kcdad

I thought you were contending that none of them were. Are you contradicting yourself?

aa5874

You made a claim and you have not provided any source of antiquity to support your assertion.

How do you intend to establish that plenty of non-canonical "HERETICAL" writings include references to Jesus of Nazareth?

I have already notified you that the Jesus of the supposed heretic Marcion was not claimed to be from Nazareth. Marcion's Jesus had no human flesh. This Jesus came direct from heaven as some kind of " supernatural docetic adult".

Please name plenty non-canonical "heretical" writings and show where their Jesus lived as a child after being born in Bethlehem.

kcdad

The discoveries at Nag Hammadi... ???

aa5874

What???

kcdad

Yep, what.

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html

aa5874

Please show that the Nag Hammadi discoveries can negate my position that the HJ is a most SENSELESS proposition.

Which one of the discoveries show that Jesus was only human and denied Jesus was offspring of the Holy Ghost of God?

grog225

Not really. But the best evidence for Paul comes from letters he allegedly wrote. I think we can accept Paul on the basis of the letters,although even that is somewhat tenuous. We have to make a dive somewhere if we are going to try to figure something out about this era of church formation. Beyond his letters, there's Acts and also certain apocryphal works. the latter shed light on what others thought of Paul (e.g. the Clementine Recognitions). We also have the fact that later Gnostics claimed Paul as their teacher. So there is more evidence than just the canonical NT. We have to be careful how we handle that material though.

I don't think we can accept much from Acts as data for reconstructing Paul's history or his influence upon very early Christianity (early first century). Following Knox and later Tyson, I accept that Acts was written to counter Marcion and to co-opt Paul. (see for very good discussion of this Tyson's Marcion and Luke-Acts (or via: amazon.co.uk). You are relying on Acts for your reconstruction. Acts differs from Paul's own description of his conversion:

No blinding lights. He was called and revealed within. This is an internal experience, no blinding lights. No struck dumb. I think the Acts writers added that he was blinded and all that to account for Paul's claim that he did not go directly to Jerusalem. We have to take Paul's own words over an account written almost 100 years later of questionable reliability.

I do not know that we have Paul making that claim. He says this:

He says he was zealous, not that he persecuted the Church in any way. The Acts story is, I think, fiction.

Really? I don't see Paul mentioning any virgin at all, let alone one named Mary. Nor does he say Jesus was the offspring of the Holy Ghost. You are assuming that Paul shared your own trinitarian views on God. I'm not so sure. Paul does talk about the Holy Spirit as a revealer of God, and of course, of Jesus as the Son of God, but he never makes the claim that they are all part of the same being, as equals. Personally I think Paul saw them as emanations of the transcendant God. So when Paul says Jesus was the "Son of God" you read that as the Holy Spirit having something to do with it. We don't have Paul saying that (I don't think). But this is sort of a minor quibble, my main point here is about Mary. Paul never mentions a virgin or Mary in connection with the birth of Jesus.

Why must I do that? I am not claiming what it seems you think I am claiming. I do believe that Paul thinks Jesus was crucified, but that the event occurred in the mists of the legendary past. The mythical past. Not in 29 CE (or 33 or whenever such claims are usually made). There is no evidence that Paul believed Jesus had been crucified by a) the Romans, b) the jews, c) recently. What Paul does believe is that the Risen Christ has recently revealed himself to his apostles. We can establish that.


Yes, he was a god man. But the name Jesus is the same name as Joshua, who was the savior of the old covenant, who brought the people to the land of milk and honey. The new Joshua too is bringing the people to the land of milk and honey. The new Jesus is the old Joshua in new packaging. That's why his name is Jesus. Jesus Christ, Annointed Savior. The name alone should tip you off that what we have before us is a myth.

godmen throughout the ages were "raised from the dead". Nothing new here. And yes, part of the syncrenism that lead to Christian beliefs was that this sacrificial atonement had to be done in the flesh. So Jesus became "a little lower than the angels" and took on aspects of man in order to be sacrificed. That is true, but it is still part of myth, not history.

Irrelevant to my argument, since I also don't think Marcion's Phantom appeared on earth to be crucified in actual history.

What I said is that Paul does not claim that Jesus was crucified by Romans or Jews. This is what Paul says:

"rulers of this age" is a common term to Paul and to Gnostics and it refers to demonic agents, not Romans. See Lee, 1970 for a very good discussion of this phrase. But we can see many times when Paul uses the phrase to refer to spirits, not human agency. This is a basic Gnostic belief, that the world was ruled by evil elemental spirits. It is these spirits that Paul refers to. We see this concept again here:

And here we have the very term "archai":

(New American Standard)

"principalities" here is archai, which is often translated into:

(NIV)


You mean to say, the Church writers coopted Paul to counter Marcion's Phantom, because of course, Marcion claimed Paul as his inspiration. In fact, it might have been Marcion who published the first collection of Pauline material as part of his Gospel, the first such publication. And, unfortunately, it appears that in order to coopt the material they had to make some alterations, such as in 1 Thess.

Read it. Why would I take the words of a third century apologist as authoritative? I am discussing with you Paul's views, I think. Not Tertullian's.

grog225

I don't know why we'd give any credance whatsoever to the Acts account (especially since there are 2 contradictory accounts in Acts). If we accept Galatians as authentic, we can just accept Paul's word on his conversion:

No bumps on his head. No mention of Damascus until after his conversion. God reveals "his Son in me". Sounds like an internal revelation, to me. No blinding lights, no stroke. How you get "probably a stroke" from the evidence at hand, I really don't know.

Quote a first century source that says he did. (And if you claim the Gospels, provide evidence that any Gospel existed prior to 100 CE--note, I did not ask for scholarly opinion, I asked for evidence.) Please note: if you can't prove that there was a claim that Jesus of Nazareth existed in the first century, then we have to agree it is absurd to ask for evidence that some people said he didn't. Right? Provide evidence that some people in the 17th century did not believe Joseph Smith's claims about being visited by the Angel Mormoni. It is absurd to make the request.


I'll also point out here, that contrary to apologetic claims, both Celsus and Trypho do express skepticism that Jesus ever existed. Apologists focus on Celsus's Pandera argument, but in that case, Celsus has taken on the aspect of Jew, he is presenting Jewish arguments against the Christ story. In other places he does indeed express doubt (I will look that up if I have to). Trypho is an invention of Justin, but doubt of Jesus's existence is put into Trypho's mouth, so that must have been in the air in the mid-second century, about the time the Gospels are beginning to emerge and be distributed.

kcdad

Don't change the goalposts for me in the middle of a breakaway...
" Originally Posted by aa5874 View Post
How do you intend to establish that plenty of non-canonical "HERETICAL" writings include references to Jesus of Nazareth?"

The Nag Hammadi scrolls clearly refer to the same Jesus that the Canonical writings refer to. They are not a part of the church tradition and there for fall outside the "subjective" internal memo criteria of the church's invention of Jesus. (H or otherwise)

As for you Grog:"Quote a first century source that says he did. (And if you claim the Gospels, provide evidence that any Gospel existed prior to 100 CE--note, I did not ask for scholarly opinion, I asked for evidence.)"

The definition of evidence that you are looking for excludes ANYTHING written as written documents are not "replicable", and in the case of Biblical Canon and non-canonical writings are not "empirical" because they do not lend to themselves to only one interpretation, and there for are not "objectively meaningful".
Other than that... you have your sources of information... and if you wish to dismiss Jesus as a myth, fine, zippidity do dah. What is that to me? I would only suggest for your own peace of mind to hold every other figure of history or mythology to the same standard.

kcdad

So? And Orly Taits has expressed skepticism that Obama was born in Hawaii. Is someone gonna dig up her comments in 2000 years and wonder why no one else "knew" what she did?