TedM

Very nice gurugeorge! I like your attempt at this reconstruction. A few questions occur to me, though not wanting to get into a big discussion..just curious..:


Why would they think this, which seems to be a radically new idea (ie a secret Messiah)? And, why wouldn't they have thought instead that he had been born and was (secretly) living among them to become the traditional messiah-king in the near future?


1. Why would the author have thought that the Jews were stupid for not recognizing a secretive and obscure Messiah?
2. Why would the author concoct a story about the Messiah's activities?
3. Why would the author accuse Jews for being too stupid to recognize a character whose activities he himself made up?
4. Why would the author place this character as interacting with well-known Jewish figures if he was supposed to have been a 'secret'?
5. Why didn't the author retain the idea that Jesus would come again in order to destroy the Romans?
6. What do you think this author actually believed to be true?

Thanks, Ted

aa5874

Your argument that either MUST have been small cannot be corroborated.

No evidence corrobarates a Messianic ruler called Jesus of Nazareth [spiritual or physical].

If Jesus the Messianic ruler did NOT exist there would be NO evidence of his existence and that is PRECISELY what the evidence shows.

If there was NO evidence that a defendant committed a crime then it can be argued that he NEVER EVER carried out such crime.


Your are contradicting yourself. You just claimed Paul had a scornful view of the "disciples" yet claim there is no "discipleship" in the Pauline writings.

I have already pointed out the massive contradictions between the Markan and Pauline Jesus.

1. The GOSPEL of the Markan Jesus is that the Kingdom of God was imminent.

2. The Markan Jesus did NOT want the Populace to be converted.

3. The Markan Jesus was NOT known and did NOT want to be known as Christ to the Populace
.
4. Up to the time gMark was composed, it was NOT known by the audience that the Son of God was raised from the dead.

5. Up to the time of the composition of gMark, no-one was told by the disciples that Jesus was raised from the dead.

Where do you get your numbers from? Which Paul are you talking about? There are more than one Paul. At least one is Fake.

Justin Martyr an author who claimed the Jesus cult met in one place on Sundays did NOT mention the assemblies of Paul.

There were no assemblies of the Jesus cult in the 1st century based on Philo, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius.


Who have you convinced of your unsubstantiated stories about Gaius and Paul? Have you not already admitted you have little or no knowledge of Greek?

You seem to be operating on a double standard.

I am dealing with the written statements of antiquity.

I have very little time to waste with flawed opinion.

My arguments are based on what is actually found written NOT what is presumed.

It is absurd to suggest that you can invent your own history of Gaius and Paul with hardly any knowledge of Greek and then claim that I have a heavier burden of proof.

You must be held responsible for your own inventions.

I invent nothing. I show you what is written--NOT invented.

There is absolutely no need for me to get involved with "original languages" when there are professional translators who have already translated manuscripts found in Greek, Syriac, Latin and other languages into English.

In fact, it is far better for me that all translations of ancient texts be done by independent professional translators.

Even in Court trials, it is not mandatory that all jurors, the judge or attorneys know all languages and dialects of every defendant and witness.

After independent translations of Greek texts of the NT it is found in the Sinaiticus gMark that it was claimed that the Jesus character preached the Gospel that the Kingdom of God was at hand, that he did NOT want the populace to be converted but to REMAIN IN SIN, that he did NOT want them to call him the Christ and that the Populace was NOT told Jesus was raised from the dead.

The early Markan Jesus story PREDATED and Contradict the Pauline fabrications of his post-resurrection visits by Jesus to Cephas, the disciples, apostles, James and OVER 500 people.

The Markan Jesus story was based on supposed Prophecies in Daniel and other Prophets but Paul got his story of Jesus from the Scriptures of the Jesus cult writers sometime in the 2nd century or later.

J-D

Fallacy of affirming the consequent.

MrMacSon

aa5874, gurugeorge is referring to "belief in a Messiah"

aa5874

What absolute absurdity you post!!

ANY argument for non-existence must, must, must be based on NO evidence of existence.

This is most basic.

It is known throughout the world and at any level that NO evidence of existence allows the argument for NON-EXISTENCE.

Jesus of Nazareth NEVER did exist in Galilee as described in the NT Canon.

Jesus of Nazareth was a Myth based on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, gMark, writings attributed to Ignatius, Justin, Aristides, Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Mimucius Felix, Arnobius, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, Augustine, the NT Canon and others.

The Jesus cult was started when people of antiquity BELIEVED the Myth Fable that the Jews Killed the Son of God.

aa5874

Why don't you allow gurugeorge to explain his story? Perhaps to can Tell me what you are talking about because gurugeorge may be confused at this time.

Now, I am talking about the BELIEF of the Jesus cult.

The Belief in the Jesus story did NOT happen until the 2nd century.

We have Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius.

Vespasian was regarded as the Prophesies Messianic ruler PREDICTED in Hebrew Scripture.

gurugeorge

The way I picture it is, there's a burst of optimism, it looks like God is finally on their side. Could it be that the tide has turned? If so what's the cause of it? Let's look in the LXV, to see if anything has been prophesied. Ah! Could this be it (the "humble servant" in Isaiah, etc.)? Perhaps he came and nobody noticed! OMG what a clever ploy! (He was able to pay the blood price to redeem us, something the Archons wouldn't have let happen if they'd known who he was - this is a gnostic idea, but it's attested fairly early - cf. April De Conick's book on GThomas - and fits here beautifully.)

He has to have been dead and resurrected, or returned to a spiritual dimension, or whatever, of course, for this to work - but he will come again in full glory, and those of us who have seen this truth and accept it, he will gather us into his fold, etc., etc. Note also, that it was the common thing to proclaim this or that contemporary as the Messiah, these people had a cooler idea, solidly based (as they felt) on scripture.

There follow paroxysms of mystical feeling, visions, etc.

The miracles. They ought to have figured it out. It's like, "Dudes, come ON!"

The early biography is just the sketch (came, crucified, risen). But due to the nature of the format of worship (as per Paul, more or less like a spiritualist church in some ways), you have people "channelling" sayings or doings from Jesus. As I suggest, these might be the real-world equivalent of the "oral tradition" in HJ reconstructions - bits and pieces, some are liked, get passed around. But GMark (or as it may be the Marcionite gospel, or the ur-Luke) is the first fully fleshed-out biography. Perhaps he uses bits of these "peoples'" prophetic oral transmissions, perhaps not - hard to say. It might have just all been made up by him out of whole cloth, cutting and pasting bits of LXV, Homer, etc., etc., as some suggest. (Alternatively, of course, fragments of "channelling" that were passed around in the community would have had similar sources in the unconscious of the channelers - as well as bits of Cynic philosophy that people had picked up, etc., etc.)

He doesn't make it up, he believes there's evidence of it (at least the basic sketch) in holy scripture, and perhaps in his own spiritual experience. It might be he's trying to work it out for himself - how did things go so horribly wrong, maybe people were just too stupid to see it? Also, remember the stupidity is more on the side of the "disciples" - again, I think this may be some kind of reflection that the "apostles" didn't do a good enough job, only he's got the idea in his head that the "apostles" (who were in reality merely apostles of an idea) were also personal disciples (an idea found nowhere in Paul, unless you read Paul with gospel-shaped glasses).

That he's the Messiah is the secret.

Too late by that time? Ditched the idea?

I think he was possibly a Gnostic, or in orthodox terms a proto-Gnostic - as, effectively all early Christianity was, not in terms of the idea of "secret teachings", but in terms of the main mechanics of the cosmology, ideas of redemption, etc. - and GMark was an attempt at an "exoteric" text to attract people to the religion with a cool story.

But I'm not all that certain about it, it just seems the best idea to me. There are various options. The whole thing might have been conceived as a satire, based on bits of Christian ideas the guy had heard!

gurugeorge

I accept the orthodox datings (which are partly based on philology, i.e. what forms of language were used at various times, and therefore exempt from considerations of who is mentioned when); IF those orthodox datings are correct, then there was some sort of Christian cult prior to 70 CE. If it's not mentioned in contemporary sources, then it MUST have been too small to register on those authors' radars.

If he didn't exist, there would be no evidence, true, but the absence of evidence doesn't demonstrate that he didn't exist. That's a fallacy, as J-D has pointed out.

That's because of the format of the judicial process: the burden of proof is on the prosecution to provide the evidence, because they're the ones making the positive claim that a crime has been committed. Still and all, we all know that it's quite possible the defendant DID commit the crime, even if there's no evidence he did. He might have just been clever in cleaning up his tracks.

The judicial process takes this format because it's considered overall worse to convict an innocent man, than to let a guilty man go free - therefore the prosecution has to prove a positive, the defence doesn't have to prove a negative.

Paul had a scornful view of the apostles (which is the name he's using for these people). It's GMark's idea that the apostles were also personal disciples. The scornful view that's shared between them pertains to the named people, their roles are a bit different in Paul and GMark (in Paul's case, apostles, in GMark's case, both apostles and disciples).

Those contradictions only hold ("up to the time of") granted your basic thesis of a late Paul. With a Paul earlier than Mark, it's all just development and mutation of an idea.

Oh I agree - a fair bit of the "Pauline Corpus" is undoubtedly fake.

One can't put numbers on this of course, one can only talk roughly in relative terms. As I said above: if the orthodox dating is right, then there must have been some Christian movement prior to 70 CE, but if so, it must have been very small because it's not mentioned by contemporary authors.

As I pointed out long ago, there could be any number of reasons for non-mention of Paul. Not all "churches" were seeded by Paul.

On the other hand, it may be the case that JM does indeed mention Paul, the real Paul, i.e. Simon Magus.

Something has to be invented, because all we've got is a bunch of texts of dubious provenance. There has to be some story around those texts, how they came to be, etc. Something has to be invented - but it has to be consistent with the evidence and with at least some of the serious scholarship around the evidence (this is science, conjecture and refutation - unfortunately science's normal further recourse of refutation by failed prediction is unavailable, except insofar as one might be able to predict what kinds of texts or archaeological artefacts might be found in the future).

Now for sure, internal consistency in what the texts overtly avow is an important factor, but the relative times of when things are said is also important. You are claiming that the orthodox dating of the texts is wildly, wildly inaccurate. Your burden of proof is higher than mine. All I'm saying is that it would help your position a lot to dig deeper and learn the languages and/or utilize the scholarship of those who believe something similar to you.

aa5874

Your acceptance of the blatant PRESUMPTIONS of 'orthodoxy' is frightening since your very argument for a Myth Jesus is contrary to 'orthodoxy'.


Your posts are littered with fallacies and unsubstantiated inventions.

The author of gMark does NOT date the advent of Christ and does NOT give a date to around 0 CE.

The author of gMark gave ZERO clue to the age of his Jesus character up to the day he was crucified under Pilate after a trial with Sanhedrin and was found guilty of death for blasphemy.

Well, please explain why you are accepting the unsubstantiated dubious dates by 'orthodoxy' while simultaneously admitting there were inventions [ a bunch of dubious texts].

It is clear that the Pauline Corpus was one of those inventions [a bunch of dubious texts].

We know the Pauline Corpus was invented AFTER the late 2nd century because Apologetic writers that NEEDED the Pauline Corpus to ENHANCE their arguments wrote NOTHING of Paul, his assemblies, his evangelism of the Roman Empire and his MARTYRDOM.

Again, you promote fallacies. I have NOT stated that " the orthodox dating of the texts is wildly, wildly inaccurate".

If you cannot even repeat my position then why are you responding to my posts??

I have shown multiple times that the NEW TESTAMENT manuscripts that have been recovered have been DATED to the 2nd century or later by PALEOGRAPHY.

My argument is BASED on the DATED manuscripts like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the DATED NT manuscripts.

Where do you get your dates from??

There is simple NO manuscripts of the Jesus story and Paul dated to the 1st century about a heavenly, spiritual, physical or earthly Jesus of Nazareth.

ALL the present available dated manuscripts support a 2nd century start for the Jesus cult.

Jesus cult writers like Justin, Aristides, Minucius Felix and Arnobius show that the Pauline Corpus was unknown and was NOT needed for the development of the Jesus cult.

J-D

No, it isn't.

But it is most basic that any argument relying on converse error is fallacious.

What absolute absurdity you post!!!

&!!!!!