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Old 09-14-2013, 12:03 PM   #11
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... Your claim is mere speculation and without a shred of evidence. There is no mention of Jesus of Nazareth as human or a Gnostic teacher in the entire writings of all existing non-apologetic writings.
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If you like to believe it, no one's stopping you! ..

In the second century of our era, were born more than 70 Gnostic sects: ALL revolving around the figure of Jesus of Nazareth! .. Everything was invented? .. And why invent the existence of so many Gnostic sects? ... This does not make sense ...

About Jesus spoke the rabbis of the first centuries (see the Talmud and other) and the Mandaeans of Mesopotamia. Why talk about Jesus if this character had never existed? ... To support the alleged 'inventions' of the church fathers of the time? ... All this does not make sense ...

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Old 09-14-2013, 12:17 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by aa5874 View Post

... Your claim is mere speculation and without a shred of evidence. There is no mention of Jesus of Nazareth as human or a Gnostic teacher in the entire writings of all existing non-apologetic writings.
.
.
If you like to believe it, no one's stopping you! ..

In the second century of our era, were born more than 70 Gnostic sects: ALL revolving around the figure of Jesus of Nazareth! .. Everything was invented? .. And why invent the existence of so many Gnostic sects? ... This does not make sense ...

About Jesus spoke the rabbis of the first centuries (see the Talmud and other) and the Mandaeans of Mesopotamia. Why talk about Jesus if this character had never existed? ... To support the alleged 'inventions' of the church fathers of the time? ... All this does not make sense ...

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Why did the Greeks and Roman INVENT so many Mythological Gods and mythological figures?--it does not make sense.

There were HUNDREDS of Mythological Gods and characters in the time when the Myth Fables of Jesus were accepted by Greeks and Romans.

After all, it was the very same Greeks and Romans who worshiped Myths as Gods who worshiped one who was born of a Ghost as the Creator under the name of Jesus, a son of a God.

It is multiple attested and documented for hundreds of years that Jesus was the born after his mother was made pregnant by a Ghost.

It does not make sense for Christians to claim Jesus was the Son of a Ghost if it was NOT accepted as true.

Jesus was TRULY the Son of a Ghost in the Bible. The Bible is the Flagship of Mythology.
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Old 09-14-2013, 12:58 PM   #13
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Why did the Greeks and Roman INVENT so many Mythological Gods and mythological figures?--it does not make sense.
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This your 'parallel' is absurd and meaningless! .. What's with the many pagan gods? .. Here we are talking about ONE alleged God, namely Jesus of Nazareth! ..

Possible that you can not realize that if the counterfeiter fathers of the origins had wanted to build a cult around a character ever existed, they would go looking for him in the East, where no one in the West would have been able to belie them?! .. .

How can you invent the figure of a Jew of the first century, when even the silliest of the Jews would have been able to refute them? .. In NOWHERE, in the rabbinical writings, it is shows that Jesus was not a real historical character, but only that he was a character very different from the one 'marketed' by the counterfeiter fathers of the origins: and the rabbis were perfectly right! ..

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Old 09-14-2013, 01:40 PM   #14
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Toto: (from a post of 02-27-2006)

Robert Eisenman has weighed in on the question, on the Huffington Post:

"Rehabilitating 'Judas Iscariot'"
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Judas Iscariot was a fictional character, created to hide behind it a real character. However, this 'hidden' character can not be rehabilitated, because it was a murderess, lover of money ...

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Old 09-14-2013, 02:46 PM   #15
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Color me stupid,but I can not find much on the Gospel of Judas.
A quick summary:

Around 30-40 years ago a Coptic manuscript was discovered, under unknown circumstances, somewhere in Egypt. It contained a text calling itself the "gospel of Judas". After a colourful career it was published very recently.

The text itself contains ideas belonging to the heresy of the gnostics, who mixed ideas from pop-paganism with Christian teaching. The original text was in Greek, and perhaps belongs to the 2nd century AD. It may have belonged to a rather fringe group, since we have very little in the way of references to it in ancient literature.

At some point it was translated into Coptic, perhaps in the 3rd century AD (since literary Coptic itself doesn't develop that early). It may also have been edited at that time to increase the gnostic element, for all we know. The physical handwritten copy (=manuscript) of the text probably belonged to a Coptic monastery, as these were notorious for collecting offbeat apocryphal literature. The book was probably buried or hidden away during one of the purges ordered by bishops like Shenoute from the 4th century onwards, and forgotten; and probably found by a peasant tilling a field.

Nothing in this text has any connection with Jesus or first century Christianity. Indeed the composition of spurious gospels by outside groups, presumably to win converts from Christian groups, commences in the 2nd century AD and has continued even to our own day in a small way.

But part of the interest of very early texts of this kind, however, is the possibility that the authors of them might have had some contact with the oral tradition about the life and teachings of Christ, which perhaps did not make it into the canonical texts. In general there is unfortunately very little evidence of such, however. The possibility has been enough to get quite a bit of funding, however.

I hope that helps. :-)

All the best,

Roger Pearse


Well said Roger.

More then anything it gives us insight to how wide diverse early christianity actually was.
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Old 09-14-2013, 02:47 PM   #16
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Quote:

Toto: (from a post of 02-27-2006)

Robert Eisenman has weighed in on the question, on the Huffington Post:

"Rehabilitating 'Judas Iscariot'"
.
.
Judas Iscariot was a fictional character, created to hide behind it a real character. However, this 'hidden' character can not be rehabilitated, because it was a murderess, lover of money ...

.

While I agree that he may have been a fictional character, it cannot be said with certainty.
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Old 09-14-2013, 10:07 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Littlejohn View Post
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Judas Iscariot was a fictional character, created to hide behind it a real character. However, this 'hidden' character can not be rehabilitated, because it was a murderess, lover of money ...
.
While I agree that he may have been a fictional character, it cannot be said with certainty
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I can assure you that this can be said with almost absolute certainty. However, I can not now explain why: at least until my book, which I started writing in late 2005, will not be published ...

.
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Old 09-15-2013, 10:52 AM   #18
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While I agree that he may have been a fictional character, it cannot be said with certainty
.
I can assure you that this can be said with almost absolute certainty. However, I can not now explain why: at least until my book, which I started writing in late 2005, will not be published ...

.

If your book was finished, you still could not say with certainty.
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Old 09-15-2013, 12:19 PM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Littlejohn View Post

I can assure you that this can be said with almost absolute certainty. However, I can not now explain why: at least until my book, which I started writing in late 2005, will not be published ...

.

If your book was finished, you still could not say with certainty

.
Who will live, he will see...

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Old 09-15-2013, 02:44 PM   #20
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Originally Posted by outhouse View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Pearse View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by bleubird View Post
Color me stupid,but I can not find much on the Gospel of Judas.
A quick summary:

Around 30-40 years ago a Coptic manuscript was discovered, under unknown circumstances, somewhere in Egypt. It contained a text calling itself the "gospel of Judas". After a colourful career it was published very recently.

The text itself contains ideas belonging to the heresy of the gnostics, who mixed ideas from pop-paganism with Christian teaching. The original text was in Greek, and perhaps belongs to the 2nd century AD. It may have belonged to a rather fringe group, since we have very little in the way of references to it in ancient literature.

At some point it was translated into Coptic, perhaps in the 3rd century AD (since literary Coptic itself doesn't develop that early). It may also have been edited at that time to increase the gnostic element, for all we know. The physical handwritten copy (=manuscript) of the text probably belonged to a Coptic monastery, as these were notorious for collecting offbeat apocryphal literature. The book was probably buried or hidden away during one of the purges ordered by bishops like Shenoute from the 4th century onwards, and forgotten; and probably found by a peasant tilling a field.

Nothing in this text has any connection with Jesus or first century Christianity. Indeed the composition of spurious gospels by outside groups, presumably to win converts from Christian groups, commences in the 2nd century AD and has continued even to our own day in a small way.

But part of the interest of very early texts of this kind, however, is the possibility that the authors of them might have had some contact with the oral tradition about the life and teachings of Christ, which perhaps did not make it into the canonical texts. In general there is unfortunately very little evidence of such, however. The possibility has been enough to get quite a bit of funding, however.

I hope that helps. :-)

All the best,

Roger Pearse


Well said Roger.

More then anything it gives us insight to how wide diverse early christianity actually was.

One massive item of problematic negative evidence against the wide and diverse early Christianity hypothesis is the almost universal standard use of the nomina sacra by both the so-called orthodox canon preservers and the so-called gnostic heretical non canonical preservers - for x centuries, where x = 2 or 3.

Would anyone care to try and explain this?
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