David Bowden

Actually, this thread was so named (by me ) because I desired feedback on a claim made by a former atheist to the effect that "the vast majority of... atheist scholars concur on these points [that Jesus existed, faced crucifixion, and disappeared from the tomb]."

Well, I assumed that the guy was exaggerating (read: probably lying) in order to justify his conversion, but I wanted to confirm my own gut instinct - maybe he knew something I didn't.

But thanks to your many well-informed postings, I've no doubt as to that former atheist's dishonesty, or at best, very poor understanding of the state of Jesus scholarship, whether done by atheists or believers.

Anyway, so I'm nit-picking, but... I didn't want word getting out that I name threads inaptly. I DO have a reputation to preserve.



In all seriousness, I want to thank all of you for sharing your knowledge and insights on my original question and its fascinating tangents - I'm glad it's grown beyond its original subject matter.

-Wanderer

[ March 11, 2002: Message edited by: wide-eyed wanderer ]

[ March 11, 2002: Message edited by: wide-eyed wanderer ]</p>

Vorkosigan

Why do we think we know the religious content of the beliefs of those people Paul talks about in Jerusalem?

Well, Paul talks about it, for one thing.

I think Paul needs to be read for what he says, not in a later interpretative framework. I agree. I never said that Cephas and Peter weren't the same person, or gave any opinion on the matter. So why did you bring it up? Why don't you start a new thread, and discuss the issue?

[b]Our first literary sources we can place are from someone from Tarsus, from Antioch, from Rome. Get the idea?[/QB][/QUOTE]

Sure. That is Ellegaard's argument. Also Earl Doherty's, that Christianity emerged first outside of Judea. The former even found some extremely slight evidence for Essenes in Rome in the first century BC. But the problem is that Paul clearly indicates that there is someone in authority in Jerusalem. Why is that, do you think?

Michael

spin

spin: "I think Paul needs to be read for what he says, not in a later interpretative framework."

David: "I know nothing about biblical scholarship or even literary criticism.

However, to me the same statement written in a different context in time and place can have a completely different meaning."

This is a given prerequisite of the reading. You need to know the context of the writing, later interpretative straightjackets are irrelevant, which was what my comment was about.

"If you just read what is said, you get nothing from the text at all."

This comment is an example of what you are talking about.

spin

spin: "Why do we think we know the religious content of the beliefs of those people Paul talks about in Jerusalem?"

Michael: "Well, Paul talks about it, for one thing."

He doesn't tell us anything about them, so you can't assume the content. We just know that he was in conflict with them.

spin: "I think Paul needs to be read for what he says, not in a later interpretative framework."

Michael: "I agree. I never said that Cephas and Peter weren't the same person, or gave any opinion on the matter. So why did you bring it up? Why don't you start a new thread, and discuss the issue?"

Reading Paul's letters are a difficult job. One cannot assume that they represent the texts he himself first wrote. I gave an example of the texts having been touched up by someone who knew about Peter, expanding for "clarity".

(I see nothing that needs discussing about the matter of Peter being inserted into a passage that uses Cephas. Though the insertion talks of Peter's gospel to the "circumcised", Paul's Corinthians don't need any explanation about Cephas. You may want to discuss it.)

spin: "Our first literary sources we can place are from someone from Tarsus, from Antioch, from Rome. Get the idea?"

Michael: "Sure. That is Ellegaard's argument. Also Earl Doherty's, that Christianity emerged first outside of Judea. The former even found some extremely slight evidence for Essenes in Rome in the first century BC. But the problem is that Paul clearly indicates that there is someone in authority in Jerusalem. Why is that, do you think?"

Paul is Jewish. Jerusalem is the centre of the Jewish religion. He always considered himself Jewish. He seems to have dealings with Jewish people in Jerusalem, that were somehow related to his messianic views. All good Jewish stuff for the era. The people he called pillars, but he got "nothing from them".

(I'm not up on either person you mention. My principle work is in another area.)

Godless Dave

<strong>You do not die for a lie, and CERTAINLY not for someone who never existed.</strong>

19 guys killed themselves last September 11 for a lie.

luvluv

Dave they didn't know it was a lie.

turtonm:

What is the fundamental reason that scholars do not think Jesus was an actual person?

Do scholars believe that the fall of Jerusalem was the start of Christianity as we now know it or is that just your idea? (Serious question, not an insult)

Also, with all due respect, I really cannot find any Old Testament verse which in anyway seems to speak to the parables. I think that Jesus, or whoever you want to say made up the parables and statments in the NT, had some pretty coherent and consistent ideas. He seemed to put acts of service and love over acts of ritual. He seemed to emphasize forgiveness. He taught in parables. In his almost exasperated frustration with the established religious community, he seems to have a consistent personality. ("How long have I desired to gather you under my wings... and ye would not").

Is there any other work of fiction from this time that imitates this style (realism)? It seems radically different from all the other religious text, and differs greatly even from the Old Testament and the prophets. If it is the work of an imagination, it demonstrates amazing consistency in terms of characterization (not only Jesus but people like Peter, for instance, seem to have a consistent personality), theme, style (consider how the author of John refers to himself in the first person as "the disciple Jesus loves). I admit I am not well read in terms of the criticisms you quote, but I am acquainted with the Bible as a finished product. The character of Jesus does not seem to be an amalgam. Unlike much of the rest of the Bible, the parables and the sermons he preached do seem to be the consistent philosophy of a single man.

So I ask again, can you name any document from the period similar to the New Testament in style?

Thanks.

lpetrich

Check out Earl Doherty's site on <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.com" target="_blank">The Jesus Puzzle</a> for a good statement of the mythicist case. In summary, Christianity had started out as a Jewish imitation of a pagan mystery cult of a dying and rising god, with its "god" gradually becoming interpreted as someone who had lived a human existence.

I don't get that impression. This is someone who vilified scribes and Pharisees, and who was very angry at those who would not listen to them. And was willing to zap a fig tree when he was hungry and when it was out of season.

Also, the Jesus Christ of the New Testament seems rather incoherent. Compare Paul, Revelation, Mark, "Q" (shared parts of Matthew and Luke not in Mark), and John.

What is "realism"? And why do you consider other fictional works from that time to have a "non-realist" style?

What makes you so sure? Paul's Christ seems something like some pagan savior god such as Attis, and "Q" seems a lot like the Cynic philosophers.

Sojourner553

Hi Wanderer --

We have essentially chosen the same name (me: I'm Sojourner)

The answer to how atheists view the crucifixion and resolution can be found on this site, which summerizes a lot of scholarly analysis:
<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/TOMB.TXT" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/TOMB.TXT</a>

After showing discrepancies between the gospels on details and how even christians can't agree if Jesus rose in the flesh and the spirit -- it has this to offer:

"Matthew's account gives more details on the resurrection and empty tomb than either Mark or Luke! The tomb, or sepulcher is guarded by soldiers. An "angel of the Lord" descends from heaven with the crashing sound of an
earthquake. The angel rolls back the heavy stone sealing the tomb. The guards run away in fear, and the women arrive on the scene to witness the
event and the empty tomb.

However, the Roman soldiers LOST their chance to give an INDEPENDENT witness of these events. Instead, we are told that they are bribed by the chief Jewish priest to say nothing! Little attention is often paid to what a lost opportunity to the Jews this was! The fact that Matthew states that the soldiers followed instructions and told no one, means that MOST Jews
probably never even heard of the resurrection from a source that they might consider reliable. Matthew reports how Jewish authorities told the soldiers to spread the rumor that Jesus' disciples stole the body from the tomb while
they were sleeping. Per Matthew 28:15, the soldiers:

"took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews UNTIL THIS DAY." (Matthew 28:15,emphasis mine.)

Note Matthew's use of the phrase "UNTIL THIS DAY" in the above passage. Matthew has revealed here that he is in fact writing some time AFTER
the resurrection, AND after the rumor of Jesus body being stolen had been commonly circulated among the Jews. Matthew (who had read Mark and probably found it necessary to add details which were missing or to correct errors he
saw), felt he had acquired additional information (which Mark did not have) that would counteract these Jewish claims. (Wells, WHO WAS JESUS)

None of the other gospel writers mention the presence of guards at Jesus' tomb--only Matthew's gospel mentions this. Because Matthew's account of
Jesus' resurrection uses similar phrases and imagery as exists in the Septuagint (especially the book of Daniel), some skeptics have maintained
that they believe Matthew "borrowed" some of his details, in his belief that the life of Jesus MUST be paralleling the Old Testament stories.

Some of the parallels between Matthew and Daniel are: (footnote: this analysis was taken from Randel Helms GOSPEL FICTIONS)

*Pilate ordered his soldiers to secure Jesus grave and they thus "sealed the stone". (Matthew 27: 62-66) When Daniel was placed in the lions'
den, a "stone was brought and put over the mouth of the pit, and the king sealed it." (Daniel 6:17 LXX)

*When Jesus' guards saw the angel of the Lord, whose "face shone like lightening", "the guards shook with fear and lay like the dead" (Matthew 28:3-4) When Daniel saw an angel whose "face shone like lightening", he found himself "trembling": "I fell prone on the ground in a trance" (Dan. 10:6,9)

*After the angel tells the women to witness to the disciples that Jesus had risen, they turn and see Jesus. The woman fell "prostrate before
him. (Matthew 28:9)-- just as Daniel "fell with my face to the earth" when he saw the angel Gabriel. Jesus' response is exactly the same as the angels: "Do not be afraid" (Daniel 10:9; Matthew 28:10)

Even Matthew's story of the rich Joseph of Arimathea who buried Jesus in a tomb he had originally purchased for himself has parallels "borrowed" from Isaiah's 53:9 "they made his grave...with the rich in his death. "

The early Christians, of course, took these parallels to mean that the events
of the New Testament were directed by God to parallel the Old Testament stories, and NOT that this meaning was "manufactured" by the gospel writers!

TRY THE NEXT CHAPTER THOUGH:
It shows how Jesus clearly predicted that he would return during the lifetimes of his contemporaries -- with all the Christian apologies (with refutations) why this did not occur.

<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/APOCALYP.TXT" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/APOCALYP.TXT</a>

this is the general site reference:

<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html</a>

Sojourner

luvluv

More questions:

Who's idea was it that the Jews would consider Jesus as the historical messiah predicted in Isaiah and other scriptures, and that they would be upset with him for not rising to overthrow the Roman government, as Peter thought that he would?

Did Peter and the other apostles exist? If not, who was Paul talking to when he cast aspersions at Peter for refusing to eat with Christians when orthodox Jews were around? If Paul existed, and he referred to Peter, can we assume that Peter existed? Or do you also doubt Paul's existence? And if Paul was real, and Peter was real, is it a stretch to assume that Paul knew that Jesus was real?

Why did the writers of the Gospels allow Peter to be so villified (denying Christ and the like)? It seems a brutally honest depiction, one that one would assume founders of this new religion would be apt to leave out.

lepteich:

I don't see anything inconsistent with Jesus not liking religious hypocrites. He seemed to prefer prostitutes, tax collectors, and just regular people. Again, this leads me to believe it is the consistent characterization of someone who hates pietism, hates religious hierarchy, and loves regular people. It's startlingly consistent characterization if it was indeed, all made up by one person one hundred years after the fact.

Also, I've never believed the fig story. I'm not saying I believe everything in the Gospels, but I definitely believe that Jesus was a real person.

spin

luvluv says: "Who's idea was it that the Jews would consider Jesus as the historical messiah predicted in Isaiah and other scriptures, and that they would be upset with him for not rising to overthrow the Roman government, as Peter thought that he would?"

It definitely wasn't the Jews. The suffering servant in Isaiah is the Jewish people.

"Did Peter and the other apostles exist? If not, who was Paul talking to when he cast aspersions at Peter for refusing to eat with Christians when orthodox Jews were around? If Paul existed, and he referred to Peter, can we assume that Peter existed? Or do you also doubt Paul's existence? And if Paul was real, and Peter was real, is it a stretch to assume that Paul knew that Jesus was real?"

I have talked about Galatians 2:7-8 elsewhere. Paul knows a Cephas as 1 Corinthians shows us and here in Galatians after mentioning Cephas, suddenly the text throws in references to Peter. These references are spurious. They do not fit into the discourse. After these two verses Paul goes back to using Cephas. If for Paul, Cephas was entrusted with the gospel to the circumsized then why do the Corinthians know him? Again in the Epistle to the Apostles, the writer is unaware that Cephas and Peter are the same person, for the names are given as two different apostles.

Paul knows a James, a John and a Cephas. The first two were real common names.

"Why did the writers of the Gospels allow Peter to be so villified (denying Christ and the like)?"

These sorts of things depend on which current of the early religion you belonged to. Peter gets off a lot better than Marcion.

"It seems a brutally honest depiction, one that one would assume founders of this new religion would be apt to leave out."

You need to know what was going on behind the scenes before you comment on such things. If you just had the Roman reports about the Christians, you'd think they were a bunch of depraved atheists. Like the Romans you probably don't have a good perspective on what you are trying to analyse (through modern rationalization).