ApostateAbe

Galatians 1:19.

beallen041

In addition, Abe, I assume you also see Paul as one of these primordial Jew/Christians, if this is not your belief, I apologize in advance. If so, for what reason would he claim to have persecuted Christians and later to have been persecuted by "the Jews" if there was no distinction yet? I suppose it is possible that you agree with Jay Raskin that Paul is not discussing persecution in Philippians 3:6.

ApostateAbe

beallen041, as I said before, Paul's mention of James is more often the focus of debate. I wrote a thread with a thorough criticism of the mythicist explanations surrounding that evidence some time ago. You can find the thread here:

James, the Lord's brother, and ad hoc explanations

Feel free to bump that thread any time you like.

aa5874

We have gone through all that before. There was NO Jesus Christ that started any religion called Christianity. There was NO Messianic ruler called Jesus Christ before the Fall of the Temple. None.

Please read gMatthew and gMark.

The Jews did NOT even know Christ lived among them up to the very day he died.

Nothing at all was going in Judea with respect to any Messiah during the time of Pilate.

Please read the writings of Josephus, "Wars of the Jews" 6.5.4, Suetonius "Life of Vespasian" and Tacitus' Histories 5.

The Jews had ALREADY used Hebrew Scripture to predict that the expected Messiah would come at around 70 CE.

Jesus Christ in gMatthew and gMark was UNKNOWN as a Messianic ruler. The Jews thought King Herod killed the Messianic ruler when he KILLED the children.

There was NO Messianic ruler called Jesus Christ before the Fall of the Temple.

Vespasian was the Messianic ruler when he became Emperor of Rome, that is, if Vespasian did not become the Emperor of Rome then he would not have been deemed to be the Messianic ruler.

It is clear that the interpolator did not even understand the significance of the Jewish Messiah.

A Messiah is a Messianic ruler. A Messiah MUST FIRST RULE.

Matthew 2:2 Up to this very day No Jew can say anything about the King of the Jews called Jesus.

Even in the NT, Jesus came and left in Secrecy.

"Antiquities of the Jews" 20.9.1 is a forgery.

beallen041

It's pretty clear that when Paul uses the term "the Lord" by itself, he is not referring to a human Jesus.

It's clear this is not a recently deceased person being discussed.

ApostateAbe

Paul was indeed discussing his own persecution of the church in Philippians 3:6 (I don't pay much attention to Jay Raskin). The other passage that you are alluding to is, I believe, 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16. It is a disputed passage, thought by many scholars to be an interpolation based on linguistic evidence. Toto pointed that out to me some time ago, and I accepted it.

ApostateAbe

On the contrary, the only seemingly plausible way to explain that passage in 1 Thessalonians 4 is with Jesus as a recent apocalyptic preacher. Paul was addressing a certain theological concern within his own community--Jesus predicted the imminent apocalypse and the admittance of Christians into the kingdom of God, but some Christians have since died, so wouldn't that mean the prophecy of Jesus failed with respect to those deceased Christians? Paul's solution is that the deceased Christians would be resurrected, and they would join "we which are alive."

aa5874

You were just claiming that Jesus was the Christ and now all of a sudden he has become a mere apocalyptic preacher.

This is the sort of nonsense from ApostateAbe that I cannot understand.

You are just contradicting yourself over and over without end,.

Please make up your mind.

You can't be using forgeries about a Messiah to argue that Jesus was just an obscure preacher.

ApostateAbe

Thank you, that really helps. I have learned a lot from you, and I have wondered for a long time about how to best summarize your general explanation of Christian origins. I need not wonder about that any longer.

I still have an unanswered question--your methodology. You wrote about what you take to be good arguments and your conclusions, but I am still curious about what methods that you think would best help you or someone else to arrive at those conclusions. Not that you must have an explicit methodology. I imagine that neither do a bunch of sound-thinking historians have explicit methodologies.

Doug Shaver

I have no idea what sorts of disagreements you think this one is like, but my methodology with respect to any Josephan reference to Jesus is quite simple. We know that Christians tampered with one such reference on at least one occasion. That is sufficient reason to be suspicious of all such references. Therefore, absent a compelling argument for the authenticity of any Josephan reference to Jesus, we are justified in doubting its authenticity. There is no compelling argument for the authenticity of the Antiquities 20 reference. QED.