Did Jesus Christ Actually Exist?

[joelr]

There can be suffering, at the moment one is destroyed. It does not mean that the people are consciously suffering eternally.

Actually it does
Yes, Scripture speaks of hell as “death” and “destruction” but defines these in terms of a place where “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10).

How could it be that God does not know them? I don't think your claims are supported with anything substantial.

" Bible's description of Sheol is often vague, and when it is described, it is often depicted as a dark, dusty, and gloomy place. Passages like Psalm 88:12 and 115:17 also emphasize the inactivity and unconsciousness of Sheol, where the living cannot praise or remember God. Sheol is also referred to as Abaddon (destruction) and the "land of forgetfulness".

According to Psalms 6:5, people in Sheol remember nothing—not even God—and yet in 1 Samuel 28, the spirit of Samuel can capably advise Saul. However, there are characteristics of Sheol on which all the Bible’s authors seem to agree: the place physically exists below the surface of the earth, all humanity is bound for it, and it is dark and joyless."

So forgetfulness is mentioned. Doesn't matter, point is it's Sheol, clearly not heaven. But after the 2nd Temple Period and interaction with the Persians, suddenly, we get a similar story to theirs in the Bible, the beginning of a Jewish place of reward or punishment.

"This simple if grim conceptualization of life after death became more complicated during the Second Temple period (516 BCE–70 CE). In addition to the promise of an eventual resurrection, some Hebrew scholars at the time came to believe that Sheol is divided into multiple compartments and that everyone who goes to Sheol will be assigned to a particular section based on moral worthiness. According to the noncanonical Book of Enoch, there are four such chambers: one chamber with a bright spring of water, where the righteous happily await the Day of Judgment; one in which the moderately moral can look forward to their own reward; one in which victims of murder wait for justice to be done; and one to punish the wicked—which prefigured the Jewish idea of Gehenna, a hell in which the wicked are tormented with fire."

Eden is the place where the garden is. And the garden can be called the paradise. The word paradise, by what I know, means walled garden. It does not matter, if the same word is not used, when they mean the same.

Yahweh God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Gen. 2:8

The word paradis is Persian in origin and the concept spread to all Near Eastern religions in that form. “Eden” not “Paradise” is mentioned in Genesis,


Except the word didn't exist in Hebrew. It was yet another Persian borrowing, it's used in the 2nd Temple Period to refer to the paradise earth will be after the final battle between the devil and God and all followers are bodily resurrected. Just like the Persian story.

But Eden is an ancient myth. From the first civilization.


"According to the Genesis story of the Creation and the Fall of humanity, rivers flowed out of Eden to the four corners of the world. Similar stories in Sumerian records indicate that an earthly paradise theme belonged to the mythology of the ancient Middle East."

Garden of Eden | Story, Meaning, & Facts | Britannica

Garden of Eden, in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) book of Genesis, biblical earthly paradise inhabited by the first created man and woman, Adam and Eve, prior to their expulsion for disobeying the commandments of God.

www.britannica.com

So this is just re-worked older mythology.

 

[joelr]

I can see that. No wonder if you don't understand.

I'm glad you understand I follow evidence, facts, logical and empirical thinking. Something isn't true because someone told me a story and I believed it. There has to be good evidence. The Greek pantheon with Zeus doesn't have any, nor does Islam, or Mormonism. Christianity is completely debunked as a supernatural story. I also care about evidence that the stories are religious syncretism and it changed over the centuries as other religions occupied them.
Excellent evidence they were also making up stories just like everyone else.


I also care that it's known in Greco-Roman biographies making up false "eyewitnesses" was super common.
The Gospels are known as a genre of Greco-Roman biographies.

Yes, it tells we should believe Jesus.

No, for like the 4th time, it doesn't, try to remember this.

Jesus in Islam​

" in contrast to the traditional Christian narrative, however, he is stated to have not been crucified, died on the cross, nor resurrected, rather, he is depicted as having been miraculously saved by God and ascending into heaven. The Quran places Jesus among the greatest prophets and mentions him with various titles. The prophethood of Jesus is preceded by that of Yahya (John) and succeeded by Muhammad, the latter of whom Jesus is reported in the Quran to have prophesied by using the name Ahmad

They don't seem to tell anything meaningful.

Tell me which Hindu scripture have you read?
IS this "not meaningful"???

"In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that people commit sins due to lust, greed, and anger. He calls lust, or desire, the root of all evil. The Gita also says that people are not affected by sin if they act without the desire for personal rewards. The Gita suggests that people should go beyond the duality of "you" and "me" to develop a sinless mind."


Greek Mysteries are also the NT. So you are saying the NT doesn't say anything meaningful? All these things the NT borrowed are not meaningful?

Greek Hellenism says things about:
-the destiny, fortune, and salvation of the individual after death.
-the identification of the experiences of the soul that was to be saved with the vicissitudes of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention.
-The temples and cult institutions of the various Hellenistic religions were repositories of the knowledge and techniques necessary for salvation and were the agents of the public worship of a particular deity.
-sacramental participation
- messianic movements (centring on a deliverer figure)
-apocalyptic traditions (referring to a belief in the dramatic intervention of a god in human and natural events)
-Death sets the soul free
-Immortality is inherent for all humans
-

Death is a stripping of the body so the soul can be free


Death is a liberating friend to be welcomed

It is a matter of belief. However, that life and Bible exists, is for me good evidence for God.

The Tooth Fairy is also a matter of belief. There is no evidence for it however.
Is life and the Quran proof Islam is true? Is life and the Hindu books proof Hinduism is true? Or the 10,000 other religions over time?
No.

Life is demonstrated to be a product of evolution. Abiogenesis is still being understood but organic chemicals exist all over space in meteors. It's all looking like a natural process.
Deism or a god behind reality is a different argument. It doesn't support the Quran or Bible being true.
The evidence is the Bible is borrowed myths, combined with Jewish wisdom and history. Which is also similar to other Middle Eastern nations.

So your standard of evidence is as good as a Mormon or a BAhai. And none of them can offer evidence such a deity is even real in the first place.
So truth is not a priority here.

Does it not bother you to make baseless claims?

Claims from historical scholars about Mark using other stories are not "baseless". You cannot call something baseless just because it doesn't help your beliefs in magic.
Is this evidence "baseless"?

Only a few verses later, we read about the rest of the crucifixion narrative and find a link (a literary source) with the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament (OT):


Mark 15.24: “They part his garments among them, casting lots upon them.”


Psalm 22:18: “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon them.”


Mark 15.29-31: “And those who passed by blasphemed him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘…Save yourself…’ and mocked him, saying ‘He who saved others cannot save himself!’ ”


Psalm 22.7-8: “All those who see me mock me and give me lip, shaking their head, saying ‘He expected the lord to protect him, so let the lord save him if he likes.’ ”


Mark 15.34: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”


Psalm 22.1: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”


The final parallel that I wanted to mention was that found between the Passover Narrative and the story of a different Jesus, named Jesus ben Ananias. This was a man who was known as an insane prophet that was active in the 60s CE who was then killed in the siege of Jerusalem (around 70 CE). His story was told in Josephus’ Jewish War, and thus Mark was likely to have known about it, and the number of parallels between what Josephus wrote and that of Mark’s Passover Narrative are far too numerous to be a mere coincidence. Clearly Mark either wrote his narrative based off of what Josephus wrote, or based on the same tale known to Josephus. Here are the parallels between Mark’s Jesus and that of Jesus ben Ananias as found in Josephus’ writings:


1 – Both are named Jesus. (Mark 14.2 = JW 6.301)


2 – Both come to Jerusalem during a major religious festival. (Mark 11.15-17 = JW 6.301)


3 -Both entered the temple area to rant against the temple. (Mark 14.2 = JW 6.301)


4 – During which both quote the same chapter of Jeremiah. (Jer. 7.11 in Mk, Jer. 7.34 in JW)


5 – Both then preach daily in the temple. (Mark 14.49 = JW 6.306)


6 – Both declared “woe” unto Judea or the Jews. (Mark 13.17 = JW 6.304, 306, 309)


7 – Both predict the temple will be destroyed. (Mark 13.2 = JW 6.300, 309)


8 – Both are for this reason arrested by the Jews. (Mark 14.43 = JW 6.302)


9 – Both are accused of speaking against the temple. (Mark 14.58 = JW 6.302)


10 – Neither makes any defense of himself against the charges. (Mark 14.60 = JW 6.302)


11 – Both are beaten by the Jews. (Mark 14.65 = JW 6.302)


12 – Then both are taken to the Roman governor. (Pilate in Mark 15.1 = Albinus in JW 6.302)


13 – Both are interrogated by the Roman governor. (Mark 15.2-4 = JW 6.305)


14 – During which both are asked to identify themselves. (Mark 15.2 = JW 6.305)


15 – And yet again neither says anything in his defense. (Mark 15.3-5 = JW 6.305)


16 – Both are then beaten by the Romans. (Mark 15.15 = JW 6.304)


17 – In both cases the Roman governor decides he should release him. (Mark 14.2 = JW 6.301)


18 – But doesn’t (Mark)…but does (JW) — (Mark 15.6-15 = JW 6.305)


19 – Both are finally killed by the Romans: in Mark, by execution; in the JW, by artillery. (Mark 15.34 = JW 6.308-9)


20 – Both utter a lament for themselves immediately before they die. (Mark 15.34 = JW 6.309)


21 – Both die with a loud cry. (Mark 15.37 = JW 6.309)


The odds of these coincidences arising by chance is quite small to say the least, so it appears Mark used this Jesus as a model for his own to serve some particular literary or theological purpose. In any case, we can see that Mark is writing fiction here, through and through.

Is the

Oxford Annotated Bible (a compilation of multiple scholars summarizing dominant scholarly trends for the last 150 years) states (p. 1744) a "baseless claim" about Mark being anonymous????

"Neither the evangelists nor their first readers engaged in historical analysis. Their aim was to confirm Christian faith (Lk. 1.4; Jn. 20.31). Scholars generally agree that the Gospels were written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus. They thus do not present eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings."

Unfortunately, much of the general public is not familiar with scholarly resources like the one quoted above; instead, Christian apologists often put out a lot of material, such as The Case For Christ, targeted toward lay audiences, who are not familiar with scholarly methods, in order to argue that the Gospels are the eyewitness testimonies of either Jesus’ disciples or their attendants. The mainstream scholarly view is that the Gospels are anonymous works, written in a different language than that of Jesus, in distant lands, after a substantial gap of time, by unknown persons, compiling, redacting, and inventing various traditions, in order to provide a narrative of Christianity’s central figure—Jesus Christ—to confirm the faith of their communities.

As scholarly sources like the Oxford Annotated Bible note, the Gospels are not historical works (even if they contain some historical kernels).

I don't think there is a contradiction. Why do you think so?

His kingdom is heaven, then it's among you, then Jesus embodies the kingdom, bunch of contradictions.

 

[joelr]

Why would anyone made up such a story, if it is not true?

Let's see. Why were the 7 forged Epistles made by later church fathers?
Why were 36 other Gospels written that are considered fake?
Why was one of the Dead Sea Scrolls found incomplete (had to be hidden) to be taking a book of sayings of another philosopher and making a Gospel about Jesus, inserting the sayings of the philosopher as if Jesus said them?
The Gospels are Greco-Roman biography.
A documentary about the period by a scholar is detailed here, examples of false eyewitnesses and false miracles were common in most writing.
It was common practice.


So your reason "why would such a story be made up"? Well it was done all over this location and period. Possibly part ofthe reason you don't realize they are fiction.

The Gospels are considered a Greco-Roman biography.

3:35 In Greco-Roman works eyewitness accounts were often misused to add credibility. This literature is full of tales where eyewitnesses convienantly witness extraordinary events that glorify the hero of the story. Ancient writers were not above fabricating fictional witnesses to serve their narrative.

5:03 Similar miracles are all over the place in ancient texts. Eyewitnesses claim that even mythical figures like Asclepius were doing miraculous healings.

5:35 The Greco-Roman literary world is full of authors who didn’t think twice about inventing eyewitnesses to spice up their stories. This was so common we should not trust claims about anonymous witnesses in the Gospels, Pauls Creed or Papias’ work. The art of fabricating sources was well-practiced making the supposedly eyewitness-backed miracles in these text highly questionable.

6:31 Emperor Vespasian, reportedly did many miracles. Tacitus claims 2 men approached the emperor with serious ailments. One was blind and the other had a useless hand. Vespasian cured both. Tacitus writes: The hand was instantly restored to use, and the day again shone for the blind man. Both facts are told by eye-witnesses even now when falsehood brings no reward. Tacitus, Histories 4.81.


7:52 Asclepius. Celsus, cited by Origen in Contra Celsius, claimed a multitude of eyewitnesses attested to the miracles of Asclepius. Isyllus, in his Paean to Asclepius, even recounted meeting Asclepius himself. Before the God supposedly helped Sparta win a battle.


The temples of Asclepius were filled with inscriptions and literary works where people swore they were healed by him, conversed with him and even resurrected by him.


Josephus documented an exorcism by a man named Eleazar who using the wisdom and powers of Solomon expelled a demon in the presence of Vespasian and his sons.


Alexander the Great reportedly caused the sea to recede, an event witnessed by Callis themes and recorded in Eustathius’ Commentary on the Iliad 13.29.


Agustus was said to control the weather.


10:00 Historian Cassius Dio describes a senator who swore he saw Augustus ascending to heaven in the manner Proculus and Romulus did. Cassius Did, Roman History 56.46


11:42 Account of people rising from the grave similar to Matthew 27:52 when a revered figure passed away.


13:22 Accounts by Tertullian of kings being received in heaven and Jupiter and witnesses groaning in hell. Eyewitnesses were very common in reports of supernatural events.


15:41 Examples of sketchy eyewitnesses posing up in all sorts of literary works including ancient biographies.


29:48 Examples of claims that included “eyewitnesses” to back them up.


Asclepius performing miracles


Alexander the Great parting the sea


Caesar being whisked up to heaven and the dead rising en masse after


Hadrian’s death to chat with their families?





30:42The Greco-Roman tradition is filled with unverifiable “eyewitness” claims used to validate all sorts of marvels.

 

[joelr]

Ok, if we speak what were the last recorded words of Jesus, before his death, then it is simple, the last words were:

"It is finished." John 19:30

Maybe you now think why, and the reason is, the disciples were scattered, not in the same place at that time. Those who were nearer heard the last words, those who were not, heard only the shouts.

Behold, the time is coming, yes, and has now come, that you will be scattered, everyone to his own place, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
John 16:32
But there were standing by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magda-lene. Therefore when Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing there, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold your son!"
John 19:25-26

It's much worse than that. John is another difference. The entire meaning of the authors intent and story is different.

Jesus' Death in Mark

In Mark’s version of the story (Mark 15:16—39), Jesus is condemned to death by Pontius Pilate, mocked and beaten by the Roman sol¬ diers, and taken off to be crucified. Simon of Cyrene carries his cross. Jesus says nothing the entire time. The soldiers crucify Jesus, and he still says nothing. Both of the robbers being crucified with him mock him. Those passing by mock him. The Jewish leaders mock him. Jesus is silent until the very end, when he utters the wretched cry, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani,” which Mark translates from the Aramaic for his readers as, “My God, my God, why have you for¬ saken me?” Someone gives Jesus a sponge with sour wine to drink. He breathes his last and dies. Immediately two things happen: the curtain in the Temple is ripped in half, and the centurion looking on acknowledges, “Truly this man was the Son of God.”

This is a powerful and moving scene, filled with emotion and pathos. Jesus is silent the entire time, as if in shock, until his cry at the end, echoing Psalm 22.1 take his question to God to be a genuine
one. He genuinely wants to know why God has left him like this. A very popular interpretation of the passage is that since Jesus quotes Psalm 22:1, he is actually thinking of the ending of the Psalm, where God intervenes and vindicates the suffering psalmist. I think this is reading way too much into the passage and robs the “cry of dereliction,” as it is called, of all its power. The point is that Jesus has been rejected by everyone: betrayed by one of his own, denied three times by his closest follower, abandoned by all his disciples, rejected by the Jewish leaders, condemned by the Roman authorities, mocked by the priests, the passersby, and even by the two others being cruci¬ fied with him. At the end he even feels forsaken by God Himself. Jesus is absolutely in the depths of despair and heart-wrenching anguish, and that’s how he dies. Mark is trying to say something by this portrayal. He doesn’t want his readers to take solace in the fact that God was really there providing Jesus with physical comfort. He dies in agony, unsure of the reason he must die.

But the reader knows the reason. Right after Jesus dies the cur tain rips in half and the centurion makes his confession. The cur¬tain ripping in half shows that with the death of Jesus, God is made available to his people directly and not through the Jewish priests’ sacrifices in the Temple. Jesus’ death has brought an atonement (see Mark 10:45). And someone realizes it right off the bat: not Jesus’ closest followers or the Jewish onlookers but the pagan soldier who has just crucified him. Jesus’ death brings salvation, and it is gentiles who are going to recognize it. This is not a disinterested account of what “really” happened when Jesus died. It is theology put in the form of a narrative.
Rest assured: even though they may not see why they are suffering, God knows, and God is working behind the scenes to make suffering redemptive. God’s purposes are worked precisely through suffering, not by avoiding it, even when those purposes are not obvious at the moment. Mark’s version of the death of Jesus thus provides a model for understanding the persecution of the Christians.

Luke

Moreover, Jesus is not silent while being nailed to the cross, as in Mark. Instead he prays, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). 2 Jesus appears to have
close communion with God and is concerned more for those who are doing this to him than for himself. Jesus is mocked by the Jewish leaders and the Roman soldiers, but explicitly not by both men being crucified with him, unlike in Mark. Instead, one of them mocks Jesus but the other rebukes the first for doing so, in¬ sisting that whereas they deserve what they are getting, Jesus has done nothing wrong (remember that Luke stresses Jesus’ complete innocence). He then asks of Jesus, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus gives the compelling reply, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (23:42—43). In this account Jesus is not at all confused about what is happening to him or why. He is completely calm and in control of the situation; he knows what is about to occur, and he knows what will happen afterward: he will wake up in God’s paradise, and this criminal will be there with him. This is a far cry from the Jesus of Mark, who felt forsaken to the end.

Darkness comes over the land and the Temple curtain is ripped while Jesus is still alive, in contrast to Mark. Here the torn curtain must not indicate that Jesus’ death brings atonement—since he has not died yet. Instead it shows that his death is “the hour of darkness,” as he says earlier in the Gospel (23:53), and it marks the judgment of God against the Jewish people. The ripped curtain here appears to indicate that God is rejecting the Jewish system of worship, symbol¬ ized by the Temple.

Most significant of all, rather than uttering a cry expressing his sense of total abandonment at the end (“Why have you forsaken me?”), in Luke, Jesus prays to God in a loud voice, saying, “Father into your hands I commend my spirit.” He then breathes his last and dies (23:46). This is not a Jesus who feels forsaken by God and won¬ ders why he is going through this pain of desertion and death. It is a Jesus who feels God’s presence with him and is comforted by the fact that God is on his side. He is fully cognizant of what is happening to him and why, and he commits himself to the loving care of his heavenly Father, confident of what is to happen next. The centurion
then confirms what Jesus himself knew full well, “Surely this man was innocent.”

It is hard to stress strongly enough the differences between these two portrayals of Jesus’ death.

This is how readers over the years have come up with the famous “seven last words of the dying Jesus”—by taking what he says at his death in all four Gospels, mixing them together, and imagining that in their combination they now have the full story. This interpretive move does not give the full story. It gives a fifth story, a story that is completely unlike any of the canonical four, a fifth story that in effect rewrites the Gospels, producing a fifth Gospel. This is per¬ fectly fine to do if that’s what you want—it’s a free country, and no one can stop you. But for historical critics, this is not the best way to approach the Gospels.

My overarching point is that the Gospels, and all the books of the Bible, are distinct and should not be read as if they are all saying the same thing. They are decidedly not saying the same thing—even when talking about the same subject (say, Jesus’ death). Mark is dif¬ ferent from Luke, and Matthew is different from John, as you can see by doing your own horizontal reading of their respective stories of the crucifixion. The historical approach to the Gospels allows each author’s voice to be heard and refuses to conflate them into some kind of mega-Gospel that flattens the emphases of each one.

 

[joelr]

Paul doesn't say no signs were given, he says:
For Jews ask for signs, Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified; a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Greeks, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
1 Cor. 1.22-24

Yes that is exactly the same thing????? Jews ask for signs, Greeks want wisdom (proof), this is a stumbling block because they are not given any.
Paul knows the story is worth doubting because it's yet another supernatural tale, and like common writings, he adds what he needs to make it sound real.
Standard literature of the times.

So, if I understand correctly, people made up the story of resurrected Jesus? Why? Why would they make such s story and become persecuted and likely killed?

Where does it say they were persecuted? Yep, in the myth. All religions have persecution myths.

Later in the 2nd century, like today, people love to pick a belief and believe it no matter what. There are millions of Mormons, billions in Islam.
The Bahai leader was executed for herecy. Does that mean it's true that he is a messenger? Later in the 2nd century Christians were sometimes persecuted. So was Islam, many died for Islam, Hinduism. In the great divide where India split
Other religions were persecuted as well. When Christianity became powerful the pagans had to hide, but they didn't give up. They had beliefs, doesn't matter if they are true, many people just believe a story and will die for it. They practed in secret under threat of death.

The people who made it up were doing the same thing done in all other religions. There were hundreds of nations, all having a myth about their god and their savior. They would also die for their deities. Mithriasm grew unpopular after Christianity took as the religion of Rome and they had to hide, if found they would be killed. They didn't care, they had beliefs.
This is nothing special.

How can you see a world where there are thousands of religions and cults, people who will die for it they believe so strongly and yet think this gives your story evidence it's true? It doesn't give any others credibility. In 1947 British India was partitioned, the Muslims went and formed Pakistan and the Hindu stayed in India, there were riots, battles, thousands of deaths, all over fervent belief in religion. Each one being the "correct" one.

There is no credible story of persecution until way after the Gospels were chosen and the religion was formed. These people did not care about the historical truth. It was their story, their identity. Ancient people believing the Quran says nothing but ancient people believing the Gospels can "only mean they are true"?? How can you be so shallow in focus?

And again, Grecko-Roman stories were always adding supernatural lies, false eyewitnesses, even historians reported this. Miracles, means nothing.

Maybe it would be best, if you would just say you don't believe, instead of making up baseless claims.

Couple things

1) I'll do whatever I please. If you think I broke a rule report me. Otherwise please take your lies and jump into a lake with them.

2)I am positive I mentioned this is from Dr Carrier's peer-reviewed book, On the Historicity of Jesus. And, he's giving information from many other scholars who are experts on John, as the footnotes and sources on every page demonstrate. So untruthfully calling them "baseless claims" shows your insecurity.


3) Normally if you believe a claim is baseless you demonstrate why. Rather than ignore the fact that it's an actual Jesus historian who applied his PhD to doing a historicity study on Jesus and the NT. As well as comparative religions, what historians of the time said.

4) You also haven't countered one single point. Carrier demonstrated John is absolutely just changing earlier narratives. He used the actual Bible itself to prove it. The narratives are in fact changed, just as he says.
He not only takes a parable and creates an actual story but where Matthew and Luke said explicitly NO SIGNS he "refutes" this entire sentiment by littering his Gospel with explicitly identified "signs" and by reversing Luke's parable of Lazurus with an actual tale of Lazurus. Indeed, Johns Jesus fills his ministry with "signs" that "manifested his glory" and it is for this reason "his disciples believed in him", a notion not found in the pervious Gospels.

This is only a tiny fraction of the John chapter where he continues to demonstrate inconsistencies and obvious made up writings.


The parable in Luke had similarities to common Greek and Egyptian parables, Luke made it up. But John changes it into a real tale. So much made up stuff here.

Scholars also know John has been edited many times.


One of the biggest problems that scholars have faced when trying to analyze John’s Gospel is the fact that we don’t have what John originally wrote. Scholars are aware that somebody later on rearranged the Gospel, adding and removing content and ultimately scrambling the order of many scenes. One can see quite clearly that his Gospel has been altered just by noting that it finishes with two different endings, where each ending was written completely unaware of the other (John 20.30-31 and 21.24-25), with each serving as conclusions to two different resurrection appearance narratives (with John 21.1 added as a hasty attempt to stitch the two together). This “multiple ending” problem had actually happened in Mark’s Gospel as well, where there are at least five different known endings. Even the famous story of the adulteress (John 7.53-8.11) with the famous line “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” wasn’t present in the original text as scholars know that this was added by a later editor. There is plenty of evidence in fact that suggests that there are corruptions throughout the entire text.


We can see in John 5, for example, that Jesus goes to Judea (specifically Jerusalem; 5.1), and yet in John 6 Jesus is not in Judea but rather “went off to the other side of the sea of Galilee”. This is a problem because the sea of Galilee is nowhere near Jerusalem, let alone in Judea. Evidently, in the original text, preceding John 6.1, Jesus was in Galilee at some location on the opposite end of the sea of Galilee (and not in Jerusalem), so the order of events became jumbled due to various alterations over time. We’re also told in John 2 (13, 23) that Jesus was in Jerusalem and then we’re told that he entered Judea (3.22), but obviously if he was in Jerusalem (a city in Judea) then he was already in Judea, so it seems that some part of the text was deleted here that would have mentioned Jesus returning to Galilee prior to him re-entering Judea a second time. There are other examples like this which I’m not going to mention here because there are more interesting materials in John that I’d like to get to now.

Carrier

For example Mark. 6:5 tells Jesus did miracles, healed people. Is that not a sign?

Yet Mark says it.

Mark 13:22: For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect. Matthew followed Mark in saying that there will be no sign for this generation

Anyone showing signs on purpose is a false prophet. Unless you are in John's Gospel, then it's all different. Because they are contradictions.

 

[joelr]

Maybe it would be best, if you would just say you don't believe, instead of making up baseless claims.

Also, what you are suggesting is, I just say I don't believe. The end. Not for any reason. Like you believe, not for any good reason, you just got attached to the story. Unless you have some amazing evidence but I highly doubt that because you think a book of stories is evidence and an invisible being.

But I care about what is true. I don't just " don't believe", not even a little. I follow evidence. Weather I like the results or not. I am not interested in deluding myself.
I will say I don't believe and I will demonstrate evidence, all day. Dr Carrier has dedicated his considerable intellect and PhD to studying the NT.
As well as all of the available scholarship. It's the opposite of "baseless claims". It's informed, empirical evidence, and hundreds of books and original source material.
It's not my problem if you cannot handle scholarship.

But it's funny that I write out some critical-historical scholarship and you try to get me to stop. More proof you are so uninterested in truth that you have to ask to have it barred from the conversation. Every conversation confirms a bit more the unfoundedness of these beliefs.

Also lie #2, "making up claims" is in no way copying a piece of a chapter of a peer-reviewed book.

Carrier uses in this text, just on the 3 pages I used:

L. Michael White, "From Jesus to Christianity"
J.D. Crossan, "Empty tomb Absent Lord"
Louis Ruprect "This Tragic Gospel, How John Corrupted the Heart of Christianity"
Keith Peirce "The Lucan Origins of the Raising of Lazurus"
John Loftus "Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity"
Price "Pre-Nicene New Testament"
Christian apologists attempts to rehabilitate the Gospel of John as of any historical use adequately rebutted by James Crossley "Can John's Gospel Really Be Used to Reconstruct the Life of Jesus?"
Maurice Casey "Is Johns Gospel True?"

even a defense of the traditional view and recent trends in apologetics, "Is this Not the Carpenter?"

 

[Kenny]

It's much worse than that. John is another difference. The entire meaning of the authors intent and story is different.

Yes, they are… written for a different purpose and audience.

If one approaches it as “wrong” - then one will view it as wrong.
If one approaches it as “right” - you will see the rightness of it.

As one person said, “If you believe you can or you can’t, you are right”.

Both sides have been studied by scholars and each came to opposite conclusions.

There are those who came for the purpose of “I’ll show you it is wrong” and ended up believing “I was wrong, it is historical” and became believers. Others approached it as being right and then were convinced it wasn’t.

If you believe it isn’t, I support you in your decision! I give you every right to be wrong.

 

[Bharat Jhunjhunwala]

Difficult to believe that, especially if one reads the rules for slavery.

The rules for slavery have to be assessed in the context of Genesis before 1500 BCE. I don't think any rules existed then and it establishes that there was no slavery at the time of the Bible.

 

[joelr]

Yes, they are… written for a different purpose and audience.

In post 684 I give a small bit of Ehrman's explanation of the differences of the Passion narrative in Mark and Luke.
Please tell me how a different audience gets a completely different meaning and how you know they are meant for different audiences. What audiences? They do not match.

If one approaches it as “wrong” - then one will view it as wrong.

Probably but that isn't what scholars do, that is what theologians do. In Islam, Mormonism, Hinduism and so on. They assume their text is the true text from a god.

Historians just look at the evidence. Many like Bart Ehrman, Richard Miller, Kipp Davis, started out as fundamentalists and wanted to prove their religion true. The scholars going into critical-historical studies see the evidence is far too overwhelming that these are as mythical as all other religions.

If one approaches it as “right” - you will see the rightness of it.

Bart Ehrman did, Richard Miller did, the evidence forced them to see that no matter how "right" they believe it was, it's made up stories. They may be good stories or have great wisdom, they are borrowed myths just the same.

Miller gives his story here:

There is nothing new about the Greek theology, nothing new about the Rabbi Hillell teachings, love your neighbor, don't judge, it may be "right" but it's just a made up story.
You are also cherry picking. Is it right to leave your family, is it better not to marry, is it right to stay away from non-believers, to buy slaves from the heathens around you, who have no rights and their children are yours?

You are basically saying, "if you already believe it it will seem true". Great, same with the Quran. How about one approaches a claim with the same attitude one approaches any other claim. It needs good evidence and when you see none exists you change direction. Not invent special pleading, apologetics, The different audiences, Mark's Gospel was a non Jewish gentile Christians undergoing persecution. Matthew's Gospel Jewish Christians. Luke's Gospel was largely Gentile Christians, does not account for the massive discrepencies and differences in the narrative. They were making new things up.

None of those different audiences mean you take a parable and change it to a real event and followers now consider it a real person?

As one person said, “If you believe you can or you can’t, you are right”.

Bart Ehrman said he was positive no one would convince him Christianity isn't true and he would remain strong. Eventually one finds out they were doing the same thing done in Islam, Scientology, Mormonism, or any other set of fictional beliefs. You cannot ignore evidence. Germs are real, the earth does go around the sun, syncretic myths are what all religious writings are.

This is a modern idea. In those times people didn't care about the truth of text, it wasn't sacred except for the gods name. They often changed and had opposing points of view. Myths and stories just gave people an identity and set them apart from other nations.

Both sides have been studied by scholars and each came to opposite conclusions.

There are no critical-historical scholars who think anything different because the evidence is clear. I gave just 3 pages of the John chapter and the 10 sources used just for that. Besides a chapter full of other issues, John took a parable and made it into a real story, he changed what Mark and Matthew said about no signs.

There are those who came for the purpose of “I’ll show you it is wrong” and ended up believing

That happens in Islam as well. I don't care what untrained amateurs decide to buy into, I care about what can be demonstrated. Please show me a peer-reviewed work by a historian who argues John is historical.
There is a consensus opinion because evidence.

"

After we concede to the fact that John is using the other Gospels as sources, we can take notice of the fact that John intended on rebutting a particular theme that those previous Gospels all had in common, that “no sign shall be given” that Jesus is the Messiah (e.g. Mark 8.11-12), which was in line with what Paul said when he mentioned that no signs were given to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ (1 Cor. 1.22-24). So in Mark for example, even though he invents miracles to put in his stories as allegories, he is careful to make sure that only the disciples (no independent witnesses) are the ones that ever notice, mention, or understand those miracles. The only thing remotely close to an exception to this in Mark is at the end of his Gospel, when the three women saw that the tomb was empty and heard from a man sitting inside that Jesus had risen (which wasn’t really a miracle that they witnessed, but they were surprised nevertheless), and yet even with this ending we are told that the women simply ran away in fear and never told anyone what they had seen (Mark 16.8).


Matthew had already added to this material in Mark, “correcting” it by instead having Jesus say that “an evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign” and therefore “there shall no sign be given except the sign of Jonah“, meaning the resurrection of Jesus on the third day (Matt. 12.39, 16.4). Thus we can see that Matthew took what Mark wrote and went one step further, by allowing that one sign, and narrating the story so that the Jews “know” about it (hence his reason for writing Matt. 28.11-15). So Matthew invented new evidence that we never saw in Mark. Luke merely reinforced what Matthew had written (Luke 11.29), yet added to it with his invention of the parable of Lazarus (Luke 16.19-31) as well as the public announcement that was made to the Jews (Acts 2), thus illustrating the previous Gospels’ “no sign shall be given” theme.


John rebuts this entire theme by packing his Gospel full of “signs” and by taking Luke’s parable of Lazarus and turning it into an actual tale of Lazarus (John 11-12). We even read in John 2.11 that “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him“, thus implying that it was because of these signs that his disciples believed in him (something we don’t hear about in any other Gospel). We read just a few verses later in John 2.17-18 that when Jesus was asked for a sign, he simply says that his resurrection will be a sign. Notably however, John doesn’t say here that this will be the only sign. Quite the contrary, for in John 2.23 we hear that “When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing“, and later we read that “a great multitude followed him because they beheld the signs he did ” (John 6.2), followed by John telling us that when people “see the sign he did“, they declared that Jesus was a true prophet (John 6.14). In John 3.2, we read that a Pharisee named Nicodemus said to Jesus “no one can do these signs that you do, unless God be with him“, and even in John 4.48-54 we read that Jesus said “You will in no way believe unless you see signs and wonders” and then he provides them with a miracle to see. We are even explicitly told that these signs were indeed the evidence that showed that Jesus is the Christ (John 7.31, 9.16, 10.41-42), and there are several other references to the signs that Jesus gave, including John telling us that there were even more than those mentioned in his Gospel (John 20.30). So John clearly attempted to rebut this theme present in the other Gospels, and made it blatantly obvious that he was doing so."

excerpt from article on Carrier's book OHJ

The Gospels as Allegorical Myth, Part 4 of 4: John

The final post in this series will mention a few elements from Richard Carrier’s analysis of the Gospels as found in his book On the Historicity of Jesus, specifically pertaining to The Gospe…

lagevondissen.wordpress.com

If you believe it isn’t, I support you in your decision! I give you every right to be wrong.

I don't care what rights or support I have. I care about what is true, evidence, what have people found who study the material without a bias of "it has to be true because it says so and I already believe it so it's true".

That is done in Islamic theology. Mormon theology. Hindu theology. Christian theology. They just assume the revelations were real and go from there. There is not hundreds of different laws of thermodynamics, there is one set. All people around the world, if they study it will find it's one set of laws that are proven through testing theories.
It isn't the set of thermodynamics that you were born into, or told at a point in your life and it gave you hope so you decided it was true. It's true regardless of your feelings.

The Gospels are full of inconsistencies, they all copy Mark to some degree, they invent sources and eyewitnesses, a fact done in all Greco-Roman biographies. Even reported by historians:


Emperor Vespasian, reportedly did many miracles. Tacitus claims 2 men approached the emperor with serious ailments. One was blind and the other had a useless hand. Vespasian cured both. Tacitus writes: The hand was instantly restored to use, and the day again shone for the blind man. Both facts are told by eye-witnesses even now when falsehood brings no reward. Tacitus, Histories 4.81.

Asclepius. Celsus, cited by Origen in Contra Celsius, claimed a multitude of eyewitnesses attested to the miracles of Asclepius. Isyllus, in his Paean to Asclepius, even recounted meeting Asclepius himself. Before the God supposedly helped Sparta win a battle.

The temples of Asclepius were filled with inscriptions and literary works where people swore they were healed by him, conversed with him and even resurrected by him.


They are anonymous, non-eyewitness and use Hellenistic savior deity theology. Right after the Greek colonists occupied them. The same thing happened in every nation the Greeks occupied, a new religion formed with a savior son/daughter of the supreme God, spiritual baptism, all races welcome, personal salvation, souls that belong in the afterlife.

John is clearly "fixing" the older Gospels. He did not know they would all be in a set, there were 40 known Gospels. Each author was likely writing "the" Gospel, so they added what they thought it needed from a basic structure of Mark's writings.

The full account of inconsistencies is in Bart Ehrman's Jesus Interrupted. But you can also buy a comparative book that has all 4 on each page to compare scenes and how they differ.

Jesus Interrupted is online for free here:

Jesus Interrupted – Revealing The Hidden Contradictions In The Bible And Why We Don’t Know About Them Bart D. Ehrman : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Bart D. Ehrman

archive.org

 

[Kenny]

In post 684 I give a small bit of Ehrman's explanation of the differences of the Passion narrative in Mark and Luke.
Please tell me how a different audience gets a completely different meaning and how you know they are meant for different audiences. What audiences? They do not match.

Will address this, of course, but you are presenting only a viewpoint of someone who doesn’t believe which doesn’t negate those who have a different understanding… which is my point.

Probably but that isn't what scholars do, that is what theologians do. In Islam, Mormonism, Hinduism and so on. They assume their text is the true text from a god

Yes… standard response. As if a person who studied can’t be both a scholar and a theologian.

.

Historians just look at the evidence. Many like Bart Ehrman, Richard Miller, Kipp Davis, started out as fundamentalists and wanted to prove their religion true. The scholars going into critical-historical studies see the evidence is far too overwhelming that these are as mythical as all other religions.

Yet the opposite it true. There are many that began as atheists or agnostic and having looked at the evidence decided it was true. People like Josh McDowell, J. Warner, Nicky Gumbel, C.S.Lewis and so many others

And, basically, you are using an appeal to authority for your basis which is a fallacy

Bart Ehrman did, Richard Miller did, the evidence forced them to see that no matter how "right" they believe it was, it's made up stories. They may be good stories or have great wisdom, they are borrowed myths just the same.

Miller gives his story here:

There is nothing new about the Greek theology, nothing new about the Rabbi Hillell teachings, love your neighbor, don't judge, it may be "right" but it's just a made up story.

I think I answered this above.

You are also cherry picking. Is it right to leave your family, is it better not to marry, is it right to stay away from non-believers, to buy slaves from the heathens around you, who have no rights and their children are yours?

Obviously you aren’t a scholar nor have you studied the bible as you have used proper hermeneutical pocesses. I use to used coined phrases like these because I never studied the bible… as apparently you haven’t either. But I found that when you actually studied the above, it has been interpreted wrongly.

You are basically saying, "if you already believe it it will seem true". Great, same with the Quran. How about one approaches a claim with the same attitude one approaches any other claim. It needs good evidence and when you see none exists you change direction. Not invent special pleading, apologetics, The different audiences, Mark's Gospel was a non Jewish gentile Christians undergoing persecution. Matthew's Gospel Jewish Christians. Luke's Gospel was largely Gentile Christians, does not account for the massive discrepencies and differences in the narrative. They were making new things up.

What I am saying is that if you are looking for it to be wrong, you will grasp those things that support your position at the expense of that which doesn’t.

None of those different audiences mean you take a parable and change it to a real event and followers now consider it a real person?

A parable is a parable. a person is a real person. Apparently you have simply taken what other people said to support your position.

Bart Ehrman said he was positive no one would convince him Christianity isn't true and he would remain strong. Eventually one finds out they were doing the same thing done in Islam, Scientology, Mormonism, or any other set of fictional beliefs. You cannot ignore evidence. Germs are real, the earth does go around the sun, syncretic myths are what all religious writings are.

Yes… Bart is your god… except he is wrong.

This is a modern idea. In those times people didn't care about the truth of text, it wasn't sacred except for the gods name. They often changed and had opposing points of view. Myths and stories just gave people an identity and set them apart from other nations.

Yes… there are myths. However, the Roman Empire, the destruction of Jerusalem, Peter, Paul, James, John et al are not myths. And, please, don’t use the overused “Well, Iliad and the Odyssey has real places too” as a basis for denying what is written in the compiled books called the Bible.

There are no critical-historical scholars who think anything different because the evidence is clear. I gave just 3 pages of the John chapter and the 10 sources used just for that. Besides a chapter full of other issues, John took a parable and made it into a real story, he changed what Mark and Matthew said about no signs.

You should try to refrain from words like “all” and “none’..

The 20 Most Influential Christian Scholars

That happens in Islam as well. I don't care what untrained amateurs decide to buy into, I care about what can be demonstrated. Please show me a peer-reviewed work by a historian who argues John is historical.
There is a consensus opinion because evidence.

Yes… that is my point. You have atheists who turn to Christians, Islamists who turn to Christianity, Christians who turn atheists and everything in between.

Your “peer-reviewed” issue is also a fallacy. Can a Christian present a position to the peers who are all atheists and have the position that you have? Hardly. Have an atheist present a paper to a group of peers that are Christians and let them review it. Do you think it would pass?

"

After we concede to the fact that John is using the other Gospels as sources, we can take notice of the fact that John intended on rebutting a particular theme that those previous Gospels all had in common, that “no sign shall be given” that Jesus is the Messiah (e.g. Mark 8.11-12), which was in line with what Paul said when … ... later we read that “a great multitude followed him because they beheld the signs he did ” (John 6.2), followed by John telling us that when people “see the sign he did“, they declared that Jesus was a true prophet (John 6.14). In John 3.2, we read that a Pharisee named Nicodemus said to Jesus “no one can do these signs that you do, unless God be with him“, and even in John 4.48-54 we read that Jesus said “You will in no way believe unless you see signs and wonders” and then he provides them with a miracle to see. We are even explicitly told that these signs were indeed the evidence that showed that Jesus is the Christ (John 7.31, 9.16, 10.41-42), and there are several other references to the signs that Jesus gave, including John telling us that there were even more than those mentioned in his Gospel (John 20.30). So John clearly attempted to rebut this theme present in the other Gospels, and made it blatantly obvious that he was doing so."

..

...Jesus Interrupted is online for free here:

Jesus Interrupted – Revealing The Hidden Contradictions In The Bible And Why We Don’t Know About Them Bart D. Ehrman : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Bart D. Ehrman

archive.org

I can’t go through all these points and still address your first one. Flooding a post with a pool of diarrhetic statements to the point that I can’t even answer because of the limit on letter count doesn’t really help your case.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You should try to refrain from words like “all” and “none’..

The 20 Most Influential Christian Scholars

None of those appear to be "critical-Christian Scholars". A scholar is one that works and publishes in the field using peer reviewed sources. They have to rely on a lot more than feelings. Not only do they need to use the Bible to support their claims, they also need to be able to use history. I am not saying that any of those are bad people or even that they are incompetent. They very well might be if they attempted to publish a peer reviewed work and they probably know that. Francis Crick for example is a Christian that does not take Genesis literally at all. He would think that is a severe error when Christians do that. But he is not a valid source for when it comes to the historicity of the Bible at all. He can only show how parts of it are wrong if one reads it literally. He is a scientist and still a Christian.

 

[Kenny]

None of those appear to be "critical-Christian Scholars". A scholar is one that works and publishes in the field using peer reviewed sources. They have to rely on a lot more than feelings. Not only do they need to use the Bible to support their claims, they also need to be able to use history. I am not saying that any of those are bad people or even that they are incompetent. They very well might be if they attempted to publish a peer reviewed work and they probably know that. Francis Crick for example is a Christian that does not take Genesis literally at all. He would think that is a severe error when Christians do that. But he is not a valid source for when it comes to the historicity of the Bible at all. He can only show how parts of it are wrong if one reads it literally. He is a scientist and still a Christian.

Yes… by your definition you are correct. But your definition is not mine.

Like I mentioned before… have your scholar submit to a group of Christian peers and have them review it to be accepted. Please...

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes… by your definition you are correct. But your definition is not mine.

Like I mentioned before… have your scholar submit to a group of Christian peers and have them review it to be accepted. Please...

No, not by "my definition". By context. At best you did not understand what was in that post. At worst you were being dishonest. You ignored the word "critical" or did not understand it. By the way in context "critical" does not necessarily mean "attacking". In context it means the definition that I gave to you.

Here is a simple solution. You could ask @joelr exactly what he meant.

 

[Kenny]

No, not by "my definition". By context. At best you did not understand what was in that post. At worst you were being dishonest. You ignored the word "critical" or did not understand it. By the way in context "critical" does not necessarily mean "attacking". In context it means the definition that I gave to you.

Here is a simple solution. You could ask @joelr exactly what he meant.

Again… by your view, you are correct. I just don’t subscribe to your viewpoint.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Again… by your view, you are correct. I just don’t subscribe to your viewpoint.

Oh my, just because you are wrong you have to try to make it personal. I gave you a solution. Don't ask me. ask @joelr. But of course you are still butt hurt about losing the debate about the birth year of Jesus. For that you were supposed to find actual historians and all that you could find were Liars for Jesus, oops, I mean "apologists".

 

[1213]

...and you try to get me to stop....

Sorry, you can continue. But, why would you expect anyone to believe your claims without any good reasons?

 

[1213]

Yes that is exactly the same thing????? Jews ask for signs, Greeks want wisdom (proof), this is a stumbling block because they are not given any.

Bible tells signs were given.

....Johns Jesus fills his ministry with "signs" that "manifested his glory" and it is for this reason "his disciples believed in him", a notion not found in the pervious Gospels.

The other Gospels tells Jesus for example healed people (Matt. 4:23), is that not a sign?

...we don’t have what John originally wrote... ...wasn’t present in the original text as scholars know that this was added by a later editor.

That is ridiculous. Don't you see the contradiction here? If they don't have the original, how can they know what was in the original?

 

[1213]

...“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani,” which Mark translates from the Aramaic for his readers as, “My God, my God, why have you for¬ saken me?”

It s interesting how people come to that translation, when according to the Bible, people who heard Jesus, thought he was calling Elijah.

And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani; that is, "My God, My God, why did You forsake Me?" And hearing, some of those standing there said, This one calls Elijah.
Matt. 27:46

...and all the books of the Bible, are distinct and should not be read as if they are all saying the same thing...

Obviously they are not saying the same thing, only part of a bigger story.

 

[1213]

Actually it does
Yes, Scripture speaks of hell as “death” and “destruction” but defines these in terms of a place where “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10).

It is possible they burn forever, even if they are not conscious. Tormenting fire doesn't necessary mean the burning matter is conscious.

...people in Sheol remember nothing—not even God...

Again you are making up stuff that is not in the text.

The word paradis is Persian in origin and the concept spread to all Near Eastern religions in that form. “Eden” not “Paradise” is mentioned in Genesis,

Paradise means garden, and God planted a garden in the Eden. Therefore Garden in the Eden is the same as paradise.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Bible tells signs were given.

Yes, the Bible did do that. Unfortunately all of them fail. You simply do not understand why they fail.

The other Gospels tells Jesus for example healed people (Matt. 4:23), is that not a sign?

No, that is an unsupported claim. Why would any rational person believe it? Harry Potter can make a really strong Patronus. Is that not a sign? The books say that he can.

That is ridiculous. Don't you see the contradiction here? If they don't have the original, how can they know what was in the original?

That is his point. Oh, and you do realize that scholars of the Bible are very sure that the Gospel of John was not written by the apostle John. None of them are eyewitness accounts.