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Author Topic:   Did Jesus Exist? by Bart Ehrman
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 738 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


Message 69 of 463 (848576)
02-10-2019 6:16 PM


"Probabilities" are a legitimate argument or not?
The fact that there is an argument, from Jesus Mythers, which makes a big deal of mystical visions and post-Easter revelations, needs to be put to the test of historical probabilities.
Is it probable that a religion that lost it's, (MESSIANIC JEWISH) eternal-life teaching, human founder - who was said, at some point (after death?), to have supernatural powers - to a tragic UNEXPECTED death would end up with post-humous followers, like Paul, would have (claimed or actual) visions of the Messiah HE NEVER MET?
Exhumations can and do happen.
Why not visions of the dead?
There is also the issue of later Christian groups competing with the powerful, orthodox claimant, Irenaeus, who claimed to have title deeds straight from the Apostles.
Christ Mythers make a lot of the gnostic's mystical and visionary revelations.
They also make a lot of the "the peculiarity of Christian history itself" which emerged with a "historicist" type of Orthodox argument to support its theology.
quote:
Every Patristic historian remarks on how regularly the surviving ("orthodox") literature of the second and third centuries slanders opponents with exaggerated or even false charges, how they employed shunning and other acts of social intimidation rather than open debate, and how routinely complaints are heard of forged texts and other tools of deception in the ranks.
....
To make matters worse, when the Church finally acquired absolute political power under the Constantines, opponents were compelled by force to fall in line. The sect that gained the emperor's ear did not win this trophy through convincing him by sound evidence and argument in an open and equal debate with opponents, but by mere luck: they just happened to be the ones in his entourage. As the threat of death, prison, or dispossession was used to eliminate opponents, "disapproved" texts were collected and burned, or simply never copied and thus left to disintegrate, never to be read again. And thus, though we know there were radically variant sects even in Paul's day, we have not a single text from them. Instead, the vast bulk of surviving material is solely what was approved by the victorious "orthodoxy," who did not win because of their greater adherence to the truth, but their more effective and fortunate politics.
Devout Christians have the most reason to be alarmed at this: a church that engages in murder, slander, deceit, compulsion, and intimidation could not plausibly be inspired by the Holy Spirit. Like Jesus himself, true Christians did not write down their beliefs to argue or prove them, but simply had faith, accepting their deaths without a fight. Thus, if there is any true Holy Spirit, it was more likely inspiring the first believers, none of whose literature survives, and those souls who turned the other cheek to the "orthodoxy's" bullying and machinations rather than fight back. And so true Christianity could well have died a silent death.
....
Yet the "victorious" sect happened to be historicist. Since that was an accident of their tactics and good fortune, we cannot be entirely confident that the orthodoxy, much less the surviving source material, reflects the truth about Jesus.
Richard Carrier Jesus Puzzle » Internet Infidels
This argument from Carrier is used to defend the idea that Jesus was a divine cosmic creature from the very start, but documents are missing to make the decisive case.
The constantly described visions, from 2nd century Gnostics, are seen as evidence that Jesus was not earthly.
(like the evidence of Pauls mystical contact with Jesus)
But a survey of the historical circumstances of Jesus' followers, might make the Carrier/Doherty historical probability case less probable than it might sound.
Here is Elaine Pagels article, Visions, Appearances, and Apostolic Authority: Gnostic and Orthodox Traditions (pp. 415-430), in a 1978 work titled, GNOSIS, Festschrift fur Hans Jonas.
It might put things into the proper perspective.
quote:
The bishops' promise to "remain bound by original apostolic witness," which Irenaeus takes as proof of their incontestable authority,means something else to gnostic Christians: they take it as proof of the severe limitation of the bishops' authority.
If gnostics reject the orthodox view of resurrection- and of authority what theological and political views do they advocate instead? In the first place, they use and adapt the type of resurrection tradition that Dodd classifies as "circumstantial." 14
These accounts, which include the appearance to Mary Magdalene (Jo. 20, 14-18) and the appearance at Ernmaus (Lk. 24, 13-35), follow a discernible pattern. Christ appears to one person, or to few (not to the whole group of disciples together); those to whom he appears are in despair; Jesus appears suddenly, unexpectedly, and addresses them. Through a verbal interchange, the recipients come to recognize him. Here recognition of the risen Christ forms the climax of the story 15.
Lindbiom adds to these such NT accounts as Paul's vision of Christ (which shares most of the features mentioned above), and points out that the appearance to Paul (Acts 9, 3-7), to Stephan (Acts 7, 55-56) and to John on Patmos (Rev. 1, 10-18), share certain common features.
First, they are considered to have occurred after Pentecost; second, the risen Christ appears from heaven in a blaze of glorious light; third, such accounts lend themselves to interpretation as visions which are perceived by the "inner eye" or "inner ear" (cf. Acts 7, 55-56; 9, 7; 22, 9) or by one who is in an ecstatic state (Rev. 1, 10; Acts 10, 10) 16.
What primarily differentiates these accounts from the rest, however, is that they center not upon the singular "event" of Jesus' resurrection but upon the continuing presence of the Living One. Unlike the empty tomb stories, these show no interest in the question of whether Christ rose bodily from the grave. Unlike the "concise" type, they are not concerned "with what body he comes." None of these, of course, deny the reality of the resurrection: in all probability, they assume it. Nevertheless, the accounts themselves show no interest in proving or explaining the reality of the event. Instead, their purpose is to dispel the disciples' mourning for Jesus' death and their uncertainty about their own commission. They intend to show that Jesus is the Living One, and to share the revelations that he communicates to the elect.
quote:
[Gnostics] claim to have access to continuing revelation through visions. Gnostic authors develop many variations on this theme: the Gospel of Mary describes how the Savior appeared to Mary in her dream; the Apocalypse of Paul, how the spirit appeared to Paul in the form of a child he met on the road; the Dialogue of the Savior, how the elect disciples receive visions of "heaven and earth."
When gnostic authors choose to refer to the resurrection, then, they favor those NT accounts which can be interpreted as visions. Even more important than any reference to the resurrection, however, is evidence that the disciple (as gnostic) participates in present communication with the Living One. Since gnostic authors do not consider themselves bound to the apostolic testimony alone, those who receive such visions are not limited to the circle of the twelve: Mary Magdalene, James, and Salome also appear.
Nor are they limited to those who, in Paul's words, knew "Christ accounting to the flesh" (2 Cor. 5, 16): so Paul himself may be included, as later tradition includes even Valentinus. 21 Puech, Gnostic Gospels, 246: the author lists what he considers to be characteristic features of "the usual type of gnostic works off this category," 252: he states that two works "both have the form of a gospel of the common gnostic type: they profess to contain the esoteric teaching revealed by the risen Christ to his disciples in response to their questions, and in the form of a dialogue."
quote:
Gnostic Christians who reevaluate the original "apostolic" witness, and include persons outside the "apostolic circle" among the recipients of direct revelation, nevertheless express conflicting views on the question of the apostles and their authority. The Apocalypse of Paul, for example, recounts Paul's vision of the spirit in order to answer the question, how can the late comer Paul attain to the status and authority of the twelve apostles? The extant text begins as Paul, desiring to join bis "fellow apostles" in Jerusalem, asks a child which road to take.
The child greets Paul, and identifies himself and his mission: "I have come to you so that you may go up to Jerusalem, to your fellow apostles ... I am the spirit who accompanies you" (CG V, 2:18, 3-21). The spirit declares that Paul shall go to "the twelve apostles" since "they are elect spirits." Paul ascends, led by the spirit; reaching the fifth heaven, he says, "I saw my fellow apostles going with me" (CG V, 2:22, 14-15). Proceeding finally from the seventh heaven into the Ogdoad, he sees the "twelve apostles" who greet him. and they advance together up to the tenth heaven (CG V, 2:24, 1-8).
Thus the author solves the problem of Paul's apostleship: the vision Paul receives through the spirit enables him to reach the same place where the other apostles stand, and to become the equal of the "twelve apostles," their "fellow apostle" and "fellow spirit."
The Letter of Peter to Philip shows that even one who belongs to the circle of original apostles may need additional visions and revelations in order to share in the authority of the apostolic circle. The Letter opens as Peter, "the apostle of Jesus Christ," writes to summon "Philip, our beloved brother and fellow apostle, and to the brethren who are with you" (CG VIII, 2:132, 12-15). Peter tells Philip "that we have received orders from our Lord and Savior that we should come, speak, give instructions, and preach" (CG VIII, 2:132, 16-21).
But Philip was not present at the time of their authorization: "you were separated from us, and you did not want to come together to know how we should place ourselves in order to tell the good news. Therefore, would it be agreeable to you, our brother, to come according to the order of our God Jesus?" (CG VIII, 2:133, 1-8). Having received the Lord's command through his emissary Peter, Philip gladly goes to join hirn and the others (identified throughout as "the apostles").
After they gather upon the Mount of Olives and join in prayer to the Father and to the Son, a "great light" appears, and they hear the voice of "Jesus Christ" (134, 9-18). Following the vision, they go to Jerusalem, teaching, healing, and preaching, "filled with a holy spirit." At the close of the extant Letter Jesus appears to them again, giving them "joy and grace and power." the apostles all share in a common commission; they all go out to preach, strengthened "by a power of Jesus in peace."
quote:
Other gnostic Christians, notably Valentinians, take a more radical position. Reversing the orthodox criterion entirely, they claim that as visions of the risen Christ surpass mere eyewitness observation of Jesus' life, so those who receive such visions surpass Jesus' earthly disciples! For the Valentinians, the problem is not how Paul can attain to the exalted level of his "fellow apostles" (as in Apoc. Paul), but rather the opposite: how the other disciples can attain to the level of Paul, the "apostle of the resurrection"
CHALLENGE TO THE CHRIST MYTHERS:
What is the best exegesis of Paul's words, when he talks about those who knew "Christ accounting to the flesh" (2 Cor. 5, 16)?
What is the more probable interpretation?
Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

  
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 738 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


Message 70 of 463 (848579)
02-10-2019 6:50 PM


NRSV has different translations.
2 Cor 5:14-18
quote:
14 For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. 15 And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.
16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; (B) even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view,(C) we know him no longer in that way. 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;
....
Footnotes:
2 Corinthians 5:3 Other ancient authorities read put it on
2 Corinthians 5:16 Gk according to the flesh
2 Corinthians 5:16 Gk according to the flesh
2 Corinthians 5:19 Or God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself
Galatians 4:3-5
quote:
3 So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits[a] of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.
Romans 5:6-15
quote:
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person”though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 9 Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.[e] 10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11 But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Adam and Christ
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned” 13 sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. 14 Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.
15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.
Context, combined with multiple writings from Paul, helps clarify the meaning.
1 Corinthians 15 seems to have Paul saying he was not born into circumstances to see Jesus during his lifetime.
Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

  
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 738 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


Message 71 of 463 (848580)
02-10-2019 10:11 PM


Will Jesus Mythers be forced to drop the arguments from Paul (and do a total reboot)?
Verses like this really make one wonder.
quote:
1 Corinthians 15
21 For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; 22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.
Humans and flesh and the law and death are all synonymous.
Galatians 4:4 is tough on the Christ Myther theory.
quote:
3 So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits[a] of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.
And, shockingly, Carrier says one would not expect Paul to say such a thing if Jesus actually had a human mother.
quote:
And Doherty certainly could emphasize even more than he already does how bizarre it is for Paul to say "born of a woman" about someone everyone already took for granted had parents. Are we to imagine that this was in doubt, so that Paul had to remind his parishioners of the obvious fact that men have mothers? In light of this, and the fact that Paul himself provides support for the alternative Doherty offers, Doherty's reading still fits the facts at least as well as a historicist reading. But he hasn't made the case for this that he could have.
It seems that this might be an example of an early (2002) slip of the pen.
Guess we shouldn't expect too many other lines from Paul about Jesus being a human?
Guess we should really see the "human" verses as telling us an awful lot.
Guess the totality of the Christian texts before c. 70 DO INDEED tell us Jesus was seen as human from the start?
Guess the Josephus Antiquities Book 20, "brother of Jesus called Christ" reference to James, might not be the big controversial document it is made out to be. Josephus lived in the same small city James did during the early 60s.
The Mythers haven't shown us where Paul said anybody else was "brother of Jesus", have they?
(At any rate, he did not single out anybody - as "brother" - like he did James, and the only logical forgers, of Paul's Galatian manuscripts would probably not be Orthodox Europeans, who would have no interest in giving James a mention, unless there was some attempt to lower his status, which Galatians did not necessarily do)
Perhaps Paul's entire corpus will be entirely ditched, by Jesus Mythers, as some "late forgery"? Once the endless (exclusive Jesus Myther's) "new translations" attempts are actually seen by enough people, so that the unlikely verbal gymnastics look like the special pleading they are. Too few seem to take the translation gymnastics seriously at present. The conceptual gymnastics ("it all happened in some spiritual outer space anyway") are just as unlikely too.

Replies to this message:
 Message 72 by Pressie, posted 02-11-2019 5:43 AM LamarkNewAge has replied

  
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 738 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


Message 74 of 463 (848605)
02-11-2019 8:19 PM
Reply to: Message 73 by Theodoric
02-11-2019 8:51 AM


Re: Will Jesus Mythers be forced to drop the arguments from Paul (and do a total reboot)?
I have no problem at all with the (probably flawed) Jesus Myther theories.
I am glad there are decent scholars looking at all the legitimate, as opposed to Gerald Massey type (made up) stuff, mythological concordances, and attempting to draw the parallels to the New Testament texts.
The main Mythers (Carrier, Doherty, Price)are willing to engage the contrary evidence.
Relative to this (small fringe) school, the challenging issue is that the great mass of followers (as reflected by the endless supply of sweeping internet comments and website posters throughout the web) generally don't feel like they need to actually engage the evidence (if they even know what the stronger problems are to the Myther Theory)
There seem to be a few generic responses, that are constantly uncanned.
(Like the evasive post 73)
Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by Theodoric, posted 02-11-2019 8:51 AM Theodoric has not replied

  
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 738 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


Message 75 of 463 (848606)
02-11-2019 8:29 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by Pressie
02-11-2019 5:43 AM


Re: Will Jesus Mythers be forced to drop the arguments from Paul (and do a total reboot)?
quote:
OMG. Long stuff.
It actually is easy. Any empirarical, verifiable evidence for the existence of Spooks?
Since the invention of camera phones, the photo's of Spooks have disappeared...
So do you support the Mythers theories or not?
The Mythers don't believe in any actual mystical visions (so far as I know), but they see Christianity as a religion that started with followers claiming to have had (supposed) mystical conversations with Jesus (early on).
The main evidence is Paul's text, because pre-70 Christian texts consist entirely of his Epistles.
Everything after 70 is seen as the fake history, which makes Jesus into an actual historical man, and the various documents (like the Gospels) take Jesus - formerly a non-earthly cosmic creature - down to a human level.
(This Jesus Myther school, of Doherty & Price & Carrier, represents the first actual theory to explain how and why "Jesus did not exist")

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by Pressie, posted 02-11-2019 5:43 AM Pressie has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 77 by Pressie, posted 02-12-2019 7:23 AM LamarkNewAge has replied

  
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 738 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


Message 76 of 463 (848607)
02-12-2019 12:46 AM


My post 1664, in another thread, is vindicated?
See post 1664 and my Cambridge quote, plus my comments on the Jesus Family Dynasty.
EvC Forum: Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith
How is it vindicated as decent evidence for a historic Jesus?
Robert M. Price, himself, concluded a 20 page review of the issue in his 2011 book, by suggesting the "Caliphate of James" is a pretty powerful force to deal with.
quote:
THE CHRIST-MYTH THEORY AND ITS PROBLEMS
Robert Price
(2011, American Atheist Press Cranford, New Jersey)
p.351
And yet I must say I find the possible parallel to the case of Hong Xiuquan, the Taiping Messiah, the Younger Son of God, to be, almost by itself, proof that James being "the Lord's brother" need not prove a recent historical Jesus. We know it didn't in the one case, so we cannot be sure it did in the other. And the option of James' connection to a historical Jesus being a fictive link (like that of the twelve tribes to Jacob) seems to me by itself sufficient to obviate the whole problem.
And yet others may find none of the available options satisfactory. I should be quite willing to admit that the reconstruction of the Caliphate of James remains the strongest evidence that Jesus was not a mythic character subsequently historicized.
What I will not say is that it is the Achilles' Heel of the Christ-Myth theory. I do not grant that it is fatal to the theory.
Remember, we are not fundamentalists trying to settle arguments with authoritative prooftexts. Instead, we are scientific students of scripture, seeking to shape an interpretive paradigm and to lay it over the text to try it on for size.
If there are numerous points where the paradigm strikingly illuminates the data, the paradigm is not overthrown by the stubborn persistence of bits of anomalous data. The history of the progression of explanatory paradigms in science would rather suggest that sooner or later someone will come along who can expand a useful paradigm, making room for the hitherto-ill-fitting data alongside the rest.*
What we must guard against is a hell-bent adherence to a hobbyhorse of a theory. We must maintain only a tentative and provisional acceptance of any proposed paradigm (including the Christ Myth theory) until something better, maybe a better version of it, comes along. We only want to know what happened, not to know that a certain thing happened ” or didn't.
Theodoric will likely keep up with his deceptive tactics (though in his defense, he seems to have little interest in the actual details, and he might have always been that way, despite his claimed "interest" in evidence), but those interested should not be decieved.
Price said this in the same work
quote:
pp.334-335
The hypothesis of a Caliphate of James is itself not lacking in radical implications, as witness the work of Robert Eisenman. But it functions as a thorn in the flesh for the Christ Myth theory, since the Christ Myth Jesus admits of no historical entanglements.
James the Just places Christ Myth theorists in a situation ironically quite similar to that of the Roman Catholics who used to agonize over James' relationship to Jesus on the one hand, and his possible identification, on the other, with James son of Zebedee or James of Alphaeus among the Twelve. Since Roman Catholic dogma affirmed the perpetual virginity of Mary, she can have had no other children, Mark 6:3's list notwithstanding. So who must these people be?
One theory (proposed by Helvidius) made these siblings the children of widower Joseph who had married young Mary simply for the sake of legal appearances, the result being that James and the rest were Jesus” step brothers and sisters, like the brothers and sisters on The Brady Bunch.
Another theory (that of Epiphanius) made them the half brothers and sisters of Jesus, Jesus being the son of Mary and the Spirit, while James and the others were the offspring of Joseph and Mary.
Finally, yet another schema (Jerome's) makes the "brothers and sisters" cousins.
At least the first and third, if not all three, are obviously desperate expedients, harmonizations begotten of the incongruity between the plain sense of New Testament texts and a theory imposed upon them. I say that the same texts pose the same problem and create the same embarrassment for the Christ Myth theory, which is likewise obliged to deny that Jesus had genuine siblings, though for a completely different reason. When I find myself considering the relative merits of harmonization strategies, I know I am in familiar territory. I spent a lot of time there as a fundamentalist and an apologist. I do not like the place and do not want to be there.
quote:
pp.331-332
The most powerful argument against the Christ-Myth theory, in my judgment, is the plausibility of what Ethelbert Stauffer called "the Caliphate of James." It is not merely that Galatians 1:19 refers to "James the Lord's brother," though that is powerful evidence that Jesus was a recent historical figure. It is not just that Mark 6:3 lists James and three more brothers and at least two sisters of a historical Jesus. One can also assemble divers hints from Galatians, Acts chapters 15 and 21, and the Pseudo-Clementines to imply that James was viewed in some manner as Jesus' vicar or vice-regent on earth, a successor to a deceased or occulted Messiah. Accordingly, the various gospel texts that seem to be taking trouble to show the brothers of the Lord in either favorable or unfavorable light would appear to be polemical shots between one leadership faction (the Pillars* or Heirs of Jesus) and another (the Twelve)
Price speaks of historians looking at a "Principle of Analogy, seeking historical parallels" to determine if the ancient texts' described situation is parallel to stories and situations legendary in nature or based on similar documented historical situations.
He says:
quote:
And with regard to the historical Jesus question, we cannot overlook a very powerful analogy of the latter sort at this point: the succession dispute we seem to glimpse in the New Testament between the Companions of Jesus (his ostensible disciples) and the Pillars, or relatives of Jesus (Ali”s immediate kin were also called the Pillars) seems to ring true as a plausible historical scenario. And such a scenario presupposes a historical founder who has died or disappeared.
I should also add that this is a pre 70 A.D. piece of evidence.
Hegesippus was born around 110(?) A.D., and wrote 150-180.
He lived, perhaps during the time the "Caliphate" of Jesus Family Bishops of Jerusalem (or just a few years later?), and he wrote of them.
(Additionally, there is more than one piece of disputed, non-Christian, first century evidence surrounding a "James,son of Jospeh, brother of Jesus" or "brother of Jesus, called Christ" textual attestation)
This is evidence, just like the Paul's texts are evidence.
(The more likely reading of all of the textual evidence seems to indicate Jesus existed as a man, and one that was not born of a virgin)
Jesus Mythers have been forced to present a case for the unlikely interpretations (readings, definitions, meanings) of the early textual evidence.
(NOTE that Price's journal has Ethelbert Stauffer, "The Caliphate of James." Trans. by Darrell J. Doughty. Journal of Higher Criticism 4/2 (Fall 1997), pp. 120-143. It might be able to be read online, I need to check. Anybody remotely interested in the actual evidence must check)
Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.
Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

  
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 738 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


Message 78 of 463 (848614)
02-12-2019 7:27 AM
Reply to: Message 77 by Pressie
02-12-2019 7:23 AM


Re: Will Jesus Mythers be forced to drop the arguments from Paul (and do a total reboot)?
We need a rule that posters need to demonstrate some knowledge of the issue they post on.
There has been nothing in the way of any substance, in the replies to my posts.
I even showed documented proof that 1( of the 3) leading Jesus Myther, said there is powerful evidence for the existence of Jesus. (in 2011 anyway)
Prove my last sentence wrong ANYBODY.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 77 by Pressie, posted 02-12-2019 7:23 AM Pressie has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 79 by Pressie, posted 02-12-2019 7:32 AM LamarkNewAge has not replied

  
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 738 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


(1)
Message 81 of 463 (848666)
02-12-2019 6:49 PM
Reply to: Message 80 by Theodoric
02-12-2019 8:23 AM


Re: Will Jesus Mythers be forced to drop the arguments from Paul (and do a total reboot)?
quote:
The amazing thing to me, is the idea and presentation of the argument that the bible is self proving. If there are multiple mentions in the bible then that is treated as multiple attestations of evidence.
Take that up with one of the leading lights of the Christ Myther school (Robert Price).
I am awaiting a reply to his "powerful" evidence admission.
(The Gospel of Thomas was not mentioned by Price, but do you consider that to be "the bible". It has Jesus saying that people should go to James the Just for answers. But the question posed to Jesus was who would be the leader of the community after he was gone)
(I still feel that getting some real answer, on anything of substance, from ANYBODY on this thread will be bordering on the miraculous. An actual response, without the mention of Duane Gish, would be nice.)
And Price does (or did, since we are talking 2011) not see the "Biblical" documents as monolithic (especially when considering the earlier letters of Paul)
Here is his work I have been quoting.
quote:
P.298
22.a. True relatives (Mark 3:20b-21, 31-35) Mark 3:20b. And the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. 21. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, "He is beside himself." [ . ] 31. And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. 32. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you." 33. And he replied, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" 34. And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! 35. Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother."
The story can be so readily understood as factional polemic aimed at the Heirs or Pillars in a succession dispute (which would, needless to say, be grossly anachronistic for the historical Jesus) that we would require some good reason to deem it anything else. 22.b. Hating father and mother (Luke 14:25-26/Matthew 10:37/Thomas 55, 101) Luke 14:25.
(And just when did Gish or Hovind get a quote of evolution-believing scientists saying that there was "powerful" evidence for Creationism? Forget the galloping quotations, just show me one example. Just one. ONE.)
Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.
Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 80 by Theodoric, posted 02-12-2019 8:23 AM Theodoric has not replied

  
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 738 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


(1)
Message 82 of 463 (848698)
02-13-2019 9:44 PM
Reply to: Message 77 by Pressie
02-12-2019 7:23 AM


The Legions need to understand the historical methodology (before making claims).
quote:
Your Gish gallops won't convince anyone with a working brain.
Do you care to offer any parallel examples of Duane Gish's techniques?
(spend some time on demonstrating how Gish went about things, since you brought him and his practices up)
You like to make claims.
(I simply quoted Price - a very fertile author - who is, in my opinion, the "idea machine", among the small school of Jesus Mythers)
You did not respond to his historical methodology either.
Let me quote it again (for you to ignore).
quote:
pp.333-334
As historians of ancient religion trying to figure out just what
went on in early Christianity, we work by the Principle of Analo
gy, seeking historical parallels to either reported ancient claims or
modern reconstructions based on ancient evidence. If an ancient
account bears no analogy to experiences observed and verified
today, but is analogous to what all today agree are legends, then
we class the account among the latter, not the former. And if we
must reconstruct what happened in some situation, our hypothesis
will be deemed the more probable insofar as we can find actual,
documented cases analogous to the reconstruction we are posit
ing. And with regard to the historical Jesus question, we cannot
overlook a very powerful analogy of the latter sort at this point:
the succession dispute we seem to glimpse in the New Testament
between the Companions of Jesus (his ostensible disciples) and
the Pillars, or relatives of Jesus (Ali’s immediate kin were also
called the Pillars) seems to ring true as a plausible historical sce
nario. And such a scenario presupposes a historical founder who
has died or disappeared.
The hypothesis of a Caliphate of James is itself not lacking
in radical implications, as witness the work of Robert Eisenman. 1
But it functions as a thorn in the flesh for the Christ Myth theory,
since the Christ Myth Jesus admits of no historical entanglements.
There were notes on the bottom of page 333, between 333 and 334.
Price knows that the "earlier" letters of Paul present James in a very different light than the later Gospels.
(I believe Price now questions the existence of Paul, so his 2011 text could be outdated. I think he wrote a book attacking the idea of a historical Paul, called something like The Incredible Shrinking Apostle, but I need to study the issue)
quote:
And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, ”Your mother and your
brothers are outside, asking for you.’ And he replied, ”Who are my mother and
my brothers?’ And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, ”Here are
my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and
sister, and mother’.” John 7:5, “For even his brothers did not believe in him.”
* Galatians 2:9, “James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to
be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should
go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.”
You just can't handle sound historical methodology, can you?
(I hope you engage the evidence eventually, otherwise the debate is never going to actually happen)
quote:
pp.339-342
It is the Lord who spoke with me: “See now the completion of my re
demption. I have given you a sign of these things, James, my brother.
For not without reason have I called you my brother, although you are
not my brother materially.” (1 Apocalypse of James 24:10-16) 1
I must admit, though, that the phrase “although you are not my brother
materially” might sound like an attempt to discount a prior tradition
whereby James and Jesus were blood brothers. The point of this text
might be to affirm that James was not merely hanging on the coattails
of his famous brother, but that he deserved his prominence on account
of his own holiness. The Caliph Ali had the same problem to deal
with. His partisans held that the office of Caliph ought to have been
kept within the Prophetic bloodline, but his opponents said there is no
such thing as a Prophetic bloodline. One does not inherit spirituality or
spiritual authority, as it is of God, not of the flesh. Thus Ali’s support
ers were obliged to point to the spiritual virtues of their Imam to show
he would make a good Caliph in any case. It is easy to imagine the
same in the case of James: physical relation, initially a strategic boon,
eventually proved insufficient, so James’ followers might have shifted
the emphasis, redefining “brother of the Lord.” We may even see this
process in motion in a pair of passages from 2 Apocalypse of James:
Once when I was sitting deliberating, [he] opened [the] door. That
one whom you hated and persecuted came in to me. He said to me,
“Hail, my brother; my brother, hail.” As I raised my [ face ] to stare
at him, (my) mother said to me, “Do not be frightened, my son, be
cause he said, ”My brother’ to you. For you [both] were nourished
with the same milk. Because of this he calls me, ”My mother.’ For
he is not a stranger to us. He is your [half-brother...].” Jesus said to
James, “Your father is not my father, but my father has become a
father to you.” (2 Apocalypse of James 50:6-23; 51:19-22) t
First we have the half-brother solution to the conundrum of Mary
having other children. Jesus and James share Mary as their moth
er. This implies a physical Jesus and a physical James. But a bit
later Jesus tells James that he deserves to be called his brother (at
least that seems to be the point) because, though they do not share
a common earthly father, they are equally sons of a Heavenly Fa
ther. Again, there is a mitigation of their fraternal link, a tendency
to redefine it, presupposing a prior literalistic understanding. And,
sure enough, the passage appears to be based upon the following,
better known, scene from the Gospel according to the Hebrews:
Now the Lord, when he had given the linen cloth to the servant of the
priest, went to James and appeared to him, for James had sworn that he
would not eat bread from that hour wherein he had drunk the Lord’s cup
until he should see him risen again from among those who sleep. And
he said to him, “Hail!” And he called to the servants, who were greatly
amazed. “Bring,” said the Lord, “a table and bread.” He took bread and
blessed and broke and gave it to James the Just and said to him, “My
brother, eat your bread, for the man has risen from those who sleep.” 8
The 2 Apocalypse of James passage implies the Jesus-James en
counter follows the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus, mentioned
in the immediate context, and that James is startled at seeing Jesus
because the last he knew, Jesus was dead. Likewise, we may won
der if his “deliberation” was not over what to do next, now that his
world had come crashing down. The passage has been rewritten as a
gloss upon the Gospel according to the Hebrews’ note that the Risen
Jesus addressed James as “my brother.” Mary explains the relation
ship of the two “brothers” in a manner acceptable to later dogma.
But it seems possible to trace a change in the meaning of these
terms in the opposite way, too! Richard Bauckham detects certain
polemical innuendoes that may possess wider implications than he
means to suggest. “James is also called ”our Lord’s brother accord
ing to the flesh’ in Didascalia 24... ( cf. Ap[ostolic] Const[itutions]
8:35:1: ”the brother of Christ according to the flesh’... In [such]
phrases ”according to the flesh’ designates the realm of merely
physical relationships, by contrast with relationships ”according to
the Spirit’ (cf Rom 1:3-4; Gal 3:23, 29; Philem 16). So, whereas
”the Lord’s brother’ might indicate a special relationship with Je
sus not shared by other Christian leaders, ”the Lord’s brother ac
cording to the flesh ’ relativizes that relationship as only a natural
relationship.”*
Let me make clear that I am going well beyond the
point Bauckham means to make, but it occurs to me that the same
logic might imply something quite different: might an attempt to
highlight the physicality of the fraternal relation to Jesus denote an
orthodox apologetical attempt to concretize an originally spiritual
fraternity with Jesus into a blood relation? The attempt would be
exactly analogous to that discerned in the Synoptic resurrection nar
ratives’ stress on the physical tangibility of the risen body of Jesus:
to defeat and co-opt Gnostic theologoumena. I readily admit that
texts which try to “clarify” for the reader that, despite appearances,
the fraternity of Jesus and James is only spiritual and abstract are
naturally (though not inevitably) read as “docetizing” an originally
physical conception that needs to be reconceived for a Gnostic con
text. But here we may see evidence of the opposite tendency. And
then it is pretty much up for grabs which tendency (and therefore
which conception of James’ brotherhood with Jesus) was first.
Big Brother Is Watching You
G. A Wells, following J.M. Robertson, has long held that James
as “the brother of the Lord” might simply denote his role as a lead
ing missionary, since there are indications in the New Testament
that such traveling preachers were called “brothers” or even “the
Lord’s brethren.”* The famous depiction of the Final Judgment in
Matthew 25:31-46* focuses on the class of Christian missionaries
I feel that attempts to present James as something other than a literal brother (in Paul or the Gospels) are very strained, since the plain reading is close to 100% clear.
Price knows that plain reading of the Biblical texts would be understood today if not for Catholic/Orthodox propaganda.
Price know this is a major problem for the Jesus Myther theory. But he considers this "powerful evidence" anomalous to a theory which, in his estimation, has strong evidence on all the other counts.
(the Jesus Myther evidence rests on the reading of Paul's extant texts, which completely lack the details in the Gospel narratives)
Again, understand the Jesus Myther school's arguments.
We can't begin to get anywhere towards an actual debate one the issue of Jesus's existence otherwise.
quote:
352
Does the Christ Myth Theory Require
an Early Date for the Pauline Epistles?
Epistles versus Gospels
One of the pillar arguments of the Christ Myth Theory as usually
put forth today is the absence from the Pauline Epistles of any gospel-
like teaching ascribed to Jesus. If the gospels’ Jesus Christ, Jesus of
Nazareth, the itinerant sage and thaumaturge, was well known, at least
among Christians, it would stand to reason that such a Jesus would
meet us throughout the apostolic letters by way of quotations and an
ecdotes. But we find no such material. Suddenly, however, such a Je
sus portrait appears in the gospels, written after the epistles, and the
explanation for this discrepancy, according to Mythicists, is that, be
tween the composition of epistles on the one hand and gospels on the
other, the popular - Christian imagination (as well as the inventiveness
of Christian scribes) “historicized” the originally suprahistorical, spiri
tual (mythical) savior of whom Paul and the rest had earlier written so
much of a dogmatic, but none of an historical-biographical nature. For
various reasons it had become desirable in some quarters to posit a re
cent historical Jesus of Nazareth to whom one could trace oneself and
one’s institutional claims of authority. And in this window of time be
tween epistles and gospels, various unnamed prophets (and borrowers
and tail-tale-tellers) supplied the many things this Jesus would have,
must have, done and said. Such a figure had not existed as far as the
epistolarians knew, and so of course there was no such material with
which to lard their epistles. But now that the newly-minted material
was available, it found the epistle genre altogether too confining and
called for a more appropriate format, that of the Hellenistic hero or
saint biography, and so the gospels were born.
Parenthetically, it is worth pointing out that we possess two strik
ing analogies for the rapid generation of “filler” sayings and stories.
353
The Christ Myth Theory And Its Problems
Think of the imaginative fabrication of episodes of the child Jesus
preserved in the well-known apocryphal infancy gospels (attributed
to Thomas, Matthew, James, and others); as soon as Christians came
to believe that Jesus had not merely been adopted (as an adult) as
God’s Son, but that he had been bom divine, they went to work fill
ing in the imagined gap: what super-deeds must the divine child have
been doing during those years? Secondly, after the promulgation of
the Koran, a swelling flood of spurious hadith, stories of the words
and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad, burst the levees of historical
probability to correct and supplement the teaching of scripture. It is
by no means far-fetched to suggest, then, that all the gospel stories of
a mortal Jesus walking the earth swiftly arose to fill the newly dis
cerned gap once such a Jesus was posited. It is no stretch to imagine
Christian scribes and prophets supplying what their new earthly Jesus
would have said, either. If it sounded good, Jesus said it.
This understanding of the epistles as preceding the gospels
grounds the arguments of the two greatest Christ Myth theorists
of our day, George A. Wells and Earl Doherty. Their views differ
significantly at many points, but they agree here. Let me quote the
venerable Wells.
It is generally agreed that the NT epistles addressed to the Romans,
Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and
Thessalonians were written before the gospels... These early
epistles exhibit such complete ignorance of the events which were
later recorded in the gospels as to suggest that these events were not
known to Paul or whoever it was who wrote the epistles.’
Doherty agrees:
I need to deal with the legions of internet folks who want to be Jesus Myther cheerleaders.
I am not so much offering evidence ("powerful" though - as Price admits - it is when a sound historical methodology is used), as trying to get the legions ( should I say The Legions) of internet followers up to speed on the actual issues.
The Legions want to say "There is no evidence for a historical Jesus", but they don't want to learn the details of the debate.
Educating The Legions is a task.
That is my first challenge.
(Forget the "powerful evidence" part that comes from the historical methods Jesus Mythers use)
Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.
Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.
Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 83 by Theodoric, posted 02-14-2019 11:53 AM LamarkNewAge has not replied
 Message 84 by ringo, posted 02-14-2019 12:02 PM LamarkNewAge has replied

  
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 738 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


(1)
Message 85 of 463 (848782)
02-14-2019 6:57 PM
Reply to: Message 84 by ringo
02-14-2019 12:02 PM


Re: The Legions need to understand the historical methodology (before making claims).
quote:
Maybe you're not the right person for the job.
But if you insist on continuing, why not start slooooooooowly? Instead of trying to bury us in an avalanche of text, pick a point and DISCUSS it.
The "right person" is ANYBODY who has actually read a tiny bit of the actual Jesus Myther arguments.
The small amount I have read seems to be way beyond what the Jesus Myther cheerleaders have begun to look over. (I am thinking not only of the ones that can only mumble about Duane Gish, but The Legions, on the web, that can't contain their goose-pimples at just the thought of a Jesus Myther school, and it is just that kind of a "feel-good" kinda moment that STAYS JUST THAT BUT IS CONSTANTLY RE-LIVED while never leading to actual study of the issue in a critical way).
Where to start?
(since the important evidence gets ignored, perhaps I should ignore it like The Legions?)
(I think I might just do that, and I am not saying it is a good decision)
My new try:
This whole topic came about from one of Bart Ehrman's books.
He wrote two at close to the same time.
When Jesus Became God was written about the same time as the one caused this thread to start.
Ehrman talked about the fact that the man Jesus gradually evolved into a divine God from the beginning of eternity.
FIRST, he was a natural born man
SECOND, he was exalted into a type of Godhood (such as after his death or perhaps during the transfiguration)
THIRD, he was adopted (at the Baptism)
NEXT comes INCARNATIONAL Godhood. (virgin birth)
LASTLY, he was eternally (past, present future) God. He was that before he was born. Gopel of John second century (or slightly earlier in the late first) stuff.
That is Ehrman's chronology.
What about the Jesus Mythers? What do they say?
(Understand, The Legions fancy Myther views, but I am referring to the actual historians like Price, Doherty, etc.)
My answer is that I am not totally sure what they all say, and frankly, even if you confine "the viewpoint" (or The View) to a single individual Jesus Myther, the arguments are a constantly moving target. This is a new school and one in search of a solid theory (a bit more on that later).
I just quoted Robert M.Price.
We know that the Jesus Myther theory rests heavily on the Epistles of Paul, which have no knowledge, on Paul's part, of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) and which can be read (when one explains away "born of a woman" and "brother" words, plus sees "human" and "crucified" as not reflecting a human life/lifetime in the Roman Empire) to indicate a Jesus that "lived" & "died" on a place outside earth and time, like the primeval dragon.
Jesus was some type of Titan (or whatever) from the start, according to the Mythers.
Paul had Jesus the (non earthly space/spiritual creature) Titan become exalted to God, I suppose (Philippians 2:6-11)?
But the Mythers see the Gospel of Mark as offering the first written evidence of the belief in an earthly Jesus, and it is one with an Adoptionist Christology (baptism adoption makes Jesus a God).
Next comes the Incarnational (virgin birth) stuff.
There is a Jesus Myther chronology that agrees with some of Ehrman's chronology.
Here is Robert M. Price
quote:
p.353
Think of the imaginative fabrication of episodes of the child Jesus
preserved in the well-known apocryphal infancy gospels (attributed
to Thomas, Matthew, James, and others); as soon as Christians came
to believe that Jesus had not merely been adopted (as an adult) as
God’s Son, but that he had been born divine, they went to work fill
ing in the imagined gap: what super-deeds must the divine child have
been doing during those years?
The Gospel of Luke also has infancy stories, and they are admitted, by all, to be late first century inventions.
(The Gospel also, ironically, has a fictional familial relationship between John The Baptist and Jesus)
Now the question will be whether the Jesus Mythers see their Jesus as "divine from the start" (as they seem to generally do so). If we say, "yes", then we would not be saying anything too-much contrary to their theories, because they seem to be saying Paul's Epistles indicate such (though the devil's details are in the chronology I suppose, and the Jesus Myther theories are a constantly moving target).
Again, the Jesus Mythers accept that between Paul and Mark, was a transition from Non Historical Jesus to a Historical Man Jesus, and Mark has an Adoptionist God-man Jesus.
The agreement with Ehrman's chronology certainly starts around the time (just before the writing of) of The Gospel of Mark.
70 A.D. on is general agreement (though Mythers try to play around with the dates of the Gospels and Paul's Epistles)
The debate seems to be based on what the evidence is from the texts in the decades before 70.
Ehrman is attacked (especially by The Legions) for saying Jesus simply existed as a real human being.
But (almost)none of Ehrman's critics, among The Legions, will deny that there were texts from around 70 AD that describe Jesus as an existing human. Everybody generally agrees with the post 70 AD evidence.
The disagreement is what was described before (and the - much debated - evidence will only exist as far back as a few decades before 70).
Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.
Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 84 by ringo, posted 02-14-2019 12:02 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 87 by ringo, posted 02-15-2019 10:43 AM LamarkNewAge has replied

  
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 738 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


Message 86 of 463 (848797)
02-15-2019 9:40 AM


This whole "Did Jesus exist" debate centers around when he became "God".
The Legions very clearly don't know that very fact(nobody who posted on this thread, Jon included, seems to actually get it, see posts 41-45/47 for very relevant proof of that).
This short post will just offer some notes of caution.
What came first, based simply on EXISTING TEXTS, is fraught with outright problems.
Jesus Mythers really have this problem when attempting to date texts from their mythological concordances (the pagan stories are hard enough to find and demonstrate at all, and I am not saying they aren't existing, just that finding and presenting them is a massively tough undertaking)
quote:
First, as Dr. Robert M. Price notes, “It is a fundamental
methodological error to assume that a phenomenon must
have arisen just shortly before its earliest attestation.”
http://robertmprice.mindvendor.com/JHC/jhcvol13no1_2018.pdf
(Price probably make this quote to support his theory of Christianity being a borrowing of Zoroastrian type of theology or something along those lines. He even sees baptism itself as originally coming from Zoroastrians!)
(I am applying it to the Christology concepts, which probably isn't going to please his theory, which places a heavy weight on Paul's letter's Christology having a major priority)
Ehrman is attacked, by The Legions, but he wrestles with the chronology of beliefs.
quote:
Bart (Ehrman)
December 14, 2015
By the time of Paul, the followers of Jesus were already saying that the messiah was a cosmic, supernatural being (the exalted Jesus); that’s what it meant for them to believe in the resurrection/exaltation of Jesus.
Just a moment...
quote:
I have read, pondered, researched, taught, and written about the writings of Paul for forty years, but until recently there was one key aspect of his theology that I could never quite get my mind around. I had the hardest time understanding how, exactly, he viewed Christ. Some aspects of Paul’s Christological teaching have been clear to me for decades - especially his teaching that it was Jesus’ death and resurrection that makes a person right with God, rather than following the dictates of the Jewish law. But who did Paul think Christ was exactly?
One reason for my perplexity was that Paul is highly allusive in what he says. He does not spell out, in systematic detail, what his views of Christ are. Another reason was that in some passages Paul seems to affirm a view of Christ that - until recently - I thought could not possibly be as early as Paul’s letters, which are our first Christian writings to survive. How could Paul embrace “higher” views of Christ than those found in later writings such as Matthew, Mark, and Luke? Didn’t Christology develop from a “low” Christology to a “high” Christology (using these terms that I am no longer fond of) over time? And if so, shouldn’t the views of the Synoptic Gospels be “higher” than the views of Paul? But they’re not! They are “lower.” And I simply did not get it, for the longest time.
But I get it now. It is not a question of higher or lower. The Synoptics simply accept a different Christological view from Paul’s. They hold to exaltation Christologies and Paul holds to an incarnation Christology. And that, in no small measure, is because Paul understood Christ to be an angel who became a human.
Just a moment...
The Philippians 2 text says Christ pre-existed (unpackaged the divinity), then came down to men, then was exalted to Godhood. If I remember correctly, but the devil is in the details.
Carrier admitted, in 2002, that early Christian texts are missing.
quote:
As the threat of death, prison, or dispossession was used to eliminate opponents, "disapproved" texts were collected and burned, or simply never copied and thus left to disintegrate, never to be read again. And thus, though we know there were radically variant sects even in Paul's day, we have not a single text from them.
....
Thus, if there is any true Holy Spirit, it was more likely inspiring the first believers, none of whose literature survives, and those souls who turned the other cheek to the "orthodoxy's" bullying and machinations rather than fight back. And so true Christianity could well have died a silent death.
The relevant chronological & DATE OF ORIGIN implications are obvious.
(THIS BELOW MIGHT BE SEEN AS IRRELEVANT TO MY POST,BUT BARE WITH ME)
Robert Price and the Jesus Mythers are forced to argue that Christianity BORROWED history & theology from pagans to justify a non-historic Jesus.
quote:
And this brings me to Bart’s lambasting my suggestion that the story of Jesus’ baptism might have been rewritten from that of the Persian prophet Zoroaster. Ehrman has two cheap shots to fire here. First, he complains that I can’t get my story straight, since elsewhere I claim all the gospel narratives were worked up from Old Testament originals. But I clearly state that there were other sources, too.
....
Second, he, like apologists, likes to seal off the sphere of biblical culture from the adjacent religious world. I can understand that bias on the part of conservatives who want to see Christianity flowing directly out of the Old Testament, without other tributaries, for theological reasons. But Bart allegedly no longer cares to defend such interests. Then why does he ignore the massive influence of Zoroastrianism on Pharisaic Judaism? Many scholars believe Jews derived belief in an end-time resurrection, the apocalyptic periodization of history, the notion of a virgin-born future savior, the idea of an evil anti-God, and an elaborate angelology from Zoroastrianism. The rabbis thought that Zoroaster was the same man as Baruch the scribe of Jeremiah! That means they were trying to legitimatize the Jewish assimilation of Zoroastrian themes during and after the Exile. T.W. Manson[8] suggested that the traditionalist Sadducees (“Syndics, Councilmen”) resisted these borrowings and labeled those who accepted them as “Pharisees” (i.e., “Parsees, Persians, Zoroastrians”) because of it. (Later the Pharisees redefined the term to make it a badge of honor: “Perushim” now denoting “Separatists, Puritans.” Am I such a nut for suggesting possible Zoroastrian influence on the baptism story?
What I have just mentioned is an example of synchronic comparison: tracing possible influence from one phenomenon to another close to it in time and space. Bart gives me hell for my invocation of the fact that Hong Xiuquan, the 19th-century Taiping messiah in China, called himself “the younger brother of Jesus” as a possible parallel to the use of “brother of the Lord” for James the Just. Across so many centuries? Far-fetched, right? How can Bart not recognize a diachronic comparison (a comparison of analogous phenomena across time)? As I say quite clearly, the Taiping messiah obviously could not have been claiming to be the blood brother of Jesus unless he was Mel Brooks’s character the 2,000 Year Old Man. No, he used the title to mean he was the earthly manifestation of another hypostasis of the Godhead, just as Jesus had been. Such a title need not at all imply its holder was the brother of a historical Jesus, either in the first century or the 19th. I don’t see what’s so funny about that.
Paradigm Policeman » Robert M Price
The relevance to this Price post, to my post, is this:
Jesus Mythers seem to be seen (by The Legions) as offering "proof" that Jesus did not exist, when they find (or TRY to find POSSIBLE parallels) parallel stories in the pagan concordances. Actually, much of CURRENT New Testament scholarship admits that the Gospel stories are full of endless fictional (non-historic) content. Perhaps 99% is pure fiction (some mainstream-ish historians go that far anyway while numerous others come close). Mythers might require endless pagan parallels for THEIR theory to work, but mainstream historians have no beef with fictional Jesus history in the Gospels. The existence, of fictional history in the Gospels, deals no genuinely fatal blows to the idea that Jesus existed, really.
Jesus Mythers do a great service in their painstaking look at all possible pagan stories, but it ends up only being extremely limited (to put it kindly) in being ACTUAL PROOF that "Jesus did not exist as a human". The Legions don't understand that.
Plus, much (close to all) of the "evidence" is based on extremely late material.
(I can attest, as somebody who researched the issue, that Zoroastrian "Parallels", for example, are often super-late 10th century A.D. stuff, though the Gathas have some early stuff).
The Jesus Mythers have a much bigger problem in demonstrating their theories about Paul (especially when they need to - almost - literally airbrush out parts they don't like, and I am being slightly facetious), to which their ENTIRE "Jesus Did Not Exist" enterprise - quite definitely! - rises and falls based on their success.
(One always has bend over backwards to even make the Jesus Myther argument even possible. One must go ahead and grant the UNLIKELY idea that Josephus' Antiquities Book XX "brother of Jesus called Christ" was added into the text, for the Myther theory to even have a chance. One also has to ignore/mangle non-Gospel/Acts historical details in Paul's epistles to allow the Mythers to claim that there is "no chronology outside the Gospels/Acts of Apostles" to date the relative time of Jesus. Lots of unlikely hoods are required to even make the theory tenable)
Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

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LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 738 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


Message 90 of 463 (848826)
02-16-2019 1:07 AM
Reply to: Message 87 by ringo
02-15-2019 10:43 AM


Re: The Legions need to understand the historical methodology (before making claims).
quote:
Pick a point. State it simply.
My point is people were not even discussing the relevant issues in the debate.
(that is, up until my arrival, ushered in by Phat)
People were only debating circumstantial issues (and I am being kind to Jesus Myth-Supporters by presenting it in such mild terms).
(that is issues that are only important AFTER the Jesus Myth-Supporters actually have a circumstance built around a demonstration WITH evidence which would make their theory LIKELY TRUE first)
This whole Jesus Myther theory needs a debate around the important support for their theory.
The issue of Jesus being divine from the start is a requirement for the "Jesus never existed" crowd.
quote:
Bart (Ehrman)
December 14, 2015
By the time of Paul, the followers of Jesus were already saying that the messiah was a cosmic, supernatural being (the exalted Jesus); that’s what it meant for them to believe in the resurrection/exaltation of Jesus.
Just a moment...
Ehrman's quote might offer some (potential?) support for the Jesus Myther theory.
(It is a small opening anyway)
These are the issues that Jesus Myther supporters need to wrestle with if they want to make a case.
(The issue of trying to air-brushing away non-Christian historical evidence - like the Josephus, Ant. Book XX, reference to "brother of Jesus called Christ" - is admittedly a necessary requirement for the "Jesus did not exist" theory, though one wonders how this type of Myther special pleading can be presented as somehow a burden on mainstream historians since it is of small importance to the big historical picture EVEN IF THE SPECIAL PLEA IS GRANTED)
(I am at an even bigger loss as regards the big fuss people were making over the Nero reference in Tacitus. As well as the Pilate texts. This is so unimportant to mainstream historian's mountain of evidence for the Historical Jesus existing, that I wonder how people in this thread could keep a straight face and think Ehrman should care too much anyway about these petty issues. I admit that it is important to the Jesus Myther theory, but the "Jesus did not exist" crowd has so much work to do demonstrating their unlikely fringe theory that one wonders why so much time was spent on this one. I suppose it was the confusion, among everybody in this thread, that this is somehow something Ehrman should care about anyway, as his Historical Jesus theory doesn't even come close to needing the historical references to Pilate and Nero. It is evidence that could be fatal to the Jesus Myther theory, admitted.)
This discussion has just been totally wack.
Ehrman, no doubt, hopes (in the sense of "best wishes") the Mythers can actually make a decent case, but one can hardly see anything but confusion among the Myther's followers.
Ehrman gave the Jesus Myther crowd attention and some press, so they got respect.
The Mythers need to do a better job outlining what the important issues are to their followers.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 87 by ringo, posted 02-15-2019 10:43 AM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 91 by ringo, posted 02-16-2019 10:50 AM LamarkNewAge has replied

  
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 738 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


Message 92 of 463 (848836)
02-16-2019 11:03 AM
Reply to: Message 91 by ringo
02-16-2019 10:50 AM


Re: The Legions need to understand the historical methodology (before making claims).
quote:
The question is, "Did Jesus Exist?" Whether or not He was "divine" doesn't enter into it.
The "Jesus Did Not Exit" crowd, have their entire case riding on the idea that Jesus started out as a God/Titan (or some sort of cosmic creature), as represented by (essentially) the Letters of Paul.
If the crowd can't make that case, then they should do the honorable thing and admit that they have no evidence.
(Just call the "Jesus did not exist" claim a NULL HYPOTHESIS and call it a day)
(There are lots of other problems the "Jesus did not exist" crowd is REQUIRED to address, but the first big requirement is to demonstrate that Paul did not imagine an "earthly" human Jesus)..
You don't understand the issue at all (you aren't alone, so don't feel bad).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by ringo, posted 02-16-2019 10:50 AM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 93 by Tangle, posted 02-16-2019 11:28 AM LamarkNewAge has not replied
 Message 94 by ringo, posted 02-16-2019 11:30 AM LamarkNewAge has replied

  
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 738 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


Message 97 of 463 (848848)
02-16-2019 1:57 PM
Reply to: Message 94 by ringo
02-16-2019 11:30 AM


Re: The Legions need to understand the historical methodology (before making claims).
Now we have somebody saying Paul was some late fictional paper man? (Ringo)
The linguistics alone have lone proven Paul dates earlier than other New Testament writings and Clement of Rome (who wrote around 95 A.D.)
See this work:
The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles, P. N. Harrison. (1921)
Just the vocabulary alone proved Paul was before the Church Father 1 Clement.
(all agree on 1 Clement being early, even a "Jesus Myth" poster Theodoric linked to in another thread)
Paul (which, according to the Harrison also wrote II Thes, Col, and Ephesians in addition to the 7 authentic letters) has a vocabulary of over 2000 words. But 600 were not used by any Church Father (or Apologist). I doubt 1 Clement even used half of the words from Paul's vocabulary.
Paul has a unique vocabulary and particles, prepositions, etc.
The Pastorial Epistles are I Timothy, Titus, and II Timothy, and are the basis for the 1921 work.
quote:
p.68-69
We proceed therefore to supplement our comparison of the two vocabularies, Pauline and Pastoral, by a comparison of both with the tertium quid - the vocabulary of the Apostoli Fathers and Apologists. We take primarily the former, as covering approximately the period of fifty years A.D. 95-145; in the second place the latter group as showing the trend of Christian diction during the next thirty years, say A.D. 140-170.
It will be useful to bear in mind from the outset the relative bulk of the documents in question. The text of the Apostolic Fathers occupies some 200 pages in Lightfoot's smaller edition. The text of the N.T. fills 516, the ten Paulines 105, the Pastoral's 13 2/3, and the other books of the N.T. say 395 pages ... So the length of the Apostolic Fathers is rather less than twice that of the Paulines, and just two-fifths that of the entire N.T. The vocabulary of the Apostolic Fathers comprises some 4,020 words other than proper names, as compared with 2177 in Paul and 848 in the Pastorals. The length of the Apologists is rather more than three-fifths of the N.T., and their vocabulary still larger than that of the Apostolic Fathers.
1. Of the 175 Hapax Legomena in the Pastorals no less than 61 occur in the Apostolic Fathers, and 61 in the Apologists, including 32 which are not in the Apostolic Fathers, amking a total of 93. See Appendix I,A I, p. 137 f. In the great majority of cases thes appear not in any sense as possible quotations from the Pastorals, but ina distinct context of their own, proving that they did in fact belong to the current speech of the Church and to the working vocabulary of Christian writers and thinkers in this period.
The Pastorals share with the Apostolic Fathers from 4.4 words per page ( I Tim.) to 7.1 (Titus) which are foreign to the rest of the N. TT. ; the Paulines, from 1 (Rom.) to 2.4 (Philem.), the majority having less than 1.5 per page. See Diagram IX, B.
With the Apostolic Fathers or Apologists, or both, the Pastorals share from 7.5 ( 2 Tim.) to 8.6 per page (Titus); the Paulines, from 1.6 (Eph.) to 3.2 (Phil.), with the rest under 2.5 per page. See Diagram IX, A.
These words are distributed over the whole body of writings before us without exception; even the brief fragments of Papias, Melito, and Dionysius of Corinth adding their small quota to the general mass of evidence. Clement of Rome has 21, 2 Clem. 7, Ignatius 13, Polycarp 6, the Martyrdom of Polycarp 4, the Didache 3, Barnabas 4, Hermas 21, the Ep. ad Diognetum 7, Papias 1, Aristeides 1, Tatian 19, Justin 40, Athenagoras 22, Melito 2, and Dionysius o Corinth 2. The Lists are given in our Appendix i, e, PP.150 ff. Twenty-nine occur in both groups.
....
p.70
The author of the Pastorals does speak the language of the Apostolic Fathers and Apologists, while diverging from that of other N.T. writers, to a degree wholly without parallel in the genuine Paulines.
2. But we have seen that, in addition to these Hapax Legomena, he uses a large number of words which, while they occur in other books of the N.T. (i.e. in Christian writings of the forty years or so following the death of Paul), are foreign to the working vocabulary of the Apostle, in so far as this is known to us from teh surviving epistles.
Out of 131 such words, 100 occur in the Apostolic Fathers, 95 inthe Apologists, 118 in one or the other, and 77 in both. See appendix I, A 2, p. 138 f.
I Clem has 42 of these, 2 Clem. 21, Ignatius 26, Polycarp 14, the Martyrdom of Polycarp 18, the Didache 18, Barnabas 24, Hermas 54, the Ep. as Diognetum 20, the fragment from Papias 3.
Aristeides has 6, Tatians 42, Justin 76, Athenagoras 37, and Melito (fragments in Eusebius) 3. See Appendix I, E, pp.150 ff.
Combining these results with those in the last paragraph, we see that the Pastorals share with the Apostolic Fathers 161 words which do not appear in the Pauline epistles, with the Apologists 156, with both groups 106, and with one or the other no fewer than 211.
Each of the Pauline epistles has also naturally a certain number of words which do not appear elsewehere in the ten epistles, bu do appear in one or both of the second-century groups. But whereas the Pastorals share with the Apostolic Fathers from 13.6 to 18.7 such words per page, the Paulines share from 4 to 7. See Diagram X, B, p. 71.
....
p.72-73
We have shown 9Appendix I, E, pp. 150 ff.) that Clement of Rome uses in common with the Pastorals 63 words never so far as we know employed by Paul, 2 Clem. 28, Ignatius 39, Polycarp 20, the Martyrdom of Polycarp 22, the Didache 21, Barnabas 28, Hermas 75, the Ep. ad Diognetum 27, and the fragments from Papias 4; while Ariisteides has 7, Tatian 61, Justin 116, Athenagoras 59, and the fragments from Melito 5.
The corresponding lists and numbers for the books of the N.T. are given in Appendix I, D, P.148 f., as follows: -- Matt. has in common with the Pastorals 34 non-Pauline words, Mark 32, Luke 56, John 25, Acts 60 (including 32 which are also in Luke), Heb. 39, I Pet. 17, 2 Pet 18 (that is more than any other N.T. book, in proportion to its length), Jas. 15, the Johannine epistles 8, Jude 8, and Rev. 16.
Thus I Clement, Hermas, and Justin have each a larger number of such words than any N. T. book; Tatian and Athenagoras have as many as Acts and Luke, which have much the largest number in the N. T., and the total in the Apostolic Fathers exceeds that in the whole body of non-Pauline N.T. books by 80 (or 61.1 per cent.). Yet the entire bulk of the Apostolic Fathers (200 pages in Lightfoot) is rather more than half of these non-Pauline books of the N. T. (say, 395 pages). In proportion to their length, the Apostolic Fathers have more than twice as many non-Pauline words in common with the Pastorals as have other books of the N. T. (The ratio is as 127 to 52)
But the outstanding fact here is that one word in every four throughout the Pastorials, 211 out of 848, while foreign so far as we know to the vocabulary of Paul, is now proved to form part of the working vocabulary of Christian writers between the years A. D. 95 and 170 - including many words which recur with some frequency
....
But now what of the converse relation? In what numbers and in what proportions do the Pastorals share with the other Pauline words foreign to the vocabulary of these second-century writers? The total number is 18, of which 7 are to be found elsewhere in the N.T.
....
p.74
Of Paul's 2,177 words, 1,543 or 70.9 per cent. are in the Apostolic Fathers. Of the Pastoral's 848 words, 664 or 78.3% are in the Apostolic Fathers.
5. We have seen that 634 words used by Paul in his ten epistles have disappeared entirely from the current speech of second-century Christendom, as represented by the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. If we ask how many of these same words are conspicuous by there absence from the Pastorals, the answer is no less than 595 or 92.3 per cent.
....
Among These are included seventy-three words all found in more than one Pauline epistle, but never once in the Apostolic Fathers nor in the Apologists. Seventy-two of these are wanting in the Pastorals also.
....
This below does not support (or disprove the Harrison thesis), but I am including it just for the sake of being complete.
quote:
The entire vocabulary of the Pastorals has 542 words in common with Paul, 623 with the other books of the N.T., 664 with the Apostolic Fathers, 641 with the Apologists, 673 with the entire N.T. including Paul, and 735 with the Apostolic Fathers and Apologists combined.
Paul never quoted the Gospels so he is earlier than them.
1 Clement is admitted by all (even the hyper critic Helmut Koester) to show awareness of the Gospel of Matthew, so Matthew could not have been written after 90, and probably is a bit earlier.
(Greek) Matthew clearly used Mark, so Mark can't date much later than 80.
(This does not mean major changes were not added to Mark or Matthew later).
Paul did not show much (very probably no awareness though Galatians 1-2 might have hints of several Hebrew Gospels, with text he disagreed with) awareness of any of the written Gospels, so he clearly can't be dated after the 70s.
There is an unmistakable writing style and vocabulary present in I Thes, Romans, I Cor, II Cor, Galatians, and Phil.
Paul died in the 60s according to the tradition.
Nobody can shoot down any of this, if they have all the facts.
(It is true that the individual dating of his Epistles is based on Acts, but take away Acts, and you still have solid evidence that Paul most likely died in the 60s, and that is without having to use the non-Pauline epistles)
Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 94 by ringo, posted 02-16-2019 11:30 AM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 100 by ringo, posted 02-16-2019 2:35 PM LamarkNewAge has replied

  
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 738 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


Message 99 of 463 (848851)
02-16-2019 2:33 PM
Reply to: Message 96 by ringo
02-16-2019 12:13 PM


Re: The Foreign Legion Of Mythos
quote:
Read what you quote. I said that MY reasons for not believing Jesus existed have nothing to do with Gods.
You also said Paul did not exist?
But some single author wrote seven of his 13 letters (that can't be argued by anybody)
Why not just call him "Paul"?
quote:
THREE PAULS
Mainstream scholarship as it has developed over the last two centuries has concluded that some of the thirteen letters attributed to Paul were not written by him. Rather, they fall into three categories.
First, a massive scholarly consensus: at least seven letters are “genuine” - that is, written by Paul himself. These seven include three longer ones (Romans, I and II Corinthians), and four shorter ones (I Thessalonians, Galatians, Philippians, and Philemon). Written in the 50s of the first century, plus or minus a year or two, they are the earliest documents in the New Testament, earlier than the gospels (recall that Mark, the first gospel, was written around 70). Thus the genuine letters of Paul are the oldest witness we have to what was to become Christianity.
Second, an almost equally strong consensus: three letters were not written by Paul. These are I and II Timothy and Titus, commonly known as “the pastoral epistles” or simply “the pastorals.” Scholars estimate that they were written around the year 100, possibly a decade or two later. The reasons these are seen as “non-Pauline” include what looks like a later historical setting as well as a style of writing quite unlike the Paul of the seven genuine letters.
Thus the letters to Timothy and Titus were written in the name of Paul several decades after his death. In case some readers may think that writing in somebody else’s name was dishonest or fraudulent, we note that it was a common practice in the ancient world. It was a literary convention of the time, including within Judaism.
Third, letters about which there is no scholarly consensus, though a majority see them as not coming from Paul. Often called the “disputed” epistles, they include Ephesians, Colossians, and II Thessalonians. We are among those who see these as “post-Paul,” written a generation or so after his death, midway between the genuine letters and the later pastoral letters.
https://www.johndominiccrossan.com/The%20First%20Paul.htm
And the 1 Clement evidence (that even the EVC Mythers presented as a 100 A.D. document) proves that the Greek Gospel of Matthew was written by 90 A.D. at the latest.
Mark must be no later than 80 A.D.
Paul clearly had not read any Gospel of Mark, nor does he seem to be aware of the pericopes that would be formed and included in it (then later in Matthew).
You might deny Paul existed, so you can argue that he did not die during the mid-late 60s.
You can deny his letters actually were written during the dates the scholars assign to him. (based on Acts chronology)
You can NOT deny that a Christian (called "Paul" in his/her own hand) wrote 7 of the letters commonly called the "authentic letters of Paul", no later than 65-75.
Let us say all 7 were written 75.
What is your excuse for the existence of a "James the Just" or "James the brother of the Lord" (Galatians says the latter)?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 96 by ringo, posted 02-16-2019 12:13 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 104 by ringo, posted 02-16-2019 3:22 PM LamarkNewAge has not replied

  
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