Bobzammel

Here:

http://www.tektonics.org/nowayjose.html

Any thoughts on this?

Bobzammel

Some of my thoughts:

While Holding does have some good points, he seems too eager to point out Christianity's uniqueness-and too eager to point out the non-Christian world of the first century as morally decadent, unflexible and having "perfect" heroes and Gods, and therefore would not accept a dying-rising teacher.

Evangelion

In any case, it is totally foolish to claim that Christianity is somehow vindicated by an appeal to "uniqueness."

It doesn't matter to me if Christianity is unique or not. What matters most is the question "Is it right?"

Vorkosigan

'vange, it's bull. Most of it is plain wrong. It's been trashed extensively here.

Bobzammel

I should also note other religions no doubt threathened those who were rich or practiced orgies or so on. To call Christianity the only ethical system which had "unpopular teachings" is a little absurd. There were many moralists/prophets/religions in the Greco-Roman world who were frequently unpopular because they didn't offer high status.
Christianity's main selling point was perhaps the same as Buddhism--Apart from baptism and the Eucharist, it was a fairly ritual-free religion, which didn't require people to go cross-country to sacrifice lambs, or "hazing" like many mystery cults of the day. Hence to many Jewish people sick of the temple system-and there were quite a few-as well as gentiles curious about Judaism but unable to enter due to the complex laws-it provided an easy way to spread.
As for people bringing up historical problems with the gospels, that continues to this day. Plus add to the fact that the Gospels-which contain most historical details as oppossed to Paul's letters-were probably written decades after the time the events were said to have taken place. It is possible that many of the converts were 'not around' at the time, and since many did not have a copy of ANTIQUITIES on hand(and probably could not read!) they took what they heard for granted.

Evangelion

Just wait a couple of minutes, and it'll be trashed yet again.

This time by me.

Evangelion

Turkel's points:

The same kind of people who would by a similarly humiliated (but ultimately vindicated) hero. Remember, the Christians were initially troubled by the crucifixion of Christ. It nearly marked the end of faith for many of them.

Not a very good example, Turkel.


Irrelevant, since there were plenty of heroes from "the wrong side of the tracks" in Jewish and pagan literature. Just look at Jephthah, for example.


Turkel claims that the pagans objected to a literal, physical resurrection but provides no proof to vindicate such a claim.

He then performs a neat little bait-and-switch (as is his wont), replacing "physical resurrection" with "resurrection of Jesus." By this, he hopes to prove his (as yet unproved) claim.

But a closer examination of his work will show that he has deliberately highlighted the pagan objection to the resurrection of Christ, which tells us only that they refused to believe he had been raised (which we already knew) without proving that it was the concept of a physical resurrection with which they took issue. So Turkel bombs out again.


Not just superficial, but wildly false. The Christians repeatedly insisted that what they were teaching was not new, but had been previously revealed in the Old Testament. Jesus himself raises this same argument against Nicodemus, and again on the road to Emmaeus.

The apostle Paul followed suit, defending himself against charges of innovation and heresy by an appeal to the Jewish tradition:

• Acts 26:22-23.
  Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come:
  That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.

Totally facile, since there were plenty of pagan belief systems which required a decent pattern of behaviour from their adherents. The Romans (for example) favoured Stoicism, which placed virtue above all things.


Here again the Romans trump Turkel, being champions of religious tolerance in an intolerant era. His claim that they were "grossly intolerant" simply does not stand up under scrutiny, being soundly contradicted by the historical evidence.


Arguably the one good fruit in a barrel of bad apples. But the atheist sidesteps the force of this objection by claiming that the Gospel narratives were written conveniently after the death of those individuals who feature so prominently in their pages. Pilate wouldn't be coming back to refute the Christian claim that he had put Jesus on trial (he was already dead by that time) and so the Christians were at liberty to make it up as they went along.


Another facile objection, since a devoted believer can be expected to give up his life for a lie, especially if he has no way of knowing that it is indeed false.

Moreover, his claim that...

• persecution did not automatically equal martyrdom, and this is yet another reason why Christianity should not have thrived and survived.

...appears to rely on the bizarre assumption that (under normal circumstances) Christianity could only have been expected to survive if it had been reguarly fueled with the blood of martyrs.


Totally spurious, since pagan literature was rife with demigods. Doherty's comment...

• the idea that Jews, both in Palestine and across the empire, could have come to believe—or been converted to the idea by others—that a human man was the Son of God....To believe that ordinary Jews were willing to bestow on any human man, no matter how impressive, all the titles of divinity and full identification with the ancient God of Abraham is simply inconceivable.

...is particularly valuable here, not least because it is demonstrably true. If this was indeed what the Christians had attempted to do, they would have found themselves with a one-way ticket to Nowhereville. But they did not.

Christ is consistently portrayed as the Son of God (not God incarnate), and he clearly does not receive "all the titles of divinity", nor even "full identification with the ancient God of Abraham."

Indeed, his identity is deliberately kept separate from Yahweh's (being contrasted against it on numerous occasions) and not once is he identified as the God of the Jews himself.


Christianity was not the first egalitarian belief system, nor was it the last. And in any case, Paul made no attempt to liberate the slave of Philemon. Indeed, he insisted that Onesimus should return to his master, and taught that servants must submit to their superiors.


This objection is wholly without merit. Not once does Turkel prove that the account of the "open tomb" discovery would be necessarily rendersd less believable in the ancient world by the reference to women as the discoverers.

The few examples he advances as "proof" for this assertion, do not actually correspond with the case he is trying to make. They refer to (a) the role of women in ancient society, and (b) examples of ancient misogyny, but they do nothing to prove that a woman's account of this miraculous event would be (under normal circumstances) ignored by default.


Here Turkel merely reinvents Factor #10. See my remarks on that point, and apply them to #12.


A blatant reinvention of Factor $7, for which see my remarks on that point. Turkel is simply attempting to pad his essay with thinly-disguised repetition.


Totally facile, since the Greek and Roman mythological tradition consisted of gods who were very prone to the weaknesses that we would otherwise expect of mortal men and women. They were not omnipotent, they were not omniscient, and they frequently made mistakes.

In any case, this is a moot point, since the 1st Century Christians did not preach Christ as God, nor did they believe any such thing.


One final (desperate) reinvention: this time of Factor #10 (again.)

For which see my remarks there.