spamandham

If you accept 1 Cor. 15 as authentic, then Paul tells us that his meeting of Jesus was like that of those who preceded him:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

Other than being last, there does not seem to be any difference in the appearances, and we know elsewhere from Paul that Jesus appeared to him in a vision, so by strong implication, this is also how he appeared to Cephas (presumably Peter), and then "the twelve" (which presumably includes Peter again), and then to "more than 500", then to James (apparently Jesus' own brother had never seen him before - I guess James kept his eyes closed whenever he played kickball with Jesus growing up).

The only way I can see to coherently argue that Paul's Cephas and his James had known Jesus in the flesh, is to first dispense with 1 Cor. 15. I think there is a good argument to be made for that, but HJers don't generally accept it because 1 Cor. 15 is their Jewel in the crown.

aa5874

The Pauline writings are a COMPLETE disaster for HJ.

When one examines the Pauline writings it is NOT even known when "Paul's" LORD and SAVIOR Jesus Christ actually was born, lived and died. It is from other sources that information about the life of the supposed OFFSPRING of the Ghost can be found.

But even though there is hardly anything about the supposed actual birth and life of Jesus in the Pauline writings "Paul" claimed he was NOT the apostle of a man but of Jesus.

"Paul" wrote almost nothing about the supposed actual birth and life of Jesus yet he claims he did NOT receive his Gospel from a man.

"Paul" wrote virtually NOTHING about the supposed actual birth and life Jesus but claimed that Jesus must be RAISED from the dead for the Salvation of mankind.

It is evident that the Pauline doctrine ONLY requires BELIEF and not history.

Even if Jesus did exist it MUST be BELIEVED that he rose from the dead for the Savation of Mankind.

The Pauline Gospel, the Good News, "Remission of Sins by the Resurrection" only requires BELIEF.

Ro 10:9 - .

jimclay75051

I'm one of those people who do not believe Jesus ever existed as a real person. I can't prove that, but I believe it because the story of Jesus is very closely related to basic mythological stories that were being told for a thousand or more years before the first century. Many of the actions of Jesus are similar to the actions of Hercules for example. They both had god as a father and a mortal as a mother, they both had to chose what path to take, they both had to prove themselves, they both raised one person from the dead, they both died a sacrificial type death, they both ascended up to god. When Mark decided to give Jesus a personality, he used the most common paradigm in existence at that time.

My own speculation is that Jesus story did not get started until the Gospel of Mark, before then it was a more abstract Jewish cult. And because he does not fit well in the Gospels I think John the Baptist may be the founder of Christianity or the guy who put it on the map. And I think early Christianity was an anti-temple cult. The temple being bad in their eyes because it was controlled by the Greeks and then by the Romans.

I'm not quite sure how you go from the Baptism to creating a story about a man dying on the cross. Although I suspect Christianity developed in stages. I think Isis had a donkey dying on the cross, so Christians my have gotten the idea from them. Cults in those days had some pretty complicated ideas so perhaps its not that surprising.

Of course unless more scrolls are discovered, we will never know for sure.

aa5874

When Copernicus claimed the earth was round he did not travel or sail around the entire globe to develop his theory. Copernicus just used the data that he and others had collected.

In the same way, the theory that Jesus did NOT exist was developed from actual extant DATA found in the extant Codices.

Now, after about 5 years of collecting data about Jesus of the NT it turns out that Jesus was a MYTH fable just like any other MYTH fable of Antiquity.

In fact since the 2nd century Justin Martyr stated that the Jesus story was no different to Greek/Roman mythology.

"First Apology" XXI
Well, there is NO need to speculate. There is TONS of DATA to support the theory that Jesus was a myth fable which started some time after the Fall of the Temple.

spamandham

Hi jimclay, welcome to FRDB!

You could of course be right. Personally though, I tend to doubt Mark is the original. Reading the introduction to Mark, I see the baptism by John as a useful plot device, but it's not well developed. It's just *bang* there it is. To me, this suggests the audience is already somewhat familiar with it, and so Mark needs only make reference to it.

The anti-temple cult idea makes sense, and makes even more sense if there is no temple at the time the cult forms. If we go down the road of ahistoricism, then there really is no compelling reason to date Mark, Paul, or even Q to the first century at all.