andrewcriddle

Hi spin

I did give a reference to a Greek text. IMVHO both translations are defensible, but I would be interested to know your opinion.

Andrew Criddle

spin

I don't agree. How does Whiston translate υπο in the combination εκ ... υπο ("εκ των υπο Ρωμαιοις βασιλειων αγομενος")? And what does the participle αγομενος get attached to grammatically? Whiston attaches it to the secondary forces, despite the fact that it is singular.


spin

andrewcriddle

Hi spin

Sorry for the delay in replying.

εκ των υπο Ρωμαιοις βασιλειων is presumably being translated as εκ from των βασιλειων the kingdoms υπο under Ρωμαιοις the Romans.

αγομενος, I think, is attached to Vitellius (taking it as middle) and translated as took with him .

Andrew Criddle

Kent F

The source is the Swedish author Roger Viklund who on his website has compiled a Marcionite version of Galatians, and his sources are Tertullian, Epiphanius and others who wrote against the heresies. And before you ask, I have read Tertullian's Against Marcion.

Paul's supposed persecution of the christian faith is a later fabrication. How could he persecute something he had created? If he did persecute believers, they were either sinners in his eyes or not christians at all.

It doesn't say Jesus rose on the third day. How could it? It's an older scripture. Hosea foretold that someone would rise on the third day and Paul thought that someone was Jesus. The presence of Jesus was hidden in verses like these and in Daniel, Isaiah etc. When Paul says ”according to the scriptures,” he's referring to the old sacred writings, not the gospel writers.

But there are stories in the NT that Paul started the Jesus cult. It's in his own writings! He said it was HIS gospel. I take his word for it. You don't. You believe his gospel was Luke's, because some myth making Church father said so centuries later. HIS gospel has to mean a gospel he himself created, and he taught it to others.

Two examples: 1 Cor 3:6: I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. and 1 Cor 3:10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it... This clearly suggest Paul was the first and others followed him, not the other way around. And remember, since Paul=Mark with Alexandrian roots, this letter was originally called To the Alexandrians so Paul here says he founded the Alexandrian church. If there were apostles before him, they must have taught something else.

Paul's Jesus had revealed that there was a higher god than the creator god and this meant the scriptures had to be re-interpreted. The old mosaic law was not a lie, it just didn't tell the whole truth! Paul claimed there was no longer any need for animal sacrifices, for circumcision, no need to talk about clean or unclean food and that the Love thy neighbor commandment was more important than the first commandment. By what authority did he make such claims, if he was not the one like Moses? Who before him had said or written anything similar? Certainly not gLuke or any such fictive character.

The Messiah was expected to re-interpret the old writings, and the Messiah was believed to be a warrior king on earth. Paul=Mark=the king Marcus Agrippa. It's a logical chain. Perhaps the links in it are weak, but they are certainly stronger than the claims here that the Pauline epistles are a Roman fabrication.

Yes, I have read Secret Mark, or rather, some small bits that are known of it. I don't believe it's a forgery. It fits too well into the Paul=Mark identification. Clement of Alexandria mentioned Secret Mark in his letter To Theodore in the 2nd or early 3rd century. It's also mentioned by Paul where he speaks of hidden wisdom and of HIS gospel. Since Paul=Mark, Secret Mark is HIS gospel! It makes sense, it really does!

I'm an atheist, but this isn't about my beliefs. It's about what Paul believed. Just as God talked to the prophets in the old scriptures, the Lord talked to Paul in his vision and that vision became Paul's gospel.

If he got it from someone on earth, why did he write that his gospel was of NO MAN? Who on earth could be ”no man”? And all the prophets in the OT, did they get their words from written sources on earth? No, it was their visions, spiritual things revealed to them from above.

Paul is the catholic name of the epistle writer and thus no longer any threat. But the real Paul, i.e. Marcion, i.e. Marcus Agrippa, was a tremendous threat – a first century king who would make Alexandria the true heirs of the belief in Jesus, had his tradition been most successful. The Roman legacy was and is a later fake. Marcion had to be separated from christianity and was called a heretic to allow Rome to step forward as the true heirs. The writings of Marcion became the writings of ”Paul” and this change of the author's name made it possible for the Roman church to steal the epistles and modify them.

The evidence you have is a false claim by Eusebius that Paul was aware of gLuke. Jesus was all myth, I agree, or perhaps a docetic figure, but so what? The one we call God is also a myth but people do still believe in mythical figures. As for Marcion, it's well documented that he used the Pauline writings. See for instance Tertullian.

As the scholar Robert M Price wrote: ”But the first collector of the Pauline Epistles had been Marcion. No one else we know of would be a good candidate, certainly not the essentially fictive Luke, Timothy, and Onesimus.” The next logical step, which Price doesn't take, is to claim that Marcion collected the epistles and put them in his Apostolikon because he wrote them. It's also logical to assume that the epistles contain clues as how to interpret the gospel, i.e. Secret Mark, but it will take a sharper mind than mine to find and decipher these clues.

EarlDoherty

You don’t seem too sure about that (only 16 never’s)…

Well, yes, you’ve never put it in those words (requiring “modern scientific standards” of evidence), but let’s look at it this way. What is your definition of “evidence”? You’ve rejected all the evidence (or indicators, if you want me to water it down) I’ve provided in the ancient documents, both in the way the early Christian writers present their faith and the activities of their Christ, plus the nature of ancient cosmology and salvation theory and how those indicators fit into such. This includes, apparently, everything in my new book which offers a much expanded picture of such things, all that ancient “world of myth” which you rejected earlier and now say you no longer have any interest in. You demanded evidence of such a world of myth and I gave it to you, but that still doesn’t satisfy you. So if none of this qualifies in any way as “evidence,” what’s left? I can only conclude that you are looking for the type of evidence we would style “modern scientific.” It seems to me that nothing less would satisfy you.

And to think that I chiefly had enlightening you in mind when I wrote that section of Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, and now you say you’re no more interested in it than in pygmies. There’s gratitude for you!

And no one is interested in my theories, you say? Talk about adding insult to injury!

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

Just a query to the mods. Why is FRDB not automatically recognizing me when I arrive at the site? It always used to. Now I'm asked to identify myself and log in.

Maybe I missed something.

Earl Doherty

Toto

Have you checked the "remember me" box? Deleted cookies? I don't think anything on the site has changed.

GakuseiDon

I said that I'm no more interested in having a serious conversation about your theories than I am in about the Ancient Advanced Pygmies theory. That's because IMHO your theories are wrong. A serious discussion on how they thought back then would be a different matter.

Actually, I said that no-one cares about your arguments (Kapyong is one of the exceptions). <edit>.
The cookies have a limited life, so this will happen when they expire. If you log in and make sure you tick the "Remember me" box, you should be okay again.

GakuseiDon

<edit> Let me substitute <edit>

"Actually, I said that no-one cares about your arguments (Kapyong is one of the exceptions). It's in the same way that some believers don't care about arguments that support their own positions. They don't look into them, they don't examine the details. They don't need to understand the details. It's enough for them to know that the arguments exist."

Let me emphasis that IMO it would be a good thing if people understood both the thinking of the time and Doherty's arguments. Both are needed in order to either support or cast doubt on his theories. (Even better would be Doherty publishing in a peer-reviewed publication.) Because at the moment, Doherty can say anything, and no-one is likely to question him. This is not a good situation on a free-thought board.

jimclay75051

I'm new to this forum, so in trying to follow this thread I was unable to make out exactly which members believed what. But I do have an interest and opinion about the historical Jesus, so I thought I would just post what I think.

The most reliable document about Jesus is the New Testament and even that is written decades after the fact. All other documents are even more removed from the events and less reliable, perhaps being based on the New Testament writings.

Perhaps it would be good to consider the reasons for not believing Jesus is a historical figure. The first reason is that Paul seems to know little about the historical Jesus. This does not prove Jesus was not historical, but it is a big question mark. Also, the statement by Paul about John being the brother of Jesus, could be just a reference to John's title. As head of the Jesus community, he might have been called "The Brother of Jesus." Even today Christians call each other brother and sisters. Also, would Paul really take on Peter if Peter had actually known and been a friend of Jesus?

The second reason, and the biggest reason for me, is that the Gospels read like a Greek Hellenistic short stories. Many of the themes are the same as in Greek mythology. Some of the many elements found in the Gospels and in ancient mythology are: The virgin birth, the hero as a young child having to move away from his homeland, the hero proving himself, the raising of the dead, the hero doing many wondrous deeds, rage, the hero needing help, the hero coming back to his homeland, death and rebirth, being in the cave/tomb for three days, ascending to the heavens to be with god.

The one person who does not fit in the Gospels--if it is just a ancient Hellenistic myth retelling--is John the Baptist. I cannot think of any reason for him to be in the story. This makes me wonder if maybe he was such a revered figure in the early Jesus movement that he could not be ignored by the Gospels writers. I know it is pure speculation but I can't help but wonder if he is the true founder of Christianity.