aa5874

Your statement is WHOLLY erroneous. I won't allow you to SPREAD Chinese Whispers. Let us look at gMark itself. gMark is CLEAR. The Jesus of gMark was non-historical--a Myth--non-human---the Son of God.

Mark 15:39 KJVMark 3:11 KJVMark 5:7 KJV We all have copies of gMark so we ALL KNOW that the Earliest Jesus was a MYTH--the Son of God.

Mark 14Again, the historical Jesus is NOT an argument that Jesus was believed to have existed. You very well know that people of antiquity believed Jesus existed as God Incarnate.

God Incarnate is NOT an historical Jesus. God Incarnate is Mythology.

The Resurrected Jesus is NOT an historical Jesus. a Resurrected being is Mythology.

The Epistle of Barnabas does NOT support an historical Jesus. There are NO written statements in the Epistle of Barnabas that argue against a Divine Jesus or support the Heresy that Jesus had a human father and was NOT born of the Holy Ghost and a Woman.

The Jesus of Barnabas was a Myth--non-human--the Son of God.

Barnabas 5:9

EmmaZunz

OMG do you put the same comment on every thread? Again, you have an extremely over-strict definition of what qualifies as HJ. Early Xians clearly began to take the Gospel Jesus as historical. Reader-interpretation is not the same as Mark's original intention.

aa5874

I MUST repeat it because you still do not understand that there is a QUEST for an Historical Jesus.

The "historical Jesus" means a human, flesh and blood, Jesus.

Please, if you don't want to understand what is meant by "historical Jesus" then why are you posting??

In the SEARCH for an HJ there is a very strict meaning for "historical Jesus"

The claim by supposed early Christians that THEIR Jesus existed as the Child of a Ghost or as God the Creator has NOTHING whatsoever to do with an historical Jesus.

After all, the very same supposed Christians believed Satan existed and was on top the Jewish Temple with Jesus.

Supposed Christians believed the Angel Gabriel existed and did talk to Mary in Nazareth.

So, please understand that the term historical Jesus is not merely about belief of existence but that Jesus was an HUMAN BEING and was KNOWN by his followers to be human.

There is NO apologetic source in the Canon that support an historical Jesus. In the Canon, Jesus existed as a Divine character--the Son of God.

Jesus existed in the Epistle of Barnabas--not as the son of man--but the Son of God.

Barnabas 12:10

Vorkosigan

Alas, probably won't be back here for at least another 24 hours. Sorry man.

aa5874

All of a sudden people are scared of the Epistle of Barnabas.

Barnabas 12:10 Nothing will change in 24 hours. The Epistle of Barnabas is cast in stone.

The Jesus of Barnabas was NOT human, Not historical but a perfect Myth.

GakuseiDon

That's right. These are the implications of Doherty's theories. Was Barnabas aware of the Gospels, but not interested in providing details from it? That's the question.

I doubt it.

Good question. Does that mean he/she has a source independent of the Gospels?

I think that is inevitable, and we have the early writers themselves explaining why. As G.A. Wells (himself a 'Christ Myth' proponent) notes (references below can be found on my website here:

"It is of course true that the source of statements such as 'descended from David' is scripture, not historical tradition. But this does not mean, as Doherty supposes, that the life and the death were not believed to have occurred on Earth. The evangelists inferred much of what they took for Jesus life-history from scripture, but nevertheless set this life in a quite specific historical situation."

To prove that Jesus was the expected Messiah, the early Christian writers had to 'find Christ' in the Hebrew Bible. The Christian writers throughout the Second Century nearly all place heavy emphasis that the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures proclaimed him. And they tell us why. This is Ignatius:

And I exhort you to do nothing out of strife, but according to the doctrine of Christ. When I heard some saying, If I do not find it in the ancient Scriptures, I will not believe the Gospel; on my saying to them, It is written, they answered me, That remains to be proved.

Justin Martyr, writing around 150 CE, speaks similarly:

For with what reason should we believe of a crucified man that He is the first-born of the unbegotten God, and Himself will pass judgment on the whole human race, unless we had found testimonies concerning Him published before He came and was born as man

We also see it in Acts:

Acts.17:1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews:
2 And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,
3 Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.
4 And some of them believed...
...
11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. 12 Therefore many of them believed
...
Acts 18.24 And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus...
27 And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace:
28 For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.

Note WHY many believed. It wasn't hearing about Jesus, his miracles and his wonderful sayings. People were convinced because they 'found Christ' in the Scriptures.

Okay. But wouldn't you have expected the author to look for that information? Earlier you wrote:

You think people were being converted to Xianity, believing in a HJ, yet showing no interest in him or in finding more info? The info wasn't being passed along as one of the main elements of the faith?

That is not plausible to me.

But that information WAS there, in the Gospels. So are you saying that Barnabas, having converted to Xianity, believing in a HJ, yet showed no interest in him or in finding more information? The information wasn't being passed along as one of the main elements of the faith?

EmmaZunz

People couldn't easily search for more information on the ultimate textual source of the oral rumours that reached them. It's not like he could google it.

I think you are right that the ancients were more interested in finding Christ in scripture than we are today. But then Justin wrote at least one work filled with Gospel lore - http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...guetrypho.html

Even if the earlier writers were proportionally less interested in the life of Jesus, you would expect more mention somewhere, by someone, of the details of the life.

I think we have to conclude they did not know or have access to the details of that life. So perhaps that was why they relied so heavily on scripture, once they heard vaguely that there had indeed been such a life. It's rather strange isn't it?

As for hanging on a tree - I'm going to split that off and let everybody have a look.

GakuseiDon

Yes, but didn't you also write earlier: "You think people were being converted to Xianity, believing in a HJ, yet showing no interest in him or in finding more info? The info wasn't being passed along as one of the main elements of the faith? That is not plausible to me."

But then can we say it would be plausible if people couldn't easily search for more information on the textual source of the oral rumours?

I suppose that here we really need to determine how quickly the Gospels themselves spread and how they penetrated the Christian communities around the Roman world under a mythicist scenario. It's the kind of analysis that would in fact take place if mythicism becomes mainstream. But once people start believing in a HJ, regardless of whether the origin is a HJ or MJ, then it seems to me that the expectation of how they would search for more information would be the same: i.e. either they would be interested in it or not.

Yes, but nearly always backed up by appeals to the Hebrew Scriptures, whenever proof of "Christ has come" is required.

I agree we would expect that. But that is because we have been influenced by 1800 years of the Gospel Jesus. That is, we have the idea that people saw Jesus perform miracles and cast out demons and they thought, "Holy Crap! He must be the Christ, the Son of God!" But ironically even the Gospels give a different story. In the Gospel stories, the Pharisees see the miracles and say, "Hey! You can't do that on the Sabbath!" But that is a topic for another thread.

It is to us. But I think that the primary concern of early Christians was proving that Jesus was the Christ. Note that the quotes I gave earlier were all from 'historicist' Christians. The most interesting one is the one from Ignatius: "I heard some saying, If I do not find it in the ancient Scriptures, I will not believe the Gospel; on my saying to them, It is written, they answered me, That remains to be proved." That's a pretty clear example that people were less interested in understanding the life and sayings of Jesus, and more in what was said in the Hebrew Scriptures.

And that's because it wasn't the miracles or the sayings that were the proof that Jesus was Christ for these early writers, but the evidence that was found in the Hebrew Scriptures, strange as that may sound to us today. Notice that eBarnabas is aware of both miracles and preaching by Jesus but gives no examples, instead providing quote after quote from the Hebrew Scriptures. Obviously further analysis needs to be done, but that to me is the obvious focus in early literature, including those deemed as 'historicist'.

The bottom line is: it doesn't matter whether the origin of Christianity is a MJ or a HJ; Ignatius and eBarnabas provides an example of a Christianity where the author apparently knows little to nothing of the details of a historical Jesus, but nonetheless appears to have believed that there had been a historical Jesus, and relying heavily on the Hebrew Scriptures to validate this. Even if (or perhaps especially if) there were a MJ, there are implications there that need to be factored into how we view other early literature, and those implications exist regardless of whether there had been a historical Jesus or not.

aa5874

eBarnabas does NOT promote an historical Jesus.

eBarnabas promotes the Existence of a DIVINE Jesus.

A Divine Jesus is Myth Jesus.

Again, you are manipulating the term "historical Jesus" to include Mythology.

Let us be FAIR if we want to come to a resolution.

The QUEST for an historical Jesus is NOT a SEARCH for a DIVINE Jesus found in eBarnabas.

The QUEST is for a human being with a human father and mother.

The author of eBarnabas is EXTREMELY clear that his Jesus EXISTED as a DIVINE creature and was NOT a man, was NOT historical.

Barnabas 5:9Behold the Non-historical Jesus of eBarnabas.

Barnabas 12:10

EmmaZunz

Ah. The subtle point there is that, if Xianity started with HJ, the details about that HJ would not have been so rare and unknown.

Conversely, the "fact" that HJ details were so rare and little known, indicates that HJ was not the source of or a major aspect in early Xianity.

Yes we will need a history of the reception of the Gospels and Gospel traditions.

Re Ignatius there, I strongly doubt he means by "Gospel" anything other than "the good news".

If people had nothing but scripture to go on, that's what they would focus their interest on, until they got hold of the Gospels. Maybe the Gospels started to be made widely available only after Marcion used a version of Luke to promote his own Church?