manfer

Hi.

If there was never a Jesus, why would it have emerged? Nice question, i think because the need of one God that feels all people, or almost all people in the world.
But Jesus as historic person isnt true. I have some answers why that:

1-Alfredo Conde, spanish , as me, say that all, repeat, ALL, books of the new testament- gospels- are false. See that, and read on line first chapter of his book, "Simón, opera magna". He demostrates with proofs, not only telling, how Eusebio de Cesárea at IV a.C. counterfeit the entire New Testament. The key is "S-i-m-o-n" word repeated a lot throught the entire new testament books.

Who was Simon? Read the book.

http://www.sofiaoriginals.com/


2-Another great argument is Luigi Cascioli, with " La favola di Cristo", absolutely not to be missing. " The fable (or myth) of Christ". He also demonstrates the indisputable of not-existence of Jesus, but this book is much, indispensable to easily understand the labiryinth of religions from IV b.c to I-II a.C.

http://www.luigicascioli.it/home_ita.php

The essential of Cascioli is demonstration of Jesus=Giovanni, son first-born of Judas of Gamala. Its a case of "replacement" of person. Instead a revolutionary and warrior leader of Zelots, Esseins who dont match with a religious one, it was changed to another pacific leader that never existed.


Why would Paul have written his letters?
Well, Paul never wrote that letters of epistles, because the authentic autor of these was Marcione, as said Cascioli, in his very well documented book.

I think thats you'll like

:banghead:

jjramsey

Quoting myself from the JREF forums:

BTW, Googling for "John of Gamala" either gets me references to Cascioli's work or to G.A. Henty's book For The Temple, in which John of Gamala is a fictional character.

Amaleq13

My observation is neither about expectations nor about "always" (nice straw man, BTW) but about what is actually present in Paul and whether it is "consistent" with the notion of Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher. The fact is there is no Apocalyptic Preacher Jesus explicitly or implicitly described in Paul. Such a figure has to be read into the letters as you have clearly demonstrated. To suggest that such an effort results in "consistency" is misleading if not disingenuous.

No, your claim would only be true if you simply stated that there was nothing inconsistent with the notion in Paul. To obtain consistency with the evidence requires a correspondence with existing evidence not simply an absence of contradiction.

We have Paul pointing to an imminent end of the world with no connection to the teachings of a living Jesus ever made. Instead, the only connection is with the Resurrection of Christ as the "first fruits".

Yes, those stories are the basis for the conception of Jesus as Apocalyptic Preacher though one could argue that Q (if unlayered?) pushes it closer to the actual man. Those stories are not, however, the total body of evidence and they do not tell us anything about how Paul understood the living Jesus.

This is in response to the promises made in the Gospel stories and also incapable of informing us about how Paul understood the living Jesus.

It is clearly false to claim that Paul alludes to any such thing but I agree that it is far easier to read what you want into Paul than to try to deal with the evidence as it exists.

All you have demonstrated with your presentation of the evidence is that the conception of Jesus as an Apocalyptic Preacher is consistent with the evidence after Paul and there is nothing which contradicts it in Paul.

jjramsey

IIRC, there are at least a few NT fragments that predate the fourth century. Also, if Eusebius of Caesaria wrote the whole of the NT, then he wrote of Jesus making a prediction that failed, which is awfully strange. Not to mention that Eusebius would have had to write in several different styles. Offhand, this does not pass the smell test.

Amaleq13

You are too quick to pigeonhole, amigo. My suggestion of the Theraputae as precursors to Christianity relies only on Philo and Eusebius. Case is responding to a much bolder claim that I agree cannot be sustained by the existing evidence.

The notion of Jesus arising from an Essene subgroup like the Theraputae is entirely "consistent" with Philo and Eusebius.

jjramsey

Amaleq13, I think we are thinking along very different lines. When you asked "Do they have him [that is, Jesus the apocalyptic prophet] in Paul's letters?", I presumed that you were asking whether there was supporting evidence of an apocalyptic Jesus in the Pauline epistles, not necessarily for proof that the Pauline epistles could lead to an apocalyptic Jesus independent of Paul.

Either we have two different standards for consistency or two different definitions of the word. I have two grounds for saying that Paul is consistent with an apocalyptic Jesus. First--as you yourself noted---"there is nothing which contradicts it in Paul." Second, Paul is himself apocalyptic, which is just what we'd expect if he was following an apocalyptic Jesus. Technically speaking, only the first ground is necessary for Paul to be consistent with an apocalyptic HJ, since the word "consistent" means:

Then, maybe you are using a different definition of "consistent," which was why I found it rather confusing for you to write, "to suggest that a conception of the historical Jesus as Apocalyptic Prophet is consistent with all the evidence is simply untrue," since this would imply that something in the NT actually contradicted an apocalyptic Jesus, not merely that Paul wasn't independent proof of same.

jjramsey

Fair enough, but this seems to be weak evidence. Philo, as far as I can tell from a quick Google, describes the Theraputae as Jewish ascetics and contrasts them with the Essenes. It is Eusebius who thinks they are Christians, and he is not only writing long after Philo, but his reliability is, like Epiphanius', uneven.

Amaleq13

I was asking whether an Apocalyptic Preacher Jesus could be found in Paul's letters. Your responses confirmed that the answer is "No". There is only room to read such a figure into the letters. Calling that "consistent" seems inaccurate and misleading to me.

No, the very first definition of the word is what I've been relying upon:

"1. In agreement; compatible: The testimony was consistent with the known facts."

As we have seen, there are no "known facts" in Paul with which the depiction of Jesus as Apocalyptic Prophet is "in agreement" in the sense of supporting it to be true. For that to be the case, I think you would need some indication that Paul believed the living Jesus preached that The End was near. That simply does not exist in Paul's letters. There is only an absence of anything explicitly contrary though the expressed reason for Paul's apocalypticism (ie Christ's resurrection) arguably contradicts any other offered explanation.

It is also what we would expect if Jesus was not an apocalyptic preacher but Paul interpreted his resurrection as a sign of the coming Apocalypse. And that is precisely how Paul explains his apocalyptic expectations.

IMO, your use of "consistent" is either misleading (if intended to indicate support for the notion) or meaningless (if intended to indicate an absence of contradiction). In the sense you are using it, Jesus as an Apocalyptic Preacher is as "consistent" with Paul as Jesus as a Wisdom Teacher or Healing Prophet or even Messianic Contender and possibly even as Myth.

Again IMO, the MJ position suffers from too little supporting evidence while the HJ position suffers from too much evidence pointing in too many different directions. Paul really does nothing to suggest that any of them is more likely than the other because he says so little of substance about the pre-crucifixion Jesus.

Amaleq13

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble with accessing Kirby's section on Philo at www.earlyjewishwritings.com but it is the connection between rejecting animal sacrifices and servants/healers of God that makes them contenders in my mind. I agree that Eusebius must be taken with caution but his view of them suggests the connection is not limited to my mind.

ETA:

I will also take "weak evidence" as progress from "a lack of evidence".

ChandraRama

complete mythology, fiction, hostorical novel theories are advanced towards the new testament. I think that is not a valid argument. There are far too many military messianic sayings in New testament that invalidate these theories.

The sayings are part of the oral tradition and hence could not be expunged by the testament writers. But they inserted and retained ambiguous sayings to modify their cult to escape the oppression of the roman authorities is a plausible approach.
As suggested by marvin Harris in his book, "cows pigs wars and witches" the original messiah is not prince of peace. If anything peaceful, it is the peace expected by Jeremiah kind of prophets who wanted a Davidic kingdom that ruled over the rest of the states around.

The cult that grew around the death of the military messiah expecting him to return like the Al Mehdi, King Frederic has been trumatised by the fall of jerusalem and the oppression of Jewish identity. That lead to the creation of chrisitianity separate from the Jewish identity.

Only place I differ from Marvin Harris is his assumption that Jesus is not the most threatening and the most popular movement during the time of Pontius.

Any cult to remain after the founder's death needs certain amount of critical mass following. If there are only 12 people around him, that is not enough for it to spread far and wide. So a popular pretender to the throne with his huge support as described by Josephus is a distinct possibility. Even by the NT, the Jesus was popular. If he is popular as described by NT, or as expected by the later day spreading, that needs a certain mass following before the death.

Josephus has described Jesus' life. But not in his name. That is what I think.