Johnny Skeptic

I look forward to reading comments from readers.

Joan of Bark

Are the gospels credible history? No.

bacht

It depends on what you're looking for. As a reliable chronology of events around 30 CE, no. But as an indirect/unintended record of sectarian conflict and post-1st C Christian attitudes, yes there is some value.

mountainman

Dear Johnny,

IMO the gospels are a credible fraud perpetuated upon the Roman empire in the fourth century by its military supremacist emperor Constantine the great. We do not have one credible evidentiary citation supporting the traditional position, which was first asserted by Eusebius under the sponsorship of Constantine, probably during the period 312 to 324 CE, that Christians existed on the planet Earth, in the archaeological sense, prior to publication of the new testament canon by Constantine with effect from Nicaea.

IMO the non canonical NT literature was then written by the oppressed Greek academic ascetic priests of the eastern empire whom had been deprived of their temples and thus their homes and livelihood by the edicts of Constantine c.324 CE.

The fraud was recorded in the gnostic words of Arius of Alexandria when he is recorded to have voiced the opinion:

This manifest unbelief was the root political cause of what is today perceived as the Arian controversy. The Greek academics witnessed Constantine's fraud, and hey knew that the fabrication of Constantine was a simple fiction assembled lavishly by Eusebius.

The emperor Julian recorded knowledge of the fiction when he wrote:

FInally, we also have the ex-archbishop of the city of Constantine, namely one Nestorius, making the following admission c.420-450 :

The bishop Cyril of Alexandria also contributes evidence to the existence of the fourth century fraud by Constantine, by the manner in which he is known to have dealt with the writings of both the emperor Julian, and the archbishop Nestorius.



So IMO there is sufficient evidence to consider the case that in point of ancient historical fact the new testament canon is a fabrication of a corrupt imperial regime in the fourth century. The earliest codices are from the fourth century, and the only 2 C14 citations are 290 and 348 CE (both plus or minus 60 years).


Best wishes,


Pete

patcleaver

Are the gospels credible history?

1. The burden is on those who claim that the gospels are reliable to prove that they are true and not fiction.

2. Most narrative stories are fiction - not history.

3. There are thousands of religious scriptures from all over the world and they are all fiction.

4. There are tens of thousands of stories about supernatural beings and they are all fiction.

5. There are tens of thousands of narrative stories in the world where a miracle worker performs miracles and they are all fiction.

6. There are tens of thousands of narrative stories in the world in which magical prophesy is fulfilled and they are all fiction.

7. There are thousands of narrative stories in the world about magical births of magical heroes and they are all fiction.

8. There are tens of thousands of narrative stories about and Nature recognizing magical heroes, and gods publicly recognizing magical heroes, and magical hero's performing all kinds of magical feats, and magical heroes magically triumphing over horrible defeats. All those stories are fiction.

9. The gospels are narrative midrash (they are constructed from events in the old testament) and all the narrative midrash that we have is fiction.

10. The authors of Matthew and Luke knew that Mark was fiction because they changed the words of Jesus just for aesthetic reasons.

11. The authors of Luke clearly knew that Mark was fiction based on the OT, because the authors of Luke add details from the OT stories that the authors of Mark had used. For example, the Gethsemane Scene, of Jesus praying in the garden, is based on the scene where Elijah is hiding in a cave on the run from Jezebel. An angel appears to Elijah in the cave. One of the authors of Luke realized that Mark left out the angel, and figured out how he could fit the angel into the Gethsemane Scene so he added it to the story in Luke. This shows that the authors of Luke knew that Mark was a fiction, and they knew how Mark was constructed from the OT stories.

12. Mark was written as Chiasmus. There are many examples of narrative poems written in Chiasmus and they are all fiction.

13. All the gospels are anonymous and all anonymous narrative stories that I am aware of are fiction.

14. Almost all the story of Jesus is derived from the Jewish Scriptures which are fiction. All stories derived from earlier stories are fiction.

15. Historians of the first century made up the dialog of historical figures. Even if Mark were a first century historian, there would be no reason to think that Jesus said any of the things attributed to him in the Gospels.

16. The moderate Christian scholars of the Jesus Seminar, who started with the presumption that Jesus was an historical character, determined that jesus was not the source of 85% of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospels.

17. Almost all fictional books contain some things that are true, but there is no way to determine, from the fictional book, which parts are fiction and which parts are true. The only way to determine which parts of a fictional story are true is through confirmation from archeology or from reliable, contemporaneous, first-hand sources.

18. Mark was allegory see http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...ospel_mark.htm Jesus never existed see http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...th_history.htm

19. Mark makes mistakes in geography that a native Galilean would not have made. He makes errors about Jewish culture that a Jew would not have made. He discusses the destruction of the Jewish temple that did not occur until 65 AD. He discusses an abomination that did not occur until around 131, when Hadrian tried to build a pagan temple on the sacred site of the destroyed Jewish temple. Mark discusses an exodus from Jerusalem that probably occurred until the Bar Kokhba uprising in 132. He mentions other Christs that did not occur until 132 when the Jewish sage Rabbi Akiva declared that Bar Kokhba was the messiah. Mark contains Latinisms that indicate that he was probably a Roman. Thus, mark was probably written (or at least heavily redacted) in Rome by a Christian sometime after the Bar Kokhba uprising was crushed in 135. mark is not a reliable source.

20. Matthew and Luke copy large sections of Mark practically word-for-word, but with different additions to Mark's text, so they were written after Mark. John seems to be trying to harmonize contradictions and inconsistencies between Matthew and Luke. Thus, John was probably written after Matthew and Luke. None of these authors had any reliable source.

21. There were over 30 Gospels and hundreds of Epistles in the 4th century. The Christians declared that they were all fraud or fiction except 4 gospels and 23 Epistles. We know that some of the epistles that they chose were forgeries - such as the epistles of Peter and at least some of the epistles of Paul. The selection process was illegitimate. The Christians relied on political considerations, un-evidenced rumors and wishful thinking to make their selection. For example, there are four Gospels because Irenaeus said that there had to be four because there were four winds. te four winds are of course pagan Greek/Roman demigods. Its more likely that all the early Christian gospels and epistles are fraud and fiction then that the Christians made the correct selection. Then the Christians tried to burn the epistles and gospels that were not selected. Censorship for religious or political purposes is evidence of fraud and forgery. in fact we know that at least some of the documents of the new testament have been intentionally altered for theological purposes.

show_no_mercy

Is the Iliad credible history? Is Spider-man's reaction to Sept 11th credible history?

gdeering

Thanks Pat, a great list.

Gregg

Lucis

The story of Jesus as presented in the four gospels of the New Testament is essentially a piece of fiction.

Jesus is a deified personification of the glorified type of the great Hierophants of the Temples, and his story, as told in the New Testament is an allegory, assuredly containing profound esoteric truths, but still an allegory... Every act of the Jesus of the New Testament, every word attributed to him, every event related of him during the three years of the mission he is said to have accomplished, rests on the programme of the Cycle of Initiation, a cycle founded on the Precession of the Equinoxes and the Signs of the Zodiac.

See Zeitgeist, the greatest story ever sold: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNf-P_5u_Hw

Toto

Zeitgeist is not a credible source.

This thread may be headed to the basement. Perhaps there is no one currently posting who wants to make a broad, unqualified case that the gospels are history.

Lucis

it doesn't really matter. the important thing is that it's true. if something is true, i don't care even if the devil was the source.