Toto

The sub thread on Paul has been split off here so this thread can concentrate on Elijah's claims.

Elijah

Sure it’s a game because you realize it's not possible for evidence to be produced so your repeated asking is just that.
No evidence is expected and that is why asking for any is again just playing games. You’re not really trying to further the conversation but instead you’re just repeatedly pointing out a completely expected fact about Jesus that doesn’t do anything for your case. Looking for evidence when everyone knows there isn’t any just makes you look uninformed and thinking that there should be “good” evidence for someone of his standing, still remaining, makes you look unreasonable.

aa5874

That is what I have tould you repeatedly. You have no evidence for your theory just your imagination.

[b]I have evidence that Jesus was presented as a MYTHICAL creature born without sexual union, resurrected and ascended.

I have the writings as found in the NT, the church writings and even non-canonised writings.

I have Matthew 1.18 and Acts 1.9.

You have nothing.

A theory cannot be based on speculation or assumption without some good evidence.

There is no real value in speculating about an event and think to yourself that you have the best speculation.

You are the one who is uninformed about your theory, you proudly claim that you have no evidence and that none is expected but your theory is the best.

Your theory is just laughable since no evidence to support it will ever be provided.

Elijah

The evidence would be a lack of a better theory which better explains the data.

We are comparing hypothesis. The historical core versus your as yet to be seen myth theory. Until I see a myth theory that makes some sense or some reason a historical core isn't possible then I'm going to assume I'm on safe ground with the historical core because I have been given no reason to believe otherwise.

There is no alternative theory being put forward. You yourself have dodged numerous times to present a theory for the mythical origin or objections to the historical core theory. The "there is no evidence" is pointless in this discussion. We are comparing hypotheses that neither of which is their going to be good evidence for, so stop setting the standard for evidence higher than you can meet with your theory.

I can't say your theory is laughable because I'm not sure what you believe happened, but I do think it's kind of funny that you still expect there to be some undeniable evidence for what I'm suggesting.

aa5874

Where is your historical core? You need evidence for an historical core.

You have no evidence. You have no historical core.

You are wasting time.

rlogan

Hmmm...

spin is making a case for the historical Paul that is a pursuasive idea. I think Paul was legendary and introduced via conveniently "discovered" letters handy for Marcion circles. But it is interesting.

What I do not see explained by it is this: the persona of Paul on the face of it is a legend. Persecuting Christians before becoming its principle prophet, the word play on his Roman name and Christian name (Saul/Paul) the legendary travels. Here again though no trail can be picked up of such a Paul.

aa5874

I think the information about Marcion with respect to gLuke and the letters of Paul are fabrications. I don't think Marcion was notaware of any such writings according to Luke or the writer named Saul/Paul.

I consider Jesus of the NT to have been a figure of theology not history, this finding also makes the writer Paul a theological figure fabricated to distort the history of Jesus believers.

spin

When you say baseless stuff regarding how they saw history, you'll never get the point.

Nothing happened.

Did any of the people Paul converted not think that Jesus was a real enough sort of dude (just like Tertullian thought Ebion was a real enough sort of dude)?

You seem to suffer from long term memory impairment. I have never made a myth case. I have argued for a different process. Did Tertullian think that Ebion was a mythical person?? (To help you: regarding the Ebionites,

writers, such as Tertullian (De Praescr., xxxiii; De Carne Chr., xiv, 18), Hippolytus (cfr. Pseudo-Tert., Adv. Haer., III, as reflecting Hippolytus's lost "Syntagma"), and Epiphanius (Haeres., xxx) derive the name of the sect from a certain Ebion, its supposed founder. Epiphanius even mentions the place of his birth, a hamlet called Cochabe in the district of Bashan, and relates that he travelled through Asia and even came to Rome. from here

If Tertullian and the others thought that the non-real Ebion was real, what problems do you have that Paul's followers could believe a non-real Jesus was real??

"[I]nvent" shares the same terminological problems as your use of "fiction".

I didn't provide one, but the process is similar to the way that the first seeds of the Iliad ended up in the form we have it today, through generations of retellings and improvements.

It's neither as concise, nor as functional as the revelation core hypothesis, but I have no real objections to it as a hypothesis. It'll stand alongside of the revelation, though it does suffer from the epistemological problem of what exactly is the historical core and how would you ever know.

But you've never been able to play the evidence game. You simply have no evidence. You've made your preposterous statements untarnished with evidence for many months.

I think you seem to forget about Occam. And you still can't get past your strawman attempts at presenting my position.

Remember me saying that I don't believe in the myth hypothesis. For that matter I think it's merits are equal to the historical core hypothesis. Both wanting.

But you simply cannot get into your head the idea that there are other routes to a Jesus than history and myth.

I don't fucking believe in a myth theory. If your memory functioned you'd know. Why not just go and reread some of our earlier discussion such as this one?


spin

spin

The Saul/Paul of Acts is probably a legendary development on the writer of some of the epistles of Paul mixed with polemic of later religionists antagonistic to Paul and favorable to Peter. You can't totally crap on "one of the founders" of the religion, so you reduce his status and give him a shady past for him to change from.

I'm strictly trying to go with the writer of the letters, then it's problematic, because they have all been through the scribal mill and gained from the process.

Paul in Galatians doesn't say that he persecuted christians. He did persecute "the assembly of god" (Gal 1:13,23). Make of that what you will. It's not transparent and we shouldn't necessarily read into it what posterity does. The winners make history (create the past from their own visions).


spin

dog-on

He persecuted the Jews...figuratively...