angelo

Or it could be that Mark had no idea of any birth stories. They hadn't been invented yet.

schilling.klaus

Kirby's works are hopelessly naive and inert beyond any measure,
as are all those who still believe in first-century canonical gospels
and authentic Pauline epistles.

Klaus Schilling

spin

This wouldn't be another unsupported opinion, would it? You may be right, but you've provided no evidence. So, you could be just as wrong. Bald assertions aren't very useful.


spin

gurugeorge

Superb post :notworthy:

I'd just add, for perspective, that at that time many were in a cult they thought wasn't fiction (in this broad sense you're using).

Like, nowadays Scientologists think Mormonism is fiction, etc., so the picture of those times is of a large number of small percentages adding up to a lot of people who believed some cultic story was fact, but scorning the vast majority of others.

(Or sometimes they didn't scorn, but thought the others were maybe other facets of the truth, much as modern Hinduism, which is pretty much what "paganism" was like.)

Ben C Smith

The earliest evidence that we have, both from insiders (like Paul) and from outsiders (like Tacitus, Lucian, and Celsus), indicates that Christianity was rejected because people believed that a crucified man was not worthy of worship.

Ben.

spamandham

Hypersensitive and hypocritical much? Please add me to your ignore list too.

aa5874

The extants writings of Justin Martyr appears to indicate that "Paul" was unknown even up to and around 150 CE. Justin mentioned Jesus and Peter, but never "Paul" or "Saul".

The name "Paul" may have been added to writings just like the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John appeared to have been affixed to the gospels.

Tacitus in "Annals" never mentioned that Christus was crucified, or that a crucified man was not worthy of worship, nor did Tacitus mention the name Jesus. In fact, in "Annals", Tacitus did not expound on Christianity with respect to crucuifixions at all.

And finally the word "Christians" did not inherently mean followers of Jesus of Nazareth. If anyone, self proclaimed or not, was called Christ, or there was just a philosophical concept of Christ then the followers of that person or the ideology would be called Christians.

Justin Martyr confirmed that position in "First Apology" VI So, in effect, a "Christian" in antiquity could have had no association, at all, with Jesus of Nazareth or the doctrine.

aa5874

I don't think I would put Solitary Man on an 'ignore list", since his posts are very useful in exposing the weaknesses of the HJ position.

Keep on posting, Solitary Man.

Ben C Smith

For supplicio adfectus as an echo of servile supplicium, the execution (by crucifixion) of slaves, refer to Martin Hengel, Crucifixion, page 3, footnote 3.

Even if, however, you wish merely to speak of execution in general, then it is still evident that, for Tacitus, to follow (much less worship) an executed man is an example of an exitiabilis superstitio (dire superstition).

Etymologically, it means followers of Christ.

Any examples of this? (Besides Jesus, I mean.) I can give you a good one: Simon bar Kokhba, whose claim would date to after Jesus, after Josephus, after Tacitus.

Your reading of Justin is tortuous (not to mention torturous) and untenable. Justin is very clear about who the Christians are. He writes in chapters 12-13 of this same Apology:

That all these things should come to pass, I say, our teacher foretold, he who is both son and apostle of God the father of all and the ruler, Jesus Christ, from whom also we have the name of Christians. .... Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the times of Tiberius Caesar.

Ben.

Solitary Man

Please add me to your ignore list too.[/QUOTE]
Hypersensitive? Hardly. You must have a really big ego if you think you can that easily cause me to bat an eye. I merely pointed out your personal attack. I've dealt with aa for a long time. I've not yet seen anything good come out of him. It's not an attack against him, it's an attack against what he says.

And I'd only be hypocritical if I were admonishing you for your personal attack. Rather, it was such a weak attack, no matter the form, that I think lesser of you for it. Do not think that I think that I am the only person who is above personal attacks. Hey, sparky, let them words fly high!

And finally, the last point in your tripartite (yet totally irrelevant) post, the good thing about ignore lists is that I choose who is on it, not you. Once I realize that you have no help left, then yes, you'll probably be ignored, too.