spin

The actual point is that you can't trust self-serving presentations.

The corollary is that you need to find a viable independent position from which to attempt to extract useful information from the self-serving, if it is at all possible.


spin

avi

Steve:
As spin summarized, the state's lavish praise of superhero Stalin, and demonic vilification of archenemy Trotsky, serves as hyperbolic reminder of the difficulty distinguishing genuine history from propaganda. As spin pointed out, "extraction" of real facts from the "lies" disseminated by the state apparatus is not simple. The dishonesty in this more recent example, Russia in the 1930's, serves as analogy, Steve, to the church disseminated propaganda about Jesus, Paul, James, Peter, Judas, Mary, and so on, in that, just as we cannot assume that the state apparatus has issued accurate information about Stalin, so too, we cannot accept church issued data, without outside corroboration of important details.

Not only is that corroboration absent, Steve, in the case of Jesus, Paul and the rest of the gang, there is independent corroboration for "state" manufactured distortions, lies, and blatant falsehoods regarding many aspects of those characters in the New Testament (with the "state" being the church of course).

For example, the evidence is quite persuasive, that someone other than Josephus, inserted into his text, misinformation about Josephus' opinion of Jesus. This kind of deliberate misinformation, with which we are more familiar, in the case of 1930's Russian propaganda, led to the analogy, which you, Steve, find so idiosyncratic, but which, for many of us, seems entirely appropriate, because we are looking at the New Testament as a document which has experienced many fingers churning its contents.

You can satisfy yourself on this last point, Steve, by focusing your attention on the long versus short ending of Mark, or the Pericope Adulterae in John, as two simple illustrations of well documented forgery.
Finding a first instance of forgery leads one to ask whether or not this is a regular pattern, hence our insistence on demanding data outside the gospels to confirm any of the stories of the New Testament.

In essence, we, on this forum, are like accountants, who have, for far too long, accepted the idea that a Ponzi scheme was legitimate, now, we are ourselves, exposed, our own efforts as astute accountants questioned and ridiculed, and we react, very conservatively, demanding that one not accept anything written in the gospels, which remain unconfirmed by those authors not a part of the Ponzi scheme itself.
regards,
avi

Doug Shaver

Probably none of those.

He didn't mention any fleshly descendants, so there is no "other" to consider.

I assume you're referring to "made of the seed of David according to the flesh"? As I understand it, the Greek phrase translated "according to the flesh" is "kata sarka." I don't happen to know much Greek, but the question of how that should best be translated has been discussed at very great length in this forum. There seems to be, at the very least, room for reasonable disagreement as to whether the phrase rules out the possibility that Paul regarded Jesus as other than human.

sschlichter

I am having a hard time reconciling the work of the various accountants. One says all the NT references from James came from Paul, the other says that Paul's reference to James was a later interpolation. If you want to use the analogy of an accountant, then why do your books not add up?

I do not fault anyone looking for external evidence. I look for external evidence. when you find it, such as the reference to James the brother of Jesus in Josephus which "is considered authentic in its entirety by almost all scholars." you claim it does not exist. You do the same with the talmud, tacitus, and ever other piece of external evidence you find.

lastly, and best of all. the accountants claim that when Paul says this...

(1 Cor 15:3) For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received - that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, (1 Cor 15:4) and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures,
(1 Cor 15:5) and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
(1 Cor 15:6) Then he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. (1 Cor 15:7) Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
(1 Cor 15:8) Last of all, as though to one born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also.

He is actually taking about events that happened somewhere between here and the moon, not on earth.

Like I need such accountants.

sschlichter

whose 'self' are we talking about? Jesus? Paul?

Chaucer

OOPS! The wrong URL is inadvertently supplied here for the reference to James. In fact, it's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephu...other_of_James

spin

This is basically what was being talked about:
The self-serving is of the writers (and their community and heirs), obviously.


spin

spin

You'll have to concentrate more.

This doesn't seem to have anything directly to do with the subthread (the main thread topic) you are now commenting on.

But who gives a fuck? Argument from authority isn't worth the effort of typing. If you want to follow them, feel free, but here you'll need evidence as to why the James passage should be treated as kosher when AJ already features christian contamination in the TF.

I know you won't read this archived comment of mine (you didn't the last time I pointed you to archived material), but I'll offer it so that you have the opportunity. On 1 Cor 15:3-11.

Someone's trying to help you with your folly. Yes, you need help.


spin

sschlichter

I saw how Joseph Smith was self serving; Stalin and all your other analogies.

How was Paul served by his writings? How were Christians for 300 years served by their writing?

aa5874

But there is big difference between an authentic writing and identifying the characters in that writing. If Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1 is considered authentic then Jesus called Christ cannot be assumed to be the same Jesus Christ in the NT since an ACCOUTANT of the the Church called Jerome claimed James was the son of a Mary sister of the mother of Jesus.

The writings of Jerome, De Viris Illustribus, are considered authentic too.

If both Josephus and Jerome were authentic, then Jesus in Josephus is not the Jesus of the NT. The accountants of the Church have made adjustments to their original findings.

The Church must have initially erred, they now are claiming that Mary the mother of Jesus had one single child called Jesus Christ whose father was not Joseph.