aa5874

You seem not to understand what is EVIDENCE.

The information found in the writings of antiquity is EVIDENCE and it is the very EVIDENCE that shows the Pauline writers were not mad but LIARS.

But, you only play games. You have already stated that "they were lying and hyped up their origins." They must be lying.....

How did you test YOUR nugget?

You really don't understand what EVIDENCE is.

Again, whether it is true or false, factual or mistake, the gLuke quote is found in "Church History" 3.4.8. That is the evidence. You want me to accept what you imagine as evidence but I will always REJECT your imagination.

I do not deal with speculation and imagination.

An apologetic source has claimed that the Pauline writers were aware of gLuke.

You SIMPLY cannot prove or demonstrate that the EVIDENCE in CHURCH HISTORY 3.4.8 is not true.



So YOU AGREE THAT or is comfortable that:

1.Jesus was not likely to have existed.

2. The numbers don't add up.

Well, I am comfortable with the evidence that demonstrates the Pauline writings were not mad but LIARS.

Nothing ADDS up in Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings with respect to Jesus and the apostles.

Please provide the EXTERNAL EVIDENCE that a Pauline writer had hallucinations or that sort of thing.

I do not deal with imagination.

But, you don't know what you are saying. You are just making a lot of noise. You are all over the place.

At one time, everything can be made up, maybe Paul was not Paul or Saul, suddenly it is standard dating, then you have NO REASON, and now you are SURE you know what Paul SEEMED to have been doing.

You are getting incoherent.


And then when the numbers don't add up then we are dealing with a PACK OF LIES with respect to Jesus and the disciples.

Even if Jesus did not exist, the numbers at least should add up. The author of Acts and the Pauline writers should have stated the correct numbers within reason after all these writers should have followers of the [b]TRUTH and the LIFE, Jesus, the offspring of the Holy Ghost of God.

The numbers ADD up after the Fall of the TEMPLE or after 70 CE.

Up to the middle of the 2nd century, Justin Martyr seemed not to have known any prominent Jesus believers. It was an old man whom he happened to meet by chance who told him about people who knew the truth.

But again, where is the evidence for your assumptions?

The evidence from antiquity cannot be ONLY the NT, however, the EVIDENCE shows that almost the whole of Samaria being followers of Simon Magus, the magician and Holy one of God, were called Christians as early as the time of the Emperor Claudius.

The evidence demonstrates that there were Christians (non-Jesus believers) before the Synoptic Jesus story was deduced to have been written.

You are providing ONLY speculative imagination for your TEENSY-WEENSY theory.

So far, this is what you appear to be saying, '[B]IF the Jesus cult did exist it was TEENSY-WEENSY, therefore it was TEENSY-WEENSY.

But, one would expect the numbers to add up if the author of Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writers were truthful with respect to Jesus and the apostles.

Once Jesus did not exist and the numbers do not add up then we are dealing with a PACK of LIES with respect to Jesus, the apostles and Paul.

The author of Acts places the blinding bright light conversion of Saul/Paul, [b]AFTER the resurrection, after Jesus ascended through the clouds, AFTER the day of Pentecost and AFTER Saul/Paul persecuted Jesus believers.

It is very critical and important that you understand the EVIDENCE from apologetic sources.

Once Jesus did not exist then all the chronology and events in Acts leading up to and including the blinding bright light conversion of Saul/Paul is a pack of LIES.

And when the Pauline writer appears to corroborate the fiction in Acts where the Pauline writer persecuted fictitious Jesus believers and met fictitious apostles in Jerusalem, then we are dealing with Pack upon packs of LIES with respect to Jesus, the apostles and the Pauline writers.

Please, tell us how to test that the Pauline visions from Jesus were true and that the contents of the vision are true as described.

I won't let you get away with your imaginative speculations.

[b]I have[b] REASON/b] to doubt the Pauline words. A Pauline writer claimed he stayed with a fictitious character for fifteen days.

But, you are playing games. You have already stated that you are not concerned if you are wrong about the dating of the Pauline writings and that you can only speculate.

See your earlier posts.

Your are propagating "Chinese whispers".

You can go through gMark word by word, line by line and chapter by chapter and you wont find one single fundamental theme in the Pauline writings.

The Marcan Jesus came to tell the Jews in particular that he was the TRUE MESSIAH and that if the Jews rejected him they would be destroyed with the Jewish Temple and after the Jews and the Temple were destroyed that the Sanhedrin would see him coming in the clouds and heaven and earth would be NO MORE, the sun and the moon would become dark.

The Marcan Jesus did not teach his disciples that he would die for their sins.

There is virtually nothing from the Pauline revelations from Jesus that is compatible with the teachings of the MARCAN Jesus. The Revelations from Jesus to John are compatible to the Marcan Jesus teachings that he would come back very quickly and that there would be conflagration and that the sun and moon will be darkened and heaven and earth would be no more..


Well, gJohn is considered the last gospel to be written and is compatible with the Pauline writings.

So, the REVELATIONS of John are compatible with the EARLY Synoptics and the REVELATIONS of the Pauline writers are compatible with the LATE gJohn.

What an absurd question.

How do you know that there was a Pauline writer?

So what you ask? I will tell you what. It helps my case that is what.

Justin Martyr mentioned a character found in Acts, Simon Magus, and claimed Simon was worshiped as a God by almost all of Samaria yet did not mention that Simon MAGUS knew the apostles and that Simon MAGUS did believe in JESUS CHRIST for some time.

Justin MARTYR mentioned Marcion, yet did not mention that Marcion mutilated any Pauline writings and Origen in Against Celsus also confirmed that Marcion did not mutilate any gospels.

Why should we BELIEVE your PAUL?

You do not understand what EVIDENCE is.

John Chrysostom is an apologetic source.

It is very helpful for me when an apologetic source CONTRADICTS another apologetic source. That is PRECISELY what I need to build my case that the Pauline writers were not mad, but LIARS AND LAST.

When witnesses from the same side contradict one another then their case FALLS apart.

One piece of contradictory evidence from the same side can have catastrophic results.


Why should we believe your Paul of which half of his letters have been deduced to be forgeries?

You do understand what EVIDENCE IS. You are fixated on speculative imagination.

You appear to TRUST the Pauline writings although you claim "they were LYING....they must be LYING...

You really don't know what YOUR Paul wrote. What you think YOUR Paul wrote may be only HYPE.

And the Pauline writers Did SHOW KNOWLEDGE of gLuke.

The Pauline writer used words found ONLY in gLuke.

1 Cor 11.23-25
Luke 22.19-20 Only gLuke and the Pauline writings contain the words "this do in remembrance of me."

We have a confirmation that the Pauline writer was aware of gLuke.


So far, you have consistently failed to provide any external historical sources to date the Pauline writings and have use "Chinese whispers" or plain rhetoric as your corroborative source.

You cannot isolate a vision from Jesus, the offspring of the Holy GHost to the Pauline writer that can be tested for its veracity.

You cannot show any Evidence for YOUR TEENSY-WEENSY THEORY.

You cannot even show that there was a Pauline writer, you can only speculate.

You have also not understood that it is the accumulation of the EVIDENCE, the abundance of EVIDENCE that matters.

And once you admit that it is likely that Jesus did not exist and that the NUMBERS do not add up then I have a strong case that Saul/Paul was not mad, but a LIAR and LAST.

aa5874

It was not Jesus, it was Christ, the Messiah, that was the title.

Simon barCocheba was not called JESUS, HE WAS CALLED THE MESSIAH.

Matthew 16. It is clear that it was the CHRIST that was the title and not JESUS.

It is clear that the name Jesus had no exceptional significance since Jesus himself was called by other names like John the Baptist, Elias or Jeremias.

And again in Matthew 24.23-24 Even the authors of the Epistles warned about the ANTI-CHRIST and not the ANTI-Jesus.

1Jo 2:18 -

Loomis

But Merriam-Webster’s dictionary has ten definitions for title.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/title

One of them is a synonym for appellation.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/appellation

An appellation is type of designation.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/designation

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/designation

And a designation is a distinguishing name.



Now in Numbers 13:16 it says that Moses gave Hoshea son of Nun the name Joshua.

That is clearly a designation. It is an important designation. The word Joshua does not mean Fred is salvation, or Dennis is salvation. It means Yahweh is salvation. And that is significant because Yahweh was the god of Israel (at least according to some stories).

It is clear that Jesus/Joshua was a title.

So what? It makes no difference. It is still clear that Jesus/Joshua was a title.

But that is an either/or fallacy because it is clear that they are both titles.

But that is absurd because Jesus/Joshua means Yahweh is salvation, and Yahweh was the god of Israel (at least according to some stories). Furthermore, John the Baptist, Elias, and Jeremiah are all characters from religious folklore with a exceptional significance.

So what? That is an either/or fallacy. Your conclusion (that Jesus/Joshua is not a title) is based on the false premise that they cannot both be titles.



If, after giving this compelling issue the attention it deserves, you would like a second chance to present your ideas with better coherency, please don’t hesitate to make another post.

gurugeorge

I've told you:-

1) From the fact that there is no external evidence to support big membership numbers of something called "Christianity" at that time. This reasoning we partly share.

2) From a general background awareness that enthusiasts in any human organisation tend to exaggerate the good qualities and minimise not so good qualities. This includes the numbers of an organisation. This can start in a grey area of exaggeration, and blend into outright lying.

These two, taken together, make it likely that whoever claimed big numbers (I don't care who they are, the logic, in this instance, stands independently of who in particular we're talking about) was lying. (Then again, they might have been just exaggerating, or just mistaken, or otherwise in error - but until some other evidence turns up, it's a reasonable provisional hypothesis, based on the evidence. Again, the fact that there's no evidence at the moment for big numbers doesn't clinch it that there weren't - the evidence might just be missing for various reasons. These kinds of possibilities hover, ever-present, over any judgement I or you or anybody makes. The objectivity of whether there was a big, or small Christian movement at that time, is already fixed and settled, out there in the space of logical possibility, independently of the amount of evidence we have for it, and independently of our reasoning processes.)

Well I don't need to, do I? YOU need to demonstrate that it's TRUE. That's your job.

So what is your basis for taking that quote as true?

What is your basis for judging that this bit of text is evidence in the particular way you think it's evidence? (e.g. evidence of a lie, instead of evidence of an error, or evidence of a joke, or evidence of a story told to entertain, or evidence of a bit of political jockeying by means of theological masturbation?)

Sure, but the non-adding-upness of it doesn't necessarily always betoken LYING.

Please provide EXTERNAL EVIDENCE that your apologetic writer was telling the truth about the "Pauline" writing?

Think about it.

No, it's just that the same evidence can be interpreted in different ways depending on the background assumptions you bring to your investigation.

Some of this is good, cogent argument, and I've had thoughts along similar lines myself - but, again, you've not done enough to demonstrate that it's all , literally, a case of lying. That's the blanket generalisation you're making.

Sure, you find some contradictions in this jumble of stuff - we all do. There are some interesting contradictions which suggest people might have been lying, making things up - but they also suggest the possibilities of: sheer error, superstitions, pure fiction (to entertain), visionary experiences, etc., etc.

But when you find an internal contradiction, or a contradiction between the text and what exists outside the text, the presence of a contradiction in and of itself does not alone determine that we have before us a case of LYING.


Well it's the nature of the movement that existed then that's in question.

Again, there's lots in what you are saying that I agree with, but I'm still not seeing the extra step that makes ALL of this stuff a case of LYING.

I have given you the extra bit of argument that makes my ascription of lying (in the particular case I ascribed it, re. numbers) plausible to me (that it's a common thing, a feature of what one might call organisational psychology or something like that). What's your extra bit of argument that turns the contradictions you find into, specifically, a case of LYING in EVERY CASE?

No, I'm only saying, if the Jesus cult existed at that time it must have been teensy-weensy. Whether there was or not - well, there are many possibilities here, all of them consistent with the extant evidence. You've outlined some plausible options above, some of which I agree with.

No, we're dealing with lies in some instances, with superstitions in other instances, errors in other instances, etc., etc.

Yes but you don't know whether the author of Acts is lying or mistaken, or taking something that's wrong on trust, or ...

What you are doing is simply pointing out contradictions. Very good, so far we have something that is factually wrong. But it's an extra step to then ascribe some reason why it's wrong. With my numbers example, my extra step was "well, it's the sort of thing you'd expect under the circumstances, that's how people are". But in the case of a religious tenet, that goes deeper than a mere numbers claim. Lots of people believe very sincerely in their religion - in what they've heard from people they love and respect, or their parents, or whatever - and they take things on trust a lot of the time. So if someone like that reports something that's factually wrong - that's not lying is it?

So you need to distinguish whether the CONTRADICTION in the text is EVIDENCE of LYING or EVIDENCE of ERROR (of the kind above, or of other kinds)? To plump for lying SPECIFICALLY, requires an extra little bit of reasoning to distinguish it from mere error, or taking something on trust, or having a vision.

That's the step you're not making - and you seem oblivious to the need to make it. Again and again, you point out a contradiction, and in EVERY instance you reason that the contradiction exists because someone was literally LYING.

That is not reasoning, that's monomania.


How do you know that the fictitious character wasn't made up ON THE BASIS of the character in the "Paul" writing, but that the "he personally knew Jesus" part was a lie (or a "chinese whisper", or a sheer mistake, or ...) ?

Well, when I say "not concerned", I wasn't, initially, at the time when we first started arguing about this - I'm more interested in it now, it's become more interesting since talking to you. Is that playing games? I call it "thinking" about something - I recommend the practice, it's most invigorating.

Not enough time to deal with the rest of your post atm - I may come back to it later.

aa5874

You are a person who makes BLANKET STATEMENTS and then say I DON'T CARE who "they are."

You have already stated that you are NOT concerned if you are wrong about the dating of the Pauline writings.

You stated emphatically that "THEY were lying.....THEY must be lying".

This is the fundamental problem with your arguments you seem not to understand that you MUST IDENTIFY who "they are" since "THEY" may very well include the Pauline writers.

Well, once you don't care who "THEY ARE", then it should NOT matter to you that I have included the Pauline writers as some of those who were lying and must have been lying.

I actually CARE about what I write.

The Pauline writers were not mistaken they were LIARS.

1. Jesus, the offspring of the Holy Ghost was most likely a fictitious character.

2. Jesus was just a fiction story invented after the Fall of the Temple.

3.Jesus had no actual disciple called Peter or Cephas during the reign of Tiberius.

4.There were no actual followers of Jesus called Christ in Galilee, Jerusalem or Damascus during the reign of Tiberius, Caligula or Cladius

The Pauline writers could not have been mistaken when they wrote that the met an apostle called Peter in Jerusalem and stayed with him for fifteen.

The Pauline writers could not have been mistaken when they wrote that they persecuted Jesus believers.

These are all LIES.


Now, once the information about meeting the apostle called Peter was a LIE and the persecution of Jesus believers was also a LIE, then it can be deduced that such information could not have been circulated at the very time when people would have instantly identified the Pauline writers as LIARS.

The bogus meeting of Peter and the bogus persecution of Jesus believers as found in Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings were most likely written very long after the reign of Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius.

They were most likely written at a time when the LIES would be far more difficult to DETECT. They were most likely written very late.

Now, an apologetic source Justin Martyr, wrote nothing about Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings.

An apologetic source, Eusebius, claimed the Pauline writers were aware of gLuke.

An apologetic source, John Chrysostom, in the 4th century, claimed people did not even know of the author of Acts and that Acts of the Apostles was in existence.

Everything ADDS UP.

My theory is good and well supported by apologetic sources.

The Pauline writers were not mad, but LIARS.

YOU MUST CARE WHO "THEY ARE".

I HAVE INClUDED THE PAULINE WRITERS.

Loomis

Mon frère au contraire. Philippians 2:9-10 says Jesus was a name that was above every name.

It is clear that the name Jesus had exceptional significance.

aa5874

Well, let us look outside the NT for confirmation.

Let us look at the writings of Josephus and Philo and see if any Jewish person was given the name Jesus on account of some significant achievement or that there were Jewish people who tried to attain the tittle of Jesus or that there were Jews who expected some future messianic ruler named Jesus.

No one such case can be found.

Josephus mentioned many many characters called Jesus and did not relate to his readers that the name Jesus had any special significance or that they had to attain the name Jesus by some special acts or commitment.

Now, when did God give Jesus, the offspring of the Holy Ghost, a name above every other name?

And how could God give a non-historical character a name above every other name?

Only in fiction stories.

The Pauline writers were not mad, but LIARS.

Loomis

Right. I agree that it’s fiction. That should be obvious to any honest well-adjusted person. But apparently you don’t understand my point.

My point is that several passages such as Philippians 2:9-11 treat “Jesus” as an honorary name (aka an honorary title) that is bestowed on humans and/ or messianic figures. It held some sort of apocalyptic meaning.

Look. Here’s another example in 1 Corinthians 6:11:

You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

See? It says they were justified in the name of the lord Jesus after they were washed and sanctified.

In literature ‘Jesus/Joshua’ was obviously a very special word that was assigned long after someone was born. It meant "Salvation," or "he is salvation," or even "Yahweh is salvation." These traditions (this folklore) about Jesus/Joshua probably inspired thousands of real-life parents to name their real-life kids Jesus.

Fwiw there is another example in Matthew 1 where the angel declares that the child's name will be “‘Jesus’ for he will save his people." In the next verse this angel declares that he will named, “‘Immanuel’ which means God is with us.” It shows an early Christian understanding that the names “Jesus” and “Immanuel” were honorary titles.


Now do you see what I mean?

aa5874

No, not at all. If you admit we are dealing with fiction then only historical sources can be used to make any determination about Jesus as a title.

No historical source external of the NT show that the name Jesus was acquired through some act or achievement and was not given to babies.

And further, the so-called prophecies in the NT with regards to Jesus were taken out of context, the NT Jesus saved no-one from sin.

Loomis

Nope. That's not true. You are mistaking my claim that Philippians is fiction for an admission that only historical sources can be used to make any determination about Jesus as a title.

The fact is that Philippians does indeed show that Jesus was used as a title; even though Philippians is a work of fiction and even though Jesus is just an imaginary character in it.

Now do you see what I mean?