Jesus is a myth (short video addressing the basics) with Rook
Posted on: March 28, 2007 - 11:07am
Offline
Jesus is a myth (short video addressing the basics) with Rook
Rook and Sapient cover the basics of Jesus mythicism
Bookmark/Search this post with:
I thought this was great and added it for people. FUCK YouTube for deleting this video!
The trouble with born again Christians is they're even more annoying the second time around.
Mod Edit: STOP SPAMMING THIS QUOTE ALL OVER MY FORUM! THIS IS YOUR FIRST WARNING. SECOND WARNING RESULTS IN A TIME OUT FOR TWO DAYS. I HAVE REFUTED YOUR QUOTE IN THIS FORUM.
and that probably why 99% of jews didn't believe in that lol....
Christiannity is obviously a mix between paganism and judaism.... there R so many pagan images new to judaism in xtianity... like the cult of the virgin, of the saints, healers,wine etc...
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof,
then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
For Julius Ceasar there is also a contemporary wall of the senate in Rome's museum with the list of all consuls that shows Julius and Augustus...
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof,
then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
An hour long interview of Joseph Atwill author of the book
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCNJf83bqjs
My refutation of Joe Atwill:
http://www.rationalresponders.com/on_caesars_messiah_the_truth_is_worse_then_fiction
----------------------------------------
Please help me get my resources so I can finish my book more quickly.
My wish list.
Et suppositio nil ponit in esse.
"You act ridiculously," said Ion, "to doubt everything. For my part, I should like to ask you what you say to those who free possessed men from their terrors by exorcising the spirits so manifestly. I need not discuss this: everyone knows about the Syrian from Palestine, the adept in it, how many he takes in hand who fall down in the light of the moon and roll their eyes and fill their mouths with foam; nevertheless, he restores them to health and sends them away normal in mind, delivering them from their straits for a large fee. When he stands beside them as they lie there and asks : 'Whence came you into his body?' the patient himself is silent, but the spirit answers in Greek or in the language of whatever foreign country he comes from, telling how and whence he entered into the man; whereupon, by adjuring the spirit and if he does not obey, threatening him, he drives him out. Indeed, I actually saw one coming out, black and smoky in color." "It is nothing much," I remarked," for you, Ion, to see that kind of sight, when even the 'forms' that the father of your school, Plato, points out are plain to you, a hazy object of vision to the rest of us, whose eyes are weak." - Lucian, Lover of Lies
Okay, Rook, I bought a stack of books on Amazon for you! A lot on your list were damn expensive! I wanted you to get a pretty large package, while still not spending too damn much money. So, what I did was, I went through your list, and the books priority of "high" or "highest", in stock, and less than $50, I bought it. So, you got 14 coming.
EDIT: I just threw in a Silver membership, so I should be getting me a silver bar!
www.caseagainstfaith.com
Interesting and while I am close to thinking that Jesus what probably just a man and definitely not a son of a God by a Virgin mom I don't think he's just made up totall.
OT (off topic not Old Testament), Rook is kinda cute wooooo lol.
---George Carlin---
Interesting.
If the Mythicist premise is based on the claim that Paul never speaks about Jesus as a real, physical person, then there's a problem, in that I count at least three different instances in Paul's writings where he clearly indicates his belief that Jesus was indeed a real, live human being: Galatians 4:1-7, Philippians 2:1, and Romans 1:1-7. There are other instances, but these should suffice.
I also find it strange to argue that the Gospels can't be considered contemporaneous accounts of Jesus' life, while simultaneously using the Pauline epistles as proof that the early Christians considered that Jesus was only a spiritual being. The video doesn't explain this, so hopefully someone here will.
The Saint
Well, I'm not an expert, and I think the mythist case is probably correct, but, I acknowledge that to say that Paul NEVER speaks of Jesus as being a physical man is a bit of an exagerration or misleading. There are a few cases where it at least sounds like he's talking about a man, like "born of woman". How can Jesus be "born of woman" if he wasn't even a man?
The mythist case is that these few cases are metaphorical. After all, if Paul was speaking of a man, would it be necessary to point out that he was "born of woman"? Wouldn't that be obvious? Have you ever heard of anybody else pointing out somebody was "born of woman"? So, what might Paul mean here? Well, I don't fully understand it myself. But, I understand it has something to do with the idea of the time that there were multiple levels of the spiritual realm, with entities more closer to human in the lower levels, while more spiritual in the upper levels. And Christ was (allegedly) a being of an intermediate level to act as an itermediary between humans and God.
Now, I'll accept that sounds "ad hoc", at least to someone that has always understood Jesus to be a human. And, I'm not 100% convinced that it is correct, I don't know. But, there are some points in the mythist's favor. For example, Christians generally interpret the passages where Paul seems to speak of Christ as purely spiritual are either themselves metaphorical, which might also be termed "ad hoc". For example, when Paul speaks of Jesus as being a "newly revealed mystery", what would he mean by that if he thought Jesus was a human that lived and died? Did Jesus reveal himself?
Apples to oranges. The Gospels are not contemporaneous, as everyone, all Christians, agree that the Gospels were written after his death (if he lived at all...) So, that is by definition not contemporaneous. But, Paul was obviously contemporaneous with early Christians -- he was an early Christian! So, what Paul believed seems to be reasonably likely to be consistent with early Christianity. But, what exactly did Paul believe?
Well, even if you insist that the Paul means a real human being, well, he still coorborates very little of the Gospel stories. He never mentions the virgin birth, Mary, Joseph. Never quotes or mentions a parable. Nothing about being born in a manger. Though he says that people have seen Jesus after the Resurrection, he never says it was a PHYSICAL appearance. His own conversion is supposed to be only a vision, and he never says anybody had anything more than he did.
Interestingly, he does a few times mention the "apostles," as in followers of Christ. But, does not mention "disciples" as in direct students of his.
www.caseagainstfaith.com
Well, as Mr. Hawkins described the "Mythicist" position, it would seem that even one example of Paul speaking of Jesus as a real, flesh-and-blood person would completely undermine the premise.
But what is this conclusion based upon? One of the common objections by Atheists to Christians who argue that Scripture contains metaphor is, "how do we know what is meant to be taken literally, and what is meant figuratively"? If the Mythicist is going to insist that the passages in which Paul speaks of a flesh-and-blood Jesus are metaphorical, on what basis does he base that conclusion? Claiming these passages are metaphorical doesn't make sense in context. For example, 1 Corinthians 11:12 says,
"For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God."
Paul is speaking of Humanity, and clearly, we as humans are not metaphorical beings existing on a spiritual plane. So how does the Mythicist conclude that when Paul says Jesus is "born of a woman", it's metaphorical, but in other cases, it isn't?
The term "born of a woman" is more than a mere descriptor, the phrase has has weight under the Law--it is used to indicate that this person was born into a specific time, place and culture, and has rights under the Law. It is also not unique to Paul's writings--it occurs throughout the Bible: Job 15:14, Matthew 11:11, Luke 7:28, 1Corinthians 11:12, to name just a few.
It's an interesting thought, but one without merit. In fact, there are no reliable extra-Biblical historical sources that indicate the early Christians believed anything of the sort.
Primarily because Paul's experience with Jesus was spiritual, and he did reveal himself to Paul in a vision, but that does not mean that Paul believed or taught that Jesus was a purely spiritual being, because he clearly did not. Paul was also a contemporary with Peter and the other Apostles who did know and live with Jesus, and had frequent contact with them--they would certainly have been aware of Paul's teachings (Peter sends Paul and Barnabas out to be missionaries to the Gentiles), yet there is no record of any other Father of the Church objecting to what Paul believed about Jesus.
Therein lies the problem. If Paul believed that Jesus was a spiritual being only, and if Paul is a reliable source of what the early Christians believed, wouldn't the Christian teachings that came later reflect this? If we accept the Mythicist's position that the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life were written later than Paul, then why do these accounts describe Jesus as a real, flesh-and-blood human being? It seems to me that the Mythicist has a real problem here regarding continuity--if the early Christians believed that Jesus was a spiritual being only, then it makes no rational sense that all subsequent Christian texts and doctrines substantiate a solid belief in Jesus as a real, physical human being.
There's no reason why Paul would have mentioned these things, because there would be no need to reiterate what they already knew and believed. Paul's epistles were directed at people who were already Christians, in churches that were experiencing moral and/or doctrinal problems. One of the problems I see with the Mythicist's position is the presupposition that Paul is the sole definitive authority on Jesus. It's just not the case.
Paul seems to use the terms "apostle" and "disciple" interchangeably, since it is clear that many of the people he terms "apostle" are in fact disciples of the 12, or of himself.
The Saint
Well, if indeed it is Paul speaking of Jesus as a literal human, and it is genuine (not an interpolation) I would tend to agree. As I said, I'm not an expert on the subject. And I'm not "dogmatic" on either, meaning I'm not completely convinced of the mythist case.
I believe it is based on "prepoderance of evidence". Meaning that I don't think one can be certain. But, I believe that the idea is that if he was speaking of a real human, there would be more references to things he did.
Okay, fair enough.
Again, I'm not an expert. Richard Carrier, however, who is a Roman history expert, says that the idea of multiple spiritual planes was a common belief of the time. I don't know his sources. You might could look up his commentary on Earl Doherty's _The Jesus Puzzle_, as he agrees with at least this part of Doherty's argument.
Well, you didn't answer my question: "when Paul speaks of Jesus as being a "newly revealed mystery", what would he mean by that if he thought Jesus was a human that lived and died? Didn't Jesus reveal himself?"
Secondly, whether or not Paul believed that Jesus had been a man, it is still a true statement that he never indicates any physical appearances of Jesus after the Resurrection.
We don't have any clear indication of what factions existed in the first century. The oldest Christian artificat comes from the year 125, a few verses of John. Do you know what the second oldest Chrsitian-related artifact is? Dated from 150 is a significant portion of a non-connonical Gospel that is very different from the connonical ones. The idea that all the "heretical" Gospels are "very late" is false. (At least according to Bart Ehrman, my source on this.)
This would seem reasonable -- if you assume the Gospels were ORIGINALLY intended as being true. There is some evidence that the Gospels, at least the earliest one or two, were intended to be an allegorical story, that over time got misinterpreted into being real.
Well, first, consider how often Christian preachers TODAY reiterate parts of the Gospel stories that everybody knows. Using the scripture to support the position of the preachers sermon is quite common, even natural and expected. It would be just as natural and expected of Paul, particularly when he is talking on subjects that Jesus (allegedly) spoke on. Wouldn't you expect Paul to say, "well, remember what Jesus said, ..."?
Second, WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE RECEIVERS OF HIS LETTERS ALREADY BELIEVED AND KNEW! He was writing BEFORE the Gospels were already written! So we have NO IDEA what (if any) of the Gospel themes were already believed. You might say that even if we don't, Paul would know what they knew. But how? How could he think he knew what everyone had been exposed to, given that the Gospels hadn't even been written yet?
And, even after they were written, different groups used differet Gospels, so the idea of their being "one Christian belief" in the beginning is without merit. And surely Paul would know that and therefore would have extra need to utilize the teachings of Jesus that he knew and believed to be genuine. So the idea that "Paul didn't feel the need to reiterate what everybody already knew" is just without merit.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but, I thought he ONLY used "apostle" and NOT "disciple".
www.caseagainstfaith.com
I guess I just don't see that as a problem, or as credible evidence that Paul believed that Jesus existed only on a "spiritual plane".
As I understand it, Richard Carrier is only one of a small handful of historians who think that Jesus was a total invention. Though a qualified historian and scholar, he is in the extreme minority of those who hold that Jesus never existed--the preponderance of scholars agree that Jesus was a real, historical figure (though not necessarily that he was who Christians claim he was). While the notion of multiple spiritual planes might have been a common belief among the Romans, it was not a belief of the Jews, and there's no evidence that the first Christians (who were Jews) believed in such things.
I am unfamiliar with any passage of Paul's writings in which he states that Jesus is a "newly revealed mystery". Can you cite the verse?
1 Corinthians 15:1-11.
Actually, The Epistle of Pope Clement I, one of the oldest Christian texts universally recognized by scholars as authentic, dates to about 98 A.D. The Didache, a text quoted by Origen, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, dates even earlier, between 49-79 A.D. Fragments of what may be the Gospel of Mark were found in cave 7 of the Qum'ran complex, a cave known to have been sealed sometime around 50 A.D., calling into question the late dates given by skeptics for the Gospels. Furthermore, by the end of the 2nd century, the four Gospels, called the Tetramorph by Irenaeus, were already universally accepted as canonical by the Church--by this point, any non-canonical "gospels" of this period had already been by-and-large rejected as the result of the numerous heresies that had plagued the early Church.
Can you give references for this evidence?
That's a valid point, however, Paul was writing to specific churches experiencing specific doctrinal and/or moral issues. That he doesn't speak about specific aspects of Jesus' life and ministry is not proof that these were later inventions--it's only proof that Paul didn't talk about them. As I stated earlier, Paul is not the sole authority on Christianity or Jesus.
Well, we don't know that any of the Gospel's had not been written yet, we only know that we don't have any extant manuscripts dating before Paul's letters. Secondly, even if none of the Gospel's had been written prior to Paul, this does not prove that the knowledge contained in the Gospels was not already known to Christians. It's entirely probable that these stories would have been largely transmitted orally, given the widespread illiteracy of the day; Paul even indicates that Christians learned the faith through oral tradition in his own writings:
"He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15 So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter." 2 Thess. 2:13-15
The first chapter of the Gospel of Luke states that he is setting about to write an account of the things they (Christians) have already been taught:
"Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught." Luke 1:1-5
Oral tradition was a large part of the Jewish faith, as well as the early Church--it is not unreasonable to believe that the Gospels were transmitted orally before they were committed to writing.
Sorry about that--I realize that I was not making my point very clear. I meant to say that Paul uses the term "apostle" very loosely, to describe both disciples and the original 12 Apostles. Not sure though what this is supposed to indicate.
All of your objections are met here: http://rookthehistorian.blogspot.com/2007/05/revised-look-at-resurrection-and-its.html
Enjoy.
----------------------------------------
Please help me get my resources so I can finish my book more quickly.
My wish list.
Et suppositio nil ponit in esse.
"You act ridiculously," said Ion, "to doubt everything. For my part, I should like to ask you what you say to those who free possessed men from their terrors by exorcising the spirits so manifestly. I need not discuss this: everyone knows about the Syrian from Palestine, the adept in it, how many he takes in hand who fall down in the light of the moon and roll their eyes and fill their mouths with foam; nevertheless, he restores them to health and sends them away normal in mind, delivering them from their straits for a large fee. When he stands beside them as they lie there and asks : 'Whence came you into his body?' the patient himself is silent, but the spirit answers in Greek or in the language of whatever foreign country he comes from, telling how and whence he entered into the man; whereupon, by adjuring the spirit and if he does not obey, threatening him, he drives him out. Indeed, I actually saw one coming out, black and smoky in color." "It is nothing much," I remarked," for you, Ion, to see that kind of sight, when even the 'forms' that the father of your school, Plato, points out are plain to you, a hazy object of vision to the rest of us, whose eyes are weak." - Lucian, Lover of Lies
I agree that the mythist position is a minority opinion. I do not hold to it "dogmatically", I acknowledge that I don't have enough history background to actually rigerously investigate the evidence. That said, whenever I hear someone defend his historicity, the evidence they offer generally seems weak to me. There is no contemporary reference to Jesus.
Well, again, at least according to Carrier, borrowing from other religions was very common in Rome, where there were multitudes of religions. But, I'll try to go reread what Carrier said on this sometime this evening.
I'll try to look it up this evening.
Never says those were physical appearances. As you know, the appearance to Paul himself was spiritual, and he doesn't say any of those other appearances were any different.
We actually have manuscripts of that, that date to 98 AD?
"What may be"? Why is there doubt? Anyway, I haven't heard of this, so, I'd like some more information.
As far as I knew, we don't know for sure what Irenaeus was speaking of. But, I'm interested to know more.
Even if true, what does that tell us? Your admission of "numerous heresies" is an admission that there were lots of disputed accounts. One set of accounts got accepted. How does that make it more right? If a different set got accepted, what you now call genuine would be the "heretical" ones.
I believe it is in Todangst's article about the Gospels as midrash. But, I'll look at it some more this evening.
How better to speak of these issues but by quoting what Jesus said on these issues?
I didn't offer it as "proof", I don't believe we can "prove" what was in Paul's mind. I can only offer what seems most likley given the evidence. And what seems to me most likely is that Paul would have utilized Jesus teachings if he knew of them.
As far as I know, I thought even most Chrisitan authorities date Paul's epistles prior to the Gospels.
Given the "heretical" Gospels, and given the contradictions and ommissions between the connonical Gospels, I don't find it plausible that Paul would have thought he knew what specific teachings that his audience already knew. And even if he thought he did, that he wouldn't utilize them to back up his points!
You do realize you just claimed that the accuracy of the Gospels was maintained orally by illiterate people. If I offered you something today about WWII that was heretofore unwritten, but passed orally among illiterate people, would you be anxious to accept it as "gospel"? And please, don't give me the "oral society" argument...
Notice a few things here:
1. He admits he was not an eyewitness.
2. He claims the information was "handed down" from eyewitnesses, but doesn't say through whom, who he interviewed, what methods he used to distinguish fact from fiction. And, given you admission that there were "heretical" gospels, shows that there was more than one idea of what happened. But Luke doesn't tell us how he determined which were true and which were false.
3. The Gospels do contradict each other, so that is sufficient to know that there are at least some errors. How can you be sure there aren't other errors that aren't as obvious?
In other words, I'm correct, right? That he never specifically indicates there were any desciples, any direct students of Jesus, right?
www.caseagainstfaith.com
I think we've already been over this ground. Paul has to be considered contemporaneous, if the Mythicist is going to use Paul as proof that the early Christians believed that Jesus existed only as a spiritual being. But since Paul acknowledges Jesus' existence as a real, flesh-and-blood human being in several of his letters, the premise of the Mythicist falls apart, unless they can prove that Paul's acknowledgment of Jesus' physicality is somehow "metaphorical". But this would seem to be as arbitrary as the claim of the Christian who argues that certain passages of Scripture are metaphorical, while others are literal, begging the question, on what authority does the Mythicist argue that the references of Paul to a physical Jesus are metaphorical, and not literal?
Again, this might have been common in Rome, but Christianity does not find its origins in Rome, or with Paul.
Again--Paul is not the sole authority on Christian belief--you have to look at the over-all context of Christian theology, thought and tradition. Paul acknowledges that Jesus appeared first to the 12, then to hundreds of others; this same story is told in the Gospels, which do state that it was a physical appearance. Since Paul wasn't around with the 12 when the appearances occurred, we must assume that he learned about it from someone else--but if we maintain the Mythicist position that Paul and the early Christians believed that Jesus existed only as a spiritual being, then the Gospels that followed after Paul should have reflected that, and omitted any reference to a physical appearance of Jesus to the multitudes, but they didn't. So there's a fundamental disconnect between the Mythicist's claims, and what the early Christians actually believed about Jesus.
As far as I am aware, yes. However, even if the only extant copies were centuries older, it does not mean that the text is not accurate--after all, no one doubts the veracity or authorship of "The Gallic Wars", despite the fact that the earliest extant copy was written in 900 A.D.--about 1,000 after Julius Caesar.
There is some dispute about the possible translation of the fragment found (it's only a handful of letters in Greek). One unique translation makes it unquestionably from the Gospel of Mark, while other translations eliminate this possibility. Without more fragments, it may be impossible to definitively tell. For more information, do a search on Qum'ran cave 7 fragments.
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
"Irenæus, in his work "Against Heresies" (A.D. 182-88), testifies to the existence of a Tetramorph, or Quadriform Gospel, given by the Word and unified by one Spirit; to repudiate this Gospel or any part of it, as did the Alogi and Marcionites, was to sin against revelation and the Spirit of God. The saintly Doctor of Lyons explicitly states the names of the four Elements of this Gospel, and repeatedly cites all the Evangelists in a manner parallel to his citations from the Old Testament. From the testimony of St. Irenæus alone there can be no reasonable doubt that the Canon of the Gospel was inalterably fixed in the Catholic Church by the last quarter of the second century. Proofs might be multiplied that our canonical Gospels were then universally recognized in the Church, to the exclusion of any pretended Evangels. The magisterial statement of Irenæus may be corroborated by the very ancient catalogue known as the Muratorian Canon, and St. Hippolytus, representing Roman tradition; by Tertullian in Africa, by Clement in Alexandria; the works of the Gnostic Valentinus, and the Syrian Tatian's Diatessaron, a blending together of the Evangelists' writings, presuppose the authority enjoyed by the fourfold Gospel towards the middle of the second century. To this period or a little earlier belongs the pseduo-Clementine epistle in which we find, for the first time after II Peter, iii, 16, the word Scripture applied to a New Testament book. But it is needless in the present article to array the full force of these and other witnesses, since even rationalistic scholars like Harnack admit the canonicity of the quadriform Gospel between the years 140-175."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm
Except that there can be seen a consistent theology concerning the nature of Jesus existing from the beginning of Christianity. Though various heresies crept up in the Christian community from time to time, these heresies were always additions or alterations to what was already accepted; in order for the Mythicist to prove that the early Christians believed that Jesus was only spiritual, they'll have to show definitively when the change in theology and doctrine occurred.
First, I never said anything about the "accuracy" of the Gospels, only that these stories were transmitted to the faithful orally before being committed to writing. Secondly, are you arguing that Hebrew culture and society did not have a tradition of transmitting their teachings orally?
http://www.aish.com/literacy/concepts/The_Oral_Tradition.asp
Lastly, Paul's own writings attest to this fact of oral tradition when he reminds his readers to "stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter," as does the Gospel of Luke, when the author asserts that he sought to record everything that had already been passed on orally.
I never claimed he was an eyewitness, and the context of the paragraph proves that he was not. This does not mean that his testimony is not accurate.
Why is this necessary? You are erroneously applying modern rules of scholarship to an ancient document. Furthermore, the context of the opening paragraph clearly shows that Luke's intent for writing it is to lend further credence to what has already been handed on orally. Luke's intent is to record for posterity what he and other Christians had already learned about Christ, not to provide a detailed bibliography to satisfy the needs of skeptics 2,000 years into the future.
I agree that the Gospels are contradictory on some details. This is only a problem if one ignores all poetic and literary devices, author intent, intended audience, and even human error, and take them as absolute literal history as handed down from heaven by God himself. Most Christian scholars don't do this, and none of the Gospels are in contradiction with one another on the nature of Christ, the meaning and message of his ministry, his death and resurrection. If one Gospel says that they came to the tomb in the morning, and one says that they came to the tomb at night, does this seeming contradiction mean that there was no tomb?
No, Paul uses the word "apostle" in a generic sense for anyone who is a follower of Christ's teachings, but distinguishes between these and "the Twelve", i.e., the direct students of Jesus.
Follow-up:
On the "newly revealed mystery", what I found so far isn't exactly what I thought I remembered, but this may be it. Ephesians 3:1-6
As far as the Gospel stories possibly being initially allegorical stories:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060427175532/users2.ev1.net/~turton/GMark/GMark_index.html
That article is referenced in Todangst's article:
http://www.rationalresponders.com/the_gospels_are_midrash
As far as Carrier supporting Doherty, I didn't find exactly what I was looking for, at least at the moment. Carrier's review generally complements Doherty's book, but, I don't think this article discusses the muliple spiritual levels:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/jesuspuzzle.html
If I recall, some other critic of Doherty made the same claim as you, that there was no idea of multiple spiritual plains. And Carrier wrote a short rebuttal, supporting Doherty on that point. At least that is how I remember it, but I haven't found this rebuttal as yet. I'll look some more for it.
www.caseagainstfaith.com