Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 02-23-2010, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by driver8

There may be other parallels.

Joseph Smith claimed he received a revelation from two figures, one of whom was Jesus. He claimed he was visited by spirits who he saw as he was walking through the woods in New York state. He also claimed a number of prophetic visions attributed to Jesus.

Joseph Smith simply cloned Eusebius' Historia Ecclesiastica and made a few novel embellishments. He was an inspired forger of words.

mountainman · 02-23-2010, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by avi

Mountainman's hypothesis may not be sustained by all the evidence, but when compared with the notion of a first century origin for Christianity, his idea seems prescient to me.

All the evidence includes the entire body and manuscript tradition for the new testament non canonical writings -- all the NT related stories which were treated in the 4th century and after as "heretical".

All the evidence includes a simple profane and political explanation of the Arian controversy, the Origenist controversy, the Nestorian controversy, the Manichaean controversy, the controvery over two separate Ammonias Saccas' in history, the controvery over his two separate students Origen the Platonist and Origen the Christian, and finally the controversy over the invectives and writings of the emperor Julian.

Do any of the HJ or MJ theories explain the above?

All the "early" evidence is purely "Eusebian" -- "In Whom We Appear to Trust for some Obscure Reason !"

aa5874 · 02-23-2010, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

I think you left out the word no - "no need to postulate."

Right.

And Christianity was started by Christ, not a phantasm.

Christians is derived from the Greek word meaning "anointed" or "Christ."

There was no need for a man named Jesus for there to have been Christians or people called Christ. King David was called Christ hundreds of years before the Jesus story.

And people of antiquity were called Christians who believed in Simon Magus and Menander. There probably thousands of people who were called Christians since the days of the Emperor Claudius who did not worship the offspring of the Holy Ghost and a Virgin.

Doug Shaver · 02-23-2010, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Alright, I suppose most of the mythicist that post on this forum appear to support that christianty began in the second century if not later. Would you kindly list some mythicists who postulate Christianity began in the first century?

I'm one. So is Earl Doherty. So is Richard Carrier. Robert Price, who says he remains uncertain regarding historicism, says that whether or not Jesus was real, Christianity originated during the first century.

What might be confusing matters a bit is that most of us think that Christianity as we now know it was practically nonexistent before the second century. We believe that no Christians, or hardly any Christians, during the first century had any notion that the Christ they worshiped had once been a man living and preaching in Palestine.

Johnny Skeptic · 02-23-2010, 03:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Even if Christ did not peform a single miracle it doesn't follow that a HJ did not exist in Israel during the first century.

I am not arguing for or against a historical Jesus.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

It also doesn't follow if Christ in fact performed miracles that the demographics of early Christians would've been any different. For example, why wouldn't Jews in the first century reject miracles by simply attributing them to demonic forces or simply claiming that the witnesses to these miracles were inebriated/hallucinating?

In my previous post, I mentioned a past thread at http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=270530 that is titled "Maybe the historical Jesus really did do miracles." I provided lots of reasons why it is probable that Jesus did not perform many miracles in many places. If you want me to reply to what I just quoted that you said, please cut and paste it into the thread on the miracles of Jesus that I mentioned and I will reply to it there. If the thread is too old for you to make a post, I will start a new thread on the miracles of Jesus, quote you, and reply to what you said. I will also cut and paste a lot of the arguments that I used in the past thread.

arnoldo · 02-23-2010, 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

It also doesn't follow if Christ in fact performed miracles that the demographics of early Christians would've been any different. For example, why wouldn't Jews in the first century reject miracles by simply attributing them to demonic forces or simply claiming that the witnesses to these miracles were inebriated/hallucinating?

In my previous post, I mentioned a past thread at http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=270530 that is titled "Maybe the historical Jesus really did do miracles." I provided lots of reasons why it is probable that Jesus did not perform many miracles in many places. .

It's possible that Joseph Smith did not witness anything miraculous, i.e., an angel which revealed to him golden plates nor that Christ performed any miracles. However, there is no absolute need to deny that Joseph Smith nor Christ, in fact, existed.

show_no_mercy · 02-23-2010, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

In my previous post, I mentioned a past thread at http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=270530 that is titled "Maybe the historical Jesus really did do miracles." I provided lots of reasons why it is probable that Jesus did not perform many miracles in many places. .

It's possible that Joseph Smith did not witness anything miraculous, i.e., an angel which revealed to him golden plates nor that Christ performed any miracles. However, there is no absolute need to deny that Joseph Smith nor Christ, in fact, existed.

I think the analogue in mythicism is that Joseph Smith is equal to Paul, and the angle Moroni is equivalent to Jesus.

spamandham · 02-23-2010, 10:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

See this earlier thread - The Growth Rate of Early Christianity

The data from Stark is cited as follows:

Code:

Year   Number of Xians   % of pop

 40         1,000          0.0017
 50         1,400          0.0023
100         7,530          0.0126
150        40,496          0.07
200       217,795          0.36
250      1,171,356         1.9
300      6,299,832        10.5
350     33,882,008        56.5

Also see the Book Review: Stark, The Rise of Christianity - by Michael Turton

These figures are very conjectural.

This is true. Stark has constructed a consistent theory, but it does not exclude other consistent theories. For example, by modifying the growth rate imperceptibly, Christianity could have started in the 2nd century BCE. Or by your pet theory, it could have started in the late 3rd/early 4th century, since 0 is close enough to Stark's 2% or so figure prior to that.

arnoldo · 02-24-2010, 05:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

It's possible that Joseph Smith did not witness anything miraculous, i.e., an angel which revealed to him golden plates nor that Christ performed any miracles. However, there is no absolute need to deny that Joseph Smith nor Christ, in fact, existed.

I think the analogue in mythicism is that Joseph Smith is equal to Paul, and the angle Moroni is equivalent to Jesus.

The parallel would be even stronger if "Joseph Smith" was in fact a pseudonym of a writer(s) who wrote the Book of Mormon in the 20th century, rather than the 19th century. It would follow, then, that Mormonism did not exist in the 19th century but began in the 20th century upon publication of the writing(s) attributed to "Joseph Smith."

Johnny Skeptic · 02-24-2010, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

It also doesn't follow if Christ in fact performed miracles that the demographics of early Christians would've been any different.

On the contrary, if Jesus actually performed many miracles in many places, it is probable that more people would have accepted him.

Micah 5:2 says "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." If Micah had predicted that Jesus would heal sick people, that Pontius Pilate would become the Roman governor of Palestine, and that Titus would destroy the Jewish Temple in 70 A.D., it is probable that hundreds if not thousands more people would have accepted Jesus. However, since God wanted to create a lot of needless confusion regarding who Jesus was, he did not inspire Micah to write that, and of course he did not mention that Alexander would defeat Tyre, and did not inspire Bible prophets to write many other things that would have greatly reduced a lot of needless confusion.

Consider the following Scriptures:

Matthew 4:23-25

"And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan."

Logically, if those accounts were true, they would have attracted the attention of many people, including some non-biblical historians, from hundreds if not thousands of miles away, but yet non-biblical first century history makes very little mention that the accounts were true. How could a Roman centurion have known that Jesus performed miracles, reference Matthew chapter 8, but Pontius Pilate did not know anything about it? An instantaneous healing of a serious illness is a big deal, and news like that would travel very fast, and very far. Who else except for Jesus do you know of who performed many miracles in many places in Palestine for years, right under the nose of the Roman government in Palestine, and right under the nose of the Syrian Government in Syria?

Consider the following Scriptures:

John 2:23

“Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did.”

John 3:2

“The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.”

John 10:37-38

“If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.”

John 11:43-45

"And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him."

John 20:30-31

“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”

Would you like to claim that people who lived in ancient Palestine and accepted Jesus partly because he performed miracles were the only people in the entire world who would have accepted him if they had seen him perform miracles?

Those texts show that some people would not accept Jesus based upon his words alone, and that he provided them with tangible, firsthand evidence that convinced them to accept his words. Of the group of texts, I find John 10:37-38 to be the most interesting. The passage says "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him." That passage obviously does not have anything to do with faith. It essentially means "If I perform miracles, even if you will not accept my words, accept the miracles that I perform." Common sense, logic, and reason indicate that humans typically find words "and" tangible, firsthand evidence to be much more appealing than just words. Therefore, if a God exists, he would easily be able to convince far more people that he exists than he has.

Since women typically accept Christianity more than men do, and theism in general, perhaps you believe that they have more common sense, logic, and reason than men do. In addition, women are much more likely to be creationists than men are. How do you account for that? The secular factors of genetics and sociological factors could easily explain that.

Research shows that in the U.S., the most likely person to be a creationist is African-American, makes less that $20,000 a year, did not finish college, and is female. How do you explain that? In addition, in the U.S., over 99 6/7% of scientists who deal with the earth and its lifeforms are evolutionists. You can read more about those issues in my post number #180 in a thread at http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=278774&page=8 at the Evolution/Creation forum. I certainly do not have anything against Black-Americans and women, but statistics are not biased. They just report evidence from polls and other kinds of research.

Even after the Holy Spirit supposedly came to the church, in the NIV, Acts 14:3 says "So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders." Considering that Jesus had performed many miracles in front of thousands of people, including many miracles that were not recorded, and had appeared to hundreds of people after he rose from the dead, and had criticized his disciples for their unbelief, and that there were thousands of surviving eyewitnesses who were still around, and that the Holy Spirit had come to the church, I find it to be quite odd that God provided even more tangible, firsthand evidence. In my opinion, this brings into question the truthfulness of the claims.

Now imagine what would have happened if there had been 10,000only begotten Sons of Gods all over the world instead of only one only begotten Son of God, and had performed miracles all over the world, and had been crucified, and had risen from the dead. In such a case, in for instance the first century, the Christian church probably would have been much larger than it was. Surely the Middle East was not the only place in the entire world where people placed great emphasis upon tangible, firsthand evidence.

If the Bible is true, it is much better at hiding evidence that humans find to be appealing than any other book that was ever written. If Jesus performed all of the miracles that the New Testament says that he performed, and performed many more miracles that the texts say that he performed, he would easily have been the most unique human in history, and yet non-biblical, first century records have very little to say about Jesus performing miracles. And of course, there are the stories of the Ten Plagues in Egypt, which if true, would have been the end of Egypt as a major power in the Middle East, and would probably have been recorded by many historians. If the Ten Plagues occured, they would easily have been unprecedented in human history, and would easily have been the biggest story in the Middle East and beyond for decades.

Were people who lived during Jesus' time in ancient Palestine nosey? According to James Holding they were. Consider the following from his article that is titled "The Impossible Faith":

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/nowayjose.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by James Holding

Factor #13 -- You Can't Keep a Secret!

The group-oriented culture of the ancients leads to a shoring up of yet another common apologetic argument. Apologists regularly note that Christian claims would have been easy to check out and verify. Skeptics, especially G. A. Wells, counter by supposing that no one would have cared to find out such things. The skeptics are very wrong -- they operate not only against the natural human tendency to curiosity, but also against a very important group-oriented social structure.

Do you value your privacy? Then stay in America. Malina and Neyrey note that "in group-oriented cultures such as the ancient Mediterranean, we must remember that people continually mind each other's business." [183] Privacy was unknown and unexpected. On the one hand, neighbors exerted "constant vigilance" over others; on the other hand, those watched were constantly concerned for appearances, and the associated rewards of honor or sanctions of shame that came with the results.

It's the same in group-oriented cultures today...if you ever wonder why we have trouble spreading "democracy" you need look no further than that 70% of the world is group-oriented.

Think of this: We complain of the erosion of privacy, but know as well that it is a compromise for the sake of social control. The ancients would not have worried about not having adequate measures in place to stop a terrorist attack -- because such measures of surveillance were already present. Control comes not from indiviuals controlling themselves, but from the group controlling the individual. (This is also why we have a tough time relating to the ancient church's ways of fellowship.)

Pilch and Malina [115] add that strangers were viewed in the ancient world as posing a threat to the community, because "they are potentially anything one cares to imagine...Hence, they must be checked over both as to how they might fit in and as to whether they will subscribe to the community's norms." Malina adds in The New Testament World [36-7] that honor was always presumed to exist within one's own family of blood," but all outside that circle are "presumed to be dishonorable -- untrustworthy, if you will -- unless proved otherwise." No one outside the family is trusted "unless that trust can be validated and verified." Stangers to a village are considered "potential enemies"; foreigners "just passing through" (as missionaries would) are "considered as certain enemies." Missionaries would find their virtues tested at every new stopping point.

Ancient people controlled one another's behavior by watching them, spreading word of their behavior (what we call "gossip"), and by public dishonor. Critics who ask what Pharisees were doing out in the country watching Jesus' disciples crack grain, and consider that improbable, are way off track. "...[T]he Pharisees seem to mind Jesus' business all the time," [183] and little wonder, since that was quite normal to do. (Philo notes that there were "thousands" who kept their eyes on others in their zeal to ensure that others did not subvert the Jewish ancestral institutions -- Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 379.)

So now the Skeptic has another conundrum. In a society where nothing escaped notice, there was indeed every reason to suppose that people hearing the Gospel message would check against the facts -- especially where a movement with a radical message like Christianity was concerned.

The empty tomb would be checked. Matthew's story of resurrected saints would be checked out. Lazarus would be sought out for questioning. Excessive honor claims, such as that Jesus had been vindicated, or his claims to be divine, would have been given close scrutiny. And later, converts to the new faith would have to answer to their neighbors. Checking the facts would provide "grist for the mill" (since it would be assumed it could help control the movement).

If the Pharisees checked Jesus on things like handwashing and grain picking; if large crowds gathered around Jesus each time he so much as sneezed -- how much more would things like a claimed resurrection have been looked at.

If Holding is right, that helps my arguments since if Jesus performed many miracles in many places for years, he would easily have attracted so much attention that he would have been the biggest celebrity not only in Palestine, but in the entire Middle East. History shows that that did not happen.

As far as the claim that the Pharisees accused Jesus of healing by the power of Beelzebub, that is ridiculous. Why wouldn't the Messiah sent by God be able to heal people? Moses performed miracles, right? If so, then why wouldn't Jesus have performed miracles too? If a Pharisee has leprosy, and saw Jesus heal a leper, it is probable that the Pharisee would have asked Jesus to heal him. What non-biblical evidence do you have that the Pharisees accused Jesus of healing by power of Beelzebub? Obviously, none.

One problem that you have is that you accept a lot of the Bible by faith without having any corroboration from history and science. What you need is some evidence that depends upon science and history, not just upon faith. Muslims have faith. So what?

By the way, as I told you in my previous post, I am not arguing for or against a historical Jesus. Joseph Smith probably existed. So what since it is probable that he did not tell the truth about many issues?

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