Amaleq13

Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.(John 20:19, KJV)

Clarice O'C

Thank you, but could this not mean that it was a private meeting? Like today's 'behind closed doors.' It doesn't actually say that Jesus walked through the doors. He could have opened them and gone in.

Dargo

Hubbard started Diantetics as a scam to make money. The weird stuff came a little later when he realized his gullible followers would believe anything he told them. Technically, Xenu isn't cosmology but a lame science fiction story.

Scientology show us a lot about the willingness of some people to believe absurd stories without any evidence. What makes you think the early Christians were any less gullible?

Sparrow

It seems entirely possible that in 2000 years, Scientology may still exist even if Hubbard's name has been lost as its founder. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some Scientologists now would claim that Scientology was revealed to Hubbard.

For a look at how one site views the changeable history of the Mormon movement, go here. It would seem the continued growth of the Mormon movement might depend on covering up some of the actual embarrassing history at its beginning.

Sparrow

Well one big difference is that no one that I'm aware of preaches the availability of eternal life/salvation if you believe in the Athens/Sparta war. Another I see is the motivation of the writers regarding said war. They don't seem especially biased. Would you call the gospel authors neutral observers? I can't.

I find the gospels decidedly unhistorical from the description of miracles (which many have doubted from the beginning apparently) and from the recording of the alleged actual words of Jesus, especially in private prayers like the Gethsemane example. This doesn't guarantee that the gospels are 100% fiction, but clearly they are not 100% accurate.

Given that they are not 100% accurate, how does one go about finding out which parts are accurate and which parts are not? We do not have originals. As I understand it, the earliest copy of any gospel we have is P52, variously dated paleographically anywhere from 100CE to 200CE*. You can view an image of it here. It contains parts of GJohn 18:31-33 and 37-38. If you think you can tell what the original said, when it was originally written, from this manuscript and later ones, then please prove it by telling us all what was in the original draft of this post.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to skim through Ehrman's 'Misquoting Jesus'. In it he describes many examples of how the texts of the gospels were changed, not only through copyist error, but also through intentional alterations for theological reasons. Perhaps now you can understand why many of us look so hard to find sources with no theological axe to grind. But there don't seem to be any. That seems consistent with a theological invention that later needed to ground its mythical founder with a sense of reality. Luckily for them, wannabe messiahs were apparently widely available. I don't know if one or more of them got adopted by followers of Paul (in a scenario where Paul founded/invented Christianity as it comes down to us today) or whether one of them attracted followers that later included Paul. Obviously there are other possible scenarios also. But given that there were other messiah cults operating around that time that did get noted in secular sources, how did Jesus escape such attention? It seems to me you have to posit a Jesus unpopular and unremarkable enough to leave no contemporary chronicle, yet popular and remarkable enough to convert Paul. Possible I agree, but probable?

* Most seem to date the fragment at 150CE. Some of these add a range like +/- 25 years. I've seen some that only give a single date of 125CE, but that leads me to wonder if they're just using the earliest possible date from the range for their own reasons. Then I've seen some who use the 125 date and add the year range which means 100-150. I've also seen some who claim that it couldn't be any earlier than the end of the 2nd century.

Amaleq13

One could interpret it that way if one felt compelled to eliminate any suggestion of magic.

It says Jesus came "when" the doors were shut and the plain meaning is that he somehow entered the room despite that fact.

Julian

John 6:19 says περιπατουντα επι της θαλασσης with no textual variations regarding the word επι so it's pretty certain that it was there originally. Jesus walking beside the lake happens frequently enough in the bible and the word used for that is παρα. I am sure more could be said on this topic but the author's intent seems clear enough.

Julian

Gamera

None of this explains why you have privileged the claim that Sparta fought Athens. Indeed, you aren't even aware of the origin of the documents on which you base your assumption of the Peleponesis war.

If you bother to analyze it, you'll find that the ms basis for your believe that such a war occured is as fragile as that of the historicity of Jesus. Indeed our knowledge of history from any period prior to the mediaeval period is woefully sporadic and has as little textual support as the historcity of Jesus. Yet you reject one and unquestioningly accept the other. Why?

Gamera

They didn't make money off it. But generally got thrown into prison. Start throwing scientologists into prison I expect their numbers will drop precipitously.

Gamera

You assume your conclusion. The glosses and commentaries of those who assembled the canon, such as we have them, often have practical, nonreligious rationales. Like the fact that the Acts of Paul was rejected because they knew the guy, a parish priest, who forged it.

That's a pretty good rationale.