Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed

[IanS]

Thank you for the wide quotation but I think it adds nothing to our dissension.

If I have understood correctly -IIUC-, we agree in that no passage of the Old Testament speaks about a Messiah crucified by (Romans) and that it was an alien idea to Jewish mentality. But you find "easy" the transition to this idea from the biblical passages that speak about the sufferings or rejection of diverse individuals, the prophet, the just, the God's servant, and so on. For my part, I find this transition is very difficult and unnecessary (cross applied to the Mesiah!!). I find "easier" to think that we have here the common and old Christian proceeding of manipulate quotations from the Old Testament in order to provide justification for some passages of the New Testament. But applied in this case to a real individual and his humiliating death.

I think our last comments don't progress at all.

Well, whether or not you think those OT passages were meant to apply to the messiah, the point is that those quotes I just gave, show that Paul himself (and other gospel authors) definitely did believe that those OT passages described the messiah he knew as Jesus, even including Paul’s belief that the OT had prophesised that his messiah would be hung on a tree!. That's the crucial point!

 

[Craig B]

A problem I see with the embarrassment argument is that Jesus seems to be in control of the situation.

That is true of John, but not of Mark. This development is a prominent part of the increasing exaltation of Jesus displayed by the successive gospels.

Mark15:34 And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). 35 When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.” 36 Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said. 37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

Here's John who, on the other hand, does indeed put Jesus in control of the situation.

28 Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” 29 A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. 30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

In the many features peculiar to John's gospel, it is most improbable that there is anything historically authentic.

 

[davefoc]

That is true of John, but not of Mark. This development is a prominent part of the increasing exaltation of Jesus displayed by the successive gospels. Here's John who, on the other hand, does indeed put Jesus in control of the situation. In the many features peculiar to John's gospel, it is most improbable that there is anything historically authentic.

A valid point that I was somewhat aware of. The "God why have you forsaken me" thing is particularly strange in light of Christian belief. Is Jesus forsaking himself? Presumably it was written by somebody not thinking about the trilogy thing, but it also seems to cut against the superman Jesus thing. If Jesus is so well connected and powerful, why doesn't he know where he stands with God and why is God forsaking him anyway.

Still, I'd need to check, I get the Gospels confused some times, but isn't there an element of Jesus knows what's going on in Mark? He seems to know who's going to betray him and is OK with it. And he sticks around even after he knows he's been betrayed. That sounds like this is all part of his plan to me.

 

[zugzwang]

I wonder if you understand the meaning of the expression "ghost" as in "Holy Ghost". The word at one time had the meaning we now assign to the word "spirit" in general. In modern German, the word geistig means spiritual. But the English word "ghostly" which once meant the same thing now has a very different connotation, usually referring to the spirits of dead people becoming visible to the living, a mildly laughable concept. The word has thus become trivialised in the English language. That is why in recent years the expression "Holy Spirit" has come to be preferred by Christians.

Your repeated use of formulations like "ghost stories" and so on therefore either represents utter and complete ignorance of the shift in the meanings of words, or is a crude attempt to make things look ridiculous by disingenuous exploitation, purely for rhetorical effect and with no regard for accuracy, of these changes of meaning.

It hardly needs to be said that your million-fold repetition of this device does absolutely nothing to convince your opponents of the validity of your arguments.

The interesting thing about this is that whereas your comments are consonant with the historical critical method, dejudge's persistent use of 'ghost' and 'ghost story' is not, and in fact, has all the hallmarks of a crude ideological drive - to discredit Christianity.

Far be it from me to criticize someone who wishes to discredit Christianity, but it is impossible to do this as part of a dispassionate examination of historical events. It's not doing history, it's propaganda.

 

[Brainache]

They are both supposed to be the word of god transmitted through a human agency whether one person made up the stories of many did makes no difference.

The bible is a product of early church not the early Christians.

I gotta say that that's perfectly iron clad.

It's evidence if it convinces me, nope not convinced so it wasn't evidence.

Hmm funny old world, innit?

 

[Belz...]

You are not adding to the conversation by mimicking dejudge.

I know but I figured I might snap him out of it by illustrating how stupid this is.

You have a better idea ? It's not as if arguments work.

 

[Belz...]

dejudge


You didn't quote a claim of mine.

He also doesn't know what a fallacy is, so that doesn't leave much right in that sentence. At least he got the poster right.

 

[Belz...]

Why are you speculating? There is nothing to speculate.

Well that's the problem with your line of argument: you don't want to know history. Not enough evidence to draw a definitive conclusion ? Didn't happen.

That's not very useful when determining history.

Now, again, whatever conclusion we reach will be very tentative, but unless you want to basically not have a history, you kinda have to do that for some characters and events.

 

[Belz...]

You have confirmed that you are likely to be a secret xtian fundamentalist christian.

And you have confirmed that you make **** up as you go along.

You do not understand English? There are myth fables called Ghost Stories. The NT clearly states Jesus was born after his mother was made pregnant by a Ghost

Mark doesn't say that.

But even if he did, what difference does that make ? Did the leader of North Korea score 300 on his first night out bowling ? No. Did he exist ? Yes. Clearly, the two are not tied together.

Jesus is a pure unadulterated Ghost story propagated by ILLITERATES in antiquity.

There were and are plenty of intelligent and literate Christians. Your blanket generalisation is idiotic.

 

[eight bits]

davefoc

A valid point that I was somewhat aware of. The "God why have you forsaken me" thing is particularly strange in light of Christian belief.

I don't follow how Psalm 22 conflicts with any Christian belief I have ever encountered. On the contrary, I regularly encounter Christians who include Psalm 22 in their repertoire of messianic prophecy. I think it's a hymn, and so not prophecy at all, but the hymn does present bluntly what will become the orthodox view of the situation: that things look bad, but actually triumph occurs.

How much more than the opening lines of a long poem could a man being suffcoated to death be expected to recite audibly, in your view?

zugzwang

Far be it from me to criticize someone who wishes to discredit Christianity, but it is impossible to do this as part of a dispassionate examination of historical events. It's not doing history, it's propaganda.

Although your criticism was addressed to Craig B and mentioned dejudge in passing, your salvo grazed my position as well, so I'll answer for me.

We are discussing works of literature, chiefly an anthology held sacred by a living religious grouping. Historians qua historians have no special professional competence in literary genre identification. Paul's letters tell a ghost story. Mark narrates a possible backstory for Paul's ghost story, including a different ghost story involving several of the same characters.

Christianity chose its sacred literature. If they chose, among other works, a ghost story or two, then that's their lookout. Dispassionate examination doesn't extend to pretending that I haven't read similar stories elsewhere. What I read elsewhere are called ghost stories. So, too, then, shall these be called ghost stories.

One of the posters you mentioned arrives at his(?) description by misrepresenting the noun phrase Holy Ghost. That's nobody else's problem. Nor does this error tell against the correctness of the genre identification. A broken clock is right twice a day.

 

[zugzwang]

davefoc


I don't follow how Psalm 22 conflicts with any Christian belief I have ever encountered. On the contrary, I regularly encounter Christians who include Psalm 22 in their repertoire of messianic prophecy. I think it's a hymn, and so not prophecy at all, but the hymn does present bluntly what will become the orthodox view of the situation: that things look bad, but actually triumph occurs.

How much more than the opening lines of a long poem could a man being suffcoated to death be expected to recite audibly, in your view?

zugzwang


Although your criticism was addressed to Craig B and mentioned dejudge in passing, your salvo grazed my position as well, so I'll answer for me.

We are discussing works of literature, chiefly an anthology held sacred by a living religious grouping. Historians qua historians have no special professional competence in literary genre identification. Paul's letters tell a ghost story. Mark narrates a possible backstory for Paul's ghost story, including a different ghost story involving several of the same characters.

Christianity chose its sacred literature. If they chose, among other works, a ghost story or two, then that's their lookout. Dispassionate examination doesn't extend to pretending that I haven't read similar stories elsewhere. What I read elsewhere are called ghost stories. So, too, then, shall these be called ghost stories.

One of the posters you mentioned arrives at his(?) description by misrepresenting the noun phrase Holy Ghost. That's nobody else's problem. Nor does this error tell against the correctness of the genre identification. A broken clock is right twice a day.

Well, the problem with 'Paul's letters tell a ghost story' is that it's unclear how you are using the term 'ghost story', since for example, in English literature, the ghost story was revived via the Gothic novel, which seems a bit anachronistic in relation to Paul. Are you saying that there was a Jewish literary genre of ghost story? I would be interested in finding out about that.

In relation to Holy Ghost, of course we would need to go back to the original, presumably 'pneuma' in Greek, and 'ruach' in Hebrew and Aramaic. But here I would have to defer to others more knowledgeable about how those terms were used in the 1st century, and if they have the same connotations as 'ghost story'.

 

[Craig B]

... In relation to Holy Ghost, of course we would need to go back to the original, presumably 'pneuma' in Greek, and 'ruach' in Hebrew and Aramaic. But here I would have to defer to others more knowledgeable about how those terms were used in the 1st century, and if they have the same connotations as 'ghost story'.

Words, of course do change their meanings and to a modern eye the word "ghost story" has a connotation perhaps not appropriate to every occasion on which recent translations of the gospels use the word "spirit".

To illustrate this, I will set down part of Luke's "Ghost Story". Does it strke the modern anglophone's eye to the effect intended by the seventeenth century translator?

Luke 1:34 Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? 35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee ...

 

[zugzwang]

Words, of course do change their meanings and to a modern eye the word "ghost story" has a connotation perhaps not appropriate to every occasion on which recent translations of the gospels use the word "spirit".

To illustrate this, I will set down part of Luke's "Ghost Story". Does it strke the modern anglophone's eye to the effect intended by the seventeenth century translator?

Well, the modern ghost story - that is, post Gothic novel - is designed to scare people, so it's a kind of literary version of the horror film. I think M. R. James, one of the famous exponents of it, described one of its features as a 'pleasing terror'.

So it seems anachronistic to use the term about ancient literature. I suppose you could describe the play 'Hamlet' as a ghost story, or Homer's Odyssey, both of which contain the spirits of the dead. But I'm not sure what you gain from that!

But, as I said, to describe the NT as a collection of ghost stories just strikes me as anti-Christian and anti-scholarly propaganda.

Well, nobody has to follow scholarship, if they don't want to, of course; but possibly then, there are few if any constraints - I might as well say, I hate that Napoleon character, he's a real berk, strutting about in his boots, boffing women, and being a typical frog. But is that history?

 

[eight bits]

zugzwang

Well, the problem with 'Paul's letters tell a ghost story' is that it's unclear how you are using the term 'ghost story',...

Lack of clarity wasn't identified as the problem that concerned you until now. If our usage of the term, those of us who have spoken of ghost stories, was unclear to you, then perhaps you might have inquired before characterizing our behavior.

... since for example, in English literature, the ghost story was revived via the Gothic novel, which seems a bit anachronistic in relation to Paul.

A bit anachronistic, since on information and belief, there was no such thing as the English language during Paul's lifetime. Perhaps, then, we would do best to look upon your learned remarks as an example of what can be categorically eliminated as a misinterpretation of the phrase in context.

Are you saying that there was a Jewish literary genre of ghost story?

No. There is at least one ghost story in the Jewish Bible, however. Even if we assume that Paul wasn't cosmopolitan, and could only perform within established Jewish literary genres, he wouldn't have needed to look outside Jewish antecedents for a model.

But, like all who write, Paul also had a life. As is typical of the genre, the point-of-view character isn't the first to experience the spooky presence. Paul may have found himself amidst reports of ghost sightings actually unfolding around him, and then wrote later to suit.

In relation to Holy Ghost, of course we would need to go back to the original, presumably 'pneuma' in Greek, and 'ruach' in Hebrew and Aramaic. But here I would have to defer to others more knowledgeable about how those terms were used in the 1st century, and if they have the same connotations as 'ghost story'.

You would need to take that up with somebody who parses the noun phrase Holy Ghost that way. Since I don't, you and I can't do much with that question.

 

[Foster Zygote]

That's dumb.

I do not speculate about Romulus, Perseus, Achilles, the God of the Jews, Satan the Devil, Zeus, the Angel Gabriel, Jesus of Nazareth and the Holy Ghost.

What do you expect to accomplish by speculating and assuming?

Surely, you could not expect people in the 21st century to rely on the Ghost stories for history.

You seem incapable of comprehending that fictional stories can be, and often are, attached to what were originally factual accounts. The historical method is about trying to separate the myth from any reality that might lie at its core. Either that, or you are so committed to generating conflict and disagreement that you don't care how ignorant your obstreperous contrarianism makes you appear to be.

You have confirmed that you are likely to be a secret xtian fundamentalist christian.

Yeah, because Christian fundamentalists are so open to the idea that Jesus was most likely just a radical religious Jew who got himself killed by the Romans, and that all the stuff about miracles, redemption, resurrection, and divinity was added by people who were making up stories over time.

Is it not true that the God of the Jews is who he is in the Bible until new evidence is found?

No. We don't need to find evidence that Jesus wasn't a miracle working representative of God who rose from the dead.

But this does give a clue to what seems to be your fundamental problem: You seem to regard Christianity with such vitriol that you see regarding even the most mundane details as plausible as tantamount to acceptance of Christian doctrine.

Why do atheists NOT accept who God is in the Bible? It is because there is no new evidence.

"New" evidence? I wasn't aware there was even old evidence.

You imply that atheists are dumb.

Yeah, because anyone would have to be stupid to think that magical stories could be made up about a real person by the superstitious.

You argue like a secret xtian christian fundamentalist.

What an infantile evasion.

It is your argument that is stupid.

Joseph Smith wrote about Jesus and the Angel Moroni yet you want to make people believe that Jesus or the Angel Moroni could physically start a religion like Joseph Smith.

How illogical can you be.

Jesus and the Angel Moroni are myth characters in the Mormon Bible.

Again, you clearly cannot comprehend the analogy. If Jesus was a real person, then he could have been the origin of Christianity just as Joseph Smith was the origin of Mormonism. If someone else writes a religious work featuring Joseph Smith, it won't suddenly mean that Joseph Smith cannot have existed as a real person.

Jesus, the God of the Jews, Satan the Devil, the angel Gabriel and the Holy Ghost were myth characters in the Gospels--it is the AUTHORS who start religions--NOT the mythological characters.

Yeah, and the authors of the New Testament texts clearly made up a lot of stuff. If there was an historical Jesus, it seems very likely that he would be shocked by the religions that were created by people generation after his death. But you haven't demonstrated that it is logically impossible, or even unlikely, for stories about a real preacher to be handed down orally by successive generations of narrators who embellish the story until it bears little resemblance to the facts.

I've asked you to demonstrate which parts of my hypothetical scenario are logically impossible, but you have not done so.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Mark doesn't say that.

Dejudge seems to mash the collected texts of the NT together as though they form one narrative. Ironically, that is like the way Christian fundamentalists approach it.

There were and are plenty of intelligent and literate Christians. Your blanket generalisation is idiotic.

He doesn't seem to realize that the early spread of Christianity by word of mouth among largely illiterate people actually fits in very will with the idea that the stories being told about Jesus were altered considerably before they even came to be written down.

 

[Belz...]

But this does give a clue to what seems to be your fundamental problem: You seem to regard Christianity with such vitriol that you see regarding even the most mundane details as plausible as tantamount to acceptance of Christian doctrine.

That's been my impression for quite a while, now.

 

[dejudge]

....If I have understood correctly -IIUC-, we agree in that no passage of the Old Testament speaks about a Messiah crucified by (Romans) and that it was an alien idea to Jewish mentality.

Do you not understand that for hundreds of years Christian writers of antiquity did state that the Jews killed Jesus.

Do you not have any interest in what Christian themselves documented?

Are you not interested in the history of Christian teachings?


1. Aristides in "Apology"--the Jews Killed Jesus the Son of God .

2. Justin Martyr in "Dialogue with Trypho"--the Jews Killed Jesus the Son of God.

3. Irenaeus in "Against Heresies"--the Jews Killed Jesus the Son of God.

4. Tertullian in "Answer to the Jews"--the Jews Killed Jesus the Son of God .

5. Hippolytus in "Treatise Against the Jews"--the Jews Killed Jesus the Son of God .

6. Origen in "Against Celsus"--the Jews Killed Jesus the Son of God.

7. Lactantius in "The Way the Persecutors Died"--the Jews Killed Jesus the Son of God .

8. Eusebius in "Demonstration of the Gospel"--the Jews Killed Jesus the Son of God.

9. The author of Acts 2---the Jews Killed Jesus the Son of God.

10. The author of 1 Thessalonians--the Jews Killed Jesus the Son of God.

 

[pakeha]

...But, like all who write, Paul also had a life. As is typical of the genre, the point-of-view character isn't the first to experience the spooky presence. Paul may have found himself amidst reports of ghost sightings actually unfolding around him, and then wrote later to suit. ...

Apparently ghost stories were enjoyed in 1st century Rome.
Here are several collected by Pliny the Younger
http://www.mysecretatheistblog.com/2012/10/an-ancient-roman-ghost-story.html

This article offers an overview of the genre
http://www.scarystories.ca/GhostStory/The-Belief-In-Ghosts-In-Greece-A.html

 

[dejudge]

The interesting thing about this is that whereas your comments are consonant with the historical critical method, dejudge's persistent use of 'ghost' and 'ghost story' is not, and in fact, has all the hallmarks of a crude ideological drive - to discredit Christianity.

Far be it from me to criticize someone who wishes to discredit Christianity, but it is impossible to do this as part of a dispassionate examination of historical events. It's not doing history, it's propaganda.

Your post reflects the sort of drivel that those who argue for an historical Jesus put forward because you have nothing--no evidence at all for an HJ.

It is Christian writers of antiquity who wrote that their Jesus was born of a Holy Ghost.

Ignatius' Ephesians

For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Ghost.

Origen's Against Celsus 1

... let us see whether those who have blindly concocted these fables about the adultery of the Virgin with Panthera, and her rejection by the carpenter, did not invent these stories to overturn His miraculous conception by the Holy Ghost

You seem to have very very little knowledge or cannot remember that multiple Christian writers stated their Jesus was born of a Ghost.

Tertullian's On the Flesh of Christ

You say that He was born through a virgin, not of a virgin, and in a womb, not of a womb, because the angel in the dream said to Joseph, “That which is born in her” (not of her) “is of the Holy Ghost.”