maryhelena

Well now, you made me do some googling......

I found a pdf of the first 29 pages of the book. (or one can save it to google docs). So, that at least gives you the pages I quoted from - and page 70 is available on either amazon or google book view. One can also use the search facility there. All the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac terminology is now within your grasp.....


www.wtsbooks.com/pdf_files/9780801039058.pdf


https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q...QyqOmaVUyvrb0A

aa5874

The same way as the popularity of the notion that Romulus and Remus were the founders of Rome and that Romulus ascended to heaven after he died.

The same as the popularity of Harry Potter books or Superman movies.

You seem not to understand that the Jesus story was probably one of the BEST Myth Fable ever known to people of antiquity--especially the Romans.

How do you account for the popularity that Jesus WALKED on sea water, transfigured and resurrected in the Gospels?

The Romans were fascinated by Myths and finally made Jesus Christ their God in the 4th century.

The Romans of antiquity took Myth Fables extremely seriously. They even SACRIFICED to their Myth Gods.

Justin Martyr did say that the Jesus story was NOT different to Greek and Roman Myth Fables. See "First Apology".

And he was right. Some centuries later the very Romans did accept the Myth Fables called Gospels and made Jesus a God, the Creator of heaven and earth.

lmbarre

Point taken. The popularity of the notion does not make the crucifxion historical.

Doug Shaver

That somebody called the Christ was crucified.

aa5874

So why are you going over the same things over and over and over?

The Gospels are already KNOWN to be historically UNRELIABLE for ALL EVENTS and MUST be corroborated by credible sources of antiquity.

The crucifixion of man called Jesus of Nazareth is UNKNOWN by any source of antiquity that wrote about events which happened in the time of Tiberius when Pilate was Governor.

Nothing at all. So let us just stop speculating and give the VERDICT.

The crucifixion of Jesus in the NT cannot be recovered and it appears to be fictional and implausible as found written in the Gospels which are themselves NOT to be trusted.

This is a most rational VERDICT based on the EVIDENCE.

Vorkosigan

The Crucifixion of Jesus was a cosmic event carried out by demonic forces in some otherwhen not on earth.

As above. The "rulers of the age" are evil demonic forces. Paul never describes Jesus' crucifixion as taking place on earth; he thinks it took place in the heavens somewhere, leaving his enemies trailing behind him like a cast off garment, as Paul poetically describes it.

The "pre-Markan" source in GMark is Paul. There is no pre-Markan tale of the Crucifixion which is why the writer of Mark casts the whole thing in OT terms.

It was the foundational event in the religion of the earliest Christians. Of course it was popular! The writer of Mark sometime in the second story cast it in narrative form with the Romans as villains. It was Luke who constructed it as history.

If the Romans whacked Jesus and everyone knew, why does Paul tell everyone to obey the earthly rulers, who carry a sword for the evil? Why does Paul never mention any details or location for this event, which everyone knew (nothing to hide). Since everyone knew why are their multiple versions of it, including one in which Jesus is not crucified by the Romans? Since everyone knew that the Jews handed Jesus over to the Romans, why didn't Paul ever include in his discussions of how Jesus and the Law were related? There could hardly be anything more symbolic or useful in condemning Jews than that they killed Jesus through the Law... as later ages found out.

Vorkosigan

aa5874

Biggest joke I ever heard for a long time.

The NT Canon does NOT support such a Heresy.

It is quite amusing when the people who claimed the Pauline writings were manipulated to reflect the Doctrine of the Church turn around and attempt to show that it was NOT.

The Pauline Jesus was the same Jesus that was crucified under Pilate in Jerusalem as found in the Myth Fables called Gospels in the Canon.

maryhelena

Fine, as far as it goes. But it does not go far enough. If Paul can be read as referencing a cosmic crucifixion - which is basically an intellectual or philosophical 'crucifixion', a symbolic not a literal event - then the counterpart, re Galatians ch.4, is a corresponding literal earthly crucifixion. The Jerusalem above is only the other half - the counterpart - of the Jerusalem below. And no, that does not translate into the gospel JC as being a historical figure. But it does translate into history being relevant to the NT writers. That is the issue here - history. Not it's reflection, its pseudo-historical reflection, within the gospel JC story.

Vorkosigan

There is no Crucifixion in Gal 4, merely the note that God's son was sent as ransom. That is not an earthly sending either.

maryhelena

And I did not say there was...

The reason for the Galatians reference relates to the two Jerusalem's. The one above and the one below. The one bringing forth children according to the flesh. The other bringing forth children according to the spirit. There are two stories here, two different contexts. Flesh and spirit. Reality and spirituality/theology - or simply intellectual speculation or philosophizing. That is Paul's context. He has not devalued the 'flesh' in order to run with the 'spirit'.

And that, I would suggest, is what the ahistoricists/mythicists need to take on board if they are going to have an answer to the JC historicists. No historical gospel JC does not translate into history is irrelevant for the NT writers. And if history is relevant - so too is flesh and blood.