aa5874

But this is just not true. There is no evidence that any of those events happened.

Anyone reading the Pauline letters can easily see that the Pauline writer was claiming that the God/man Jesus was living on earth that he was betrayed, crucified, was buried, was raised from the dead on the third day and ascended to heaven.


1 Corinthians 11:23-25 - The Church presented Paul as a person that preached the God/man Jesus in the first century.

In Acts of the Apostles 13.23-30, a writing deemed to be authentic by the Church, Saul/Paul claimed Jesus was slain, was raised from the dead by God and that people in Jerusalem saw Jesus after his resurrection.

rlogan

I was going to say "zing" in response to that post, but figured it was self-evident how spot on it was.


Hi Andrew

Respectfully, that is a gross distortion of the situation.

Any reasonable inquisitor has an arsenal of subject matter he is weighing simultaneously in his/her current model of how Christianity came to its official ossification under Constantine.

I don't think there is any question that as of Eusebius' authorship of Church History and the formation of the official state religion there is nothing worth discussing really. That is the end of the road.

So the question is how did that come to pass, from the alleged time of Jesus' ministry. Most particularly was there even a Jesus or whether it was allegory gone wild.

So for me personally you have all the lack of evidence up through the Testimonium Flavianum, which was forged. So next is the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan. And we weigh each thing - Seutonius and Tacitus and all extrabiblical material we can command. Weigh that Jesus came straight from the Hebrew Bible in one version of it (gospels; most acutely in Matthew) and by revelation in another (Pauline). We decide which came first, and clearly it is the visionary. Gospels later, Markan Priority, Etc. etc.

It is really grossly misleading to say something is "speculation without evidence" when what is actually true is that any one piece of evidence is being weighed simultaneously with a large number of other pieces.

To say that any two versions of a subject (Actually a set of positions on numerous subjects) are just as valid is to say that vinnie's is as good as Doherty's or mountainman's.

Let's cut to the quick. Which of these is more likely, given the whole body of evidence:

- Jesus' actual historicity was supressed; diminished

- Jesus' history was accreted to; aggrandized

The second phrasing is meant to be consistent with either myth or legendizing.


The first is ridiculous. We know who won the war over Jesus. We know how they did it and who they were and when it happened. We know their motive, the means, and the opportunity. They did not diminish historicity. They did the oppposite.

Now about this:

Laughable, really. Look at the Testimonium Flavianum. How ludicrous it is. Universally taken as either a partial or complete forgery - and which direction? Duh. Over the top editing to forge a spectacular historicity to the winners of the Jesus battle.

And when you start to ask who did that, guess whose hands the TF shows up in? Good old Eusebius, the forger of Church History when that history is being adopted as the official state religion.

And when you remove the TF out of the equation, and if you are honest that what history we can see is from Allegorical Jesus to Official State History Jesus then it is absurd to claim the opposite happened along the way.



Just a-sayin'

Petergdi

I'm no linguist, but why shouldn't it be "to reveal his son in me"?
- i.e.- to have that mind in him which was also in Christ Jesus
or "no longer I live, but Christ lives in me."

Even if you want "en" to be read as "to" then it still seems a stretch to make it mean "information about his son" rather than "the nature of his son."

This is over the top. Paul says he was a persecutor of the congregation of God. Paul counts the ones he once persecuted as having been of the same faith as he is now. To suggest that he had no information about Jesus is absurd. But it is reasonable to suppose that he had no understanding of Jesus.

But it isn't information about Jesus which is revealed to him, but an understanding and a way of living.

Paul's opponents in Galatians still are: or at least more so than Paul. This is clearly the big difference between them.

"For if righteousness is through law, then Christ died for nothing"
"A person is not justified by works of law except through faith in Jesus Christ"

It is not the "knowledge of the death of Jesus" - Paul never says anything of the sort. Paul does say that "we are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus."


Your reading of the revelation of Christ to (or in) Paul as being information about Jesus rather than an understanding and a way of living is bizzare.

Peter.

aa5874

The Roman Church had no history until it was started in the 4th century under Constantine.

Any written document mentioned in "Church History" by Eusebius that pretends to support the notion that Roman Church originated in the 1st century was fabricated in the same century as the author of Church History.

Once it is realized that the Roman Church was able to claim that the "TF" was genuine even when all copies of "Antiquities of the Jews" that preceeded "Church History", for over 200 years, did not include the "TF" as found in AJ 18.3.3, then it will soon be understood the magnitude of the fraud.

The Pauline Epistles were fabricated wholly or in part for the author of Church History and the Roman Church. There were no Jesus stories or Jesus Churches anywhere before Fall of the Temple.

Based on Acts, Saul/Paul was after Jesus ascended to heaven so Paul must be after the Jesus story that first mentioned the ascension of Jesus.

Also, according to Acts, Paul was after Saul persecuted Jesus believers, and the Pauline writer claimed he persecuted believers. Paul is a late fabrication by the Roman Church. Justin Martyr knew not one thing about Paul up to the middle of the 2nd century.

Vinnie

You understand correctly.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Non sequitur. If the silence in any argument from silence isn't silent as previously thought, then the argument from silence loses its force. That is self-evident and beyond contestation. Mind the tongue twister.

If the strength of the argument from silence is on the basis of so many epistles and so many authors then what I have written is a fair question. If you remove 6 of the letters that are aimed at imitating Paul, not the synoptic gospels, they can no longer serve as part of an argument from silence. Its a tautological truth.

Vinnie

gurugeorge

I think this goes too far and leaves your position permanently open to the kinds of counter-arguments you've had from Amaleq13 and others.

"Reveal" in the context of visionary experience could just mean "I met Jesus and he talked to me".

The acquisition of knowledge-by-acquaintance of Jesus through visionary experience doesn't bar there having been knowledge-by-description beforehand.

The following scenario seems consistent with the evidence: there were a bunch of people who had a revision of the Messiah concept in Jerusalem. Someone ("Paul") heard of the idea, but didn't believe in it till he had his own visionary experience of that revised Messiah.

aa5874

But, tell me what is the evidence of a vision?

There is simply no evidence that anyone called Paul had any vision and no evidence that anyone else had visions.

There is just no evidence for visions.

Visions are always unsubstantiated claims, there can be no eyewitnesses to visions.

Vinnie

Evidence for personal visions is only autobiographical. We have that from Paul, do we not?

External corroboration can come in the form of a changed life. From persecutor to missionary.

Vinnie

spin

Umm, god revealed Jesus to Paul.

Umm, you're not reading. Try again.

the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it

That's not part of the gospel, but the gospel. Paul considers his gospel totally not derived from other people.

That's not so far from what I've been saying. He had obviously heard of messianism and the inappropriate Greek term christos (which meant "unguent, ointment" in the Greek of the time) had already been in use in Greek Jewish circles, as seen in the LXX. His conception of messiah was simply not a Jewish messiah, but a hellenistic savior. Do you really think that the holy city of Judaism would be open to such an idea? It is conceivable for argument's sake, but a dead messiah, not having achieved the liberation of the Jews, is still a false messiah in Jewish eyes. John the Baptist's messiah, ie one that's still coming, is certainly more probable.


spin