michael wellenberg

With pleasure. In 1 Cor. 15:6 Paul records 500 brethren seeing the risen Christ of whom the majority were still alive meaning neither more nor less than Paul was aware that most of those who knew Jesus still lived when he wrote to the Corinthians in the 50s (Christ being Christ Jesus in Paul´s view who died and was buried - no need to be added !?) Do you think this brings discussion to an end ?

That Paul did not tell the Galatians that he visited the place where Jesus had died when he wrote to them about his visits to Jerusalem does not necessarily show his ignorance of Jerusalem being the place of Jesus´death.
After all he did not visit Golgatha but Kephas when he first came (Gal. 1:17-18), and the pillars when he came for the second time (Gal. 2:1, 9).
And nothing would have demanded a reference to Jesus´death in this letter. The present time with the burning problem of law obedience was important and Paul clearly was challenged and defends his authority being equal to other authorities who were before him (see especially 2:6).
So he states that he did not go to Jerusalem immediately after his conversion but only after some years of own preaching to stress that he was not a 2nd class apostle. Similarly he is eager to emphasize that the Jerusalem authorities, the pillars, dealt with him on the same level.
So to miss Paul referring to historical details is especially out of place concerning Galatians, it would even sound curious if Paul had mentioned them here.

Since you insist that Paul´s silence not only has any significance but that it betrays Paul´s complete ignorance of Jesus´biography I tell you again that this is not necessarily the case. It could very well be that his communities were told all they wished to know about Jesus´life when Paul came to them for the first time. Apparently no question or doubt arose which would have forced Paul to react. We would find traces of such debates in Paul´s writings.
As yet you have not provided evidence to the contrary, counting odds is a bit too little don´t you think ?
So it does not work to simply argue : Paul is silent so he does not know ; he does not know so his communities do not know either ; his communities do not know so the gospels had to be written. This heaps one presumption on the other.
It also leaves aside that we do not know for sure when the gospels were written (it is even not impossible that Mark was written prior to Paul but I do not stress this for I may get stoned and it would lead off topic).
But traditions certainly arose shortly after Jesus´death, were translated into Greek probably soon and were spread widely and easily accessable in the 30s already, mostly in oral form but it is far from improbable that some were in written form as well.
Paul was not the first and not the only one engaged in gentile mission. We know this not only from Acts but also from Paul (who is certainly more trustworthy ?!) who was in Antioch when the Christian community had obviously been established there long before.

Come on, not this sort of argument, or else I would have to ask you what is your evidence that there were none.

Sorry, the silence of Paul where you think should be none does not show Paul´s utter ignorance of anything of Jesus´life nor does it show an ignorance of Paul´s communities. As long as there is no evidentiary support for your view the odds are fairly equal.

Michael

Clivedurdle

Above verse must be wrong, but this is more interesting!

That reads to me that this Jesus did not see himself as Christ! And even this Christ feels conflated with the Father and feels like he is also in heaven!

Clivedurdle

Why not take the definition of brothers of the Lord used by Jesus? Words of Jesus used to settle arguments about doctrine!

post tenebras lux

Dear No Robots, I'm not sure if you're intending to come across as rude, but given that I had said that all I could find was a 'fateful', and given that your first quote a) contains the word 'fateful', and b) is the only quote on the Holocaust from Brunner that I could find on your homepage (so far as I can tell), was it equally 'not clear enough to ya' that I was referencing said quote? :huh:

Unfortunately the 'violence and massacred' bit is nestled within reams of hype and so probably seems more prophetic when considered in hindsight.

Do you mind if I quote what actually goes before, and follows on from, 'But wickedness ...'?Do you think when he talks about 'that business of the different gods', Brunner is talking about the genocides claimed, by the bible, to have been committed by the ancient israelites?

Sparrow

And because you find it implausible, it didn’t happen. Right. Have you considered that the dead hero may have been fabricated after the religion began and not as a first step?


Perhaps you missed the bit about no evidence until Paul begins writing, and I’m talking about what the Christians of the time believed. We do not know from any earlier accounts, as far as I know, what they might have known about an actual person (or persons) at the root of the new faith, nor what they believed. If you have some sources that predate Paul, please let me know what they are.



We can only know what Paul knew from what he wrote or did. What else he may have known about an actual person at the root of what we now call Christianity is speculation.


Like much of the Christian bible, Fahrenheit 451 is fiction. I’m not sure how its success in Bradbury’s imagination supports your assertion that the 2000 year old stories are accurate. Harry Potter figures heavily in the stories in J. K. Rowling’s head, yet he’s not real. How is it such a stretch to admit that the writers of gospel stories, needing more detailed stories to convert the unbelievers (inquiring minds, you know), manufactured the needed details to fit the expectations of the throng and the evolving theology of the church? And if modern Christians can’t be bothered to read their own book, why do we assume that the gospel writers had any better knowledge? Documents were certainly not as easily available as today. And of course the documents they did work from were subject to copyist errors and other problems.



And if the gospel writers had the same kind of knowledge as you claim modern Christians have about what their book actually says, no wonder they missed a few prophecies.

What is contemporary mythology? The writings of David Koresh or Sun Myung Moon? By pan-gospel details do you mean the ones that help us figure out that the writers of Gluke and Gmatt used Gmark? What then about the gospel details that don’t match? Completed Dan Barker’s Easter Challenge yet? As far as contemporaneously written mythology, by some datings the Mormons could still be writing I suppose. Certainly the Scientologists are still in the window.


No, the fact that Paul doesn’t say anything may mean that they know a Jesus story (not necessarily the one we know today), or it may mean that they didn’t perceive of Jesus as anything other than a vision, or it may mean that Paul corrected their understanding in a document we don’t have, or it may mean something else I haven’t thought of. While a historical Jesus is consistent with these limited facts, it is not proven from these limited facts. What else ya got? Anything earlier?



There’s certainly a few that would be gullible enough that they would follow with nothing more than an epileptic’s vision. Others may have wanted more information. I certainly would. Were I starting a religion and found that I needed more info to gain a following, I could certainly have it created. I know of a guy that can fabricate an ossuary. What would you like for it to say? How about 'Brother of the Lord'?

But you’re making the assumption that what Christians now believe was the story of Jesus is what they knew it to be. I don’t think we can say that with any certainty. There is a reading of the ‘brother of the Lord’ phrases that does not require an Earthly human.

Perhaps you came in late and missed what I said early in this thread regarding my own belief and understanding. To me, Christianity is not about a human teacher, but about some very specific miracles. I find the attestation for those miracles to be lacking and not in keeping with the reality I seem to inhabit. Whether or not there was a human then at the root of it (obviously there was a human at the root, but it may have been Paul) becomes a non-issue. I lean toward a mythological Jesus simply because we have no evidence from the time of his alleged life despite all the wonderful things he supposedly did. I admit however that a non-divine, ineffective (so as to not get noticed and written about extensively) human is plausible. A divine human would require some extraordinary evidence I have not yet seen.

Clivedurdle

It was not an ad hom about xians reading the NT!

I do wonder if people have read it trying to avoid all the assumptions and preachings and teachings they have heard.

Many many times it does not say what xians assume it says! For example I came across this

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...sus/rabbi.html

The problem is that Paul did not receive details of the Lord's Supper via an oral tradition from meeting the folks in Jerusalem. He says how he did - DIRECTLY FROM THE LORD!

I really think anyone criticising the mythicist position must be absolutely clear they have not got this type of major error and assumption rattling around in their heads - they are very common. And that they check carefully what is actually written!

Clivedurdle

I have a feeling that the Gospels may contain very strong direct evidence for a mythical Christ! Has anyone attempted looking at the gospels from that perspective?

If they are an attempt to humanise the Christ concept, there is no reason the attempt would be without flaw. There are very likely to be odd comments that make sense from a mythical perspective - like the bit above from Matthew where Jesus is talking as if Christ is someone else! I vaguely remember loads more examples of this, but the quiet squeals of the fault in the axle have been drowned out by the overwhelming noise of the apologists!

Rick Sumner

This recently came up on another thread as well. Paul, however, does not say he received it "DIRECTLY FROM THE LORD"[sic]. The word "directly," of course, makes a world of difference, and is the word not found in the text.

Here is my reply as found on the thread in question:

Paul's appeal to the Lord's authority is precisely the way any skilled rhetor would handle it. Paul is, quite certainly, a skilled rhetor.

Physician, heal thyself.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

No Robots

Of course I knew you were talking about that quotation. What I was needling you about was that you found this quotation by itself insufficient as proof of Brunner's prescience.

I don't mind being rude when you try to weasel away from acknowledging this man's prescience.

Of course he is. He is talking about every massacre conducted with belief in the approval of god(s).

Didymus

I cannot imagine what pleasure you take in constructing such a muddled, convoluted sentence!

In 1 Cor 15, Paul only indicates that those folks who witnessed that post-resurrection appearance were still alive at the time of Paul's writing. He does not say that they were alive during Jesus' time as a human being on earth.

"Demands" are out of place here. You're right, of course. Nothing DEMANDS that Paul would have mentioned those things. But common sense tells us that, at some point in his epistles, he would have mentioned that his savior was tried and crucified in Jerusalem! And that he preached his gospel in Galilee!

History is not math. It rarely involves incontrovertible proofs. With the evidence we have, it is impossible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Paul knew nothing of a historical Jesus. But there is no significant material in the body of evidence that supports the notion that Paul was familiar with the human Jesus described in the gospels. Despite that glaring absence, if you still insist on believing that to be the case, your conclusion must be based either on your religious faith or on scant and ambiguous passages, e.g., 1 Cor 15 and Gal 1 1.19.

Stipulated. But it is most likely the case, and you cannot offer any good reasons for believing otherwise.

This is sheer speculation, easily as fictional as the Da Vinci Codes.

You should read Doherty, or read him again if you have already done so and forgotten the material. He takes the evidence point by point, explaining in detail why common sense tells us that, on occasion after occasion, Paul would have mentioned Jesus' teachings and specific events in his earthly ministry - had he only known that he existed a man in recent history!

If you really think that the farfetched excuses about Paul's "concerns with other matters" hold water, you are ignoring logic and human nature. I can only think that such truculence is founded either in religious faith or an invincible ignorance of the role of evidence in history.

Come on. If Paul gives no indication of knowing, on what basis can we conclude that his communities knew?

Your imagination is working overtime. Sorry, but while occasional speculation may be a useful tool in the study of history, it's no substitute for evidence.

So it's okay for you to make wild guesses about what, in your dreams, might have happened, but it's not okay for me to ask you for evidence? Please. This is not a seminar in the writing of historical fiction.

If you strongly believe that Paul was familiar with Jesus' time on earth as a man, shouldn't you be able to support that belief with equally strong evidence? All I see are excuses and workarounds.

Who said anything about an "ignorance of Paul's communities"? From his epistles, it seems that he knew them pretty well.

I guess that grudging concession ought to be taken as an indication that you are coming to terms with historical reality. That's good.

Didymus