The Historical Jesus III

[Mcreal]

Yes,
Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist? had extremely poor arguments for Jesus' existence.

A bare assertion about "something behind the gospels and the epistles, Aramaic something" was about it.

Ehrman has also said -

"In the entire first century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religious scholar, politician, philosopher, or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and is never found in a piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references!"​

There are few 2nd century references too. But G'Don knows this

• Silence in Paul and early writings
• Similarities of silence in First and Second Century writings

It's just that G'Don special-pleads to avoid the paucity of information.

 

[GDon]

The problem is that Ehrman is given the impression in what he is publicly saying that the Christ Myth theory in its entirety is the domain of the kind of loony toony world that Holocaust deniers and believers in the Moon landing hoax believers live in.

No, that's what people like to claim the problem is. But if you read his book, he states that some mythicists "do deserve to be taken seriously", as I quoted him above. It's something he repeats elsewhere as well. But I agree that Ehrman gives the impression that the Christ Myth theory is overwhelmingly the domain of conspiracy theories. I think he is more right than wrong on that. But this is perhaps something we can agree to disagree on.

As for Ehrman's book, I agree it could have been much better.

 

[GDon]

Ehrman has also said -

"In the entire first century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religious scholar, politician, philosopher, or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and is never found in a piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references!"​

There are few 2nd century references too. But G'Don knows this

• Silence in Paul and early writings
• Similarities of silence in First and Second Century writings

It's just that G'Don special-pleads to avoid the paucity of information.

I what now? What am I special pleading about? There is definitely a paucity of 'historical' details about almost everything in early writings, and Stanton notes that "precise historical and chronological references are few and far between in the numerous Jewish writings discovered in the caves around the Dead Sea near Qumran", as per the link you give to my review of Carrier's book above.

Doherty himself notes that much of the Second Century writings are like that, and share this in common with the First Century writings. And this is why it is so hard to date when many of the early writings were done. That's something ignored by Carrier AFAICS, whom seems to suggest it is something peculiar to Paul. As Carrier puts it, it is "bizarre. And bizarre means unexpected, which about means infrequent, which means improbable." But he is simply wrong.

So what am I special pleading about?

 

[GDon]

This is a post written by Ben C Smith on the old IIDB board, called " Paul and his older contemporary, Jesus."

Paul and his older contemporary, Jesus.

Did Paul think of Jesus as a mythical figure from primordial times? Did he think of Jesus as an historical figure from the indefinite past? Or did he think of Jesus as an historical figure within living memory? Here I offer some evidence for the last of those three options. See what you think.

Evidence that Paul regarded Jesus as a real human being in real human history, not from the age of myth:

1. Jesus must have lived after Adam, since Paul calls him the latter Adam (1 Corinthians 15.22, 45).

2. Jesus must have lived after Abraham, since Paul calls him the seed (descendant) of Abraham (Galatians 3.16).

3. Jesus must have lived after Moses, since Paul says that he was the end of the law of Moses (Romans 10.4-5).

4. Jesus must have lived after David, since Paul calls him the seed (descendant) of David (Romans 1.4).

Evidence that Paul regarded Jesus as having lived recently, within living memory, as an older contemporary:

1. Paul claims to have had dealings with the brother of the Lord, James (Galatians 1.19; 1 Corinthians 9.5). [I've removed this one since it is an attention hog: GDon]

2. Paul believes he is living in the end times (1 Corinthians 10.11), that he himself (1 Thessalonians 4.15; 1 Corinthians 15.51) or at least his converts (1 Thessalonians 5.23; 2 Corinthians 4.14) might well live to see the parousia. Paul also believes that the resurrection of Jesus was not just an ordinary resuscitation of the kind Elijah or Elisha supposedly wrought; it was the first instance of the general resurrection from the dead at the end of the age (1 Corinthians 15.13, 20-28). When, then, does Paul think Jesus rose from the dead? If, for Paul, he rose from the dead at some point in the indeterminate past, then we must explain either (A) why Paul thought the general resurrection had begun (with Jesus) well before the end times or (B) why Paul regarded the end times as a span of time stretching from the misty past all the way to the present. If, however, Paul regarded the resurrection of Jesus as a recent phenomenon, all is explained. The resurrection of Jesus was the beginning of the general resurrection and thus the ultimate sign that the end times were underway.

3. Paul expects that he might see the general resurrection in his own lifetime (1 Corinthians 15.51). He also calls Jesus the firstfruits of that resurrection. Since the firstfruits of the harvest precede the main harvest itself by only a short time, the very metaphor works better with a short time between the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of the rest of the dead, implying that the resurrection of Jesus was recent for Paul.

4. There is, for Paul, no generation gap between the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15.4). Furthermore, there is no generation gap between the recipients of the resurrection appearances and Paul himself; he is personally acquainted with the first recipient of a resurrection appearance (1 Corinthians 15.5; Galatians 1.18). Is there a gap between the resurrection and the first appearance? The flow of 1 Corinthians 15.3-8 would certainly not suggest one; however, I believe we can go further.

Paul claims that Jesus was the end of the law for those who have faith (Romans 10.4), that he was raised from the dead in order to justify humans (Romans 4.25), and that this justification comes by faith (Romans 5.1) in Jesus (Romans 3.22). Paul also claims that no one can have faith unless he first hears the gospel from a preacher (Romans 10.14) who is sent (Romans 10.15). Finally, Paul acknowledges that it was at the present time (Romans 3.26) that God showed forth his justice apart from the law (Romans 3.21), and that the sent ones, the apostles, were to come last of all (1 Corinthians 4.9); he also implies that the resurrection appearances were the occasion of the sending out of apostles (1 Corinthians 9.1; 15.7, 9; Galatians 1.15-16). If we presume that, for Paul, Jesus was raised in the distant past but only recently revealed to the apostles, we must take pains to account for this gap; why, for Paul, did Jesus die in order to end the law and justify humans but then wait indefinitely before making this justification available to humans? If, however, we presume that, for Paul, Jesus was raised recently, shortly before appearing to all the apostles, all is explained. That was the right time (Romans 5.6).

5. Paul writes that God sent forth his son to redeem those under the law in the fullness of time (Galatians 4.4). It is easier to suppose that, for Paul, the fullness of time had some direct correspondence to the end of the ages (1 Corinthians 10.11) than to imagine that the fullness of time came, Jesus died, and then everybody had to wait another long expanse of time for the death to actually apply to humanity.

An apparently undesigned coincidence involving the life and times of John the baptist:

Imagine that Paul (and other early Christians) really had no particular time in mind for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus; as far as they were concerned, he lived and died in the indefinite past, or even in times primeval. Now imagine yourself as Mark the evangelist, taking this general, indefinite timeframe and historicizing it into a specific setting, under Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate in the late twenties or early thirties. Why would you settle on that time? Why not under the Maccabees, or during the exile, or a little after Pompey, or any of a thousand different possibilities?

1. Mark could have reasoned from all the points above that Jesus was an older contemporary of Paul (the apostle knew his brother, thought the end times had begun, called Jesus the firstfruits of the final resurrection, apparently did not conceive of a gap between justification won and justification applied, and said Jesus was sent in the fullness of time).

2. Mark could have been looking for a precedent for Christian baptism. Paul describes the institution of the other great Christian ritual, the eucharist, in 1 Corinthians 11.23-25, but does not in his extant epistles describe the institution of baptism, even though, despite not having been sent to baptize (1 Corinthians 1.17), he baptizes anyway (1 Corinthians 1.16!). Mark could have lit upon John the baptist as the perfect rationale for Christian baptism; if the movement began within baptist circles, then Christian baptism stands explained. If not, he would have to seek another source for Christian baptism.

3. Mark could have been looking for a good timeframe for the dominical words in 1 Corinthians 7.10-11, in which the Lord, not Paul, prohibits both partners in a marriage, husband and wife, from divorcing. Mark could have noticed that such a command makes more sense to a gentile readership (like the Corinthians) than to a Jewish audience (virtually necessary if he is going to put these words on the lips of the Jewish Jesus in Galilee), since only men could customarily initiate a divorce in Jewish society. So did Mark have to drop the female half of the command? He did not (Mark 10.11-12). He found the perfect time for such a saying, to wit, not long after Herodias had flouted Jewish custom and initiated the divorce from her husband in order to marry Herod Antipas (Josephus, Antiquities 18.5.4 §136), who in turn had John the baptist killed for his criticism of their marriage (Mark 6.17-18).

———

We do not really need to know which of these reasons caused Mark to decide on the tenures of Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate as a good time in which to place a previously timeless Jesus. The point is that he had too many good reasons to place him in that timeframe: James the brother of the Lord, the Jewish association of resurrection with the end times, the metaphor of the firstfruits, the difficulty of inserting a gap between justification won and justification applied, the fullness of time, the origin of Christian baptism with John the baptist, and the suitability of both halves of the divorce saying to time of the execution of John the baptist.

All these reasons converge on a time within recent memory for Paul the apostle. Is that a coincidence? Or is that because that is indeed when a man named Jesus lived and had brothers and fulfilled the times and was baptized by John and prohibited women from initiating divorce and died and purportedly rose again? Or is there some other explanation?

Ben C Smith

 

[Mcreal]

I what now? What am I special pleading about? There is definitely a paucity of 'historical' details about almost everything in early writings, and Stanton notes that "precise historical and chronological references are few and far between in the numerous Jewish writings discovered in the caves around the Dead Sea near Qumran", as per the link you give to my review of Carrier's book above.

Doherty himself notes that much of the Second Century writings are like that, and share this in common with the First Century writings. And this is why it is so hard to date when many of the early writings were done. That's something ignored by Carrier AFAICS, whom seems to suggest it is something peculiar to Paul. As Carrier puts it, it is "bizarre. And bizarre means unexpected, which about means infrequent, which means improbable." But he is simply wrong.

So what am I special pleading about?

You state all that, about a paucity of 'historical' details, then say ... "wrong".

You're special-pleading and denying the antecedent; a fallacy.

And, you're silly enough to deny an antecedent you have written about and affirmed.
.

 

[Mcreal]

So many 2nd century texts don't mention Jesus -

Theophilus's Apology to Autolycus doesn't: no mention in any of the three Books!;

nor does Tatian's Address to the Greeks, the Shepherd of Hermas, or The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus.

How many others don't ??!

and the Shepherd of Hermas was in the Codex Sinaticus canon.

 

[Leumas]

... But I agree that Ehrman gives the impression that the Christ Myth theory is overwhelmingly the domain of conspiracy theories. I think he is more right than wrong on that. But this is perhaps something we can agree to disagree on.....

Christianity is itself a kooky conspiracy theory in the first place. Any discussion about it trying to debunk it may sound like a conspiracy theory because Christianity IS a conspiracy theory.

• The OT is a big conspiracy with hidden messages as to Jesus' coming
• Jesus and God conspired to have Jesus participate in a gay BDSM session
• Jews conspired to arrange for young sexy Roman soldiers wearing domineering uniforms to give Jesus his gay BDSM session
• Judas and the Jews conspired to plan Jesus' gay BDSM session starting with a hot sexy sloppy kiss
• Judas and Satan conspired to arrange Jesus' gay BDSM session
• Jesus and Satan conspired to ENTER Judas so that he would go arrange for Jesus' gay BDSM session
• Jesus and the disciples conspired to keep Jesus in the closet
• Jesus conspired with the disciples and the almost naked lad who ran away from the garden of Gethsemane to keep the "mystery" from the people by using parables gobbledygook to "teach" them the secrets of the "mystery"

 

[GDon]

You state all that, about a paucity of 'historical' details, then say ... "wrong".

You're special-pleading and denying the antecedent; a fallacy.

And, you're silly enough to deny an antecedent you have written about and affirmed.

I'm sorry, I don't understand your point. Yes, I state all that about a paucity of 'historical' details in the First Century and Second Century writings, then I say... that Carrier is wrong in stating that Paul's paucity of historical details is 'unexpected, which about means infrequent, which means improbable'.

What do you think I am stating?

 

[GDon]

So many 2nd century texts don't mention Jesus -

Theophilus's Apology to Autolycus doesn't: no mention in any of the three Books!;

nor does Tatian's Address to the Greeks, the Shepherd of Hermas, or The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus.

How many others don't ??!

and the Shepherd of Hermas was in the Codex Sinaticus canon.

Exactly. As Doherty writes:

Another aspect is the fact that in almost all the [Second Century CE] apologists we find a total lack of a sense of history... In this, of course, they are much like the 1st century epistle writers.​

I give a list of items in the link you gave to my review earlier.

 

[Leumas]

<snip an entire article without any links>

Rubbish... none of the points have any relevance to any historic flesh and blood normal man who was not the bastard son of god because all of them can be destroyed with one reply... Jesus the SON OF GOD was incarnated as a man inside the womb of a 13 years old virgin girl from the progeny of a wife-pimping Sumerian whom god cheated over and over again and had him eventually cut off the tip of his privates.

So that does not mean he was a historical man.... it means that Christianity is a DELUSIONAL claptrap starting with Paul onwards.

But I am still pondering... how exactly does it reflect on liberal Christianity if Jesus was just a pathetic deluded blaspheming peripatetic hobo who went around blabbering gobbledygook about the end of the world and how he was going to prepare mansions in the clouds for his disciples in his father's eminently coming kingdom?

How does it exactly help liberal Christianity that Jesus was just a flesh and blood pathetic moron when its whole religious system claims him to be the bastard son of the O³ god creator of the universe who had no better ways to ratify a fraudulent real estate contract with a Sumerian wife pimping illegal immigrant than to have him snip off the tip of his privates?

 

[Leumas]

I'm sorry, I don't understand your point. Yes, I state all that about a paucity of 'historical' details in the First Century and Second Century writings, then I say... that Carrier is wrong in stating that Paul's paucity of historical details is 'unexpected, which about means infrequent, which means improbable'.

What do you think I am stating?

When Carrier said it was unexpected it was in the sense that Paul SHOULD HAVE had historical details if he really were talking about a historical character that he knew about personally or from Peter et al who supposedly went hoboing around with Jesus just a few years earlier.

So it is not comparing Paul with the general lack of any data whatsoever... it was comparing Paul to what REASON DEMANDS he would have written had he been talking about a historical character.... that is what was unexpected IF he were talking about a real historical man.

It is NONSENSE to say that Carrier shouldn't have been surprised that Paul did not give historical data because everyone else was not giving any.

 

[Mcreal]

There is a view that

"Marcion holds a lasting legacy for Christians as the inventor of the New Testament".​

"Jason BeDuhn, author of The First New Testament: Marcion’s Scriptural Canon, argues that Marcion not only put together the very first Christian canon of scriptures, he gave Christianity very idea of doing so."

"Critics of Marcion like Tertullian and Epiphanius complained that Marcion cut and edited scripture to fit his beliefs. Biblical scholar Adolf von Harnack accepted this claim in his definitive text on Marcion: Marcion: The Gospel of an Alien God (1920). However, Tertullian and Epiphanius lived several generations after Marcion, and they assumed the New Testament they read already existed in Marcion’s era. It didn’t. Marcion’s [early] critics were reading history backward instead of forward: there was no New Testament yet."

http://www.westarinstitute.org/blog/marcion-forgotten-father-inventor-new-testament/
.

.
If

(1) Marcion's 'gospel' pre-dates Luke's

as proposed in the late 19th C by Charles B. Waite (History of the Christian Religion to the Year Two-Hundred) & supported by John Knox in Marcion and the New Testament (1942), & Joseph B Tyson (2006) Marcion and Luke-Acts: a defining struggle;​

(2) Rob M Price's proposition that Marcionites wrote some of the Pauline texts becomes widely supported; and

(3) Matthew is written as an anti-Pauline text eg. Matt 5:19​

then there is increasing evidence for first authorship of Jesus narrative in the mid-2nd century.

Joseph B Tyson (Marcion and Luke-Acts: a defining struggle) also makes a case for both Luke and Acts being responses to Marcion, rather than Marcion's gospel using part of Luke or being a rewrite of Luke.

And Westar's ten-year Acts Seminar concluded

• Acts was written in the early decades of the second century.
• The author of Acts used the letters of Paul as sources.

Acts is the first and most successful attempt to tell the story of Christian origins. It is a story so well told that it has dominated Christian self-understanding down to the present day http://www.westarinstitute.org/projects/the-jesus-seminar/seminar-on-the-acts-of-the-apostles/

.
2nd century beginnings of the NT texts would account for the paucity of information about Jesus, and Christianity in general, in the early 2nd century. And it would account for the largely-gnostic 'Apostolic Church Fathers' and literature of the early to mid 2nd-century.

 

[maximara]

This is a post written by Ben C Smith on the old IIDB board, called " Paul and his older contemporary, Jesus."

Paul and his older contemporary, Jesus.

Did Paul think of Jesus as a mythical figure from primordial times? Did he think of Jesus as an historical figure from the indefinite past? Or did he think of Jesus as an historical figure within living memory? Here I offer some evidence for the last of those three options. See what you think.

Evidence that Paul regarded Jesus as a real human being in real human history, not from the age of myth:

Guiart, Jean (1952) "John Frum Movement in Tanna" Oceania Vol 22 No 3 pg 165-177 shows similar "evidence" for John Frum so this on its own doesn't mean anything.

2. Paul believes he is living in the end times (1 Corinthians 10.11), that he himself (1 Thessalonians 4.15; 1 Corinthians 15.51) or at least his converts (1 Thessalonians 5.23; 2 Corinthians 4.14) might well live to see the parousia. [snip for space]

Each generation has a part of Christianity that believes it is living in the end times. So that is useless.

3. Paul expects that he might see the general resurrection in his own lifetime (1 Corinthians 15.51).[snip for space]

How many Christians today hope tp see the general resurrection in their own lifetime? And we are nearing the 2000 year mark.

4. There is, for Paul, no generation gap between the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15.4).

Here is part of the Smithsonian's 2005 In John They Trust article

Chief Isaac:“John is a spirit. He knows everything,” the chief says, slipping past the contradiction with the poise of a skilled politician. “He’s even more powerful than Jesus.”

Paul Raffaele:“Have you ever seen him?”

Chief Isaac:“Yes, John comes very often from Yasur to advise me, or I go there to speak with John.”

More over thanks to Guiart's 1952 article we know of a 1949 letter that talked about the "origin of the movement or the cause started more than thirty years ago". Yet when Peter Worsley showed up to do research for his 1957 The Trumpet Shall Sound: A Study of "Cargo" Cults in Melanesia there was so little trace of the 1910s John Frum that at best he put the founding of the movement in the 1930s--a generation later

All these reasons converge on a time within recent memory for Paul the apostle. Is that a coincidence? Or is that because that is indeed when a man named Jesus lived and had brothers and fulfilled the times and was baptized by John and prohibited women from initiating divorce and died and purportedly rose again? Or is there some other explanation?

Ben C Smith

Guiart's 1952 "John Frum Movement in Tanna" article and Peter Worsley's 1957 The Trumpet Shall Sound: A Study of "Cargo" Cults in Melanesia show that NONE of this is evidence for anything Paul related being contemporary.

As the 1940s John Frum movement shows these cults can rewrite things so they appear fresh and new to the current generation. The 1910s John Frum movement is a total cypher to us; and in fact, the only way we even know it even existed is a letter preserved in a 1952 article on John Frum

I think the final part of the Smithsonian article is fitting. Note that Paul Raffaele's temporal reference shows that for the current investigators and natives the 1910s John Frum cult doesn't exist :

"As we look down into John Frum’s fiery Tanna home, I remind him that not only does he not have an outboard motor from America, but that all the devotees’ other prayers have been, so far, in vain. “John promised you much cargo more than 60 years ago, and none has come,” I point out. “So why do you keep faith with him? Why do you still believe in him?”

Chief Isaac shoots me an amused look. “You Christians have been waiting 2,000 years for Jesus to return to earth,” he says, “and you haven’t given up hope.”"

 

[Belz...]

Good thing you mention Aladdin.... what you are doing is saying that the magic lamp is impossible thus let's dismiss that part of the story and then take the fact that he had a mother and a dead father as proof that Aladdin was a real Baghdadian long long ago albeit without the lamp and genie.

I'm not sure that this is what's being done, however. The case for a historical Jesus, weak as it is, is based on more than cherry-picking the bibble.

 

[Craig B]

Each generation has a part of Christianity that believes it is living in the end times. So that is useless.

How many Christians today hope tp see the general resurrection in their own lifetime? And we are nearing the 2000 year mark.

No it is not useless. This feature of Christianity, as decreed by its very founder, Paul; along with the doctrine that Jesus is "first fruit" of the general resurrection, is a very strong indicator that Paul believed that Jesus had very recently been on earth. Just as the first fruit is harvested immediately before the rest of the crop.

 

[IanS]

Why? Some seem to make it sound like Ehrman was implying that Christ Mythicists are like Nazis or anti-Semitics, but that's not the analogy.

Ehrman's position again:

"In a society in which people still claim the Holocaust did not happen, and in which there are resounding claims that the American president is, in fact, a Muslim born on foreign soil... is it any surprise to hear that Jesus never even existed?"

If you admit that there are kooky conspiracy Christ Myth theories out there -- and Ehrman clearly has those in mind as you can see in his article -- then his point has some validity. So the point is:
(A) Very kooky conspiracy theory (Holocaust denial) out there, therefore
(B) not surprised at kooky conspiracy theory (the Christ Myth theories Ehrman refers to in his article).

The only way to claim that Ehrman's position is wrong is to claim that the most popular Christ Myths are not kooky conspiracy theories. Given that the best known Christ Myth theory is Acharya S's/Zeitgeist's, I doubt that that claim can be substantiated. And even if you think the claim is correct, it is obvious Ehrman is criticizing the kooky ones as representive of the majority of Christ Myth theories.

Whatever Ehrman was trying to say, his mistake was to write an article criticising people who deny the existence of Jesus (people he has often called "mythers"), and in the same sentence talk about holocaust deniers.

He should know better than to make implications like that in print and in public (because he is very well known academic writer, speaker & self-proclaimed authority on this issue).

 

[maximara]

No it is not useless. This feature of Christianity, as decreed by its very founder, Paul; along with the doctrine that Jesus is "first fruit" of the general resurrection, is a very strong indicator that Paul believed that Jesus had very recently been on earth. Just as the first fruit is harvested immediately before the rest of the crop.

As we have seen with other Christians their idea on what happened "recently" is kind of off the wall bizzare.

For example, Eusebius of Caesarea in his Church History, Book III, ch. 11 clearly writes "After the martyrdom of James and the conquest of Jerusalem which immediately followed..." Well there are seven years and four High Priests between these two events if the Josephus passage is genuine so either we have one of the wonkiest definition of "immediately followed" in the history of the world or these are two different James and the passage was added to make the connection.

Origen's claim that the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple was punishment for not the death of James but the crucifixion of Jesus which had supposedly happened 30 years before the death of James is another example. Origen is effectively saying God woke up one day and said to himself 'You know the Jews crucified my kid should punish them for that. So what if it has been over 30 years.'

Epiphanius of Salamis stated "For the rulers in succession from Judah came to an end with Christ's arrival. Until he [Christ] came the rulers were anointed priests, but after his birth in Bethlehem of Judea the order ended and was altered in the time of Alexander [Jannaeus], a ruler of priestly and kingly stock." while elsewhere clearly putting Jesus in the 1st century CE. Shirley Jackson Case in his 1912 The History of Jesus acknowledged this is what the passage said and used "scriptural math" to explain the issue.

So we have people whose concept of time, what is "recent" and what is "contemporary" is totally SNAFUED in the head. Paul likely was the same because he doesn't give any "smoking gun" comments that leaves no doubt that Jesus is a recent figure. To rephrase Quatermass 'It could have been a year ago or a hundred years.'

I should note that Psalm 90:4 (KJV) states "For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night." So the Christians had a out for claiming any kind of time frame was "recent": 'it's not our prospective but God's' Heck, the Old Earth Creationists (who accept the 4.5 billion year age of the Earth and nearly 14 billion years for the Universe) are doing that today. Say hello to the 2 billion year long day.

Paul is careful not to give anything that clearly put Jesus in a recent Earthly timeframe...just what you would expect from someone taking a legendary-mythical figure and trying to make him seem recent or connect him to a major figure (Robin Hood dealing with 'King Edward' being shifted to King Richard I)

 

[GDon]

Guiart, Jean (1952) "John Frum Movement in Tanna" Oceania Vol 22 No 3 pg 165-177 shows similar "evidence" for John Frum so this on its own doesn't mean anything.

I'm sorry, but that's a ridiculous position. All the John Frum example does is show what is possible. It's not evidence for anything. But I've tried to explain this before.

Ben C Smith has compiled a list of good reasons to see why Paul regarding Jesus as a near contemporary makes best sense of the data. To me you are hand-waving the analysis away without looking at it. I try to avoid spending time on those responses.

Each generation has a part of Christianity that believes it is living in the end times. So that is useless.

That has nothing to do with Smith's analysis of Jesus being a near contemporary to Paul. I'm done.

 

[Leumas]

I'm not sure that this is what's being done, however. The case for a historical Jesus, weak as it is, is based on more than cherry-picking the bibble.

No... it really is not... there is ABSOLUTELY NO evidence for Jesus outside the Buybull.

All this has been hashed and rehashed over and over again even down to squabbling and wrangling over Chrestos vs. Christos a difference of one letter which is ironic since Christians from the onset have been fighting over such things as one letter and not just squabbling but also KILLING and BATTLING and RIOTING and MURDERING and politicking and machinating one faction against another sect and both against a third group hundreds of sects all incapable of agreeing about what, who, when, where and how Jesus was or any of the tenets of the religion he supposedly started.

In the NT Paul was maligning and fighting with James et al and they were calling him a fool and he was calling them hypocrites even before there was any Christianity to speak of... the FOUNDERS of the religionS couldn't agree upon what these religions were despite Jesus supposedly having spent all those parables gobbledygook telling them about it.

Read the books cited in the first two posts quoted below and also do yourself a favor and try to watch the videos cited in the second post below (in the order given)... at least watch the first video on the list and especially pay attention to the minutes mentioned in the third post quoted below.

...
Christianity was never uniform. It likely had various dimension in various locations.

You're not kidding and the book below illustrates the history most excellently.

By the way all this wrangling going on in this thread about Chrestos or Christos reminds me of the WARS and BATTLES and many killings that Christians did to each other in the 4th century when they quarreled about ONE LETTER too and IRONICALLY it was an i too just like the code to create the irony meter below.

Christians killed each other fighting about whether Jesus and god were Homoousios or Homoiousios​

Yes... wars and killings and hatreds and politicking just because of an i.

And today 1700 years later we have ATHEISTS fighting amongst each other just as venomously and irrationally over whether Jesus was Chrestos or Christos.

• Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years

​

Is that what Higher Criticism is? Trying to bamboozle people. What for?

"Higher criticism"?? Hahaha ... quite the joke you make... you mean more like imbecilic toeing the line rather than any criticism let alone the most highly laughable of the most illogical claptrap.

I think you'll find the answers to your disingenuous questions in these books as a starter

• On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt
• Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus

But I know you will never read them because just like the rest of your illogic you've PREJUDGED them and their author as not up to par with your biased authority which you prefer to blindly and illogically follow.

I also know that you would never gather enough rational impartiality or logical objectivity to bother to watch these videos either, in which all your disingenuous queries are answered in full.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPZ39rqaIZ0 (and part 2)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwUZOZN-9dc
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDFW-1vPHnY
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUYRoYl7i6U
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5MUUP4l6l4
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3jvINxIcwc

I recommend this video for any people utterly bewildered by all the wrangling and vitriolic squabbling over RUBBISH and words with one letter difference and what appears to be "scholarly" analysis of what is no more than the 1001 Arabian Nights equivalent of tall tales and fables and fairy tales and myths.

If you wish to clear all the confusion and shed off the pall of sophistry and illogic being laid on people's brains then watch this video (and part 2).

Also watch minute 0:58:00 to 1:02:30 for a very good description of how the FANFIC of Jesus tries to bamboozle people.

Watch minutes 0:40:00 to 0:47:00 for how forgery and circular reasoning are the mainstay of apologetics.

Part 1


Part 2

 

[Leumas]

Ben C Smith has compiled a list of good reasons to see why Paul regarding Jesus as a near contemporary makes best sense of the data. To me you are hand-waving the analysis away without looking at it. I try to avoid spending time on those responses.

...I converted from agnosticism to theism, and then to a liberal Christianity (I won't go into reasons why here). Even though I'd never thought the Bible was anything other than a collection of myths and fables, ...

So you think Paul was talking about a flesh and blood normal man Jesus?

I think your own words best express what I want to say about that

I'm sorry, but that's a ridiculous position.

Are you trying to argue for a normal flesh and blood historical Jesus who was not GOD using the writings of Paul who supposedly hallucinated him as GOD?

I think your own words express it best

I'm sorry, but that's a ridiculous position.

Whom are you trying to fool here? You yourself have admitted that you worship Jesus your GOD as a liberal Christian despite you yourself admitting that the Buybull is nothing but a collection of fables and myths.

But now you are trying to argue that a protagonist called Paul in the collection of myths and fairy tales said something or another after having been miraculously blinded and then healed by a ghostly vision of the son of a ghostly god.

And according to these words of a character from the book you yourself admit is nothing but collection of fables and myths you are now trying to argue for a flesh and blood ordinary man Jesus who also was nothing but another character in the collection of myths and fables and whom you also admit that you worship as GOD.

This is the most kooky illogic I have ever seen... even the topsy turvy world of Alice Through the Looking Glass was not as wacky as the illogic of your position.

... I'm done.

I wish you would... PLEASE!!!