mountainman

The first part of the answer entails the suspicions. However for those who would suggest that Jesus has been fabricated there must necessarily remain the act of taking a second step. Namely, which historical person or persons had the greatest impact upon the fabrication, who actually oversighted and edited the fabrication, was the fabrication sponsored by anyone or did God also do that, WHEN and WHERE was the NT fabricated. ETC ETC ETC.

If Jesus is a fabrication then there must necessarily have been a fabricator. A theory which is coherent and addressed to the evidence available needs to be assembled as this second step. Undoubtedly the 4th century imperial christian church was an imperially appointed power unti itself, and without a doubt the Christian Ecclesiastica historians twisted history to suit their agenda. The evidence of the (christian) Censorship of evidence is thus highly regarded. The burning of the library of Alexandria destroyed alot of evidence for example.

PHASE (1): Yeah Jesus is a collage and a fabrication.
Many people seem to suggest this.

PHASE (2): Details of the ancient history of the fabrication. WHO, WHEN, WHERE. WHAT, WHY, etc, etc

Get the drift.

aa5874

It would appear that Jesus was fabricated multiple times by many different inventors, the authors of gMark, gMatthew, gLuke, gJohn,and the Pauline writings were some of them.

But the post ascension history of Jesus believers was fabricated under the auspices of Constantine and the Roman Church.

According to a writer using the name Eusebius, he was the first to write the history of the Church, so he was the first fabricator.

This is the writer called Eusebius telling about his plan in Church History 1

This is the confession of the first fabricator using the name Eusebius.

Church History 1.1.4 The writer under the name of Eusebius confesses that he was unable even to find even the bare footsteps except brief fragments but he still managed to write 10 books of "Church History" with exquisite details and used Revelations, Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline writings, the General Epistles, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Ignatius, Polycarp, Julius Africanus, Hippolytus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, Papias,and others.

Now, we know who was the first fabricator of the history of the Church. He wrote under the name of Eusebius.

The writer admitted that he could NOT find anything but brief fragments but SOMEHOW by some miracle he ended up with what appears to be a whole LIBRARY.

And they continued to fabricate their own Church History using other names after the writer called Eusebius.

brianscott1977

The idea of Mark not knowing the geography of Palestine seems forced to me.

Mark 11:1 says, “As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives…” Okay, so you would come to Bethany first.

If I said, “I traveled east from England into Germany and France…” would you accuse me of never even looking at a map of Europe? It seems more reasonable to say that my focus was on the nations I visited, not the order I visited them in.

In the same way, it is reasonable to say that Mark was focused on the places Jesus went, not the order in which he reached the cities. This seems like splitting hairs.

As for the second argument about geography, that Mark, “described Jesus going from Tyrian territory 'by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee through the territory of the Ten Towns' (Mark 7:31); this is similar to saying that one goes from London to Paris by way of Edinburgh and Rome.”

This is only important if Jesus was trying to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. On the other hand, if he were a traveling preacher visiting many different cities then it would make sense for him to take the “scenic route.”

Steven Carr

The cult would normally have been destroyed if Jesus was eliminated. This is mainstream Biblical scholarship.

That is why mainstream Biblical scholars are so certain that Jesus instituted the Last Supper so that the cult could continue after his death, with the disciples scattered like a crowd of frightened sheep, meeting only to eat bread and drink wine in remembrance of Jesus.

maryhelena

Yes, interesting account re Carabbas from Philo. The point being made seems not so much that it is Carabbas that is being mocked but that Carabbas is just a stand-in for Agrippa 1 - who had stopped over in Alexandria on his way to take up “possession of his kingdom”.


Agrippa 1
Thus, according to the general dating of Mark’s gospel re the mocking of Jesus of Nazareth prior to the crucifixion, this episode in Alexandria happened a few years after the gospel storyline - i.e. a gospel storyline placing the crucifixion around 30/33 CE. Thus, first the Barabbas storyline and later the Carabbas episode.

However, surely, from a mythicist perspective, there is no reason to think this way? If the gospel storyline is not dealing with a chronological sequence of historical events - if later developments in theology, history, prophetic interpretations etc, were backdated to an earlier time - then this episode regarding Agrippa 1 and Carabbas in Alexandria could be rather relevant. Relevant as contributing to the creation of the Jesus of Nazareth gospel storyline.

Philo, a man that is often viewed as somehow being relevant to the beginning of Christian understanding of things - could well be the man who had a large part in putting together the original story-board re Jesus of Nazareth. After all, such an idea cannot be ruled out - someone, somewhere, had to have come up with the idea. And, of course, if Rachel Elior is on course with Philo’s Essenes being simply a philosophical idea and it was Josephus that invented them - by making them historical by dating them - then perhaps a new ball game is needed?

As has been pointed out in the OP, the gospel of Mark shows that its early writer was not too familiar with the local territory.....Philo would fit that bill - seemingly only having visited the Jerusalem temple once in his lifetime...
Philo

Perhaps its not so difficult really - to have come up with the storyline re Jesus of Nazareth - particularly for one of a philosophical bent as was Philo. It really was not such a long shot to realize that any flesh and blood Jewish messianic pretender would be mocked and rejected. The evident might of Rome would easily make the idea of revolution, in the minds of rational thinkers, a hopeless endeavor - it would require a madman on a fools errand....The alternative - to spiritualize it all.....a mythological or allegorical drama of betrayal, death and re-birth; a ‘spiritual’ resurrection to a new intellectual perspective....

ApostateAbe

I hear you, avi. Merry Christmas. It is physically impossible for reindeer to fly, and it is preposterous for anyone to deliver toys to every good girl and boy in one night. And yet there was a historical Santa Claus, and we know that because we have historical evidence. We also have evidence that there was a historical Jesus. I am not making a point about whether Jesus existed, and so you are free to disagree on that matter. I am making a point whether the gospel miracle stories should have a big part in our evaluation of whether or not Jesus existed.

ApostateAbe

OK, cool, what is your source for the information on the historical last supper?

spin

It all comes down to what you lack. While we may have evidence for Nicholas, you have none for Jesus. You just wanna believe, don't you?


spin

aa5874

So, the evidence that Jesus existed is based on the outcome of an investigation of the existence of Santa Claus?

It is just absurd and illogical to think that the existence or non-existence of Jesus, the offspring of the Holy Ghost, has anything whatsoever to do with the existence or non-existence of Santa Claus.

ApostateAbe

You are right in that it is all about evidence. My point was that the myths of miracles shouldn't really have much of an effect on our judgment. For me, I want to believe the truth as the evidence will have it. The MJ position was especially appealing to me. When I found the theories of Acharya S, I very quickly believed them. I changed my mind when I lost an argument against an intelligent Christian on an Internet forum. So I moved to Earl Doherty. I changed my mind again when I saw an argument on the Internet that Jesus made failed apocalyptic prophecies. The New Testament seemed to confirm this, and I reasoned that a real person would be much more likely to make apocalyptic prophecies with immediate and failed deadlines than a mere myth. I started a thread on the IIDB, thinking maybe I was the first to make this argument, and someone made a point that I was certainly not the first, and he referred me to the book, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet. I bought the book on Amazon, read it, and I found myself where I am currently. Wishful thinking has a lot to do with very many people's beliefs, and I would be supremely arrogant to think of myself as some sort of exception. The theory of Jesus as a failed apocalyptic cult leader does have a lot of ridicule against Christianity wound up in it. That might have been what helped to pull me out of the MJ position.