EarlDoherty

So why do you adamantly resist seeing certain passages in that AoI as later insertions, regardless of textual analysis which would support that, and accuse me of being an "ad hoc artist"? Isn't there some contradiction there?

And under the orb of the moon doesn't include the earth in the contexts I describe, because that is the way the documents present it: they specify a separate area below the moon which does not include earth. I have tried for years to pound that into your head, but to no avail. I get the same smilie all the time.

Well, once again it's been fun, Don. I wonder how long it will be before we both lose our resolve and go at it again...

Earl Doherty

Duvduv

.....unless the epistles were composites that were put together as the Christian religion was emerging in the 4th century, but before the appearance of the canonical gospels.

Duvduv

Since I have mentioned the issue of composites elsewhere,I thought I'd repost it here as well.

Among epistles within the same epistles there are contrasting statements about God and Jesus doing particular things.

Galatians 1:11 It is Jesus who revealed himself to Paul.
Galatians 1:15 It is God who revealed the Christ to Paul.

God is the Savior in 1 Timothy and Titus, whereas Jesus is the Savior in Ephesians, Philippians, 2 Timothy.

1 Timothy 2:
“This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

2 Timothy 1: This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus.

God is over all in Ephesians 4 but Jesus is over all in Romans 9.

The "churches" were of Christ in Romans 6 but of God in 1 Corinthians 11.

The kingdom belongs to Christ in Colossians 1 but belongs to God in Colossians 3.

The Judgement Seat belongs to God in Romans 14 but to Christ in 2 Corinthians 5.

Paul is a servant of God (and apostle of Jesus) in Titus 1 but a servant of Christ in Galatians 1.

Indeed, if you look at the following passage from Titus, if you leave out the phrase involving Christ, it sounds like a text that is perfectly monotheistic from a Jewish point of view and suggests at least two hands:

4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

gurugeorge

Yeah, but the problem is, given that the texts we have represent a small percentage of texts from that time, do we actually know what "the thinking of the time" was? (How representative, for example, is Plutarch, really, of "the thinking of the time"? And how would you know?)

There's a lot of elbow room - particularly, there's a lot of elbow room for the Christian texts, read anew, without the accumulation of centuries of tradition influencing us, to actually tell us something new and perhaps more representative of "the thinking of the time". Is there any reason why that can't be the case?

The trouble is, you're not prepared to let that process breathe, you seem to want to instantly clamp down on anything that suggests any possibilities other than your own belief about what "the thinking of the time" was.

This is what makes your debates with Earl somewhat wasteful - instead of exploring together, as two fairly mighty minds could, you're at loggerheads with him because his theory is a pea under the mattress of what you think you've established for yourself about "the thinking of the time".

That's how it looks to me anway.

(To compare and contrast, look at what Carrier's doing - he too thinks Earl's arguments have flaws, but he's using Doherty to further his own explorations. You could be doing that, but yet you choose not to.)

aa5874

Please, be extremely clear because I do NOT agree that the Pauline letters were before the short-ending gMark and I do NOT accept imaginary hypothetical text as a source of history.

"Q" HAS not ever been found.

The Jesus story in the short-ending gMark has NOTHING whatsoever to do with a Jesus cult of Christians and is a work of Fiction from beginning to end.

There is NO evidence that the author of the short-ending gMark intended that his story would be the basis of a new religion. There is NO commission by the Jesus of the short-ending gMark to preach the Good News of the Jesus story.

The short-ending gMark is really BAD NEWS for the Jews.

The short-ending gMark is a story of Betrayal, Abandonment, Denial, and Rejection of the Son of God by the Evil Jews who cause him to be crucified.

The short-ending gMark makes NO sense and would be irrelevant if the Pauline letters were already known and circulated in the Roman Empire.

And most important NO dated Text, NT Manuscript or not, can corroborate any 1st century Jesus cult of Christian or the Pauline writings.

Once you have NO evidence that gMark used the Pauline writings then it means NO argument can be maintained that they preceeded the short-ending gMark.

You MUST have Evidence First before you make any agument.

A close examination of the Pauline writings will REVEAL that they are Anti-Marcionite writings ATTEMPTING to corroborate the Bodily Resurrection of the Son of God called Jesus.

In virtually every so-called letter the Pauline writer claimed Jesus was RAISED from the dead and the writer also claimed he was a WITNESS of the Resurrected Jesus.

It is clear that these are Anti-Marcionite letters written some in the mid 2nd century or later which is Compatible with the Dated P 46.

Solo

Same here. The sublunar theory is extravagant and cannot be reconciled with many ideas of Paul which clearly pre-suppose Jesus on earth. I guess, the most important among them was the "imitatio" motif, Paul's offering of the Christ experience as confirmation of the special status of his ecstatics (h eklogh, hoi eklektoi). The parallel he drew between himself and Christ (and by extension himself and his followers) would not have worked if Christ was a pure abstract incabable of suffering and not having (earthly) incarnation ending in real death.

The other issue was brought up by Ehrman. Paul does not appear to have been formally schooled and if some of his ideas appear to have Platonic echos in them then it is via digest of public debating places, not schooling or tutoring. (The idea of Acts that Saul was a pupil of Gamaliel is scoffed at by his reputed taking part in mob violence against Christians). By all appearances, Paul was self-educated and his mission to Gentiles was making a virtue out of necessity. He apparantly did not get anywhere among the schooled Jewish interpreters of the tanakh. Paul's audience would have been people who did not have answers to his assertions. They would not have been people terribly skilled in abstract concepts looking for a philosophical nirvana. They were seers and visionaries receiving holies and then being chased by the riders of apocalypse. They were recovering urban psychotics trying to figure what God was doing unleashing Satan on them. This is the social setting of Paul's ministry, definitely nothing close to the Academy (at large).

I think Doherty is the strongest in the places where he elaborates on G.A. Wells' theory, i.e. Paul's and the other epistles' innocence ("silence" is not the right word) of the gospel Jesus. This is the most decisive argument. I have accepted it insofar as it signifies that the gospels are fictions. I am not convinced that this proves however that Jesus did not exist. Paul arguing with Jerusalem missions and Mark treating with contempt the Jesus' earthly witness by the disciples signify to me there was a historical figure of Jesus which became totally overshadowed by the literary creation of Mark.

Best,
Jiri

aa5874

Your post is COMPLETELY unsubstantiated. You provide NO credible corroborative sources. You did NOT establish the veracity and historical accuracy of your sources. You did NOT establish when any of your sources were composed.

Your post reflects that of those who operate on Faith in a most myopic way.

May I remind you that FAITH and Presumptions are WORTHLESS tools for History.

Please, this is NOT Sunday School.

We are doing history.

Credible dated sources of antiquity is a MUST.

For far too long people here have been basking in Faith and Presumptions coupled with imagination.

Wake up!!!

This is BC&H.

aa5874

We have two most Significant gospels the short-ending gMark and the Interpolated gMark.

These so-called gospels are Prima Facie evidence of how the Jesus cult of Christians were initiated.

It was the Resurrected Jesus that gave INSTRUCTIONS to preach the Jesus story.

There would have been NO gospel preached if Jesus did NOT resurrect.

This is VITALLY important. It is the resurrected DEAD that Speaks.

Listen to the words of RESSURECTED DEAD.

Mark 16 The INSTRUCTIONS to preach the Gospel is found in the FORGED long-ending gMark.

The short-ending Mark has NO intructions, I repeat, NO instructions for anyone to preach the story in gMark.

The author of the short-ending gMark did NOT authorise, instruct or commission anyone to preach his story to the world as a means of Salvation.

Please, it is documented. It was the FORGED gMark that instructed people to preach the gMark story.

The Pauline writers also claimed to have gotten their Gospel from the Resurrected Dead called Jesus.

We KNOW how the Jesus cult most likely began it was about the time the short-ending gMak was Manipulated.

The FORGERY is documented. See the Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.

All NT manuscripts DATED by Paleography and C 14 are no earlier than the 2nd century and all Non-apologetic argument AGAINST the Jesus story are NO earlier than the 2nd century.

The Jesus cult of Christians was INITIATED most likely in the 2nd century when the short-ending gMark story was FORGED with the 12 additional verses.

, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

This is PRECISELY what happened. The authors of the Canon, including the Pauline writers, did preach the Jesus story of the short-ending gMark to the world and even today that Jesus was RAISED from the dead.