aa5874

But when I read the Gospels and Acts I see no fundamental differences in Jesus Christ.

Jesus was the offspring of the Holy Ghost of God, did miracles, was transfigured, crucified, died, resurrected, ascended to heaven and is coming back a second time for dead believers first.

According to Tertullian, "Only his flesh is in question."

The major doctrine of Jesus believers was that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world. And the entire NT is consistent with such a doctrine.

Now, the Trinity was always a bone of contention and Constantine may have resolved the issue.

The boss is always right.

PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

I agree that certain aspects of the Jesus character are consistent from New Testament text to New Testament text. In the same way certain aspects of Superman or Batman are consistent from comic books, television shows and movies. However, the differences are more interesting to consider and show us the evolution of the times and the characters. For example, in the original Jerry Siegel story, Superman gained his powers through a chemical and wanted to take over the world. Only later did the idea of having him born on a distant planet of Krypton emerge. Batman is also a synthetic collaboration between two creators, Bob Kane and Bill Finger. Kane said, "I made Batman a superhero-vigilante when I first created him. Bill turned him into a scientific detective." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Kane)

As far as your statement that. "The major doctrine of Jesus believers was that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world. And the entire NT is consistent with such a doctrine," I would have to disagree.

If we look at the treatment of gentiles/non-Jews in the gospels, it appears obvious that the idea that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world never occurred to the gospel writers.

If we assume that the writers had known that Jesus died for the sins of the world, they would have pointed out to gentiles that this included them. They do no such thing.

The Gospel of John doesn't mention gentiles at all.

The Gospel of Mark only says at 10:33 that Gentiles are going to torture and kill Jesus and 10:42 that Gentiles like to lord it over overs. In Chapter 7, the Jesus refuses to help a Gentile, SyroPhoenician woman's daughter. Only when she debases herself by calling herself a dog under the table seeking crumbs, the Jesus change his mind and save the girl.

The Gospel of Matthew at 4:15 and 18:17 puts gentiles in the category of tax-collectors who were universally hated by the Jews. At 10:12, Jesus explicitly forbides the Apostles from going to the gentiles, "These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them: "Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans" In 20:19 and 20:25, Matthew repeats Mark's attacks against the Gentiles.

The Gospel of Luke simply repeats the same attacks against the Gentiles that are already found in Mark and Matthew:

It is quite obvious that the writers of the Gospels, when they were writing the Gospels, considered themselves as a sect of the Jews and did not in anyway imagine that Jesus died for the sins of anybody but the Jews.

Acts is quite different. The author of Acts explains the conversion of the Gentiles as something explicitly commanded by God in the city of Caesarea and not something Jesus preached to the disciples after he returned from the Dead for 40 days. This happens in Acts 10. "All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also."

The conversion of the Gentiles has nothing to do with Jesus or the Jesus story. We may assume that the Jesus sect was a failing Jewish sect when the gospels were written. Afterwards when they were becoming successful among the Samaritans and Gentiles, the book of Acts was written to explain that success as originating with the Apostles of Jesus.

We may note that Apostle stories of cleansing sins through baptism apparently predated Jesus. This is made apparent by Acts itself.

In chapter 8, we read:

So a distinction is made between being Baptized in the name of Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit. Apparently one can be baptized in the name of Jesus and not receive the Holy Spirit.

The reverse happens in Caesarea, where Peter gives the Holy Spirit and only afterwards baptizes.

So one can be baptized in the name of Jesus and not receive the Holy Spirit or receive the holy Spirit, but not be Baptized. Receiving the Holy Spirit means "Talking in Tongues and exalting God" (Albeit it should be noted that talking in tongues is portrayed in chapter 2 as exulting God in your own language, but having foreigners understanding you in their own language)

Acts further defines a third transformation in chapters 18 and 19:

Apparently the baptism of John works to take away your sins, but if you want to speak in tongues and prophesize, you need to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and then with the second ceremony, the laying of hands
you get to do the tongues, prophesying and magic [healing].

We may see these two things baptism of Jews for the forgiveness of sins and
laying on of hands for the Holy Spirit as two quite separate rituals. We may take it that they developed in this order:

1. Baptism for forgiveness of sins using John's name (practiced by John sect of Jews)
2. Baptism for forgiveness of sins using Jesus' name (practiced by Jesus sub- sect of John sect of Jews)
3. Laying of hands to receive the Holy Spirit in Jesus' name (practiced by Jesus followers when they break from the Jews completely).

If we look at number three, we may see its origin as coming from a Simon-the-Magician Samaritan sect. This explains why Acts wishes to reassure us that the Holy Spirit-Magic stuff originated with the Jerusalem Apostles and not from Simon the Magician.
We may take it that the author knows that Simon practiced the laying on of hands to bring the Holy Spirit first, but has deliberately made it seem as if he stole the practice from the Apostles.

We should note that Acts tells us that it is God and not Jesus who sends the Holy Spirit into the Apostles allowing them to perform magic. Jesus only predicts (prophesizes) that this will happen. (See Chapter 2 of Acts.) This indicates that Jesus was not associated with magic at first, but only with prophesy. We can therefore add another element into our chronology:

1. Baptism for forgiveness of sins using John's name (practiced by John sect of Jews)
2. Baptism for forgiveness of sins using Jesus' name (practiced by Jesus sub- sect of John sect of Jews)
3. Followers of the Samaritan Simon the Magician practice laying on of hands, speaking in tongues and magic/healing.
4. Followers of Jesus adopt Samaritan practice of laying of hands to receive the Holy Spirit in Jesus' name (practiced by Jesus followers when they break from the Jews completely).

Just as Batman became successful after combining Bob Kane's masked avenger with Bill Finger's idea of a scientific detective, Jesus the Messiah became sucessful after combining John's Baptism ceremony with Simon's laying on of hands ceremony.

The concept that Jesus died for the sins of the world is a later invention, as the Dark Knight concept for Batman emerged in 1986, some 48 years after the original character.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

aa5874

Thanks Philosopher Jay!

Fantastic.

Paul's gospel to the Gentiles was a later invention.

show_no_mercy

Well I think there might be a step "zero" in this progression:

Who knows, though, which one preceded which.

Juststeve

I think it pretty clear that Paul's letters were written before the Gospels so a later invention they weren't.

Steve

show_no_mercy

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....67#post5970367

Juststeve

I am aware of that thread and it remains pretty clear that Paul wrote before any of the Gospels.

Steve

Toto

I am not sure how you can claim that anything is clear. We don't know who wrote the letters attributed to Paul, or who edited them or added to them.

Paul apparently does not know anything about the gospel stories, or does not accept them as "gospel," so to speak. It certainly appears that the author of Mark drew on Paul. So it seems most likely that Paul wrote before the gospels, but "clear" might be overstating the case.

Why do you think Paul wrote before the gospels?

Juststeve

I think the most compelling reason for thinking the letters attributed to Paul predated the Gospels is the lack of any reference to the Gospels in the letters themselves. There are a number of occasions when Paul could have cited the words of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, in support of some of his arguments, but he didn’t. The best explanation is that he didn’t have the Gospels to go on.

I see no difficulty in Dating the earliest Gospel, Mark, to around 70 C.E. and the latest authentic by consensus letter of Paul quite a bit earlier, perhaps 15 years.

As to who copied from who I see more of Paul in John than in the synoptics.

Steve

PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

I tend to agree that Paul's gospel to the Gentiles was a later invention than the gospels; however it is complex because as Toto pointed out, “We don't know who wrote the letters attributed to Paul, or who edited them or added to them."

My belief at the moment is that they were originally written independently of the gospels and Acts. This means that they may have been written before or after the gospels. However, where they match Acts, it seems probable that someone has altered the letters to make them appear to match Acts. Here is how I arrive at that hypothesis.

Take, for example, the use of the term Damascus. Acts uses the term 12 times. Galatians uses it once, and 2 Corinthians uses it once. The reason for its repeated use in Acts appears to be rhetorical. He keeps repeating it because he made it up and wants to reassure us that it is true.

As, my recent analysis of the narrative showed, the conversion of Saul. in the original text, happened on the road to the city of Sebaste in Samaria. Only this makes narrative sense as the narrative tells us that Philip has fled to Sebaste and Saul is in hot pursuit of the scattered group of six sub-apostles that Philip belongs to. Saul's conversion in the original text would have been caused by the heavenly appearance of Simon the Magician. So it makes sense for the author/editor to shift the conversion to some far-away place like Damascus so that he cannot be accused of simply changing Simon to Jesus in the conversion story. If it takes place in an entirely different place, outside of Simon's hometown jurisdiction so to speak, then it looks more like the Simon followers stole the story from the author/editor of Acts. He keeps repeating the word Damascus -- six times in chapter 9 when he first tells the story, four times in chapter 22, and twice in chapter 26 when he repeats the story.

The question is, "Did Luke use the name Damascus because he saw the name in the two epistles where the name is mentioned by the writer of Paul's letters?" We have to examine each case separately (Galatians and Corinthians) and come to a conclusion what is most likely.

Galatians 2 tells a radically different story from the story told in Acts. In Acts, Paul gets converted by a heavenly vision on the road to Damascus, enters Damascus and then is immediately whisked away to Jerusalem by Barnabus. Galatians says this:

According to this, Paul must have been in Damascus, he left Damascus, got converted in someplace that was other than Damascus, and then went back to Damascus.

So Acts has this itinerary for Paul:
Jerusalem – Road to Damascus conversion - Damascus – Jerusalem (many days later/)
While Galatians has this itinerary:
Damascus - not in Arabia or Dasmascus revelation - Damascus – Jerusalem (three years later)

If the author of Acts had read the epistle to the Galatians, he would have changed the conversion to make it match Paul's text. Why would he contradict Paul's own words? It does not match Paul's text.

The puzzle is that it sort of matches. If we divide this itinerary into two parts, A) conversion and B) Damascus-Jerusalem, we see that “A” does not really match and “B” only somewhat loosely matches.

The key here is to notice that Galatians never tells us that Paul was originally in Damascus. All it tells us is that Paul “returned” to Damascus after "God was pleased to reveal his son to me".

In Galatians 1:21, after visiting Jerusalem for fifteen days, Paul goes to Syria and Cilicia. This makes sense if Paul was from Tarsus in Cilicia. It does not make sense for him to spend three years in Damascus and then only spend fifteen days in Jerusalem before returning home to Cilicia. We should assume that in the original text, it said that after his conversion, he returned not to Damascus in Arabia, but he “returned” to “Tarsus” in “Cilicia.” This makes sense. He got converted someplace (perhaps Sebaste) and went home to Tarsus. He stayed there three years before venturing to Jerusalem for two weeks. He immediately went back to Tarsus and just preached in Syria and Cilicia for the next 14 years. (Galatians 2:1 1. "Then after an interval of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along also.")

What this suggests is that the original text of Galatians read that Paul returned to Tarsus, not Damascus. But how did Damascus get there? We may take it that the author of Luke himself made the substitution in the text to get it to match his Damascus references in his Acts. He apparently did not care that the information given was similar (many day vs. three years, meeting Barnabas in Jeusalem) and not identical.

While not the most elegant solution, we have to consider it as most probable that the author of Acts came up with Damascus from another source, and then, after changing the text of his original source to read “Damascus,” he then went and changed the name of the town in Galatians to match somewhat his Acts text.

Did he perhaps get the reference to Damascus from the second Pauline reference in 2 Corinthians?:

compare to Acts

Again, lets divide this into an A and B part.

A.
Acts: Jews plot against Paul
Corinthians: Ethnarch under Aretas plots against Paul

B.
Acts. Paul lowered by basket and escapes from Damascus
Corinthians. Paul lowered by basket and escapes from Damascus

The confusing thing is that “A” is contradictory (Jews vs. Ethnarch under Aretas) while “B” matches.

The reference to the Ethnarch under Aretas is a typical quick historical reference by the author of Luke/Acts that, as usual, does not match history. We can therefore be reasonably sure that he put it in himself. This leaves us in the embarrassing position of explaining why he would contradict himself by talking about a Jewish plot in Acts and talking about a plot by the Ethnarch under Aretas in an insertion made in 2. Corinthians.

We may suppose that the author had read of a man escaping an Ethnarch under Aretas by being lowered in a basket. Since in Acts, a major theme is the Jewish plots against the apostles of the Way, he simply substituted “Jews” for the Ethnarch under Aretas.

In the section in 2 Corinthians where the author of Acts is adding the interpolation, Paul has already talked about his mistreatment at the hands of the Jews.

The author of Acts is not interested in repeating what the text has just said about Jews attacking Paul, he just adds the story in Damascus as an addendum, still trying to prove that Paul was in Damascus. The detail that the Ethnarch of Aretas was after Paul does not really contradict the assertion in Acts that the Jews were after him. After all, the Ethnarch could have been acting on behalf of the Jews, thus making the escape more miraculous.

Here we see the extreme cleverness of the author of Acts. He knows that believability in two text are not dependent on one text simply copying another in every detail. In fact believability in one part of a text is enhanced if apparent contradiction is found around it.

For example, let us say that text A and text B both say:

“Maria gave Juan ten dollars for a bus ticket and he traveled to Madrid.”

It is clear that text B does not enhance the credibility of text A. It merely repeats it. Text A could have gotten the same misinformation from Text B or vicer-versa.
But let us say text A and text B have this:

A) “Maria gave Juan ten dollars for a bus ticket and he traveled to Madrid.”

B) “According to Maria’s brother, Selma gave Juan two hundred pesos and he traveled by taxi to Madrid.”

The reader isn’t sure if Selma or Maria gave money to Juan or if it was ten dollars or two hundred pesos, or even if Juan traveled to Madrid by bus or taxi. However the reader is now much surer that Juan traveled did go to Madrid, because two independent sources are confirming it.

Here we have the secret of the success of the author of Luke/Acts for some 1800 years. He purposefully creates ambiguities and apparent contradictions in trivial aspects of the texts in order to get the reader to believe more certainly on those parts of the texts where the texts agrees. Those parts of the texts where they agree, are, in fact the most important lies that the author has made up.

We are dealing with a rhetorician who is well schooled in the advantages of allowing texts to disagree in the trivial so that they may be more convincing in presenting the “facts” that he wants the reader to believe.

We just have to realize that the points of agreement in multiple texts are most likely the biggest lies that the writer has made up.

Whenever we see agreement between Acts and the Epistles, we may see this as an interpolation made by the author of Acts into the Epistles to support his own invention in Acts.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay