Who Wrote The Bible? Dr. Robert M Price Answers That Question

[Geezer]

Dr. Price has written 2 books that answer the question who wrote the New Testament?

 

Both books are available on Amazon in Kindle Additions.

 

The Christ-Myth Theory & It's Problems.

 

The Christ-Myth theory ... "Worse Than Atheism"? New Testament scholar Robert M. Price, one of America's leading authorities on the Bible, has assembled in his book evidence that shows that almost the entire "biography of Jesus" is a conscious reworking of earlier literature.It is one thing to say "There are no gods" or "Jesus was not a god, just a man." It is quite another thing to say "Jesus of Nazareth never existed at all" or that "Christ is a myth." But scholars have been saying exactly that since at least 1793 when the Enlightenment scholar Charles Dupuis began to publish his 13-volume Origine de Tous les Cultes, ou Religion Universelle, which elucidated the astral origins not only of Christianity but of other ancient religions as well. New Testament scholar Robert M. Price, one of America's leading authorities on the Bible, here summarizes much of the scholarship that has led him and a growing number of modern scholars to conclude that Christ -- a partial synonym for Jesus of Nazareth -- is mythical. Most usefully, Price has assembled evidence that shows that almost the entire "biography of Jesus" has been created from Greek Old Testament stories and themes and even incorporates motifs from Homer, Euripides, and perhaps Aesop. Because readers will have a hard time "taking it on faith" that the Jesus biography is merely a reworking of previous material, broad swaths of "Old Testament" context are quoted in association with each New Testament equivalent, so readers can judge for themselves whether or not Dr. Price's claim be true: the "Life of Christ" was not fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies; it was, rather, a conscious reworking of earlier literature.

 

 

Dr. Price other book is The Human Bible New Testament.

 

This book deals with the NT epistles and answers the question who wrote them.

 

Excerpts from the book: The historical basis for the “Paul” character of the New Testament is none other than Simon Magus, a Gnostic guru and self-proclaimed incarnation. He plugged himself into the Jesus story, making himself a subsequent reincarnation or manifestation of Jesus. He taught that angels ordained the Torah, not the High God, and that salvation came by grace, not good works. Whoever connected Simonianism with emerging Christianity did the same thing Christians did when they co-opted the figurehead of the rival John the Baptist sect by making him Jesus’ herald and cousin. The linkage between alien Simonianism and early Catholicism is what lies behind the stories of Paul’s separate calling as an apostle and his subsequent uneasy alliance with the Christianity of the Twelve. I believe Marcion was a Simonian, though of a somewhat less radical stripe.

 

Marcion rejected Judaism, with the Jewish scripture, not as a false cult but as an unrelated faith. Conventionally we credit Marcion himself as the creator of the New Testament idea, but it is often impossible to separate the contributions of a founder from those of his followers. I think the Marcionite canon was probably the work of later Marcionites.

 

Someone, most likely Polycarp,[8] bishop of Smyrna, a noted opponent of Marcion, decided to try to co-opt Marcionism by embracing their idea of a uniquely Christian scripture, adding a New Testament to the Old, retaining both. The “Pauline” Epistles, hitherto shunned as heresy, could be adapted to Catholic usage by the judicious redaction I have already described. Polycarp tried to correct what he viewed as the one-sided emphasis on Paul by doing what he could to represent members of the Twelve as well as the Heirs of Jesus (a leadership faction tracing their origin to the blood-lineage of Jesus, by now imagined to have been a man who lived on earth in recent history). There were slim pickings to work with. Polycarp added to his canon a doctored version of Mark, a padded version of Luke, and a heavily redacted edition of the originally Gnostic Gospel of John. He took over an Aramaic history of early Jerusalemite and Antiochene Christianity, centering on Peter as the chief apostle, with John son of Zebedee as his silent sidekick. This he translated into Greek as the first 15 chapters, as we divide them, of the Acts of the Apostles, adding on his own supplement, Acts chapters 16–28,[9] which established comprehensive parallels between Peter in the first half and Paul in the second, the goal being to rehabilitate Peter in the eyes of the Marcionites who dismissed him as a faithless cretin, and likewise Paul in the eyes of the Catholics, who had considered him the father of all heresies.

 

Then Polycarp added epistles, such as they were, with the names of characters featured in Acts, namely James, Jude, and John (though the name John did not actually appear in any of them). It wasn’t much, but at least now it was not all Paul. Hebrews was considered by many to be Paul’s, probably because of the mention of Timothy in the closing chapter, which, however, looks like a later addition to the text. However, as J.C. O’Neill[10] argued, Jewish Christians may have appropriated Hebrews from the community of the Qumran Essenes, with whom they had much in common. The name “Jesus” seems to have been an insertion whenever it appears in the text of Hebrews, with the “Anointed One” referring originally to the martyred Teacher of Righteousness. (Of course, as Robert Eisenman[11] argues, the Teacher may have been James the Just.)

 

James’s epistle reflects a later stage of polemic against Paulinism, since it (mis)understands the Pauline abrogation of the “works of the law” as moral libertinism rather than the rejection of Jewish ceremonial ethnicity markers irrelevant to Gentile Christians. Jude does not seem to have Paul in view, but it takes deliberate aim at libertine Gnostics. First and Second Peter come from the late “Catholicizing” stage, undertaking precisely the same agenda of Acts: making Peter sound like Paul and having Peter commend Paul, bemoaning that heretics twist his words. This last really means to lament that Marcionite readers are not getting with the Catholic program, not reading Paul through the lens provided by Acts and the Pastoral Epistles (both the work of Polycarp).