avi

Yes, Abe, by all means, feel free to argue for or against, any position, including mine, as you wish.

The Dagda

And as canonical as his Gospel. Your point being?

Steven Carr

The point is that nobody in the first century was prepared to put his name to a document saying he had heard of him.

Similarly for Mary Magdalene, Jairus, Bartimaeus, Nicodemus, Lazarus, Thomas, Joanna, Salome, Simon of Cyrene, Barabbas etc etc.

These look for all the world like characters in a novel.

andrewcriddle

Judas (if historical) appears to have died at the same time as the death of Jesus or very shortly afterwards. His lack of any role in the early church is not surprising.

Andrew Criddle

The Dagda

Ah gotya my bad, yes he was as mythical as the Gospel Jesus.

The only reason the gospels of these people didn't get into The Bible is because they are either more accurate or none of the Gospels are true.

spamandham

Although interesting, what I'm looking for are people who are identified as family members of Jesus by approximate contemporaries. The closest we see to that is James who is known as the Lord's brother, and if he was the blood brother of Jesus, then he is exactly where I would expect Jesus' relatives to be - at the head of the church.

But it isn't clear if this is a title or a kinship, particularly in light of the special appearance of the resurrected Jesus to him (and a few others of rank in the church) mentioned in 1 Cor. 15 (although I think 1 Cor. 15 is inauthentic, it nonetheless captures ideas prevalent in the early church). Huh? Didn't James know his own blood brother in the flesh *before* he was resurrected?

Considering the Jewish emphasis on knowing one's lineage, it seems to me that the early church should have been dominated by relatives of Jesus, perhaps even into the modern age, or there should be an accounting of why the lineage died. There's a complete lineage of Popes afterall (even if the first few are bogus).

That we do start seeing such a lineage first recorded in the 3rd/4th centuries is not surprising whether it existed in reality or not.

spin

Perhaps you didn't read what you were responding to.

You must know the scholarly drill. Make a substantive claim and supply substantive evidence. Beyond that you can think that your position is correct but you don't put it out in public like that's how it must be because you know you don't have the evidence.

So you don't consider your jocularly misrepresentative "Jesus who flew off into the sky on his way to Heaven" miraculous?

By claiming that, you are taking yet another substantive position, ie that such and such a work is a "novel". You haven't produced any rationale to come to that conclusion and you shouldn't expect one to take your word on the issue. You wouldn't when christians make what seem to you apologetic claims. So I gather you believe in the notion of Jesus mythicism. That's fine, but if you want to argue it, you know what you need to provide.


spin

spin

What was Seneca the elder's father's name or his mother's or his brothers' or sisters' or those of his wife, Helvia? Where were they ever mentioned? Characters in a novel?

icardfacepalm:



spin

Solo

1 Cr 2:2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

spin, you need to take a break. I do not claim that the verse denies "the existence of Jesus". You are hallucinating. In the verse Paul simply declares he did not want to hear of any other Jesus from his flock than the one who was crucified and who rose. Period. The implication of the conjunctive structure "and him crucified" can only be that there were other Jesus'es (or Christs) known at Corinth who were not (portrayed as) crucified, i.e. were doing and saying important things before they died in flesh. This is not a meaning I am imposing : this is what the grammar of the sentence forces semantically.

Jiri

aa5874

But, one cannot compare the associates of Jesus, described as the offspring of the Holy Ghost of God, to relatives or associates of Seneca.

It was the authors of the NT and Church writers who have described Jesus in such a way that his existence is being questioned. Jesus was not described in an ordinary fashion, it is his Supernatural biography followed with eye-witness accounts of his Supernatural activities that have given credence to his questionable existence.

This is how the supposed brother of the Lord was described.


Church History 2.23.4-7 The description of the supposed Lord's brother James seems humanly plausible, why was not Jesus described in a similar manner?

How did a man in Judea, whose supposed brother James was holy from his mother's womb, was worshipped as a God by his own brother James?

The Jesus story appears to be mythology through and through.