Historical Jesus

[IanS]

I'm certainly not coming here to promote some premeditated position I hold. My current opinion is more like this:

Probability Jesus stories are wholly made up myth: Unknown
Probablilty Jesus stories are myth added to real person: Unknown

So I'm interested in discussing things about either hypothesis that I'm not sure how they would fit. For example the genealogies you find in NT. To my mind that tells us that two different people wrote them, unaware of each other. How does that fit with the MJ hypothesis?

I would not put any historical value on genealogies written in the NT either for Jesus or anyone else.

Afaik, the OT has genealogies for, or leading from, people like King David, Abraham, Moses etc. But apparently even biblical scholars now think the probability is that none of those figures actually existed! Ie they were all invented as religious fiction.

I agree with you that there is nothing anywhere in the NT that we can point to and say "this bit here must be true". At best we can find some bits that aren't impossible, such as when it goes "And Jesus said....".

It gets far worse than that from the HJ side in these threads over the last 12 years or more. They even claim evidence of Jesus, along with claiming real true facts in the gospels, by saying that the writing mentions real places such as Jerusalem!! IOW; they are claiming the biblical writing is truthful and reliable at least in parts because it mentions real places like Jerusalem, and hence they say that means the biblical writing does contain real facts or potential real facts about Jesus !!! … I mean, just how absurd can people get in threads like this when trying defend a HJ … iirc, it even happened again in this very thread when someone here claimed that only a minority of what the gospels said about Jesus was impossible miraculous stuff, so that the majority of what was written described him as a perfectly ordinary human preacher!!

Here's a conundrum for you: You're travelling in Greece and one day you encounter some old men who tell you that the Messiah has already come and gone. It happened over 400 years ago, they say, and they have numerous stories about the miracles he performed and the words he spoke. You of course, being a sceptic and a member of this Forum don't believe any if it, but you are left wondering: Did they (or perhaps someone 200 years ago) invent all of it from whole cloth, or was there originally some person about whom these myths have been spun? Could there be some clue as to the truth of the matter inside some of the stories they tell?

In this case you would eventually realize that they were talking about Sabbatai Zevi, who did indeed exist and did indeed claim to be the Messiah. Now that doesn't prove that another Messiah existed, too, but perhaps it shows that there can be a real person at the bottom of a fiction.

Well I don't think its' anything of a conundrum. We all agree (well, almost all of us) that it's possible that a real HJ did exist. And I've said that already in numerous posts here. It's not possible to entirely rule that out or to actually disprove such existence. But that's mainly because as I said directly above (and many times before), it's almost impossible ever to directly produce evidence of someone who never existed.

So we all know that a HJ of some sort might have existed. It's not a proven impossibility. But as I have already explained many times here in this thread, the problem for believing that a HJ most probably existed (i.e. a belief of 50% likelihood or greater), is that wherever it's been humanly possible to check it, all of the written material that we have about Jesus has now turned out to be clearly untrue fiction. There's really nothing of any actual substance that can be shown as actually true or likely to be true at all. IOW – all the evidence that we do actually have, is evidence of wholesale religious myth making.

 

[dejudge]

Well I don't think its' anything of a conundrum. We all agree (well, almost all of us) that it's possible that a real HJ did exist. And I've said that already in numerous posts here. It's not possible to entirely rule that out or to actually disprove such existence. But that's mainly because as I said directly above (and many times before), it's almost impossible ever to directly produce evidence of someone who never existed.

Well, "we all agree (well, almost all of us) that it's possible" that there was no HJ. It is not possible to disprove his non-existence.

An argument that Jesus did not exist does not require historical evidence.

We have writings of antiquity which made mention of fundamental characters in the NT except Jesus, the disciples and Paul.

We have writings of antiquity about prophecies about Jewish Messianic rulers and none of them mentioned Jesus of Nazareth.

Virtually all the stories of Jesus are either fiction or implausible.

In addition, multiple writings of antiquity have been manipulated to make it appear that Jesus was a figure of his history.

And even more disturbing, the very authors of the NT were fabricated to make it seem that they were writing before c 70 CE.


All the existing evidence support the argument that there was no HJ.

There is no conundrum at all. The evidence from antiquity have been examined and HJ cannot be found.

So we all know that a HJ of some sort might have existed. It's not a proven impossibility. But as I have already explained many times here in this thread, the problem for believing that a HJ most probably existed (i.e. a belief of 50% likelihood or greater), is that wherever it's been humanly possible to check it, all of the written material that we have about Jesus has now turned out to be clearly untrue fiction. There's really nothing of any actual substance that can be shown as actually true or likely to be true at all. IOW – all the evidence that we do actually have, is evidence of wholesale religious myth making.

But, surely we all know that an HJ might not have existed. "It is not a proven impossibility".

It is completely reasonable to argue against an historical Jesus based on the existing evidence ["wholesale religious myth making"]

 

[Ulf Nereng]

I would not put any historical value on genealogies written in the NT either for Jesus or anyone else.

Afaik, the OT has genealogies for, or leading from, people like King David, Abraham, Moses etc. But apparently even biblical scholars now think the probability is that none of those figures actually existed! Ie they were all invented as religious fiction.

I don't put any value of them as historical documents. To me the interesting part is that there are two of them, and that they are very different from each other. (I've occasionally had some fun asking christians what the name of Jesus' grandfather is, according to NT.) This shows that there were two different authors, which raises a question: Why didn't someone attempt to "harmonize" them, or quietly remove one of the offending contradictory tales later?

It gets far worse than that from the HJ side in these threads over the last 12 years or more. They even claim evidence of Jesus, along with claiming real true facts in the gospels, by saying that the writing mentions real places such as Jerusalem!! IOW; they are claiming the biblical writing is truthful and reliable at least in parts because it mentions real places like Jerusalem, and hence they say that means the biblical writing does contain real facts or potential real facts about Jesus !!! … I mean, just how absurd can people get in threads like this when trying defend a HJ … iirc, it even happened again in this very thread when someone here claimed that only a minority of what the gospels said about Jesus was impossible miraculous stuff, so that the majority of what was written described him as a perfectly ordinary human preacher!!

I agree with you. Tolstoy's War and Peace mentions real places and real people, but the main characters are fictional, of course. The same can be said of many works of fiction, such as Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about Sherlock Holmes.

Well I don't think its' anything of a conundrum. We all agree (well, almost all of us) that it's possible that a real HJ did exist. And I've said that already in numerous posts here. It's not possible to entirely rule that out or to actually disprove such existence. But that's mainly because as I said directly above (and many times before), it's almost impossible ever to directly produce evidence of someone who never existed.

So we all know that a HJ of some sort might have existed. It's not a proven impossibility. But as I have already explained many times here in this thread, the problem for believing that a HJ most probably existed (i.e. a belief of 50% likelihood or greater), is that wherever it's been humanly possible to check it, all of the written material that we have about Jesus has now turned out to be clearly untrue fiction. There's really nothing of any actual substance that can be shown as actually true or likely to be true at all. IOW – all the evidence that we do actually have, is evidence of wholesale religious myth making.

Yes, evidence in some form would solve the problem. Perhaps a report from Pilate about how he had executed a person that would fit reasonable well with the Jesus character. But what about the MJ theory? What would evidence that proved that theory look like?

 

[Lithrael]

What we do have is stuff like that apologia, talking smack about false Christian prophets. It seems to me this letter shows that Jesus-following Christians were around and cranky about being tarred by association with those other nasty Christians, some time after Hadrian passed Ceaser-ship to Antoninius Pious; more than a century after the proposed HJ’s death. And it identifies some of these popular false prophets as people who were still familiar to the public, who got statues and everything during Claudius’ reign, just a few years after HJ’s death.

The guy is complaining that people who follow those other popular prophets are/were also called Christians and that they give real Christians a bad name. To me this seems consistent with the idea that lots of ‘real people’ prophets were popping up to fill overdue OT prophetic gaps, and that at some point “Paul,” finding them all lacking, just up and started writing about the real one that he straight up said he learned about from divine revelation.

That is, more or less hooking his philosophical cart up to the pre-existing, looking-for-a-good-prophet movement of Christianity.

 

[IanS]

I don't put any value of them as historical documents. To me the interesting part is that there are two of them, and that they are very different from each other. (I've occasionally had some fun asking christians what the name of Jesus' grandfather is, according to NT.) This shows that there were two different authors, which raises a question: Why didn't someone attempt to "harmonize" them, or quietly remove one of the offending contradictory tales later?


I agree with you. Tolstoy's War and Peace mentions real places and real people, but the main characters are fictional, of course. The same can be said of many works of fiction, such as Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about Sherlock Holmes.



Yes, evidence in some form would solve the problem. Perhaps a report from Pilate about how he had executed a person that would fit reasonable well with the Jesus character. But what about the MJ theory? What would evidence that proved that theory look like?

As I have tried to explain here just a page or two ago - what we have learned from modern science is that we cannot actually "prove" anything. Not in the sense of showing absolute certainty. So we should not be using the word "proof" in any of these discussions on this forum, either about Jesus or about anything else.

What we can talk about is data, information, material, calculations etc. offered as "evidence" to show the likelihood of things.

So for anyone postulating an entirely mythical Jesus (as opposed to "mythical" in the sense of only saying that he was not the figure described in the biblical writing, and hence not the figure believed by Christians today), all they would have to show is evidence that implies the Jesus stories were mythical inventions ... and of course we already have exactly that, and we have it in extreme abundance - almost every significant description of Jesus in the biblical stories can be shown to be almost certainly untrue.

What you could also find as evidence of myth making about Jesus, is a source written hundreds of years before, but which was being used by the later gospel writers such as g.Mark and g.Mathew to create stories of Jesus ... and again we do apparently have that, as described in detail in books such as the one I mentioned here several times already (Randel Helms; Gospel Fictions). In any other subject, that would be considered pretty strong evidence against a real Jesus.

Other sorts evidence that you might find against a HJ, are things like finding that the gospels and letters that actually exist, are not as universally presented by bible scholars and Christian leaders, but instead it turns out that they were probably written 2 or 3 centuries or more after the 1st century date which those biblical scholars and Christians almost always quote. That too is clearly evidence against the veracity of what those HJ believers so often quote as reliable evidence of Jesus.

And then we have the letters of Paul. Or rather, what we have are said to be copies (perhaps they are the originals!?) written around 200AD. But according to all HJ believers, those letters are claimed to pre-date the gospels. However in those letters Jesus is only ever "known" as a religious vision, which the writer says is known to him "according to scripture", and he says he came to that understanding due to a sudden blinding revelation from God, who he says was at that moment "pleased to reveal his Son in me" ... and just so that there can be no confusion about what the writer meant by those words, he further insists that what he had then learned about Jesus "came from no Man. Nor was I taught it by anyone" ...

... the point about all of that (i.e. the contents of those letters) is that the descriptions are evidence to show that the writer was describing belief in a religious vision, and not belief in a Jesus that was ever known to him or ever known to anyone else as far as that writer "Paul" was able to tell his readers.

And last but not least - various Christian investigators in this subect have claimed to find actual artefacts that prove Jesus was real. E.g., the Shoud of Turin, or the Bone Box of James, innumerable "genuine" nails from the cucifixction cross, and the actual tomb where Jesus was buried etc. etc. But even the slightest objective testing of those claims has shown that they are all actually fakes. And that is a finding that acts as pretty convincing "evidence" to show that people who believe in a HJ have been planting fake evidence & making things up for a very long time.

So all of the above, and a lot more like that, is the sort of material that any of us could offer as evidence to show that claims of Jesus being real, or claims that he was most probably real, really do not fit against the sort of “evidence” that we now have as outlined above. IOW – on the basis of the above as evidence (which actually is the evidence that we have now), you'd have to conclude in all honesty that Jesus was more likely to be fictional rather than real.

 

[IanS]

Yes, evidence in some form would solve the problem. Perhaps a report from Pilate about how he had executed a person that would fit reasonable well with the Jesus character. But what about the MJ theory? What would evidence that proved that theory look like?

Without looking back at a whole mass of stuff that was posted by all sorts of people years ago regarding the evidence about Pontius Pilate, my recollection is that I was never remotely convinced by anything about Pilate as evidence of Jesus.

I'll explain that - in the supposedly "genuine" letters of Paul, the author does not mention Pilate at all. He only talks of "the rulers of this age" as the ones who killed Jesus. That might sound like it meant the Roman rulers around the believed time of Jesus's death circa 33AD, but according to the book by Richard Carrier (On The Historicity Of Jesus), it probably meant the gods, devils and demons who were universally thought to control all events in the various levels of the heavens ... that may sound fanciful, but you can check what Carrier gives as the explanation for that conclusion (and that book, is just about the only one on the historicity of Jesus that has passed academic peer review).

However, apart from that - Pilate is mentioned in the gospels as the person who made the decision to have Jesus crucified. But if those gospels are, as all biblical scholars insist, several decades after Paul's letters, then those gospel writers could presumably have got the idea from Paul's letters that the date of Jesus' execution would have been around 33AD, and from that they could put 2 + 2 together to decide that Pilate would have been the local ruler at that time.

But as far as I know, little was known about Pilate until someone apparently found an inscribed stone tablet with his name given as the prefect of Judea. However, if you look at pictures of that stone tablet (e.g. see the Wiki link below) it looks suspiciously modern and as if the inscription is brand new. And in fact even the description of how it was found is also highly suspicious in my opinion. Apparently someone dated that tablet to 26 to 36AD, however that also looks to me less than satisfactory, at least from that Wiki link where both of the references which they give for that date are from papers with titles about the Historicity of Jesus, i.e. dating apparently done by people interested in the life of Jesus. So without any further or better supporting evidence (which may exist, though I have not seen it) on that basis, I am far from convinced that the Pilate Stone is actually genuine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilate_stone

 

[dejudge]

Yes, evidence in some form would solve the problem. Perhaps a report from Pilate about how he had executed a person that would fit reasonable well with the Jesus character. But what about the MJ theory? What would evidence that proved that theory look like?

Well, there are multiple "reports" from Pilate. They are considered forgeries

https://www.bibleblender.com/2017/b...-of-pontius-pilate-and-herod-concerning-jesus

The NT Jesus stories are not only fiction but there were massive efforts to introduce forgeries and manipulation in an attempt to historicise the Jesus character.

What other evidence do you need to show that NT Jesus never ever had any history but was a product of fiction, forgeries and false attribution?

There is a" letter"from Jesus!!! You want to see it??

 

[Minoosh]

Two things: One, If Occam's Razor is valid, which explanation is the simplest? That a man existed or didn't exist? I could argue it either way.

Two, was there any tradition at the time of making up people to pin stories on, or would it be more typical to build on a legend based on some nominally factual basis?

Other people have asked these questions with far more scholarship than I can demonstrate. I think there probably really was a guy, and oral traditions and mystical experiences burnished him into a kind of superhero status.

One other thing, he sounds to me like a strange person to make up, at the time. Sure, I'm no expert on first-century Palestinian itinerant preachers, but the message seems like an odd thing to amplify in the culture that I imagine existed then. The Old Testament, for example, is not big on "love your enemy." More like, "Smite my enemies, plague them with boils, kill their cattle." But I don't have any scholarship to back that up.

 

[dejudge]

But as far as I know, little was known about Pilate until someone apparently found an inscribed stone tablet with his name given as the prefect of Judea. However, if you look at pictures of that stone tablet (e.g. see the Wiki link below) it looks suspiciously modern and as if the inscription is brand new. And in fact even the description of how it was found is also highly suspicious in my opinion. Apparently someone dated that tablet to 26 to 36AD, however that also looks to me less than satisfactory, at least from that Wiki link where both of the references which they give for that date are from papers with titles about the Historicity of Jesus, i.e. dating apparently done by people interested in the life of Jesus. So without any further or better supporting evidence (which may exist, though I have not seen it) on that basis, I am far from convinced that the Pilate Stone is actually genuine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilate_stone

It is not only the NT which mentions Pilate.

Philo a Jewish writer, a contemporary of Pilate, mentioned him in "On Embassy to Gaius"

In On Embassy to Gaius" it is claimed Pilate was governor of Judea in the reign of Tiberius.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/yonge/book40.html

On Embassy to Gaius

....Pilate was one of the emperor's lieutenants, having been appointed governor of Judaea. He, not more with the object of doing honour to Tiberius than with that of vexing the multitude, dedicated some gilt shields in the palace of Herod, in the holy city.......

Josepus a 1st century Jewish writer also mentioned Pilate a procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius.

https://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/ant-18.htm

Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.1

BUT now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the army from Cesarea to Jerusalem, to take their winter quarters there, in order to abolish the Jewish laws. So he introduced Caesar's effigies, which were upon the ensigns, and brought them into the city;...

 

[dejudge]

.....I think there probably really was a guy, and oral traditions and mystical experiences burnished him into a kind of superhero status.

Jesus did not exist based on the existing evidence. How could you think Jesus was probably real without having any existing evidence?

One other thing, he sounds to me like a strange person to make up, at the time. Sure, I'm no expert on first-century Palestinian itinerant preachers, but the message seems like an odd thing to amplify in the culture that I imagine existed then. The Old Testament, for example, is not big on "love your enemy." More like, "Smite my enemies, plague them with boils, kill their cattle." But I don't have any scholarship to back that up.

It is not scholarship that you don't have but no evidence at all.

Didn't NT authors make up a character who was born of a Ghost, resurrected and ascended in a cloud in the presence of his disciples?

The Jesus stories were made up from conception to ascension.

The Jesus stories are the very evidence of the fiction character.

 

[Ulf Nereng]

Two things: One, If Occam's Razor is valid, which explanation is the simplest? That a man existed or didn't exist? I could argue it either way.

Two, was there any tradition at the time of making up people to pin stories on, or would it be more typical to build on a legend based on some nominally factual basis?

Other people have asked these questions with far more scholarship than I can demonstrate. I think there probably really was a guy, and oral traditions and mystical experiences burnished him into a kind of superhero status.

One other thing, he sounds to me like a strange person to make up, at the time. Sure, I'm no expert on first-century Palestinian itinerant preachers, but the message seems like an odd thing to amplify in the culture that I imagine existed then. The Old Testament, for example, is not big on "love your enemy." More like, "Smite my enemies, plague them with boils, kill their cattle." But I don't have any scholarship to back that up.

I agree that he is an anomalous character in many ways, but a message of "peace and love" wouldn't be out of place after the first jewish war. The Romans had crushed their armies, taken their holy city and trampled their holy places. Some would undoubtedly conclude that surrender was the best course of action. Others would of course advocate the opposite. "Fight on! God is with us!" But they had already fought and God didn't help them, nor did the Messiah arrive. Maybe it was a good time to rethink their religion, just a little bit?

 

[Tassman]

NT Jesus was God's only begotten Son, [God Creator]

Well, Trinitarian doctrine argues that god-the-father and god-the-son and god-the-holy spirit are all one god. As well the Hypostatic Union argues that Jesus was fully god and fully man simultaneously. And yes, of course its nonsense – its religion! Christianity, which was a Judaic monotheistic religion, made endless problems for itself when it decided that Jesus was god too.

In NT fables, it was God who gave his only son to be sacrificed.

Which means given the convoluted theology of Christianity, that god-the-father offered himself, (i.e. god-the-son), to himself (i.e. god-the-father) as a blood sacrifice to appease himself (i.e. god-the father) over Adam and Eve's apple in the garden affair. Apparently, the triune god had to have a blood sacrifice to make himself happy again - even though it was a sacrifice of himself to himself..

John 3:16

 

[IanS]

Two things: One, If Occam's Razor is valid, which explanation is the simplest? That a man existed or didn't exist? I could argue it either way.

Occam's Razor is not really valid for anything. What we should do is gather as much data, information, material and calculations etc. as possible, and treat that as the evidence which leads to the most likely conclusion.

In this case we have to ask how much of the data, information, material, and calculation is consistent with a real person ever known to anyone vs. how much of it is consistent with untrue myth making ...

... and the answer to that is that it's all very consistent indeed with myth making ...

... and really none of it is consistent with a real Jesus ever known to anyone.

Two, was there any tradition at the time of making up people to pin stories on, or would it be more typical to build on a legend based on some nominally factual basis?

We are talking here entirely about a religious figure who was described as a god. In fact he was described as a part of the God himself, and described as multiply and constantly supernatural. And that's the figure you are asking about when you ask "was there any tradition at the time of making up people to pin stories on" ... and the answer to that is inescapably obvious - all of the countless thousands of deities ever claimed in all of the hundreds and thousands of ancient religions, all of them believed as absolutely certainly real at the time, every single one of them is now known to be completely fictional ... all of them were invented form the ancient ignorance of religiously fanatical superstitions.

So the answer is that, where a religion claims witnesses (none of whom ever came forward) to a supernatural deity, that is always mythical and without any real foundation.

Jesus would have to be the one-&-only exception amongst thousands of examples in every religion ever known.

Other people have asked these questions with far more scholarship than I can demonstrate. I think there probably really was a guy, and oral traditions and mystical experiences burnished him into a kind of superhero status.

Why do you think he was probably real? "Probably" means a confidence level of greater than 50%. Where do get reliable evidence amounting to 50% probability? All the evidence points very strongly to a mythical invention drawn from OT prophecy, as I have explained in considerable detail here ... are you dismissing or ignoring all the actual evidence?

One other thing, he sounds to me like a strange person to make up, at the time. Sure, I'm no expert on first-century Palestinian itinerant preachers, but the message seems like an odd thing to amplify in the culture that I imagine existed then. The Old Testament, for example, is not big on "love your enemy." More like, "Smite my enemies, plague them with boils, kill their cattle." But I don't have any scholarship to back that up.

You can find what may be the actual roots of the Jesus story, not just in the OT (which we know was being used as a source by g.Mark and g.Mathew to create Jesus stories), but also in the Dead Sea scrolls most of which which probably pre-date the NT gospels & letters by as much as 200 years or more.

In the short book by Stephen Hodge on the Scrolls (“The Dead Sea Scrolls, their Meaning ...” - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Sea-Scrolls-Essential-Significance/dp/0749922605), which does not really mention Jesus or any ideas of Jesus Myth at all, Hodge says that by the time when the scrolls were being written (roughly estimated as from about 250BC all the way through to about 70AD), Jews in that region of Judea (we are talking about the exact same region where Jesus was claimed to be preaching) had slowly come to have a diverse range of beliefs about the meaning of OT messiah prophecy, ie diverging from what everyone had been taught since at least 600BC (or even much earlier).

By the time of the scrolls, when century after century had passed without any of the Messiah prophecies ever coming true, Jews in that region (inc. those who wrote the Scrolls) had deviated from the traditional OT teaching of messianic prophecy, and were now preaching on the streets with a wider range of beliefs about how the messiah would appear and what he would do etc. Some of that preaching included belief that the messiah would be God's priestly messenger warning the faithful to gather in readiness of the apocalypse that was soon to come … and that was very similar to what Paul was preaching 100 to 200 years later.

If you think that Paul was preaching as you call it a “love your enemies” sort of messiah, then it's possible that was the impression that Paul had got from earlier preachers who had been preaching the sort of messianic beliefs that were recorded in the Scrolls. I'm not sure that the Scrolls do contain any clear preaching like that, but then again the scrolls are written in coded messages which are not easily understood by us now. However, the point is that Paul's view of a messiah who he had never known, and who he thought had died at some unknown time in the past, does seem to be similar to what was had already been believed & preached for centuries by the writers of the Scrolls, and if Hodge is correct then various versions of that preaching were common by the that time (ie from at least 100BC through to 70 or 100 AD).

At any rate, I think it's worth looking in much more detail at various parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls to see what parts might actually be quite similar to the later preaching in Paul's letters. And for example, it might be the case that when Paul talks about a Church of God that had gone before him, the believers there may have been either descendants from that earlier Scroll writing community (said to be the "Essenes"), or one of what Hodge describes as many groups preaching variations of those sort of departures from the more ancient strict interpretations of the OT.

 

[dejudge]

In the short book by Stephen Hodge on the Scrolls (“The Dead Sea Scrolls, their Meaning ...” - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Sea-Scrolls-Essential-Significance/dp/0749922605), which does not really mention Jesus or any ideas of Jesus Myth at all, Hodge says that by the time when the scrolls were being written (roughly estimated as from about 250BC all the way through to about 70AD), Jews in that region of Judea (we are talking about the exact same region where Jesus was claimed to be preaching) had slowly come to have a diverse range of beliefs about the meaning of OT messiah prophecy, ie diverging from what everyone had been taught since at least 600BC (or even much earlier).

The dead sea scrolls do not contain any teaching similar to the NT Jesus stories.

The teachings in the so-called Pauline Epistles about his resurrected Jesus were lifted from the Gospels or similar sources.

Alll the NT Jesus stories were compiled sometime in the 2nd century.

By the time of the scrolls, when century after century had passed without any of the Messiah prophecies ever coming true, Jews in that region (inc. those who wrote the Scrolls) had deviated from the traditional OT teaching of messianic prophecy, and were now preaching on the streets with a wider range of beliefs about how the messiah would appear and what he would do etc. Some of that preaching included belief that the messiah would be God's priestly messenger warning the faithful to gather in readiness of the apocalypse that was soon to come … and that was very similar to what Paul was preaching 100 to 200 years later.



At any rate, I think it's worth looking in much more detail at various parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls to see what parts might actually be quite similar to the later preaching in Paul's letters. And for example, it might be the case that when Paul talks about a Church of God that had gone before him, the believers there may have been either descendants from that earlier Scroll writing community (said to be the "Essenes"), or one of what Hodge describes as many groups preaching variations of those sort of departures from the more ancient strict interpretations of the OT.

There is no historical evidence at all of any Pauline followers or church in Judea or anywhere in the 1st century- none whatsoever.

It is already known that the story of Saul/Paul is a work of fiction in Acts of the Apostles where Saul/Paul's conversion was fabricated.

It cannot be forgotten that every NT writing is really anonymous and falsely attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, Jude and James.

All the NT writings were attributed to fictitious characters.

 

[Kapyong]

Two things: One, If Occam's Razor is valid, which explanation is the simplest? That a man existed or didn't exist? I could argue it either way.

Occam's Razor is frequently mis-represented to mean something like :
"the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one".

Note that Wiki says that - ' The principle is often inaccurately summarized as "the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one". '

It's inaccurate because Occam's Razor is not a chooser - it's a CUTTER, a razor. It does NOT say anything about alternatives, it does NOT say anything about choosing alternatives.

In fact what Occam's Razor actually says is this :
"entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem"

Which rendered into literal English is :
"entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity"

Which means :
"Cut off everything that is not necessary."

In this case of the Gospels, the unnecessary entities which can be cut off are :

• the historical Jesus,
• the disciples,
• Satan,
• Jahweh.

Kapyong

 

[3point14]

I can't read the title of this thread without

Your own
Historical
Jesus.

He won't ever hear your prayer, he was just there


Running around my head.


Sorry. Carry on.

 

[dejudge]

I agree that he is an anomalous character in many ways, but a message of "peace and love" wouldn't be out of place after the first jewish war. The Romans had crushed their armies, taken their holy city and trampled their holy places. Some would undoubtedly conclude that surrender was the best course of action. Others would of course advocate the opposite. "Fight on! God is with us!" But they had already fought and God didn't help them, nor did the Messiah arrive. Maybe it was a good time to rethink their religion, just a little bit?

We have writings attributed to Josephus. There was no re-thinking of the Jewish religion.

The Jews still expected their Messianic ruler and did revolt against the Romans c 130-135CE under Simon bar Cocheba.

Even after the failed attempt by Simon Bar Cocheba the Jews still believed their Messianic ruler would emerge at some time.

Examine Justin's Dialogue with Trypho

And when I had finished these words, I continued: "Now I am aware that your teachers, sirs, admit the whole of the words of this passage to refer to Christ; and I am likewise aware that they maintain He has not yet come; or if they say that He has come, they assert that it is not known who He is; but when He shall become manifest and glorious, then it shall be known who He is

I challenge anyone to produce the name of a known Jewish figure of history outside the NT fables who was a Jesus cult Christian between c27 CE to 325 CE.

There is none.

The NT is complete fiction with respect to Jesus, the disciples and Paul.

 

[IanS]

Just on that issue of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the possibility that groups such as the Essene's (as the claimed writers of the Scrolls) became a significant influence for what was latter created as the writing of gospels and letters that formed Christianity (or at least, the Christianity that centred around belief in Jesus) – here is a link that I just found this afternoon whilst making a brief check to see what, if anything, anyone else had said about the possibility of the Jewish Scroll communities being the basis of what later evolved into the Christianity of Jesus belief -


https://www.post-gazette.com/ae/boo...oots-Christianity-review/stories/201910200011


That short article does not seem very rigorous at all to me, e.g. no proper references for things presented as if they were fact. However, it does discuss exactly what I was saying above about known similarities between what is found in parts of the Scrolls and in Paul's letters as well as the earliest gospels.

Anyway – I really wrote the previous post about the Scrolls as information, not just in reply to Minoosh, but mainly for TheHeno to think about, since he was saying that he wanted to learn more about this whole subject of why Jesus might have been only a mythical figure. Anyway – TheHeno or Ulf Nereng, if you are reading here, then do take a quick look at what's said in that link

 

[dejudge]

Just on that issue of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the possibility that groups such as the Essene's (as the claimed writers of the Scrolls) became a significant influence for what was latter created as the writing of gospels and letters that formed Christianity (or at least, the Christianity that centred around belief in Jesus) – here is a link that I just found this afternoon whilst making a brief check to see what, if anything, anyone else had said about the possibility of the Jewish Scroll communities being the basis of what later evolved into the Christianity of Jesus belief -


https://www.post-gazette.com/ae/boo...oots-Christianity-review/stories/201910200011


That short article does not seem very rigorous at all to me, e.g. no proper references for things presented as if they were fact. However, it does discuss exactly what I was saying above about known similarities between what is found in parts of the Scrolls and in Paul's letters as well as the earliest gospels.

Anyway – I really wrote the previous post about the Scrolls as information, not just in reply to Minoosh, but mainly for TheHeno to think about, since he was saying that he wanted to learn more about this whole subject of why Jesus might have been only a mythical figure. Anyway – TheHeno or Ulf Nereng, if you are reading here, then do take a quick look at what's said in that link

That book was written by a theologian of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church teaches that Jesus was born a virgin, was crucified, resurrected and ascended to heaven.

The Dead Sea Scroll does not contain any teaching similar to the NT stories of Jesus.

https://www.johnbergsma.com/

 

[IanS]

Here is another interesting, and more detailed article that discusses the the connection between Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls -

https://conwayhall.org.uk/ethicalrecord/the-dead-sea-scrolls-contours-of-religious-belief/