Historical Jesus

[Delvo]

So now we're supposed to be pondering the idea that Bible scholars who, until recently if this has ever even changed at all, overwhelmingly believed in a conventional Christian demigod version of Jesus who really did the supernatural things in the Bible, manipulated their book dates to point to a concept of a normal human Jesus with progressive embellishment that they didn't believe in, when they didn't even notice that trend yet themselves until non-believers turned it against them as an argument for a normal human Jesus whom the Bible scholars who had unknowingly created this argument for them didn't believe in? Wow.

 

[Delvo]

In addition to just "wow", I'm curious what the argument behind that idea would be for this thread anyway, even if it weren't so self-contradictory. The issue of the order of the Gospels gives us two sequences to choose from:

Sequence 1:

1. Lots of supernaturalness all over
2. Books with much less of that
3. Centuries of belief in the most supernatural version

...or, sequence 2:

1. Books with the least supernaturalness
2. More of it getting added to slightly later books
3. Centuries of belief in the most supernatural version

While sequence 2 does point toward a mundane origin because there's a general progression from little to much, sequence 1 doesn't point toward any particular alternative because it has no particular progression. It just has a random low fluctuation between higher levels. With no progression at all but just patternless fluctuations at any time, the relationship between the actual original concept and the oldest books could just as well go either way, so this still doesn't yield an argument about what the original concept was like before it got written. (And that's even if it were true.)

And worse yet, it doesn't do anything to get out of the fact that people normally just don't believe brand-new supernatural things that just got invented right in front of their faces. Some here have said that's the one origin all supernatural ideas have in common, but provided no reason to think that, and, when asked for it, even objected to that just like people who knew their bluff had been called. (They've also tried going back to the same couple of alleged examples over & over, which wouldn't have been enough to support their general claim that that's how it normally works in other cases in general, even if they hadn't both been debunked.)

 

[Brainache]

So now we're supposed to be pondering the idea that Bible scholars who, until recently if this has ever even changed at all, overwhelmingly believed in a conventional Christian demigod version of Jesus who really did the supernatural things in the Bible, manipulated their book dates to point to a concept of a normal human Jesus with progressive embellishment that they didn't believe in, when they didn't even notice that trend yet themselves until non-believers turned it against them as an argument for a normal human Jesus whom the Bible scholars who had unknowingly created this argument for them didn't believe in? Wow.

That's about the size of it.

Plus the implication that professional Academic Historians can't draw conclusions, however tenuous, about the composition of ancient texts. They must just sit around all day raking in those sweet HJ millions...

 

[dejudge]

So now we're supposed to be pondering the idea that Bible scholars who, until recently if this has ever even changed at all, overwhelmingly believed in a conventional Christian demigod version of Jesus who really did the supernatural things in the Bible, manipulated their book dates to point to a concept of a normal human Jesus with progressive embellishment that they didn't believe in, when they didn't even notice that trend yet themselves until non-believers turned it against them as an argument for a normal human Jesus whom the Bible scholars who had unknowingly created this argument for them didn't believe in? Wow.

You still don't have and cannot present any historical evidence of an HJ.


Tertullian's "On the Flesh of Christ"

As, then, before His birth of the virgin, He was able to have God for His Father without a human mother, so likewise, after He was born of the virgin, He was able to have a woman for His mother without a human father.

Wow!! Christians knew Jesus was a dead man and worshiped him as God for their salvation!!!

Wow!! People in the Roman Empire knew Jesus was a crucified Jewish criminal but worshiped him as a God for their salvation!!!


Mark 9:31

For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day.

Jesus of Nazareth would have been regarded as idiot and false prophet if he was known to have lived and made such stupid utterances.

Please, tell me who saw Jesus alive after he was dead if he lived and was killed??

Who today would believe such a known idiot and false prophet existed??

The NT Jesus stories, including the Epistles, are just total non-contemporary fiction fabricated no earlier than the 2nd century.

 

[Sherman Bay]

So now we're supposed to be pondering the idea that Bible scholars who, until recently if this has ever even changed at all, overwhelmingly believed in a conventional Christian demigod version of Jesus who really did the supernatural things in the Bible...

Pretty much, yes. Until recently, biblical scholars were religiously motivated, not impartial atheists. A Christian monk wouldn't be expected to give equal time to opposing or conflicting stories; indeed, many ancient scribes readily made up passages and even entire books to explain something they thought needed embellishment. This is God's work, and they were dedicated.

Not to mention out-n-out forgeries, of which there were many.

 

[dejudge]

Pretty much, yes. Until recently, biblical scholars were religiously motivated, not impartial atheists. A Christian monk wouldn't be expected to give equal time to opposing or conflicting stories; indeed, many ancient scribes readily made up passages and even entire books to explain something they thought needed embellishment. This is God's work, and they were dedicated.

Not to mention out-n-out forgeries, of which there were many.

Biblical Scholars have and still argue that Jesus was not a figure of history and that the Pauline Epistles are not authentic.

 

[Sherman Bay]

Biblical Scholars have and still argue that Jesus was not a figure of history and that the Pauline Epistles are not authentic.

In the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, yes, but that was not a common thought in the Middle Ages. Such talk would be heresy and the all-powerful church had minimal tolerance for that.

 

[dejudge]

In the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, yes, but that was not a common thought in the Middle Ages. Such talk would be heresy and the all-powerful church had minimal tolerance for that.

Since at least the 2nd century Christians claimed their Savior was without birth and without flesh.

The Christian cult called the Marcionites claimed their Savior was without birth and without flesh who came down directly from heaven into Capernaum.

The Christian cult called the Saturnilians claimed that the Saviour was without birth, without body, and without figure.

The Christian cult called the Valentinians claimed their Savior was produced from Aeons.

It must not be forgotten that the Church claimed their Savior Jesus was God, a Ghost and simultaneously a man without a human father.

Jesus was always a non-historical figure just like the myths of the Greeks and Romans.

It would appear that the supernatural [non-historical] Jesus was far more common in antiquity.

 

[Delvo]

So the proposed sequence of events with Jesus not being based on any real person(s) at all is...


1. Somebody just spontaneously made it all up out of thin air and was believed by a bunch of followers who'd been raised in a religion that didn't allow for it on multiple points, even though there are zero other examples of such a thing happening or even any possible way it could.

2. Somebody somehow got Josephus, a non-Christian writing for a Roman audience who wouldn't have any stake for or against Christianity, to write about a few other guys who weren't quite the same as Jesus in every way but would at least make it appear that he'd fit neatly into the group, for no apparent reason but to make it seem like Jesus might be a real human, even though there was nobody around at the time who thought he was or would have any reason to push that idea, and even though the better way to try to achieve that goal would have been to just state it plainly anyway.

3. Nobody who read what he wrote to make Jesus seem real would think it made Jesus seem real for the next few centuries, so those who wanted him to have made Jesus seem real made up an extra paragraph to stick in his book to pretend he'd written something to make Jesus seem real, which was exactly what he had already done.

4. Christian Bible scholars in the 1800s & 1900s, whose idea of how to do history & archeology was to start with the belief that everything in the Bible is true including the supernatural parts and then come up with ways to try to say the evidence somehow fits that belief, made one single exception to that rule by manipulating their claims of the Gospels' dates for the purpose of creating the impression of a merely supernaturally embellished mundane Jesus, which went against their own beliefs and would eventually be used to argue against them, in a conspiracy against themselves for which they never took one single other action.


Yes, that's totally more realistic every step of the way than this...


1. There were real Jesus-like human guys at that place & time. That's why Josephus said there were.

2. Some of those guys, like the Old Testament prophets whom they still weren't very far removed from yet, had actual followers, so claims about one or more of those guys spread by mouth for a while.

3. After some time for those claims to have gotten altered, merged, or had extra new stuff added, somebody eventually wrote some of it.

4. Later writings on the same kind of idea, emerging from the same culture, were subject to even more of the same kinds of embellishments (which is something we know really happens based on other examples). That's why the later ones look more... embellished.

5. Even though the story had begun with some member(s) of the group of guys Josephus had written about, there was enough difference between them and the later Christian idea of Jesus for Jesus to seem conspicuously absent from Josephus's book a few centuries later, so somebody added a Jesus paragraph to it.

 

[dejudge]

1. There were real Jesus-like human guys at that place & time. That's why Josephus said there were.

Josephus did not mention any person called Jesus of Nazareth at that place and time.

Remember Josephus mentioned characters called Jesus who had human fathers like Jesus the son of Sapphias, Jesus the son of Ananus, Jesus the son of Sie, Jesus the son of Gamala, Jesus the son of Fabus, Jesus the son of Damneus and Jesus the son of Josadek.

You wont find Jesus the son of the Ghost in writings attributed to Josephus.

2. Some of those guys, like the Old Testament prophets whom they still weren't very far removed from yet, had actual followers, so claims about one or more of those guys spread by mouth for a while.

Old Testament prophets were not born of a Ghost and a virgin and they were claimed to worship the God of the Jews, not the son of a Ghost.

3. After some time for those claims to have gotten altered, merged, or had extra new stuff added, somebody eventually wrote some of it.

Up to this day the Jewish religion has not merged with the blasphemy called the NT.

The Jews still worship their God Creator and the Christian Church still worship the water-walking, transfiguring, resurrected son of the Ghost.

4. Later writings on the same kind of idea, emerging from the same culture, were subject to even more of the same kinds of embellishments (which is something we know really happens based on other examples). That's why the later ones look more... embellished.

You mean the NT Jesus stories are just a load of non-historical garbage from conception to ascension.

Why do you believe the non-historical garbage called the NT?

5. Even though the story had begun with some member(s) of the group of guys Josephus had written about, there was enough difference between them and the later Christian idea of Jesus for Jesus to seem conspicuously absent from Josephus's book a few centuries later, so somebody added a Jesus paragraph to it.

You mean somebody forged passages in writings attributed to Josephus.

Whoever forged Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3 did not know if it was lawful to call their Jesus a man.

Examine excerpt of the forgery in Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3.

Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3.

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man...…... for he appeared to them alive again the third day......

Jesus was a Ghost story in and out the NT.

 

[IanS]

So now we're supposed to be pondering the idea that Bible scholars who, until recently if this has ever even changed at all, overwhelmingly believed in a conventional Christian demigod version of Jesus who really did the supernatural things in the Bible, manipulated their book dates to point to a concept of a normal human Jesus with progressive embellishment that they didn't believe in, when they didn't even notice that trend yet themselves until non-believers turned it against them as an argument for a normal human Jesus whom the Bible scholars who had unknowingly created this argument for them didn't believe in? Wow.

No. You are not supposed (or required) to believe anything just because sceptics in these HJ threads try to explain why the claimed evidence of a real Jesus is so weak, if it is even worth calling evidence at all. You can, and no doubt will, believe whatever you want to believe.

But what's happening in all of these HJ threads is that HJ-believers are constantly making an appeal to the authority of biblical scholars. But that is a profession who's main source of evidence is actually the bible! And that is just not credible at all.

I am just questioning how and why bible scholars decided the order in which the gospels were written. And if you look at the Wiki link which gabeygoat provided, what's given there as the evidence is first of all (a) very scant indeed (ie not very much of it), and (b) what little there is, is extremely tenuous and unconvincing. For example, in that link Wiki it just says that the main evidence is “internal evidence” … and that's it! You are supposed to just accept that biblical scholars have found within those gospels, things which convince them that each different gospel was written either before or after another one …

… that actual “internal evidence” is not described there (in that Wiki link), but having seen many thousands of pages of discussion in these HJ threads, and having read many thousands of pages of discussion in numerous books on this subject, I am left with no reason to believe that the evidence which biblical scholars, theologians and Christian leaders are claiming to have found, will be convincing or credible in any measure at all … I suspect that this claimed “internal evidence” will turn out to be just as weak as everything else that those biblical scholars and other Christians have ever provided.

I don't think that we can assume that biblical scholars are reliable when they tell us the date at which those gospels were written or the order in which they were written. That''s all.

 

[Brainache]

No. You are not supposed (or required) to believe anything just because sceptics in these HJ threads try to explain why the claimed evidence of a real Jesus is so weak, if it is even worth calling evidence at all. You can, and no doubt will, believe whatever you want to believe.

But what's happening in all of these HJ threads is that HJ-believers are constantly making an appeal to the authority of biblical scholars. But that is a profession who's main source of evidence is actually the bible! And that is just not credible at all.

I am just questioning how and why bible scholars decided the order in which the gospels were written. And if you look at the Wiki link which gabeygoat provided, what's given there as the evidence is first of all (a) very scant indeed (ie not very much of it), and (b) what little there is, is extremely tenuous and unconvincing. For example, in that link Wiki it just says that the main evidence is “internal evidence” … and that's it! You are supposed to just accept that biblical scholars have found within those gospels, things which convince them that each different gospel was written either before or after another one …

… that actual “internal evidence” is not described there (in that Wiki link), but having seen many thousands of pages of discussion in these HJ threads, and having read many thousands of pages of discussion in numerous books on this subject, I am left with no reason to believe that the evidence which biblical scholars, theologians and Christian leaders are claiming to have found, will be convincing or credible in any measure at all … I suspect that this claimed “internal evidence” will turn out to be just as weak as everything else that those biblical scholars and other Christians have ever provided.

I don't think that we can assume that biblical scholars are reliable when they tell us the date at which those gospels were written or the order in which they were written. That''s all.

And the laughs keep coming!

It wasn't in the wiki, therefore it doesn't exist, but if it does, it won't be convincing...

Curse those ignorant Historians and their wiki evading ways! I wonder if there might be some other way of finding out this stuff... Hmm it's a tricky one... I guess we'll never know...

 

[IanS]

In addition to just "wow", I'm curious what the argument behind that idea would be for this thread anyway, even if it weren't so self-contradictory. The issue of the order of the Gospels gives us two sequences to choose from:

Sequence 1:

1. Lots of supernaturalness all over
2. Books with much less of that
3. Centuries of belief in the most supernatural version

...or, sequence 2:

1. Books with the least supernaturalness
2. More of it getting added to slightly later books
3. Centuries of belief in the most supernatural version

While sequence 2 does point toward a mundane origin because there's a general progression from little to much, sequence 1 doesn't point toward any particular alternative because it has no particular progression. It just has a random low fluctuation between higher levels. With no progression at all but just patternless fluctuations at any time, the relationship between the actual original concept and the oldest books could just as well go either way, so this still doesn't yield an argument about what the original concept was like before it got written. (And that's even if it were true.)

And worse yet, it doesn't do anything to get out of the fact that people normally just don't believe brand-new supernatural things that just got invented right in front of their faces. Some here have said that's the one origin all supernatural ideas have in common, but provided no reason to think that, and, when asked for it, even objected to that just like people who knew their bluff had been called. (They've also tried going back to the same couple of alleged examples over & over, which wouldn't have been enough to support their general claim that that's how it normally works in other cases in general, even if they hadn't both been debunked.)

If, not just you, but any other HJ-believers here think it's unreasonable of me to question whether or not we know which of the gospels came first or which came last etc., then please see the Wiki kink below which makes it very clear indeed that it is very far indeed from being any sort of accepted fact or even a reasonable likelihood as to whether g.Mark was written before g.Mathew for example, or any sort of widespread agreement even amongst biblical scholars as to what the actual evidence is for any such conclusion about the order in which those gospels were written -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marca...tion handed down by,the first to be written.t

That Wiki page contains numerous examples of opposing debates and opposing claimed "evidence" supporting or rejecting either Mark or Matthew or even Luke as the first of those gospels ... and that is so clear in that Wiki page that I'm not going to even bother wasting my time by quoting numerous parts of it for you as if you were incapable of just clicking the link and spending 3 or 4 minutes reading it to see for yourself how uncertain and how weakly evidenced any order of priority is for those gospels.

If you just as much as merely glance through that link then you will no longer be able to argue that the order of the gospels is known to have progressed from gospels with few miracles at first, to later gospels with more & more miracles as time went on.

 

[Delvo]

Funny, I was just looking at that same page and considered whether to bother collecting & posting here all the bits within it that clearly show how overwhelmingly stronger the Marcan priority case is than any alternative and what weirdly irrational things one must accept as part of any other conclusion... before deciding it wasn't worth the bother for a tangent that's only a bonus on top of the real argument anyway and could just as easily be done without... especially when talking to somebody who has already shown that he'll just hide from any points he doesn't like anyway, as if ignoring them would make them not exist... while lobbing lies like the claim that I'm an "HJ-believer" as if anybody reading this thread could possibly be fooled by that...

 

[dejudge]

Markan priority has no effect on the non-historical contents of the Jesus story in the Gospels and Epistles. NT Jesus was still a water-walking, transfiguring, resurrecting, ascending Son of a Ghost, Son of God and God Creator.

Mark 1:11

And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Mark 9

2 And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them.

3 And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them.

4 And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus.

Mark 9:7

And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.

Mark 6:48-49

And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them.

But when they saw him walking upon the sea, they supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out..

Mark 16:6

And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.

gMark's Jesus was a non-historical resurrected character so it does not matter whether it was first or last.

 

[clayflingythingy]

MJ101...let's accept the traditional dating. Paul's epistles are written decades before the gospels. And Paul's Christ Jesus is a divine being. That trumps any claims of progession in the gospels from man to god. Paul's Christ Jesus was a divine being in the 40 and 50 CE.

Sent from my SM-T727V using Tapatalk

 

[Delvo]

A year or two ago, I read the Epistles that mythicists & historicists agree could really be by Paul, in the suggested chronological order, without reading any other part of the Bible anytime near that time, because I had learned that Richard Carrier said much the same thing about the "spiritual Jesus" of the Epistles.

And it's true that the Epistles don't say much to make him sound human. But they don't say much to make him sound otherwise either, and certainly nothing that couldn't just be a supernatural claim being made about a real human. There's hardly anything anywhere in there at all about anything Jesus did or said, for that matter. (That would be what makes a Gospel a Gospel, not an Epistle... and also makes the Epistles the wrong place to look for any information about Jesus himself anyway, since they're not even about him in the first place, but here we are, following a herring trail because one side of this wants to get as far away from the actual subject as they can.)

So it's pretty different from what a Christian would expect, but also not entirely what a mythicist would expect, because "very little" is not "none". I ran into several points in there where those Epistles are pretty straightforward about talking about a person who was seen & heard & touched, walking & talking & eating & sleeping & bleeding & dying on a cross. Just one sentence at a time was that unambiguous, scattered pages apart, but they're there. The mythicist claim needed there to be none of those, and there werne't none. There were strangely few compared to Christian expectations that the Epistles would be more Gospel-like, but not none.

What supernatural claims are in there that you think can not have been falsely attributed to a real person, and why couldn't they be?

That he was seen in visions/hallucinations and described as being in Heaven at that particular time, for example, means nothing because you can have visions/hallucinations of a real dead person and a religious believer can think of a real dead person as being in Heaven. (Just like repeating "son of a ghost, son of a ghost, son of a ghost" means nothing because that also can be easily said of somebody who was real, and is a detail that's been known to get added to certain people's stories before.)

 

[dejudge]

The authors of the so-called Epistles do not even claim to be witnesses of an historical Jesus. A supposed writer called Paul claimed he was a witness to a non-historical resurrected being whom he called Jesus.

1 Corinthians 15:15

Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.

1 Corinthians 15:17

And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

The so-called Pauline Epistles have no historical value with respect to the character called Jesus Christ.

In the so-called Epistles the supposed writer claimed he saw the resurrected Jesus but in Acts it is stated he was BLINDED by a bright light and saw no-one.

Acts 9

3 And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:

4 And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?

5 And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

6 And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.

7 And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.
8 And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.

Examine the Epistle to the Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 15:8

And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

The so-called Pauline Epistles are products of lies and deception with respect to Jesus regardless of when they were written.

Even the very NT show that the Pauline writers were liars.

The so-called Pauline letters are completely worthless as historical evidence for his resurrected Jesus.

 

[IanS]

Funny, I was just looking at that same page and considered whether to bother collecting & posting here all the bits within it that clearly show how overwhelmingly stronger the Marcan priority case is than any alternative and what weirdly irrational things one must accept as part of any other conclusion... before deciding it wasn't worth the bother for a tangent that's only a bonus on top of the real argument anyway and could just as easily be done without... especially when talking to somebody who has already shown that he'll just hide from any points he doesn't like anyway, as if ignoring them would make them not exist... while lobbing lies like the claim that I'm an "HJ-believer" as if anybody reading this thread could possibly be fooled by that...

People can read it for themselves. They will see that it's filled with references to all sorts of academics and/or others writing in this subject to dispute so-called "Markian Priority", and filled with ideas presented as evidence to show that any of Mark, Matthew or even Luke may been the earliest of those gospels. The whole thing is describing why there has long been, and still is, ongoing debate about which came first and what could really be counted as evidence for any of those gospels.

And as for you being a "HJ-believer" - you did tell us that you believe in a HJ, didn't you?

What else do you want to be called in a thread like this other a believer in a HJ?

 

[Roger Ramjets]

MJ101...let's accept the traditional dating. Paul's epistles are written decades before the gospels. And Paul's Christ Jesus is a divine being. That trumps any claims of progession in the gospels from man to god. Paul's Christ Jesus was a divine being in the 40 and 50 CE.

No it doesn't, because it obvious from Paul's own words that he wasn't among the first Christians, yet he claimed to have independent knowledge of Jesus from an unbelievable source.

Conversion of Paul the Apostle

[Paul says] "I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ."

So Paul is an obvious liar who claimed to have received the gospel from 'revelation', which cannot possibly be true. So where did he did he get his purported knowledge of the gospels from?

Who Founded Christianity?

The Role of St Paul

He seems to know nothing of the gospels, just as they seem to know nothing of him. Paul threatens, abuses and blusters, appointing himself as an additional apostle. He has no qualms about lying if he thinks that he is doing so for the greater glory of God: "For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged a sinner?" (Romans 3:7). He also freely admits that he is prepared to become all things to all men in order to achieve his aims (1 Corinthians 9:22-23). His writings are threaded through with repeated assurances that he is telling the truth and attempts to deny implied accusations that he is not. He is known to have been ridiculed by other Christian groups...

It was Paul who first preached that Jesus was the son of God (Acts 9:20), a claim that in the gospels Jesus had never made for himself. Paul had not met Jesus during his lifetime but claimed to have seen him after the Resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3-8). Such claims were met with scepticism: when Paul came to Jerusalem the disciples did not believe that he was one of their number (Acts 9:26).

That Paul's writings are earlier than surviving gospel manuscripts is just an accident of history - it does not mean that his version is a more 'accurate' account of early Christian beliefs. You only have to read what he wrote to see that he was actually an outsider who was largely ignorant of them.