Historical Jesus

[IanS]

Paul also says that Jesus was a human numerous times. You can't explain away every mention of that as forgery. He also met people who knew Jesus.

Who "met people who knew Jesus"? If you mean Paul, then by all means quote where his "genuine" letters say that?

Also where does Paul say that Jesus was "human"? Again, can you quote where he says that?

 

[Jerrymander]

Who "met people who knew Jesus"? If you mean Paul, then by all means quote where his "genuine" letters say that?

Also where does Paul say that Jesus was "human"? Again, can you quote where he says that?

I already listed the verses where he mentions Jesus being a human.

As for your first request, Paul describes his meeting with Peter in Galatians 2:11-16.

 

[bobdroege7]

Well, you still don't know when and who really wrote those fragments of gThomas.

I know when, between 30 and 250 AD.

Likely by someone who knew Jesus, doesn't really matter that we don't know exactly who, anon is fine.

And, you still have no historical evidence of Thomas.

Thomas isn't even a name, so it's worse than you think. Didymos isn't a name or his name either. Means something else, something heretical I would say, so as much evidence of it as possible has been lost or suppressed. But someone had to write it, so it is evidence that there was someone named Jesus who preached in the middle east. The thing is, it also supports your position that the Greatest Story ever Told is a big fat lie

The existing fragments of gThomas are worthless to determine an historical Thomas much more an historical Jesus.

No, they have great value, as does the rest of the non-canonical scriptures we have.

It's not whether there was a Mythical Jesus or a Historical Jesus, there were both.

 

[IanS]

I already listed the verses where he mentions Jesus being a human.

As for your first request, Paul describes his meeting with Peter in Galatians 2:11-16.

I'm sorry, but I don't think that is a credible answer ... where did Paul say that Peter had met a human Jesus, can you can quote that please. And even more to the point - where did Peter say that he'd met a human Jesus?

And on the "human" claim, you say that you'd quoted the relevant verse somewhere here before, so it should only take you a few seconds to paste it here again - so where does Paul say that he knew Jesus as a human person? ...

... and, how did Paul know that? Because in his letters it is very clear that Paul only knew Jesus as a spiritual vision in the sky ... so how did he also know Jesus was a human person?

 

[dejudge]

That quote does nothing to prove your point. Justin sees Jesus as a real person who was crucified (which doesn't happen to purely celestial beings). Justin Martyr is clearly saying that what Christians believe is no less crazy then what pagans believe.

What a ridiculous statement. Christians believe their Jesus the son of the Ghost really exist up to today 26/6/20.

In Dialogue with Trypho attributed to Justin, the writer claimed his Jesus was really born of a Ghost.

Dialogue With Trypho

And Joseph, the spouse of Mary, who wished at first to put away his betrothed Mary, supposing her to be pregnant by intercourse with a man, i.e., from fornication, was commanded in a vision not to put away his wife; and the angel who appeared to him told him that what is in her womb is of the Holy Ghost

The HJ argument is just a compilation of mind boggling absurdities.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Paul also says that Jesus was a human numerous times. You can't explain away every mention of that as forgery. He also met people who knew Jesus.

No, those were just the times that Paul was lying. Only when he said he saw Jesus as a spiritual vision in the sky or that he never personally met him was he telling truth.

But how do we know that? How can we tell when Paul was lying and when he wasn't? It's obvious. If something he said supports a historical Jesus, he was lying.

 

[dejudge]

I know when, between 30 and 250 AD.

Likely by someone who knew Jesus, doesn't really matter that we don't know exactly who, anon is fine.

Your statement is quite illogical. You have no idea what you are talking about.

If some fragments of gThomas are dated between 30 and 250 AD then it is virtually impossible to know that it was likely written by someone who knew Jesus when there is not even any historical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth ever existed.

In addition, an apostle called Thomas is a character in the fables called Gospel where he witnessed and conversed with the non-historical resurrected Jesus.

Examine the saying of the resurrected Jesus to Thomas.

John 20:29

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

It is clear the sayings of the resurrected Jesus to Thomas was all made up fiction.

Thomas isn't even a name, so it's worse than you think. Didymos isn't a name or his name either. Means something else, something heretical I would say, so as much evidence of it as possible has been lost or suppressed. But someone had to write it, so it is evidence that there was someone named Jesus who preached in the middle east. The thing is, it also supports your position that the Greatest Story ever Told is a big fat lie

What brutal nonsense you post.

Someone wrote about the Gods of the Jews but that does not mean the God of the Jews actually exist.

Someone wrote about Romulus and Remus but that does not mean they existed.

No, they have great value, as does the rest of the non-canonical scriptures we have.

It's not whether there was a Mythical Jesus or a Historical Jesus, there were both.

Jesus was a Ghost and a man simultaneously that why it is claimed in the fables called the NT that he walked on water, transfigured, resurrected and ascended in a cloud.

Jesus was Ghost/man.

 

[Delvo]

Actually, characters do get invented and believed to have existed: John Frum, Ned Ludd, Slender Man, Ebion, various Christian saints. The idea that Jesus was a made-up character is plausible.

John Frum is a stereotype of British/American men, with a common British/American male name, who became supernaturalized some time after the islanders met real Brits & Americans. I couldn't have asked for a much better example of a religious movement that starts with one or more real person(s) and puts him/her/them in supernatural context. But that would seem to be the opposite of the point you seemed to be trying to make.

Ned Ludd: I didn't specify this in the sentence you quoted, but the context of the conversation was that we were talking about gods and founding of new religions, not just humans doing human stuff like breaking a few contraptions. I didn't think I'd need to keep reiterating the context in every single sentence just to avoid this kind of thing.

Slender Man does come closer to what you're after, but still not really. For one thing, he got a believability boost that the others he's being compared with here didn't, from being based on photographic evidence, not just verbal claims (before awareness of image manipulation was as widespread as it is now, among particularly young and inexperienced audiences). And even with that, he's not the beginning of a religious movement; a couple of socially isolated mentally ill teenagers in a county of 300 million equates to what, 1% of a person in Roman Palestine? At least those Jesus-like preachers of that time & place whom the mythicists keep pretending didn't exist had followings in the hundreds to over a thousand (equivalent to hundreds of thousands or millions here & now). Also, even if his description had been true, he wouldn't be a god, a major part of how the supernatural world works; he'd be more like a dryad, just a local nature spirit confined to his little corner of the world and not affecting anything else. And finally, Slender Man was nothing really new but a rehash of ghost/alien imagery, a campfire character without the campfires, that was already popular among the kinds of kids he ever caught on with. So he's not a good fit for any one of the criteria we're after here: being conceptually new, being a god or god-like, or starting a religion.

Ebion: This is another Luddite deviation from the established context; I see no claim that he was supposed to be a god or started a new religion (not just a sect of an old one). We all know of urban legends about plain ordinary humans doing plain ordinary human things, and they're irrelevant here. (Nor do I see what basis there is for the conclusion that he, even as a perfectly mundane human, wasn't real, but it wouldn't matter anyway.)

Saints: At least they're more like gods than Slender Man was, but even if viewed as gods, they'd still be additions to an older established pantheon, not something new. And which ones are entirely made-up, anyway? The only ones I've known of the origins of were either mundane humans with mundane life stories just like those of feudal lords (who get supernaturalized afterward... which sounds... familiar), or likely renamings of pagan entities, not new inventions.

It was nice to finally see something other than Xenu & Moroni this time, but... still no examples of new religions being based on newly invented non-existent fictional characters; but a few more apparently unintended examples of supernaturalized historical ones.

I already listed the verses where he mentions Jesus being a human.

As for your first request, Paul describes his meeting with Peter in Galatians 2:11-16.

And not even all of them. (When I was reading the Pauline letters in the order given by Richard Carrier, with Carrier's Jesus-as-angel assertions in mind, the counterpoint that struck me most was one you didn't quote, with Paul referring to Jesus dying on a cross. That's not an angelic thing to do.)

From what Paul writes in that letter, I think it's highly likely that the half-sentence (which is only 10 words) did not mean a literal family blood brother.

Maybe not. I could even go with "probably" not. It makes no difference to any of my points or conclusions. But, like other anti-HJ arguments I've objected to without thinking there was a single HJ individual, there are still problems with the principles behind some of the arguments here anyway.

1 that claim (if we are allowed to politely call it a "claim" just for the sake of clarity & explanation here) was never again (afaik) repeated anywhere in any of Paul's supposedly "genuine" letters. It was a complete one-off remark.

Why would more have been needed?

2 that same James apparently wrote his own gospel where he expressed all sorts of beliefs about "the Christ" but afaik (according to those who have read that gospel), nowhere does that same James ever claim even to have ever met any such person as Jesus, let alone claim to have been his family brother.

Not the same guy. Not only was "James" not a unique name, but also, nobody who studies Gospels outside of seminary, and not even most seminarians, thinks Gospels were written by who they're named after.

5 the only sense in which Paul ever suggests that he and James and "500 others at once" and "the twelve" had ever "met" Jesus, was as a spiritual vision of Christ in the heavens. Nobody else, inc. Paul, ever claimed to have met or known Jesus in any other sense ... and that included James in his own gospel who afaik also never claimed to have met any human Jesus.

The other Gospels don't claim to have met him either, but they do say he was real, so those two obviously don't exclude each other. And how are you saying that Jesus's post-death appearances are spiritual rather than physical, and why would that make a difference even if they were, given that they're post-death? (Coming back as a spirit or coming back in a body still means having had a life on Earth to come back after.)

6 In the same letters, Paul makes it repeatedly clear that his knowledge of Jesus came to him through divine revelation from God, where he says "God was pleased to reveal his Son in me", and where he says that what was revealed to him was a new understanding of "Scripture"

He said that was his only experience of Jesus. He didn't say that's all Jesus had ever been, and in fact, he said the opposite, that Jesus had previously lived a physical human life. He puts these events after that life was over.

7 the structure of that half sentence about James... is constructed in the form of 3 separate afterthoughts

That argument wouldn't follow even in modern English, and you're trying to apply it to a sentence that was written in ancient Greek, a language that was far looser about word order than English... without even comparing it to other long complex sentences in the same books or other contemporary writing. In linguistics, the technical term for that kind of argument is "bonkers".

8 the reason to suspect so-called “interpolations” is because after nearly 2000 years, biblical scholars and others eventually realised that much of the writing about Jesus does contain what appear to be later interpolations where scribes who made copies at a later date, decided that certain parts of the original writing had to be changed either to remove something they now disagreed with or to add something which they had now decided should have been included in the original.

That's not a reason to say those things happened wherever you feel like saying they happened and the original that we don't have anymore would have said whatever you feel like saying it said. It's just a reason not to exclude the possibility when there's some specific other reason to suspect it.

10 you, along with everyone else who believes in a HJ, are quoting passages from the gospels and letters of the bible. But it is clear that none of the people who wrote those gospels and letters had ever known any such living person as Jesus.

Nobody has made an argument which depends on them having met him. The theories you're arguing against have always had a period of oral transmission built in.

In all of that biblical writing, the authors only ever describe their belief in a supernatural being of the past that none of them had ever met.

Not true at all. They describe a walking eating drinking sleeping bleeding human, with limited powers derived from a source that is in some way separate from himself (whom the authors had not known, but nobody cares because that doesn't make any difference). You could almost have made something vaguely kindo-sorto resembling this point if you'd stuck to the six or seven usually-considered-authentic Epistles, but when you throw the Gospels in, there's just no way, it's not even close.

And please lets be clear - in all of that biblical writing, that is how Jesus was always described, ie as constantly supernatural.

Being a (supposed) miracle-worker is & was part of the preachy schtick for lots of flesh-&-blood preachers.

 

[dejudge]

No, those were just the times that Paul was lying. Only when he said he saw Jesus as a spiritual vision in the sky or that he never personally met him was he telling truth.

But how do we know that? How can we tell when Paul was lying and when he wasn't? It's obvious. If something he said supports a historical Jesus, he was lying.

This is so ridiculous!!!


Examine the saying of the resurrected Jesus to Thomas.

John 20:29

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

It is clear the sayings of the resurrected Jesus to Thomas was all made up fiction.

Thomas isn't even a name, so it's worse than you think. Didymos isn't a name or his name either. Means something else, something heretical I would say, so as much evidence of it as possible has been lost or suppressed. But someone had to write it, so it is evidence that there was someone named Jesus who preached in the middle east. The thing is, it also supports your position that the Greatest Story ever Told is a big fat lie

What brutal nonsense you post.

Someone wrote about the Gods of the Jews but that does not mean the God of the Jews actually exist.

Someone wrote about Romulus and Remus but that does not mean they existed.

No, they have great value, as does the rest of the non-canonical scriptures we have.

It's not whether there was a Mythical Jesus or a Historical Jesus, there were both.

Jesus was a Ghost and a man simultaneously that why it is claimed in the fables called the NT that he walked on water, transfigured, resurrected and ascended in a cloud.

Jesus was Ghost/man.
u not know that Jesus cult Christian claim their Jesus is both God and man.

 

[dejudge]

No, those were just the times that Paul was lying. Only when he said he saw Jesus as a spiritual vision in the sky or that he never personally met him was he telling truth.

But how do we know that? How can we tell when Paul was lying and when he wasn't? It's obvious. If something he said supports a historical Jesus, he was lying.

The teaching of the Jesus cult Christians is that Jesus was both God and man.

Jesus was God in the flesh.

Jesus was a myth character from the beginning.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Dialogue With Trypho

And Joseph, the spouse of Mary, who wished at first to put away his betrothed Mary, supposing her to be pregnant by intercourse with a man, i.e., from fornication, was commanded in a vision not to put away his wife; and the angel who appeared to him told him that what is in her womb is of the Holy Ghost

The HJ argument is just a compilation of mind boggling absurdities.

And once again you destroy your own argument.

Yes, an angel appearing to tell Joseph that his wife was raped by the Holy Ghost is a mind-boggling absurdity, but a young woman becoming 'mysteriously' pregnant isn't. So the only thing absurd about the claim is that the father was a ghost, ie. the mythical part. The historical part is quite plausible.

But why even make the claim at all? If Jesus was invented out of thin air, why the need to explain his apparent lack of the genealogy required to be the Savior? A reasonable conclusion would be that an actual person existed, because if he was a fictional character they just could make him be whatever they wanted without having to explain away 'inconvenient' facts.

Your constant repetition of the illogical argument that any supernatural claims in the Bible are irrefutable proof that none of the characters involved could possibly have existed is beyond tiresome. You are just as much a fervent believer as any theist, and your arguments add nothing to the discussion.

 

[dejudge]

Paul also says that Jesus was a human numerous times. You can't explain away every mention of that as forgery. He also met people who knew Jesus.

In the Epistles the writer called Paul claimed he was seen of the resurrected Jesus and that he was a witness that God raised Jesus from the dead.

Remember the writer claimed to be a witness.

1 Corinthians 15:15

Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.

The dead rise not.

The Pauline characters are fiction writers.

The so-called Pauline Epistles are non-historical garbage about a mythological resurrected being.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

In the Epistles the writer called Paul claimed...

The so-called Pauline Epistles are non-historical garbage

Are you saying that everything 'Paul' wrote is a lie?

 

[dejudge]

And once again you destroy your own argument.

Yes, an angel appearing to tell Joseph that his wife was raped by the Holy Ghost is a mind-boggling absurdity, but a young woman becoming 'mysteriously' pregnant isn't. So the only thing absurd about the claim is that the father was a ghost, ie. the mythical part. The historical part is quite plausible.

But why even make the claim at all? If Jesus was invented out of thin air, why the need to explain his apparent lack of the genealogy required to be the Savior? A reasonable conclusion would be that an actual person existed, because if he was a fictional character they just could make him be whatever they wanted without having to explain away 'inconvenient' facts.

Your constant repetition of the illogical argument that any supernatural claims in the Bible are irrefutable proof that none of the characters involved could possibly have existed is beyond tiresome. You are just as much a fervent believer as any theist, and your arguments add nothing to the discussion.

Again, what mind boggling nonsense.

The genealogies in gMatthew and gLuke are contradictory which is evidence that they were made up.

If Jesus was a known figure of history then it would not make sense for every NT writer to make up virtually everything about him.

How ridiculous is it to claim Jesus was born of a Ghost to make people believe he was human!! How stupid were NT writers!!!

The fact that the NT is filled with total fiction with regards to Jesus, the disciples and Paul is evidence that the NT was manufactured very late and long after the supposed events.

The NT Jesus stories were manufactured sometime in the 2nd century and the Epistles even later.

 

[GDon]

From what Paul writes in that letter, I think it's highly likely that the half-sentence (which is only 10 words) did not mean a literal family blood brother.

I've seen mythicists argue the point this way:
1. If Paul wrote it, then "James the brother of the Lord" indicates a fellow Christian and not an actual brother.
2. But if an interpolator wrote it, then the interpolator put in "James the brother of the Lord" to show that James was an actual brother.

It's a kind of "heads I win, tails you lose" approach.

I think there are two parts to an analysis of the passage:
1. What is the natural reading of the passage?
2. Is there evidence that it is an interpolation?

That's something to keep in mind as I address each of your points.

The reason why I think that is as follows -

1 that claim (if we are allowed to politely call it a "claim" just for the sake of clarity & explanation here) was never again (afaik) repeated anywhere in any of Paul's supposedly "genuine" letters. It was a complete one-off remark.

??? I don't understand. Do we ignore one-off remarks? In occasional letters of the sort written by Paul, that does simplify things since it would eliminate a lot of text! But I don't understand the significance and connection to either the natural reading or whether it is an interpolation. Can you clarify please?

2 that same James apparently wrote his own gospel where he expressed all sorts of beliefs about "the Christ" but afaik (according to those who have read that gospel), nowhere does that same James ever claim even to have ever met any such person as Jesus, let alone claim to have been his family brother.

No scholar believes that the Gospel of James was written by James. Scholars generally regard it as a mid-Second Century work. What significance do you see in your point to what is in Paul? Because there is none as far as I can see.

3 iirc, in writing about that same meeting where he saw James with others who he describes as the "Pillars of the Church of God", Paul never mentions asking this James person, a single thing about his "brother Jesus". And that same James who he saw at that meeting apparently also never told Paul nor anyone else a single thing about ever being a family brother of Jesus. And remember here that we are talking about Paul having his entire life totally changed by this belief in Jesus, and yet when he meets the actual brother of Jesus, not one word is ever mentioned about any of them knowing or meeting Jesus at all.

We have absolutely no idea what Paul talked about with the Pillars, beyond what he wrote in his letters. Trying to determine what someone knew from what they DIDN'T talk about is a risky business.

So you draw significance from Paul not asking James and Peter about the earthly Jesus that they met. Let's assume, then, that James and Peter only met a spiritual Jesus in visions, same as Paul. Did Paul ask them anything about the spiritual Jesus that they met? What do you conclude from what Paul DIDN'T ask them about the spiritual Jesus? Wouldn't he have been curious?

4 on the contrary, what Paul did say in his letters was that those people he met as the "Pillars of the Church", inc. James, were claiming to believe in various different people as the messiah, and he rebukes them all for that, where he also tells them that he has no interest in what any of them say or believe about a messiah, and that his own belief is the one true understanding of the prophesised "Christ", because he says that none of those other leaders of the Church had told him anything about the Christ ... he specifically says "the gospel I preach came from no Man" and "nor was I taught it by anyone" ... so he is getting none of that Jesus belief from the Pillars of the Church inc. James, nothing from them at all, and he tells us that they each believed in a variety of deceased or otherwise absent or non-existent names as the one-time Christ upon the Earth.

Really. Can you list that variety of deceased or otherwise absent or non-existent names as the one-time Christ upon the Earth for each of the Pillars please? Start with James and Peter.

5 the only sense in which Paul ever suggests that he and James and "500 others at once" and "the twelve" had ever "met" Jesus, was as a spiritual vision of Christ in the heavens. Nobody else, inc. Paul, ever claimed to have met or known Jesus in any other sense ... and that included James in his own gospel who afaik also never claimed to have met any human Jesus.

Few scholars think that Paul met Jesus in the flesh. But how does this help your reading about the James passage in Paul? Because I don't see the link.

6 In the same letters, Paul makes it repeatedly clear that his knowledge of Jesus came to him through divine revelation from God, where he says "God was pleased to reveal his Son in me", and where he says that what was revealed to him was a new understanding of "Scripture" where he suddenly realised that the true meaning of ancient messiah prophecy was that "the Christ" (he uses that term so often that I wonder if the word/name "Yehoshua"/"Iesous"/Jesus was actually also yet another later interpolation?) had already descended to Earth from the heavens in order to prove to the faithful that the long-awaited (since at least 500BC) apocalypse of God's final judgement was now very close at hand.

How does this help your reading about the James passage in Paul? This just seems to be a cut and paste from some other argument.

7 the structure of that half sentence about James, is this - it says “other apostles saw I none” then there is a comma or "pause” and then it continues “save James the Lords brother”. That structure looks suspiciously like it may have originally just said “other apostles saw I none” … and then at a later date a Christian copyist decided that he should have also seen James at that time, and so he adds the words “save James” … and then either at that same time or at another later date another copyist decides that the letter should explain who “James” was, and he adds the final 3 words “the Lords brother”. But be careful here, because I am not presenting that as if it think it must have happened that way … I am just pointing out that it is constructed in the form of 3 separate afterthoughts, i.e. the first bit is just to say “other apostles saw I none”, but then someone decides that he should have also met James there, so as an afterthought he adds “save James”, as if to say “oh, and I forgot to mention that James was also there”, and after that there's another afterthought to explain who James was in case they did not know who he was and now he adds “the Lords brother” … I'm just pointing out that the structure of that half-sentence is in the form of a series of additional afterthoughts.

Okay. Nothing wrong with speculation. But why was "James the brother of the Lord" added by the interpolator, in your opinion? What does the passage mean?

8 the reason to suspect so-called “interpolations” is because after nearly 2000 years, biblical scholars and others eventually realised that much of the writing about Jesus does contain what appear to be later interpolations where scribes who made copies at a later date, decided that certain parts of the original writing had to be changed either to remove something they now disagreed with or to add something which they had now decided should have been included in the original.

Yes, modern scholars have identified many interpolations. Few see the signs of interpolation for the James passage. What should scholars do in that case? How should scholars treat passages that don't appear to be interpolations?

9 In that respect of interpolations and later copyists reproductions - we also have to keep in mind that the earliest copies that we actually have for any of Paul's letters most probably date from around 200AD, and not from anywhere near 50 to 60 AD as all biblical scholars like to imply. And that leaves about 150 years of constant copying and re-copying by scribes who were apparently in the habit of altering the original texts. So we really cannot rely on those copies known as P46 to be exactly what was originally written in the letters, and that includes not being at all confident that the ultra-brief half-sentence about James was originally there or in that same form of words.

Okay. All we can do is evaluate what we have.

10 you, along with everyone else who believes in a HJ, are quoting passages from the gospels and letters of the bible. But it is clear that none of the people who wrote those gospels and letters had ever known any such living person as Jesus. In all of that biblical writing, the authors only ever describe their belief in a supernatural being of the past that none of them had ever met. So at best, what evidence there is in the gospels and letters is only evidence of the writers belief in a supernatural deity that the writers had never known.

Okay. Though both Paul and the Gospel of Mark describe Jesus as a Jewish man, so I think you are wrong. I'll do a separate post on that.

And please lets be clear - in all of that biblical writing, that is how Jesus was always described, ie as constantly supernatural.

No, that's incorrect. Both Paul and the Gospel of Mark, our earliest layer with regards to texts for Christianity and Jesus-belief, present Jesus as a Jewish man who was a descendent of David, who was a near-contemporary in time to Paul. I'll put details into a separate post.

The evidence contained in the bible is indeed evidence of something, but it is not evidence of a human Jesus ever known either to the writers or to anyone else. It is only evidence of how the biblical authors believed in a supernatural scion of Yahweh that none of them had ever met, seen, heard or otherwise known at all.

I would argue that a historical Jesus is the best explanation for what we see in the earliest texts. Reframing the debate as to being about a Jesus "known either to the writers or to anyone else" doesn't intersect with that point. If you want to discuss whether any writer actually met Jesus, that's fine. I'd probably agree with you. If you'd like to discuss what is the best explanation for the existence of the earliest texts we have, we can have that discussion as well. That's the discussion I'd like to have. You can join in if you'd like to talk about the best explanation for the earliest texts.

In short, few of your points are relevant to the meaning of the "James the brother of the Lord" passage in Paul. Some of your points seem to be comments that are just irrelevant cut and pastes from some other discussion that you threw in.

If anything, you seem to agree (though I don't want to point words into your mouth), through the suggestion of interpolation, that the passage implies that Paul met the actual brother of the Lord. That supports the natural meaning of the passage. The question then becomes whether the passage is indeed an interpolation or not. I agree with you that interpolation is possible, but the usual signs suggesting interpolation are not there for that passage.

So, my conclusion:
1. The natural reading of the passage is that Paul is claiming to have met James, who is an actual brother of Jesus
2. Scholars generally don't believe, from the evidence available, that the passage is an interpolation.

 

[dejudge]

Are you saying that everything 'Paul' wrote is a lie?

I am saying the so-called Pauline Epistles are non-historical garbage about a mythological resurrected being and that Epistles are products of fiction and lies

 

[GDon]

And please lets be clear - in all of that biblical writing, that is how Jesus was always described, ie as constantly supernatural.

No, at least not for Paul. Paul saw Jesus as a Jewish man who only became a supernatural being AFTER his crucifixion and death. For example, Point 11 from the data below (credit to Ben C Smith from whom I stole many of these points):

"[Christ Jesus. . .] who came from the seed of David according to the flesh, who was appointed Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead".

Read in conjunction with other passages, it gives us a good idea how Paul viewed Jesus.

Paul regarded Jesus as a real human being in real human history

These passages look at how Paul saw Jesus as a person and when he placed him in history.

1. Paul actually calls Jesus a "man" (anthropos) several times (Rom 5:15, 1 Cor 15:21)
2. Jesus was a Jewish man -- "For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites... 5 of whom [are] the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ [came]..." (Rom 9:3-5)
3. Jesus lived after Adam, since Paul calls him the latter Adam (1 Cor 15.22, 45).
4. Jesus lived after Abraham, since Paul calls him the seed (descendant) of Abraham (Gal 3.16).
5. Jesus lived after Moses, since Paul says that he was the end of the law of Moses (Rom 10.4-5) and Moses' law was added "because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made..." (Gal 3:19).
6. Jesus lived after David, since Paul calls him the seed (descendant) of David (Rom 1.4).
7. Jesus was born of a woman (Gal 4:4)
8. Paul claims to have met with the brother of the Lord, James (Gal 1.19; 1 Cor 9.5).
9. Paul expects that he might see the general resurrection in his own lifetime (1 Cor 15.51). He calls Jesus the firstfruits of that resurrection. Since the firstfruits of the harvest precede the main harvest itself by only a short time, the very metaphor works better with a short time between the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of the rest of the dead, implying that the resurrection of Jesus was recent for Paul.
10. Paul writes that God sent forth his son to redeem those under the law in the fullness of time (Gal 4.4). It is easier to suppose that, for Paul, the fullness of time had some direct correspondence to the end of the ages (1 Cor 10.11) than to imagine that the fullness of time came, Jesus died, and then everybody had to wait another long expanse of time for the death to actually apply to humanity.
11. Paul thought that Jesus was only appointed Son of God after his death -- "[Christ Jesus. . .] who came from the seed of David according to the flesh, who was appointed Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead" (Rom 1:3-4)

Some of the points above have been argued against by mythicists, especially Point 8 (James, brother of the Lord). But many of them are independent of each other, building a compelling cumulative case that Paul thought that (a) Jesus was a Jewish man, (b) Jesus was crucified relatively recent to Paul's writings, and (c) Jesus became a supernatural being after crucifixion.

12. For extra bonus(!), Paul arguably believed that Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem. First, Paul says that Christ "crucified" is a stumbling block:

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness (1 Cor 1:23)​

Then, he quotes scriptures to say that the stumbling block was in Zion (Jerusalem):

For they [Israel] stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it is written: "Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame" (Rom 9:32-33)​

Next, he quotes scriptures to say that the Deliverer will come out of Zion, in terms of a new covenant. This identifies the "Deliverer" with Jesus:

And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob" (Rom 11:26)​

Note that Paul doesn't quote Scriptures exactly here. The OT quote that Paul is working from is "The Redeemer will come TO Zion [not 'out of Zion' as per Paul], to those in Jacob who turn from transgression" (Isaiah 59:20). Paul has altered the wording, suggesting he was working from some constraint. Since the stumbling stone is "Christ crucified" and that stumbling stone was "laid in Zion", it suggests that the crucifixion occurred in Zion.

It's been argued that Paul's "Zion" refers to the Heavenly Jerusalem, though that isn't how it is read in Isaiah. As far as I can tell, it would make no sense for the Jews of Paul's time to believe that demons could freely crucify someone in the Heavenly City of Jerusalem, located in the heavens themselves. So Paul seems to be suggesting that Jerusalem on earth was the location for the crucifixion.

Paul's Jesus in fact matches up well with the Jesus in the Gospel of Mark: Jesus was a Jewish man, the seed of David, with a brother called 'James'. Jesus was proclaimed "Christ", was crucified and then raised after death. Paul arguably wrote around 50 CE. Since the passages above suggest that Jesus' crucifixion was in Paul's recent past, the timing also matches up with gMark's crucifixion under Pilate.

 

[dejudge]

…. Though both Paul and the Gospel of Mark describe Jesus as a Jewish man, so I think you are wrong. I'll do a separate post on that.

Your statement is a mis-representation of gMark and the Epistles.

gMark and the Epistles do claim in their writings Jesus is the son of God.

Mark 9:7
And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.

Mark 14

Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? 62 And Jesus said, I am...

Galatians 4:4[/quote]
But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law..[/quote]

The teachings of the NT and Church is that their Jesus was both God and man.

So, my conclusion:
1. The natural reading of the passage is that Paul is claiming to have met James, who is an actual brother of Jesus
2. Scholars generally don't believe, from the evidence available, that the passage is an interpolation.

The claim that a writer met the Lord's brother does not in anyway determine that the Lord was a figure of history.

In the Epistles the character called the Lord refers to the resurrected Jesus a non-historical being.

Jesus cult writers admitted their Jesus had no brother called James.

It is virtually impossible to show that anyone called James actually existed at anytime anywhere or met anyone called Paul.

The so-called James and Paul are without historical evidence - none whatsoever.

 

[dejudge]

No, at least not for Paul. Paul saw Jesus as a Jewish man who only became a supernatural being AFTER his crucifixion and death. For example, Point 11 from the data below (credit to Ben C Smith from whom I stole many of these points):

"[Christ Jesus. . .] who came from the seed of David according to the flesh, who was appointed Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead".

Paul regarded Jesus as a real human being in real human history

These passages look at how Paul saw Jesus as a person and when he placed him in history.

1. Paul actually calls Jesus a "man" (anthropos) several times (Rom 5:15, 1 Cor 15:21)
2. Jesus was a Jewish man -- "For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites... 5 of whom [are] the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ [came]..." (Rom 9:3-5)
3. Jesus lived after Adam, since Paul calls him the latter Adam (1 Cor 15.22, 45).
4. Jesus lived after Abraham, since Paul calls him the seed (descendant) of Abraham (Gal 3.16).
5. Jesus lived after Moses, since Paul says that he was the end of the law of Moses (Rom 10.4-5) and Moses' law was added "because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made..." (Gal 3:19).
6. Jesus lived after David, since Paul calls him the seed (descendant) of David (Rom 1.4).
7. Jesus was born of a woman (Gal 4:4)
8. Paul claims to have met with the brother of the Lord, James (Gal 1.19; 1 Cor 9.5).
9. Paul expects that he might see the general resurrection in his own lifetime (1 Cor 15.51). He calls Jesus the firstfruits of that resurrection. Since the firstfruits of the harvest precede the main harvest itself by only a short time, the very metaphor works better with a short time between the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of the rest of the dead, implying that the resurrection of Jesus was recent for Paul.
10. Paul writes that God sent forth his son to redeem those under the law in the fullness of time (Gal 4.4). It is easier to suppose that, for Paul, the fullness of time had some direct correspondence to the end of the ages (1 Cor 10.11) than to imagine that the fullness of time came, Jesus died, and then everybody had to wait another long expanse of time for the death to actually apply to humanity.
11. Paul thought that Jesus was only appointed Son of God after his death -- "[Christ Jesus. . .] who came from the seed of David according to the flesh, who was appointed Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead" (Rom 1:3-4)

Some of the points above have been argued against by mythicists, especially Point 8 (James, brother of Jesus). But many of them are independent of each other, building a compelling cumulative case that Paul thought that (a) Jesus was a Jewish man and (b) Jesus was crucified relatively recent to Paul's writings, and (c) Jesus became a supernatural being after crucifixion.

12. For extra bonus(!), Paul arguably believed that Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem. First, Paul says that Christ "crucified" is a stumbling block:

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness (1 Cor 1:23)​

Then, he quotes scriptures to say that the stumbling block was in Zion (Jerusalem):

For they [Israel] stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it is written: "Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame" (Rom 9:32-33)​

Next, he quotes scriptures to say that the Deliverer will come out of Zion, in terms of a new covenant. This identifies the "Deliverer" with Jesus:

And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob" (Rom 11:26)​

Note that Paul doesn't quote Scriptures exactly here. The OT quote that Paul is working from is "The Redeemer will come TO Zion [not 'out of Zion' as per Paul], to those in Jacob who turn from transgression" (Isaiah 59:20). Paul has altered the wording, suggesting he was working from some constraint. Since the stumbling stone is "Christ crucified" and that stumbling stone was "laid in Zion", it suggests that the crucifixion occurred in Zion.

It's been argued that Paul's "Zion" refers to the Heavenly Jerusalem, though that isn't how it is read in Isaiah. As far as I can tell, it would make no sense for the Jews of Paul's time to believe that demons could freely crucify someone in the Heavenly City of Jerusalem, located in the heavens themselves. So Paul seems to be suggesting that Jerusalem on earth was the location for the crucifixion.

Paul's Jesus in fact matches up well with the Jesus in the Gospel of Mark: Jesus was a Jewish man, the seed of David, with a brother called 'James'. Jesus was proclaimed "Christ", was crucified and then raised after death. Paul arguably wrote around 50 CE. Since the passages above suggest that Jesus' crucifixion was in Paul's recent past, the timing also matches up with gMark's crucifixion under Pilate. Paul arguably believed that Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem on earth.

This is the worst deliberate mis-representation of the gMark and the Epistles.

To argue that gMark's and the Pauline Jesus was just a man is to absurdly infer that the Church canonized heretical teachings known to be contrary to their own teachings.

In gMark there is no claim whatsoever that his Jesus had a Jewish father.

In the Epistles there is no claim at all that Jesus had a Jewish father and we know nothing of the woman mentioned in Galatians 4.4.

Galatians 4:4

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law...

A voice from heaven admitted Jesus was his beloved son during the baptism and transfiguration in gMark's Gospel.

Mark 1:11

And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Mark 9:7

And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him

Your HJ argument is baseless -a mis-representation of the teachings in the NT.

The NT Canon support the teachings of the Church that Jesus was both God and man who was raised from the dead.

 

[dejudge]

Ebion: This is another Luddite deviation from the established context; I see no claim that he was supposed to be a god or started a new religion (not just a sect of an old one). We all know of urban legends about plain ordinary humans doing plain ordinary human things, and they're irrelevant here. (Nor do I see what basis there is for the conclusion that he, even as a perfectly mundane human, wasn't real, but it wouldn't matter anyway.)

Ebion is a perfect example of where a word meaning "poor" is believed to be a human being and cult leader.

The so-called Ebionites were not followers of Ebion.

Church History 27.6.

Wherefore, in consequence of such a course they received the name of Ebionites, which signified the poverty of their understanding.

For this is the name by which a poor man is called among the Hebrews.

It is most fascinating how a word meaning "poor" [Ebion] could be believed to be a human being and cult leader by Christian writers like Tertullian when no such a cult leader existed.

It is the very same way the word meaning "anointed" [Christus] was believed to be a cult leader in the time of Pilate when such person never existed at all.

Ebionites derived from the word Ebion means the poor ones.

Christians derived from the word Christus means the anointed ones.

Examine To Autolycus attributed to Theophilus of Antioch.

http://earlychristianwritings.com/text/theophilus-book1.html

Wherefore we are called Christians on this account, because we are anointed with the oil of God.

Christianity did not require an historical Jesus just for people to believe they were the anointed ones.