azuresky

Paul often uses the words "Jesus Christ" or "Christ Jesus" in his letters. Though Paul never refers to "Jerusalem" and "Christ" in the same breath (as far as I know), the point I was attempting to make earlier was that our skeptic could locate Peter and James within the confines of that particular city (Galatians 1:18). Our skeptic could then ask these apostles or other followers of The Way if they had ever met an historical Jesus.

Galatians 3:1 makes it abundantly clear that Jesus was recently crucified: "You foolish Galatians! You must have been bewitched--you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly displayed on the cross." Actually, the entire context of the N.T., along with the early creeds and traditions, demands that Jesus have been crucified not long before Paul's letters were written.

Yes, Tacitus mentions Christians living in the 60's, as does Suetonius. But, let me guess: Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, the early creeds, Phlegon, Thallus, the Apostolic fathers, the New Testament, etc. etc. etc. are either not allowed, offer no evidence, or are interpolated.

If the early Christian church was really so adept at interpolating everything and completely rewriting history, then why in the world did they forget to write about Jesus in Philo? Surely, next to the works of Josephus, this would have been the book to insert interpolations into! Those silly Christians!

Wow--the fact that you are willing to dismiss out of hand all of the early Christological creeds along with the similarities between the Gospels and the letters of Paul amazes me.

As for the 1 Corinthians passages, similarities are similarities. There are too many similarities between the Gospels and the writings of Paul to be coincidental. Even if we accept that 11:23-25 is an interpolation (which would certainly be convenient to the atheist, as usual) we still have strong ties between Paul and the first four books of the N.T.

Anyways, it's getting late and I'm about to fall asleep. Sorry, but I'm going to have to check out.

Toto

Is there any reason to think that you know the answer to this question? I imagine this skeptic knocking on Peter's door to ask about Jesus, and being met with an incredulous stare, as Peter says, you just don't get it, do you? Jesus is in your heart.

I question your translation. After all, was Jesus crucified in Galatia? No - so why should the Galatians have seen him on the cross? The NIV says "You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified." I infer from this that Paul is describing how he portrayed Jesus to the Galatians, but I will listen to other interpretations.

Why?

Tacitus is probably a forgery, or repeats a rumor (You can find a recent thread on this). Suetonius is too late. Josephus a forgery. The early creeds cannot be dated with any precision. Phlegon and Thallus have been dealth with by Richard Carrier. The gospels all date after 70 CE, probably by a number of decades.

We don't know why Christians did not add Jesus to Philo, but we do know that they tampered with Josephus to some extent.

Arguments from personal incredulity will get you nowhere.

Of course there are similarities between the gospels and Paul's letters. Some of the same editors probably worked on them. The author of Luke-Acts probably read Paul's letters and extracted incidents and names.

rlogan

I suppose that is frustrating to the apologist. A small amount of empathy granted there.

But yes, those sources are challenged. I did offer a very extensive list of historians though in an earlier post. I'll give another version here.

well, this overstates the case. They missed a large number of historians, geographers, or philosphers:


40 Philo1
40 Josephus
79 C. Plinius Second, the Elder
69 L. Ann. Seneca
79 Diogenes Laertius
79 Pausanias
79 Pompon Mela
79 Q. Curtius Ruf
79 Luc. Flor
110 Cornel Tacitus
123 Appianus
140 Justinus
141 Ælianus

This is a list from T.W. Doane in 1882 here: http://home1.gte.net/deleyd/religion/appendixd4.html

Kosh

No, it was an observation about your character based in your attitude which is self evident in your posts.

And yes, at 32, you're still young.

Keep in mind that chronological time isn't the only measure of age.

Amaleq13

First, you are correct that Paul never connects his Christ with Jerusalem. Second, your skeptic, relying only on Paul's letters would have no reason to visit Jerusalem to ask "the pillars" if they had met Jesus because that claim is never made in any of Paul's letters!. In fact, if our skeptic read Paul's letters carefully, he would have absolutely no reason to visit "the pillars" because Paul dismisses their "high reputation" as ultimately irrelevant to the truth of his gospel. Note that he makes this dismissal immediately following his story about obtaining their approval for his gospel. He establishes a connection and then immediately severs it. Your skeptic has no reason to consult with "the pillars" nor does he have any reason to assume they were ever followers of a living Jesus.

On the contrary, this passage makes it abundantly clear that Paul recently preached his crucified Christ to the Galatian community.

BTW unless and until you provide a substantive response, the readers of this thread will have no choice but to assume your continued refusal to address the criticisms brought against your OP claims of prophecy fulfillment is a tacit admission that you have no credible rebuttal.

dado

this reminds me of something. the currently canonical gospels have some overlap, but we also know that there are far more gospels extant than are found in the canon. we also know(?) many of the non-canonical gospels availabe to us now were not even known to many participants at Nicea. my question is if there exists a subset of non-canonical gospels that have more in common with each other than do the canonical gospels (either accounting or ignoring the whole "Q" issue)?

i'd propose an answer but i am simply not familiar enough with the writings.

Magdlyn

dado, not sure where you are going with this, but from what I have read of gnostic lit and various Xtian and Jewish intertestamental lit, etc, they are quite wide ranging and go off in a lot of divergent directions.

Imaginative midrash was encouraged. There are some common themes, but I have not seen "synoptic" gnostic gospels per se.

dado

corroborative evidence (i'm using "evidence" in the loose sense of the word here).

if we took all gospels - (currently) canonical and not - and distilled them to only the common elements, we'd probably end up with a very short text. what i'd like to know is the opposite of that: what subset of gospels - currently canonical and not - produces the *longest* text when distilled down to the common elements? perhaps common isn't the right idea, perhaps non-contradictory is better. ie, using the canonical gospels the lineage of Jesus gets tossed because it appears in more than one, but isn't consistent.

if such a subset is not the canonicals - some pretty serious questions need to be raised.

secular buddhist

Well, dado, I'm not sure if this it relevant to your question, but even with just the big four the resurrection would also have to be tossed, or at least that part where they discover the tomb empty and/or speak to the risen Jesus. None of them agree in any of the details.

Crisor

dado,

This sounds interesting and is a question that I would also like answered. I haven't read many of the other gospels (on my to-do list) but would love to hear from those who have. Another thread perhaps??