Toto

Surrebuttal: The possibility that Christianity did not exist in the first century has to be considered. What appears as Christianity in the second century may have developed out of Jewish sects that did differentiate themselves from Judaism until after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, or possibly later.

We have some documents that claim to have been written by a certain Paul, but we have no original copies, and it is reasonable to assume that they are interpolated by later writers.

We do not have "primary" evidence that Paul caused disturbances across the Roman Empire or ended up under arrest in Rome. That story comes from Acts, a historical novel that cannot be shown to be a record of events and which has all of the appearance of being fictional.

I have previously cited a scholarly article which analyzes that passage from 2 Cor as Paul "playing the fool." Paul adopts every character in Greco-Roman comedy in that section. It is not clear that Paul wrote it, or when he wrote it, or if he meant it to be taken literally if he did write it.

At best, Josephus is neutral for the HJ case.

Is there any point in going on? There is no point to a FAQ on a subject if you are going to frame the questions so badly and not answer the real objections.

For example, you write

This is not the argument that mythicists use. Mythicists point out that the description of Jesus in Paul and other early documents is very sparse, while the gospels that were written later add more detail - implying that the detail is not an historical recounting, but a later invention. If Jesus were an historical person, you might expect the earliest documents to give the most detail about him.

Vinnie

Turton is mentioned once in my paper IIRC: How would you recommend I edit said part of the paper to more accurately reflect his views. I am open to suggestions.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Not by me it doesn't!!!!

Vinnie

Vinnie

Its like saying, "Hey look, the Gospel of Thomas has no narrative details, therefore Jesus did not exist". *yawn*

Epsitles vs Gospels = Different media = Different content. Do I need to cite Richard Carrier?

There is enough in Paul anyways. I pointed out a few commonly accepted details.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Its humorous that you accuse me of "framing the questions so badly as to not answer the real objections" when I hit precisely the issue of Paul in objections 9 and 12!

Now who is framing what to inaccurately reflect its contents?!

Everytime something favorable to an HJ in Paul or an Epistle is cited you and your fellow convent members cry "interpolation" (do I need to start listinjg them?) or do whole-sale "eisgesis". Are you upset that I did not cover every aspect of this conspiracy theory lunacy?

Vinnie

Amaleq13

1. I’m not sure “shocked” is supported by the text but Paul does seem to be responding to questions in the Thessalonian community. They have been told that they would be caught up into heaven when the Lord comes and apparently wondered what would happen to their Christian brethren who had already died. This supports a belief in an imminent appearance of the Lord but it does not require a recent crucifixion.

2. I agree but the relatively recent “whatever” that started the “new era” appears to have been the resurrection experiences of Cephas, et. al. Paul describes the death, burial, and resurrection after three days as “according to the scriptures”. That doesn’t require or even suggest that they were recent events.

3. Paul never refers to or describes “the twelve”, Cephas, or anybody as having known the living Jesus. Only the reference to James as the Lord’s brother, not "Jesus’ brother!", actually qualifies (potentially). I agree that, if we can take this reference as genuine and that it was meant literally, it would require a recently crucified Jesus. However, I’m not sure you can establish either.

Authenticity: Paul names James four times but only uses this “title” once. This is more consistent with an interpolation but hardly sufficient to carry the entire weight. Hegesippus is the earliest evidence outside Paul that James was called “brother of the Lord”. The earliest evidence for this passage is Origen where he makes the curious statement that this title was “not so much on account of their relationship by blood, or of their being brought up together, as because of his virtue and doctrine.” I don’t know if we can assume, because of the “not so much”, that Origen believed in a blood relationship. In English, that implication seems to exist but I’m not sure that is true of the original language.


Literal: Paul appears to use the plural as a generic reference to fellow male Christians (females are “sisters”). Doherty’s suggestion that James obtained a special variation due to his leadership seems possible but, that said, I cannot claim it is convincingly conclusive. Paul also uses the title “Lord” to refer to God. Bernard Muller rejected this as an unlikely title for a Jew to use but did not provide any support for this contention. It would be helpful to be able to convincingly dismiss this possibility. Last, the connection between a blood relationship and a messianic title seems at odds with Paul’s expressed theological views. Essentially, a literal reading of this passage has Paul calling James “the blood brother of the Risen Christ” and I find it hard to believe that Paul would make such a reference. Assuming the blood relationship to be historical, it seems to me that Paul’s conception of it would have been more like: "when the Risen Christ was human, James was his brother". Abbreviating that concept with a reference to the heavenly entity rather than the incarnated flesh, seems foreign to Paul’s theology.

Vinnie

""""""""""1. I’m not sure “shocked” is supported by the text but Paul does seem to be responding to questions in the Thessalonian community. They have been told that they would be caught up into heaven when the Lord comes and apparently wondered what would happen to their Christian brethren who had already died. This supports a belief in an imminent appearance of the Lord but it does not require a recent crucifixion. """""""""""

But this must be read within the context of other Christian texts dealing with an urgent eschatology (e.g. Some standing here will not taste death and the saying Paul shares with Matthew). Though I did include it as number 1 (in a series or progressing difficulty) for a reason. Simply that it requires a lot of other discussion I did not list.

""""""""""2. I agree but the relatively recent “whatever” that started the “new era” appears to have been the resurrection experiences of Cephas, et. al. Paul describes the death, burial, and resurrection after three days as “according to the scriptures”. That doesn’t require or even suggest that they were recent events."""""""""""

Actually, it does require these experiences be relatively recent. Peter was alive at the time. Of course the Rez experiences of Paul, the Gospels and other texts must be read in context of one another as well.

Three is the strongest which you have not even begun to touch.

"'""Paul never refers to or describes “the twelve”, Cephas, or anybody as having known the living Jesus.""""

I am willing to work under the assumption that Paul never makes the connection. It was simply background knowldged as evidenced by the two lists of the twelve (which Paul does mention the twelve), the Gospel of Thomas and all the Peter traditions in the Gospels and underlying sources.

But this all depends on your eisegesis. Paul has Rez experiences, last supper tradition, appearances to Peter and co. So I would say that it is very implicit in Paul that Peter was a follower of Jesus.

The other texts independently supply the detail even if you don't accept this.

Vinnie

Toto

If you think that you covered all of the objections to Paul in 9 and 12, you need to reorganize your material. But you have not. And Paul is not the only early Christian writer who knows no details about a historical Jesus.

Vinnie - this is not the case. Some mythicists think that the human sounding references are interpolations, but Doherty goes to great lengths to accept almost all of those references and explain them as referring to a Platonic higher world.

Besides - can you show that there are no interpolations in Paul? Even conservative scholarship admits that there are letters attributed to Paul that were not written by Paul, and almost all admit that there are some interpolations.

If you want your work to be taken seriously, you have to give your opponent's theories the respect of taking them seriously and working through them, or at least pretend to do so.

If you look at how scientists deal with creationists, you will notice that talkorigins has developed the strategy of answering all objections in detail to evolution. They do not just shout "you're a lunatic and I won't take you seriously ha ha!"

Look at how the various skeptical groups treat UFO believers, astrologists, big foot adherents and the like. They take the theories seriously and conscientiously investigate them. Randi has a million dollar challenge, with an elaborate procedure for working out double blind tests of all claims.

If there really were such a solid historical case for a HJ, you would be able to dispassionately deal with all of the textual problems and other gaps in the evidence.

Toto

Why do the resurrection experiences of Paul need to be read in context with each other? Your friend Layman has argued very strenuously here that the author of Acts did not know about Paul's letters.

And how do you decide that it is implicit in Paul that Peter was the follower of a historical Jesus?

Vinnie

My statement does not even come close to denying the independence of the Pauline corpus and the synoptic gospels.

1) I deem it highly probable like E.P. Sanders that Jesus' earliest followers had Rez experiences.

I do not think Jesus literally rose from the dead. I do not however, deny that his earliest followers [some of them] seem to have hd Rez experiences.

2) There is too much diversity on the nature of the risen Jesus and the appearances to view anything here with certainty. Reconstructing it proves pretty difficult.

3) Further, Crossan writes powerfully about community and leadership here. THis makes reconstruction even more problematic. The appearances are about leadership and so on. I think Crossan does very good on this issue. His treatment of GJohn seemed very good to me!

But Paul's not the only to have "experienced" Jesus after he died. The record seems to indicate otherwise. It would be dubious to suggest Paul was th only one who had a "vision" or whatever it was anyways.

""""And how do you decide that it is implicit in Paul that Peter was the follower of a historical Jesus?""""""""

An evaluation of the Pauline corpus but more so by outside details independnently supplied by other sources.

Vinnie