a virgin, was baptized, had twelve disciples, was crucified, and was resurrected. Only those mythical characters who would have more in common with Jesus than is otherwise reasonably expected would qualify. If Jesus was merely myth, then such prior mythical characters are not implausible, they are to be expected, and they would effectively falsify the position that Jesus was a historical 1st-century person.

Toto

Abe - you're making up your own definitions again. I don't see the point of continuing

ApostateAbe

Shoot, I thought the debate was just starting to get useful.

sotto voce

There is a big contrast between Moses and Joshua. Moses led out of captivity, but was Law-giver, keeping the Israelites in a desert, and was himself not allowed into the Promised Land. Joshua led the way, from captivity, from the desert of Sinai, into the Promised Land, at the head of twelve tribes, each allotted portions of the land. Joshua, uniquely, told the Israelites to "Choose". Mosaic Law was supposed to act, through the twelve tribes, as examples of how righteous law led to benevolent and prosperous society. The number twelve signified certainty, and completeness, in this case certainty and completeness of witness. But Mosaic Law, as crystallisation of natural law, failed to produce those effects very often, because motivation was lacking. When failure was seen to be complete, another Joshua, whose figurative provenance pre-dated Moses, came to lead the way into a supernal, eternal Promised Land, at the head of twelve disciples, a Joshua prophesied by Simeon to bring to people a choice. This number again signified allotted portions of that 'land', again acted as witness to righteousness, this time, as reckoned, a genuine righteousness.

Now it could be that Moses and Joshua never had actual existence. But their figurative value (and much more OT pre-figurement besides) cannot be denied, in the light of the theological parallels of 'schoolmaster' Law and 'liberator' Jesus as explained in Romans, Hebrews and in other parts of the NT. And in the middle, the connecting part, is the bodily presence, real or imagined, of Joshua of Nazareth, with much detail that was 'witnessable' by contemporaries, in places known by secular history to have existed. How the NT could have been devised out of the OT without an absolutely extraordinary set of coincidences, and a 'fiendishly' clever mind, is perhaps harder to understand than it is to simply accept the narrative at face value. But every person's mileage will vary, and that could just be intentional.