Did Jesus Christ Actually Exist?

[Betho_br]

I do not think that anyone is denying that the man Jesus existed. There is evidence for that. There does not appear to be any reliable evidence that "Jesus Christ" existed, or if you prefer, magical Jesus.

Jesus's Sabbath healings were considered "work" or therapy. It's interesting to note that during Jesus's time, there was a Jewish sect called the "Therapeutae." Three key signs are attributed to Jesus:

1. The transformation of water into wine. This was not a creation of wine from nothing, but rather a transformation, which parallels certain techniques known at the time. For instance, Athenaeus of Naucratis, in his Deipnosophistae (2nd century A.D.), describes the practice of mixing water with concentrated wine or diluting it to create an alcoholic beverage. While this is not the same as a miracle, it shows that liquid transformations were familiar to ancient people. However, Jesus’s miracle in John’s Gospel holds a unique theological significance that goes beyond these known methods.
2. The raising of Lazarus. Communicating with and reviving someone in a cataleptic state, as Lazarus's case might suggest, touches on sciences that are still under study. Ancient understanding of such conditions was limited, and this event likely represents a profound spiritual and symbolic message, rather than just a medical feat.
3. The Sign of Jonah. The "Sign of Jonah" was metaphorical rather than literal. Jesus's time in the tomb from Friday evening to Sunday morning was not a full three days, as traditionally understood.

Regarding Jesus walking on the water, he was neither submerged nor simply walking on top, but rather near the surface of the turbulent waters. This is reminiscent of the mystery surrounding how early human societies transported and erected large stone monuments across long distances—phenomena that challenge modern understanding of ancient capabilities.

 

[Andrew Stephen]

Peace to all,

To me this is the logic of created mortal intelligence becoming transformed immortal.

To me Jesus is our personal resolver of the universe through is His intelligence. The Word is the intelligence that existed before creation was ever created was even created that becomes created mortal and transforms into Our own Christ, immortal and incorruptible in the flesh and spirit through the The Holy Spirit in Divine Logic through Jesus to become the Christ in us and we become again transfigured into the image of the Father with new eyes to be able to see God, as glorified as one in being.

Peace always,
Stephen Andrew

 

[joelr]

All of these? Really?

Yes, why would there not be a lot of theologians in Christianity? Thousands I assume. Why would you even ask such a question when you know there are hundreds of Islamic theologians who will memorize every verse in the Quran and affirm all the apologetics and folk tales as definitely true.
Every year dozens of graduating theologians come from Brigham Young University, a Mormon funded-university, where Mormon theologians will tell you why the Mormon Bible is in fact the correct version. And NONE of these people actually have any good evidence whatsoever, have no idea what previous religions their text may have borrowed from, what archaeology shows that doesn't match up with the text and so on.

Richard Miller went to a week long seminar on Islam and historical studies. The impression is it's a work of stories that was influencing the culture, Persian, Jewish and Arab stories. Going on evidence. Not assumptions about some revelations from an angel. No mention of the ridiculous apologetics about "science miracles" and "how could an illiterate man compose this??". Uh, he didn't, it was a work in progress over a long period of time. How is this a surprise?

Painting with an absurdly broad brush is a technique best reserved for whitewashes and smears.

Maybe it is, but in this case that isn't happening but rather you are painting with an absurdly mis-informed brush.

Yes Theologians do not start out looking for evidence, they are required to sign
'statements of faith" saying they will not even speak against their church and they start out with the assumption they have the true version.
There are just as many Islamic theologians, there are Hindu theologians, Bahai theologians, Mormon theologians. All will start with the premise their text is the true words from god.
One big problem is people don't even know this. We can get you up to speed with any critical-historical scholar explaining this, let's start with Bart Ehrman from Jesus Interrupted:

"Scholars of the Bible have made significant progress in under
standing the Bible over the past two hundred years, building on
archaeological discoveries, advances in our knowledge of the ancient
Hebrew and Greek languages in which the books of Scripture were
originally written, and deep and penetrating historical, literary, and
textual analyses. This is a massive scholarly endeavor. Thousands of
scholars just in North America alone continue to do serious research
in the field, and the results of their study are regularly and routinely
taught, both to graduate students in universities and to prospective
pastors attending seminaries in preparation for the ministry.


Yet such views of the Bible are virtually unknown among the
population at large. In no small measure this is because those of us
who spend our professional lives studying the Bible have not done a
good job communicating this knowledge to the general public and
because many pastors who learned this material in seminary have,
for a variety of reasons, not shared it with their parishioners once they
take up positions in the church. (Churches, of course, are the most
obvious place where the Bible is—or, rather, ought to be—taught and
discussed.) As a result, not only are most Americans (increasingly)
ignorant of the contents of the Bible, but they are also almost completely
in the dark about what scholars have been saying about the Bible for
the past two centuries. This book is meant to help redress that prob¬
lem. It could be seen as my attempt to let the cat out of the bag.

The perspectives that I present in the following chapters are not
my own idiosyncratic views of the Bible. They are the views that
have held sway for many, many years among the majority of serious
critical scholars teaching in the universities and seminaries of North
America and Europe, even if they have not been effectively com¬
municated to the population at large, let alone among people of faith
who revere the Bible and who would be, presumably, the ones most
interested. For all those who aspire to being well educated, knowl¬
edgeable, and informed about our civilization’s most important book,
that has to change.


“historical-
critical” method.

The approach taken to the Bible in almost all Protestant (and
now Catholic) mainline seminaries is what is called the “historical-
critical” method. It is completely different from the “devotional”
approach to the Bible one learns in church. The devotional approach
to the Bible is concerned about what the Bible has to say—especially
what it has to say to me personally or to my society. What does the
Bible tell me about God? Christ? The church? My relation to the
world? What does it tell me about what to believe? About how to act?
About social responsibilities? How can the Bible help make me closer
to God? How does it help me to live?


The historical-critical approach has a different set of concerns and
therefore poses a different set of questions. At the heart of this ap¬
proach is the historical question (hence its name) of what the biblical
writings meant in their original historical context. Who were the
actual authors of the Bible? Is it possible (yes!) that some of the au¬
thors of some of the biblical books were not in fact who they claimed,
or were claimed, to be—say, that 1 Timothy was not actually writ¬
ten by Paul, or that Genesis was not written by Moses? When did
these authors live? What were the circumstances under which they
wrote? What issues were they trying to address in their own day?

How were they affected by the cultural and historical assumptions
of their time? What sources did these authors use? When were these
sources produced? Is it possible that the perspectives of these sources
differed from one another? Is it possible that the authors who used
these sources had different perspectives, both from their sources and
from one another? Is it possible that the books of the Bible, based on
a variety of sources, have internal contradictions? That there are ir¬
reconcilable differences among them? And is it possible that what the
books originally meant in their original context is not what they are
taken to mean today? That our interpretations of Scripture involve
taking its words out of context and thereby distorting its message?
And what if we don’t even have the original words? What if,
during the centuries in which the Bible—both the Old Testament,
in Hebrew, and the New Testament, in Greek—was copied by hand,
the words were changed by well-meaning but careless scribes, or by
fully alert scribes who wanted to alter the texts in order to make
them say what they wanted them to say?


These are among the many, many questions raised by the historical-
critical method. No wonder entering seminarians have to prepare for
“baby Bible” exams even before they could begin a serious study of
the Bible. This kind of study presupposes that you know what you’re
talking about before you start talking about it.

A very large percentage of seminarians are completely blind-sided
by the historical-critical method. They come in with the expecta¬
tion of learning the pious truths of the Bible so that they can pass
them along in their sermons, as their own pastors have done for
them. Nothing prepares them for historical criticism. To their sur¬
prise they learn, instead of material for sermons, all the results of
what historical critics have established on the basis of centuries of
research. The Bible is filled with discrepancies, many of them ir¬
reconcilable contradictions. Moses did not write the Pentateuch (the
first five books of the Old Testament) and Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and lohn did not write the Gospels. There are other books that did
not make it into the Bible that at one time or another were consid¬
ered canonical—other Gospels, for example, allegedly written by
Jesus’ followers Peter, Thomas, and Mary. The Exodus probably did
not happen as described in the Old Testament. The conquest of the
Promised Land is probably based on legend. The Gospels are at odds
on numerous points and contain nonhistorical material. It is hard
to know whether Moses ever existed and what, exactly, the histori¬
cal Jesus taught. The historical narratives of the Old Testament are
filled with legendary fabrications and the book of Acts in the New
Testament contains historically unreliable information about the
life and teachings of Paul. Many of the books of the New Testament
are pseudonymous—written not by the apostles but by later writers
claiming to be apostles. The list goes on.


Some students accept these new views from day one. Others—
especially among the more conservative students—resist for a long
time, secure in their knowledge that God would not allow any false¬
hoods into his sacred book. But before long, as students see more
and more of the evidence, many of them find that their faith in the
inerrancy and absolute historical truthfulness of the Bible begins to
waver. There simply is too much evidence, and to reconcile all of the
hundreds of differences among the biblical sources requires so much
speculation and fancy interpretive footwork that eventually it gets to
be too much for them.

 

[joelr]

You've told me what lots of people have decided.
I would like to know what you have decided.

I am not an expert, like with quantum mechanics I do not have an opinion. I leave it to the people who study all of the variables, original languages, comparative mythology, literary analysis, the myths from the cultures that occupied Israel for any centuries, historians of the periods and so on.

I think that the story in G-Mark is genuine but without it's definitely Christian edits and add-ons.

Are all stories in books genuine if they say so? Why would a Jewish version of a trending Hellenistic movement going around in every place were the Greeks were occupying be true?
Each religion effected by Hellenism took the same basic package of myths and formed a new religion, all with the same theology. Spiritual baptism, communal meal, dying/rising savior sons/daughters of a supreme God, personal salvation to get a soul into it's rightful hoe (heaven), and several other easily identifiable traits. But not taught for 1000 years before??????

A common Greek gravestone in the Hellenistic period: "

“I am a child of earth and starry heaven but heaven alone is my home.” That is not the Hebrew view, that is not the ancient Jewish view that is not the early Christian view. That is the view that eventually was incorporated into Christianity, a Greek invention. (from Dr James TAbor)


Also if you read a breakdown of the sources Mark was using, there is literally no room for any story?

The Gospels as Allegorical Myth, Part I of 4: Mark

Previously, I’ve written about the historicity of Jesus, and mentioned how the most recent analysis, in Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus (the first comprehensive, academica…

lagevondissen.wordpress.com

Then add the stuff he was taking from Paul and using it to make earthly stories, it accounts for everything.

Mark's Use of Paul's Epistles • Richard Carrier Blogs

Many studies have argued the Gospel that came to be labeled “according to Mark” based some of its content on the Epistles of Paul. Here I’ll discuss this scholarship and its evidence. “Mark” is of course the earliest Gospel we have any surviving text or even any real evidence of. It was then...

www.richardcarrier.info

The miracles in G-Mark nearly all have a temporal explanation and so are probably true. The later gospels lean in towards Church dogma but some of their anecdotes are correct, I think.

It's all about what we have researched and discovered.

"probably true"??? Huh? Are the Mormon revelations "probably true" as well?

We have not researched and discovered any miracles, ever, in any time, today or any other period. However, we have extensively researched the style of writing the Gospels come from. Not only was fake eyewitnesses, fake miracles, reported by all sorts of people including real historians, about Emperors and heros of stories like Romulus, to give them credibility. People bought into these tales in this time.



From a documentary by C. Hanson, scholar on Greco-Roman writing and invention and it's relation to the Gospels.

The Gospels are considered a Greco-Roman biography.

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.

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


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.



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



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.


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?


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

Jesus stories were directly competing with these stories in Greco-Roman civilization. Is it that he just happens to be the one real time these actually happen or is it 100% more likely it's just another version?

 

[joelr]

You've told me what lots of people have decided.
I would like to know what you have decided.

I am not an expert, like with quantum mechanics I do not have an opinion. I leave it to the people who study all of the variables, original languages, comparative mythology, literary analysis, the myths from the cultures that occupied Israel for any centuries, historians of the periods and so on.

I think that the story in G-Mark is genuine but without it's definitely Christian edits and add-ons.

Are all stories in books genuine if they say so? Why would a Jewish version of a trending Hellenistic movement going around in every place were the Greeks were occupying be true?
Each religion effected by Hellenism took the same basic package of myths and formed a new religion, all with the same theology. Spiritual baptism, communal meal, dying/rising savior sons/daughters of a supreme God, personal salvation to get a soul into it's rightful hoe (heaven), and several other easily identifiable traits. But not taught for 1000 years before??????

A common Greek gravestone in the Hellenistic period: "

“I am a child of earth and starry heaven but heaven alone is my home.” That is not the Hebrew view, that is not the ancient Jewish view that is not the early Christian view. That is the view that eventually was incorporated into Christianity, a Greek invention. (from Dr James TAbor)


Also if you read a breakdown of the sources Mark was using, there is literally no room for any story?

The Gospels as Allegorical Myth, Part I of 4: Mark

Previously, I’ve written about the historicity of Jesus, and mentioned how the most recent analysis, in Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus (the first comprehensive, academica…

lagevondissen.wordpress.com

Then add the stuff he was taking from Paul and using it to make earthly stories, it accounts for everything.

Mark's Use of Paul's Epistles • Richard Carrier Blogs

Many studies have argued the Gospel that came to be labeled “according to Mark” based some of its content on the Epistles of Paul. Here I’ll discuss this scholarship and its evidence. “Mark” is of course the earliest Gospel we have any surviving text or even any real evidence of. It was then...

www.richardcarrier.info

The miracles in G-Mark nearly all have a temporal explanation and so are probably true. The later gospels lean in towards Church dogma but some of their anecdotes are correct, I think.

It's all about what we have researched and discovered.

"probably true"??? Huh? Are the Mormon revelations "probably true" as well?

We have not researched and discovered any miracles, ever, in any time, today or any other period. However, we have extensively researched the style of writing the Gospels come from. Not only was fake eyewitnesses, fake miracles, reported by all sorts of people including real historians, about Emperors and heros of stories like Romulus, to give them credibility. People bought into these tales in this time.



From a documentary by C. Hanson, scholar on Greco-Roman writing and invention and it's relation to the Gospels.

The Gospels are considered a Greco-Roman biography.

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.

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


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.



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



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.


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?


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

Jesus stories were directly competing with these stories in Greco-Roman civilization. Is it that he just happens to be the one real time these actually happen or is it 100% more likely it's just another version?

 

[joelr]

Sorry. I should have read it more carefully.

But still, in the NT "hell" is second death. And death is for unrighteous. The same is also in OT.

These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Matt. 25:46
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23
The righteous shall inherit the land, And live in it forever.
Ps. 37:29

Both new and old tells righteous will live and non righteous will die. That's it.

The only OT reference in this list is Psalms. First it's not saying anything about death or dead people. It's saying righteous people will inherit the land and those people will inherit it forever, for their sons and daughters.

But even if it means some sort of afterlife, Living on the earth forever isn't a soul going to heaven now is it, a Greek idea. Funny how you manage to overlook blaring inconsistencies when you cite an example from POETRY?!?!?!?!



As the OT progressed it started with the dead sleeping in Sheol and slowly added mentions of an afterlife from a bodily resurrection, on earth. This is not the Greek ides Christianity used. It's Persian theology.

You have one line of POETRY, which is metaphorical. Saying righteous people will be the people who inherit the land. Not that people won't die and pass it on.

Meanwhile the entire early OT, Job especially, say when you die that's it. Adam and Eve - "dust you are and dust you shall return" You are now cherry picking and saying "that's it". As if Job doesn't exist suddenly, as if bodily resurrection isn't the way people live forever in the majority of the OT. You just blow off all those passages, for ONE LINE OF POETRY, that doesn't actually say dead people, and is definitely not about heaven, which is where Christians teach the afterlife is? What an absolute mess. Your knowledge is the Bible is terrible.

Psalms is not mentioning bodily resurrection and that is the only mention in the Bible about eternal life in the OT.


Dr Tabor:


0:14 In the early Hebrew Bible there is no eschatology (idea of the last things), when humans die they go to the dust. An essence of them goes to Sheol where they sleep. See “Ancient Views of Death in the Hebrew Bible”





1:05 Tremendous changes begin to take place in the Hebrew Bible.





3:29 Ecclesiastes 3 “A time to be born a time to die”, nothing about being reborn or reincarnation. Adam and Eve - “dust you are and dust shall you return” The ancient Hebrew view of death.





4:10 Ancient Hebrew view of the future of the world. Beginning and “End of Age/ Last Things” Linear view of time. Later in Daniel comes ideas about Judgment, Resurrection, dead raising.


7:30 In Isaiah 2:1 we begin to see the idea that the end times will happen, war will end, Israel will rise above all nations. Weapons will become farming tools. A perfected age at the end of time. Nothing mentioned about the dead.





14:03 Jeremiah 23:5-6, (after 600 BCE ) predictions of a messiah, a righteous branch, execute justice in the lands.


First examples of a messiah coming, a new development to the end times.





Isaiah 11:2-5 - Predictions about a coming messiah. He will slay the wicked, judge with righteousness…..





End of ch 11, The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, all animals and humans will be peaceful with one another, nature will be transformed back to an Eden like state. The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.


Again, nothing about the dead or people who died before this.





20:32 This brings about questions about a just God. How can there be a perfected age at the end of time but leave the dead, both good and bad, in Sheol?








28:30 Isaiah 25:6 First mention that God will swallow up death and people will live forever.





29:50 Daniel 12:1 First mention of dead people awakening. A new idea that the dead will wake up. Not that we have an immortal soul.


31:29 “Some will awake”, the dead wake up, not that they have an immortal soul. “We have to get that straight, everybody confuses the Greek idea of the immortal soul with resurrection of the dead” Daniel is talking about waking the dead from Sheol.





35:14 Dr Tabor “People are so confused, they mix up immortal soul, life everlasting, resurrection of the dead, sleeping in the dust and so forth. In the later period we are talking about 3 different cultures, we have the ancient Egyptians, we have the Greek developing out of Homer into the Platonic/Hellenistic dualism, then you have the early Jews and Christians developing resurrection of the dead. Very distinct ideas developing in the Hellenistic period.





36:50 We are going to move on next lecture to more on Hellenistic dualism and how resurrection of the dead takes over. By the time of Jesus we have the Pharisees and the Essenes who are saying we need resurrection for God to be just.


The Sadducees (like Job’s friends saying) no, the Bible says when you die you die, there is no resurrection.


They are not interested in the book of Daniel. There is this debate going on from the Maccabees down through the first century, obviously resurrection triumphs for a while but finally the Platonic view takes over the world. Basically today when people talk about the afterlife, they are not even considering the other views, when I die my body goes to dust, there is no eschatology, I go to a home beyond. It goes back to those golden plates “I am a child of earth and starry heaven but heaven alone is my home.” That is not the Hebrew view, that is not the ancient Jewish view that is not the early Christian view. Because they stuck with the Hebrew ideas that humans are mortal and die and go to Sheol or Hades but can be raised from the dead and be given the gift of eternal life.







There is no hell in the OT except for a few mentions in Daniel, after the Persians had been around fro centuries. You also don't seem to understand syncretism. It's not supposed to be exactly the same, it's each culture interpreting the myths in their own way.


Your understanding of the Bible is very shallow. You import concepts from the NT when they clearly are not there. Jewish eternal life is bodily resurrection. Greek eternal life is a soul going to heaven. Adopted by late Christianity.


You can hear Dr Tabor explain it himself -
Death & Afterlife: A Hebrew Revolution

 

[Andrew Stephen]

Peace to all,

To me the logic follows, that The soul is saved in the Bosom of Abraham, from the anmial sacrifice, but the flesh is lost, till the Christ. Conceived through The Immaculate Conception and Virgin Birth of The Christ, his Earthly birth did not require blood and water, was Virgin because His Soul already existed. Logically, Birth creates the New Soul. The Soul of Christ existed and only had to transfigure, though Baptism, The Sacrament of death to life. John the Baptist Baptized Jesus and Jesus Baptized His Mother for Her Glorious Assumption, just like Her Son. The First born is Jesus, The Christ into Heaven for all mankind, from the cross, the blood and water flowed for His death, discention and rebirth, the blood and water flowerd from the cross, and resurrection for all mankind. Reborn and saved is Resurrected Glorified and Transfigured Souls in Heaven.

Peace always,
Stephen

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

We can get you up to speed with any critical-historical scholar explaining this, let's start with Bart Ehrman from Jesus Interrupted:

Your hubris is laughable.

FWIW, my study of such scholars stretches back to my early days on iidb. Here at RF, in response to a question about my knowledge of the NT, I responded ...

I've read the NT (a number of times) along with Raymond Brown, Bart Ehrman, Helmut Koester, and Udo Schnelle. I'm also a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and keep up with their Journal. But, no, I have spent nowhere near as much effort on NT studies.

Note that this was back in 2009, roughly a decade and a half before your bloviated attempt to impress. No doubt you'll keep trying.

 

[oldbadger]

I am not an expert, like with quantum mechanics I do not have an opinion. I leave it to the people who study all of the variables, original languages, comparative mythology, literary analysis, the myths from the cultures that occupied Israel for any centuries, historians of the periods and so on.

So whom do you parrot about quantum theory?
You're soon going to parrot Carrier, I see....that will be fun!

Are all stories in books genuine if they say so?

I have studied G-Mark and it looks like the most likely account of the life and times of Jesus.
And I can discuss why.......ok,?

Also if you read a breakdown of the sources Mark was using, there is literally no room for any story?

Mark looks like the memoirs of a person who was a witness, recorded by another who may have been a partial witness.

The Gospels as Allegorical Myth, Part I of 4: Mark

Previously, I’ve written about the historicity of Jesus, and mentioned how the most recent analysis, in Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus (the first comprehensive, academica…

lagevondissen.wordpress.com

Then add the stuff he was taking from Paul and using it to make earthly stories, it accounts for everything.

You have stated (above) that you agree with Carrier's opinion...that G-Mark was fabricated from Paul's writings.
Is that correct? Yes/No

Apart from never ceasing mentions of the last meal, execution and resurrection Paul never wrote a sentence about anything that Jesus ever said or did. Or can you show differently?
I think not.

"probably true"??? Huh? Are the Mormon revelations "probably true" as well?

My opinions are my own.
Don't load me with other stuff.

We have not researched and discovered any miracles, ever, in any time, today or any other period.

Every miracle mentioned in G-Mark could have had a temporal reason.
Pick a difficult one and try me, but first you must answer my question about Carrier.

 

[Andrew Stephen]

Peace to all,

To me and in logic, through the Power of Divine Will of God, Temporarily saved are the souls in the Bosom of Abraham. Picked to carry the chosen sacrifice are the Isralites and the Arc of the Covenant. The Ark of the New Covenant, new life to the Body resurrects flesh through the New Living Sacrifice that closes the Chasm of the Bosom of Abraham, and with flesh, The Christ with the Old Covenant saved closed the Chasm of Death, tears down it's walls and binds and destroys death forever and resurrects the Eternal Life God swore to Abraham and Isaac, all of the descendants, all mankind resurrected Life to the spirits and Bodies of his descendants. Picked to carry forward the New Living Sacrifice today is all mankind becoming His image in the New Living Sacrifice the our own New Body of God through Our Christ, Jesus, the First Christ to be reborn into Heaven for all mankind as united becoming the image of the Father. Birth of the first soul back to the New Kingdom is the blood and water that flowed from the Christ on the Cross for all minkinds' rebirth out of the Bosom of Abraham and with Christ, into the New Heaven. To me in logic through The Power, we become united as one in being with all mankind together with the Father and the Son glorified and transfigured in His image through The Creator, God for the Father.

To me the miracles are in the wondrous mysteries of The Faith, transforming from mortal and corrupt from Adam and Eve becoming immortal and incorruptible through The Body of Christ and becoming again into the image of The Father, glorified and transfigured.

"Bosom of Abraham" refers to the place of comfort in the biblical Sheol (or Hades in the Greek Septuagint version of the Hebrew scriptures from around 200 BC, and therefore so described in the New Testament) where the righteous dead await Judgment Day.

To me the logic is the final judgment through the flesh becoming sanctified by the Holy Spirit as united as one in being through The Christ in all mankind to become again, out of the Bosom of Abraham, resurrected life of the flesh recombined with the souls in the spirits awaiting with the angels and saints and martyrs, glorified and transfigured into the image of The Creator, for God the Father in the New Heaven and Earth, Heaven.

In logic it is the dead in the flesh that He comes to save, the souls awaiting in the Bosom of Abraham. The Christ, Jesus in the Holy Spirit Will Power of the Father makes good His promise to fulfill the Promise make to Abraham and Isaac, resurrected life to all of his descendants and fulfills the promise with Jesus, The Christ, in all mankind united as one in being together with the Father and the Son, glorified and transfigured becoming His image. Safe in the House of Shoel are the souls. In logic and faith Jesus returns to resurrect the dead in the flesh from the Bosom of Abraham, the eternal life sworn to Abraham by God by His own name with the new living sacrifice that closes death and resurrects the Souls of the spirits saved from The Ark of the Old Covenant fulfilled by The Christ in all mankind, the Will of the Father in the Bodies of All and of those awaiting in Sheol from the Bosom of Abraham to New Life.

Peace always,
Stephen Andrew

 

[1213]

The only OT reference in this list is Psalms. First it's not saying anything about death or dead people. It's saying righteous people will inherit the land and those people will inherit it forever, for their sons and daughters.

But even if it means some sort of afterlife, Living on the earth forever isn't a soul going to heaven now is it, a Greek idea. Funny how you manage to overlook blaring inconsistencies when you cite an example from POETRY?!?!?!?!

Ok, so what about these, are these also too poetic to be valid?

Riches don't profit in the day of wrath, But righteousness delivers from death.
Prov. 11:4
The wicked is brought down in his calamity, But in death, the righteous has a refuge.
Prov. 14:32

3:29 Ecclesiastes 3 “A time to be born a time to die”, nothing about being reborn or reincarnation. Adam and Eve - “dust you are and dust shall you return” The ancient Hebrew view of death.

I think it is good to notice the end part of Ecclesiastes also:

And the dust returns to the earth as it was, And the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Eccl. 12:7

 

[Andrew Stephen]

Peace to all,

So true, Thanks.
Like
And the dust returns to the earth as it was, And the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Eccl. 12:7

To me in logic, the Will of the Father is from the spirit of Creation through the flesh, the Body becoming The Transformed Christ in all for the souls of the Bodies of all mankind becoming again gloriously transfigured into His image as one.

To me in logic the Will of the Father is born sanctified from the spirit through the flesh of the Immaculate Conception in the Virgin Birth of the Christ, from the mortal and corrupt bodies of Adam and Eve becoming transformed immortal and incorruptible from the living waters and spirit of Baptism as sanctified.

Re-Sanctified from the Holy Spirit conceived through the Baptized flesh for the soul of Jesus in The Christ in all mankind we become again through Sacrifice and Communion with Him in Penance for Atonement and re-Confirmation Absolved of fallibility and defilement through the Will of the Creator transfigured glorified into the image of God, for The Father.

To me the logic of the Virgin Birth of Earth is blood and water birth creates the soul and The Christ's Soul is pre-existant as the Will of the Father in the Soul of Jesus. There is no blood and water birth for The Christ on earth because Jesus soul was present before creation was ever created was even created. From the cross the blood and waters flow for the New Creation through Jesus, the new birth of all mankind's Christ for all to share from Jesus as the "First" Christ, to enter into the Kingdom. Jesus in the Will of The Father is the Christ in us as shared in union as one in being together with the Father and The Son, Glorified and Transfigured.

Peace always,
Stephen Andrew

 

[joelr]

Your hubris is laughable.

I'm not interested in what you find laughable, but we can discuss that briefly because it's a huge fail for you.
You said
"All of these? Really? Painting with an absurdly broad brush is a technique best reserved for whitewashes and smears."

This is true hubris, you know so much about the fields that you can point out my remarks are "absurdly broad" and likened my post to "smears".
Yet, you show zero actual knowledge that there are actually 2 completely different fields of study here, theology and critical-historical studies.
So if Ehrman's words were not enough, let's try another historical scholar?

"So What About Hannibal, Then? • Richard Carrier Blogs

All mainstream scholars agree Jesus as demigod is a mythical savior deity. They all agree the Gospels are myths about him. They simply conclude that those myths contain some kernels of fact, and that Jesus was originally not a flying, magic-wielding supergod. But they agree the super-Jesus, the only Jesus about whom we have any accounts at all, didn’t exist. They think some mundane Jesus did, who was dressed up with those legends and beliefs later. But that still admits he belongs to a reference class that the Hannibals of the world do not: that of mythically-attested savior gods who speak to their followers in dreams and visions. So we actually need more evidence for Jesus than we have for Hannibal, to be sure Jesus isn’t just like all other mythical savior gods, who also had amazing stories about them set on earth history, and who also appeared to people in dreams and visions—yet never plausibly existed."


You can frame this how ever you want, you were wrong with that comparison and don't seem to know the difference between theology and historical studies. There is a massive difference. There is such a huge difference that the first apologist, Justin Martyr wrote in Dialogues with Trypho, Ch 69, -(paraphrased) Jesus looks like all the Greek demigods because the devil/demons, who live in the air, influenced these cultures to make up religions about demigods who would look just like Jesus in deeds, acts, theology, to fool future Christians into thinking he is just another Hellenized cult.

If you come at me like that , expect it in return. Seems you can dish it but the opposite, not so much.

FWIW, my study of such scholars stretches back to my early days on iidb.

If you don't know the basic concept that theology is an assumption that the Quran/Bible/whatever revelations are in the Holy book, are words from God and history is what does the evidence show about the origins of the myths, what do early original language versions say, what do historians of the period say, what do other cultures say, how syncretic is the theology, how has it changed over the centuries? What does the Temple finds show, what does literary analysis show. What is Greco-Roman biography like for the 300 years leading up to the Gospels? Do they routinely make up eyewitnesses, claims of miracles, what was the original conception of Yahweh and how does it compare to the surrounding Near Eastern deities of other nations. And so on.

Here at RF, in response to a question about my knowledge of the NT, I responded ...


Note that this was back in 2009, roughly a decade and a half before your bloviated attempt to impress.

Waving credentials doesn't help if you are unaware of a basic concept between apologetics and history.

The ad-hom, attacking my post just shows incredible insecurity. As well as more of the same, a lack of knowledge. Because you are not even saying anything beyond "look...I studied Bible stuff, a lot" Good for you, didn't help you here.

My attempt isn't to "impress", it's to spread knowledge. The harder you try to put me in this make-believe bad light, the more desperate you look. I'm just correcting your rude post. You are making it worse for yourself. Funny, the post is "bloviated", yet you cannot demonstrate I'm wrong? Or even add to the topic beyond sending some resume I don't care about.

No doubt you'll keep trying.

Putting forth knowledge, yes. Being attacked by bhurt people, probably will also happen sometimes.

What a surprise, no comment on the actual topic. Huh.


Here is a 30 second clip of Francesca Stavrakopoulou Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter. Speaking on the difference between theology and history:

Yes I read her book.

 

[Augustus]

What claims? I never said mythicism is definitely true. The difference is we have a real person, with records from many sources, witnesses writing during his life. What we can say for sure is that many people had these Greek myths put onto their story.

You do keep pasting text that asserts all similar gods were entirely mythical.

We now know this to be false.

On the other hand, all "gods" who emerged in a similar time scale to their purported lives are based on real people, with mythical elements attached to them.

If Jesus was entirely mythical, he would be unique in this timescale, unless you can give an example that shows otherwise.

That is my point, weather it's based on a person or fully made up, it's still a mythology.

Of course the Bible contains mythical elements. This has never been disputed by me.

" Antinous was almost instantly revered as a dying-and-reviving god,"... At any rate there is no "human" story here like with Antinous. This is hardly "instantly".

The timeline of material we have for Jesus is perfectly compatible with his rapid deification.

We would not expect a poor Jew to appear in the historical record in a similar time to someone with Imperial patronage.

Near contemporary sources are generally considered pretty good for most ancient historical people and events.

So what? We have evidence about the founder of Bahai, the prophet, all types, even details about his execution.
Even better for Joseph Smith. Doesn't mean they were giving true information.

Who is arguing that the Gospels, etc are "true"? I'm certainly not.

My point is narratives about the real founders of religions are almost always highly mythologised so the fact that the Gospels are mythological/theological in nature is not particularly useful to argue against his existence. It is simply what we would expect even for a real person.

Some historians believe (since their were Christian churches set up in Rome) that the Emperor choose Christianity because his mother was Christian and he needed a political way to unify Rome.

And the best way to "unify" Rome was to adopt a religion that was not followed by 95% of the Roman elite or the soldiers he needed to keep him in power?

That line of argument has never made a great deal of sense to me and seems to be anachronistic and excessively reliant on reading history backwards from a result we know but they didn't.

 

[joelr]

So whom do you parrot about quantum theory?

What you are trying to put in a negative light already has a name, it's called "learning".

I follow physics from the early days, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein and his SR/GR, QM from the 20's, later additions from Dirac, Pauli, Murray-Gell-Man, Paul Davies is my favorite modern author. Feynman also. And many more.

You're soon going to parrot Carrier, I see....that will be fun!

No, I might source some of his work, or some other historian working on the OT, NT, Acts, Synoptic Problem, archaeology.
Working on some James Tabor right now. Hellenism and it's influence on the NT specialist.

I have studied G-Mark and it looks like the most likely account of the life and times of Jesus.
And I can discuss why.......ok,?

It looks to be written in the Greek school of Greco-Roman biography. Fake eyewitnesses, miracles, he teaches in parables abut the book contains parables in the plot.
Easily compares to the Romulus narrative, definite re-writes of Elijah and Moses with Jesus as the lead. Literary analysis shows, ring structure, chiasmus, things that don't happen in real life but happen in carefully constructed fiction.

See here for examples of this, taken from Carrier's book, taken from scholars who worked on this.

The Gospels as Allegorical Myth, Part I of 4: Mark

Previously, I’ve written about the historicity of Jesus, and mentioned how the most recent analysis, in Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus (the first comprehensive, academica…

lagevondissen.wordpress.com

There are examples of ring structure used, the parallels between Mark’s Jesus and that of Jesus ben Ananias as found in Josephus’ writings, the many OT stories re-written for Jesus, even the crucifixion uses Psalms:

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?”


There is also massive use of the Epistles to create earthly events, given here in Carrier's blog but taken from these papers:

Mark's Use of Paul's Epistles • Richard Carrier Blogs

Many studies have argued the Gospel that came to be labeled “according to Mark” based some of its content on the Epistles of Paul. Here I’ll discuss this scholarship and its evidence. “Mark” is of course the earliest Gospel we have any surviving text or even any real evidence of. It was then...

www.richardcarrier.info

The principal works to consult on this (all of which from peer reviewed academic presses) are:

• Michael Bird & Joel Willitts, Paul and the Gospels: Christologies, Conflicts and Convergences (T&T Clark 2011)
• David Oliver Smith, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul: The Influence of the Epistles on the Synoptic Gospels (Resource 2011)
• Tom Dykstra, Mark: Canonizer of Paul (OCABS 2012)
• Oda Wischmeyer & David Sim, eds., Paul and Mark: Two Authors at the Beginnings of Christianity (de Gruyter 2014)
• Eve-Marie Becker et al., Mark and Paul: For and Against Pauline Influence on Mark (De Gruyter 2014)
• Thomas Nelligan, The Quest for Mark’s Sources: An Exploration of the Case for Mark’s Use of First Corinthians (Pickwick 2015)
• Christine Jacobi, Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus? Analogien zwischen den echten Paulusbriefen und den synoptischen Evangelien (De Gruyter 2015).
• Mar Pérez I. Díaz, Jesus in the Light of Paul’s Theology (Mohr Siebeck 2020).
• John-Christian Eurell, “Paul and the Jesus Tradition: Reconsidering the Relationship Between Paul and the Synoptics,” Journal of Early Christian History 12.2 (2022): 1-16.

As Carrier says, there is literally nothing left after you take the sources out.

Conclusion​

Mark composed his mythical tale of Jesus using many different sources: most definitely the Septuagint, probably Homer, and, here we can see, probably also Paul’s Epistles. From these, and his own creative impulses, he weaved together a coherent string of implausible tales in which neither people nor nature behave the way they would in reality, each and every one with allegorical meaning or missionary purpose. Once we account for all this material, there is very little left. In fact, really, nothing left.

We have very good evidence for all these sources. For example, that Mark emulates stories and lifts ideas from the Psalms, Deuteronomy, the Kings literature, and so on, is well established and not rationally deniable. That he likewise lifts from and riffs on Paul’s Epistles is, as you can now see, fairly hard to deny. By contrast, we have exactly no evidence whatever that anything in Mark came to him by oral tradition. It is thus curious that anyone still assumes some of it did. That Mark’s sources and methods were literary is well proved. That any of his sources or methods were oral in character is, by contrast, a baseless presumption. Objective, honest scholarship will have to acknowledge this someday.

Mark looks like the memoirs of a person who was a witness, recorded by another who may have been a partial witness.

Mark looks completely invented. He took the Epistles and made earthly stories. Gave him a family and events that took place.
Wild inconsistencies, people don't just leave families to starve to follow one of the many preachers. Rome has no record and would not release a murderer.The entire thing is a Jewish version of the Greek mystery religion, right down to the mystery religion terminology.

Paul knows of no such thing, he only knows Jesus after he was resurrected, in spirit form and was killed by the - 'Archons of this age' .

Mark invented everything else based on all those sources and Greek Hellenistic theology. In the OT the dead sleep in Sheol.
A soul going to heaven is not a Hebrew idea. Judaism eventually came up with bodily resurrection for certain people. On earth.
This was Greek resurrection.

James Tabor:

31:29 “Some will awake”, the dead wake up, not that they have an immortal soul. “We have to get that straight, everybody confuses the Greek idea of the immortal soul with resurrection of the dead” Daniel is talking about waking the dead from Sheol.



35:14 Dr Tabor “People are so confused, they mix up immortal soul, life everlasting, resurrection of the dead, sleeping in the dust and so forth. In the later period we are talking about 3 different cultures, we have the ancient Egyptians, we have the Greek developing out of Homer into the Platonic/Hellenistic dualism, then you have the early Jews and Christians developing resurrection of the dead. Very distinct ideas developing in the Hellenistic period.

Everything in Mark is an older. story.

Here are the parallels between Mark’s Jesus and just 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.

Or the Barabbas story, no such thing is ever recorded by Rome, letting a murder loose?

This ceremony quite obviously emulates the Jewish Yom Kippur ritual, namely the scapegoat and atonement, one goat is set free (Barabbas) and one is killed to take in the sins of Israel (Jesus).

Since there is quite a bit of evidence that the earliest Christians believed that Jesus’ death served to merge the sacrifices of the Passover and Yom Kippur, it is surely no coincidence that Mark appears to have done just that, by having Jesus be a Yom Kippur sacrifice during Passover.

You have stated (above) that you agree with Carrier's opinion...that G-Mark was fabricated from Paul's writings.
Is that correct? Yes/No

I gave you the blog post that summarizes the scholarship on that. There is also Romulus, Jesus ben Ananias, several OT stories that were borrowed from, Homer, and Greek ideas of personal salvation, spiritual resurrection through the passion of a savior demigod, communal meal and so on.

It's not Carrier's opinion. It's his summary of 9 peer-reviewed papers by scholars who study Paul and the Gospels.

 

[joelr]

Apart from never ceasing mentions of the last meal, execution and resurrection Paul never wrote a sentence about anything that Jesus ever said or did. Or can you show differently?
I think not.

You do not seem to understand what Mark did. This example might help:






Paradigmatic Example: The Last Supper


Another example is “the last supper.” This began as a vision Paul had of Jesus relating to him what he spoke mystically to all future generations of Christians, as we see in 1 Corinthians 11:23-27. As Paul there says, he received this “from the Lord.” Directly. Just as he says he received all his teachings (Galatians 1:11-12; Romans 10:14-15; Romans 16:25-26). In Paul’s version, no one else is present. It is not a “last” supper (as if Jesus had had any others before), but merely “the bread and cup of the Lord.” And Jesus is not speaking to “disciples” but to the whole Christian Church unto the end of time—including Paul and his congregations.






The text in Paul reads as follows (translating the Greek as literally as I can):






For I received from the Lord what I also handed over to you, that the Lord Jesus, during the night he was handed over, took bread, and having given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in the remembrance of me.” Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, as often as you might drink it in remembrance of me.” For as often as you might eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.


1 Corinthians 11:23-26


Notably, “until he comes,” and not “until he returns.” This becomes in Mark (emphasis added):






While they were eating, having taken bread, and having blessed it, he broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “Take; this is my body.” Then, having taken a cup, and having given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, that never again shall I drink from the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.” And having sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.


Mark 14:22-26


Notice what’s changed. Paul is describing Jesus miming some actions and explaining their importance. His audience is future Christians. Mark has transformed this into a narrative story by adding people being present and having Jesus interact with them: now “they were eating” (Paul does not mention anyone actually eating) and Jesus gave the bread “to them” (does not occur in Paul) and instructs them to “take” it (no such instruction in Paul); and Jesus gave the cup “to them” (does not occur in Paul) and “they all drink it” (no such event in Paul); and Jesus describes the meaning of the cup “to them” (no such audience in Paul)



Then Jesus says he will not drink “again” until the kingdom comes, a statement that fits a narrative event, implying Jesus drank, and here drank, and often drank, and will pause drinking until the end times. Likewise Jesus “blesses” the bread (which also doesn’t happen in Paul), implying the actual literal bread he has in his hand is thereby rendered special to the ones about to eat it; whereas in Paul that makes no sense, because no one is there to eat it, Jesus is just depicting and explaining a ritual others will perform in his honor, not that he is performing for them. So it is notable that all of these things are absent from Paul. There is no narrative context of this being the last of many cups Jesus has drunk and of Jesus pausing drinking or of his blessing the bread and giving it to people present. In Paul, the whole scene is an instruction to future followers, not a description of a meal Jesus once had.



This is how Mark reifies a revelation in Paul, relating Jesus’s celestial instructions for performing a sacrament and its meaning, into a narrative historical event. Mark has even taken Paul’s language, about Jesus being “handed over,” which in Paul means by God (Romans 8:32, exact same word) and even by himself (Galatians 2:20, exact same word), not by Judas, and converted it into a whole new narrative of a betrayal by “the Jews” (the meaning of Judas, i.e. Judah, i.e. Judea). Paul has no knowledge of a betrayal. Indeed in Paul, all of “the twelve” get to see Jes

My opinions are my own.

By what facts did you form these opinions, how did you verify these facts? I don't care about opinions, I care about what is true. So I want to know what the people trained to study all aspects of this text have to say.

Don't load me with other stuff.

It's relevant. If you just "claim" a book is true, well so does Islam, so does Mormons. Not a path to truth. You don't get to use special logic for a story because you believe it. Doesn't work that way.

Every miracle mentioned in G-Mark could have had a temporal reason.

A miracle has never been demonstrated.

Greco-Roman biographies, which the Gospels are, have been known to prop up the main character with false eyewitnesses, miracles, exorcisms and all types of supernatural powers. Many examples are given in papers about this. This was common practice at the time.

That explanation is 99.9% likely to be the reason.

Pick a difficult one and try me, but first you must answer my question about Carrier.

There are no difficult ones, they are typical fiction from the period and style of writing. All gods did miracles and exorcisms. They are made up stories.

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.


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?w


A Greek Epitaph on gravestones in 3-100 BCE - "

“I am a child of earth and starry heaven but heaven alone is my home.”


"That is not the Hebrew view, that is not the ancient Jewish view that is not the early Christian view. Because they stuck with the Hebrew ideas that humans are mortal and die and go to Sheol or Hades but can be raised from the dead and be given the gift of eternal life." Dr Tabor

 

[joelr]

Ok, so what about these, are these also too poetic to be valid?

Riches don't profit in the day of wrath, But righteousness delivers from death.
Prov. 11:4
The wicked is brought down in his calamity, But in death, the righteous has a refuge.
Prov. 14:32

Nothing about any afterlife, Jewish resurrection or Greek souls going to heaven.


Proverbs 14:32 is a proverb that contrasts the fate of the wicked and the righteous in the face of adversity:

• The wicked
  When calamity strikes, the wicked are brought down and have no comfort or help. They are driven out of life by their sins, which cling to them until the end.
• The righteous
  Even in death, the righteous seek refuge in God. They experience trials with the Lord alongside them, who helps and comforts them.
  

"Until the end"
"Even in death" they seek comfort, because death is the end in early Judaism.

This demonstrates my point exactly. First comes resurrection of the dead for special people, God has to will their body back to life.
This was the NT view

"

31:29 “Some will awake”, the dead wake up, not that they have an immortal soul. “We have to get that straight, everybody confuses the Greek idea of the immortal soul with resurrection of the dead” Daniel is talking about waking the dead from Sheol.



35:14 Dr Tabor “People are so confused, they mix up immortal soul, life everlasting, resurrection of the dead, sleeping in the dust and so forth. In the later period we are talking about 3 different cultures, we have the ancient Egyptians, we have the Greek developing out of Homer into the Platonic/Hellenistic dualism, then you have the early Jews and Christians developing resurrection of the dead. Very distinct ideas developing in the Hellenistic period.

I think it is good to notice the end part of Ecclesiastes also:

And the dust returns to the earth as it was, And the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Eccl. 12:7

Yes, returns to God, not lives with God in an afterlife.


"Ecclesiastes 12:7 states, "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it". This verse is interpreted to mean that when a person dies, their spirit returns to God, their body returns to dust, and their soul no longer exists.

My understanding of Ecclesiastes 12:7 is that mortal bodies return to the dust, and, to use a poetic figure of speech, a divinely originating rûaḥ, a life breath or life force, leaves the body. This animating power, perhaps the Light of Christ,[31] “returns to God” at mortal death.

The "Spirit" that Returns to God in Ecclesiastes 12:7 | Religious Studies Center

Ecclesiastes 12:7: Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. (King James Version, hereafter cited as KJV) and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it. (New Revised Standard Version, hereafter...

rsc.byu.edu

Religious Studies Center



Also, wow, this cherry picking is absurd. None of these passages mean what you want it to mean, yet you seem to ignore other passages that are very clear about no afterlife. As well as all other apologists. They convienantly forget this:


Job 14


“At least there is hope for a tree:
If it is cut down, it will sprout again,
and its new shoots will not fail.
8 Its roots may grow old in the ground
and its stump die in the soil,
9 yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth shoots like a plant.
10 But a man dies and is laid low;
he breathes his last and is no more.
11 As the water of a lake dries up
or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,
12 so he lies down and does not rise;
till the heavens are no more, people will not awake
or be roused from their sleep.
13 “If only you would hide me in the grave
and conceal me till your anger has passed!
If only you would set me a time
and then remember me!
14 If someone dies, will they live again?
All the days of my hard service
I will wait for my renewal[b] to come.
15 You will call and I will answer you;
you will long for the creature your hands have made.
16 Surely then you will count my steps
but not keep track of my sin.
17 My offenses will be sealed up in a bag;
you will cover over my sin.
18 “But as a mountain erodes and crumbles
and as a rock is moved from its place,
19 as water wears away stones
and torrents wash away the soil,
so you destroy a person’s hope.
20 You overpower them once for all, and they are gone;
you change their countenance and send them away.
21 If their children are honored, they do not know it;
if their offspring are brought low, they do not see it.
22 They feel but the pain of their own bodies
and mourn only for themselves.”

Again, Tabor goes over Jewish first ideas of an afterlife in Daniel (from Persian influence) is not the Greek version.
√




29:50 Daniel 12:1 First mention of dead people awakening. A new idea that the dead will wake up. Not that we have an immortal soul.


31:29 “Some will awake”, the dead wake up, not that they have an immortal soul. “We have to get that straight, everybody confuses the Greek idea of the immortal soul with resurrection of the dead” Daniel is talking about waking the dead from Sheol.





35:14 Dr Tabor “People are so confused, they mix up immortal soul, life everlasting, resurrection of the dead, sleeping in the dust and so forth. In the later period we are talking about 3 different cultures, we have the ancient Egyptians, we have the Greek developing out of Homer into the Platonic/Hellenistic dualism, then you have the early Jews and Christians developing resurrection of the dead. Very distinct ideas developing in the Hellenistic period.





36:50 We are going to move on next lecture to more on Hellenistic dualism and how resurrection of the dead takes over. By the time of Jesus we have the Pharisees and the Essenes who are saying we need resurrection for God to be just.


The Sadducees (like Job’s friends saying) no, the Bible says when you die you die, there is no resurrection.


They are not interested in the book of Daniel. There is this debate going on from the Maccabees down through the first century, obviously resurrection triumphs for a while but finally the Platonic view takes over the world. Basically today when people talk about the afterlife, they are not even considering the other views, when I die my body goes to dust, there is no eschatology, I go to a home beyond. It goes back to those golden plates “I am a child of earth and starry heaven but heaven alone is my home.” That is not the Hebrew view, that is not the ancient Jewish view that is not the early Christian view. Because they stuck with the Hebrew ideas that humans are mortal and die and go to Sheol or Hades but can be raised from the dead and be given the gift of eternal life.

 

[joelr]

You do keep pasting text that asserts all similar gods were entirely mythical.

We now know this to be false.

On the other hand, all "gods" who emerged in a similar time scale to their purported lives are based on real people, with mythical elements attached to them.

If Jesus was entirely mythical, he would be unique in this timescale, unless you can give an example that shows otherwise.

Yes Emperors and some other people were raised to the status of a god and were real people.

The Mystery religions were religions, like Judaism that was occupied and influenced by Greek colonists and all created a savior son/daughter of the supreme God. We know of none of these based on real people.
"

Most of what we mean by Christianity is Jewish, it comes from Judaism. If we go back many centuries we can talk about the surrounding cultures that influenced Judaism and Egypt would be one of them, among several others. Christians probably were not even aware of this as it was centuries old by then.


Most of it is borrowing this package of ideas called the Mystery cults, which was a Hellenized version of local tribal cults. We have a Syrian version, we have a Persian version, an Egyptian version, it’s the same package that spreads from the Greek colonists. It’s very Greek but borrows from local cultures.


For example, Osirus Mysteries was different from the Osirus religion. It was a merger between Greek ideas and local native Egyptian ideas. We see the same in the other mysteries.


When Judaism did the same thing and created Christianity, it borrowed the same package, it’s borrowing a generic package that all the cultures bought. Not just Egypt. "

None of those cults were based on real people.

The timeline of material we have for Jesus is perfectly compatible with his rapid deification.

It's also compatible with the mystery cults, like the Osirus religions became the Osirus Mysteries.

We would not expect a poor Jew to appear in the historical record in a similar time to someone with Imperial patronage.

Someone with Imperial patronage has massive amounts of evidence he was a real person.

Near contemporary sources are generally considered pretty good for most ancient historical people and events.

What sources?

Who is arguing that the Gospels, etc are "true"? I'm certainly not.

My point is narratives about the real founders of religions are almost always highly mythologised so the fact that the Gospels are mythological/theological in nature is not particularly useful to argue against his existence. It is simply what we would expect even for a real person.

That isn't the argument for mythicism.

And the best way to "unify" Rome was to adopt a religion that was not followed by 95% of the Roman elite or the soldiers he needed to keep him in power?

50% of the Roman Soldiers were Mithrian. They didn't care what the soldiers did at first.

That line of argument has never made a great deal of sense to me and seems to be anachronistic and excessively reliant on reading history backwards from a result we know but they didn't.

Rome eased christianity into becoming the state religion.

• The Edict of Milan
  In 313, the Edict of Milan made the empire officially neutral towards religious worship, neither making Christianity the state religion nor making traditional religions illegal.
  
  
  
  
• The emergence of the papacy
  The papacy and the construction of catacombs gave the Roman Church great influence and prestige.
  
  
  
  
• Constantine's patronage
  Constantine built great basilicas and elevated the status of the Pope.
  
  
  
  
• Christian festivals
  Christian festivals were incorporated into the Roman calendar, along with some traditional festivals.
  
  
  
  
• Early Christian practices
  Early Christians met in private homes, and the first building used primarily as a church was built in the early 3rd century. Smaller house churches were led by their own presbyters or elders

 

[joelr]

Peace to all,

Did Jesus Christ Actually Exist?​

The Word in logic to me is the eternal law of infallibility of Creation. And The Word existed before creation was ever created was even created as the Eternal Priestly Authority and Spirit and Life of Eternity.

You have to demonstrate a "word" existing before creation.
You are just talking the natural world, which we do not know was created, and adding nonsense words. I could do this for anything. Nothing exists, except a "priestly authority" exists. Talk about lack of logic.

You have to demonstrate how and why even the concept of "priestly authority" existed before creation existed. Priestly is an invented concept from people. Nothing in nature suggests a "priestly authority" has anything to do with reality.

You haven't demonstrated reality is even created. Never mind Hellenistic savior demigods. Any Hindu can just switch this to Krishna, any Muslim can switch this to Allah. Makes no sense still but you cannot get to a specific deity with this word salad.

And the Word through the spirit will of God is conceived by the person of the Father

So creation doesn't exist but "fathers" exist? Which means you need male/female, that makes no sense. You are also taking the concept of a fundamental being at the base of reality, which cannot be proven. This fundament does not need top be a "being" does not need to be conscious.
We see unconscious creative forces at work in the universe, this may extend all the way to the fundament of reality.

adding a "being" to this is a human-mad concept. We are beings so we want the base of reality to be a being. It doesn't need be and cannot be demonstrated.

in the person in being through the flesh of the person in the Body of Christ, the Eternal Priestly Authority and New Living Sacrifice, as fulfilled Isaac delivered through the Ark of the New Covenant and from the Faith of Abraham, the Father of Faith.

Abraham is the fictional founder. In myth peoples names gives away their function. In Hebrew Abraham means "father of a multitude".

The Israelites began writing myths around 600 BCE, after return from Exile. Like many other nations they wrote about an original founder way back. But it's fiction, before 1200 BCE, Israelites were Canaanites and worshipped different Gods.
When they left Canaan they needed their own myths to create their own identity.
But Yahweh is no different than other typical Near Eastern deities in the original Hebrew books of the OT.

Jesus is a later development, when Greek Hellenism was combined with Judaism.


Nice overview of where scholarship is at now:


During the period of the Second Temple (c.515 BC – 70 AD), the Hebrew people lived under the rule of first the Persian Achaemenid Empire, (Persian) then the Greek kingdoms of the Diadochi, and finally the Roman Empire.[47] Their culture was profoundly influenced by those of the peoples who ruled them.[47] Consequently, their views on existence after death were profoundly shaped by the ideas of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans.[48][49] The idea of the immortality of the soul is derived from Greek philosophy[49] and the idea of the resurrection of the dead is derived from Persian cosmology.[49]

By the early first century AD, these two seemingly incompatible ideas were often conflated by Hebrew thinkers.[49] The Hebrews also inherited from the Persians, Greeks, and Romans the idea that the human soul originates in the divine realm and seeks to return there.[47] The idea that a human soul belongs in Heaven and that Earth is merely a temporary abode in which the soul is tested to prove its worthiness became increasingly popular during the Hellenistic period (323 – 31 BC).[40]

Gradually, some Hebrews began to adopt the idea of Heaven as the eternal home of the righteous dead.[40]


(Sanders, Wright, Lincoln) historical scholars.

Jesus is the personal deliverer of the person of the intelligence of the Word, the eternal priestly authority who became flesh that existed before creation was ever created was even created in the power of the Holy Spirit Will of the Creator, God the Father.

Word. Salad. Jesus didn't exist in Judaism until Persian messianism took hold and they began predicting a messiah. Josephus writes about many messiah figures, none were Jesus.

When the Greeks invaded in 167 BCE then Hellenism was introduced. Personal salvation, dying/rising savior demigods, immortl souls that return home to heaven. All Greek ideas borrowed by the NT.
Jewish resurrection at that point was bodily resurrection from the grave, not an immortal soul.

What was left for all mankind is the Holy Spirit being Will of God person for all to share, the fulfilled faith and morality and the spirit being Christ, the infallible logic for the manifiestation from the "Holy" spirit power through the new flesh, the New Eve for the souls of the beings in the Body of God, as one in being together with the Father and the Son glorified and transfigured as one in God in being.

Judaism maintains monotheism (another Persian borrowing) is the only true doctrine so Christianity had to make some type of argument to make it all work.
The Hindu Trimurti was also a trinity and around since 1600 BCE. Nothing new.

• Rigveda
  The Rigveda, written between 1700–1100 BC, mentions that the supreme lord has three aspects, and that Vishnu and Shiva are two of his significant avatars.
  
  
  
  
• Maitri Upanishad
  The Maitri Upanishad, written between 800–400 BC, mentions the combination of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.
  
  
  
  
• Poem “Birth of the War God”
  The first mention of the Trimurti itself was in a poem written in the 4th or 5th century AD.
  
  
  
  
• Puranas
  The Puranas, written around AD 300, defined the roles of the Trimurti in caring for the cosmos.
  
  
  
  
• Temples
  Temples dedicated to the Trimurti can be seen as early as the 6th century CE.
  
  
  
  
• Doctrine of the Trimurti
  This doctrine, which considers Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva as three forms of the supreme deity, was developed by the middle of the 1st millennium CE.

We know to keep open the doors to all for salvation for the One God in united being.

Hellenism is all about personal salvation, getting to the afterlife with your eternal soul. Not original to Christianity. It's a Greek mythology and no more real because the NT authors used it.



Dr Tabor
“People are so confused, they mix up immortal soul, life everlasting, resurrection of the dead, sleeping in the dust and so forth. In the later period we are talking about 3 different cultures, we have the ancient Egyptians, we have the Greek developing out of Homer into the Platonic/Hellenistic dualism, then you have the early Jews and Christians developing resurrection of the dead. Very distinct ideas developing in the Hellenistic period.

Peace always,
Stephen Andrew
There is no greater work possible than for the salvation of souls

As Dr Tabor said, it's a Greek myth. They had gravestones on 300 BCE that said:

"
“I am a child of earth and starry heaven but heaven alone is my home.”

That is not the Hebrew view, that is not the ancient Jewish view that is not the early Christian view. Because they stuck with the Hebrew ideas that humans are mortal and die and go to Sheol or Hades but can be raised from the dead and be given the gift of eternal life. James Tabor

magicians, and healers—e.g., John the Baptist, Jesus, Simon Magus, Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander the Paphlagonian, and the cult of the healer Asclepius—whose preaching corresponded to the activities of various Greek and Roman philosophic missionaries

 

[Augustus]

Yes Emperors and some other people were raised to the status of a god and were real people.

And other people, for example, Jesus.

In this cultural environment, humans can become gods, that is all that matters.

The cultural trope exists, and those it is applied to are deified close to their purported lives, whereas mythical gods exist in ancient/mythical time

When Judaism did the same thing and created Christianity, it borrowed the same package, it’s borrowing a generic package that all the cultures bought. Not just Egypt. "

The idea that it "borrowed a generic package" is somewhat dubious. The idea that you "borrow" your own culture is also a somewhat dubious assertion

Idea that emerge in the same environment often reflect this common cultural environment rather than a direct causal relationship.

“Most connections between stories leave no paper trail. Large distances of space and time and moth holes in the historical record make constructing causative relations between texts almost impossible and more often jejune. We need to think of the relations between the gospels and Greek lore more as dynamic cultural interaction: the complex, random, conscious and unconscious events of learning that occur when people interact and engage in practices of socialization... Greek mythology was part of the “pre-understanding” of all those who lived in Hellenistic culture—including Jews and Christians.

To be sure, early Jews and Christians developed their own subcultures, which sometimes assumed an oppositional stance toward the dominant culture. Yet these subcultures were still enmeshed in the dominant culture and competitively adapted its ideas and practices. Even the rigorist Jewish Essenes, who sequestered themselves in the Judean desert, employed astrological, calendrical, organizational, and scribal practices common to the Hellenistic world..

In this sense, early Jews and Christians were inevitably influenced by the dominant cultural lore. Greek mythic discourses were part of the mainstream, urban culture to which most early Christians belonged. If Christians were socialized in predominantly Greek cultural environments, it is no surprise that they were shaped by the dominant stories. Some of the influence would have been consciously experienced through the educational system. Other influences would have been absorbed by attending plays, viewing works of art, hearing poetry, and simply conversing on a daily basis with Hellenized peoples in the many marketplaces of ideas.”

How the Gospels Became History - David Litwa;


In this cultural environment humans can become gods, they can be reborn and give salvation/deliverance.

All of the "gods" created close to their purported lives were real humans, all the entirely mythical gods lived in ancient or mythical times.

Jesus' timeline better matches a human founder, as you are unable to offer a similar timescale for any purely mythical deity.

That isn't the argument for mythicism.

There isn't "an" argument for mythicism, there are many. It is one of them.

50% of the Roman Soldiers were Mithrian. They didn't care what the soldiers did at first.

They certainly cared that the soldiers supported them though. He promoted Christianity despite its disadvantages, not because it was a great tool to unify non-Christians behind him.

Rome eased christianity into becoming the state religion.

Christianity gradually became more accepted and this was facilitated by imperial support yes. It could easily have gone the other way though.

The idea that Constantine was trying to "unite the empire" by adopting a minority religion that was neither popular with the elites or popular with soldiers seems like a massive reach.

Being Roman Emperor was not exactly a secure position at this time, and thinking "hmm this might pay off a long time in the future if we are lucky and the empire gradually becomes more Christian under my successors" is somewhat fantastical.