So if he WASN'T the Son of God....

oldrnwisr

Peregrinus wrote: »

The contemporary opponents of Christianity, remember, included the Temple authorities, who were supposed to have hunted him down and handed him over to the Romans to be crucified. If he had been fictional, they would know that none of this had ever happened. They would hardly have been behind about pointing this out. Similarly, the Pharisee movement would have had a strong interest in pointing to the fictionality of Christ, if indeed he had been fictional.

There always seems to be an element of the Mandela effect in play when discussing this topic.

Firstly, the depiction of the Temple Authorities in the gospels is not likely to be true. From what we know of Pilate from other writers like Philo and Josephus, Pilate was a ruthless, murderous governor who liked to troll the Jews for ****s and giggles. If the temple authorities had deigned to bring Jesus to Pilate and demand his crucifixion, they would have found themselves nailed to a neighbouring cross for their impudence. Pilate's depiction in the gospels as a weak-willed nice guy, too cowardly to speak up to his Jewish masters is pure fantasy.

Secondly, the story of the Temple Authorities plotting against Jesus and handing him over to be crucified arrives with the gospels. Those same temple authorities were all dead by then and in no position to argue against a fictional Jesus.

recedite

oldrnwisr wrote: »

but on the other hand all of Paul's information comes from visions...

Are you suggesting that visions are not an acceptable source of material evidence :pac:

Franz Von Peppercorn

robindch wrote: »

I can't speak for oldrnwisr, but for myself, it's got nothing to do with certain types of anybody trying to disprove the existence of one figure or another.

On the contrary, it has everything to do with what I suppose you could call the semi-voyeuristic spectacle of religious people - and I'm not including you here - who declaim or imply the perfection of their religion while unfamiliar with the imperfection of the blocks which hold it up in the air.

The historicity of Jesus has nothing got to do with the religious aspects, so that won’t wash.

I could continue my argument on the historicity of Jesus, the belief of most scholars, here but I think it’s fairly pointless to do so.

Theres a type of atheist - generally a convert - who is searching for another priesthood. I believe atheist Ireland is like that and this forum has its own cult of personalities.

Franz Von Peppercorn

oldrnwisr wrote: »

There always seems to be an element of the Mandela effect in play when discussing this topic.

Firstly, the depiction of the Temple Authorities in the gospels is not likely to be true. From what we know of Pilate from other writers like Philo and Josephus, Pilate was a ruthless, murderous governor who liked to troll the Jews for ****s and giggles. If the temple authorities had deigned to bring Jesus to Pilate and demand his crucifixion, they would have found themselves nailed to a neighbouring cross for their impudence. Pilate's depiction in the gospels as a weak-willed nice guy, too cowardly to speak up to his Jewish masters is pure fantasy.

He had of course been rebuked by the emperor previously for antagonising Jewish belief systems.

The washing of hands is probably a later addition. Christianity was trying to spread through the empire at the time and preferred to blame the Jews rather than the empire.

Nevertheless as with most inconsistencies it proves the opposite of what you think it does. A fictional Jesus could just have been killed by the Sanhedrin outright. There is no need for Pilate and no need for crucifixion - which was used for common criminals or revolutionaries against the state.

If the ever mysterious inventors of Christianity wanted to blame the Jews with an invented Jesus he would have been stoned.

Secondly, the story of the Temple Authorities plotting against Jesus and handing him over to be crucified arrives with the gospels. Those same temple authorities were all dead by then and in no position to argue against a fictional Jesus.

Lots of people were dead by the time they were written about. Not much of an argument.

the_syco

Everlong1 wrote: »

....who exactly was this Jesus Christ bloke? And why are millions still worshipping him 2,000 plus years later?

Saw a documentary about him. Seems there was plenty of messiahs around that time. The bible was written based on 3rd hand info long after he was dead.

People are still worshipping him, because if you were a priest you;
didn't have to fight
got paid for it
your word was the word of god

and the HQ have a fcuk load of money to ensure the money still pours in.

oldrnwisr

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

He had of course been rebuked by the emperor previously for antagonising Jewish belief systems.

Yes, exactly. Philo of Alexandria documents Pilate deliberately antagonising the Jews. And Josephus, in the passage immediately prior to the testimonium goads the Jews into a precipitous act (using sacred money to build an aqueduct) and then violently suppresses the consequent uprising. This isn't the Pilate that we see in the Gospels.

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

The washing of hands is probably a later addition. Christianity was trying to spread through the empire at the time and preferred to blame the Jews rather than the empire.

You're making an assumption that there was a core crucifixion story involving Pilate which was built upon by the Gospels. But there's no evidence for that. There's also evidence of deliberately fabricated elements like the story of Barabbas. Then there's the problem of the portrayal of Pilate's character. Then there's the contradiction between Mark and John over every significant element of the crucifixion. Mark's gospel, the earliest and the basis for all of the other passion narratives gets almost everything wrong. He has the trial happen in the home of a member of the Sanhedrin, which wouldn't happen, he has the trial happen at night, which wouldn't happen, he has the trial happen during Passover, which wouldn't happen, he has the sentenced passed immediately, which wouldn't happen, he has Jesus beaten in custody, which wouldn't happen, he has Jesus buried in a single cloth, which wouldn't happen.

At the time when Mark's gospel was written, Rome had no idea what Christianity was. It would take Roman writers another 40 years to even begin mentioning Christianity. You can even see the Roman response to early Christians in Acts 18 when a group of Jews bring Paul before the proconsul Gallio (brother of Seneca). The Jews bring Paul to Gallio for "worshipping God contrary to law" to which Gallio responds, meh come back when he commits an actual crime. As I've already pointed out, if the Christians were spreading so rapidly then people like Seneca who was in the mix along with his brother, would have mentioned it, and yet didn't.

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Nevertheless as with most inconsistencies it proves the opposite of what you think it does. A fictional Jesus could just have been killed by the Sanhedrin outright. There is no need for Pilate and no need for crucifixion - which was used for common criminals or revolutionaries against the state.

Well, here's the thing. Firstly, there are suggestions in various NT books that Jesus was stoned and not crucified:

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed."
1 Peter 2:24

"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.""
Galatians 3:13

"The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead - whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree."
Act 5:30

"We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree."
Acts 10:39

"When they had carried out all that they had written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb."
Acts 13:29

After all, why would the Jews even bring Jesus to be crucified. The recurring theme in the gospels is that Jesus admonishes the Pharisees for adhering too closely, to the letter rather than the spirit of the law. The Sanhedrin certainly had the authority to stone people, or at the very least, the Roman authorities didn't give a crap whether the Jews stoned someone or not. They stone Stephen to death in Acts 7:54-8:2 and were it not for Jesus' intervention they would have stoned that woman to death in John 8:1-11. So the usual Christian excuse that the Sanhedrin wouldn't have been allowed to stone somebody just doesn't wash.
Again and again in the gospels the Sanhedrin are seen to blindly follow the commandments. So when Jesus is accused of blasphemy in Mark 14, the punishment is clearly mandated as stoning in Leviticus 24:16. The references to Jesus being hung on a tree above and Joseph's request for Jesus' body (despite having voted him guilty) becomes clear when you read Deuteronomy 21:23

"his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance."

OK, so what does all this have to do with mythicism. Mark's gospel is heavily influenced by Pauline Christianity and has a strong anti-Judaic element, so it would make sense for the original story to have the Jews as the aggressors. However, there is also in Mark an undercurrent of political foreshadowing like the symbolism contained in Jesus' exorcism of the demon possessed man in Chapter 5. Mark's gospel was written during or soon after the Jewish War and destruction of the Temple in 70CE and even bears some evidence of borrowing from Josephus' Jewish war. It's entirely possible that the first draft of Mark blamed the Jews but that this was changed to the Romans in the changing political climate around 70CE. This would go a long way to explain certain inconsistencies in the passion narrative. We should also bear in mind that the gospel was copied and copied and copied for 130 years before we get to the first extant manuscript. The idea that we can be sure we have the original story is laughable.

As I've said before, the mythicists have two major stumbling blocks to overcome, the writings of Paul and any direct positive evidence for the Jesus story being entirely mythical. However, the historicists have equally big stumbling blocks including the fictitious nature of the gospels, the fact that Paul only experienced Jesus in visions, the fact that we have no writings from any non-Christian sources before the 2nd century and the fact that we have no writings from any other named person in the NT. The writings of Peter, Paul, James and John are all pseudoepigraphal. Right now, the truth state of Jesus' existence is indeterminate and what it should really do is prompt the question of where the default position should be, existence or nonexistence.

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Lots of people were dead by the time they were written about. Not much of an argument.

Peregrinus' point was that if a story of Jesus being crucified by the Romans at the behest of the Jews was going around, and if Jesus was fictional, then the Temple Authorities could have and would have written a rebuttal of this fact. However, there are two flaws in this argument. Firstly, there is the extremely low possibility of any anti-Christian writing surviving to the present.
Secondly, Peregrinus' assumes that the passion narrative as told in Mark had been circulating since the time of Paul's ministry or before. However, there's no evidence of that. The first time we see the passion narrative is in Mark by which time the Temple Authorities from 30CE would all be dead.

Hotblack Desiato

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Theres a type of atheist - generally a convert - who is searching for another priesthood. I believe atheist Ireland is like that and this forum has its own cult of personalities.

This is a strange place to be making up new unevidenced beliefs

recedite

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Galatians was a church probably somewhere around Antalya in Turkey about 440 miles from Jerusalem directly but about 880 miles for travellers of the time. It is likely from internal evidence in the letter and surrounding evidence in Acts 16:6 that it was Paul himself who founded the communities in Galatia and that they were not pre-existing communities. Moreover, Galatians 4:8 demonstrates that the churches were composed of primarily pagan converts.

I agree but also interesting to note that "the Galatians" were not so much a church, but a people. Celts who had migrated from central europe, and speaking a language similar to Welsh. In the early years of BCE the pioneers had been mercenaries, but later whole tribes migrated into northern Italy, sacking Rome. Also getting as far east as Anatolia. The name Galatians is a version of Gauls. Also related to the Gaels V Galls in Ireland and the later Scottish Gallowglasses.
But by the time of Paul the various Celtic tribes known collectively as the "Gauls" had been conquered throughout most of the continent, so the Galatians would have been a Romanised subject people. But still quite different in terms of religion and culture to either Romans, Greeks or Jews.

At this time, the Turks had not yet arrived in Turkey; that was much later.

Everlong1

Hi folks.

I haven't had a chance to follow up on my OP since I posted it, so am pleasantly surprised to discover the robust debate which seems to have ensued !

I'm not a scholar myself so was really looking for "an idiot's guide" to Christianity and I've certainly got that!

Big thanks and respect to all who posted. I look forward to studying the above and doing some further homework myself.

Everlong1

Fourier

Bart Ehrman's books on the topic are quite good, although they repeat themselves heavily as robindch said, I'd suggest "How Jesus became God". It's one of the latter ones and has some good info on both Judaic and Greco-Roman religion at the time.

New Testament History and Literature by Dale Martin probably has the best info on the whole topic of early Christian writings (did you know there were romantic thrillers about Paul?).

He also summarises the current thoughts on Jesus's existence quite well. Similar to oldrnwsr above, though he extends it using places where the gospels disagree or contradict their message as additional points of evidence.

Zubeneschamali

Adamocovic wrote: »

I had always assumed there was enough historical writings that suggested a person (Named Jesus or not) claiming to be the son of God existed.

The Gospels are historical writings, but they are obviously extremely unreliable as history, being written down 1-2 generations after the events described based on stories in circulation, and then, much later, whittled down to four to make a somewhat more consistent story.

And at least to my eye, the Gospels say that Jesus did not claim to be the Son of God.

magicbastarder

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

The Gospels are historical writings, but they are obviously extremely unreliable as history, being written down 1-2 generations after the events described based on stories in circulation, and then, much later, whittled down to four to make a somewhat more consistent story.

can you imagine gerry adams writing the history of the IRA in his retirement? maybe the comparison is a stretch, but not that big of a stretch.

Zubeneschamali

magicbastarder wrote: »

can you imagine gerry adams writing the history of the IRA in his retirement? maybe the comparison is a stretch, but not that big of a stretch.

I think it is more as if someone today were to write a life of Elvis based entirely on stories they heard with no written references at all.

Elvis, too, is rumoured to have appeared to his followers after his death, and lo, there are shrines to him in many homes, uh-huh-huh.

pauldla

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

I think it is more as if someone today were to write a life of Elvis based entirely on stories they heard with no written references at all.

Elvis, too, is rumoured to have appeared to his followers after his death, and lo, there are shrines to him in many homes, uh-huh-huh.