Freethought & Rationalism Archive

aa5874 · 10-02-2011, 11:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

The Paulines, which predate the Gospels, do not know this story....

It is COMPLETELY erroneous that the Pauline writings predate the Gospels.

The Pauline writer claimed he persecuted the Faith that he now preached and that there were people in Christ BEFORE him and Paul claimed there were APOSTLES before him when he was called to preach Jesus. See Galatians 1.

The Pauline writings P 46 are DATED to the mid 2nd-3rd century.

There is ZERO corroboration for the Paulines in the 1st century before the Fall of the Temple c 70 CE.

Please, deal with the actual evidence and NOT presumptions based on Chinese Whispers.

Even in the very Pauline writings "Paul" was AWARE of written sources that claimed Jesus DIED four sins. See 1 Cor.15

Hebrew Scripture claim BULLS and GOATS died for Sins NOT Jesus. See Leviticus 16.

Hebrew Scripture is about the LAWS of atonement.

Jesus was the END of the LAW in the Pauline writings.

CHRISTIAN Scripture claimed Jesus died for our sins. See John 3.16

"Paul" was AWARE of Christian Scripture.

John 3:16 -

Quote:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Galatians 2:20 -

Quote:

......... I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Vorkosigan · 10-02-2011, 11:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by archibald

I think any objective person would readily admit that the inclusion of a messiah who needs a baptism from someone else, who comes from a village so non-significant that he has to be contrived in the story to go elsewhere, and whose powers do not always function, are all better indicators for an HJ than an MJ.

Only if you refuse to delve further into the texts than their surfaces and refuse to think about the relationships among the texts.

V

mountainman · 10-02-2011, 11:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by archibald

I think any objective person would readily admit that the inclusion of a messiah who needs a baptism from someone else, who comes from a village so non-significant that he has to be contrived in the story to go elsewhere, and whose powers do not always function, are all better indicators for an HJ than an MJ.

In another more recent story we have the incident of Gandalf the Grey, leading the intrepid "Fellowship of the Ring" through the dark halls of Moria, encountering the Balrog and in battle falling into the pit of Moria. If Gandalf did not fall into the Pit of Moria, battling the Balrog, he would never have been resurrected as Gandalf the White, with far greater and profound POWERS and the Last Battle might have had a different result. All these things are better indicators that Gandalf was historical.

aa5874 · 10-03-2011, 12:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

....Story, aa5874 - story - it's 'Paul's storyline - the storyline is not history...

We know that Paul was LYING to his teeth about being a witness to the resurrected Jesus but he NEEDED to historicise the resurrection or else the Christian Faith would be VAIN and there would be NO remission of Sins.

"Paul" NEEDED a TIMELINE for his CALL to preach the resurrected Jesus in the Pauline writings IN ORDER TO appear authoritative or credible.

The Jesus of the NT did NOT exist and "Paul" could NOT have been a witness to him.

archibald · 10-03-2011, 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Quote:

Originally Posted by archibald

I think any objective person would readily admit that the inclusion of a messiah who needs a baptism from someone else, who comes from a village so non-significant that he has to be contrived in the story to go elsewhere, and whose powers do not always function, are all better indicators for an HJ than an MJ.

Only if you refuse to delve further into the texts than their surfaces and refuse to think about the relationships among the texts.

V

Vorkosigan,

I am not 'refusing' anything.

Of course it is always possible to come up with explanations. That is a given.

Out of interest, what's your explanation for the 3 items? That is to say, leaving the 4th (crucifixion) temporarily aside, since surely no one is suggesting that this is not in even the earliest traditions, or that it's in the OT (though a messiah being killed may be in the OT, I wouldn't dispute that).

Of course, mcalvera only mentioned 4. I'm not sure those are the only 4 that Hjers would cite in total.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Acts 19:1-6 contains the strange tale of Paul meeting disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus:

1While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples 2and asked them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" They answered, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." 3So Paul asked, "Then what baptism did you receive?" "John's baptism," they replied. 4Paul said, "John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus." 5On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. 6When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. (NIV)

clearly the "early Christians" whoever they were, and hardly a monolithic group... did not know of this event. Or at least the ones who left records before the writer of Mark invented it.

Vorkosigan

This is interesting, and does suggest that there were early 'foreign' christians who did not know the story of Jesus' baptism by J the B. So, I will take it as not supporting the 'baptism actually happened' side of the argument. Luke does not appear to be worried about saying this. He says in in Acts 18 also (Apollos). These people are described as not being aware of the story of Jesus generally.

Otoh, as with 'miracles', baptism is an event deployed by Paul, in the epistles. So, is it unreasonable to say that both were part of the protelysing technique? This is not meant to be conclusive.

aa5874 · 10-03-2011, 12:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by archibald

.....Of course it is always possible to come up with explanations. That is a given.

Out of interest, what's your explanation for the 3 items?

If nothing can be proven and nothing is conclusive then how in the world are you going to prove or show that HJ is the more likely overall explanation?

What is the point of asking people for explanations?

archibald · 10-03-2011, 12:48 AM

Here, incidentally is the rationale for the 'awkward baptism' hypothesis:

'The baptism of Jesus fits the criterion of embarrassment. In the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews, Jesus is but a man (see Adoptionism) submitting to another man for the forgiveness of the "sin of ignorance" (a lesser sin but sin nonetheless). The Gospel of Matthew attempts to explain this dynamic by omitting the words "for the forgiveness of sin" and adds John's statement to Jesus: "I should be baptized by you.". The Gospel of Luke says only that Jesus was baptized, without explicitly asserting that John performed the baptism. The Gospel of John goes further and simply omits the whole story of the Baptism. This might show a progression of the Evangelists attempting to explain away and then suppress a story that was seen as embarrassing to the early church.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment

Probably most of you already knew this argument. Of course, it is speculative. Having said that, the pattern itself is evidenced, and the argument is based on the pattern.

Edit: It may be worth adding that the account of something significant happening at said baptism is not part of any HJ hypothesis that I have heard. As such, Jesus would simply have started out as someone who took J the B's baptism, that is to say that he was, initially, a follower, perhaps. So, his baptism may not have been as noteworthy as later claimed, being instead, at the time, only one of a large number of routine, anonymous baptisms.

We still need to explain why someone seen as the messiah should need a baptism.

aa5874 · 10-03-2011, 12:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by archibald

I just want to make the observation that the responses to mcAlvera's points have, by and large, been exceptionally poor. I'm not even sure there hasn't been an odd over-reaction and a few diversions (and I've said it a few times lately that it's weird to read of one side saying the other has no evidence for their hypothesis)....

MCalavera made NO points. He asked SEVERAL Rhetorical questions.

Why, why, why, why that is all.

HJers are claiming Jesus was an ordinary man and are still claiming that it was EMBARRASSING for John to baptize an ordinary man therefore the story is true.

That makes absolutely no sense.

John was baptizing ALL ordinary people based on Josephus.

The story is fiction since it is most unlikely that John the Baptist would ask an ordinary man that needed to cleansed to baptise him in the river Jordan.

In the NT, Jesus was NOT even preaching when he met John and John the Baptist did NOT even recognise him at all.

Matthew 3

Quote:

13 Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.

14 But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?

15 And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him...

The baptism story makes NO sense if Jesus was an ordinary SINFUL man that needed to be cleansed.

John the Baptist must have been baptising ORDINARY SINFUL men that needed cleansing.

It is fiction or NOT credible that John the Baptist would be EXPECTED to have need for an ordinary sinful man to baptize him.

An ordinary unclean man would be expected to be LESSER than John the Baptist and be EXTREMELY delighted and HUMBLED to be baptized by him.

The baptism story is compatible with total FICTION and MYTH.

maryhelena · 10-03-2011, 01:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by archibald

Here, incidentally is the rationale for the 'awkward baptism' hypothesis:

'The baptism of Jesus fits the criterion of embarrassment. In the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews, Jesus is but a man (see Adoptionism) submitting to another man for the forgiveness of the "sin of ignorance" (a lesser sin but sin nonetheless). The Gospel of Matthew attempts to explain this dynamic by omitting the words "for the forgiveness of sin" and adds John's statement to Jesus: "I should be baptized by you.". The Gospel of Luke says only that Jesus was baptized, without explicitly asserting that John performed the baptism. The Gospel of John goes further and simply omits the whole story of the Baptism. This might show a progression of the Evangelists attempting to explain away and then suppress a story that was seen as embarrassing to the early church.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment

And if gJohn is the first gospel? What then for all the assumptions and speculations regarding the baptism of JC by JtB?

It's all a developing storyline - a developing storyline that allows for changes as people's theological speculations developed. That's all the JC story is. A story, a salvation story, a theological or philosophical story.

And if one wants a bare bones story - look to the story now preserved in Slavonic Josephus - no baptism, no meeting whatsoever between it's wonder-doer and it's baptizer figure, a baptizer figure who was not baptizing for remission of sins - as JtB is not doing in Antiquities.

Quote:

Are the Synoptic Gospels Copy Exercises? Jesus and Anacreon

New Testament scholars are very much more familiar with classical civilization than they used to be. So much so that biblical studies on the New Testament side has matured enormously in the twentieth and early twenty-first century from the parochial theological discipline it was in the nineteenth. But at a programmatic level, it needs to scrap the idea of authorial attribution completely and to acknowledge that the production of New Testament gospels, at least in the case of the synoptics, was an anacreonic process—a process of imitation, based on the desire to imitate and enhance rather than merely to produce or propagate an original. Admirers of the Jesus-story were using a prototype for copy exercises. Whose story it was is of no importance, and remains of no importance well into the second century....

The elongation of a source by adding a birth legend or resurrection appearances is completely appropriate to the anacreonic tradition as beautification, as “outdoing” the model. ...

As with Anacreon, we know enough to know what the essential ingredients—the equivalent of the theme or metrics—would have looked like. I am not cynical about being able to construct, for example, the original narrative structure or gospel prototype. But I am completely unconvinced that any of the current gospels form that structure or that any of the received gospels is that original....

I find it more probable that we possess four of the exercises, and that these exercises have to be submitted to an analysis based not on “redaction” and tendency—fidelity to or departure from a long-gone plumb-line–as much as on the more or less purely artistic intention of the writer in terms of the story he is telling...

For all we know one such copyist may have been named Mark and another Luke. But if that is so, it is only accidentally so and they were men of no significant personal distinction. They were men who took it upon themselves to imitate, “restore” or amend the lost (or nearly lost) prototype, the master-copy of the Jesus story.

http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com...-and-anacreon/

my bolding

aa5874 · 10-03-2011, 01:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by archibald

Here, incidentally is the rationale for the 'awkward baptism' hypothesis:

'The baptism of Jesus fits the criterion of embarrassment. In the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews, Jesus is but a man (see Adoptionism) submitting to another man for the forgiveness of the "sin of ignorance" (a lesser sin but sin nonetheless). The Gospel of Matthew attempts to explain this dynamic by omitting the words "for the forgiveness of sin" and adds John's statement to Jesus: "I should be baptized by you.". The Gospel of Luke says only that Jesus was baptized, without explicitly asserting that John performed the baptism. The Gospel of John goes further and simply omits the whole story of the Baptism. This might show a progression of the Evangelists attempting to explain away and then suppress a story that was seen as embarrassing to the early church.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment

Probably most of you already knew this argument. Of course, it is speculative. Having said that, the pattern itself is evidenced, and the argument is based on the pattern.

Edit: It may be worth adding that the account of something significant happening at said baptism is not part of any HJ hypothesis that I have heard. As such, Jesus would simply have started out as someone who took J the B's baptism, that is to say that he was, initially, a follower, perhaps. So, his baptism may not have been as noteworthy as later claimed, being instead, at the time, only one of a large number of routine, anonymous baptisms.

We still need to explain why someone seen as the messiah should need a baptism.

The Embarrassment hypothesis makes ZERO sense.

John the Baptist was baptising ORDINARY people before and after he supposedly met Jesus whom HJers are claiming was an ordinary man.

When Jesus was baptised by John he was NOT even considered a MESSIAH. Jesus did NOT even start his preaching.

John the Baptist did NOT recognise Jesus until the HOLY GHOST BIRD landed on him.

Without the HOLY GHOST BIRD there would be no baptism story of Jesus in the NT.

The baptism story is compatible with FICTION and MYTH especially with the HOLY GHOST BIRD.

Quote:

he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him..

Why must the Jesus story about the Child of a Ghost and a HOLY GHOST BIRD be regarded as history?

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10-03-2011, 12:48 AM	#387
archibald Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Northern Ireland Posts: 1,305	Here, incidentally is the rationale for the 'awkward baptism' hypothesis: 'The baptism of Jesus fits the criterion of embarrassment. In the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews, Jesus is but a man (see Adoptionism) submitting to another man for the forgiveness of the "sin of ignorance" (a lesser sin but sin nonetheless). The Gospel of Matthew attempts to explain this dynamic by omitting the words "for the forgiveness of sin" and adds John's statement to Jesus: "I should be baptized by you.". The Gospel of Luke says only that Jesus was baptized, without explicitly asserting that John performed the baptism. The Gospel of John goes further and simply omits the whole story of the Baptism. This might show a progression of the Evangelists attempting to explain away and then suppress a story that was seen as embarrassing to the early church.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment Probably most of you already knew this argument. Of course, it is speculative. Having said that, the pattern itself is evidenced, and the argument is based on the pattern. Edit: It may be worth adding that the account of something significant happening at said baptism is not part of any HJ hypothesis that I have heard. As such, Jesus would simply have started out as someone who took J the B's baptism, that is to say that he was, initially, a follower, perhaps. So, his baptism may not have been as noteworthy as later claimed, being instead, at the time, only one of a large number of routine, anonymous baptisms. We still need to explain why someone seen as the messiah should need a baptism.

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