Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed

[pakeha]

Yes, and literary analysis plays a distinct role there. I hope you haven't already been brainwashed into thinking it's of no account.



Well, if you do find a scholarly professional assessment of Gentile's work in a professional scholarly venue/periodical/web site, please let us know.

By the way, when you found the Gentile analysis, why didn't you link to it for the rest of the posters here?

Thanks,

Stone

I might as well ask, when you first mentioned the Gentile analysis, why didn't you link to it?
Here it is, by the way
http://www.davegentile.com/synoptics/main.html

It's more kin to forensic textual analysis, or forensic anthropology than modern literature textual analysis; at least, commonly.

I quite agree with you there, JaysonR.

 

[GDon]

OK, since that was polite request (makes a change from most on the HJ side), I will of course answer that in detail with a reply of chapter and verse quotations and references. Though, like many people I am now in the middle of preparing for three quite hectic days of family and friends over Christmas, so you may have to be patient until after I have dealt with the more important matter of getting everything ready for Xmas.

No problem, I'm in no hurry. Perhaps it would be good in its own thread? E.g. "What did Paul know and how did he know it?"

One thing here though - with the above, we are again veering off course into the realms of bible studies classes, and away from the glaring fact that still nobody here can cite the slightest hint of any genuine evidence of Jesus ... and we really ought to get that very, very clear indeed, before we go off into discussions of which 1st century preachers are supposed to have written what, what their words really may have meant, whether the translations are actually correct, whether they are interpolations, which much later extant copies the translated quotes actually come from and what dates those much later extant Christian copies actually are, etc. etc.

Noted. But from my perspective, questions about what Paul believed and how he knew it, etc, help to form an important part of the evidence for a cumulative case for (or against) historicity. I think there is good evidence to build a very strong cumulative case for the historicity of Jesus indeed; but you and I have already agreed to disagree on what constitutes evidence, which is fine. No need to go over that ground again. As long as we both know where we are coming from, agreeing to disagree is a minor win-win for both of us.

 

[Stone]

I might as well ask, when you first mentioned the Gentile analysis, why didn't you link to it?
Here it is, by the way
http://www.davegentile.com/synoptics/main.html

Touche! I should have supplied it. I actually did not have the link in front of me, since I wrote my previous going on memory only. It's been a couple of years since I went and perused it, and the browser where it was bookmarked has long since fried (not due to my having a temper tantrum ;-) ). Retrieving it now would have been a Google proposition for me -- as I'm sure it was for you.

Thanks much for supplying the link here.

Stone

An afterthought: Apparently, Papias once referred to GMatthew as "logia", which may mean sayings only (scholars dispute that). Thing is, if Gentile is right that there are traces of Matt. style in the parallel sayings, that may mean that there were two GMatt.'s: a sayings-only gospel, and the bigger narrative gospel we know. Papias may have known the sayings GMatt. only, and that may have actually been the elusive Q. That could mean that Gentile is overstating the case when he claims a downright fabrication by Matt. It could simply be that it was Matt. who transcribed an oral tradition as best he could recall it, before writing down the familiar narrative gospel a number of years later.

 

[pipelineaudio]

So this guy goes to what would be the equivalent of the white house today, beats the crap out of everyone, stops business as usual and there would be no record?

Or do we retreat from even that claim?

How far can you retreat before he is no longer HJ?

What could we say, right now, so that given a description, we could find this guy? Anything?

I think all we can claim is that there were guys named jesus running around and maybe got crucified. Can we really say any of those guys are the basis of that religion?

 

[Brainache]

So this guy goes to what would be the equivalent of the white house today, beats the crap out of everyone, stops business as usual and there would be no record?

Or do we retreat from even that claim?

How far can you retreat before he is no longer HJ?

What could we say, right now, so that given a description, we could find this guy? Anything?

I think all we can claim is that there were guys named jesus running around and maybe got crucified. Can we really say any of those guys are the basis of that religion?

Disturbances in the Temple at Passover were a regular event. The Romans always had to post extra security; Half the country or more came to town for Passover.

Josephus records several riots in his own lifetime, but there is no reason he should remember every single time some hot-head got nailed for starting a fight in the Temple on Passover. Especially if it happened before he was born. It happened nearly every year.

Imagine if Everyone in the US had to go to Plymouth Rock for Thanksgiving every year. How many brawls would there be about what the "Traditional Meal" should be?

 

[dejudge]

I think all we can claim is that there were guys named jesus running around and maybe got crucified. Can we really say any of those guys are the basis of that religion?

Such a claim cannot be made because there is no evidence to support it. If Jesus was merely a man who got crucified that event could not have started a new religion where a Pharisee called Paul evangelised the Roman Empire.

It simply does not make much sense that a Pharisee would wait until Jesus was dead to claim he was still LIVING.

Jesus was supposedly killed around 33 CE.

Thousands of Jews were crucified in the 1st century and we hardly have the names of any who was worshiped as a God.

Without any reasonable doubt we can claim with the abundance of evidence that Jesus was a figure of myth--a figure of Belief---a figure of faith.

 

[Brainache]

It simply does not make much sense that a Pharisee would wait until Jesus was dead to claim he was still LIVING.

...

Can you outline for us just what it is in the Pharisee belief system that you base this assertion on?

 

[Foster Zygote]

Such a claim cannot be made because there is no evidence to support it. If Jesus was merely a man who got crucified that event could not have started a new religion where a Pharisee called Paul evangelised the Roman Empire.

It simply does not make much sense that a Pharisee would wait until Jesus was dead to claim he was still LIVING.

Actually, it doesn't make much sense that he'd make such a claim while Jesus of Nazareth was still alive.

Jesus was supposedly killed around 33 CE.

Thousands of Jews were crucified in the 1st century and we hardly have the names of any who was worshiped as a God.

That's pretty bullet-proof logic there. It's like saying, "Hundreds of tin-horn preachers were around in the United States during the early 19th Century, and hardly any of them founded a major religion".

 

[dejudge]

Actually, it doesn't make much sense that he'd make such a claim while Jesus of Nazareth was still alive.

The Pauline Corpus just does not make sense no matter which claim is made.

Jesus, the dead or the living, could not have resurrected and was not God Creator. Only myth Jesus can do those things, And people believe he did.

That's pretty bullet-proof logic there. It's like saying, "Hundreds of tin-horn preachers were around in the United States during the early 19th Century, and hardly any of them founded a major religion".

The author of Acts, and gLuke claimed it was a Holy Ghost that caused the start of the Jesus cult.

The miracles of Jesus, resurrection and ascension would have come to nought if the Holy Ghost did not come down from heaven on the day of Pentecost.

Not one known Christian of antiquity became a Christian after meeting Jesus except Paul he met Jesus after he was already dead for days or perphaps years.

You cannot equate the Ghost stories in the Bible to real life events.

 

[JaysonR]

So this guy goes to what would be the equivalent of the white house today, beats the crap out of everyone, stops business as usual and there would be no record?

We have exactly zero records from the second temple archives.
They were all destroyed in the temple, so was the entire treasury.

So yes, there are exactly zero records from the Jewish temple for any outburst.

We have more texts survived from the destruction of Alexandria than we do survived from the 2nd temple destruction.

 

[Foster Zygote]

The Pauline Corpus just does not make sense no matter which claim is made.

Jesus, the dead or the living, could not have resurrected and was not God Creator. Only myth Jesus can do those things, And people believe he did.

The author of Acts, and gLuke claimed it was a Holy Ghost that caused the start of the Jesus cult.

The miracles of Jesus, resurrection and ascension would have come to nought if the Holy Ghost did not come down from heaven on the day of Pentecost.

Not one known Christian of antiquity became a Christian after meeting Jesus except Paul he met Jesus after he was already dead for days or perphaps years.

You cannot equate the Ghost stories in the Bible to real life events.

And everyone knows that the proposition that Jesus was an actual preacher is entirely dependent on the idea that Paul was being completely factual when he said that he'd been contacted by Jesus after his death.


By the way, have you had a chance to consider which elements of the hypothetical origin of Christianity I proposed are logically impossible?

 

[dejudge]

And everyone knows that the proposition that Jesus was an actual preacher is entirely dependent on the idea that Paul was being completely factual when he said that he'd been contacted by Jesus after his death.

How in the world can an event that could not have happened confirms the existence of Jesus as a human being?

The resurrection of Jesus could not have happened even if Jesus did live.

The claim of the resurrection has no historical or factual value.

Ionically, the claim of the resurrection in fact confirms Paul was NOT FACTUAL.

 

[JaysonR]

Dejudge, Foster was being sarcastic.
He was stating that Paul's historicity does not rest upon Paul's dogmatic authority from meeting Jesus in any literary capacity.

Your post spent its time discussing Paul's encounter with Jesus, Foster is stating that there is no limitation upon whether or not Paul could have claimed to have met Jesus, or never claimed it, and preached his theology.

He is stating that Paul's preaching is not reliant on the historicity of Jesus and Paul meeting.
No more, say, than the idea (for you) that a 2nd c CE writer is reliant upon a historicity of meeting with Jesus.

 

[David Mo]

There is nothing remarkable in reasoning of this kind, but of course some of the MJ people refuse even to look at it, and the rest pay no attention when they do reluctantly peruse it.

Craig B

Very good points there. There is a kind of monolithic thinking among some MJ advocates, which is quite puzzling.

True. But the problem for me is how to criticise the miticism without becoming anti-miticist. There is a monolithic thinking also in the anti-myticist field.

 

[pakeha]

Touche! I should have supplied it. I actually did not have the link in front of me, since I wrote my previous going on memory only. It's been a couple of years since I went and perused it, and the browser where it was bookmarked has long since fried (not due to my having a temper tantrum ;-) ). Retrieving it now would have been a Google proposition for me -- as I'm sure it was for you.

Thanks much for supplying the link here.

No worries, Stone!
I enjoy Google hunts much more than reading Philo or Josephus.
Philo bores me tears and Josephus appeals to all my worst instincts- I find myself chanting ""Blood, blood, blood" after reading Josephus's accounts of warfare.

An afterthought: Apparently, Papias once referred to GMatthew as "logia", which may mean sayings only (scholars dispute that). Thing is, if Gentile is right that there are traces of Matt. style in the parallel sayings, that may mean that there were two GMatt.'s: a sayings-only gospel, and the bigger narrative gospel we know. Papias may have known the sayings GMatt. only, and that may have actually been the elusive Q. That could mean that Gentile is overstating the case when he claims a downright fabrication by Matt. It could simply be that it was Matt. who transcribed an oral tradition as best he could recall it, before writing down the familiar narrative gospel a number of years later.

Now that's an interesting idea, Stone.
Speculation about how the gospels evolved is a fascinating subject, isn't it!
This is where textual and literary analysis comes into their own.

 

[pakeha]

Disturbances in the Temple at Passover were a regular event. The Romans always had to post extra security; Half the country or more came to town for Passover.

Josephus records several riots in his own lifetime, but there is no reason he should remember every single time some hot-head got nailed for starting a fight in the Temple on Passover. Especially if it happened before he was born. It happened nearly every year.

Imagine if Everyone in the US had to go to Plymouth Rock for Thanksgiving every year. How many brawls would there be about what the "Traditional Meal" should be?

That's a lovely image, Brainache!

But on a more serious note, I understand such a disturbance as described in the NT would hardly have been noticed, given the immense size of the court itself.
I'm left wondering if the incident is flat-out hagiography or flat out fiction.


Especially since, as JaysonR points out

We have exactly zero records from the second temple archives.
They were all destroyed in the temple, so was the entire treasury.

So yes, there are exactly zero records from the Jewish temple for any outburst.

We have more texts survived from the destruction of Alexandria than we do survived from the 2nd temple destruction.

 

[Brainache]

That's a lovely image, Brainache!

But on a more serious note, I understand such a disturbance as described in the NT would hardly have been noticed, given the immense size of the court itself.
I'm left wondering if the incident is flat-out hagiography or flat out fiction.


Especially since, as JaysonR points out

Still not implausible though.

I'm not saying it was a city-wide riot, just a small disturbance with maybe a few casualties. Happened all the time in those days.

 

[Craig B]

Still not implausible though.

I'm not saying it was a city-wide riot, just a small disturbance with maybe a few casualties. Happened all the time in those days.

There was not merely a disturbance but an insurrection involving loss of life, led by Jesus, Son of the Father. How do I know? The Bible tells me so! It's at Mark 15:7. Read that, and then google up the name given there.

 

[Brainache]

There was not merely a disturbance but an insurrection involving loss of life, led by Jesus, Son of the Father. How do I know? The Bible tells me so! It's at Mark 15:7. Read that, and then google up the name given there.

OK. A bit more than a "minor disturbance", but not a very successful revolt either. Just Jesus and his gang, the people apparently didn't join in...

 

[Craig B]

OK. A bit more than a "minor disturbance", but not a very successful revolt either. Just Jesus and his gang, the people apparently didn't join in...

Certainly wasn't successful. The extent of popular participation is hard to discern from the texts, which are concerned in any case to conceal the event as far as possible. Christians are a bunch of rebellious messianic Jews. Like Theudas? That would never do at all! So the nice Jesus the Nazarene and the nasty Jesus bar Abba have been separated into two people. We are disciples of the nice one.