JoeWallack

The Ballad of John and Luko

JW:

Updated summary of the argument that Paul was the First to Assert that Jesus was Crucified [Addition in Red]:

Weakness of potential Historical witness evidence:

1) No extant writing by first-hand Historical witness asserting crucifixion.

2) Paul never claims Jesus' crucifixion while Contemporary to Jesus.

3) Potential second-hand Historical witness Paul, never asserts that first-hand Historical witness asserted crucifixion.

4) In the disputed Corinthians (which I think is original) Paul only says that historical witness agrees with him that Jesus died (doesn't really narrow it down, does it?). That would have been a good time to mention the crucifixion, yet not only does Paul not mention crucifixion, he phrases historical witness as opposed to him.

5) Paul does not provide any details for the crucifixion.

6) The best potential extant historical witness, Q, makes no mention of crucifixion.

7) There's an implication from Paul's letters that after he proselytizes in virgin territory, historical witness comes in to clean up his shit and convinces many that Paul is not accurately promoting Jesus. The supposed crucifixion could be part of this.

8) Paul's comment that a Christ crucified is foolishness to the Jews.

9) Subsequent Christian crucifixion Assertians seem to use Paul as a primary source.

10) Paul's followers, late first century, who presumably would have been in the best position to know what the historical Paul and his writings meant, never mention Peter.

11) The first known crucifixion narrative, in "Mark", in General has an anti-historical witness attitude and Specifically casts the best potential first-hand witness, Jesus' Disciples, as opposing the idea/prediction of Jesus' Passion, never understanding/accepting the need and not witnessing the crucifixion or subsequently promoting Jesus after.

12) There's general agreement that the ending of "Mark" showing disciples as aware of the crucifixion is Forged. The other Canonical Gospels using original "Mark" as the basic story, have differing disciple awareness of the crucifixion. This suggests that there was no historical witness of the crucifixion available to the Canonical authors.

13) Christianity is blessed with multiple Forged claims of first-hand witness to the crucifixion (I have Faith that every Ruler of the Age is covered here, Peter, Caiphais, Herod, Pilate as well as the Ending of "Mark", Amen).

14) "Mark's" related narrative is smeared with implausibility indicating a lack of historical Details.

15) Subsequent crucifixion narratives closely follow "Mark" indicating lack of available historical witness.

16) Common sense, always the best argument, tells us that if Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem it's Unlikely his movement would have been permitted to promote him in Jerusalem.

17) Statistics (most people, even than, did not die from crucifixion).

18) Possibility that Christianity censored evidence disputing crucifixion.

19) And, as the Brits say, "the cruncher":

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...r=3&version=31

An implication from Paul that Jesus' supposed crucifixion was disputed (thanks Spammer).

Strength of potential Revelation witness evidence:

1) Paul's emphasis in General is on Revelation as opposed to Historical witness.

2) Specifically, Paul claims the crucifixion is a Mystery understood by Revelation.

3) Paul's presumably first Epistle, 1 Thessalonians, makes No reference to Crucifixion. This suggests that at the start of Paul's Ministry he was not Asserting crucifixion because he had never been told of it either through historical witness or supposed revelation.

4) "Mark's" crucifixion narrative uses Paul's related ideas as a primary source.

5) Christian authors subsequent to Paul, including "Mark", use the Jewish Bible as a primary source for details about the crucifixion.

6) Paul may have used "crucifixion" figuratively. The means of death could have been something less such as hanging on one end (so to speak) or dying of natural causes after devoting a career to the cause on the other end.

7) Specifically, there is support in Christian and Jewish writings that Jesus was hung.

8) Paul is going away from historical witness to Gentiles who don't know Jesus. This makes it easier for Paul to say what he wants as there is no historical witness there to dispute him.

9) The better the MJ argument the greater the odds of no crucifixion.


Thus we have it on good Authority that it is Likely that Paul was the First to Assert the significance of the supposed crucifixion and Possible that Paul was the First to assert that Jesus was crucified.

I would like to see more of this type of Inventorying of assertions here at IIDB which can be used as a research and reference guide so we don't have to keep rehashing the same fershlugginer arguments based mainly on proof-texting one or a few verses.



Joseph

REVELATION, n.
A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.

cc Earl Doherty

spamandham

I have serious doubts about the existence of a historical Paul as depicted in the NT, although I allow for the existence of a historical core. When I see a character with a name change, it makes me suspect the harmonizing of multiple traditions.

I also find it odd that outside the ridiculous Acts, all we have for Paul are his letters to various churches. This smacks to me of pseudepigraphy. We've already identified several such letters in the canon, which makes me suspect all of them.

Finally, all these letters came via a single source - Marcion. The radicals argue that Marcion constructed Paul as a reflection of himself, loosely based on Simon Magus. That several well qualified scholars can arrive at such a conclusion causes me serious doubt.

I'd be interested in more information on this.

aa5874

Where can it be found that all the letters of Paul came from Marcion?

The letter writer called Paul preceeded Marcion by about 70 years and his letters, according to the church writers, were read in churches while Paul was supposedly alive and even long after his death. The letters of Paul were declared to be authentic by the church writers and were considered to be anti-Marcionite up to the time of canonisation.

And Paul may have been fabricated in the 4th century. He seems quite a character to be manufactured by Eusebius or the 4th century "Christian Church".

Sheshbazzar

Epiphanius of Salamis (310-403 AD) in his book the Panarion (374-377 AD)
*(terms and name changed to reflect non-christian, Nazarene terminology)

1. First off the existence of this text provides a clear indication that the Jewish Messianic Sect of the Nazarenes had survived the destruction of Jerusalem, The war, and were still practicing their distinctive form of Messianic faith in the 4th century AD, and further, that they were still rejecting being identified with or by the gentile term "Christians".

In the judgment of the Christian Bishop Epiphanius, they were NOT "Christians". NOT even actually Christian "heritics", but rather "nothing but Jews".

2. ie. conformity to Jewish interpretation of The Torah, rather than the "christian" interprtations.
Their Messiah must have been distinctively different than the Gentile "christian" religions "Christ".

3. Essentially, they continued holding to the Shema ("Hear O' Israel......", and to the traditional Pharisaic belief in the resurrection of the dead ("according to the word that they shall teach you.......you shall not depart to the right hand nor to the left hand")
I will not quibble about the spelling of the Jewish Messiahs name here, just that it certainly wasn't pronounced "Jeez'us", rather as a distinctively Jewish Shibboleth.


4. Contemporary witness that The Sect of The Nazarenes continued steadfast in their respect and preservation of Hebrew.
Hebrew language texts would have been their standard, as opposed to the Gentile and Hellenized "Jewish Christians" acceptance of the LXX.

5. A little "christian" bias here. The Nazarenes differed from -some- Jews. The "Jews" were -not- some monolithic block, many had no problem at all with believing in The Messiah, the term was not ultra-exclusive, there had been, and there were many "messiahs", and even proclaiming a fervent belief that THE Messiah had arrived would not have raised many Jewish eyebrows. (other than those of the 'establisment' out of fear of possible Roman reprisals)

6. "but since they are still fettered by the Law -
circumcision,
the Sabbath,
and the rest -
they are not in accord with Christians.... "

Here, Epiphanius' fully developed Paulinian antinomianism comes to the fore, he is pissed at them for remaining faithful to The Law in these matters.
(unlike Paul, he cannot tolerate the thought anyone believing in The Messiah, yet continuing in willing observance of The Law, and not kow-towing to the Gentile Christian "authorities".....like him.)

7. they are nothing but Jews....
Again the declaration that "Nazarenes" are nothing but "Jews".
and thus NOT Christians.

8.They have the Good News according to Matthew in its entirety in Hebrew.

This statement as given is doubtful, first, given Epiphanius scorn for all things "Jewish" it is highly unlikely that he was even able to read any Hebrew text.
and second, given the strong differences that existed between these Jewish Nazarenes and 'conventional' orthodox christians, it is twice as highly unlikely that any form of Matthew accepted by them, would at all conform to the "entirety" of the (doctored) orthodox "christian" text.
(or, it could be a subtle but tacit admission that the (shorter) text that the Nazarenes used was the actual original "entirety" ...sly dog.)

9. " For it is clear that they still preserve this, in the Hebrew alphabet, as it was originally written."
Again, the attestation to a Hebrew Matthew text, one that when read in Hebrew, would automatically dispense with most all of the Gentile religions popular theological "buzz-words".

"Saint Jerome's (347-420) strong reactionary anti-Jewish rhetoric is also further evidence of 4th century Christian opposition to "Judaisers", such as the then still active Sect of The Nazarenes.

Conclusion; Most of "Paul's" antinomian and "christian church" replacing Israel replacement theology -would- have been vehemenently rejected by such a group.

spamandham

Thanks Sheshbazzar for the reference.

Wow, I had to hunt for an online version, but here it is for those who may be interested:

http://ia311503.us.archive.org/0/ite...1447ucmf_1.pdf

Sheshbazzar

I live in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, with only a snails-pace dial-up service connection, and 524 pages is one slow download.
My reference was adapted from information that is readily available through the use of Yahoo and Google.

Sheshbazzar

# 2. needs expanded to clarify
Epiphanius

2. ie. conformity to Jewish interpretation of The Torah, rather than the "christian" interprtations.
Their Messiah must have been distinctively different than the Gentile "christian" religions "Christ".
But notice that the "New Testement" that he references appears in #8 to be limited to their use of the book of Matthew (and of course their belief)
There is no suggestion that they accepted or employed any other NT text that was in the Christian canon.
In fact by specifying "Matthew" in particular while ommiting all the rest, it implies that Matthew (or some form of it) was all that they accepted out of the Christian canon.
Can someone produce contemporary evidence that the case is otherwise?
I am not asserting this as fact at this point and invite any concrete information that might clarify this matter one way or the other.

Obviously, to proceed in this direction one would need to understand and work from the premise that The Sect of The Nazarenes were not "Christians", were never a "sect" of the Christians, did not want to be Christians, and did, in fact, oppose most all of the teachings of the Christian religion.

Johnny Skeptic

How can we be reasonably certain that Paul wrote anything about Jesus being crucified? What about interpolations? Surely the only interpolations in the Bible are not the apparent ones.

aa5874

But, isn't it ironic that the name "Paul" was interpolated? Scholars have already deduced that there were more than one person using the nme "Paul".

Paul is an interpolation and the church writers never realised or did not want their readers to know, it took about 2000 years to find out that the letters of a so-called Paul was manipulated and that 13 books of the NT may be entirely forged or deliberaretly written to distort history, in addition to those known to be disputed by Eusebius, which include 2nd Peter, 2nd and 3rd John, James and Jude.

Sheshbazzar

Further investigation reveals that the entire "Panarion of Epiphanius" is spread out over three volumes totaling 1500 pages, which is quite a bit to wade through.