Alexis Comnenus

To turtonm:

I get the impression from your posts that while you have a lot of sympathy for the Jesus Myth idea and want to believe it, you can't quite bring yourself to. I hear what you say about scholarly tides but I am enough of a history snob to rather resent your implication that we've learnt nothing over the last sixty years and simply blow in the wind of fashion.

I will defend no more about Jesus except to say he was a Jewish preacher crucified by Pilate. In turth, not much more can be defended.

Normal methodologies of multiple independent attestation apply: for Jewish preacher - Q, GMark and Paul. Also maybe GJohn, GThomas, Josephus and other letters. For crucifixion: Paul, GMark, Tacitus, Josephus, Hebrews and other writings. Under Pilate: GMark, pseudo-Paul, Josephus, Tacitus maybe GJohn.

Normal proceedures over reading the sources disapply the alternative readings of Paul that Spin and others follow. His idea of Tacitus being fake doesn't even need a reply.

Criteria of verisimilatude reinforces picture of Roman oppression of Jews; Pilate himself has a contempory inscription as witness.

Parsimony leads to a common historical source for Q, Paul and Mark's Jesuses as they are all independent of each other.

Criteria of non-contradiction notes fatally for the myth case that there was no branch of the notoriously fracticious early Christians denying Jesus was crucified (although some insisted it was a phantom, they didn't deny the event). If HJ was a later invention you can bet that many Christians would have clung to the earlier preaching of non historical Christ but we have no witness of them or polemic against them.

Historical sociology tells us that it is inconceivable in that society that a myth would be invented around a criminal crucified by the very power that the myth needed to ingratiate.

Finally, reading the sources against themselves, it is clear that they are engaged in special pleading with regard to explaining the crucifixion which they would clearly rather be without. The progressive movement to blame the Jews rather than Pilate also points to Pilate being the original institigator and this needed dealing with.

I hope this explains how historical methodology leads to a clear conclusion. Nothing is certain but in this case, it's the next best thing.

Regards

Alex

edited to say who I'm addressing

[ April 19, 2002: Message edited by: Alexis Comnenus ]</p>

Alexis Comnenus

Spin,

The Tacitus manuscript with the Jesus passage is early 11th century so we know the passage existed before people quoted from it It is believed to have been copied only once since the fifth century. No one used it in apologetics because it is nasty about Christians. That's the end of this discussion.

Regards

Alex

Vinnie

"""""Iggy, you wouldn't tolerate childish crap like this on your site. So why do you spout it on ours?""""""

My apologies.

""""In other words, Paul knows a formula. He knows nothing of the gospel stories. They were compiled and embellished after his time.""""

First its important to note as the chapter explains, Here, however, we are chiefly concerned with the information we can derive from his Epistles. These were not written to record the facts of the life and ministry of Jesus; they were addressed to Christians, who already knew the Gospel story. Yet in them we can find sufficient material to construct an outline of the early apostolic preaching about Jesus.

This is not an exhaustive list of what Paul knows about the subject. Its a determination of what we know Paul knew at least on the basis of his writings that we have.

breaking the factors into a list:

Divine Prexistence
Was a human
A descendant of Abraham
A Descendant of David
Lived under Jewish Law
Was betrayed
The last supper
suffered through the roman crucifixion
but the tradition Paul knew had the blame placed
on the jews
was buried
rose
appeared to people

paul tells us he knew the apostles
he mentions Peter an John by name
heck, he even knew Peter was married
He knows of his Jesus' brother James by name


He records sayings of Jesus found in the gospels 1 Cor 7:10 f : (1 Cor. 9:14; 1 Tim. 5:18; cf. Lk 10:7);

Paul quoted a saying not found in the canonical Gospels as well.

And as Bruce said: Even when he does not quote the actual sayings of Jesus of Jesus, he shows throughout his works how well acquanted he was with them.

I honestly don't see how you conclude Paul merely knew a formula from all this. And remember, this is not an exhaustive list of what Paul knew by any means. Its simply what his surviving writings tell us. It might be informative to look at the book of Acts as well. It shows Paul knew the Gospel tradition and Bruce says so did Paul's readers, that is why his letters he said they were not written to record the facts of the life and ministry of Jesus.


""""""But Jesus was executed by the Romans, not the Jews."""""""

Executed by the Romans yes but I am pretty sure the Jews receive the blame. Pilate is said to have found him not guilty of what they claimed. Paul knew Jesus underwent the Roman Crucifixion but he also knew Jesus' death was blamed on the Jewish leaders.

""But Jesus did not rise on the third day....""""""

Hebrew/Jewish idiom? Time reckoning was different. Any part of a day consisted of a whole day then. Well, that is generally what I have read about that. Maybe its not true though.

"An obvious tall tale, common in many claims of this nature."

That is a red herring. I would think each "tale" has to stand on its own. I disagree with lumping all the supernatural ones together and dismissing them all. Maybe that is not what you are doing though.

"""""The best he can do is personal testimony? Not really very convincing. Hardly surprising, though, since Paul did not even know Jesus personally."""""""

I don't think Bruce meant religious experiences but was referring to people's personal eyewitness testimony of their experiences with the earthly and with the risen Jesus. Basically, Paul thought it important to provide evidence for Jesus and his resurrection where needed.

Vinnie

godfry n. glad

turtonm:
"But Jesus did not rise on the third day...."

ilgwamh:
"Hebrew/Jewish idiom? Time reckoning was different. Any part of a day consisted of a whole day then. Well, that is generally what I have read about that. Maybe its not true though."

Well, ilgwamh, I think you're going to have to accept that fact that, in this case at least, you've swallowed apologetic pablum whole. The wholly babble itself does not say just three days. As per Mt 12:40, the suppositious Jesus' feat is compared to the suppositious Jonah's feat and the timeframe is three daysand three nights, not just three days. That makes it exceeding difficult to weasel out using the duplicitous "time reckoning" excuse. Three days and three nights from late Friday afternoon is sometime Monday, not Sunday. Particularly not Sunday morning. By any reckoning.

But then, those of us who consider the wholly babble to be a collection of allegorical tales, myths and fables are not surprised at this.

I'm curious as to your source that Paul asserts that his Jesus suffered a "Roman" crucifiction. Can you please provide the citation that supports this contention?

godfry n. glad

[ April 19, 2002: Message edited by: godfry n. glad ]</p>

spin

F.F. Bruce was posted here as an attempt to take Paul's testimony for a Jesus literally. Here are some of Bruce's statements commented on:

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While Paul insists on the divine pre-existence of Jesus (E.G., Col..1:15 ff.), yet he knows that He was none the less a real human being (Gal. 4:4), a descendent of Abraham ( Rom 9:5) and David (Rom. 1:3); who lived under the Jewish law (Gal 4:4);
----------------

The messiah was naturally of the line of David and had to be of the line of Abraham to be a Jew. This says nothing about Jesus being a real human being.

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who was betrayed,
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Ps 41:9.

The servant has to suffer. The Messianic figure of the Dead Sea Scrolls was betrayed.

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and on the night of his betrayal instituted a memorial meal of bread and wine (1 Cor. 11:23 ff.); who endured the Roman penalty of crucifixion (Phil. 2:8; 1 Cor 1:23),
----------------

I must admit, I think the whole Corinthians meal pericope is not Pauline. It is the longest singular piece in Paul related to the gospel and shows more knowledge of them than all the other possible Pauline references. That being said, the insitutional meal was a long standing Jewish event which is plainly present in the Dead Sea Scrolls. As many of Paul's converts were Jews (the Galatians know their old testament well, and Paul says that the people he was writing to in Rome were "made dead to the law through the body of Christ", they are obviously Jews, as other references in Romans underlines), they already practised a ritual Jewish meal. Paul merely continues it.

(Crucifixion was not only a Roman penalty. The Greeks seem to have started the process. The persecution of the Jews under Antiochus IV involved crucifixion. The Jewish king Alexander Jannaeus also crucified people -- on record is 800 Pharisees. There is a long tradition of Jewish martyrs being crucified.)

----------------
although the responsibility for His death is laid at the door of the representatives of the Jewish nation (Gal 3:12; 6:14 etc);
----------------

Paul, having come to a different religious belief, condemns the Jews for not accepting his true religion. They are therefore responsible for the death of Jesus, at least in a cosmic sense.

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who was buried, rose the third day,
----------------

Hos 6:2.

It's interesting that for Mark it is after three days, which is the sign of Jonah (in the belly of the fish for 3 days and 3 nights) which the other synoptics aren't particularly interested in, especially seeing as Jesus was supposed to have hit the tomb on Friday evening and left it before dawn on Sunday morning, he was in the tomb for less than 36 hours.

----------------
and was thereafter seen alive by many eyewitnesses on various occasions, including one occasion on which He was so seen by over five hundred at once, of whom the majority were alive nearly twenty-five years alter (1 Cor 15:4 ff.).
----------------

Who were the twelve which Paul mentions? The gospels give eleven, and the twelfth -- to replace Judas -- was chosen after the ascension, if we can believe Acts.

Who were these 500 who saw him at once? Where else outside Paul's imagination were they cited?

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Paul knows of the Lord's apostles (Gal 1:17 ff.),
----------------

Paul doesn't say "the Lord's apostles"

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of whom Peter and John are mentioned by name as 'pillars' of the Jerusalem community (Gal 2:9),
----------------

He says that a James, a John and a Cephas were pillars.

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and of His brothers, of whom James is similarly mentioned (Gal. 1:19, 2:9).
----------------

Paul actually says that James was the Lord's brother, whatever that means. If you would like to argue that the Lord and Jesus were the same, then I suggest you look very closely at all the references to kurios in Paul. I am of the position that all the original Pauline usage of kurios as a single reference is strictly reserved for his god. (Hence "the Lord Jesus Christ" doesn't constitute a free-standing use of kurios.)

----------------
he knows that the Lord's brothers and apostles, including Peter, were married (1 Cor. 9:5)--
----------------

He doesn't mention Peter in 1 Co 9:5, but he does mention "the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord and Cephas", apparently the last mentioned not being an apostle.

To equate Cephas and Peter is not to read Paul but to read hagiography.

Too much of what Bruce says about Paul is eisegesis. It doesn't come from the text of Paul but is read into it from knowledge from elsewhere. His is not an explanation of Paul but a recreation of him.

spin

I think it is flying toward distaster to attempt to take theological terms used by Paul as though they were literal.

When Paul says in Ga 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ", had he already been put up on a stauros? Was this a post Pauline crucifixion comment?

When he says in Ro 6:6 that "the old man crucified" with Christ, is the old man physically crucified with Christ? Christ was long dead wasn't he?

When he says in Ga 5:24, "And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh". Have they really? What does it mean literally?

When he says in 1Co 2:8, that "the rulers of this world" had "crucified the Lord of glory", was he being literal and referring to the Romans, or to the Jews and the Romans, or to all the rulers of this world? Did they all have a hand in the physical crucifixion of Jesus? Or is this a theological statement by Paul, setting up an antithesis between this world and the kingdom of god?

When he says in Ro 8:10, "And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin" are the people he is talking to really dead?

Are not all these statements heavily theological and not directly related to the literal sense of any of the key words?

There doesn't seem to be any indication of a literal, physical crucifixion of Jesus in Paul's texts.

A literalist reading of Paul on crucifixion, as proposed by Alexis Comnenus (despite his escape clause appeal to "common sense"), is a formula for folly. But Alexis of course will continue his plea to read Paul literally.

Do your job Alexis.

spin

Alexis Comnenus:
----------------
The Tacitus manuscript with the Jesus passage is early 11th century so we know the passage existed before people quoted from it It is believed to have been copied only once since the fifth century. No one used it in apologetics because it is nasty about Christians. That's the end of this discussion.
----------------

Chicken.

SmashingIdols

This lack of the aforementioned historians showing any knowledge of the fantastic events that happened in Palestine gives great credence to three things:

1. The man himself never existed, in as much as a teacher, sentenced to death by the priesthood, crucified by the Romans, and later rising from the dead and appearing to "thousands." There may have been thousands of any of the first two, but what I call "Jesus Christ" is a being that accomplished all three, and was the purveyor of early Christology.

2. The supernatural phenomenon credited to his existence and works did not occur, thus could not possibly have been observed or recorded for historical purposes.

3. The existence of this person must have come into acceptance after his death, through the workings of historical person(s) greatly influenced by the mystery religions of the age, like the Apostle Paul - who himself depicts Jesus as a mystical being, non-historical.

I am new here, but feel compelled to state that I am 99% certain the Christ story is urban legend incarnate; the MAN was MYTH. (It was stated earlier that there may be few or none who think this).

godfry n. glad

Alexis Comnenus:
----------------
The Tacitus manuscript with the Jesus passage is early 11th century so we know the passage existed before people quoted from it It is believed to have been copied only once since the fifth century. No one used it in apologetics because it is nasty about Christians. That's the end of this discussion.
----------------

Spin:
Chicken.

Godfry:
Ditto.

Does anyone else find it curious that this purportedly "nasty" cite about Christians and their founder managed to survive several centuries of post-Theodosian edicts which animated the censors, extirpators and book-burners? And this despite major sections of this critical work, including the critical time period of the reputed crucifiction, having gone missing?

Hmmm...I wonder why that is?

godfry n. glad

sotzo

I would submit that this "compelling evidence" is not what convinced you. What convinced you was a strong desire to believe these stories to be true. You did enough research to convince yourself that you could believe them, but trust me, the reasoning you present would not convince someone who did not already have a propensity to believe it.

Well thank you for giving me a better understanding of my epistemological origins! Unfortunately for your theory, I consulted my old agnostic self and he reminded me of my former strong desire to not believe!

I find this to be a pretty weak argument. You base part of your belief in an extraordinarily supernatural story on the idea that it is different from other supernatural stories? I don't see how this really means much.

It means very much because these differences support the view that the Gospels' authors are aiming at recording history rather than simply writing uplifting (no pun intended) accounts for their fellow man.

The jews already took pains to try and separate themselves from other ethnic groups and in any case, while I am not a mythology expert, I suspect the claim that the "not recognizing the hero" element is not all that unique.

My point exactly. The disciples, as Jews, did not expect a resurrection

It has been argued that this very tendency is what makes the stories likely to be simplified aplications of mystery religion elements to Jewish ideas. This is hardly the sort of thing that would convince someone not wanting to believe.

This is not a rebuttal to my point above because it doesn't offer the details of the argument which you cite.

I think you need to define "grew rapidly" first. I haven't seen any information that shows concrete evidence for how many Christians there were prior to Constantine.

Nor have I, but it was enough of a force that Constantine decided it would make a great political platform to adopt.

I think it's also a very strong statement to say "no good reason" for its growth without a resurrection. Even granting a rapid growth, I don't see how this really proves one thing one way or another.

The original question posed to me by REasonable Doubt was "What is the compelling evidence for the resurrection?" . I am making the claim that the church would never have gotten off the ground, much less spread as rapidly as it did by the 4th century, unless the resurrection had taken place. Given that A)the environment in which the faith matured was polytheistic providing many options to the religious, B)the initial followers (Jews) were not expecting a resurrected Jesus and C)the Jewish ruling class tried to end the schism (and included the empty tomb in their polemic), I believe the hypothesis with the most explanatory power is the physical resurrection of Jesus. what is your hypothesis and corresponding pieces of evidence?

Not even the most devout Christian apologist has claimed that the reason for the growth was because all of the converted "saw" Christ as Paul reportedly did or that they went to the supposed tomb location and did a thorough investigation. They converted because of a story they were told. That story could have been true or untrue. If many converted because they believed the story was true, that lends no credence whatsoever to the story itself being true, only that it was believed. Belief is not evidence of truth, it is evidence of belief.

So all truth is self-discovered truth? I guess I'm jusitifed in not believing what my organic chemistry professor taught me until I actually see the geometric patterns of carbon atoms. The fact that people converted to Christianity based on a "story" is no different than truth that you accept without yourself discovering it. Did you derive the Pythagorean theorem prior to using it or did you trust it was correct from the outset?

And belief can be evidence of truth, if in the absence of that truth the belief can shown to be unlikely. If a child says that he has been molested and we actually didn't witness the molestation, we usually understand that the belief would not be present unless the child was indeed molested. Now some children may lie in such instances, for whatever reason, but an account has to be given as to why they can't be trusted. Same for the disciples testimony about the resurrection.

By way of comparison, Scientology has "grown rapidly" in the 15 years of so since the death of L Ron Hubbard (no, I'm not a scientologist and no, I don't know how many members they have but it's certainly in the hundreds of thousands). Modern Scientologists tell stories about their religion and people believe them. I think you would grant that this doesn't mean the stories are true.

What stories are those? Elaborate on those stories so that we can compare them to the resurrection account. I'm not saying that other belief systems don't grow rapidly. What I am saying is that the growth of early Christianity can be best accounted for in light of an historical resurrection. In other words, growth doesn't evidence truth unless that growth would not have occured in the absence of the truth.

I don't have a hard time understanding why Jews living in a time of subjugation, when stories of a promised messiah were continually in the air, would find the stories of Jesus filled with hope and choose to follow the presbyters such as Paul. After all, if the choice was between traditional Judaism which said the messiah still had not arrived, the Roman state religion or something new that promised more, which would the peasantry most likely pick?

Well, you've beautifully stated my view exactly here. Promised Messiah's were indeed continually in the air - why did they, then pick Jesus over the others if it was just another "dime a dozen" story? Also, getting out from under the Roman empire was exactly what they all wanted Jesus to help them out with. However, he didn't do that. Indeed, he was executed instead. So how do you explain the growth of a church that was initially expecting a political saviour rather than a spiritual?

I just don't see how this is evidence of truth. At most, it _might_ be evidence that someone named Jesus lived in Palestine and was an itenerrant preacher and healer that had followers. That's not really saying much.

It compelled me as an agnostic, but I know that evidence that is compelling to one may not be to another!

Wow, that's quite a few fallacies to pack into one paragraph. First, you state that Jesus was either in a tomb or he was not, (obviously) and then you immediately assume that he was.

I do because the empty tomb is not a hotly debated item and largely taken for granted even by Crossan, et al. However, if you'd like to debate this issue, we can!

You then say either the tomb was empty or it was not (again, obviously, granting there was a tomb to begin with), and then you assume it was empty. Based on these assumptions you say there is no natural explanation for this "data". Well, there is no natural explanation because there is no "data".

If there's no data then your reply posts should be alot shorter. Out of nothing, nothing comes.

You are assuming the answer.

How so?

The only "data" we have are anecdotal stories from 2,000 years ago.

Well, unfortunately, peer-reviewed refereed journals were not around then so I'm afraid anecdotal is all you will find in literature coming out of that period. But more than that, the fact that it is anecdotal and written 2,000 years ago cannot rule out the historicity of its content a priori (which is exactly what you have done here and in what follows.)

4 of the stories rely on 1 other

There are 4 Gospels...are you referring to the Q source document as the 1 other or are you meaning 3 with the one other being Mark? Also, what is wrong with an author using a source?

, which means we have only 2 sources for the resurection story right out of the gate.

And since there are only two then the accounts must be false?????

The earliest of these stories is from no more recently than 40 years after the supposed events.

That's pretty darn good when it comes to ancient literature and argues strongly against it being myth, especially when you're talking about writings that were being circulated among Gnostic influences that the church could have easily included to beef up the "mythic" elements.

Paul, the earliest Christian writer makes no mention of the details of the resurection.

See I Corinthians 15. Are you going to argue that the context there requires Paul to go into further detail on things like physical location of the tomb? If so, why? The context is Paul laying out doctrine and not giving details such as those that would be given in a biography (like the Gospels!).

We don't even know where the supposed tomb is located with any degree of accuracy. I utterly fail to see how you can consider this "data" that needs an "explanation".

How much accuracy would you like?

You also don't seem to understand the skeptical mindset. The point is not that out senses define all "truth", it is that in the absense of extraordinary evidence, extraordinary claims cannot be taken at face value.

Your not being asked to take it at face value.

The more extraordinary a claim is, the more it is outside of everyday experience, the more evidence required for it to be believed.

The resurrection of Jesus is outside everyday experience. If it were not, there would be nothing different between Jesus and every one else who could undergo a resurrection. But that's not what is in question. The question is what kind and amount of evidence is required to give intellectual assent to such an event. As far as "kind" of evidence, historical biographies of the resurrection event are appropriate since it is, after all, an historical event. As for "amount" of evidence, you imply that more is needed - yet you haven't engaged the evidence we do have. Your argument is essentially that: the resurrection can't be true because an event of such magnitude cannot be believed on the basis of 2000 year old writings that use source documents and which do not give accurate details such as where the actual tomb is. The problem with this is that it rejects the documents a priori based on an arbitrary standard. So, what requirements would have to be met in order to make the resurrection accounts worthy of intellectual assent? Would they need to appear in 8 Gospels coming from 4 sources? Would they need to give the first names of the guards at the tomb?

Perhaps Jesus _did_ rise from the dead, but if the only evidence for this is 2 stories written 2,000 years ago, of which none is earlier than nearly a half century after the supposed fact, how can you expect a skeptic to take these stories more seriously than the many other stories of similar events in the past few thousands of years?

I take all religious literature seriously and try to investigate as many claims as I can. I don't expect the skeptic to give more favor to the Bible out of the gate. Also, I can only provide what has been convincing to me. Evidence is perceived and evaluated differently person to person.

I submit to you again that you do not believe in Christianity for these reasons. You believe because of what you were taught and because it makes you feel good, no different from any other follower of the worlds other religions.

The old genetic fallacy again (we've seen this fallacy multiply on this thread faster than e. coli in a petri dish!). I could just as easily say that you remain an atheist because you are just a product of your environment, but you wouldn't accept that. To tell you the truth, my faith at times is a source of great misery as I struggle to come to grips with the same existential issues that my fellow humans struggle with.

Thanks for listening!

jkb

[ April 19, 2002: Message edited by: sotzo ]</p>