stuart shepherd

The following Scripture points out that the Apostles were all married.
1 Corinthians 9:5 (New American Standard Bible)
Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?

Since birth control had not yet been invented, coitis interuptus, onanism, was not permitted by the Law, and the Law commanded the Jews to be fruitful and multiply, they probably had many children.

The popular belief is that Jesus traveled around Palestine for about 3 1/2 years with the twelve Apostles.

So how did the Apostles support themselves and their families while they and Jesus traveled around?

Did they have a patron or patrons who bankrolled their operation?
Did they pass the basket around at each stop on their travels?
Or how do you think they raised the cash necessary to send 13 evangelists on tour while supporting their families?

Somehow I think that Christians never consider the logistics involved with the gospel stories. If everyone was so poor according to the Christian myth how could they have the financial ability to accomplish their mission?

Or is this just another proof that the whole story is a fairy tale?

stuart shepherd

GakuseiDon

:huh: At some point, some Christians started going around, preaching Christ. Paul certainly indicates this. Wouldn't the same issue arise, gospels or no gospels?

The Evil One

Since when have travelling preachers (with or without families) had trouble milking their audiences (poverty-stricken or not) sufficiently to fund their exploits?

Oh yeah.... that's right.... since never.

Honestly, I'm as sceptical of the gospel account as the next man, but there are so many actual problems with the NT account, it is totally unnecessary to worry about imaginary problems.

Antipope Innocent II

Apparently so:

After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.
(Luke 8:1-3)

The wife of the steward of the king of Galilee is unlikely to have been some kind of impoverished peasant woman. Other wealthy supporters are also mentioned elsewhere. And, if you look at parallel accounts of wandering Jewish rabbis, there was nothing unusual or logistically unlikely about what the gospels describe. It's interesting that these tedious "Jesus never existed" people are inevitably ignorant of Yeshua's historical Jewish context.

aa5874

They used to make their own food, or pluck corn on the sabbath. Remember.

Toto

<mod hat on>

Antipope: please avoid inflammatory and insulting comments about other schools of thought. There are mythicists who know quite a bit about Jesus' Jewish context, and most of us know that Jesus was never referred to as Yeshua until modern times. And it gets a bit "tedious" when historicists avoid the issues and resort to insulting people who don't agree with them.

Thanks for your attention to this.

Antipope Innocent II

Looks more like your mythicist hat to me.

Some mythicists may, others don't seem to at all. If you personally fall into the former category, then that's great. But my comment was about a key weakness of the Mythicist position as it is often expressed - it often ignores the things in the gospel stories which have the strong ring of Jewish historical authenticity.

That's not an "insult" of anyone here, it's an observation re a problem I have with the Mythicist position. If we can't comment on perceived weaknesses of opposing positions, how can we discuss things at all?


The Greek sources we have about him and his later Greek-speaking followers used a Grecified version of his Aramaic name. But he was definitely "referred" to as Yeshua in his lifetime - it was his name. I refer to him as Yeshua to differentiate the Jewish preacher of history from the later figure in the stories.


It was not an insult. Nor is pointing out that the overwhelming majority of "Mythicists" are amateurs (with the exception of Price). That is simply a fact. Some of them are also "amateurish" (eg Acharya S, Freke and Gandy), but not all. I'm also not clear on what "issues" I've "avoided" in the mere four posts I've made here since I joined.

Toto

Please review the forum rules that you agreed to when you signed up here. And don't get snippy with me. I'm here to enforce the rules. If you have a problem with anything I do, there's a special forum for complaints. Otherwise you are advised to show at least a small amount of respect.

If you want to start a thread on that, please do. I have not seen a case made for the historicity of Jesus based on the ring of Jewish historical authenticity, and I am not sure why authentic details in the gospels show that they are factual, as opposed to historical fiction. But you may provide more details for your case.

By discussing those weaknesses, not just calling your opponents names.

There are a lot of assumptions there. But moving on...

"Tedious" is not an endearing term. And we are all amateurs here in one sense or another.

We try to avoid arguments here of the type "people who think Jesus was historical are just brain washed apologists" vs "people who think Jesus never existed are just amateurs and fringe nutcases." That gets tedious very quickly.

If you think that you can show positive evidence that Jesus existed, go ahead and start a thread. If you think that you can show a significant defect in some particular mythicist hypothesis that some poster here has advocated, start a thread on that. But don't just drop little insults here and there about how uninformed or tedious or amateurish mythicists are.

You can find some mythicists who are amateurish and uninformed, but you can find even more Christian apologists who present an amateurish and uniformed case in favor of the historicity of Jesus. The weakness of their arguments cannot be taken as evidence for their opponents.

I should point out that you are new, and the debates over the historicity of Jesus have been going on here since the year 2000. It will be interesting if you can find anything new to say.

Antipope Innocent II

Will do.

Point noted. But, as I see it, referring to some flaws in an opposing position in passing is rather different to shouting "<edit>".

For your statement on the matter to be correct you have to assume that the guy didn't exist at all. That's a rather big assumption as well. If he did exist, it's pretty clear his name was Yeshua.

Except I wasn't referring to anyone here.

And I wouldn't consider that an argument worth making anyway. Though the fact that the "Jesus Myth" position has virtually no defenders amongst professional scholars something worth remembering. Scholarly consensus counts for something, even if only because such consensus is so rare.

I'm neither a Mythicist nor a Christian. Nor a Theist for that matter. And I didn't see anything in the rules about how you can't make a comment or observation in passing either. I'm perfectly capable of backing those comments up at great length, though don't have the time to do so right now, nor did I earlier today.

I'm quite aware of that - I've been lurking here on and off for at least five years.

If my response sounded "snippy" then my apologies. My comments in passing were not about any Mythicists here at all, though I can see now how they could have been read that way. Having been a member of long (and good) standing on many well-moderated boards, I fully respect the need for moderation. I have no intention of insulting anyone here or behaving in any way that is contrary to the rules.

Toto

Not sufficiently different, I'm afraid. The few posts that I have seen from you all have drive-by insults.

And then you go on to make that argument, which is not worth making.

You wouldn't happen to know a certain James Hannam, would you?