Did Jesus Christ Actually Exist?

[joelr]

"In the Bible, says, "With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day". This verse is a simile, or figure of speech, that uses a literal day to contrast with 1,000 years to teach that God is outside of time. The verse is about God's patience and the idea that to God, a short period of time and a long period of time are the same. The verse's context is about the "last days" and scoffers who reject the second coming. It's telling readers not to lose heart if God seems slow to fulfill his promises because he is patient and not bound by time like humans are." Creation.Com 2024

Another myth taken during the 2nd Temple Period from the Persians.

The expert Mary Boyce who studied in Iran for years,



Revelations
but Zoroaster taught that the blessed must wait for this culmination till Frashegird and the 'future body' (Pahlavi 'tan i pasen'), when the earth will give up the bones of the dead (Y 30.7). This general resurrection will be followed by the Last Judgment, which will divide all the righteous from the wicked, both those who have lived until that time and those who have been judged already. Then Airyaman, Yazata of friendship and healing, together with Atar, Fire, will melt all the metal in the mountains, and this will flow in a glowing river over the earth. All mankind must pass through this river, and, as it is said in a Pahlavi text, 'for him who is righteous it will seem like warm milk, and for him who is wicked, it will seem as if he is walking in the • flesh through molten metal' (GBd XXXIV. r 8-r 9). In this great apocalyptic vision Zoroaster perhaps fused, unconsciously, tales of volcanic eruptions and streams of burning lava with his own experience of Iranian ordeals by molten metal; and according to his stern original teaching, strict justice will prevail then, as at each individual j udgment on earth by a fiery ordeal. So at this last ordeal of all the wicked will suffer a second death, and will perish off the face of the earth. The Daevas and legions of darkness will already have been annihilated in a last great battle with the Yazatas; and the river of metal will flow down into hell, slaying Angra Mainyu and burning up the last vestige of wickedness in the universe.


Ahura Mazda and the six Amesha Spentas will then solemnize a lt, spiritual yasna, offering up the last sacrifice (after which death wW be no more), and making a preparation of the mystical 'white haoma', which will confer immortality on the resurrected bodies of all the blessed, who will partake of it. Thereafter men will beome like the Immortals themselves, of one thought, word and deed, unaging, free from sickness, without corruption, forever joyful in the kingdom of God upon earth. For it is in this familiar and beloved world, restored to its original perfection, that, according to Zoroaster, eternity will be passed in bliss, and not in a remote insubstantial Paradise. So the time of Separation is a renewal of the time of Creation, except that no return is prophesied to the original uniqueness of living things. Mountain and valley will give place once more to level plain; but whereas in the beginning there was one plant, one animal, one man, the rich variety and number that have since issued from these will remain forever. Similarly the many divinities who were brought into being by Ahura Mazda will continue to have their separate existences. There is no prophecy of their re-absorption into the Godhead. As a Pahlavi text puts it, after Frashegird 'Ohrmaid and the Amahraspands and all Yazads and men will be together. .. ; every place will resemble a garden in spring, in which
there are all kinds of trees and flowers ... and it will be entirely the creation of Ohrrnazd' (Pahl.Riv.Dd. XLVIII, 99, lOO, l07).



Doctrines taken from Zoroastrianism

fundamental doctrines became disseminated throughout the region, from Egypt to the Black Sea: namely that there is a supreme God who is the Creator; that an evil power exists which is opposed to him, and not under his control; that he has emanated many lesser divinities to help combat this power; that he has created this world for a purpose, and that in its present state it will have an end; that this end will be heralded by the coming of a cosmic Saviour, who will help to bring it about; that meantime heaven and hell exist, with an individual judgment to decide the fate of each soul at death; that at the end of time there will be a resurrection of the dead and a Last Judgment, with annihilation of the wicked; and that thereafter the kingdom of God will come upon earth, and the righteous will enter into it as into a garden (a Persian word for which is 'paradise'), and be happy there in the presence of God for ever, immortal themselves in body as well as soul. These doctrines all came to be adopted by various Jewish schools in the post-Exilic period, for the Jews were one of the peoples, it seems, most open to Zoroastrian influences - a tiny minority, holding staunchly to their own beliefs, but evidently admiring their Persian benefactors, and finding congenial elements in their faith. Worship of the one supreme God, and belief in the coming of a Messiah or Saviour, together with adherence to a way of life which combined moral and spiritual aspirations with a strict code of behaviour (including purity laws) were all matters in which Judaism and Zoroastrianism were in harmony; and it was this harmony, it seems, reinforced by the respect of a subject people for a great protective power, which allowed Zoroastrian doctrines to exert their influence. The extent of this influence is best attested, however, by Jewish writings of the Parthian period, when Christianity and the Gnostic faiths, as well as northern Buddhism, all likewise bore witness to the profound effect: which Zoroaster's teachings had had throughout the lands of the Achaernenian empire.


/the Persians occupied the Hebrew nations from centuries and we eventually see these ideas enter Judaism. Revelations, a messiah, and they can claim it's "logical" just the same.
You cannot declare something is logical you have to demonstrate it. Something in a borrowed story (called syncretism, which is incredibly common and a far more likely explanation) is not logical except as a borrowed mythology.

 

[joelr]

And other people, for example, Jesus.

We cannot demonstrate he was a person, and this was a Mystery cult, not an Emperor.

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

But the Mysteries didn't use people.

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

Which Mystery religion has defied people?

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

1) The idea that religious syncretism (there are thousands of examples among religions) is "dubious" is absurd.



Present a peer-reviewed paper giving reasons why the Mysteries did not borrow a specific package.
Because we have the one PhD historian who applied his abilities to a 6 year NT study and comparative religious study. And concluded

"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. "


I don't care what amateurs have to say. Please source a historian at least.

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;

"Christianity was born when these Mystery cults were at their most vibrant.
If Christianity wants to compete as a Mediterranean religion it needs to adopt and adapt. Go through these religious literature of other cultures....
Litwa

1:00

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.

Uh, the Mystery religions were at their peak when Christianity formed. Do you know other Mystery religions, like Judaism, who were influenced by Greek occupation? Did they have savior demigods based on real people?

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

Sounds like you are inventing a category. We don't find good evidence for a human Jesus.

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

That isn't one of them.

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.

It's not fully known. It's believed he had political reasons.

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.

His mother was Christian. There were many churches set up already in Rome.

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.

During the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great (306–337 AD), Christianity began to transition to the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. Historians remain uncertain about Constantine's reasons for favoring Christianity, and theologians and historians have often argued about which form of early Christianity he subscribed to. There is no consensus among scholars as to whether he adopted his mother Helena's Christianity in his youth, or, as claimed by Eusebius of Caesarea, encouraged her to convert to the faith he had adopted.

Constantine ruled the Roman Empire as sole emperor for much of his reign. Some scholars allege that his main objective was to gain unanimous approval and submission to his authority from all classes, and therefore he chose Christianity to conduct his political propaganda, believing that it was the most appropriate religion that could fit with the imperial cult. Regardless, under the Constantinian dynasty Christianity expanded throughout the empire, launching the era of the state church of the Roman Empire.[1] Whether Constantine sincerely converted to Christianity or remained loyal to paganism is a matter of debate among historians.[2] His formal conversion in 312 is almost universally acknowledged among historians,[1][3] despite that it was claimed he was baptized only on his deathbed by the Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia in 337;[4][5][6] the real reasons behind it remain unknown and are debated also.[2][3] According to Hans Pohlsander, professor emeritus of history at the State University of New York at Albany, Constantine's conversion was a matter of realpolitik, meant to serve his political interest in keeping the empire united under his control:

The prevailing spirit of Constantine's government was one of conservatism. His conversion to and support of Christianity produced fewer innovations than one might have expected; indeed they served an entirely conservative end, the preservation and continuation of the Empire.
— Hans Pohlsander, The Emperor Constantine[7]

 

[Augustus]

We cannot demonstrate he was a person

Same with most of ancient history , we can only consider it probable.

But the Mysteries didn't use people.

Did you not watch the video you posted?

Which Mystery religion has defied people?

Antinous.

You don’t have to take my word for it, just watch the video you posted instead of watching only the 1st minute to grab a quote you think supports your assumptions then ignoring the rest that don’t.

Present a peer-reviewed paper giving reasons why the Mysteries did not borrow a specific package

You could just try to understand the quote in the post you are replying to instead of ignoring it.

Look particularly at the bold text and try to explain what you think he means.

Sounds like you are inventing a category. We don't find good evidence for a human Jesus.

Err, all of the categories are invented. They are artificially imposed by historians based on perceived similarities.

You are randomly asserting which similarities we can pay attention to.

Uh, the Mystery religions were at their peak when Christianity formed. Do you know other Mystery religions, like Judaism, who were influenced by Greek occupation? Did they have savior demigods based on real people?

Yes, see your own video for an example (clue, it’s the same example I gave)

We don't find good evidence for a human Jesus

Most historians do.

But you are allowed your own opinion.

Historians remain uncertain about Constantine's reasons for favoring Christianity

You are free to consider it most likely that Constantine adopted Christianity as a ruse to unify his empire around a religion not followed by 95% of those he relied on to keep him in power.

I find it a bit ridiculous.

 

[oldbadger]

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

For which you couldn't write a sentence about your own opinions.

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.

Your blog won't open for me.
You've given some examples of why you have written off the whole account.
There's no doubt that this gospel was edited and messed about with Christian add-ons.... But if any mentions of prophecy fulfilled, copies of previous books from earlier times and obvious Christian fiddling are removed there is a genuine account.
A good example is shown in ch1 verse1 where 'the Son of God' was not present in the earliest available manuscripts.

Now......I've asked you once to show a single sentence of Paul's that is repeated in any way in G-Mark and you've offered nothing. Don't forget that I've already mentioned the last meal, execution and resurrection, all Christian edits imo.

 

[oldbadger]

You do not seem to understand what Mark did. This example might help:
Paradigmatic Example: The Last Supper

What did I tell you about last supper? !!!!!
You don't pay attention.

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.

Huh?
I've told you that the last meal is fiddled, and now you try to use it to prove that whole book is a lie.
That's so weak.

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.

All you've got is opinions.
Your friends have studied 'all aspects'?
No......I doubt that if they've written off the whole account

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.

You criticise my opinions, and then you parrot the claims of others.

A miracle has never been demonstrated.

.
Oh go on.....pick a hard one (for you won't pick an easy one, I'm thinking! )
I've written about every one at some time or other.

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.

Give an example with your work about it.

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?

Mark didn't part any deas, not whisk anybody to heaven nor discuss the weather with deceased,!!!
Your experts are really not that expert.
Just pick a miracle, please.

The accounts about his miracles (most of them in G-Mark) just got blurred or exaggerated by repetition in the oral tradition of the people, but there is substance there. I've already told you that all can be explained as temporal actions.

 

[1213]

....death is the end in early Judaism.
...

But, is that said in the Bible? I don't think so.

 

[joelr]

Same with most of ancient history , we can only consider it probable.

But the probability is based on very little evidence.

For someone like Caesar we have:



his own accounts of the Gallic Wars


the speeches of Cicero


Sallust’s account of Catiline’s War


Suetonius’s section on Caesar in Twelve Caesars


Plutarch’s section on Caesar in Plutarchs’s Lives.”




Do we trust those? No. We trust what those sources say mostly in respect to what we can externally corroborate in eyewitness and archaeological sources.


we have actual coins and inscriptions dating from Caesar’s time and the time of his contemporaries. None for Jesus. We also have several eyewitness accounts. Caesar’s own and Cicero’s and Sallust’s.


also Pompey (surviving collections of Cicero’s letters include letters from Pompey) and Augustus (Caesar’s adopted son and successor, who commissioned many inscriptions and coins). And Livy, a contemporary of Caesar, covers Caesar in his histories—and in their poetry, so do contemporaries Virgil, Ovid, and Catullus. The Gospels are not eyewitness sources, name no eyewitness sources, and have no verifiable eyewitness sources. There are no eyewitness sources for Jesus. There are at least nine for Caesar.

Did you not watch the video you posted?

I did.

Antinous.

You don’t have to take my word for it, just watch the video you posted instead of watching only the 1st minute to grab a quote you think supports your assumptions then ignoring the rest that don’t.

There are many deified people in Rome. I'm talking about Mystery religions. I already covered this.

You could just try to understand the quote in the post you are replying to instead of ignoring it.

Look particularly at the bold text and try to explain what you think he means.

Already covered this. It's mostly from the Mystery religions
"

I have done extensive research into the origins of Christianity. The appropriation of Isis and Horus statues as Mary and Jesus statues totally happened, but that was centuries later, this was not part of the origin.


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."
Carrier

Err, all of the categories are invented. They are artificially imposed by historians based on perceived similarities.

You are randomly asserting which similarities we can pay attention to.

Yes invented by historians. I'm asserting what historians are saying.

The specific evidence for mythicism is the point of Carrier's book.

Yes, see your own video for an example (clue, it’s the same example I gave)

you mean the Roman cult that isn't a Hellenistic Mystery religion?

Most historians do.

But you are allowed your own opinion.

Not my opinion. The point of Carriers and Lataster's books are that the evidence was based on assumptions that don't hold up when studied.

You are free to consider it most likely that Constantine adopted Christianity as a ruse to unify his empire around a religion not followed by 95% of those he relied on to keep him in power.

I find it a bit ridiculous.

Looks like a political move, he had converted as well.

Christianity spread to Aramaic-speaking peoples along the Mediterranean coast and also to the inland parts of the Roman Empire,[117] and beyond that into the Parthian Empire and the later Sasanian Empire, including Mesopotamia, which was dominated at different times and to varying extents by these empires. In AD 301, the Kingdom of Armenia became the first state to declare Christianity as its state religion, following the conversion of the Royal House of the Arsacids in Armenia. With Christianity the dominant faith in some urban centers, Christians accounted for approximately 10% of the Roman population by 300, according to some estimates.[118] According to Rodney Stark, Christianity then rapidly grew in the 4th century with an average growth of 40% per decade (or 3.42% per year); by 350, Christians accounted for 56.5% of the Roman population.[119]

By the latter half of the second century, Christianity had spread east throughout Media, Persia, Parthia, and Bactria. The twenty bishops and many presbyters were more of the order of itinerant missionaries, passing from place to place as Paul did and supplying their needs with such occupations as merchant or craftsman.

Various theories attempt to explain how Christianity managed to spread so successfully prior to the Edict of Milan (313). In The Rise of Christianity, Rodney Stark argues that Christianity replaced paganism chiefly because it improved the lives of its adherents in various ways.[120] Dag Øistein Endsjø argues that Christianity was helped by its promise of a general resurrection of the dead at the end of the world which was compatible with the traditional Greek belief that true immortality depended on the survival of the body.[121] According to Will Durant, the Christian Church prevailed over paganism because it offered a much more attractive doctrine, and because the church leaders addressed human needs better than their rivals.[122]

Bart D. Ehrman attributes the rapid spread of Christianity to five factors: (1) the promise of salvation and eternal life for everyone was an attractive alternative to Roman religions; (2) stories of miracles and healings purportedly showed that the one Christian God was more powerful than the many Roman gods; (3) Christianity began as a grassroots movement providing hope of a better future in the next life for the lower classes; (4) Christianity took worshipers away from other religions since converts were expected to give up the worship of other gods, unusual in antiquity where worship of many gods was common; (5) in the Roman world, converting one person often meant converting the whole household—if the head of the household was converted, he decided the religion of his wife, children and slaves

 

[joelr]

For which you couldn't write a sentence about your own opinions.

Again, for like the 6th time, my opinion isn't a thing. I don't have an "opinion" on how to do heart surgery. I would read the consensus ideas, backed by evidence and that is the best we can do.

Historians are doing all the work possible to find out what a reasonable explanation of all aspects of the religion are created from and to what extent they are true.
I don't even read Hebrew or ancient Greek. What would my opinion matter?

Yet you say it like it's some lack, apologists with no training in history, will google search bad arguments and answer them with bad information. That is called "making stuff up". I am interested in what is true. Not what I want to be true.

Your blog won't open for me.

this should open fine

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

I can post it as well.

Carrier's blog should as well

Dying-and-Rising Gods: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier Blogs

Easter this year lands most fittingly on April Fool’s Day. Because indeed, the resurrection of Jesus is akin to the greatest prank in history. Not because anyone actually faked it (though the evidence we have left, remains fully consistent with their having done so: see Robert Price’s chapter...

www.richardcarrier.info

You've given some examples of why you have written off the whole account.

No I gave evidence. The account is written in a Greco-Roman fictive style using Greek mythology. Much is taken just from the Epistles:

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

As well as re-writes of OT stories. Romulus, Greek religions and even Jesus Ben Ananias

Historical claims don't re-write the Elisha story from Kings 2, use Psalms verbatim, and many other stories. The triadic ring structure and many other devices are not how history is written.


Look at the parallels just from Jesus Ben Ananias:


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.

There's no doubt that this gospel was edited and messed about with Christian add-ons.... But if any mentions of prophecy fulfilled, copies of previous books from earlier times and obvious Christian fiddling are removed there is a genuine account.

The sources account for the majority of the story.
The theology is Jewish and Greel
The wisdom is from the Rabbi Hillell school, pre-Jesus.

There are thousands of tales of these type, even in Christianity, there are over 40 Gospels, most considered fake, 7 of the Epistles are forgeries. Greco-Roman biographies embellish eyewitnesses, miracles and so on. I already gave evidence for this.

So you provide evidence there was a genuine account.

A good example is shown in ch1 verse1 where 'the Son of God' was not present in the earliest available manuscripts.

John added freely to the story. Even claiming now signs would be shown freely when Mark said there would be no signs. As usual "eyewitnesses" are mention, never verified.

 

[joelr]

Now......I've asked you once to show a single sentence of Paul's that is repeated in any way in G-Mark and you've offered nothing. Don't forget that I've already mentioned the last meal, execution and resurrection, all Christian edits imo.

Now......I've asked you once to show a single sentence of Paul's that is repeated in any way in G-Mark and you've offered nothing. Don't forget that I've already mentioned the last meal, execution and resurrection, all Christian edits imo.

Paradigmatic Example: Jesus on Taxation​

In Romans 13, Paul writes up his own opinions about taxation, arguing Christians should dutifully pay their taxes. We know these remarks are just his own opinions; not only because he represents them in no other way and has to contrive arguments for them—yet never resorts to the most potent argument of all (“the Lord said!”)—but also because so far as we can tell, everywhere else when Paul had “a commandment from the Lord” on something he was arguing for, he said so. For example: 1 Corinthians 7:10-12, 1 Corinthians 7:25, 1 Corinthians 9:14, 1 Corinthians 11:23, 1 Corinthians 14:37, 1 Thessalonians 4:2, 1 Thessalonians 4:15 (see Ch. 11.6 of OHJ). So when we find a clever story about Jesus promoting the paying of taxes in Mark 12:13-17, where did Mark get that story? Why had Paul never heard of it, even after decades of “preaching Jesus” and engaging with other Christians, even the first Apostles, across a dozen or so provinces?

It’s quite obvious that Mark has taken Paul’s teaching and simply rewritten it into a pithier teaching from Jesus. Before Mark did that, there was no teaching from Jesus on the subject. Mark’s license to give authority to the teachings of apostles by attributing them to Jesus is a thing we will see many more examples of below; and many more are discussed in the literature cited above. And it’s the same as Matthew’s license in fabricating such elaborate discourses as The Sermon on the Mount, which mainstream peer reviewed scholarship has found to be a late invention of Greek authors that post-dates the Jewish War (see OHJ, pp. 465-68), and thus was never actually taught by Jesus. A conclusion all the more obvious from the fact that every parallel in it one might find in Paul comes from Paul’s own thoughts; Paul conspicuously shows no awareness of Jesus having ever said anything quotable on the same subjects. John likewise is generally agreed to have made up tons of speeches for Jesus as well. It’s what all other Gospel authors did. And if they all did it, we should assume Mark did too.

That Mark adapted Paul’s teaching about taxes into a teaching from Jesus is further confirmed by the Pauline Chiasmus (which we’ll get to shortly). It is the plainest instance of Mark doing this.

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 Jesus right after his death and are recognized as apostles (1 Corinthians 15:5; see Proving History, pp. 151-55).

Mark in fact constructed his own Judah-as-betrayer narrative and integrated it into his equally fabricated “last supper” narrative from a pastiche of scriptures, including lost scriptures, wherefrom Mark gets whole chunks of his narrative (see Proving History, ibid.). We are only lucky enough to be sure of this because it’s exposed by 1 Clement, who clearly wrote before Mark’s narrative existed (or was known to the author of 1 Clement). Clement also has no knowledge of any betrayal by anyone, much less a Judah—and also is unaware of the destruction of Jerusalem, so this letter must predate 66 A.D., contrary to a much later tradition placing it in 95 (see OHJ, Ch. 8.5). More importantly, Clement frequently quotes scriptures, both ones we know and ones now lost, as being “the words of our Lord Jesus,” evidently under the belief that Jesus spoke through the ancient prophets, and thus their words are his words.

So when Clement says:

Remember the words of our Lord Jesus, for he said, ‘Woe to that man! It would have been good for him not to be born, rather than cause one of my chosen to stumble. Better for him to have a millstone cast about his neck and be drowned in the sea than to have corrupted one of my chosen’
1 Clement 46.7-8

He doesn’t even know about Judas. For several pages Clement’s whole discourse is on examples of betrayal; not one of which is the paradigmatic Christian betrayal narrative, that of Judas—which means that that legend had not yet formed; Mark probably invented it, as an allegory for his overall message and as a useful tale for missionaries to tell, precisely to meet the need Clement struggled to find examples for.

Here, Clement appears to conflate into one saying two different things Mark has Jesus say. But we know Mark must have written after, and Clement is the one quoting a complete coherent saying. In fact this appears to be a quotation from a lost scripture, whom Clement is again assuming is the voice of Jesus speaking through an ancient prophet. So Mark just clipped a line from this scripture and used it to form part of his Judas tale.


So we can see clues here to how Mark is fabricating his story of the last supper, turning a ritual vision in Paul into a story of a historical meal, and integrating an allegory of betrayal throughout that was unknown to Paul, using other sources, e.g. lost and extant scriptures, to build that in.

 

[joelr]

What did I tell you about last supper? !!!!!
You don't pay attention.

I don't care, it's an example that's showing Mark used Paul.

• Mark also reifies Paul’s teachings about Christian baptism being an adoption by God as his son (compare Mark 1:11 with Romans 8:14-17 and Galatians 3:26-27).
• Mark repeatedly has Jesus refer to his future Christian followers as “children” (at least thirteen times), just as Paul did (at least twenty-eight times: in Philippians, Romans, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians; likewise Hebrews).
• Mark is conspicuously as fond of the “stumbling block” metaphor for sin as Paul was (compare Mark 4:17, 6:3, 14:27, 14:29, and especially Mark 9:42-47, with Romans 9:32-33, Romans 11:9-11, Romans 14:13-20, 1 Corinthians 1:23, 1 Corinthians 8:9, 1 Corinthians 8:13, 1 Corinthians 10:32, 2 Corinthians 6:3); and in another odd agreement, both include frequent admonishment against “causing” others to stumble.
• Mark is equally as fond of the “kingdom of God” metaphor as Paul was.
• Mark gets the idea from Paul (in Philippians 3:5-6) that “Pharisees” persecute Christians, and thus makes the Pharisees into Jesus’s main foils—even though in fact most real Pharisees would have actually taken Jesus’s position in nearly every argument Mark depicts (more then being in the tradition of Hillel than the more conservative Shammai: see Harvey Falk, Jesus the Pharisee from 1985, and Hyam Maccoby, Jesus the Pharisee, from 2003).
• Mark gets the idea from Paul (in Galatians 2:7-9 and 1 Corinthians 15:5) that there were originally twelve apostles and that the “pillars” were Peter, James and John, with Peter at the top, and James and John his right hand men; and in exact accord with Paul’s criticism of them, Mark depicts them as hypocritical and faltering (as well analyzed in Dykstra, Mark, pp. 109-25).
• Mark also gets from Paul the idea of messianic secrecy, a weird yet repeated theme in Mark’s Gospel, Paul having said Jesus’s identity was kept “a mystery,” “hidden,” so that “none of the rulers of this age understood it,” lest by knowing who he was they’d stop the crucifixion (from 1 Corinthians 2:6-10).
• Mark could even get the idea from Paul of having Jesus announce himself everywhere as a “Son of Adam” (the actual meaning of “Son of Man” as adapted from the then-familiar Septuagint expression), Paul having called Jesus “the last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45), and Hebrews 2:5-9 identifying Jesus with a prophesied “Son of Man.”

Huh?
I've told you that the last meal is fiddled, and now you try to use it to prove that whole book is a lie.
That's so weak.

You are using apologetic tapdancing and strawmen. I'm using it to show Mark used Paul, as one source. It's one point about Mark.

All you've got is opinions.
Your friends have studied 'all aspects'?
No......I doubt that if they've written off the whole account

No, historical scholars have studied all aspects. Gospels names and how we know they are anon and added early 2nd century.
Greek influence, Persian influence, Forgeries, Synoptic Problem, Acts as historical fiction, and so on.

You too can listen and read Carrier, David Litwa, Richard Miller, Bart Ehrman, James Tabor, and many more scholars.

You criticise my opinions, and then you parrot the claims of others.

Wrong and strawman.

I ask what are your sources? And yes, if you do not study historical scholarship as a scholar or just to educate yourself, you are lacking knowledge in a field. You cannot make that not true just because in this situation you want to pretend like your views are just as educated from reading English translations, talking with other church members and zero scholarship.

Do you care if someone from Islam says "my opinion is the Quran is the true word of God"?. No, you would in fact probably ask for evidence.

When you study a field of experts and then understand the majority, consensus opinions, based on evidence, you talk about them in a discussion. So if someone asks "what is general relativity", you think you have to give your opinion, not Einstein's or the majority of physicists since?

That is cheap apologetics, designed to desperately avoid taking experts views by trying to make it seem like a bad thing to learn about a field of study. You want to talk about "weak"?

.
Oh go on.....pick a hard one (for you won't pick an easy one, I'm thinking! )
I've written about every one at some time or other.

Any miracle. Show me a peer-reviewed, scientific paper, from a reputable publishing press that concluded a miracle happened.

Yes people have remission from stage 4 cancer. We don't understand the human body 100% and disease, like everything else is governed by probabilities. Quantum mechanics says it is so.

Which means if a rare remission has a 1 in a million chance, once 1 million people have the disease, you will get a remission.

We have zero limbs growing back.

We also have faith healers in other religions:

"I have visited Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal, healing shrines of the Christian Virgin Mary. I have also visited Epidaurus in Greece and Pergamum in Turkey, healing shrines of the pagan god Asklepios. The miraculous healings recorded in both places were remarkably the same. There are, for example, many crutches hanging in the grotto of Lourdes, mute witness to those who arrived lame and left whole. There are, however, no prosthetic limbs among them, no witnesses to paraplegics whose lost limbs were restored."

— John Dominic Crossan

Sai Baba, a Hindu in the early 1900s has thousands of people claiming he did many miracles, look him up.
Stories are anecdotal, often embellished or lies. Stories are myth. Greco-Roman biographies freely used miracles for people they were writing about . Yes, they made stuff up. The Gospels are no different.

No miracle has been demonstrated.

 

[joelr]

What did I tell you about last supper? !!!!!
You don't pay attention.

I don't care, it's an example that's showing Mark used Paul.

• Mark also reifies Paul’s teachings about Christian baptism being an adoption by God as his son (compare Mark 1:11 with Romans 8:14-17 and Galatians 3:26-27).
• Mark repeatedly has Jesus refer to his future Christian followers as “children” (at least thirteen times), just as Paul did (at least twenty-eight times: in Philippians, Romans, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians; likewise Hebrews).
• Mark is conspicuously as fond of the “stumbling block” metaphor for sin as Paul was (compare Mark 4:17, 6:3, 14:27, 14:29, and especially Mark 9:42-47, with Romans 9:32-33, Romans 11:9-11, Romans 14:13-20, 1 Corinthians 1:23, 1 Corinthians 8:9, 1 Corinthians 8:13, 1 Corinthians 10:32, 2 Corinthians 6:3); and in another odd agreement, both include frequent admonishment against “causing” others to stumble.
• Mark is equally as fond of the “kingdom of God” metaphor as Paul was.
• Mark gets the idea from Paul (in Philippians 3:5-6) that “Pharisees” persecute Christians, and thus makes the Pharisees into Jesus’s main foils—even though in fact most real Pharisees would have actually taken Jesus’s position in nearly every argument Mark depicts (more then being in the tradition of Hillel than the more conservative Shammai: see Harvey Falk, Jesus the Pharisee from 1985, and Hyam Maccoby, Jesus the Pharisee, from 2003).
• Mark gets the idea from Paul (in Galatians 2:7-9 and 1 Corinthians 15:5) that there were originally twelve apostles and that the “pillars” were Peter, James and John, with Peter at the top, and James and John his right hand men; and in exact accord with Paul’s criticism of them, Mark depicts them as hypocritical and faltering (as well analyzed in Dykstra, Mark, pp. 109-25).
• Mark also gets from Paul the idea of messianic secrecy, a weird yet repeated theme in Mark’s Gospel, Paul having said Jesus’s identity was kept “a mystery,” “hidden,” so that “none of the rulers of this age understood it,” lest by knowing who he was they’d stop the crucifixion (from 1 Corinthians 2:6-10).
• Mark could even get the idea from Paul of having Jesus announce himself everywhere as a “Son of Adam” (the actual meaning of “Son of Man” as adapted from the then-familiar Septuagint expression), Paul having called Jesus “the last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45), and Hebrews 2:5-9 identifying Jesus with a prophesied “Son of Man.”

Give an example with your work about it.

Sure, since I'm not a scholar in that field, I will source scholars who do study the period, a documentary from C. Hanson:


I know what you are doing, gaslighting learning from scholarship is incredibly weak.



(if you think you are going to suddenly say people cannot follow a field of scholarship for information and they have to do it themselves that is lame apolpogetics gaslighting people. It shows fear of actual information by experts) Claiming everyone should be an expert in every field they want to know about is absurd. Claiming that the people who can read Hebrew, Greek, other local languages for comparative religion, and have gone through a PhD study to gain understanding how to go about studying history and read hundreds of previous scholars work don't know more than an amateur is delusional.


If you want to play that childs game, I'll just re-post.


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 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.




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 s


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


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.

Mark didn't part any deas, not whisk anybody to heaven nor discuss the weather with deceased,!!!
Your experts are really not that expert.
Just pick a miracle, please.

And another strawman. The point here is it's common in these types of biographies to invent fake eyewitnesses and miracles.






You have used the equivication fallacy. It doesn't have to be the exacct idea, point is they routinely invented supernatural things for their characters.






I fannot pick a miracle because I don't know of any that are real. The Gospels are fiction, written like fiction, re-writing all types of older stories, anonymous, non-eyewitness, mythology.


Any miracle written in them is as real as one in Lord of the Rings.

The accounts about his miracles (most of them in G-Mark) just got blurred or exaggerated by repetition in the oral tradition of the people, but there is substance there. I've already told you that all can be explained as temporal actions.

I have no idea what you mean by "temporal actions", it sounds like something you have convinced yourself of. I do not care. Provide evidence.


Because something "can be explained" as something also does not mean it is. You are just making a claim of substance. Joseph Smith also made claims of substance. Without evidence it's not likely. Just like the 10,000 other gods and folk tales.

 

[joelr]

But, is that said in the Bible? I don't think so.

Because you don't know the Bible that well.



Adam:
“For dust you are, and to dust you shall return”


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.”


THEN, only bodily resurrection is mentioned (a Persian myth borrowed) not souls going to heaven, a Greek myth.


James Tabor goes over the changing ideas about afterlife in the Bible here:

Death & Afterlife: A Hebrew Revolution​

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.



1:36 Early Hebrew view of cosmology.



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.

 

[Andrew Stephen]

Book of Daniel is in the Old Testament, good info, Thanks

 

[Augustus]

But the probability is based on very little evidence.

For someone like Caesar we have:



his own accounts of the Gallic Wars


the speeches of Cicero


Sallust’s account of Catiline’s War


Suetonius’s section on Caesar in Twelve Caesars


Plutarch’s section on Caesar in Plutarchs’s Lives.”




Do we trust those? No. We trust what those sources say mostly in respect to what we can externally corroborate in eyewitness and archaeological sources.


we have actual coins and inscriptions dating from Caesar’s time and the time of his contemporaries. None for Jesus. We also have several eyewitness accounts. Caesar’s own and Cicero’s and Sallust’s.


also Pompey (surviving collections of Cicero’s letters include letters from Pompey) and Augustus (Caesar’s adopted son and successor, who commissioned many inscriptions and coins). And Livy, a contemporary of Caesar, covers Caesar in his histories—and in their poetry, so do contemporaries Virgil, Ovid, and Catullus. The Gospels are not eyewitness sources, name no eyewitness sources, and have no verifiable eyewitness sources. There are no eyewitness sources for Jesus. There are at least nine for Caesar.

Wow, there is more evidence for the most powerful man in the world, than a poor Jewish craftsman.

Which contemporary writers should have written about the historical Jesus but did not? I would say the answer is none.

you mean the Roman cult that isn't a Hellenistic Mystery religion?

No, I mean the mystery cult focused on salvation that was acknowledged as such by your chosen expert in your own video.

You kept posting that no such gods were based on real people. This was incorrect.

Not my opinion. The point of Carriers and Lataster's books are that the evidence was based on assumptions that don't hold up when studied.

What is your opinion then?

Most scholars still disagree with them though.

Looks like a political move

Why?

It seems to be an assumption that some people make, rarely supported with any meaningful explanation of what makes it probable.

You are free to consider it most likely that Constantine adopted Christianity as a ruse to unify his empire around a religion not followed by 90-95% of those he relied on to keep him in power.

I find it a bit ridiculous.

 

[oldbadger]

Paradigmatic Example: Jesus on Taxation​

In Romans 13, Paul writes up his own opinions about taxation, arguing Christians should dutifully pay their taxes. ..........................., where did Mark get that story?

He got it from what happened, an incident in the Temple, and Jesus was very clever with his reply. Jesus did not say 'don't pay taxes', he said, 'pay taxes to whom they are due'. A Paul didn't know or care very much about what Jesus said or did (apart from last meal, execution and resurrection claims.

Why had Paul never heard of it, even after decades of “preaching Jesus” and engaging with other Christians, even the first Apostles, across a dozen or so provinces?

Paul wasnt much interested in it, or anything else that Jesus said or did.

That Mark adapted Paul’s teaching about taxes into a teaching from Jesus is further confirmed by the Pauline Chiasmus (which we’ll get to shortly). It is the plainest instance of Mark doing this.

Nowhere did Jesus have very much to say about taxes in G-Mark. His fury was all about a corrupt rich Priesthood cheating the impoverished peasant classes.

Paradigmatic Example: The Last Supper​

No you don't! The last supper, or at least the communion, is a total fabrication produced by church dogma. If you cannot see that then I can't help you. Try selecting from the life and times of Jesus THAT PAUL NEVER WRIOTE ABOUT!

Mark in fact constructed his own Judah-as-betrayer narrative and integrated it into his equally fabricated “last supper” narrative from a pastiche of scriptures,................................................. Mark probably invented it,

In fact? You have facts? Really? No you don't......... it's all in your 'probables' mind.

So we can see clues here to how Mark is fabricating his story of the last supper,

Your record is stuck......................... you've got nothing.

 

[oldbadger]

I don't care, it's an example that's showing Mark used Paul

I've already discarded the communion event, death and resurrection and repeatedly told you that, so....on....

• Mark gets the idea from Paul (in Galatians 2:7-9 and 1 Corinthians 15:5) that there were originally twelve apostles and that the “pillars” were Peter, James and John, with Peter at the top, and James and John his right hand men; and in exact accord with Paul’s criticism of them, Mark depicts them as hypocritical and faltering (as well analyzed in Dykstra, Mark, pp. 109-25).

Correction. They were 'disciples' ...mention of apostles came later.
Paul knew that Peter, James and John were genuine people.
Sorted.

• Mark also gets from Paul the idea of messianic secrecy, a weird yet repeated theme in Mark’s Gospel, Paul having said Jesus’s identity was kept “a mystery,” “hidden,” so that “none of the rulers of this age understood it,” lest by knowing who he was they’d stop the crucifixion (from 1 Corinthians 2:6-10).
• Mark could even get the idea from Paul of having Jesus announce himself everywhere as a “Son of Adam” (the actual meaning of “Son of Man” as adapted from the then-familiar Septuagint expression), Paul having called Jesus “the last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45), and Hebrews 2:5-9 identifying Jesus with a prophesied “Son of Man.”

Rubbish. All the Jewish people were sons and daughters of men and their names all showed that.

I know what you are doing, gaslighting learning from scholarship is incredibly weak.

Stick to your subject, eh?

if you think you are going to suddenly say people cannot follow a field of scholarship for information and they have to do it themselves that is lame apolpogetics gaslighting people. It shows fear of actual information by experts) Claiming everyone should be an expert in every field they want to know about is absurd. Claiming that the people who can read Hebrew, Greek, other local languages for comparative religion, and have gone through a PhD study to gain understanding how to go about studying history and read hundreds of previous scholars work don't know more than an amateur is delusional.

More personal stuff. Please get on....

If you want to play that childs game, I'll just re-post.

The Gospels are considered a Greco-Roman biography.

By one bunch of people.

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 ...
7:52 Emperor Vespasian, reportedly
11:42 Account of people rising from the grave similar to Matthew 27:52 when a revered figure passed away.

I've told you repeatedly that the resurrection is junk.
Wake up!

And another strawman. The point here is it's common in these types of biographies to invent fake eyewitnesses and miracles.

This is like trying to prove that nobody really landed on the moon because of the decades old Dan Dare magazines.

I fannot pick a miracle because I don't know of any that are real. The Gospels are fiction, written like fiction, re-writing all types of older stories, anonymous, non-eyewitness, mythology.

So you couldn't pick a miracle!
How weak!

I have no idea what you mean by "temporal actions", it sounds like something you have convinced yourself of.

Dictionary,!
Look it up in your dictionary!

Because something "can be explained" as something also does not mean it is. You are just making a claim of substance.

So weak.

 

[joelr]

Wow, there is more evidence for the most powerful man in the world, than a poor Jewish craftsman.

Strawman. You actually said:"Same with most of ancient history , we can only consider it probable."
So I pointed out it isn't the same with everyone. Of course it's probable? But there are levels.

Now you have to look at the evidence that breaks down the only assumptions about historicity, which had not been done until Carrier and Lataster did peer-reviewed research on this topic.

Which contemporary writers should have written about the historical Jesus but did not? I would say the answer is none.

Josephus mentions a dozen or more “messiah” figures beginning with Hezekiah/Ezekias c. 45 BCE. It was a trend. The name used in the story, Joshua (Messiah), happens to mean ""Yahweh is salvation". Bit of a coincidence.

No, I mean the mystery cult focused on salvation that was acknowledged as such by your chosen expert in your own video.

He wasn't a savior deity. He was also written about by a Roman Emperor, so his historicity isn't questioned.

He was a God, not a son of a God and was associated with different gods by different groups.

You kept posting that no such gods were based on real people. This was incorrect.

I don't know any dying/rising savior demigods based on real people.

What is your opinion then?

Most scholars still disagree with them though.

I have yet to see a debunking of their work. Ehrman tried and used apologists arguments that Carrier pretty clearly debunked.

Scholars are not going to drop this assumption anytime soon. Even if it's true you cannot **** off donors to Universities and tell them their religion isn't even based on a real person. Also historians like Ehrman who accept the assumptions are not going to just say they may have been wrong.
Maybe in 20-30 years, new scholars will have accepted the studies, or done further studies and given reasons to doubt mythicism.

Carrier gives it 3 to 1 odds in favor. He isn't saying Jesus was definitely a myth.

List of Historians Who Take Mythicism Seriously​

List of Historians Who Take Mythicism Seriously • Richard Carrier Blogs

There are legitimate reasons to doubt Jesus existed, even as a mundane man whose legend became exaggerated (which is, definitely, always plausible too). These reasons have survived peer review—twice. And yet a common fallacy deployed against this fact is that “no relevant experts take this...

www.richardcarrier.info

Why?

It seems to be an assumption that some people make, rarely supported with any meaningful explanation of what makes it probable.

You are free to consider it most likely that Constantine adopted Christianity as a ruse to unify his empire around a religion not followed by 90-95% of those he relied on to keep him in power.

I find it a bit ridiculous.

During the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great (306–337 AD), Christianity began to transition to the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. Historians remain uncertain about Constantine's reasons for favoring Christianity, and theologians and historians have often argued about which form of early Christianity he subscribed to. There is no consensus among scholars as to whether he adopted his mother Helena's Christianity in his youth, or, as claimed by Eusebius of Caesarea, encouraged her to convert to the faith he had adopted.

Constantine ruled the Roman Empire as sole emperor for much of his reign. Some scholars allege that his main objective was to gain unanimous approval and submission to his authority from all classes, and therefore he chose Christianity to conduct his political propaganda, believing that it was the most appropriate religion that could fit with the imperial cult. Regardless, under the Constantinian dynasty Christianity expanded throughout the empire, launching the era of the state church of the Roman Empire.[1] Whether Constantine sincerely converted to Christianity or remained loyal to paganism is a matter of debate among historians.[2] His formal conversion in 312 is almost universally acknowledged among historians,[1][3] despite that it was claimed he was baptized only on his deathbed by the Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia in 337;[4][5][6] the real reasons behind it remain unknown and are debated also.[2][3] According to Hans Pohlsander, professor emeritus of history at the State University of New York at Albany, Constantine's conversion was a matter of realpolitik, meant to serve his political interest in keeping the empire united under his control:

The prevailing spirit of Constantine's government was one of conservatism. His conversion to and support of Christianity produced fewer innovations than one might have expected; indeed they served an entirely conservative end, the preservation and continuation of the Empire.
— Hans Pohlsander, The Emperor Constantine[7]

1. Wendy Doniger (ed.), "Constantine I", in Britannica Encyclopedia of World Religions (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2006), p. 262.
2. ^ Jump up to:a b Noel Lenski (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine (Cambridge University Press, 2006), "Introduction". ISBN 978-0-521-81838-4.
3. ^ Jump up to:a b Jones, Arnold Hugh Martin (1978) [1948]. Constantine and the Conversion of Europe (1962 ed.). University of Toronto Press (reprint 2003) [Macmillan: Teach Yourself History, 1948, Medieval Academy of America: Reprint for Teaching, 1978]. p. 73. ISBN 978-0-8020-6369-4.
4. ^ Hans A. Pohlsander, The Emperor Constantine (Routledge, NY 2004), pp. 82–84. ISBN 0-415-31938-2; Lenski, "Reign of Constantine" (The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine), p. 82.
5. ^ Gonzalez, Justo (1984). The Story of Christianity. Vol. 1. Harper Collins. p. 176. ISBN 0-060-63315-8.
6. ^ "Eusebius of Nicomedia". Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2018-12-18.
7. ^ Pohlsander, The Emperor Constantine, pp. 78–79.

 

[joelr]

He got it from what happened, an incident in the Temple, and Jesus was very clever with his reply. Jesus did not say 'don't pay taxes', he said, 'pay taxes to whom they are due'. A Paul didn't know or care very much about what Jesus said or did (apart from last meal, execution and resurrection claims.

It’s quite obvious that Mark has taken Paul’s teaching and simply rewritten it into a pithier teaching from Jesus. Before Mark did that, there was no teaching from Jesus on the subject. You are adding speculation. When yoiu see everything used from the Epistles, it's very obvious.

But there are many many more examples, including a chiasmus that would never happen in real life, - But there is something even more remarkable about this parallel: it comes in the middle of a chiasmus Mark has constructed within Mark 12 that demonstrates his dependence on Paul. This was first discovered by Michael Turton and is used to significant effect under peer review by David Oliver Smith.

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

Mark’s Use of Paul’s Epistles​

taken from:


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.

See also (as concurring):

• Michael P. Theophilos, “The Roman Connection: Paul and Mark,” in Paul and Mark Comparative Essays Part I: Two Authors at the Beginnings of Christianity, ed. Oda Wischmeyer, David C. Sim, and Ian J. Elmer (De Gruyter 2014): 45–71 (cf. other scholars in that same volume).
• Harm W. Hollander, “The Words of Jesus: From Oral Traditions to Written Record in Paul and Q,” Novum Testamentum 42.4 (2000): 340–57 (346).

Paul wasnt much interested in it, or anything else that Jesus said or did.

Really, where does Paul say that? I do know that is really just the apologetic used, to make up motivations when borrowings are suspected.

One can just as easily say, Paul didn't know anything because the myths hadn't yet been written. At the time Jesus was just a resurrected savior deity, taken from the Hellenistic ideas going around. Only in nations occupied by the Greeks. And Israel was occupied by Hellenistic Greeks. Pretty obvious here.

Nowhere did Jesus have very much to say about taxes in G-Mark. His fury was all about a corrupt rich Priesthood cheating the impoverished peasant classes.

Mark 12

Mark adapted Paul’s teaching about taxes into a teaching from Jesus, this is the point.

No you don't! The last supper, or at least the communion, is a total fabrication produced by church dogma. If you cannot see that then I can't help you. Try selecting from the life and times of Jesus THAT PAUL NEVER WRIOTE ABOUT!

It's right there, Mark used Paul, there are too many examples to deny. As well as a ton of scholarship by experts. I'm not interested in amateur speculation, especially those who have an unsupported theory and declare they know more than the entire historicity field. :

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.

 

[joelr]

In fact? You have facts? Really? No you don't......... it's all in your 'probables' mind.

No it's in several books and journals by PhDs who study the original Greek. Write a paper, submit it for review and get it prinited. Until then I care about what is true not delusions.

• 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.

See also (as concurring):

• Michael P. Theophilos, “The Roman Connection: Paul and Mark,” in Paul and Mark Comparative Essays Part I: Two Authors at the Beginnings of Christianity, ed. Oda Wischmeyer, David C. Sim, and Ian J. Elmer (De Gruyter 2014): 45–71 (cf. other scholars in that same volume).
• Harm W. Hollander, “The Words of Jesus: From Oral Traditions to Written Record in Paul and Q,” Novum Testamentum 42.4 (2000): 340–57 (346).

Your record is stuck......................... you've got nothing.

And we get yet another apologist who denies scholarship, calls it "nothing" with an uneducated, pet theory, based on English translations .

I don't care about delusional people. I'm interested in what is actually true. Ironic how you provide no evidence, just claims you are right, no proof and claims academia is "nothing".
There is nothing here of interest. Your ego is stuck, you cannot let go of nonsense.

 

[joelr]

I've already discarded the communion event, death and resurrection and repeatedly told you that, so....on....

It's evidence Mark used Paul, in part. There are many other sources as well to create thois story.

Correction. They were 'disciples' ...mention of apostles came later.
Paul knew that Peter, James and John were genuine people.
Sorted.

Galatians 2:7-9​

​

7 But contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter;​

​

8 (For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles​

​

9 And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.​

​

​

1 Corinthians 15:5​

and that he appeared to Cephas,[a] and then to the Twelve.​

​

​

Twelve Apostles.​

That's funny, correcting a Biblical scholar. Or course you are wrong.

Rubbish. All the Jewish people were sons and daughters of men and their names all showed that.

Lets see,
messianic secrecy, mentioned in Paul and Mark.

"“Son of Man.” was a way to identify the messiah, not an average Jewish person. You couldn't use more hilarious bad examples.

Stick to your subject, eh?

Of course I will, and I will use the top scholars. Again, I care about what is true.

More personal stuff. Please get on....

Yup, you got called out, rightfully so. Delusional apologetics are not ways to find truth.

By one bunch of people.

Yes, every PhD historian who studies the genre. Now what bunch disagrees? And what papers have they written and what evidence and special training do they have? Or are they just you, who doesn't even read the original language and doesn't do scholarship? Yup, it is.

I've told you repeatedly that the resurrection is junk.
Wake up!

Mark is a Greco-Roman biography. Miracles and eyewitnesses were also added. Supernatural events were also added.

This is like trying to prove that nobody really landed on the moon because of the decades old Dan Dare magazines.

If the only information we had about the moon landing was those magazines and not all records, video, audio, reports, and more from NASA. News footage, engineers who built the rockets and so on.

So you couldn't pick a miracle!
How weak!

Sorry, your lack of care about empirical evidence, dismissial of scholarship, with no evidence, has disqualified me from caring about your opinion. I don't care about fictive stories about miracles and I don't care about your opinion unless you can provide evidence.

What you find "weak" is meaningless to me.

Dictionary,!
Look it up in your dictionary!

So weak.

Apparently by "weak" you mean "not delusional, cares about evidence, isn't in his own world where he is always right despite being a rank amateur"

The evidence far outweighs anything but made up stories, Like the Hellenistic theology they borrowed from, like the Greco-Roman biographies these writings are (paper with examples already included). Your evidence? Just call stuff "weak" when you have nothing else, ignore or tapdance around evidence, and mainly have no evidence of your own. Just ridiculous explanations, supported by nothing.

Now that is irony.