Historical Jesus

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HansMustermann said:
Look, just to make it clear, I don't claim to be sure that some guy called Paul actually started a bunch of churches. I don't know that.

There is a historical necessity that SOMEONE must have started those gentile churches, but frankly, nothing hinges on him being actually named Paul. He could have been called Jerry for all I care. Or a composite figure of the apostles Curly, Larry and Moe. I'll keep calling that SOMEONE Paul, for clarity sake, but otherwise it's as open as it gets.
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So, you don't care if the Epistles were falsely attributed to Paul. It would not matter to you if the Epistles were really written in the 2nd century by multiple persons like Larry, Jerry, Harry, Moe and Curly.

You will keeping calling the person Paul.

You don't know and you don't care.

Well, the people who started the Christian cults were not named Paul and did not use the Pauline Epistles.

Examine Justin's "First Apology"
... There was a Samaritan, Simon, a native of the village called Gitto, who in the reign of Claudius Caesar, and in your royal city of Rome, did mighty acts of magic, by virtue of the art of the devils operating in him.

He was considered a god, and as a god was honoured by you ........ And almost all the Samaritans, and a few even of other nations, worship him, and acknowledge him as the first god..... And a man, Meander, also a Samaritan, of the town Capparetaea, a disciple of Simon...... He persuaded those who adhered to him that they should never die, and even now there are some living who hold this opinion of his.

And there is Marcion, a man of Pontus, who is even at this day alive, and teaching his disciples to believe in some other god greater than the Creator.......... All who take their opinions from these men, are, as we before said, called Christians...
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Justin's Dialogue With Trypho
And, 'Many false Christs and false apostles shall arise, and shall deceive many of the faithful................. Some are called Marcians, and some Valentinians, and some Basilidians, and some Saturnilians, and others by other name..
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Simon Magus, Meander, Marcus, Valentinus, Basilides, Saturnilus, Ptolemy, Colorbasus, Carpocrates, Marcion and others started Christian cults before the one you call Paul and the Epistles were fabricated.

See Against Heresies attributed to Irenaeus.

See "Refutation of All Heresies" attributed to Hippolytus.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/irenaeus-book1.html

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050110.htm

The start of Christian cults had nothing whatsoever to do with NT Jesus, the disciples and the one you call Paul.
 
What is the evidence for the Jesus myth being created in the 2nd century? Positive evidence, not negative. Who created it, when, where, and why? Can you give me just a quick synopsis of the hypothesis of how the gospels and epistles came to be?
 
DevilsAdvocate said:
What is the evidence for the Jesus myth being created in the 2nd century? Positive evidence, not negative. Who created it, when, where, and why? Can you give me just a quick synopsis of the hypothesis of how the gospels and epistles came to be?
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A great nany historians date many of the New Testament Books to the second century.

Here is a video that suggests just that. I personally don't believe this...not sure what I believe as to when it was created. Although I do believe that Jesus was either totally made up or highly exaggerated.


Richard Carrier argues against the second century Jesus and the Paul fabrication on his website
The best formal attempt to argue for the non-historicity of Paul is that of Hermann Detering (see The Fabricated Paul). I cannot ascertain his qualifications in the field. But his writings are well-informed.

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/7643
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dejudge said:
So, you don't care if the Epistles were falsely attributed to Paul. It would not matter to you if the Epistles were really written in the 2nd century by multiple persons like Larry, Jerry, Harry, Moe and Curly.

You will keeping calling the person Paul.

You don't know and you don't care.
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Same reason why we keep calling the gospels of Mark and Matthew just that, even though we're pretty sure it's not those two guys mentioned by Papias. It's just a name. As long as we all understand what it designates, it served its purpose. If I call my cat an "ass hole ninja murder floof", it's still just a cat.

And he's a non-witness as described in those epistles, once you remove the obviously forged testimony in them. And an all around unreliable source for Jesus, for the reasons I mentioned. Whether he's for realz or made up, it's still not evidence for Jesus. That's really the biggest reason that I don't really care much about who he really was.

It's like if in a murder trial I tried to introduce as evidence some letters from someone who DIDN'T see the crime, DOESN'T add any first hand testimony about the victim or the murderer, and doesn't transmit even anything else, not even second hand hearsay (which wouldn't be admissible evidence either, btw.) It's just not evidence. We might have to argue authorship and reliability if it actually were useful evidence. But the simple fact that it doesn't add any evidence about the crime is enough to dismiss it either way, and not care if the letters are real or forged.
 
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But to return to how absurd it would have been for Paul to actually claim that there were 10,000 clergy in Corinth, and to put it into perspective: nowadays the Church of England has 19,550 total ordained ministers. Source here: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-11/Ministry Statistics 2016.pdf (page 4) Out of about 66 million people in the UK.

And sure, not everyone in the UK is a believer in specifically the CoE, but then all of Corinth wasn't Xian either.

Now picture half that number of clergy of the whole UK serving just a city of 90,000 people :p
 
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HansMustermann said:
But to return to how absurd it would have been for Paul to actually claim that there were 10,000 clergy in Corinth, and to put it into perspective: nowadays the Church of England has 19,550 total ordained ministers. Source here: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-11/Ministry Statistics 2016.pdf (page 4) Out of about 66 million people in the UK.

And sure, not everyone in the UK is a believer in specifically the CoE, but then all of Corinth wasn't Xian either.

Now picture half that number of clergy of the whole UK serving just a city of 90,000 people :p
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Yeah. It's pretty clear Paul is saying that you could have a zillion or even a gazillion people preaching in the church of Christ, but no matter how many you have there are still always only going to be a few Founding Fathers.

And what he is really saying is that there may be a whole bunch of people who preach different things about Christ, there could be a gazillion such preachers, but no matter how many there are, only a few of them are true--like me and Tim (and anybody else I say is true).

And what he is really, really saying is that he found out some people in the church are preaching different from him, and they better cut that stuff out before he has to turn this car around right now, mister.

And what he is really, really, really, saying is I'm sending out Tim to check up on you and if there is any funny business someone is going to get a beating. I don't want to beat you. Why are you making me beat you?
 
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HansMustermann said:
Yep.
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Paul. Charles Manson. Not so much difference.

Well....Paul seems to have had more success. Somehow. Manson seems to be a bit more rational. But Paul didn't get into the whole murder thing. Paul went the opposite route--strict morality (at least outside the church). More Jim Jones style. But Paul diversified; prevented the need to for mass suicide. And Paul couldn't get his group riled up enough to do anything really drastic before he...disappeared, or was killed by Nero, or something. Probably got covid and died quietly in an ICU and nobody talked about it other than in hushed tones.
 
The analogy with Manson is actually very apt, since both base their revelations on secret messages only they can see in other texts. For Manson it was Beatles songs, for the early Xians it was the OT, but same general idea.

As for Jim Jones, well, bear in mind though that the early Church leaders had no real reason to go for mass suicide. The image we get from the epistles is pretty much that they were treated like some kind of ancient superstar. Paul apparently travels around with an entourage including personal secretary, personal physician, a slave someone gave him, and even at least one groupie. And apparently so did the other apostles. He gets money "for the poor" and even puts conditions on how much you need to donate for him to come in person. And at least one congregation is starting to not trust him that he's actually passing that money to anyone. Which we might too, especially since for all his being all about "the poor", he actually takes from the poor for some other unspecified poor, and tells people to give to him not to the local poor.

And other than the backlash in the great fire of Rome, the Romans don't really seem to even take notice or care in the whole first century and most of the second. In modern days we're a lot more circumspect and curious what it's about, when some guy like Jim Jones makes his own super-secret society and keeps the rest of the world away. For them, mystery religions were just normal and the norm. When you already have people gathering for meals in the names of Mythras, Osiris, Dionysus, Isis, Cybele, etc, as the normal modus operandi, one more of them has to go out of its way to annoy the authorities to even get noticed.

There's not a whole lot of reason for someone to plan a suicidal way out.
 
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HansMustermann said:
The analogy with Manson is actually very apt, since both base their revelations on secret messages only they can see in other texts. For Manson it was Beatles songs, for the early Xians it was the OT, but same general idea.

As for Jim Jones, well, bear in mind though that the early Church leaders had no real reason to go for mass suicide. The image we get from the epistles is pretty much that they were treated like some kind of ancient superstar. Paul apparently travels around with an entourage including personal secretary, personal physician, a slave someone gave him, and even at least one groupie. And apparently so did the other apostles. He gets money "for the poor" and even puts conditions on how much you need to donate for him to come in person. And at least one congregation is starting to not trust him that he's actually passing that money to anyone. Which we might too, especially since for all his being all about "the poor", he actually takes from the poor for some other unspecified poor, and tells people to give to him not to the local poor.

And other than the backlash in the great fire of Rome, the Romans don't really seem to even take notice or care in the whole first century and most of the second. In modern days we're a lot more circumspect and curious what it's about, when some guy like Jim Jones makes his own super-secret society and keeps the rest of the world away. For them, mystery religions were just normal and the norm. When you already have people gathering for meals in the names of Mythras, Osiris, Dionysus, Isis, Cybele, etc, as the normal modus operandi, one more of them has to go out of its way to annoy the authorities to even get noticed.

There's not a whole lot of reason for someone to plan a suicidal way out.
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Well, there wasn't any reason for Jones to plan a suicidal way out. They were doing pretty damn good. He and his followers accomplished a whole lot. An incredible accomplishment. They could have kept it going. They were improving.

There was no need for a mass suicide. Jones was keeping some people there against their will. He didn't need to do that. He didn't need those people. When the Senator came, there was no need for the murder. The Senator even said he was going to give a good report. No problems.

But Jones was obviously nuts. He was on a suicide mission. He bought all that poison more than a year before these problems started. He planned it to end that way, no matter what happened.

Same with Manson. Like Paul, if you want in the club, turn over all your money and if you try to hide any of it, you die (Acts 5). If you question anything, you get weird answers. What happened is what Charlie/Paul says happens. But Charlie isn't the authority. No authority, man. It's just the way it has to be because of...Jesus, or The Man, or something else. But, still, what Charlie/Paul says is what goes. Anyone opposed gets beaten. And Charlie/Paul is NEVER wrong. Not even possible. Even if there are obvious contradictions and obvious lies. What, are YOU going to lead this thing you worthless punk idiot?

Basic classical cult stuff.
 
It is extremely and fundamentally important that Christian writers of antiquity represented truthfully the time of writing and names of their authors of the Gospels and Epistles.

Christian writers knew the precise names and teachings of the so-called heretics. They also wrote about when and from where the heretics derived their doctrines.

It is also significant that multiple Christians writers corroborated the time period, correct names and teachings of the heretics.

Christian writings attributed to Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Origen, Jerome, Eusebius and others mention the leaders of the heretical Christian cults.


And here lies the most devastating problem for Christian writers!!!

How is it that they knew the truth about the history of all the heretics but mis-represented the real names of their NT Canon?

Christian writers claim their Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
and even before c 70 CE but such claims have been found to be false.

Why Why did Christian writers mis-represent the time period and authors of their very own Gospels but were truthful about the heretics?

How is it the Christian writer's claims about the heretics are true and about their own are false??

Christian writers mis-represented every name and date of writing for their own Gospel.

Christian writers were forced to fabricate the dates and authors of their own Gospels because their Jesus, cult and authors did not exist before c 70 CE.

Now, once it is realised that there was no Jesus and cult before c 70 CE then it can easily be understood that all the claims in the Epistles about Jesus were also false.

We also know Paul was a fabricated Christian as is easily seen in Acts.

Christian writers had to invent the dates and names of their NT because they had no history before c 70 CE.

Jesus, the disciples, the authors of the Gospels and Epistles were all invented.
 
Saying that Paul is invented because he is featured in Acts is like saying that Lincoln was invented because he's the main character of Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies. Or that Caesar didn't exist because he's the character of several historical fiction books, including that by Shakespeare :p

I mean, maybe he was, but just that one piece of fiction features a character isn't the argument to settle that :p
 
dejudge said:
Why Why did Christian writers mis-represent the time period and authors of their very own Gospels but were truthful about the heretics?

How is it the Christian writer's claims about the heretics are true and about their own are false??

Christian writers mis-represented every name and date of writing for their own Gospel.

Christian writers were forced to fabricate the dates and authors of their own Gospels because their Jesus, cult and authors did not exist before c 70 CE.
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Can you give some examples of authentic historical texts that truthfully represent heretical leaders before 70 CE? Can you give me links or references to the documents about religious leaders in Judea that are carbon dated to 20-70 CE? If there are too many, just give maybe a dozen so that I can get an idea of what these documents are like.
 
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DevilsAdvocate said:
What is the evidence for the Jesus myth being created in the 2nd century? Positive evidence, not negative. Who created it, when, where, and why? Can you give me just a quick synopsis of the hypothesis of how the gospels and epistles came to be?
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This was a question for you, dejudge.
 
HansMustermann said:
Saying that Paul is invented because he is featured in Acts is like saying that Lincoln was invented because he's the main character of Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies. Or that Caesar didn't exist because he's the character of several historical fiction books, including that by Shakespeare :p

I mean, maybe he was, but just that one piece of fiction features a character isn't the argument to settle that :p
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Remember when Forrest Gump met Richard Nixon? Please, please, please tell me Nixon was a myth. [crosses fingers]
 
dejudge said:
Perhaps, you have no idea that people in the Roman Empire were already worshiping real Emperors as Gods.

I give all your explanations a minus zero. [-0]
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Perhaps, you have no idea that people in Judea were worshiping upstart radical Jewish men as Gods. Like Jesus.

I give all your explanations a minus twelve. [-12]
 
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That said, to play the devil's... err... OTHER advocate, dejudge does sort of have a point in any case.

Thing is, we do have evidence that there was such a thing as Xians in the 1st century, but BARELY, and it was a dying cult. Pliny The Younger's letters show that the cult did exist in 115AD (albeit too insignificant for him to even have heard about it) but almost all people he finds say that yeah, they used to be in a Christ cult, but they quit it like twenty years ago.

The cult had obviously gotten recruits in the 1st century, but by now it was losing them fast. We can speculate that this is what happens when an "apocalypse is nigh!!!" cult gets to live a few more decades and there's no apocalypse in sight. Or maybe the charismatic leaders had come and went. Or maybe since we're in the middle of the good emperors period, less people want the world to end already. Or whatever.

At any rate, the cult was dying at the start of the 2nd century, not to mention fragmenting all over the place... and then it was not. SOMETHING had happened to reverse the trend. They had done SOME change to the cult to make it appealing again.

It's what for example Carrier calls the 2nd century bottleneck.

And in that sense we can say that the cult we got today, the version that would become the RCC, is really the revised 2nd century version. In a sense we did get something that was put together differently in the 2nd century.

Now I would disagree that that something was starting from zero and invented its whole history up to that point. But obviously it did forge a lot of it, and thoroughly erased anything that contradicted it. And what we got today is that 2nd century rewrite, not the original unpopular version.
 
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Let me continue to expose the fiction characters of the NT including Jesus, the disciples and authors of the Epistles called Paul.

In apologetic writings it is claimed that people who believed the teachings of the heretics were called Christians.

Justin Martyr in "First Apology" admitted that followers of Simon Magus of Samaria were called Christians since the time of Claudius who was Emperor of Rome 41-54 CE.

Such an admittance is very significant.

Examine Acts of the Apostles chapter 8

Acts 8.
9 But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one:

10 To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God.
11 And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries.
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The author acknowledged a character called Simon claimed to be God and had believers in Samaria for a long time.

There were actual people in Samaria called Christians who worship Simon Magus as
a God long before Paul was fabricated as a Christian.

Saul/Paul was fabricated as a convert in chapter 9 of Acts .

Now, NT Jesus did not exist at all - there were no disciples.

Jesus did not meet with the disciples after the resurrection and told them to preach the Gospel to the world.

Saul/Paul could not have heard from Jesus when no such person ever existed at all.

Actual Christians in the time of Claudius were really followers of Simon Magus who was regarded him as the Great One.

Apologetic writers had to fabricate their Jesus, their disciples and their authors in an attempt to claim their teachings and cult were before the Christian cult of Simon Magus, the Great One.

The bogus history of NT writings is exposed.

Their Jesus, their disciples and their Paul were fiction.

Simon Magus was the real figure of history

Christians worshiped Simon as the Great One
 
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