mountainman

There are others but I agree with the assessment. Paul is a fabrication.

One of the causes of visions is torture. Constantine was not afraid of torturing the leading citizens over matters of their belief, and when that time arrived for there to be only One True Belief about the One True God of the Observable Cosmos Within the HUBBLE LIMIT, it was very fortunate that the new testament was lying around, and that the Boss heard about. What are the chances of that? Was the entire thing fabricated in the fourth century? How can we be sure?

It was at that time expedient to unite the empire by a process of de-Hellenisation, in an exact copy and mimic of the de-Hellenisation process employed by the Persians a century earlier. It required a military supremacist and a "Holy Writ" to be made canonical, distinctive architecture and iron-fisted authority: no (zero) arguments. Constantine had the power to do this, and he did it.

What academics cant (as yet) understand is that he "dabbled" in the literature like a common criminal, and sponsored the fabrication of literary fiction. He rejected the pagan customs and he rejected the Hellenistic traditions. Grant says that "he managed to convince himself that he'd had a religious experience". His address "Oration at Antioch" provides the evidence of this side of Constantine, when he asserts additional and novel evidence in support of the antiquity of the prediction of the coming of Jesus by two Roman poets BCE.

The Constantine Codex is a monstrous fiction. The historicity of Jesus and the Great Resurrection Event is exactly the same as the historicity of Harry Potter, and Bilbo Baggins, and Clerk Kent, and The Phantom, and Homer Simpson. But the business soon became to be regarded as CHRESTOS. It is a story about a non Greek "Good God" CHRESTOS. Which God? The Chrestos God. The Good God. The historicity of Jesus and the Resurrection Event is a literary event of the fourth century, and not a century before the fourth.

J-D

I have made no claims about probabilities. So why are you asking me this question?

J-D

You have already misinterpreted and distorted my response before I have even given it. Therefore I suspect that if I proceed further I will only give you more material for distortion. That is why I asked you whether you understand the distinction between saying that it is possible that something happened, saying that it is probable that something happened, and saying that something actually happened, a question which you have still not answered.

J-D

How can you be sure?

mountainman

PM from Ratzinger

Sheshbazzar

Picture a Courtroom, on the witness stand sits the Prosecutions "Expert Witness", Sworn in with a pledge "To TELL THE TRUTH....."
The first thing that is going to be required of this "Expert Witness" is an inquiry into his qualifications and the circumstances of his claimed authority to give authoritative testimony pertinent to the case at hand.
Our witness then proceeds to give an account of the many Degrees he holds, and the important positions that he has held.

Now imagine that the Defense brings forward documented information that this "Expert Witness" actually spent all of his Collage years under treatment for drug abuse, and never recieved any of those claimed Degrees, and that a check with the institutions that he has claimed to have been employed at revealed that they had no records nor recollections of him ever being employed by their firms.

He protests, Well I dreamed that I shook the Dean's hand and recieved my Diploma!
The vision was beautiful! And I really intended to find work at one of these firms!

Think the rest of his "Expert" testimony will be accounted as being worth a tinkers dam?

Rather, do you think that any reasonable Judge would even allow him to proceed with any further testimony? or serve as a 'witness' to anything?
No, this "expert" would be doing good even to avoid being handcuffed and tossed into prison for Contempt of Court!

Discredited at the beginning is discredited permanently, one so discredited does not 'redeem' themselves by the provision of even more imaginary testimony.
The testimony of a drug addled brain does not bear any weight, nor are alleged 'visions' an acceptable substitute for integrity and veracity.
In this thread it is Paul's qualifications as an "Expert Witness" that is being called into question, and something stinks to High Heaven right there at the beginning.

Sheshbazzar

Yes, I do understand these distinctions, and have not demanded that you choose any particular possibility.
I have not 'misinterpreted' or 'distorted' your response!
Hell, I'm still waiting for you to give it! as you yourself have just admitted!

Now that I have given you your requested 'answer', how about ponying up that 'answer' that you have so long been promising ?

Barefoot Bree

Double-A (can I call you that? ), I'm rearranging your sentence order for a better flow of my answer, but I'm not changing a word. Not even that typo.

Uh, the conversion "on the road to Damascus"? You know, all that falling to the ground and bright light and voices and shit? Seems like a pretty textbook example of a "vision" to me - in fact, I think that word is even used in the police report.

The cause of said vision is an entirely different matter, and one we will never be able to solve. All we can do lob some guesses at the problem, with varying degrees of education behind them.
I think it's a pretty safe course of action to believe someone when they say they've had a vision, whether they "really" did or not. Why not?

I AM NOT SAYING I BELIEVE THE VISION TO BE "TRUE", or inspired by God, or anything else. I'm only saying that if somebody claims they had a vision, I have no reason to believe, or act on that belief, that they didn't. What's the difference? I'm not going to obey their command (or whatever action they desire) because of it.


That would be: never. Visions from whatever cause are not a credible source for anything, in my book or any historian's.

There. Wasn't that easy?

These are entirely separate issues, and should not be conflated.

Well, I am of the opinion that there was no historical Jesus, nor historical apostles (those "Pillars" Shez keeps mentioning, I think?), and that early Christianity was cobbled together from the hundreds or thousands of stories and visions and belief systems and ideas and myths and names of Godmen extant - orders of magnitude many more than we still have direct writings or other evidences of today - at some point in the first few centuries.

So to me, no, it doesn't matter one shrill soprano hoot on Niffleheim (100 bonus points for the reference - it's obscure and I'm feeling generous) WHEN "Paul" had his epileptic fit or whatever.

The writings of your "supposed contemporaries" still extant are a different slice of that hundreds or thousands of stories, etc. That they didn't mention Paul's slice to me only corroborates the whole "mythical" aspect.

Again, I'm taking issue with your characterization of Paul as a liar, and presenting an alternative explanation, that also has great bearing on the genesis of the vast majority of religions throughout history.

aa5874

Because we are dealing with Paul's lies about seeing Jesus in a resurrected state along with over 500 people. Even if he was unknowingly poisoned, some one of his church brethren or his friends, unless they too were unknowingly poisoned, would have been able to recognize that Paul was seeing and hearing things that were not true.

Sheshbazzar

Just want to inform you, that I agree with this assessment, I only reference these mythical "Pillars" because they are integral to the rest of the story, but it is only by comparison of textual claims to other textual claims, that the gaping holes in the accounts as being historically accurate become glaringly apparent.
History they are NOT!
'Paul' might NOT have had any fit or any 'vision', because in fact 'Paul' might be nothing more than a paper character in a fictional narrative composed by many unidentifiable hands.