bacht

There are fictitious characters in the Jewish Bible, like Jonah and Job - if the NT authors were emulating the Hebrew writers then why wouldn't they feel free to invent people to illustrate their message?

Only Luke makes any pretense at recording straight history, and he doesn't seem to aim for the same level of veracity as Josephus (?)

Doug Shaver

It isn't. If you watch him long enough, you'll see that aa5874 is one of a kind.

aa5874

It is virtually without doubt that the Jesus of the NT is fiction, but the evidence or information available seems to suggest that the fictitious character called Jesus was pre-fabricated before Eusebius.

As I have suggested one of the clues that appear to indicate that the fiction called Jesus preceeded Eusebius, is the fact that there are two conflicting genealogies for the supposed husband of Mary.

If Eusebius did fabricate the fiction of Jesus, I would expect one single genealogy, even though it would have been erroneous. Having one genealogy would have remove the need for Eusebius to write a 1300 word harmonization of the discrepancies found in the two genealogies.

Eusebius in Church History 1.7 And Eusebius, in attempting to harmonize the discrepancies, did not even realize that in doing so, he had inadvertently augmented the notion that Jesus of the NT had no real history, since every believer invented explanations for the discrepancies in the genealogies.


Jesus had no history, he was invented. And this invention had twelve disciples and blinded Saul/ Paul from heaven.

aa5874

I will continue to show that Jesus, his disciples and Paul are fiction.

The anonymous authors of the NT presented Jesus as the following:

• The offspring of the Holy Ghost

• Born of a virgin

• Having no human father

• Tempted by the Devil for forty days, on mountain-tops and on the Temple

• Received the Spirit on Baptism by John

• Carried out miracles and raising the dead, by spitting in their eyes or simply talking to them

• He transfigured, his face shone like the sun, and dead prophets appeared from nowhere

• Resurrected, after being dead for three days

• He ascended through the clouds in full view of his disciples

Now it is very clear that this Jesus as presented is WHOLLY implausible, yet some still persist that this Jesus of the NT was actually just human.

These people who claim Jesus was just human, in effect, are claiming that the Jesus of the NT is an embellisshed character, a lie. The real Jesus was nothing at all like the Jesus of the NT, every-one lied about him, his supposed mother, his disciples, Paul, the authors of the NT and even the early Church writers, were all in error or dishonest, even the words of Jesus in the NT were not said by the human Jesus.

Now, if the Jesus of the NT is an embellished characted, a lie, how can there be claim that some other Jesus lived when all the information about the Jesus of the NT is fundamentally fiction?

There was no other Jesus of the NT but the fiction presented.

Transponder

As a Noob I should perhaps show a bit more humility, but the fact is that the Jesus historicity Q. is one that interests me and I have followed the points made here with considerable iterest.

Originally Posted by aa5874
I'm quite sure that the gospels in present form were written to follow the views of Paul rather than Paul following the gospels. Paul argues from OT and uses his own sort of reasoning. He has to argue for setting aside the Mosaic law, for non-Jews but he never refers to Jesus and his pronouncements against 'clean food' and the like. I think the Gospels put those words into Jesus' mouth in order to justify Paul's views on the matter.

That does not mean that the gospels are not based on a real person, though totally reinvented on Christian lines, or that Paul did not exist and knew
Jesus' followers. In fact, was largely in conflict with them.

aa5874 I comment:

1. No credible non-apologetic writer or historian made mention of Paul.
Good point. That goes for Jesus, too.

2. Biblical scholars claim more than one person is called Paul in the Epistles.
This is the 'some are forgeries' idea? I have never actually seen the arguments for Paul being different persons.

3. Paul's conversion is fiction
I think so. Acts (by Luke) is full of it. But that does not mean that is could not be (like the gospels) a Paulinist reinvention of rather more Jewish events.

4. Paul received nothing from Jesus, Paul is liar.
I agree, but because someone is deluded or a liar does not mean that they do not exist.

5. One of the authors called Paul appear to have written parts of the epistles after Luke was written.
I understand that some Pauline epistles are considered forgeries. Others are acepted as genuine.

6. Justin Martyr, in his extant writings never mentioned Paul or epistles to the Churches.
That's a good point. he lived...when? 100-165 A.d. that is very early for a full-fledged Christian.

7. The history of Paul in Acts is fictitious and the Church father, Eusebius, canonised this fiction.
This is a claim, not evidence.

Originally Posted by cogitans

I'm willing to be convinced either way. I'll set out my stall; comparison of the gospels has convinced me that there is one early Jesus story which is really quite short and is very different from the present gospel stories. There do seem to be some indications of a reality of which the Gospel - writers themselves were not always aware.
That said, there are a lot of puzzling omissions of events which should have been known to all four. Not to mention the silence of history on either Jesus or Paul. I can accept that Paul might not have been important enough for Josephus or someone else to have mentioned him, but, if the only real reason for thinking Jesus real - that he was crucified for rebellion - then one would expect some historical reference. The one in Josephus' "Jewish war" is a fake. The one in "Antiquities" I'm not sure about. It has been argued that it doesn't refer to Jesus' brother at all, but is a quite different James.

Mountainman

about AD 303, there came "The Great Persecution", within a bare decade before Constantine, when the state under Emperor Diocletian (245-313) began to declare war on the Church
http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/19...92p10_753.html

Well, Constantine needed something to work with but really nothing bfore Diocletian?


St. Ignatius of Antioch, apostolic Father and bishop. He was a disciple of St. John, along with St. Polycarp. Theodoret, the Church historian says he was consecrated bishop by St. Peter, who was at first bishop of Antioch before going to Rome. Ignatius was martyred in Rome under Emperor Trajan's rule. It was during the journey to Rome that he wrote his famous letters that contain invaluble information about the early Church. He was the first to use the term "Catholic" to describe the Church.

http://www.davidmacd.com/catholic/di...atholicism.htm

*c. 88 The reign of Pope St. Clement I (-97). During his pontificate, he issues a letter to the Corinthians, urging them to submit themselves to lawful religious authority. He writes "Our apostles also knew, through our Lord Jesus Christ, and there would be strife on account of the office of the episcopate. For this reason, therefore, inasmuch as they had obtained a perfect fore-knowledge of this, they appointed those [ministers] already mentioned, and afterwards gave instructions, that when these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed them in their ministry."

There's a date. Post - Jewish war, the Catholic timeline cannot really show anything other than Bible claims as history for the church.

Here are some names
A significant number of Christians, including saints, served in the Roman army. The Paper discusses the following writers: Justin Martyr, Marcion, Irenaeus, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Julius Africanus, Origen, Cyprian, Arnobius, and Lactantius, and also examines other sources of information about the early church

paper by David B. Kopel.

The term Trinitas was popularized by Tertullian almost 100 years before the Nicene council in his debate against Praxeas. However, he was not the first to use the term, a man Theophilus Bishop of Antioch in 160 was the first to use the term (that we have in writing), many years before in his epistle to Autolycus The 2nd,xv..We can assume it was used prior to Theophilus and was held as a common church belief with the many quotes that are left to us in history by the early church pastors. Athenagoras representing the whole Churches belief wrote, that, "they hold the Father to be God, and the Son God, and the Holy Spirit, and declare their union and their distinction in order."(A plea for the Christians.10.3) The term was used to simply describe the three that simultaneously exist as the one God. A man named Praxeas promoted what is called Monarchianism, which held a strict form of monotheistic progression.

some more names.

Ignatius of Antioch, on the Divinity of Christ, calls Jesus God 16x in 7 letters (ca. 110 AD)Epistle to Diognetus (ca. 125 AD) speaking of God the Father,
Melito of Sardis on Christ's Divnity (d. ca. 190)
Justin Martyr on the Divinity of Christ (c. 155 AD)
Tertullian on the Divinity of Christ (ca. 200)
Clement of Alexandria on Christ's Divinity (ca. 210 AD)
http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/...ly_Church.html

I make no comment on the conclusions in these sources, only that there seems to have been an already existant developed Christianity(ies) which was used and reinvented by Constantine, but not invented.

There's an interesting remark here. http://www.constantinethegreatcoins.com/symbols/

People who expect to find Christian imagery on bronze coins of Constantine will be disappointed. “Of approximately 1,363 coins of Constantine I in RIC VII, covering the period of 313-337, roughly one percent might be classified as having Christian symbols.”1 The first instance of a chi-rho on a coin of Constantine is on a rare silver medallion issued from Ticinum in 315.

I'm willing to be convinced that Jesus never lived and nor did Paul. I'm certainly concerned that no-one in history mentions them other than reporting the activities and claims of Christians of the time. On the other hand, I am not quite convinced that they were not be real persons.

mountain man. I find it surprising to claim that there was no Christianity before the 4th century. Were all the supposed Christian writers before that time all fictions backdated? I do find that hard to believe.

I noted the points about the Constantine Bible being the first of its kind and what 'Canon' really meant and Christianity not being rooted in Judaism because it rejected it and misquoted it. I thought that rather avoided the point: that it had to be rooted in it even to the extent of misusing it so as to replace it with Christianity. Well, I rather came to that conclusion through reading Paul. His view seems to be that Jewish law does not apply to gentile believers. But that doesn't look to me like demolishing Judaism. It is just making it palatable to Gentiles. I can also see Constantine seeing the need to use and control Christianity, but I can't see him inventing it. Re-inventing it, sure.

Chuck I sorta saw that coming. For my cent's worth let me mention Paul's arguing for setting aside clean food laws in Romans. If the gospels existed, then Paul would surely have quoted from them. That implies that the gospels quoted Paul. That is an indication that if Paul was "given" words from the last supper the gospel also got them from Paul not the other way around.

But not attributed to the gospels but to the Jesus in Paul's head. The implication is that Luke followed Paul. In fact Acts shows that he did, in writing about Paul after the events.

aa5874

Good. Now, my take is that this was one of the causes of contention between Paul and the Jerusalem disciples. Luke says that Paul was blinded from heaven. Paul doesn't quite say that. I take it that paul had some form of conversion, more a political one than spiritual, but Luke's account strikes me as fiction.
I suggest that the Disciples did get - or were given - the idea the Jesus did return to heaven as a dead messiah. In the spirit. The risen body is a later gospel invention and I think that can be shown from the gospel text. Paul claimed that Jesus in heaven appeared to him in the spirit, telling him just what he needed to hear - that he was as good an apostle as any of the Jerusalem fellows. This Jesus was just in his head, but the disciples could hardly deny that Jesus' spirit had gone to heaven. It was the one thing keeping them from collapsing - the idea that their dead leader was really alive in the spirit and would return in their lifetimes.

Thus, there was no question of denying that Jesus had died or that the body was still there. The body wasn't a matter of discussion at the time.

I don't see this as a problem. I do see a problem as to whether Paul is writing to Gentiles, converted Jews or unconverted Jews. I rather take it that he writing to all three in Romans as he is arguing that the Pharisee faith is 'in vain' if Jesus hasn't risen, since they believed in resurrection. It is not good logic but better than telling Christians that they should believe in Jesus' resurrection or they are all fools. I don't see Paul as writing to Pagans, so I don't see why Pagans should be mentioned. In fact I think they do get a mention, as to why Paul's followers should behave better than pagans do.

Certainly a good point. But Justin Martyr was concerned with converting pagans. Paul had ben concerned with his own converts. A different approach but do they neccessarily have to be the same? One might equally say Justin is fiction because he shows no mention of any churches or converts of his own. In that respect Paul looks more believable than Justin.

So I'm interested in the idea that Paul and Jesus are fictional and there was really no Christianity before Eusebius, but I don't think that has been shown. Given that the Bible is only a document, there are some points in it that incline me to suppose that Jesus and Paul were real people though Jesus was re-invented as a rather anti-Jewish Christian and Paul was more a delusional politician than a saint.
But I don't think a case has been made to persuade me that it's ALL fiction.

I apologise for the lengthy recapping and I am not looking to discredit anyone at all. There was a lot of wrangle about what is proof. That depends on what one accepts as proof and what magic wands can be waved. In the end I suppose I (and we) have to make the best informed judgement I can about anything and a lot of that depends on others' authority. Of course authorities can have also their axes to grind. In the end the Bible has a lot of garbage but some things that do seem acceptable or I can give them the benefit of the doubt. Paul arguing wrangling and justifying strikes me as believable. Jesus in the gospels, doesn't. However, further examination makes Paul look
unbelievable in what he argues, though believable as a person. The gospels also leave behind a modicum of real Jesus and not a very Christian one, when the contradictions are accounted for. So I'm willing to be convinced but need some persuasion. Telling me that to I need prove that Paul existed isn't persuasive. I've aleady suggested why I see him as a real person and the arguments otherwise don't seem compelling as yet. And if Paul is real, then the chances are that his opponent apostles are real and if they were real, the chances are that Jesus was real, too.

I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.

aa5874

Well, one simply way to know if Jesus or Paul existed is to ask those who claim that Jesus and Paul existed for the corroborated evidence of their existence.

And I can tell you in advance, they have none. Just ask them.

Toto

The only "evidence" for Paul's existence is the letters that bear his name. Either he existed and he wrote them, or someone forged them in his name, probably because he was a well known person.

There are 1,167 posts in this thread so far, many of them simply repetitive. Has it proven anything?

aa5874

The letters of themselves may not be evidence of Paul, if no-one was actually named Paul.

There is also no evidence, external of the NT and aplogetics, to suggest that there was a popular person called Paul.

The history of Saul/Paul appears to be fiction as written in Acts.

The death and time death of Paul as written by Eusebius in Church History appears to erroneous.

And all the information of Saul/Paul are from apologetic sources.

Sholars have deduced that more than one author used the name Paul.

The probabilty of Paul being well known is weak.

mountainman

The wonderfully fabulous and totally over-the-top-fiction of the persecutions and the martyrdoms are all lined up by our dear Constantininan sponsored Eusebius of Caesarea who sits gratuitously at the right hand of the Boss during the final of the two military supremacist councils at Nicaea.

The Diocletian persecution in true history was against the Manichaeans. Eusebius and others after him, tendered fiction about all earlier christians. We have evidence to indicate Diocletian persecuted Manichaeans. We have no similar evidence to corroborate the claims of the fourth century christian ecclesiatical historians that christians were also subject to Diocletian.


This has been the assumption of mainstream.
IMO these sources were invented in the fourth century.
We know that they were tendered by Eusebius.
We know he wrote his works c.312 to 324 CE with revisions 337 CE etc.
The apology of christian history is a fraud
It is simple propaganda to preface the military supremacy councils of Antioch and Nicaea,
It is alot of whitewash that has zero substance.
See the Healing God Asclepius whom Constantine trashed along with Apollo.
Constantine wanted (and took) the ancient temple gold.
We know he enforced the prohibition of temple services.
He changed the culture by the army.



My take on the words of Arius of Alexandria:

There was time when He was not.
Before He was born He was not.
He was made out of nothing existing.
He is/was from another subsistence/substance.
He is subject to alteration or change.

Is that Arius thought Jesus was a fiction in 325 CE at Nicaea.

There is also the issue of the opinion of the Emperor Julian who wrote a number of things about Constantine and Jesus which indicate that he was convinced c.362 CE that the "fabrication of the christians is fiction of men composed by wickedness". Try and come to terms with that.

Yes. I found it also both surprising and very difficult to actually visualise. If you read my thesis located here you will see that I believe that some of these authors of antiquity actually did exist, however additional writings were forged in their names: In this class we have the following:

Josephus Flavius - The Testimonium Flavianum, Antiquity of the Jews
Tacitus - Annals 15:44, 15th Century Forgery of Poggio Bracciolini
Suetonius - Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Nero, 16.
Pliny the Younger - Plinius, Ep 10:97; a letter to the Roman Emperor Trajan
Emperor Trajan - Dear Pliny (a rescript)
Marcus Aurelius - The "christian" reference at Meditations 11:3
Hegesippus - The "shadowy Hegesippus" according to Momigliano
Celsus: Fourth Century Eusebian forgery of anti-christian writings
Julius Africanus - Chronologer used by Eusebius, whom Eusebius "corrects" by 300 years.
Lucian of Samosata - Life of Peregrine, Alexander the Prophet
The Vienne/Lyon Martyrs' Letter - Independent analysis of Eusebian forgery.
Origen - Ascetic pythagorean academic; specialist of the (LXX) Hebrew Bible (alone).
Porphyry - Ascetic pythagorean academic; Eusebian forgery of anti-christian writings.




If Constantine did not invent the christian religion then IMO there should exist some form of unambiguous archaeological citation supporting the existence of said religion prior to the fourth century. If you are interested in such citations discussed in the popular literature written by ancient historians recently then have a look at an article entitled Early Christian "Epigraphic Habit" . I have listed all such citations.

If you cannot see Constantine inventing christianity then please come to the table with some evidence. I do appreciate your analyses however. Keep having a look around.

Best wishes,


Pete

Toto

No one else in the world agrees with you. Why do you keep repeating this?

The dispute at this time was not whether Jesus "existed" in the post-Enlightenment sense of existence, but whether he was of one with God or a separate entity. Arius took the latter position, which meant that Jesus was not in existence when god created the universe, not that he never existed.

Again, no one else has a problem with that. Julian thought that the gospel stories and the resurrection were fictional.

In the meantime, you have yet to explain why the inventor of a religion didn't do a better job of creating a consistent story, and why he also had to forge various heretical writings.