Thanks to FutureMan, I was browsing around YouTube for Noam Chomsky interviews and found some okay recordings, but also while searching, I came across this six-part recording on the Jesus myth.
Now… while I have not seen The God Who Wasn’t There, I know that it doesn’t tell me any more than what I already know about the Jesus myth. However, this six-part documentary does a nice job of summing up some other interesting points about the Bible itself and I found out a couple things I didn’t know about Christianity.
I find it interesting how no one has responded to this thread so far… no agreements or retorts of any kind. I guess after that ILP Religious Hate thread really was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made on this site. Notice how people’s perceptions have forever tainted the wrong image upon me.
It’s funny how when you step back and look at the big picture, how much time you really wasted. Silly Sagesound… what were you thinking?
Sage, while you evidently find yourself endlessly fascinating, there are only so many ways to launch a passive-aggressive attack on Christianity. And only so many ways to respond.
People tell me I should, all the time. But I can do this sitting down. Besides, the Vegas crowd is not for me. Pearls before swine. I’d rather speak to an audience that I actually hold in esteem.
I stopped reading at Noam Chomsky. My god man, if you want someone to think your ideas are credible don’t mention that whack-a-mole’s name.
I have a copy of “the god who wasn’t there”, the best part of the film is the interviews with the atheists. Apparently though the “falwellites” volunteered to be in the documentary, they surely don’t represent the best light on christianity, but that’s the point of the documentary.
One of the ideas relates to Lord Raglan’s hero score card. He didn’t score Jesus, but if you do score Jesus using his criteria he scores third below hercules and oedipus.
The incredible shrinking son of man, Robert Price (check out some his radio shows on infidel guy.)
Jesus: 100 years before the christ.
IMO, Jesus the man did exist… just probably 100 years before like the author of the last book I posted ascertains through his research. To briefly explain that hypothesis, Paul never mentions the “physical” christ, his miracles, his speeches (except from gnostic sources) and his virgin birth…
Paul never mentions the disciples which should still be alive. Yet, here we have a church that exists across several continents and several large “head” churches that Paul is writing too.
It’s also not uncommon for real people to take on mythical attributes and for those attributes to be similiar across several cutlures. Samson and Hercules for example. Both had immense strength attributed to the god(s).
Could you post a brief explanation as to how he arrived at this conclusion please? This is not a hypothesis I have seen credibly espoused before.
Paul believed he was getting direct revelation from Christ (in many ways, he saw himself as the final apostle - Rom 1:1) and believed that the spirit of Christ, as God, resided within him in quite a literal sense (see Gal 2:20 among others). Paul’s interest was not in Jesus’ transitory earthly ministry but rather in his capacity as an eternal heavenly Christ - that is to say, in the resurrected Jesus. Christianity’s later perception of Jesus as “eternal, loving saviour” - whose promise of salvation lies in his resurrection - was shaped by Paul, it must be said, rather than the teachings of Jesus himself.
Anyway, the silence you speak of does not really threaten the existence of an historical Jesus. To the extent to which Paul is interested in Jesus as spirit rather than Jesus as human being, we shouldn’t expect thorough details of Jesus’ life. None the less, Paul - on several ocassions - explicitly states that Jesus was was human (“born of woman, under Jewish law” - Gal 4:4, among others) and makes numerous references to Christ’s “flesh and blood” (Rom 3:24, Rom 9:5 among others). I don’t doubt that Paul was proto-gnostic in his beliefs, but this sort of language is not common amongst the later docetists, which, I believe, is what Jesus Mythicists accuse Paul of being.
Apart from Paul’s primary interest in the resurrected Jesus as opposed to the Earthly Jesus, there is another explanation for his silence on the historical Jesus:
Firstly this is wrong. In Gal 1:18 Paul mentions meeting Peter, the next verse he mentions meeting James. He mentions at least having contact with John in verse 2:9. These were men who supposedly knew Jesus personally and were preaching actively, mainly to the Jews. Paul, who came onto the scene quite a while later (15-20 years), clearly knew little about Jesus’ life or teachings. Nonetheless, he still considered himself an apostle and would have clearly lacked credibility in the eyes of many when compared with these men. While we cannot know for sure what this “Petrine” gospel might have looked like, we could probably safely assume that much of it was comprised of the teachings that made up the bulk of the synotpic gospels (the later Gospel of John was much more heavily influenced by Paul’s teachings).
Paul was openly antoagonistic to this Petrine doctrine: he even says he told Peter he was “wrong” to his face in Gal 2:11-17. I don’t wish to cast aspersions on the character of a man who lived 2000 years ago and whom we only know from a relatively small collection of writings, but Paul does genuinely come off as arrogant, petty and jealous in much of his writings - and this is an example of that. He frequently refers to his theology as my message (Gal 2:6 among others) rather than Jesus’ message and is dismissive of anyone who preaches a gospel different to his. Given this, it should come as no surprise that Paul may be reluctant to preach the same gospel that aspostles like Peter were teaching: that, afterall, would just undermine his own authority!
I think the silence of Paul on Jesus’ ministry does pose some problems for Christian theology (which I won’t get into here) but I don’t think it poses any problems for the existence of a historical Jesus. Denying the existence of a human Jesus raises more problems than it purports to solve.
Firstly I think there are at least three schools of though concerning christ:
He existed as per literal gospel interpretation.
If he existed the gospel stories are complete fabrication and it’s most likely he existed well before the time of Paul.
He didn’t exist at all.
I think #2 is more likely, as there are just as many fantastic stories about Julius Caesar and we know for a fact he was a real historical personage.
As for some of your points?
I forgot about the mentions of the “apostles” you mention, I think they’re’s two answers to that:
The names of the “apostles” were added to the gospel story.
the names of the “apostles” were added after the gospels were written…
It still doesn’t address the fact that Paul rarely mentions the “life” of christ… yes he was obsessed with the crucifixion, but he doesn’t even detail that… For christ’ sake Peter and John were there, couldn’t they fill him in on the details?
He also on several other occasions makes mention that “if christ were on earth”…
Paul also speaks of OTHER metaphysical events of the christ. Like how he went to “hell” and baptised the demons.
(this relates to another of your points.)
What would we say about someone today who claimed to have a “special” connection with god? What does Occam’s razor tell us? It’s more likely that Paul was insane and the voices in his head were real. Ever see the movie “a beautiful mind”? That’s what it’s like for people who are insane… when they “hear” voices they see the person as well. To that person it’s real. When we believe that they talk to angels, christ or god, we are accepting it second hand… hearsay.
Now onto the book of Galatians. The earliest ancient copy available dates back to only 200 AD.[1] This is 150 years after the supposed original was supposed to be written… but the text itself contains clues that if not written later it was redacted. The opening passage for example, has the peculiar habit of describing the author of the letter:
This section in the very least was added later, if not other sections as well. The majority of the letter I think we can assume was written by Paul, but we need to watch for liner notes…
here’s an example that pushes christ in the past:
If christ were still so recent and fresh in their memory, would they not have more trouble “having a false” message of the gospel of christ? Could not Paul refer to Peter and say, “The warning of the rich man and the eye of the needle meant nothing to you…”
How could there be confusion over the gospel of christ, within TEN YEARS? And if there was confusion within ten years;
How can we trust that Paul’s message of christ is the right one? remember the occams razor about his sanity?
Even if we assume we can trust Paul’s message, how can we be sure there wasn’t further confusion down the line of time?
let’s continue with this chapter:
I believe that the story of Paul’s past and how he came to accept the gospel is a later insertion. It obviously plays off of Acts which was written well into the second century AD. First it talks about him meeting Peter, then in chapter 2 he talks about Barnabas and opposing Peter on the mosaic law.
here’s a little proof:
think about it in terms of the original flow:
first let’s connect where I think it connects:
The flow of the text is much better like that… it’s no different than the two noahic flood stories that were redacted together, where Noah enters his ark twice.
So what have we concluded?
The mention of Peter and Barnabas, was a redaction like the intro to the letter.
The mention of the crucifixion in chapter 3 says it all… “Before your very eyes, jesus Christ was PORTRAYED as crucified.”
Wouldn’t some of them have witnessed it? There’s stories in acts that 2000+ people witnessed the crucified christ…
(god in all his power could only witness to 2000 people?)
It is … and it’s certainly Possible that Peter was teaching an alternative version of christ that Paul is warning about in the first part of his letter. (assuming there is no redaction.) under that same theory though, how can we trust any authority of Paul? Peter was there NEXT to christ was he not? if he stands against Paul what does that say about Peter and Christ?
That the message is already mixed up?
The best assertation is the quickness of which the church spread. If we are to assume that christ was crucified in 29 AD, and Galatians (Pauls first letter) was written within 10 years of that date… how is that the:
church spread THAT quickly?
That Peter, one of the founders of the church was Upstaged by Paul who merely saw christ in vision?
I think it’s a bit more nuanced than the three options you’ve given there. When you’re dealing with someone like Jesus, about whom little is written until decades after his life, you’re no longer really dealing with “facts” but “probabilities”. A quote that is multiply attested in a number of writings temporally close to the source, for instance, is “more likely” to be true than a quote which doesn’t turn up in any literature until, say, the Gospel of John. Events that are central to the “mythology” from the beginning (such as the crucifixion) are “more likely” to be true than the events that do not appear in the written record until much later on (such as the virgin birth).
It’s possible, from what we know, that he never existed and it is also possible that he was the miraculous son of God. However, it is more probable, in my opinion, that the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes.
It’s certainly possible that they were later redactions, but is there good reason to suspect that they are? Do you have any sources to support this theory?
I don’t claim to understand Paul’s motivations, but - from his writings - it seems clear to me that he was openly antagonistic to people that he disagreed with on matters of theology, and Peter is singled out especially in this regard. It’s entirely possible (although equally unprovable, admittedly) that Peter “filled him in” on the details during his 15 day stay there and that the details just simply didn’t interest Paul enough for him to write about them. He believed he was in direct contact with Jesus as spirit, so why would he bother to promote the theology of someone who only knew Jesus as human - someone that he clearly vehemently disagreed with at that?
Hebrews wasn’t written by Paul, though. It’s a docetistic epistle - so you’re right in saying that you won’t find any references to Christ as a human being there - but it’s a later epistle of anonymous origin, so it doesn’t really help your case here.
I’m not arguing for the existence of a divine Jesus, here, just a historical one. The fact is that the crucifixion of Jesus posed a number of problems for early Christians: the messiah was supposed to literally (not spiritually) save his people and no OT prophecy (that I am aware of) fortells the terrestrial death of the messiah. If Jesus had never existed I don’t think that Paul (or any other early Christian) would have invented the crucifixion (and therefore the resurrection) in his life-story, as it poses a number of theological problems. Regardless of how insane Paul was, I don’t think he would have made up a “flesh and blood” Jesus only to have him killed.
I haven’t studied NT source criticism beyond the Gospels, so I can’t really comment on the possibility of redactions in the epistles. I’m certain there are later redactions there, but how much they affect the original message of the text I couldn’t really say.
It would probably be closer to 20 years according to mainstream scholarship and this is a long time in the context of the development of Christian theology. 20 years is the time it took for the Jesus of history to become the Jesus of Paul. 15 years is the time it took for the Jesus of Paul to become the Jesus of Mark. 20-30 years after that is all it took to arrive at the Jesus of John, the gnostics and the docetists. All of these conceptions of Jesus differ rapidly and I agree that, by the end of it, the Jesus of history has been distorted beyond all recognisable measure.
But again, we shouldn’t be looking to take this literature at face value, we should be trawling through them for common threads - unquestionable and otherwise inexplicable consistencies - to determine, on the balance of probabilities, what (if anything) we can say about the nature of the historical Jesus.
Like I said in my first post, Christianity is shaped heavily by Paul’s theology and - given that Paul was clearly disinterested in Jesus’ life on Earth and that Christianity is supposed to be about the teachings of Jesus - this genuinely does raise problems for modern Christian theology. Should Christians believe that Paul was genuinely receiving direct revelation from the resurrected Christ - and therefore place his words on the same level as Jesus’ own - or should Christians be skeptical about Paul’s claim here and take heed only of the message of Jesus (which is quite different from the message of Paul)?
To be honest, I don’t know. You’d have to ask a Christian.
Again, I haven’t studied source criticism of the epistles so I can’t really comment much here. It’s certainly possible that the meeting with Peter was a later redaction to conform to the Acts account (which is of dubious veracity in the first place) but I can’t really add anything until I look into it for myself.
Again, I’m not arguing for the veracity of Pauline theology in-itself or over any other theology. I was only attempting to explain why Paul may have been silent on the earthly ministry of Jesus and I believe his resentment of the Petrine doctrine may have had much to do with this.
Well the quickness with which the story of Jesus spread is actually, in my opinion, one of the better arguments against Jesus mythicism.
Galatians was written in 49 AD and in this letter he speaks of “persecuting the church” (1:13) and then mentions an interval of 3 years (1:18) followed by another interval of 14 years (2:1) before bringing us to the time at which the letter is written. If the dating of the letter is correct - and Paul’s own chronology is correct - we’re left with the understanding that Christians existed in the early 30s AD, quite close to the time of the death of Jesus (which, admittedly, we cannot hope to date exactly).
If you’re willing to accept this, then I will ask which scenario is more likely:
There was a man called Jesus, who had a small but committed following, who in the first few years after his death established a church and were persectuted for it.
A cult invented a myth within the space of a few years, seemingly without discernable origin or precedent, which they were then willing to be persecuted for despite their mythology having been invented out of thin air over a very short course of time.
If you take the historical Jesus away from the early church, it’s rapid and committed growth makes little sense. From a historical perspective, it is more probable that there was a man named Jesus who inspired the cult that bore his name than it is that this cult emerged and grew rapidly without any historical foundation at all.
First, you need to do something about that problem you have. You know, the one where you take something and make an interpretation and then proclaim that assumed interpretation as fact. That’s what you’ve been doing with things I’ve said for a while now, and you’ve done it again. Please do something about it.
Second, I don’t read Noam Chomsky either, although I do find some of his opinions notably intriguing. I was merely pointing out that my search for video feeds of him on youtube led me to this find on the Jesus Myth. To be honest, the only thing I found interesting was a debate between him and Micheal Foulcault. Check it out.
Third… I would not be suprised to find that a majority of the site members find you less credible than I (especially after your failure to provide factual evidence to support your claims about religious hatred before monotheism - but we’re not going to go there; I just wanted you to know where I’m coming from as you have a habit of interpretting things in the wrong way).
Again though we’re getting into the areas that I’m sure are redacted (biblegateway.net is awesome… Search for the apostles mentioned in that chapter and a half, and the only mention of them is there.) The story also is a direct support of Acts, to IMO back up that Paul was a criticizer of christianity before he “saw” the vision of christ. The problems with the text are numerous.
Peter had a direct “gospel” of christ. Paul merely saw Christ through visions. Peter’s interpretations of the “gospel” should over-ride anything that Paul states.
But let’s continue with the assumption that it was written in 49 AD.
Okay, I could see them estabilishing a small church initially, maybe getting a few more followers every year… But a quick look at the history of other religions (and those played out in modern day) simply make it impossible for christianity to spread as fast it did.
Case #1) Mormonism. J. Smith proclaimed that he had a book from god, and a vision from god. Within 20 years (from the beginning of the church in 1850) the church was still running around in the states trying to get away from their persecuters. It was in 1846, that they “escaped” to Utah.
30 years after that (50 years after the start of the church) using modern technology (wagons and steam ships) the mormons sent missionaries around the world to immigrate them to Utah as Mormons.
So how could Chrisitianity without wagon trains, and steam ships have conquered the roman empire while being persecuted?
so with this case we have 2 conclusions:
Conc 1) Christianity is based upon another religion that already believed in some sort of savior god and Paul refined that into “christ”.
Conc 2) Christianity was not persecuted in the time between christ’s death and Paul’s epistles. If that is the case it throws his own “testimony” out the window as a lie.
Case #2) Islam. As you probably know, Islam used the sword to propagate itself and even using the sword, within 20 years of the starting date was still mainly focused within the arabian peninsula.
Conc 3) Did christianity use violence to spread?
Now, here’s where you run into problems. Heard of Lord Raglan? The christ myth is in no way unique, and definately not in that area. Christ could’ve been based upon any number of savior gods, including those within judaism. Jeshua, moses, or a misinterpretation of Isaiah…
Do you believe that myth propagates from nowhere? And where do you get the “without discernable origin”? The area was FILLED to the brim with saviour gods. Jews believed in resurrection at least 200+ years before “christ” appeared…
It’s more likely the cult is based upon Paul, we’ll get into that in a bit though. (especially with my above counterpoints.)
first the dating of the gospels.
Matthew… the scholars date it to 70 - 110 AD. (WIkipedia) While many church fathers claim there was an original hebrew manuscript, no such script can be found. The fact that the gospel not only tells the same story as Mark and luke, but the same WORDS is also suspect. By the length of Luke most scholars date it last, especially since the author of Luke acknowledges Theophilus (most likely of Antioch, Date 150 AD)
Mark. The gospel that the other two synoptics use as a source, along with an unknown writing and stories they probably collected from elsewhere. The date for this one is 60 - 80 AD. (which if we’re counting is the only legitimate source since the others base their work off of his… and this is a full 30 - 50 years after the “supposed” death of christ.)
Luke…I think this and acts were recorded at the same time (prolly around 200 AD) the last remaining manuscript of Galatians, (amazingly) is also from this same time.
John-> Probably written after Matthew, a manuscript was found in Egypt (which would make sense as the gospel has a completely different view of christ… he doesn’t speak in parables in John.) the manuscript dates to the first half of the second century.
So a conundrum… the life of christ was recorded at least 30 years afterwards, and at most 150 years afterwards…
What’s more likely? That christianity “popped” into existence around the diasporia of the Roman Empire? Or that it was a gradual evolution the lead to where it is today?
What of the dead saviour gods? MIthras, Dionysus, Plato, etc…
Justin Martyr had this to say;
So, the devil foreseeing the coming of christ, traveled back in time and planted similiar mythology?
Absolutely. You are getting the information by 5th or 6th generation hearsay. They didn’t have copy machines, and in many ways the stories were alive… When the book of acts was written the redactors probably added that information to Paul’s first letter… his little opener, and the bit about Paul’s past which is completely out of step with the rest of the letter.
(and which totally destroys christian theology… If Peter couldn’t transmit the proper message of god as a disciple, how can any of the theology be trusted?)
Just my own opinion… I’ve read the bible many times, and am able to recognize alot of redaction. It’s like, when doing a puzzle you see a piece with a similiar color to one you’ve already dealt with. The dueling creation myths, the dueling flood myths, etc.
The OT is filled with Redaction, should we expect the NT to be any different?
Why in the world would Paul stop midsentence and begin an autobiographical work of himself, if not merely for name stuffing?
Theologically speaking though, as strong as Paul’s opinion was, if he REALLY talked to Peter he would’ve conceeded to his opinion since he apostled with christ. This to me spells that the christian redactionist wanted to make the “visionary”/“resurrected” christ more important than the christ that lived and breathed and died.
Especially since christ called “peter the rock on which the church was built”…
then fastforward to 5:23 (after paul tells us that christ is coming soon.) and we have this interesting passage:
at the COMING of our Lord Jesus Christ… Not return. Not Second coming.
THE coming.
Romans 10 and 11 detail how the jews rejected christ, and Paul asks the question; “Is it possible they have not heard the message?”
Is it possible indeed? Jesus riding in a donkeys ass and stirring the temple money changers up? Such an event would’ve attracted the attention of the jews.
No first century epistle mentions that christ performed miracles. The ONLY bits that are focused on, are the last three. Death, crucifixion. and ascension.
Is there any reason to think that Jesus was any different than Mithras, and these events didn’t happen in the “spirit realm”?
according to most scholars that’s true… it’s possible this may merely be a case of the redactor forgetting to identify it to Paul. But the author of Hebrews does tell us that he recieved the gospel from someone else and not from “a vision”.
And the author of Hebrews, whoever it was, had a purely spiritual view of christ.
and certainly Paul as well had an interestingly lack of depth about the christ:
Let’s break it down… Paul tells us that christ will be arriving soon on a cloud. (with a trumpet), what about the fact that he’s already been on earth? Jesus died and rose again… but did he do so in this realm or the spirit realm? “god will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him”. I think it was in the spiritual realm, and the resurrection was power over death in the spiritual realm.
Uh okay sagey… do you eat deludio’s for breakfast?
The trouble with my ascertations is that you honestly believe that Monotheism trademarked hatred.
Do you know what a religious/political state is? Monotheism didn’t invent that EITHER. When a polytheistic nation declared war against another polytheistic nation it was commonly over BELIEF. They prayed to their own gods for victory and went and crushed the opposition. What monotheism did was refine that and unite the tribal polytheists.
It didn’t cause or create religious intolerance, hatred or anything else.
If it did, why does communism hate religion? It believes in no gods.
If you REALLY wish to continue the ridiculous charade of you thinking you are right about monotheism and hatred PM me.
Proof scythe… you forgot proof. All the same, you never did prove religious wars existed before monotheism either… hmm.
Aside from that point, I don’t find it all too suprising that you replied only to that third comment and not the former two. Typical… always out to insult (e.g. sagey, etc.)…
