J-D

The fact that documents have been forged since Christianity began has no bearing on the likelihood of Christianity having begun as a forgery.

mountainman

That is exactly what apologists would like us to believe. I am not so sure that this represents a sound assumption.

mountainman

You have offered evidence from the 5th and 6th centuries in an attempt to disprove an hypothesis which deals with 4th century events. This is not logical.

J-D

If you told me you weren't sure it was raining I'd get my raincoat.

J-D

Yes it is. What is illogical is to suppose that a hypothesis about a historical event can only be disproved by evidence exactly contemporaneous with it and not by later evidence. You referred before to all the available evidence, and that was the correct standard.

J-D

So if aa5874 won't sponsor the answer 'we can't tell how Christianity began', will you? That would give us a total of five answers on this thread so far.

Elijah

I think we would have to look at the texts on a case by case basis and see if they fit more into the Gnostic or mystic category or what kind of hybrid we may be looking at. I don’t think it’s a good idea to look at the texts that were rejected as preaching the same thing in the same way and labeling them all Gnostic and assume they were all focused on mystical connection for salvation or they are all reports of mystical experiences when a lot are just metaphysical treaties.

Faith vs knowledge is the argument in my mind with the Gnostics because the mystic connection was still there in the orthodox view but the connection was based in faith not in philosophical teachings.
It sure sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. It doesn’t matter if they had good intentions, if you are imagining a cover-up and have to imagine what really happened then it’s going to sound like conspiracy theory to most, especially when the all the historical accounts are made up from your perspective.

I like that you referred to the orthodox position as a more rationalist interpretation but I wonder why you would expect less rational thinking mystical thinking to come first while the more rational, faith based, after and not the other way around. Without saying you want more evidence since the evidence says this is the case despite you not trusting the gospels.
The orthodox position is that simply faith in Jesus as the Messiah and that happened during his lifetime. Now the understanding of the orthodox position may not have happened until Paul fleshed out what was going on and figured out what was defining the movement. Which wasn’t their mystic ability or gnosis but their faith in a dead guy as the messiah and their willingness to die for that belief. This is if you read the texts without the orthodox made all this up glasses on.
But did he physically resurrect originally or was it a mental resurrection in the minds of the followers or were they trying to use this as proof the dead could come back? Or was it originally all figurative resurrection?
I saved it for last but going thru every date is little overwhelming right now. Maybe I’ll go back and try later but I think I address most of the points I would address elsewhere in the post and I don’t have a lot of certainty on how the gospels came out or were distributed.
Yea he’s referring to his congregation but he’s saying that the knowledge is no big deal its love of god which is a mystical directive with mystical results expected. He’s trying to get them to set an example not teach a gnosis to the people. There form of mysticism is a more active involved mysticism revolving around faith not intellectual insight changing your behavior but instead contact with someone of faith.

I’m not sure about the eastern comparisons. You’re more than welcome to elaborate and force me to read some so I’m more in the know but just looking at the wiki’s I can’t comment on much.
Just because he uses the word gnosis doesn’t mean he is promoting secret or magical or special gnosis that is part of their salvation plan. It’s general knowledge that the educated community has had since Plato got popular. The gods don’t care about what you eat but that information doesn’t make anyone special, but the love of god does.
Yea you may be right about Buddhism, I just don’t know its history. But what kind of variance we are talking about is more than metaphysical differences. Looking at the Buddhism wiki you got that eight fold path for salvation which includes gnosis/ prajñā, morality/ śīla and connection/ samādhi as its three divisions. The orthodox position in Christianity is faith alone will get it done. How long and what branch of Buddhism do you think reflects that ideology? How long before Buddhism turned political and made an attempt to take over the empire?

In 1Cor 8 Paul is arguing that the prajñā path isn’t as important as the samādhi path though they have different idea of what śīla is don’t make your brother stumble by letting him see you do things that you know is ok but he thinks is blasphemy. That make any sense at all?

There is no excuse necessary for the orthodox position because there is no reason for Paul to have details about Jesus in his letters if he can’t be sure they are correct since they would HAVE to be second hand and they make no difference what-so-ever to what he is trying to push, which is that the guy was the messiah not that he existed in history. Paul having no details of Jesus’ earthly life is no evidence at all when that’s expected given the narrative we have. Who knows how many details the actual apostles had or how sure they were.

The excuse you have to make for your theory is why your reject an eye witness account of Jesus’ life and a second hand one to go to letters from a guy who never met him to justify he didn’t exist in history?
I would need some good evidence that they weren’t debating philosophy and using plain ol reason but were relying on visions to come to their answers. I think philosophical schools are more like schools. A kid may go to school and he may also play videogames(myticstuff) but that doesn’t necessarily mean he plays video games at school. Some of the Gnostic texts are vision reports but some are just packaged-up philosophy, like a study text. Texts like Plotinus’ Ennead I just don’t see as being a vision report. Not that I don’t think Plotinus couldn’t have been involved in mystical activities or had a mystical understanding of what to do with Plato’s teachings.
Yea this does seem to make any sense…. Sorry. And I’m a not a big fan of theories that end with not making any sense and just assuming that it’s the author’s beliefs you are reading that don’t make any sense. I am not comfortable with the possibility of making those kinds of mistakes. I would much rather be wrong and have a rational understanding of someone who wasn’t being rational than the other way around and have an irrational interpretation of someone trying to be rational but I’m just not understanding them properly.
Yea I agree that it would need to be explained how a middle class movement spawned the working class savior movement but I don’t live by the rule that all religions start in the middle class with mystical practices.

What would be expected though is that a working class movement that took off when it came in contact with the rich folk who didn’t want to hear the renounce your wealth bit and sacrifice your life stuff would quickly produce a better interpretation of what Jesus wanted which was more intellectual/spiritual goals. This may not go with your notion of how all religions begin but it does coincide with the evidence we have.
We can play dumb and read just Paul and what you get is a guy including Gentiles into the Jewish promise of a resurrection of the dead if they have faith in this Jesus fellow. He says it’s faith that defines the Jew and not obedience to the law and explains the problems with the law and how they are free of it because of their faith in Christ. Appearing to contradicting slightly is his instruction to the church leaders he is writing to because despite being free of law in his ideology he goes to great length to explain why they should still be good. There is more but what he is not doing in his letters is promoting or trying to spread mystical practice or Gnostic teachings but instead just promote that the messiah has already been and you can be saved by faith in him. Yes he has Gnostic beliefs and had a mystical visionary experience that helped convince him Jesus was the Christ but he’s not trying to promote his beliefs or trying to get people to have mystical experience because what he believes and those kind of experiences are common place and hardly good news.
He would have no way of knowing what historical details are true and they would have been of almost no use to him developing his ideology. If you want the historical account of Jesus go to John not Paul. If you want how the Jesus story got handed over to the gentiles then you go to Paul.
No it doesn’t look like that at all in the context of a story about a guy sacrificing his real life, in a paragraph of him predicating his own actual death.
The martyrs came after Constantine? That doesn’t make any sense, they were starting to get some favored treatment at that point. It makes sense that the martyrdom was successful in Rome because Rome had no problem making martyrs and Christianity had just the meme to get it done, in that they were submitting to a spiritual king instead of Caesar. Every time they killed on helping to strengthen the Christian faith in Rome until it finally became Christian itself because as they say if you can’t kill em...

I don’t see how this particular orthodox offshoot of this particular mystical occult group being so small was able to get Constantine to protect and promote Christianity?
Yea but we need the initial scripture that said he was past tense not that his defeat and resurrection was prophesized. The idea you need to support in that he used scripture to say the messiah was in the past unknown and not a guy in the past he is trying to justify as the messiah. Him using scripture to support his position isn’t enough to support your position that they used scripture to see the messiah had already been.
Oh man this looks good. :thumbs: This could be some common ground we can work from if I’m reading you right.

From my perspective one of the main points in Christianity is ideological warfare against the rulers memes/demons. Getting the people to move their faith over to Jesus is to take the power away from the earthly rulers since as he said we can only serve one master.

John 12:31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

John 16:7-11 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

And Paul talks about getting rid of the authority as part of the plan as well.

1 Cor 15:21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

To me that’s the political revolutionary understanding of Christianity is where it’s at. That mystical Gnostic stuff I think is just like barnacles that collected on the boat as the movement grew not the source of the political movement. I like the political movement version because it makes some sense even if you don’t believe everything about it.

It doesn’t make any sense if both events actually happen in history unless I’m missing something. Having followers would have prevented him from being killed so his followers needed to find out latter maybe?? This bit needs a lot of work; you may want to consider just tossing or considering another variation.

1 cor15: 12Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

The resurrection was a real event proving real life after death being possible. Here is Origen from commentary on Matthew speaking about the different beliefs about the resurrection.

The Jews had different opinions, some false, such as the Sadducees held about the resurrection of the dead, that they do not rise, and in regard to angels that they do not exist, but that those things which were written about them were only to be interpreted figuratively, but had no reality in point of fact; and some true opinions, such as were taught by the Pharisees about the resurrection of the dead that they rise.

This movement got going because they were selling an actual resurrection of the dead in exchange for faith. Figurative resurrection and eternal life isn’t good news but actual eternal life is.
I would consider the movement started like the narrative said it started instead of how your theory says it should have started. I think this is a much wiser idea instead of trying to say that orthodoxy started at some unknown time in some unknown way that you won’t be able to support.

Yea people like Justin Martyr thought of Christianity like a philosophy and presented it that way because of who he was talking to in first apology, a philosophical emperor. I think that Christianity as a philosophy as well but more like a philosophical maneuver being executed by example instead of being taught. The difference between walking the walk and just talking the talk.
You would figure that there would be some historical recording of this and from your perspective connecting the manufactured line of martyrs to the real life line.

Luke 1:26In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings O favored one, the Lord is with you!"But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."

And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?"

And the angel answered her,"The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy— the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." And Mary said, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.

It’s the story of girl believing a vision that she will conceive and does; there is no intercourse of any kind. It’s about anything being possible with faith that goes along with the OT idea of believing messengers and visions from god and getting rewarded/saved. The man god stuff and the ghost porn is for a Greek myth not a Jewish story of a messiah.
I think the idea that all religions started the same way is getting in the way of understanding how this religion started. You don’t conform the evidence to fit a theory. If the evidence says it started in the lower ranks then there is no reason to declare a conspiracy because you believe that ALL religions start in the middle class and they are ALL mystically based so what you are reading has to be wrong.

aa5874

But, you are NOT following the narrative. Your theory has very little to do with the narrative provided in the Canon. First of all Jesus was the offspring of the Holy Ghost and a Virgin and you have completely ignored that fundamental part of the narrative and have made up a story of your own of which you have no support.

So who wrote gLuke? Was it a Greek? And was it initially meant to be believed by a Greek audience?

gLuke was written in Greek.

Now, your are in fantasy land. Women do not become pregant by faith.

And if you are claiming that a woman became pregnant by faith, then you are actually advocating that the "man/god stuff" can happen by faith.

You only cherry-pick the parts of the narrative to fit your theory. Once the evidence in the narrative does not fit your theory you discard it.

You have just blatantly discarded parts of the narrative in gLuke because it does not fit your theory about a man you invented.

You are actually doing the very same thing that you are accusing others of. You are just a cherry-picker who thinks he just picked the best cherries.

gurugeorge

The way you express this, this is probably the root of where we differ. I don't see any reason to believe that we have an eyewitness account ANYWHERE in the NT. As Price puts it, what are you to think, when for nearly every given portion of Jesus text in the NT, you can find a scholar who finds it mythical, or based on Scripture, or cribbed from some other contemporary philosophy, or novels, or visions, or Josephus, etc., etc. etc.? Put them all together, and what's left to be historical at all, what is there left that could possibly BE eyewitness anything?

It's not that I can't conceive of such a thing - I could easily concieve of something that would satisfy me, and it's not that difficult to pass my test, but there just isn't anything like that, that I can find. (e.g. imagine how different things would be if we had in Paul something like "Cephas told me Jesus had told him that x"? Ah, at last, a piece of internal evidence that might tolerably be construed as evidence for a HUMAN BEING).

What we do find is theology, philosophy, mysticism and occultism, all wrapped up in a damn good story.

Check out Garth Fowden's The Egyptian Hermes (or via: amazon.co.uk), and the work of Peter Kingsley (Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic, Places of Wisdom, and Reality).

There are other writers too in the same area - basically, there's a growing awareness amongst some of these academics that magick and magickal practices in the ancient world were relatively widespread and had a major influence on both religion, on the one hand, and philosophy on the other. This is based partly on archaeology, so it's not just speculative stuff or textual analysis.

I myself think this approach should be combined with modern cognitive and consciousness studies. That's the only way to ultimately understand religion.

He was reported by his student, Porphyry, as entering trance states and mystical states of union; the whole point of the Enneads, everything it leads to is to introduce direct knowledge of The One.

Basically, whatever Plato had originally intended for his philosophy (and actually, we have a hint from one of his supposed letters that he, too, was at least acquainted with mysticism), by the time period we are looking at, Neo-Pythagoreanism, Middle Platonism and Neo-Platonism had a strong mystical/visionary element, and a practical element, at that.

So for me, if I see the kind of stuff you see in Corinthians 12-13, it's obvious to me that that's the kernel of what was going on - that occult and mystical stuff what they actually did, they filled their time doing that. So the interpretation of the rest of the text falls into place. Doing those things gives people visions and mystical experiences - hence the production (at this time, in Paul's time, at least) of theology, the production of gospels, the production of stories about Jesus, etc., is explained. Hence also, in such a context, philosophy and theology can flow from the experiences, as well as philosophy induce experiences.

Where's the evidence for a working class movement, though?

1 Corinthians 12:
7Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues,[a] and to still another the interpretation of tongues.[b] 11All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.


It certainly does make sense - but I don't see any evidence for it, it just seems like a way of rationalising it, in the absence of any evidence for a human Jesus (and I'm sorry but I don't see such a thing developing as a pure meme/myth either - the power of your kind of hypothesised startup does depend on the force of conviction arising from an actual example of self-sacrifice by a human being).

No, I'm sorry: Paul is through-and-through mysticism and occultism, it's the writings of a mystic and visionary, and he's talking about people doing mystical and occult practices in his churches. That's just what it says on the tin. Anything else is an interpretation based on a prior commitment to the orthodox picture, or at the very least a prior commitment to some type of startup NOT plainly evidenced by the text, but inferred.

But there is no evidence that it started "in the lower ranks". Who is "lower rank" in Paul's letters? Complete fairy story!

P.S. Forgot, re. the virgin birth - you are just cherry picking there. Whoever wrote GLuke, it was their plain intention to have the reader believe Mary was f****d by a spook. Whatever one might suppose might have happened had there been a real human Virgin Mary, GLuke (as well as most of the rest of the NT and the Church) wants you to believe she was f****d by a spook.

Again, just plain occultism, a mixture of theology and magickal thinking, limning the myth of a divine god-man. A myth that could have euhemeristic roots, but doesn't look like it has.

Elijah

Did you look at this article Toto posted up a bit back about John?

I think the theories of the reconstructing of the gospel story with bits from the OT about like I do with people who say that the bible predicted Jesus or their horoscope predicted their day or Nostradamus predicted something. In hindsight that kind of stuff is expected, especially considering the kind of story they are trying to tell and the material you are mining bits of information from.

Your desires for what you wish Paul would have said may be realistic from your perspective but there is plenty of reason to think that he just had reason or no need to put them in, if he even had them, instead of jumping to the conclusion that this is the proof of a non historical Jesus. It’s just not a reasonable line of argument… just too many assumptions to jump to such a radical conclusion, when more likely answers would explain him not mentioning whatever you wish he mentioned.
If it’s free online then cool. I prefer the primary texts. The scholarly opinion means almost nothing to me… it’s the evidence they use to make their case and that should be able to be found online since most of the texts are out of copyright and available online. I know that’s extra work and may come off as rude (and dumb of me) but it’s probably a bit less work than asking someone to hand over some cash for a book that may or may not make the case for you.
Altered states aren’t necessary for philosophy, reason is. Now reason/logos is a spiritual element that can be pursued and used in a mystical way but it can also be done with simple contemplation and debate/questioning. And the texts they produced were not always visionary accounts or mystical practices but the actual gnosis/philosophy that these practices and experiences may have led some to believe. But that doesn’t make them the same thing or that you should understand them as synonymous, especially in practice where philosophers can just be debating or just thinking for their mystical pursuit.
Ok what do you think the point of this passage and the rest of 12 and 13 is? What is Paul trying to say here?

Matt 11:28-30
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

1 Cor 4:10-13
We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.

1 Thess 2:9-10
For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.

James 5:4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned; you have murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.

What’s the evidence it’s a middle class movement again?
You don’t see evidence because your preconceived notions about how religion and this religion started won’t let you look at all the evidence equally. It’s just a giant orthodox conspiracy theory where you can’t trust anything anyone says. If it sounds like orthodox or working class then you don’t trust it because you believe in Scholar X who says you shouldn’t and scholar Y who says everything started mystical experience, so that’s that.
Almost everyone involved in the story seems lower ranks. Who in the formation of Christianity do you think should be classified as middle class and why? Maybe we aren’t in agreement what constitute middle class.
No I’m not cherry picking I’m reading it from the perspective of what the story is about, which is the power of faith, not the power of a man-god. Yes your understanding is common, it’s the take we are first introduced to when we hear about Christianity before we read the texts but if you read the texts plainly it’s about what faith can accomplish. If you missed the faith aspect then you missed a lot of what is going on in the gospels because even from your theory of it being a cover-up it’s still a cover-up by a faith based movement so you should consider that with the miracles.
What you’re doing sounds like what I would do if someone asked me to read some lawyer’s documents and asked me what it was about and I’d have to go “lawyer stuff” because I don’t exactly understand what the point of the document is. It seems like that’s what you are doing with the mystical talk; you are missing the point because you don’t really understand what they are talking about in regards to the mystical talk, just that they are mystics. The point of a lawyer’s text isn’t to promote law but a particular idea with legal talk and the same thing is the case with the mystic. The point of the mystic talk isn’t to promote mysticism but to convey an idea that has mystical talk and experience involved.