ApostateAbe

If anyone is curious about the Gospel of Abe that aa5874 referred to just now, here it is:

The Gospel of Abe

aa5874

You are posting DEBUNKED nonsense. It has ALREADY been pointed out to you that Jesus of the NT was NOT an apocalyptic preacher. He NEVER did preach to the POPULACE that there would be an Apocalypse.

Jesus had a PRIVATE DISCUSSION with FOUR disciples in gMark about the signs of his second coming and NEVER discussed the signs with the JEWISH people.

Jesus wanted the Jews to PERISH in their Sins so he DELIBERATELY spoke to them in PARABLES so that they could NOT understand him.

Jesus gave the JEWS NO SIGN but the sign of Jonah which is really a myth fable about a fish.

Mt 12:39 - ApostateAbe, when will stop your NONSENSE that Jesus was an APOCALYPTIC preacher when Jesus did NOT give the JEWS any sign of the end of time in the Gospels.

I will DEBUNK your apocalyptic nonsense all the time.

Please deal with the actual written evidence and NOT what you PRESUME.

Mt 24:3 - Mark 13 Jesus in the Gospels gave NO sign of any Apocalypse to the Jews, NONE ZERO.

It is time for HJers to stop promoting ERRONEOUS and DEBUNKED information and deal with the actual written evidence from antiquity.

spin

So the dragon bites its own tail. Back to where you started as though nothing has been said in the thread. Encouraging, one doesn't conclude.

I'm glad you've read a little of the stuff you're supposed to know about here.

Perhaps you could explain on what basis you claim three independent sources relevant to the beginning of the religion. How do you know anything about the dependence or not of those sources?

Standard works on Daniel include the Hermeneia commentary by John J. Collins, which goes into great detail about the historical background to Daniel. If you need more depth you could consider The Book of Daniel, Collins & Flint (eds), vol.1, especially Part 4, "Social Setting", containing essays by Albertz, Grabbe, Ph. Davies and a few others. Lester Grabbe's "Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian" (either large single volume or volume 1, "The Persian and Greek Periods") deals well with the Greek era to give a comprehensive historical background to Daniel. It's hard to go past the Hermeneia commentary, but any scholarly commentary, ie non-confessional, linguistically competent, will probably give you an understanding of the political context of the writing of Daniel.

The book of 1 Enoch is a more problematical issue, for it is an inherently divided work, written over a long period from the late 3rd c. BCE to the post-Qumran era and there is no well-rounded historico-critical analysis of it. The Similitudes/Parables, which I gather is what would interest you, not being found at all at Qumran, is the last section to be added to this pentateuch. All other sections are found in multiple copies at Qumran. The Parables give no positive indication of having been written before the rise of christianity. Besides the gospels, it's one of the earliest works to misunderstand the son of man passage in Daniel, so there is a fair case for arguing that it is derivative of early christianity.

If it is not the Parables that you refer to, but the two apocalypses (Animal Apocalypse, see ch.90, and Apocalypse of Weeks, ie ch.93+91) contained in the latter part of the text, these come down to an analysis of history similar in time and context to Daniel with an apparent terminus at the death of Judas Maccabaeus. Loren Struckenbruck has a commentary on 1 Enoch 91-108, which covers the Weeks.

Milik's book attempts to rationalize the Qumran fragments with the tradition. Collins's books on the apocalyptic (The Star and the Sceptre and The Apocalyptic and the Dead Sea Scrolls) deal with both Daniel and 1 Enoch.

If you are interested in any of this stuff, there's more than enough to start with. I can provide more specifics if needed after processing what is mentioned here.

ApostateAbe

Thanks, I appreciate it.

ApostateAbe

From another thread:
I haven't researched every single tale of a human doomsday cult leader, no. Most inductions are done with only a sufficiently large sample. I listed such characters in the OP. Maybe with a research grant, I will go out and hunt down every single one of them. Of course, such an induction can be struck down with a single contrary example, or at least the proposed pattern will go from all of the time to merely most of the time, and that contrary example should be a much easier task. You only have to find one of them.

Zenaphobe

Abe, just curious, what do you think about Simon Magus? Does he fit your profile as a historical person whom a cult was spawned from?

David B

I'm coming to this thread late, and have just skimmed through it, but I've talked about the subject with my old friend Abe about this quite recently on another board.

We seem to agree that the balance of probability is that there was historical Jesus, who was to some degree represented in the biblical texts.

It's not quite the same texts that lead us to our working hypotheses, though.

In my case it is the story of the irrational rage at the fig tree, the account of him saying that people must hate parents etc for his sake, and his happiness at getting expensive unguents rubbed into him by a devotee.

All these seem to me very typical of cult leaders, though they don't, it seems to me, present Jesus in a very good light.

A character with something of the Sai Baba, something of the Michael Trevasser or David Koresh about him seems to me to fit the biblical tales well enough for me to accept an HJ as my working hypothesis.

It strikes me that Jesus as reported was too much of an asshole to be entirely invented, though that is, as I say, very much more working hypothesis than definitive proof.

I am curious about whether another person to whom many miraculous powers have been attributed actually existed, and so far my googling has provided me with nothing positive about it, though his existence as a historical personage seems to go unchallenged, especially in Wales.

I suspect that there was a historical David, though. Some other early Welsh saints also have miracle stories attached to them, and there seems to be more than adequate contemporary evidence that they existed. It would seem to me to be extraordinary if there were not a historical St David, to about the same order that it would seem to me extraordinary if there were not a historical cult leader behind the Jesus tales.

I think I'll try a thread on it.

David B

ApostateAbe

He would fit a category that is broader in scope, not a doomsday cult leader, but just a cult leader. So, yes.

David B

I concur

David B

aa5874

Well, HJers are a strange bunch.

I have NEVER in my lifetime heard that such logics.

"Jesus as reported was too much of an asshole to be entirely invented"

From the criterion of embarrassment to the criterion of "too much of an asshole".

Well, Marcion's Phantom was too much of a PHANTOM to be invented.

The existence of other persons of antiquity has NOTHING whatsoever to do with Jesus Christ of the NT.

Jesus Christ of the NT was the Child of a Ghost and was God's OWN Son made of a woman, God Incarnate.

Galatians 1.19 is IRRELEVANT to the nature of Jesus Christ, God's OWN Son, God Incarnate and when "Paul" supposedly met the apostles Peter and James God Incarnate was ALREADY RAISED from the dead.

The NT CANON is NOT about a man.

The NT CANON MUST be compatible with the teachings of the Church.

ALL those who claim Jesus was JUST a man NEED to GO FIND another SOURCE that is credible for their man and FORGET about the NT Canon.

The NT CANON is the WRITTEN EVIDENCE from antiquity for MYTH Jesus.

You won't find the HERESY that Jesus was an ordinary man with a human father in the NT Canon.