Why The Gospels Are Myth

[Sextus]

So...where is your list of Biblical parts, phrases, sentences, chapters, words, etc. that you have identified as supernatural bullshit?

The bits where people walk on water, feed thousands with a few loaves and fish and raise dead people to life look a lot like "supernatural bullshit" to me. How about you? I'm still struggling to see what on earth your point might be. You don't think there is "supernatural bullshit" in the gospels? How about you actually make some kind of point.

[sdelsolray]

 

So...where is your list of Biblical parts, phrases, sentences, chapters, words, etc. that you have identified as supernatural bullshit?

The bits where people walk on water, feed thousands with a few loaves and fish and raise dead people to life look a lot like "supernatural bullshit" to me. How about you? I'm still struggling to see what on earth your point might be. You don't think there is "supernatural bullshit" in the gospels? How about you actually make some kind of point.

 

I will assume then that you do not have a comprehensive list of Biblical parts, phrases, sentences, chapters, words, etc. that you have identified as supernatural bullshit.

 

Are you aware of any such list?  Perhaps one of the numerous scholars you earlier referenced that "have been doing this for a couple of centuries now" (your words) have made a list.  Then again, perhaps not.

[Sextus]

I will assume then that you do not have a list of Biblical parts, phrases, sentences, chapters, words, etc. that you have identified as supernatural bullshit.

You'd assume correctly. I have no idea why I'd need one. The supernatural elements are pretty clear. Why isn't clear is exactly why you keeping asking me about this. I've asked why you're persisting with this, but you keep avoiding the question. This is all very strange.

 

 

]Are you aware of any such list, perhaps from one of the numerous scholars you earlier referenced that

No. See above for why. I can't think of any reason anyone would bother making one. I'll try again - what exactly are you trying to say?

[sdelsolray]

 

I will assume then that you do not have a list of Biblical parts, phrases, sentences, chapters, words, etc. that you have identified as supernatural bullshit.

You'd assume correctly. I have no idea why I'd need one. The supernatural elements are pretty clear. Why isn't clear is exactly why you keeping asking me about this. I've asked why you're persisting with this, but you keep avoiding the question. This is all very strange.

 

 

]Are you aware of any such list, perhaps from one of the numerous scholars you earlier referenced that

No. See above for why. I can't think of any reason anyone would bother making one. I'll try again - what exactly are you trying to say?

 

I am simply trying to determine whether there is any comprehensive list of Bibllcal supernatural bullshit compiled by lofty scholars such as yourself.  You have answered by inquiry.  You have not made one and, apparently, you are not aware whether anyone else has done so.  Indeed, you seem to think such a list is not needed.

 

So much for scholarly reverse engineering.

[Sextus]

So much for scholarly reverse engineering.

Oh, so that's your point. Yes, scholars use analysis of things we find in the later texts to try to work out what earlier and possibly historical element gave rise to them. But, no, there is no "list" of the results. Since this is a subjective process, there couldn't be. Maybe if you had made yourself clearer earlier I could have explained this without wasting a lot of time and space. Is there anything else I can help you with?

[directionless]

 

So much for scholarly reverse engineering.

Oh, so that's your point. Yes, scholars use analysis of things we find in the later texts to try to work out what earlier and possibly historical element gave rise to them. But, no, there is no "list" of the results. Since this is a subjective process, there couldn't be. Maybe if you had made yourself clearer earlier I could have explained this without wasting a lot of time and space. Is there anything else I can help you with?

 

I have "The Authentic Gospel of Jesus" by Geza Vermes where he analyzes verses of the gospels (including Thomas) for consistency with Jewish culture. His goal was to determine what Jesus actually preached.

 

It's more complicated than a list of authentic verses unfortunately. Vermes said (if I understood correctly) that a list isn't possible because the inauthentic is overlaid on top of the authentic. I was a little disappointed, because Vermes carefully described his analysis of each verse but the outcome of his analysis was rarely as simple as authentic/inauthentic. He did have a section describing his conclusion about what Jesus taught that was more interesting to me.

 

So there are some scholarly attempts at reverse engineering, but it's very difficult apparently.

[bdp]

I had an epiphany about the question of Philo and whether he would/should have mentioned Jesus.  Obviously someone healing lepers, raising the dead, rising from the dead himself, darkness at mid day and tombs opening with resurrected people emerging from them - all of this one would expect to see mentioned.  But we all seem to be in agreement that these are the mythic notions that grew up in the progression of the Jesus stories - from carpenter to Christ, abd of course no one would record what wasn't happening.  If he were a mere carpenter who became an itinerant apocalyptic preacher - all talk, no do - then he wouldn't have been worth mentioning.  This amuses me because I remember when LNC was hanging around here promoting Habermas' 'minimal facts' and I put the 1st century historian's failure to mention Jesus to him and he said 'Why would they?'  And now I've come to that frame of mind myself, I see it.  But I see that silence as evidence against the fundamentalist claim for 'god in the flesh' and amazing miracles that were known through the land - not a mythical charcter but a historical footnote around whom a myth grew.  Mr. O'Neill I have to thank you for the information on Josephus' proximity to James, the brother of Jesus, and attending circumstances, I wasn't familiar with that information.  I think everything I understand now does point to an historical Jesus but a rather mundane one.

[Blood]

The mundane Jesus theory doesn't solve the problem of Christian origins; it deepens it. Against all precedent and expectation, Jews deify a man as a god; even though they are small, illiterate, and disorganized, they rapidly grow into a large, literate, organized, and international religious movement; within 15 years, they have a fully worked out soteriological system from ex-Pharisee "Paul." Strangely, though it is a Galilean Jewish movement, "Paul's" soteriological scheme is solely concerned with the idea that "though Christ's death, salvation has come to the Gentiles," as "adherence to the Law brings death," ideas utterly alien to the movement and their founder. In another 15 years, the original Jewish, Aramaic, pro-Torah movement is over; Christianity is now Gentile, Greek and Syrian in language, anti-Torah, and, bizarrely, anti-Jewish. This completes the most rapid reversal of a religious movement away from its founder and original purpose in history. 

 

Or, perhaps, some Gentiles converted to Judaism, but eventually left, took the Greek Bible with them, and started their own sect, adopting a mythical figurehead, "Lord Jesus Christ," killed by the Jews so that Gentiles could be saved. 

[directionless]

The mundane Jesus theory doesn't solve the problem of Christian origins; it deepens it. Against all precedent and expectation, Jews deify a man as a god; even though they are small, illiterate, and disorganized, they rapidly grow into a large, literate, organized, and international religious movement; within 15 years, they have a fully worked out soteriological system from ex-Pharisee "Paul." Strangely, though it is a Galilean Jewish movement, "Paul's" soteriological scheme is solely concerned with the idea that "though Christ's death, salvation has come to the Gentiles," as "adherence to the Law brings death," ideas utterly alien to the movement and their founder. In another 15 years, the original Jewish, Aramaic, pro-Torah movement is over; Christianity is now Gentile, Greek and Syrian in language, anti-Torah, and, bizarrely, anti-Jewish. This completes the most rapid reversal of a religious movement away from its founder and original purpose in history. 

 

Or, perhaps, some Gentiles converted to Judaism, but eventually left, took the Greek Bible with them, and started their own sect, adopting a mythical figurehead, "Lord Jesus Christ," killed by the Jews so that Gentiles could be saved.

My understanding is that Jesus and his disciples along with John the Baptist were part of a preexisting Jewish sect related to the Dead Sea Scroll group. I think initially they believed Jesus was a prophet who was rejected and executed like other prophets. Later they developed the belief that Jesus was actually the Jewish Messiah who would return to start the Kingdom of Heaven, but they never believed that Jesus was a passover lamb and all the rest of Paul's theology.

 

So are you saying that Paul was a gentile who failed as a Jew and decided to invent Christianity? I have heard that Paul was surprisingly ignorant of Jewish beliefs and may have been fibbing about his Jewish resume. So then the Jewish Christians were the late-comers instead of the founders who were trying to adopt the Greek/Pagan Christianity without abandoning Judaism.

 

So if the myth theory was true, then why were the Gnostics so hated by the orthodox for suggesting that Jesus wasn't quite human and so forth?

 

(Sorry, if this seems pedantic. I'm just thinking out loud I guess. )

[mymistake]

The mundane Jesus theory doesn't solve the problem of Christian origins; it deepens it. Against all precedent and expectation, Jews deify a man as a god; even though they are small, illiterate, and disorganized, they rapidly grow into a large, literate, organized, and international religious movement; within 15 years, they have a fully worked out soteriological system from ex-Pharisee "Paul." Strangely, though it is a Galilean Jewish movement, "Paul's" soteriological scheme is solely concerned with the idea that "though Christ's death, salvation has come to the Gentiles," as "adherence to the Law brings death," ideas utterly alien to the movement and their founder. In another 15 years, the original Jewish, Aramaic, pro-Torah movement is over; Christianity is now Gentile, Greek and Syrian in language, anti-Torah, and, bizarrely, anti-Jewish. This completes the most rapid reversal of a religious movement away from its founder and original purpose in history. 

 

Or, perhaps, some Gentiles converted to Judaism, but eventually left, took the Greek Bible with them, and started their own sect, adopting a mythical figurehead, "Lord Jesus Christ," killed by the Jews so that Gentiles could be saved. 

 

 

Exactly.  Where are the New Testament Hebrew writings?  Where are the New Testament Aramaic writings? 

[Sextus]

The mundane Jesus theory doesn't solve the problem of Christian origins; it deepens it.

That's nonsense.

 

Against all precedent and expectation, Jews deify a man as a god

"Jews" do this? Really? No, Gentiles do this once the sect has drifted from its Jewish roots and turned into a Gentile soteriological cult. Remember how I challenged you to find me anything in the earliest strata of New Testament material - the three synoptic gospels, Acts or the seven Pauline epistles - where there was any reference to Jesus as a "god"? Remember how you failed completely? Why do you think that was?

 

 

even though they are small, illiterate, and disorganized, they rapidly grow into a large, literate, organized, and international religious movement; within 15 years

Total fantasy. They grow into a tiny sect with a few communities in the Jewish diaspora. Even by the most optimistic estimates they have fewer than 2000 adherents by the end of the first century.

 

 

they have a fully worked out soteriological system from ex-Pharisee "Paul." Strangely, though it is a Galilean Jewish movement, "Paul's" soteriological scheme is solely concerned with the idea that "though Christ's death, salvation has come to the Gentiles," as "adherence to the Law brings death," ideas utterly alien to the movement and their founder.

Yes, just like the movement of John the Baptist, which also spread into the diaspora and was baptising gentiles in the same period. Gosh.

 

In another 15 years, the original Jewish, Aramaic, pro-Torah movement is over

It is? Wow. Better get in your time machine and tell the Ebionites they don't exist in the first century.

 

Christianity is now Gentile, Greek and Syrian in language, anti-Torah, and, bizarrely, anti-Jewish.

Anti-Jewish? Go read Acts where the Christians are happily preaching in the Temple and going to synagogues. Doesn't it strike you as strange that, according to you, a cult worshipping Jesus as God is doing this? Please explain.

 

Over and over again Mythicism can only be sustained via a complete ignorance of the actual evidence.

[Blood]

 

The mundane Jesus theory doesn't solve the problem of Christian origins; it deepens it. Against all precedent and expectation, Jews deify a man as a god; even though they are small, illiterate, and disorganized, they rapidly grow into a large, literate, organized, and international religious movement; within 15 years, they have a fully worked out soteriological system from ex-Pharisee "Paul." Strangely, though it is a Galilean Jewish movement, "Paul's" soteriological scheme is solely concerned with the idea that "though Christ's death, salvation has come to the Gentiles," as "adherence to the Law brings death," ideas utterly alien to the movement and their founder. In another 15 years, the original Jewish, Aramaic, pro-Torah movement is over; Christianity is now Gentile, Greek and Syrian in language, anti-Torah, and, bizarrely, anti-Jewish. This completes the most rapid reversal of a religious movement away from its founder and original purpose in history. 

 

Or, perhaps, some Gentiles converted to Judaism, but eventually left, took the Greek Bible with them, and started their own sect, adopting a mythical figurehead, "Lord Jesus Christ," killed by the Jews so that Gentiles could be saved.

My understanding is that Jesus and his disciples along with John the Baptist were part of a preexisting Jewish sect related to the Dead Sea Scroll group. I think initially they believed Jesus was a prophet who was rejected and executed like other prophets. Later they developed the belief that Jesus was actually the Jewish Messiah who would return to start the Kingdom of Heaven, but they never believed that Jesus was a passover lamb and all the rest of Paul's theology.

 

So are you saying that Paul was a gentile who failed as a Jew and decided to invent Christianity? I have heard that Paul was surprisingly ignorant of Jewish beliefs and may have been fibbing about his Jewish resume. So then the Jewish Christians were the late-comers instead of the founders who were trying to adopt the Greek/Pagan Christianity without abandoning Judaism.

 

So if the myth theory was true, then why were the Gnostics so hated by the orthodox for suggesting that Jesus wasn't quite human and so forth?

 

(Sorry, if this seems pedantic. I'm just thinking out loud I guess. )

 

 

It's hard to know who or what "Paul" was, but the ideas of the writer of the epistles (which aren't epistles) are stridently and blasphemously anti-Jewish in all respects. Plus, we have several different people writing fake letters under the name "Paul," which should set off some seriously loud alarm bells that this entire enterprise is pious fraud, rather than the typical apologetic retreat of "authentic" epistles and non-authentic ones. Written by Paul's "school." 

 

There was no "orthodox" in the first and second century. "Orthodoxy" is something established as a culmination. A Docetic Christ was a mainstream view among many sects of Christians. The Catholics became "orthodox" by opposing them, through slander. Slander is the most effective method of establishing an orthodoxy, especially when you have the ingenious "Satan" trick to pull out of a hat. 

[Sextus]

Exactly.  Where are the New Testament Hebrew writings?  Where are the New Testament Aramaic writings?

Why would a sect that spread into a Greek-speaking literary world amongst Greek-speaking Jews and Greek-speaking "God Fearers" (look it up) have surviving Hebrew or Aramaic scriptures? Though would you like the evidence that gMark used an Aramaic text/texts as one of his sources? Because that's right there in his text. Once again Mythicism is based on a total ignorance of the relevant evidence. Seeing a pattern here folks?

[Blood]

Hey Sextus, 

 

What's your explanation for the Pauline expression, "Lord Jesus Christ"? Since "Lord" is used to mean YHWH in the Bible Paul used, isn't it kind of strange that he would be using this same expression for Jesus? Especially since, according to you, he didn't think of Jesus as a god?

[Blood]

 

Exactly.  Where are the New Testament Hebrew writings?  Where are the New Testament Aramaic writings?

Why would a sect that spread into a Greek-speaking literary world amongst Greek-speaking Jews and Greek-speaking "God Fearers" (look it up) have surviving Hebrew or Aramaic scriptures? Though would you like the evidence that gMark used an Aramaic text/texts as one of his sources? Because that's right there in his text. Once again Mythicism is based on a total ignorance of the relevant evidence. Seeing a pattern here folks?

 

 

Christian apologetics 101 is to cite non-existent Hebrew and Aramaic gospels that supposedly were used by our evangelists, but strangely not preserved by them. We are quite aware of this supposed "evidence." 

[Sextus]

My understanding is that Jesus and his disciples along with John the Baptist were part of a preexisting Jewish sect related to the Dead Sea Scroll group.

There is zero evidence that either were "related" to the Essenes in any direct way. They were simply, like the Essenes, expecting the coming apocalyptic kingship of Yahweh.

 

I think initially they believed Jesus was a prophet who was rejected and executed like other prophets. Later they developed the belief that Jesus was actually the Jewish Messiah who would return to start the Kingdom of Heaven, but they never believed that Jesus was a passover lamb and all the rest of Paul's theology.

Sorry, but it seems that Paul got that idea from the first followers of Jesus. They seem to have developed this idea after Jesus' death as a way of coping with his execution.

 

So if the myth theory was true, then why were the Gnostics so hated by the orthodox for suggesting that Jesus wasn't quite human and so forth?

Good question.

 

(Sorry, if this seems pedantic. I'm just thinking out loud I guess. )

Don't apologise for thinking. The problem here is that Mythicism is a contrived "just so story" that only works if you don't expose it to sustained critical analysis. Occam's Razor slashes it to pieces.

[Sextus]

Hey Sextus, 

 

What's your explanation for the Pauline expression, "Lord Jesus Christ"? Since "Lord" is used to mean YHWH in the Bible Paul used, isn't it kind of strange that he would be using this same expression for Jesus? Especially since, according to you, he didn't think of Jesus as a god?

Κύριος can be a Greek translation of the Hebrew title "Adonai", meaning "lord" and a substitute for the name of God. Or it can be a direct translation of the Aramaic 'mar, a title Jews used for a pre-eminent teacher or rabbi. You just don't seem to have a proper grasp of the cultural and linguistic context.

[Sextus]

Christian apologetics 101 is to cite non-existent Hebrew and Aramaic gospels that supposedly were used by our evangelists, but strangely not preserved by them. We are quite aware of this supposed "evidence."

Well poisoning 101. And can you now explain the oddities in gMark which only make sense if he was translating an Aramaic source? Let's add that to the things you need to do and have so far failed to achieve.

[Sextus]

It's hard to know who or what "Paul" was, but the ideas of the writer of the epistles (which aren't epistles) are stridently and blasphemously anti-Jewish in all respects.

More nonsense. They "aren't epistles"? Pardon? And "blasphemously anti-Jewish in all respects"? What, you mean the texts by the guy who describes himself as "circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee....as to righteousness under the law, blameless"?

 

You were supposed to find me a reference in the seven authentic Pauline epistles to Paul saying Jesus was God, remember? You failed completely, remember? Now, why would that be? Go read the material again and this time do it properly.

[Blood]

Sextus's missionary zeal is certainly inspiring. 

 

The "early" Christian texts are not written about a man. They are written about a god-man the Christians worship, the "son of God." I guess Sextus didn't see this citation:

 

 

Romans 1:1-5

"Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— ² the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures ³ regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, ⁴ and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God (Theou) in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord (Kuriou).”

 

 

"Son" of the Kurios (not "Son of Theos") was an expression used in the LXX Psalms to denote King David. "Lord" (Kurios) of course stood for YHWH. 

 

So here we have an ostensibly "early" Christian text in which Jesus -- whom the writer acknowledges had an earthly life -- after his resurrection was appointed Son -- of the Kurios? No, of Theos. Jesus Christ is now our Lord. The same expression used for YHWH. 

 

After being killed by "the Jews" (1 Thes 2:16), Jesus became the Messiah (Christ) upon his resurrection. Who resurrected him? Theos. Jesus is now not only the Christ but also the Kurios -- the Lord. 

 

It's a strange theology that has nothing whatsoever to do with Jewish exegesis, in the first century or another time, as almost all Jewish scholars (whom Sextus is apparently unaware of) today will point out. Jesus is never referred to as "the Son of the Kurios" -- he is the Kurios. He is the Lord. He is a god or God. 

[Sextus]

Sextus's missionary zeal is certainly inspiring. 

 

The "early" Christian texts are not written about a man. They are written about a god-man the Christians worship, the "son of God." I guess Sextus didn't see this citation:

 

 

Romans 1:1-5

"Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— ² the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures ³ regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, ⁴ and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God (Theou) in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord (Kuriou).”

 

 

"Son" of the Kurios (not "Son of Theos") was an expression used in the LXX Psalms to denote King David. "Lord" (Kurios) of course stood for YHWH. 

 

So here we have an ostensibly "early" Christian text in which Jesus -- whom the writer acknowledges had an earthly life -- after his resurrection was appointed Son -- of the Kurios? No, of Theos. Jesus Christ is now our Lord. The same expression used for YHWH. 

 

After being killed by "the Jews" (1 Thes 2:16), Jesus became the Messiah (Christ) upon his resurrection. Who resurrected him? Theos. Jesus is now not only the Christ but also the Kurios -- the Lord. 

 

It's a strange theology that has nothing whatsoever to do with Jewish exegesis, in the first century or another time, as almost all Jewish scholars (whom Sextus is apparently unaware of) today will point out. Jesus is never referred to as "the Son of the Kurios" -- he is the Kurios. He is the Lord. He is a god or God.

I'm well aware of this Jew's reference to the Jewish concept of the Messiah as the "Son of God". And the fact that he says Jesus was "appointed" BY Yahweh to this title kind of cruels your argument rather sharply. So, fail. Try again. Try harder.

 

Sextus's missionary zeal is certainly inspiring.

Stop the passive aggressive bullshit.

[Blood]

 

It's hard to know who or what "Paul" was, but the ideas of the writer of the epistles (which aren't epistles) are stridently and blasphemously anti-Jewish in all respects.

More nonsense. They "aren't epistles"? Pardon? And "blasphemously anti-Jewish in all respects"? What, you mean the texts by the guy who describes himself as "circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee....as to righteousness under the law, blameless"?

 

You were supposed to find me a reference in the seven authentic Pauline epistles to Paul saying Jesus was God, remember? You failed completely, remember? Now, why would that be? Go read the material again and this time do it properly.

 

 

The credulity you have toward Biblical writings is remarkable. I suppose you believe the Epistle of Jeremiah is a real letter written by Jeremiah, also?

[Sextus]

The credulity you have toward Biblical writings is remarkable. I suppose you believe the Epistle of Jeremiah is a real letter written by Jeremiah, also?

What the hell has this weak sneering got to do with anything I've said? You were meant to be finding me a reference to Jesus as God in First Thessalonians, Philippians, Philemon, First Corinthians, Galatians, Second Corinthians or Romans. So far you've failed completely. What seems to be the problem?

[Orbit]

Sextus, you really need to tone down your condescending unnecessary personal bullshit. This thread is getting too annoying to follow.

[Sextus]

Sextus, you really need to tone down your condescending unnecessary personal bullshit. This thread is getting too annoying to follow.

I give back what I get. The fact the passive aggressive crap about how I am dealing in "apologism" and "credulity" doesn't seem to register as "unnecessary personal bullshit" on your radar is most interesting. I respond to civil posts with civility. I respond to "unnecessary personal bullshit" accordingly. So get your prissy and selectively blind finger out of my fucking face. Clear enough for you, sunshine?