sschlichter

I would still love to see a defense of the position that early Christians did not believe Christ rose from the dead and that the authors of the gospels among them did not beleive Christ rose from the dead.

Toto

Posts moved for being off topic

sschlichter

In the post that was wisked away by Toto, there was the following comment made by IAmJoseph.

this part of the post is germaine to the topic. He is drawing the conclusion (perhaps for other motives) that the gospels are obviously not intended to be fiction but is a calculated lie. the greatest lie, in fact.

What is the motivation behind the lie (specifically, the lying about guards at the tomb) and more generally in authoring the gospels at all? If someone could let me know when the lie started, that would be helpful as well.

examples were given of Joseph Smith, Mohammed, etc where you can obviously derive motives. What are the motives here?

bacht

To provide literary authority and unity for a new religious association (Christianity) using elements from a recently destroyed ancient near eastern culture (Judaism)

Toto

There are a few people who claim that the gospels were written as fake history to deceive. (Atwill, Carotta, and mountainman are the only 3 who come to mind.)

But usually it is only Christian apologists who bring this up, AS IF the only alternatives are "lie" versus "truth", and if there is no motive for lying, the gospels must be the TRUTH. This is a false dichotomy, a false conclusion, and a very distorted view of ancient literature and historical sources.

Susan2

This is very confusing to me.

So, if the gospels aren’t the truth, then they are a lie? What is the motive for lying? Or, are you suggesting that within the gospels exists both the truth and the lie, which of course is reflective of fiction, specifically historical fiction?

Certainly, if they weren’t written as fake history to deceive, they were presented as real history to deceive. Now if they were presented as real history to deceive, which they certainly were, then what was the motive for that? Is it the same motive that could have been used to write them as real history to deceive?

This almost appears like Bill Clinton when he asked his interrogators to define ‘is’. Do you think he was trying to rewrite history, or that he was trying to deceive?

Gee's, I don't even want to think what they are gonna have to do to clean up George W Bush's history.

I think I'm gonna go get me one of those capsules, start writing, and bury it. Instead of the coupons I have been clipping out of the newspaper, I'm going for the good, stuff; headlines, and clear contact paper to preserve them. Don't want no holes appearing in his story a thousand or so years from now.


ETA: Polititians are know for bait and switch tactics. I am beginning to think that the Jewish flavor of the story is just that. Bait and switch, confusion reigns. This is as much a Roman/Catholic story as it is of the semitic religions; a world view of women.

sschlichter

ok, thank you for replying.

Are you saying then that Christianity did not beleive in the resurrection before the gospels and did not already have elements from Judaism before the gospels.

When did this occur? We should not expect to see any elements of Judaism prior to this date, should we?

sschlichter

I do not know why others might bring it up. I am just trying to understand your position. You appear to be agreeing that there is no apparent motive for lying. You seem like someone who wants to understand the text we are discussing and yet you are not curious when you feel the authors had no motives for writing them. Isn't it impossible to actually write something without a motive for doing so. What other history (true or not) do you read where you do not want to understand why it was written?

~Steve

spamandham

The word 'lie' implies an intent to decieve. Something can be grossly false, and yet not be a lie.

For example, there was a time when people believed consciousness was encapsulated in an ephemeral thing known as a soul. We now know that's incorrect and that consciousness is a brain function. Those who spread the nontruth were not lying, even though they were wrong. Many people today still believe the soul myth and continue to spread it out of ignorance rather than malice.

Tom Sawyer is a work of fiction. Although it is false, it is not a lie, because the intent of the author was to entertain, not deceive.

This is one of the fundamental flaws made by laymen analyzing the Gospels (which includes me) - to start off by assuming that the intent of the authors was to dutifully record history. There is no reason whatsoever to make that assumption, and an analysis of the genre (see Talbert) does not indicate this assumption is even very reasonable.

...as an afterthought, people do sometimes actually intentionally lie as well, and it isn't uncommon to find works of intentional deceit in writing, so that isn't a prior an invalid position either. It only becomes invalid as we dig deeper into understanding the culture and the genre of the writings.

aa5874

You cannot say that people who spread false information were not lying. The person who first wrote that Jesus was the offspring of the Holy Ghost must have been lying.


The author of Tom Sawyer did acknowledge that his work was fiction unlike the authors of the NT.

The first Jesus story writer must have been a liar once Jesus as described did not exist since no author of the Jesus stories admitted to writing fiction or falsehoods about Jesus.

The Church presented the NT as the truth. The Church must have realised at some time that the Jesus stories were lies. The Church has not admitted that the Jesus stories must have been false. The Church has lied to the world about Jesus.