Belz...
Fiend God
Yeah but that's a crucial point: Jesus wasn't well known. His story is well known now. Everything seems to indicate that IF he existed, he was pretty unimportant.
Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed
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Yeah but that's a crucial point: Jesus wasn't well known. His story is well known now. Everything seems to indicate that IF he existed, he was pretty unimportant.
Yes, that's a good example of anachronism, I think. You can't ask for evidence for a very famous Jesus, if he wasn't very famous then. If he had been, it would presumably be legitimate to ask for more contemporary accounts, by other Jews or by Roman writers.
One of the problems here, which crops up a lot, is the Christian veneer which has been placed on these narratives. I mean, some Christians don't want to say that Jesus was an obscure Jewish preacher, they want to say that he was from the beginning a shining and obvious theophany, or whatever the right word is. If he was that, we would expect more reports of him.
So because Christians have given this kind of back-editing to the life of Jesus, it is tempting to follow suit. However the Christian theophanous Jesus may not be the historic one, who may be a Jewish (obscure) Jesus! So there is a kind of deChristianization at work in this process.
One of the problems here, which crops up a lot, is the Christian veneer which has been placed on these narratives. I mean, some Christians don't want to say that Jesus was an obscure Jewish preacher, they want to say that he was from the beginning a shining and obvious theophany, or whatever the right word is. If he was that, we would expect more reports of him.
So because Christians have given this kind of back-editing to the life of Jesus, it is tempting to follow suit. However the Christian theophanous Jesus may not be the historic one, who may be a Jewish (obscure) Jesus! So there is a kind of deChristianization at work in this process.
Your statement exposes the fundamental contradiction of the HJ argument.
Hjers argue that THEIR Jesus was NOT the Christ but was an OBSCURE Jewish preacher yet use references to a WELL KNOWN Christus who was supposedly documented in the history of Romans and Jews.
By 37-41 CE, Paul supposedly was going around the Roman Empire telling Roman Citizens and Jews about Jesus the CHRIST, the Son of God and God Creator.
In the Pauline Corpus, Paul called Jesus the Christ and Son of God over 300 times.
You have exposed that there is no evidence of an OBSCURE Jewish preacher.
I am afraid that your HJ, the OBSCURE preacher, has NO history.
And your statements basically accept the Christian version of history. Thus, for you, terms such as 'messiah' and 'son of God' refer to a deity; but for Jews, they did not. In fact, the idea of a divine messiah was repellent to Jews, and still is. Some modern Jewish writers use the word 'mashiach', as they consider that 'messiah' has been irrevocably contaminated by Christian influence. But the mashiach is a human being, in fact, sometimes a military leader, but not a saviour in the divine sense.
So your arguments only work if we accept that the Christian account of history is the correct one!
You must contradict your own claim that HJ was an OBSCURE preacher man and use the Pauline Corpus, Tacitus Annals with Christus, and Josephus AJ 20.9.1 with Jesus called the Christ.
You must have realized that an OBSCURE HJ makes no sense.
How in the world could a character who was supposedly documented in Jewish and Roman History be OBSCURE?
Your OBSCURE HJ makes NO sense if he was known and documented to have been EXECUTED by Romans and REJECTED by the Jews as Christ and the Son of God and if Paul documented and preached about Jesus, the Son of God and Christ who was Crucified and Resurrected since 37-41 CE.
An Obscure HJ does not make any sense historically and theologically.
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Well, an obscure HJ is not palatable for most Christians, who generally want to say that Jesus is acclaimed as God from the beginning.
But many HJ arguments dispute this, and have a trajectory from obscure Jewish preacher to Logos; the first is historical, the second is supernatural.
But you reject this, and you work within the Christian paradigm.
You are working within the paradigm of your imagination--neither from Apologetic writings or from historical sources.
Your imagined OBSCURE dead HJ has no historical and theological value and explains nothing if Pauline writings are authentic and there was a God called Gaius the Emperor of Rome c 37-41 CE.
It is just absolutely illogical to argue YOUR HJ was obscure when he was supposedly DOCUMENTED in Roman and Jewish history as the Christ and that his documented execution and activities were still available up to the 2nd century when Tacitus wrote "Annals".
An OBSCURE HJ makes no logical sense if Paul documented and preached that Jesus was the Son of God, Lord, and Savior around the Roman Empire since the time of Gauis, the God of Rome who KILLLED and HATED Jews everywhere and anywhere in the Roman Empire.
Except that the Jesus the Gospels and Acts describe wasn't an unimportant person. By c180 CE (Against Heresies), we have a Jesus who preached to thousands and whose teaching was known throughout the three Roman provinces of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea by 37 CE (Oxford University Press (2006) The Catholic Comparative New Testament pg 851-967.)
So, what they were writing in Rome 150 years later is accurate and honest?
I don't think we need to take these guys too seriously when they talk up Jesus like that.
Belz...
Fiend God
We're criss-crossing the line between the myth and history, here. The gospels make exaggerated claims all the time.
I don't know if anyone has tried to put an exact figure on how big this Jesus cult might have been. The NT numbers vary from 500 to 5000, but these sorts of numbers are usually just symbolic of something else.
The community at Qumran numbered themselves in the Thousands, but we don't hear much about those guys in Ancient sources.
Or do we?
It's true that an obscure and rather typical charismatic preacher Jesus has little theological value for Christians, and you will find that they object strenuously to such a line of enquiry. For them, as for you, Jesus is described as God from the beginning, and so the idea of a trajectory from obscure Jewish preacher to Logos is incomprehensible, since they inhabit a kind of history-free zone, as you do apparently.
HJ the Obscure preacher explains NOTHING about the start of Christianity. Obscure HJ is without evidence.
The OBSCURE HJ argument is incomprehensible.
pipelineaudio
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Lets be clear and no more beating around the bush. You mean the bible right?
As you have been told numerous times, it also includes all of the Apocrypha and early Church Historians, Tacitus and Josephus.
ETA: Start with the texts here:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/index.html
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I don't know if anyone has tried to put an exact figure on how big this Jesus cult might have been. The NT numbers vary from 500 to 5000, but these sorts of numbers are usually just symbolic of something else.
The community at Qumran numbered themselves in the Thousands, but we don't hear much about those guys in Ancient sources.
Or do we?
We have the Dead Sea Scrolls from the Qumran Community but FORGERIES from Christian Community.
Who were those guys in the Christian Community?--they faked a lot of writings.
Forgeries of what?
This stupid argument doesn't get smarter through repetition you know.
Don't you even remember that writings under the name of Paul are FAKES? Don't you even remember that the authors called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did NOT write any of the Gospels in the Canon?
There are about 27 books in the NT Canon and at least 18 of them are considered FORGERIES or falsely attributed to FAKE 1st century writers.
Where does the Gospel of Mark claim to be written by the Apostle Mark? Or Matthew for that matter...
Just because later tradition assigned names to the Authors, doesn't make the writings "forgeries".
Please try to take this seriously, what you are doing is useless for everyone.
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