aa5874

But, you are the one who have just INSERTED the garden of Eden, the man and woman in the garden, the fruit and the serpent just to suit your purposes.

Please, there is NOTHING about the garden of Eden in Colossians 1.

There is NOTHING about the garden of Eden in Philippians 2.

I wrote NOTHING about Genesis 26-27 and the garden of Eden with the serpent.

You are making grave errors.

In Colossians 1 and Philippians 2 , Jesus is described as a God and equal to God, the Creator of all things in heaven and earth and that all things were made by him.

Jesus had the image of God and was equal to God in the Pauline writings, I have already shown you Colossians 1 and Philippians 2.

I did not write ONE single thing about Isaiah 45 and Psalms 148.

You are mistaken if you think the authors of Isaiah and Psalms wrote Colossians1 and Philippians 2.

You seem to think that if you believe that you have interpreted Isaiah and Psalms that you automatically have interpreted Colossians 1 and Philippians 2 correctly.

You are making mistake after mistake.

There is a massive difference between "metaphors" and "fiction". Everything in the NT Canon about their God and his Son Jesus is FICTION, even the metaphors.

Please deal with Colossians 1, I did not write anything about Proverbs 8.22-31. Your interpretation of Proverbs 8 is irrelevant to Colossians 1.

How self-contradictory and illogical can you be?

You have blatantly exposed your errors of deduction and logics.

1.Jesus was the Word.

2.The Word was God.

3.The Word was with God.

4.The Word made everything in heaven and in earth.

5. The Word was made flesh.

6. The Pauline writers claimed their Jesus was the Creator of everything in heaven and earth, and had the image of God and was equal to God.

It is most logical and reasonable to deduce that Jesus of the Pauline writings was considered to be with God, equal to God and was the Creator.

gurugeorge

For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. - Galatians 11-12

Also, to show the general ambience of what went on in "Paul"'s congregations, we have:

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
- 1 Corinthians 12

IOW, it's not much different from a spiritualist seance, or Madame Yu getting the reams of writing from the spirits that started the Celestial Masters tradition in China, or from a modern-day New Age workshop on "meeting your angels." People do this sort of stuff, they've been doing it since forever.

Of course not - they're lying and they hyped up their origins. They must be lying because there's no external evidence for a big Christian cult at that time. However, if they did exist at all at that time at all, it must have been a very small cult (for there to be no literary evidence for it).

Yes, but scholarship (which includes linguistic analysis) has found the "Paul" writings to be earliest; if scholarship is correct, then the apologetic sources might be lying or misinformed, etc.

****

Generally, the reason why you always have trouble discussing things with people here is that you don't seem to understand that (or the implications of the fact that) the evidence we have is only what has survived accidentally. The kind of arguments and position you are taking is the kind of argument and position one would make if we knew we had all the relevant data to hand. But we don't know that.

i.e., if we knew we had ALL THE DATA, then we could make summary judgements like you try to make. But we don't have all the data (for instance we know - from data that we do have - about writings mentioned that we don't now have copies of - we don't know what they would say, or how they might alter our reconstruction of the facts if we had them to hand).

Because of this, because we don't know to what extent the data we have is sufficient to judge, most discussion in this area is largely speculative, merely matching plausibility against plausibility. THERE ARE ALWAYS SEVERAL CONSISTENT SCENARIOS THAT ARE COHERENT WITH THE EVIDENCE WE HAVE. Even a historical Jesus scenario is still, barely, plausible, and just about coherent with the evidence.

What you are doing is playing a game like this:

1) I am going to pretend that the data we have is all the data that's relevant.

2) I'm going to build my proposed scenario on that basis.

That's fine, as a game, but it's not the one I'm playing (nor the one many others here play). Most of us here are aware that 1) is untenable. (The discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices is an example of why it's untenable.)

Petergdi

The reference is definitely there. You may have had some excuse for not seeing it before, but the contrast between Adam and Jesus is basic to Pauline soteriology (See 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5 especially). Being "in the form of God" is common to all of us. Jesus is different from the rest of us because he did not see equality with God as a thing to take for himself. And for that reason, Christ's obedience, God gave him the equality that he did not try to grasp at.

Peter.

aa5874

But, I will make you answer your own post. You appear to be upset when I demonstrate that Paul was a Liar and Last.

Now, this is your own reply to a later part of my previous post, Please, I also consider Saul/Paul a LIAR, he hyped up his supposed revelations. Saul/Paul MUST BE A LIAR since the EVIDENCE from APOLOGETIC sources implied he was aware of gLuke and a Pauline writer made claims about Jesus on earth, that he was betrayed in the night and supped with his disciples, when Jesus of the NT Canon was not ever on earth.

The Saul/Paul story whether it is a lie or not, it is the only chronological story found in Acts, you are not allowed to invent your own story about Saul/Paul, just like you simply cannot invent stories about Homer's Achilles because you believe Achilles did not exist as described by Homer.

The author of Acts has given a chronology for Saul/Paul with respect to the Jesus movement.

And in that story, Saul/Paul heard from Jesus after he left earth and ascended through the clouds, after the day of Pentecost where the apostles were empowered by the Holy Ghost of God as promised by Jesus and became multi-lingual with the gifts of healing and speaking in tongues.

In Acts, Saul/Paul used to persecute the Jesus movement, and there were thousands upon thousands of Jews in the Jesus movement, until he was blinded by a bright light and heard a voice.

So, let us concentrate on your findings. You are admitting that they're lying.

1. Jesus most likely did not exist.

2. They lied and hyped up their origin.

You have now augmented my theory that the NT Canon is a pack of lies. The Pauline writer originated AFTER gLuke as apologetic sources have stated.

They lied about gLuke. They implied gLuke was written BEFORE the Fall of the Temple. They lied about Acts of the Apostles, they implied Acts of the Apostles was written before Saul/Paul had died, before the Fall of the Temple.

Once gLuke and Acts were deduced to have been written AFTER the Fall of the Temple and Saul/Paul was aware of gLuke then it can be deduced that Saul/Paul was after the Fall of the Temple and a LIAR.

NO. You have it upside down and back to front.

You are propagating mis-leading information.

You are either mis-informed or.....

You CANNOT name one passage in the Pauline writings, using "linguistic analysis" that can demonstrate the Pauline writings were known before before the "Memoirs of the Apostles" or the information found in the Synoptics.

Please name what passage in the Pauline Epistles that can demonstrate through "linguistic analysis" that the Pauline writings were before the Synoptics.

Now, look at Romans 11.21-22 The Pauline writer appears to be aware of the Fall of the Temple.


I have no problems whatsoever.

You have problems when I claim Paul is a LIAR, yet you have admitted that "they were lying and hyped up their origin" and have proceeded to invent your own origin based on the very lies.

You are now admitting that you have no evidence but continue with your teensy-weensy theory.

NO. NO. NO. Please do not confuse the issue. You are the one with your "TEENSY-WEENSY theory while admitting you have no evidence.

You have no DATA, yet you make summary judgments about TEENSY-WEENSY Jesus cult before the Fall of the Temple.

You have already claimed "they were lying and hyped up their origin".

But, you have described your own game.

Look at excerpts of a previous post.

Stop playing games.

I have identified your game. We have evidence.

Now, what does the Nag Hammadi codices say about Paul, Jesus, the disciples and your "TEENSY-WEENSY Jesus cult?

"They are lying and hyped up their origin"!!!

A little teensy-weensy invention might help. Don't you think?

Loomis

Nope. I respectfully disagree. It looks to me like there was some sort of Jewish tradition involving Joshua (aka Jesus) worship that was in place before Christianity solidified. It looks to me like that was a major impetus for Christianity.

If you are genuinely interested in learning about how Christianity may have started then I think you owe it to yourself to get up to speed on this issue.

Here are a few papers:

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/gopher/oth...tianity/Joshua

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13461451/The-Cult-of-Joshua

http://www.askwhy.co.uk/christianity...oshuaCult1.php

Please don’t post a knee-jerk response. I bet you’ve never considered this.

Loomis

Nope. aa5874 is more-or-less right about absolutely everything. Paul’s theology depends on bible translations that didn’t exist at the time when Paul supposedly lived.

Get a load of this:

Philippians 2:10-11
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Romans 10:11-13
As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

Those passages depend on Isaiah 28:16 LXX, Isaiah 45:23 LXX, and Joel 2:32 LXX. Paul’s usage requires those passages to read ‘kurios’ and not ‘Yahweh’ - or else what he’s saying reduces to complete nonsense.

But the practice of replacing ‘Yahweh’ with the ‘kurios’ was not firmly in place until the middle of the 2nd century.

:constern01:

Google 4QLXXLevb and 4QLXXLeva. 4QLXXLevb is dated sometime in the first century BC – and it uses the Hebrew tetragrammaton. 4QLXXLeva is dated sometime in the first century AD and it uses kurios. 4QLXXLeva is considered a redaction of 4QLXXLevb.

Call me a nut, but it looks to me like the Christians expunged the lord Yahweh from the OT and replaced him with the lord Jesus. - Or else they never knew he was in there in the first place.

Solo

Hmmm....I thought Ben put the idea that Luke was a "she" to rest some time ago. Did you miss it ?
Jiri

gurugeorge

What are you babbling about "answer my own post"???

If I appear upset, it's because I'm mildly dyspeptic at the prospect of having to untangle your weird thinking from your posts and somehow make sense of it. I feel I ought to be awarded a medal for persevering with this, you know.

Never mind "answer my own post" whatever the f**k that means - please deal with the evidence I've just given to you on its own terms (which, in case you've forgotten, is given from a position of provisionally accepting the standard dating for "Paul").

Why are you playing favourites with this particular apologetic claim about "Paul" - why aren't THEY lying?

Yes, but there isn't any of that in the "Paul" writings themselves. The "chronology" may not necessarily be a chronology - it may be partly or wholly true, partly or wholly false, we simply don't know yet. In the "Paul" writings themselves, all you have is the indirect report of visionary experience I've cited (read it again, at the top of this post).

In respect of later accounts (e.g. Acts) of their numbers in the early days, yes - does that mean I think they're lying about everything? No, not necessarily. Nor does the fact that Jesus didn't exist mean they were lying about Jesus - they might simply have been speaking in good faith, reporting what they honestly believed, but they just happened to be wrong.

You will note that both of these judgements of mine about the texts are based on lack of external corroboration (i.e. stuff external to the cult itself - archaeology, other peoples' writings, etc.). But even then, it's not conclusive - WE MAY SIMPLY LACK THE EVIDENCE OF A HUMAN BEING JESUS.

Please do try and understand this, it's not "clouding the issue". With respect to any objective fact, we are very seldom in a position to know whether we have all the facts, all the data, necessary to make a judgement.

In this case, we KNOW that there were works that are lost. We DON'T know what they might have contained, or how that might affect the theories we are building on the basis of the evidence we do have.

Also, we DON'T know whether there's archaeology somewhere in the ground that might provide crucial data.

All we can do is build speculative, inconclusive theories on the basis of the evidence we do have. But even then, since there's a lot of contradiction already in it, which side of any contradiction you might take (e.g. is "Paul" lying or are later sources lying?) is itself up in the air - nothing about the data we have gives us any sure criteria for deciding.

Why do you suddenly believe the lying apologetic sources about this business of Paul and GLuke?

Simply because it suits your theory to do so, apparently.

But that's obviously not the only possibility - another possibility is that the apologetic sources are lying about Paul knowing GLuke! Do you just not see this???

And how come, all of a sudden, we are accepting scholarly readings of Acts that place Acts late? Had a sudden conversion to the validity and reliability of some biblical scholarship have we? Why doesn't Acts date to circa 50 CE like it's supposed to?

No because I'm not a friggen' biblical scholar, I'm not a philologist, etc. I am an amateur provisionarlly relying on some scholarship. I trust that the standard dating has that sort of work behind it - if it hasn't, then things are even worse than I thought, in the state of biblical scholarship.

A teensy-weensy bit of civility from your end might help. How would you like it if I parodied your style in every post? It would be quite easy to do, and it's quite tempting to do.

Right, I've had enough of this, it's really wasting my time. This last post of yours is the first time when you've had the decency to attempt to explain in ordinary language, without too much ranting and raving, what you're on about, and the paper-thinness of your theory is already evident - it's already clear that you are selective about whose lies you believe, and that according to no objective criterion that I can see. It's taking umpteen exchanges between us to inch along this much - sorry but the noise to signal ratio is just too much for me atm.

Loomis

You are making an appeal to uncertainty – as if the uncertainties favor the view that Paul existed. But they don't.

If these alleged lost works were rediscovered then they would probably be as unhelpful in supporting Paul's historicity as the works we already have now.

Same deal. You are making an appeal to uncertainty – as if the uncertainties favor the view that Paul existed. But they don't.

If these hypothetical discoveries were actually discovered they would probably be as unhelpful in supporting Paul's historicity as the discoveries we have already discovered.

At best it’s a coin toss. At best this ‘new information’ could prove that Paul unequivocally existed or that he unequivocally was made up. The fact that you are making this type of appeal is very revealing about your personal decision making processes. And if a neutral observer had to draw a conclusion based entirely on your ability to form an argument then they should think long and hard before they agree with you on anything.

Loomis

aa5874 is right about all of this. His reasoning is impeccable.

The horrible unspeakable truth (it’s almost unbearable even for a sane person) is that modern bible scholarship is controlled by sick adults who believe deep in their hearts that one day the Son of Man will return from fiery clouds (along with his angels), at the sound of a trumpet blast to take His seat on His throne next to the Might One, and execute judgment on the Nations. And even the scholars who don’t believe it still hold to their own superstitions - superstitions that are every bit as stupid. And so in order to protect their own right to remain stupid they defend the rights of the other stupid people.









But wait.

That’s nothing.

It gets worse.



The majority of the entire population of historians, archeologists, and academia in general are afflicted with the same illness. And even the ones who aren’t are frightened and so they hide and remain non-committal. Since when has stating, “You are all sick, ignorant, misguided, and superstitious,” ever been a good career move?