Vivisector

Given that both Mark and John associate the crucifixion with the prefecture of Pilate, do you take John (or at least this part) to have been dependent on Mark?

Somewhat unrelated, where would you place Q in this context (which fixes Jesus in time as a contemporary of John the Baptist)?

Here's where I'm still having trouble following. If Mark had a dim view of these apostles (which I agree that he seems to have), then why would he portray them as something that Paul was not; i.e., as disciples of the earthly Jesus? It almost seems that Mark has done the very thing I've suggested Paul was trying to avoid, which was to strengthen the prior apostles authority by virtue of this discipleship, even if he also tried to more-or-less subtly downplay it. Or do you think Mark was never intending that the Jesus of his gospel be understood as an earthly/flesh-and-blood Jesus?

It helps tremendously, and thank you for a great post and the book recommendation.

Cheers,

V.

Kapyong

Gday,

Was he claimed to have risen from the dead ?


K.

Kapyong

Gday,

Really?
Please quote who is claiming the Applethwaite was resurrected.


K.

hjalti

Kapyong, according to Rio DiAngelo (and according to what you can see Do teach in his videos his soul exited the body and is now in a celestial body. Pretty much the same thing as you read about in Paul.

aa5874

Oh, Oh.

You can't see a SOUL in a VIDEO.

You can't see a SOUL EXIT a BODY in a VIDEO.

We Pretty much can't see anything like "Paul's Soul".

How do people here CONFIRM that "PAUL" had a SOUL before the Fall of the Temple?

Perhaps "PAUL" only had SOUL and NO BODY.

Doug Shaver

I think the similarities should include the existence of congregations of cult members in several major cities within two decades of the founder's death, plus the absence of any mention by any of their followers of any biographical data about them.

Yes, if he existed, that would seem to have been the case. The objection is that Christian writings from the first hundred years of the cult's existence are inconsistent with that sort of origin.

Is it the case that everything written by the followers of "Michael" or Marshall Applewhite says nothing about them except that they were gods, providing no hint of when or where they lived or of anything they said or did to demonstrate their godhood? Is it the case that no present member of either cult claims to have known the founder personally or to be personally acquainted with anybody who could have known the founder?

We have knowledge of human nature. We know some of the things early Christians would have said about a man who they thought was God incarnate if they had also thought the man had lived in this world within living memory.

This particular cult leader's disciples were way more successful in spreading their beliefs about him than anyone uncontroversially known to have been mentioned by Josephus. That should have gotten somebody's attention, if not anything that Jesus himself said or did.

gurugeorge

So, on your account, a fictional entity is lying ... and you believe him?

:constern02:

Because he never admits he's lying about his Lord. What "lie" is he talking about?

Here's the passage in NIV translation, which makes more sense of it:

5 But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) 6 Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? 7 Someone might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?” 8 Why not say—as some slanderously claim that we say—“Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is just!

It's an example of "lying for God" used in the course of an argument, and it seems to becondemned in the very next verse.

I'm not talking about that, it's not what I'm relying on; that "blinding light conversion" or may not be the case (it may just be a later embellishment - but it could represent some tradition going back to "Paul"), just as "Paul"'s persecution of Christians may or may not be the case. However, "Paul" does say clearly that he gets his gospel from the Lord.

So: either that is an anachronism or it's visionary experience.

Think about this aa: show me any other later Christian writing where it's admitted that Paul was a contemporary of Jesus in the flesh?

On the other hand, if it's an admission of lying, why is it kept in the text?

Yes, as I understand the scholarly position, the Pastorals are later made-up stuff, more orthodox. And even the "authentic" Epistles are riddled with interpolations.

But there is a core of a somewhat cantankerous mystic and visionary, someone in whose congregations the daily events involved what we would nowadays call "occultism" (talking to spirits, inspired speech, etc.)

And the point of the Pastorals and the interpolations in the "authentic" Epistles, is to tame this quirky visionary and mystic, make him more amenable to orthodoxy.

Or - they were real, but they weren't, as later (gospel) tradition has it, people who were personal disciples of the cult deity, and that's an idea that crept into the tradition with GMark, and it's not found in the Epistles.

As said above. The "authentic" Epistles are interpolated, but that wasn't quite enough, "Paul" still looks too much like a proto-Gnostic, so the Pastorals had to make it clearer that "Paul" really was like the "Paul" of Acts, and to distance him even further from Simon Magus.

No intrinsic reason why not, you're just not convincing me.

No, the author of Acts, and the interpolator(s) of the Pauline letters, and the authors of the Pastorals are the liars.

And so was JM, and so was Polycarp - orthodoxy is a development, and in those two we see the beginnings of the development. (Not in the Polycarp writing, but in what Irenaeus says about P - the picture of a post-Diaspora Jewish con-artist claiming to be a student of one of the "apostles".)

What's revealed, inadvertently, by JM, is that Christianity was Gnosticism and Marcionism (and we can probably add other "philosophical" forms, variants on theurgy, based on the philosophical character of some of the early apologists, and the fact that Plotinus took on the Gnostics philosophically). Orthodoxy is the latecomer, the upstart that takes over the show, with its bogus lineage going all the way back to the cult deity while he sojourned on Eearth.

JM mentions all the relevant players: and Simon Magus is the one who later becomes "Paul".

Again, think about it (1 Cor 12):-

This is occultism, aa, the sort of thing that a "magician" would be involved in.

gurugeorge

Well we seem to be pretty much in agreement. The "Paul" figure isn't a total fabrication (which is what I thought you were claiming, following aa) - he's based on somebody real, who was known (i.e. the "apostle of the heretics") and had to be included in the Canon, but also had to be hedged about with interpolations and more orthodox Pastorals. (In fact, as you'll see from my discussion with aa, I think he was Simon Magus - one big reason for that identification being the similarities between the "Paul" biography in Acts, and the biography of the Simon Magus of the Pseudo-Clementines.)

It does seem to make sense of the total picture.

I'd just like to re-emphasise what I said though, that Catholicism in a theological sense isn't all that different from Gnosticism, the main difference is political, in the strict holding to the concept of "apostolic succession". It's a power grab and a money grab.

Catholicism is Gnosticism sanctioned by a fabricated lineage, instead of a lineage going back to the authentic founder, Simon Magus.

Or to put it in a trope, the Mass is sanctioned ritual magic, sanctioned by a fabricated lineage supposedly going back to personal teaching by the cult deity, which is meant to trump the visionary experience of Simon Magus. And it's this fabricated lineage that gives the illusory historicization of the cult deity (based on an initially innocent variant reading by "Mark") to a time just before the very earliest Jerusalem proto-Gnostics ("Paul"'s - i.e. Simon Magus' - precursors). It's the tail that wags the dog.

gurugeorge

Tbqh, I haven't really thought much about John, my "placeholder" for that is that it's based on some earlier Gnostic text, as per Doherty.

Again, Q is something I'm still thinking about, and I'm still a bit fuzzy on. It looks like it may have been just a collection of philosophical, mainly Cynic sayings, put into the mouth of "Jesus" (rather as you see happening quite blatantly in the Nag Hammadi text "the Sophia of Jesus Christ", I think it's called). GThomas may be something similar, but more in a mystical as opposed to a philosophical vein.

It gives a concrete reason why they were such idiots - they didn't "get it" even when they were travelling around with the cult deity in person. How thick do you have to be to be spending all day with someone who's working such miracles, and not understand who you're dealing with? It's "Mark"'s attempted explanation for the dim view "Paul" takes of his precursors in his writings.

Or to put it another way, "Mark" is just the first person to do (in his case, in innocent error) what nearly everybody does: read into the Epistles, the idea that the people "Paul" is talking about were personal disciples of the Lord, and it's his explanation for why the gnostic lineage from "Paul"'s visionary experience is the only one that understands what really happened (i.e. the cosmic event).

Everyone since "Mark" has just following "Mark"'s misreading - first (and gleefully) the proto-orthodox, with their GMatthew and GLuke, then the later GJohn, then everyone else, including the Gnostics, who by the time of their full flourishing, had lost all knowledge of their roots except the fact that "Paul" was their apostle.

hjalti

How about JWs? Sure, they don't claim that Russell was resurrected, but not you seem to be arguing that the spread of the religion, and not the claims made about their founder, are what matters. I wouldn't expect books like "History of the USA in the 20th century" to mention JWs.

Much of your post deals with the interpretation of Christian writings, and that's a different matter than the attestation of JC in non-Christian writings.

Hmm... IIRC Josephus had some pretty large numbers regarding the Egyptian.

And even if Christians were more successful than the other guys, they still were insignificant.