bacht

This is not obvious to me, I see the opposite. Taoism and Buddhism both started as philosophies and degenerated to superstitution. Zoroastrianism started as an "abstract" ethical religion and eventually was simplified to the fire-tending Parsees.

The concrete/tangible is always closer to the masses isn't it? Even the elements of style seem to go this way: a beautiful church is copied innumerably in cheap materials, a beautiful piece of jewellry becomes mass-produced kitsch etc.

Catholicism by definition is a "big tent" religion, universally inclusive. This means dumbing-down to the lowest common denominator, at least in some ways. The Holy Family is an instantly recognizable symbol that virtually anyone can relate to. The Logos is not.

Toto

Abe - please learn some of the basics of Christian history. Modern people who try to make sense of Christianity think of the possibilities of Jesus being human versus "spiritual" - which may mean imaginary or supernatural, depending on your underlying philosophy. These categories were not relevant to Christians before the enlightenment. The Christians of the second, third, fourth and fifth centuries fought to the death (literally at times) over the question of whether Christ's essense was the same as God's, or merely similar.

I think I have mentioned this book before: Jesus Wars (or via: amazon.co.uk)

What you see as "no conflict" was in fact the subject of conflict. Your modernistic attempt to reconcile all these warring factions makes no historical sense.

ApostateAbe

Thanks, Toto, and that is a good point, but I don't think the issue that Doug Shaver and bacht raised is over whether Christ's essence was the same as God's or merely similar. The issue is a spiritual Christ versus a human Christ, which is different, and, as you said, there wasn't even a relevant distinction between the two attributes at that time. The "Jesus Wars" you are referring to were fought among people who accepted the gospels and the Pauline epistles, both.

Toto

You're right it's different. A merely human Christ was not an option.

This statement makes no sense.

aa5874

The Pauline writers wrote about a RESURRECTED dead who was the Creator of heaven and earth and to whom every knee should bow in the Roman Empire.

And the very resurrected dead, according to the Pauline writers, delivered a Gospel to them for the whole Roman Empire that a Jewish man called Jesus who was equal to God was crucified and resurrected to save everyone from sin.

The Pauline writers were either MAD or LIARS.

It would appear that the Pauline writers were NOT writing history.

There is NO historical EVIDENCE external of the Church that can show that a Jewish BLASPHEMER was given a NAME or HONORED above the Roman Emperors in the 1st century.

No writer of antiquity outside the Church claimed that Roman citizens and Greeks were worshiping a Jewish blasphemer as a God or that the blasphemer was of a greater status than the Roman Emperors before the Fall of the Temple.

Based on the ABUNDANCE of evidence, the Pauline writings are of themselves non-historical and appear to have been written to attempt corroborate the fiction found in Acts.

In Acts, the population of Jewish Jesus believers grew at a phenomenal rate in a two-day period the Jewish Jesus cult added 8000 new Jewish converts yet no Church writer or external source wrote about the massive Jewish Jesus cult as stated by the author of Acts.

Now, the Pauline writers claimed they greatly PERSECUTED the Jewish Jesus cult that not even the Church writers could locate up to the 4th century.

The Pauline writings are non-historical. The claims about Jesus in the Pauline writings are PURE fiction.

bacht

Actually I was responding to your theory about Paul vs the apostles. The former seems to describe a timeless Christ soon to manifest at the Parousia. The "pillars" supposedly claimed a physical manifestation of Christ at a specific time and place. I don't want to get into monophysite vs duo.

ApostateAbe

OK, just to clarify, the issue, for me, is where the focus was at for Paul, and where the focus was at for the disciples. Paul focused on a spiritual Christ, and the disciples focused on the human ministry of Christ. The Christians accepted a spiritual Christ and a human Christ, both, and they seemingly saw no big conflict between the spirituality and humanity of Christ. The issue you raised is the conflict between those who thought of Christ as God and those who thought of Christ as not God. A spiritual Christ and a God-Christ are two different issues.

ApostateAbe

OK, thanks for the correction, sorry.

EarlDoherty

But this overlooks an essential factor. It is not just Paul who preaches and focuses exclusively on a spiritual Jesus, it is the entire Christ sect represented by the non-Gospel writers, both canonical and extra-canonical, for almost a century. Did all these writers in all these communities, many of which seem ignorant of the writings and ideas reflected in other communities, all follow the same pattern of behavior? That is so infeasible as to be rejected outright. It is not how Paul as an individual can be analysed that is the issue here, it is the entire pre-Gospel (i.e., pre-dissemination of the Gospels, whatever or whenever they were originally written to represent) phase of the Christian movement. This is such an obvious consideration it is utterly amazing how often it is overlooked by HJ defenders in a focus on Paul.

This type of consideration penetrates into all sorts of corners that are also overlooked. Here is a discussion of one of those corners from Jesus: Neither God Nor Man (p.164), in regard to the common language of the epistles and other documents surrounding phrases like "kata sarka" as applied to Jesus, language which is acknowledged to be peculiar, never directly saying in more natural ways that the cultic Christ had been incarnated and lived a life on earth:

Kapyong

Rubbish.

Earl does NOT insist you BUY his books at all, unlike AcharyaS' acolyte Dave..

Earl simply asks that critics actually ADDRESS his ARGUMENTS.

His argument has been expressed in detail, here, and elsewhere.

Chalk and cheese.


Kap