mountainman

All conclusions are to an open mind hypothetical.

To some closed minds however some conclusions are beyond the hypothetical.

I am trying to work out in which category I should place you.

Chili

That's all very nice and fair enought but it was not until 'Christ' appeared that the name was coined so that 'annointed one' became known as Christ . . . and then it was James-at-large who spread the good news, with James being the brother of Jesus who went back to Galilee to spread the good news from salvation recipes that were brewed up from various sources, and it really doesn't matter what they were called because they were all wrong regadless of how gnostic they were even.

. . . and when you say "confusion about the modern bible" you already suggests that there is thought to be salvation in the bible and that is exactly the source and origin of whitchcraft because there is absolutely no salvation in the bible, in fact, reading it and acting upon it will send the reader straight to hell and that is made very clear in the Rich man and Lazarus parable.

While it certainly is nice to have a core of truth in religion it is also true that it/they become a liability as riches in righteousness and moreso even if they are bundled together so that we can soar upon them through midheaven (Rev.14:6).

This then is and always was the stuff that Christianity was built upon and 20.000 denomination later it still will be the same except maybe with an improved new recipe that still relys upon the bible to validate it.

DrZoidberg

It doesn't really matter if we can establish that Jesus lived and was crucified. From that to attributing his Biblical sayings to him is a big leap. Every heretical movement "corrected" the bits in the Bible they didn't agree with, ie the stuff that went against their own ideas of what Christianity should be. Written Bibles came fairly late on the scene. So the name alone doesn't make Christianity. I'd say the beliefs and moral codes are a wee bit more important, than focusing on whether or not the person Jesus existed. Historical revisionism isn't a modern phenomena. Back in the day it was standard practice.

Doug Shaver

I have tried that. When they made it obvious that the effort was futile, I found better things to do with my time.

Chili

I fully agree. Jesus is the cocoon stage in metamorphosis and that is all he ever was, . . . but that he was for sure and in my argument he is just the reborn Joseph and that could have been anyone but I suspect he was the John who went to Patmos and there penned the four Gospels (if only for personification of him). So it does not have to be but that they have one author to intertwine them I know for sure, but then, in those days divine comedies were much more common and so it could have been a collective work of art when it finally was ratified, which then is withour error except for later translation errors such as the KJV wherein poetic perception (aistesis) is lost in literation without insight (noeisis).

I am not a mythicist because the -ism does not suit me but will argue that the bible is all metaphor except the words "real' in Jn.6:55, where "my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink."

In a previous post I explained causation for what makes one a Christian and also a so called 'Christian' in the flesh or what has become know as Christian and from there simple 'believers' are added as followers on both sides, and here 2 Jesus' are needed because both are real: one to make heaven known and the other to make hell known on earth as it is today. Please understand that when Jeus brought heaven down to earth that hell came crashing with it since as pair of opposites cannot be conceived to exist without the other.

If you go to Rev.13 both are identidfied with the first beast (read naked animal man) coming from the celestial sea (subconscious mind) and the second beast coming from the old earth (human condition or conscious mind) as per John 1:13.

Let me than finally say that the NT is Catholic all the way because it sends all non-Catholics to hell (in Matthew and Mark) and it clearly does that in the very Gospels that they cling, to while they, as in each one of them, do not have a clue that it does this if indeed they 'abide by the Word'.

mountainman

The archaeological EVIDENCE in Snyder's "Ante pacem"

There should be nobody wandering through this forum who does not understand that the state of archeological evidence for "Church life" before the "Peace of Constantine" has been authoritatively established in Ante pacem: archaeological evidence of church life before Constantine (or via: amazon.co.uk) the author, Graydon F. Snyde.

I have collated all the references and citations presented by Snyder's monumental work in a web article entitled A Critical Review of Ante pacem: Archaeological evidence of church life before Constantine and I have invited any interested parties to peruse this at their leisure.

Do you accept any citation in this work by Snyder as "evidence"? The answer to this question should serve as an example to establish that you and I are in the same ball park when we each use this term "evidence".

J-D

But one may be able to answer the question 'How did X begin?' without being able to answer the question 'What made X what it is today?'. I can give you illustrative examples if you don't share aa5874's peculiar prejudice against them.Then you think wrong. I'm not.Which technological developments?Which social structures?Which needs?Well, when?In what way?The old what?What were they thinking?Who?Did what?Who was talking?Who's we?When was that? What were they?Source of what?Who was trying to create some authority, what sort of authority, and why?How? Books don't write themselves.Varied how?What various sects?What evidence, from what sources?What evidence?Later than what?Which various movements?How? When?When? Where?That's not a theory, it's a vacuity. There's nothing there.If you had been paying attention, you would have noticed that somebody else (not me) thought it was relevant to this thread to discuss the origin of the word 'Christianity', and that I specifically said that the origin of the word was not the question I was raising.

mountainman

Especially at Nicaea when the curtain went up for Christianity in a political sense. At that time, more than ever before, we might expect a political reaction against the Bible --- Constantine's Bible.

The earliest written bibles may have been at the end of the supply chain of Constantine's eastward advancing army c.324/325 CE. Christianity came to the eastern Roman empire via the sword. Think for example of a time just over a century after "Gladiator".


At last someone who understands ancient history.

Now, to the OP poll about Origins of Christianity.
The first three options are meaningless.
With people listening to the teachings of XXXX where XXXX is either paul or pseudo paul or jesus

The origin of christianity cannot begin with people listening for the simple reason that the manuscripts themselves are specially designed to be read by important greek speaking christians because of the abbreviated codes representing important names. The origins of christianity are not related to the questions about the people who listened to the teachings of XXXX but rather are related to the questions about who authored the books of the new testament which were then purportedly read out to the massively non literate church congregations by a "Reader".

Surely we need an option about the people who authored the books which the readers read aloud to the people. The only option in this poll which addresses the manuscript tradition is thus 4. And you can bet your bottom denarius that Constantine knew how to publish codices which could be read out in the christian basilicas by tax exempt readers.

J-D

It appears not to have occurred to you that it is possible for people to say things and for other people to listen to them even though those things hav not been written down. That is the possibility which underlies the first three options in the poll. When they refer to the possibility of people listening to things Jesus or Paul may have said, they mean just that, and not necessarily people listening to things read to them out of a book by Jesus or Paul. These options may be incorrect, or there may not be enough information to tell whether they are correct (which is what the majority of people who have voted in the poll think), but they are not meaningless.

aa5874

It is NOT true at all that I have some "peculiar prejudice" against "Christians". You promote propaganda.

You are blatantly mis-representing my position. I DETEST your persistence.

My position has nothing whatsoever to do with prejudice at all only with the evidence from sources of antiquity.

My view, based on the evidence from antiquity, is that there were people called Christians (not related to belief in Jesus) before the Fall of the Temple.

See Justin Martyr's "First Apology" XXVI and Tacitus' "Annals" 15.44.

My position is SOLIDLY supported by sources of antiquity.