Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
Why would they strip away the historicity? I mean, I personally assume that the historical Christ would have, for instance, given the Sermon on the Mount.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
So I just started reading The God Delusion..
- Thread starter zack
- Start date
Why would you think that? It seems to me to be much more likely that it's a summary of material from one of the early "sayings gospels".
Edit: maybe "much more likely" is a bit too strong. How about this: I don't see any particular reason to assume it was an actual event and not an example of literary licence, in which the author created a setting for words that he figured Jesus said anyhow.
Last edited:
rojse
RF Addict
.... So?
So we would expect someone that is more noteworthy to be noted more. As to your original example, good or bad, George W Bush has had quite an effect on the world, and we would expect there to be more records of what George Bush has done than what you have done. The same with Jesus - if he feeds tens of thousands of people, claims to be the son of God, and is a major figurehead of a religion, we should expect more supporting evidence of his existence than a single book.
Smoke
Done here.
The epistles -- or at least, the genuine ones -- predate the gospels for the most part.
I do agree that Paul had no real need of a historical Jesus. Paul had his own particular religious theology and vision, and he hung that on Jesus. He could as well have hung it on John the Baptist or any other convenient figure.
I do think it's pretty clear, though, that there was a historical figure on whom all this myth was hung. If there were no historical Jesus, there would have been no reason for Paul to acknowledge James as Jesus' brother. There would have been no reason for the John the Baptist stories, which are so obviously awkward in the context of Pauline Christianity. There would not be so many saying of Jesus preserved in the gospels which are so clearly awkward for Pauline -- and especially for Trinitarian -- Christianity. There would likely have been no Ebionite sect which rejected Pauline Christianity in favor of a Jesus who is clearly more tenable historically. We don't know much about Jesus, but I think we have enough strong hints from the literature to conclude that there was an actual person there, mostly being ignored by Christianity.
Especially if you conclude, as I do, that Paul believed in the divinity of Christ (even if not necessarily in full-blown Trinitarian dogma as we know it), it seems impossible to believe that everything in gospels is an outgrowth of Paul's fevered religious ideas.
Smoke
Done here.
Of course we have much more than a single book, though none of them was written during his lifetime. But if the historical Jesus was not as depicted in the Bible and in the apocryphal works, then we shouldn't expect to have any more than the sparse evidence we do have.
crystalonyx
Well-Known Member
One cannot "prove" that somebody didn't exist, which is why the onus is on those to prove that such a man did exist. See Russell's "Celestial teapot" argument.
crystalonyx
Well-Known Member
If Paul really thought Jesus was a real person, why did he never mention his miracles or his teachings?
Smoke
Done here.
Because -- as I've already said -- the historical Jesus isn't important to Paul. It's the mystical Christ of Paul's religious vision that's important to him.
But if Paul didn't think Jesus was a real person, why did he say his adversary James was Jesus' brother?
Smoke
Done here.
But you haven't addressed any of the reasons I gave for thinking he did exist. Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting LA-LA-LA-LA-LA is not an argument.
crystalonyx
Well-Known Member
Nor have you addressed the multitude of reasons I think he didn't. Ignoring them, or calling the authors crackpots doesn't seem to work.
But did he? I know that James is mentioned in some of the epistles that general consensus says are attributed to Paul, but I don't think that it's at all settled that these texts survived intact without editing or insertions.
If they point to the historicity of anything, why would it be Jesus? Common sense tells me that they'd point more towards a historical John the Baptist, if anything.
In any case, the references to John the Baptist in the Gospels read to me like an apologetic to get two groups into the same camp. I imagine that if there were followers of Jesus and followers of John, it might help the Jesus group if they were to convince the John group that their leader followed (or at least acknowledged) Jesus as well.
Maybe... but that just points to a non-Pauline source, not necessarily a historical one. That problem would still arise if outside myths were accreted onto Paul's mythic Christ rather than a historical Jesus.
Hmm... there may be something there, but I don't really know that much about the Ebionites.
Maybe. I'm on the fence.We don't know much about Jesus, but I think we have enough strong hints from the literature to conclude that there was an actual person there, mostly being ignored by Christianity.
And I never intended to suggest that this was the case. I think it's clear that Christianity borrows heavily from earlier mythology; it seems it developed some of its own as well. In my mind, the question is whether this new and old mythology of Christianity developed around Paul's mythic Christ alone, or whether Paul's Christ has a historical Jesus at its core.
rojse
RF Addict
So why does everyone think that Jesus is important after he dies, and not during his lifetime? These later books are going to be using archaeological evidence and the writings of older books about him, written during his lifetime.
crystalonyx
Well-Known Member
An interesting take:
"The Pauline Corpus - a compendium of fraud
NOT mentioned in dispatches
Of the thirteen letters that bear the name of Paul, nine of them are addressed to churches and four to individuals. Do they ring true?
Curiously, the four Gospels neither mention nor even hint at a pioneering apostle called Paul. For the gospel writers, Paul does not exist. Equally curious is that Paul's letters reciprocate the ignorance of the gospellers by betraying NO knowledge of apostolic writings. Indeed the evangelist Matthew, the tax collector so good at teasing prophesies for the coming of Jesus out of Jewish scripture, is not so much as named in any Pauline epistle.
The evangelist John, son of Zebedee and the only other disciple credited with a gospel, is dismissed by Paul in a single phrase from his entire corpus:
According to Acts, the evangelist Mark (aka John Mark) did feature in the adventures of Paul: he deserted the apostle's first mission at Perga and became the cause of an acrimonious falling out between Paul and Barnabas (Acts 15.38,39). Yet Paul makes no reference to this altercation in his own letters and his three passing references to Mark are inconsequential and dubious. Mark's references to Paul are non-existent. Even the dubious Epistle of Barnabas, supposedly the work of Paul's first companion, never mentions Paul.
Not even the book of Acts – written, we are told, by Luke, Paul's long-time travelling companion and with him even in the condemned cell (2 Timothy 4.11) – makes any reference to, or even hints at the existence of the Pauline epistles, the seminal work that defines Christian theology and makes up one third of the entire New Testament! The silence is startling from the supposed "biographer" of the foremost apostle."
Paul letters – And all the other fake epistles!
"The Pauline Corpus - a compendium of fraud
NOT mentioned in dispatches
Of the thirteen letters that bear the name of Paul, nine of them are addressed to churches and four to individuals. Do they ring true?
Curiously, the four Gospels neither mention nor even hint at a pioneering apostle called Paul. For the gospel writers, Paul does not exist. Equally curious is that Paul's letters reciprocate the ignorance of the gospellers by betraying NO knowledge of apostolic writings. Indeed the evangelist Matthew, the tax collector so good at teasing prophesies for the coming of Jesus out of Jewish scripture, is not so much as named in any Pauline epistle.
The evangelist John, son of Zebedee and the only other disciple credited with a gospel, is dismissed by Paul in a single phrase from his entire corpus:
" James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars .. ".
Even then, the occasion was seventeen years after Paul's miraculous conversion, when the apostle proudly declared he "learned nothing" from the purported companions of the godman (Galatians 2.6,9), and that included John, "the one Jesus loved"! Even the central drama of Jesus is referenced so obliquely and fleetingly in Paul's letters that one realizes that the author's "risen Christ" is a different entity entirely from the Nazarene carpenter of the gospels.
According to Acts, the evangelist Mark (aka John Mark) did feature in the adventures of Paul: he deserted the apostle's first mission at Perga and became the cause of an acrimonious falling out between Paul and Barnabas (Acts 15.38,39). Yet Paul makes no reference to this altercation in his own letters and his three passing references to Mark are inconsequential and dubious. Mark's references to Paul are non-existent. Even the dubious Epistle of Barnabas, supposedly the work of Paul's first companion, never mentions Paul.
Not even the book of Acts – written, we are told, by Luke, Paul's long-time travelling companion and with him even in the condemned cell (2 Timothy 4.11) – makes any reference to, or even hints at the existence of the Pauline epistles, the seminal work that defines Christian theology and makes up one third of the entire New Testament! The silence is startling from the supposed "biographer" of the foremost apostle."
Paul letters – And all the other fake epistles!
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
That's an oversimplification. I think the movement that grew up around Him was tiny during His lifetime, but grew steadily. It didn't get big enough to leave a historical mark until after His death.
Midnight Blue, I know this is changing the subject back to The God Delusion, but I wanted to know what you thought of his call to atheists, agnostics and moderate religionists to become more aware of the fringe religions that have an agenda to take away secular rights. He is saying, and Christopher Hitchens mentions it too, that it is time to quit being complacent about those who are trying to undermine freedoms of people who do not agree with their literal and rigid interpretations of their holy scriptures before it's too late. Do you think we need to be more aware and start being more vocal about our rights to a secular society?
Smoke
Done here.
Yes, I do. And I don't think it's just the fringe religions that want to take away our rights, either. The Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious organization on earth, and frequently and actively works to deny people the right to violate Catholic teachings. Huge segments of Islam are ruthlessly intolerant, as is much of Evangelical Christianity. The Mormon Church has been on a crusade to keep gay folks from having equal rights for decades.
When religious groups try to enforce their teachings on the general population, they are trying to impose a particularly odious tyranny, and it's the duty of free people, and of people who want to be free, to oppose them.
How do you propose we do that? Wouldn't it create even more discord in this world? I happen to agree with you by the way. I think it's time the whole world realized that what we have believed and been taught is not working. The negative interpretations of God's will are killing us. How can we be proactive without adding to the discord though?
Smoke
Done here.
I wish I knew. There has to be more to it than just speaking up and supporting the ACLU.