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Are the gospels reliable historical documents? // YES

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Which has been donde, once you remove facts from fiction * (non facts) in the gospels you end up having a story of a jew, that lived in Palestine during the first half of the first century, who had many followers, 12 “special” disciples, had brothers and sisters, so himself like a divine person, traveled trough various towns and villages in Palestine, did stuff that was interpreted as miracles by some, had some problems with the Jewish Sanhedrin, was crucified, was buried, and some of his followers founded the early Christian Church.
Not even that. You had a person with followers. Nothing divine. And no, he did not necessarily do things that were seen as miracles. You forgot that stories grow with the telling. At best he was crucified, but then it is very certain that he was not buried. You are adding far too much into the story. You do not get to claim that his works were interpreted as miracles without proper evidence. You definitely do not get to claim that he was buried. Don't you know that was not done by Romans? In fact Tacitus's writing on him goes a ways to refute that claim.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Sometimes, but not always. If you want to claim that the Bible is reliable you cannot just handwave it as you always do when you argue. You need some valid arguments. You had none here and they were all refuted on the first page as usual.
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You need some valid arguments

Some of the events in say the Gospel of John can be verified by other independent sources................why isent this a valid argument in favor of the historical reliability of this document?

You had none here and they were all refuted on the first page as usual.
But you won’t quote a single claim that has been refured…. .
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Not even that. You had a person with followers. Nothing divine. And no, he did not necessarily do things that were seen as miracles. You forgot that stories grow with the telling. At best he was crucified, but then it is very certain that he was not buried. You are adding far too much into the story. You do not get to claim that his works were interpreted as miracles without proper evidence. You definitely do not get to claim that he was buried. Don't you know that was not done by Romans? In fact Tacitus's writing on him goes a ways to refute that claim.
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but then it is very certain that he was not buried.
ok and whats your evidence for that claim?


mine is:
1 confirmed by multiple independent sources (John Mark and Paul)

2 embarasment , Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimatea, (a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin) no by his family, nor his disciples who ran away

3 The description of the tomb corresponds to the type of tomb that would have been used
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
--


Some of the events in say the Gospel of John can be verified by other independent sources................why isent this a valid argument in favor of the historical reliability of this document?


But you won’t quote a single claim that has been refured…. .

This is a "So what?" argument. That is all that it takes to refute it. That some parts of a book are right does not mean that all of it is reliable. Religious books tend to have parts that are confirmable. Does that mean that all religions are true? Yes, some parts of John may be true. Were any of the miracles ever confirmed? Tell me, why is there not a record of a zombie uprising in Jerusalem?
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
---

ok and whats your evidence for that claim?


mine is:
1 confirmed by multiple independent sources (John Mark and Paul)

2 embarasment , Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimatea, (a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin) no by his family, nor his disciples who ran away

3 The description of the tomb corresponds to the type of tomb that would have been used

Sorry, but the Bible can only be counted as one source. It appears that you are not aware of the way that it was formed. They are far from independent. So 1 fails.

The embarrassment claim is pure BS and you should be embarrassed for using it. It is the trait of a good story teller to include "embarrassing facts" as well. So those are even more so evidence that it is just a story.

3. No, it really does not. The Romans did not cut people down. The bodies were left to rot. If you mean it was a typical tomb of the time that is not evidence because as hard as it is to believe the writers that lived during the time of Jesus understood what sort of tombs they had. This has to be your weakest claim of all

But you have nothing there. so even the worst of sources would refute you.

In Roman-style crucifixion, the condemned could take up to a few days to die, but death was sometimes hastened by human action. "The attending Roman guards could leave the site only after the victim had died, and were known to precipitate death by means of deliberate fracturing of the tibia and/or fibula, spear stab wounds into the heart, sharp blows to the front of the chest, or a smoking fire built at the foot of the cross to asphyxiate the victim."[56] The Romans sometimes broke the prisoner's legs to hasten death and usually forbade burial.[91] On the other hand, the person was often deliberately kept alive as long as possible to prolong their suffering and humiliation, so as to provide the maximum deterrent effect.[88] Corpses of the crucified were typically left on the crosses to decompose and be eaten by animals.[88][105

Crucifixion - Wikipedia

If you want even more you might read this. Political prisoners especially were not allowed to be buried. Some of the historians of the event would surely have mentioned this rare exception.

The Historicity of the Empty Tomb Evaluated: Roman Crucifixion and Jewish Burial
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
This is a "So what?" argument. That is all that it takes to refute it. That some parts of a book are right does not mean that all of it is reliable. Religious books tend to have parts that are confirmable. Does that mean that all religions are true? Yes, some parts of John may be true. Were any of the miracles ever confirmed? Tell me, why is there not a record of a zombie uprising in Jerusalem?
If multiple independent sources afirm that Jesus did miracles then we can stablish as historical fact that Jesus did stuff that was interpreted as miracles

Claim:
Jesus did stuff that was interpreted as miracles by some people.

Evidence.
Multiple independent sources report the same miracles.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
If multiple independent sources afirm that Jesus did miracles then we can stablish as historical fact that Jesus did stuff that was interpreted as miracles

Claim:
Jesus did stuff that was interpreted as miracles by some people.

Evidence.
Multiple independent sources report the same miracles.
Nope, only one source. The Bible is not multiple sources. And since specific books were picked for the Bible and others were rejected they are far from independent.

Once again, the Bible is the claim, not the evidence.

And of course number 1 is just an empty claim of yours. The stories of miracles could easily have arisen after his death. That is not uncommon at all.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
That is junk, honestly.

Paul didn't ever tell anything about Jesus, what he did or what he said, apart from during the last meal and on the last day, that was it...... Paul wasn't the slightest bit interested in what Jesus was involved in.

And so most of the details in Mark's Gospel is a deposition of what was passed on by oral tradition, explained by Cephas himself or actually seen. The writer of G-Mark was definitely there at the arrest, I reckon.

See for yourself........ write down a single event that Carrier claims Mark got from Paul's epistles. You won't find a thing.!


Here are some examples:

  • Mark 1:1 uses Paul’s phrase “the beginning of the Gospel” verbatim (Philippians 4:15); and “Gospel of Christ,” otherwise unique to Paul (e.g. Romans 15:19, 1 Corinthians 9:12, 2 Corinthians 2:12, Galatians 1:7, 1 Thessalonians 3:2).
  • Paul then goes on to talk about how he was sent forth to preach it; likewise Mark immediately follows with a quotation of Isaiah declaring God hath sent his messenger, only switching the reference from Paul to John the Baptist introducing Jesus, the Gospel-reified. Dykstra also makes a good case that Mark has modeled his John the Baptist after Paul (Mark, pp. 147-48).
  • Mark 1:14 uses Paul’s phrase “Gospel of God,” verbatim (Romans 15:6; 2 Thessalonians 2:2), and when introducing the rest of his narrative purpose (just as Paul does in Romans 1:1).
  • Mark then immediately juxtaposes the Gospel with manual labor (in Mark 1:16-20) just as Paul does (in 1 Thessalonians 2:9).
  • Mark 1:29-31 indirectly reveals Peter was married, just as Paul indirectly reveals Peter was married (1 Corinthians 9:5).
  • Mark 2:16 describes Jesus being wrongly chastised by Pharisees (Mark’s principal stand-in for any arch-conservative Jews) for eating and drinking with “sinners and tax collectors” (i.e. Gentiles), just as Paul describes Peter being wrongly chastised by conservative Jews for doing the same thing (Galatians 2:11-14). Mark and Paul’s message is the same.
  • Mark 3:1-5 borrows themes and vocabulary from Paul’s discussions of the very same issue: Jesus looks upon his Jewish critics “with anger [orgês] and grieved [sullupoumenos] at their hardness [pôrôsei] of heart”; in Romans 9 Paul said he was for that very same reason grieved [lupê, v. 2] and God was for that very same reason angry [orgên, v. 22] at their hardness [v. 18], which Paul later describes with the same word used by Mark [pôrôsis, 11:25].
  • Mark 4:10-13 relates Mark’s model for the whole Gospel as disguising deeper truths allegorically within seemingly literal stories (“parables”); and in doing so declares that the uninitiated will not be allowed to see or hear the real meaning, just as Paul says (in e.g. Romans 11:7-10, 1 Corinthians 2:9-10, etc.).
  • Mark 6:7 imagines Jesus sending missionaries in pairs; Paul often says he was paired with someone on his missions (1 Corinthians 1:1; 1 Corinthians 9:6; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Philippians 1:1; Philippians 2:22; Philemon 1:1).
  • Mark 6:8-10 has Jesus assume missionaries will be fed and housed by others, reifying into visceral and poetic terms Paul’s mention of the fact that “the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:14).
  • Mark 7:20-23 lists as the sins that make one unclean “sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.” Accordingly, Paul says, “Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) and likewise those who pursue “envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice” and are “gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful” (Romans 1:29-31); and elsewhere says those will be excluded from the kingdom who pursue “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like” (Galatians 5:19-21). The other lists are nearly identical, Mark only ending with the catch-all “arrogance and folly” to encompass the otherwise-unmentioned idolatry, God-hating, insolence, drunkenness, strife, boasting and gossiping and so forth (while lewdness is a catch-all that would include “men who have sex with men” and “orgies” etc.).
  • Mark 7:26-29 reifies into a whole story the sentiment of Paul that God’s rewards must go to the Jew first, the Gentile second (Romans 1:16).
  • Mark 8:12 has Jesus lament to the Jews, “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it,” reifying Paul’s declaration of the very same thing, that only in their folly “Jews demand signs,” which renders the Gospel “a stumbling block” to them (1 Corinthians 1:22-23).
  • Mark 8:15 has Jesus warn against “the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod,” thus reifying into allegorical story-form Paul’s more general warning against “the leaven of malice and wickedness” (1 Corinthians 5:8).
  • Mark 8:17-18 has Jesus declare, “Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?” echoing Paul’s citation of scripture on the same point, that only insiders will correctly see and hear, and thus “get the point” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10); a concept I just noted Mark had reified earlier in Jesus’s explanation of secret teachings (Mark 4:10-13), which really is a key to Mark’s entire Gospel, including the scene in Mark 8, which isn’t really about Jesus having historically created food, but is an allegory for the Gospel itself.
  • In that same passage, Mark has Jesus seemingly quote Isaiah 6:9, just as Paul does in making the same point in Romans 11:8. But in Isaiah the order is hearing, then seeing; Paul switched the order to seeing, then hearing. Thus the fact that Mark also did that further evinces his reliance on Paul.
  • Mark 9:34-35 has Jesus say, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and the slave of all” (and Mark 10:43-44 likewise); Paul said he was the “last” of those chosen and “the least” of the apostles (1 Corinthians 15:8-9) and had made himself “a slave to all” (1 Corinthians 9:19).
  • Mark 9:43-47 has Jesus advocate cutting off your hand or foot or eye that provokes you to sin, lest you be cast into hell; but this may be an allegory for banishing members of the community who provoke brethren to sin—because Paul likened the brethren to limbs of a body (1 Corinthians 12:12-31), and recommends banishing sinners from the community, literally “handing them over to Satan for destruction of the flesh” (1 Corinthians 5:4-7), just as Mark has Jesus speak of sinners being cast into hell to destruction.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
That is junk, honestly.

Paul didn't ever tell anything about Jesus, what he did or what he said, apart from during the last meal and on the last day, that was it...... Paul wasn't the slightest bit interested in what Jesus was involved in.

And so most of the details in Mark's Gospel is a deposition of what was passed on by oral tradition, explained by Cephas himself or actually seen. The writer of G-Mark was definitely there at the arrest, I reckon.

See for yourself........ write down a single event that Carrier claims Mark got from Paul's epistles. You won't find a thing.!
It's isn't about Paul "telling anyone"? It's clear that Mark used the letters of Paul as a source to construct his fictional story.

Mark uses Paul's vision of Jesus commanding future Christians and changes it into an event with people calling it Last Supper:

"The text in Paul reads as follows (translating the Greek as literally as I can):

"For I received from the Lord what I also handed over to you, that the Lord Jesus, during the night he was handed over, took bread, and having given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in the remembrance of me.” Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, as often as you might drink it in remembrance of me.” For as often as you might eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes"


Notably, “until he comes,” and not “until he returns.” This becomes in Mark (emphasis added):

"While they were eating, having taken bread, and having blessed it, he broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “Take; this is my body.” Then, having taken a cup, and having given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, that never again shall I drink from the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.” And having sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives."


Notice what’s changed. Paul is describing Jesus miming some actions and explaining their importance. His audience is future Christians. Mark has transformed this into a narrative story by adding people being present and having Jesus interact with them: now “they were eating” (Paul does not mention anyone actually eating) and Jesus gave the bread “to them” (does not occur in Paul) and instructs them to “take” it (no such instruction in Paul); and Jesus gave the cup “to them” (does not occur in Paul) and “they all drink it” (no such event in Paul); and Jesus describes the meaning of the cup “to them” (no such audience in Paul).


Leading Scholarship
The principal works to consult on this (all of which from peer reviewed academic presses) are:

 

joelr

Well-Known Member
If multiple independent sources afirm that Jesus did miracles then we can stablish as historical fact that Jesus did stuff that was interpreted as miracles

Claim:
Jesus did stuff that was interpreted as miracles by some people.

Evidence.
Multiple independent sources report the same miracles.


Besides all of he evidence given that the gospels are using other sources to construct the story we also have fairly definitive evidence the other 3 sourced Mark. Also given that evidence. The NIV bible evens says that due to recent work of scholarship it is no longer believed the gospels are separate accounts but share some interdependency. It's in the intro to Mark.
So only one source wrote about miracles and 3 others copied. The one that did (Mark) is copying OT narratives and several other literary sources. He is creating triadic ring structures and writing obvious parables and myth. He avoids all markers of real biography by sourcing nothing or showing surprise at unusual events. Fictional biographies were common among these writers. We see he also used Paul and was creating an addition to the OT. So naturally he would want a world savior to be doing what saviors do, silly miracles that smack of myth.
In one story he exorcized a person and sent the devil into pigs who then ran off a cliff. This sorcery is fiction.

There is no reason to conclude anyone thought Jesus was doing miracles but that these miracles only happened in the story. There are so many reasons to find this the most probable course of events. You have not responded to any of these facts and are still trying to put forward an idea that there is some way to rescue some type of historicity.
We can easily conclude Mark was writing fiction (also there were many other resurrecting saviors in other religions already) so those stories do not reflect what actually happened.
We have no other mentions of Jesus so thinking these fictional stories have any bearing on what he did is incorrect. The only actual eyewitnesses we know of from the time were other Jews. They considered him bogus.
Not only is the gospel events not a historical fact it is becoming a historical fact that Mark wascrimping Paul, the OT and other fictional narratives.

The principal works to consult on Mark using Paul this (all of which from peer reviewed academic presses) are:


Things become historical facts when actual PhD biblical historians write papers on a subject and are then peer-reviewed. After enough information is verified things will become standard knowledge in the field. Most of what I'm saying is already standard.
Historians don't send memos out to churches because they don't care what people want to believe. But just because church leaders and religious friends have been saying something over and over this has no bearing on what academia believes or what is now known to be true historically.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
1 confirmed by multiple independent sources (John Mark and Paul)
You keep saying this, independent sources and historical reliability/historians. Historians are saying the same thing I am saying so I will quote the historian who has done the recent Jesus historicity study.
These concepts are pretty standard in the field.


"There is in fact only one explicit source for the historicity of Jesus: the Gospel of Mark. All other sources that mention the crucifixion of Jesus as an event in earth history derive that mention from Mark, either directly (e.g. Matthew, Luke, John; Celsus; Justin; etc.) or indirectly, as Christians simply repeat the same claims in those Gospels, which all embellish and thus derive from that same one Gospel, Mark, and their critics simply believed them because they would have thought it was too self-damning to make up, and because there was no way for them to check.
“there are many independent sources that attest to Jesus’ crucifixion.” That assertion is false. Christian apologists are confusing the word “independent” with the word “different.” A hundred different sources attest to the existence of Hercules. But they are not independent sources. They all derive, directly or indirectly, from the same single source, a myth about Hercules. Who never existed.

Our only source attempting to tell us is Mark. A purely literary work of outlandish mythography. Every Gospel is just an embellished redaction of Mark."

. “The Gnostic Gospels”

Just more redactions of Mark. Useless.

41 Reasons We're, Like, Totes Sure Jesus Existed! • Richard Carrier
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
Here are some examples:
Thank you for all the trouble that you have taken with this question.
Before I review your verses, can you now see that nowhere did Paul have any clues about Jesus to offer.... can you see that?
I don't think that Paul was that much interested in the real campaign that Jesus continued after the Baptist's arrest, and so I can see that the gospel, probably mostly the account of Cephas... is in no way contaminated with any of Paul's ideas, because he didn't have any to beging with.
Anyway...... onwards:-
Mark 1:1 uses Paul’s phrase “the beginning of the Gospel” verbatim (Philippians 4:15); and “Gospel of Christ,” otherwise unique to Paul (e.g. Romans 15:19, 1 Corinthians 9:12, 2 Corinthians 2:12, Galatians 1:7, 1 Thessalonians 3:2).
Right..... you can scrub 1:1, and even up to 1:3 incl, because we know already that phrases like 'the son of God' didn'tappear in earliest copies that we have... I think the first 4 verses are additions.
Paul then goes on to talk about how he was sent forth to preach it; likewise Mark immediately follows with a quotation of Isaiah declaring God hath sent his messenger, only switching the reference from Paul to John the Baptist introducing Jesus, the Gospel-reified. Dykstra also makes a good case that Mark has modeled his John the Baptist after Paul
You see? If you start at 1:4 the whole tempo of the intro changes. You are looking at Pauline influence in clerical fiddlings, after the fact.
Mark 1:14 uses Paul’s phrase “Gospel of God,” verbatim (Romans 15:6; 2 Thessalonians 2:2), and when introducing the rest of his narrative purpose (just as Paul does in Romans 1:1).
Yeah....... just remove ' the gospel of the kingdom of God' and carry on from there for a perfect fit and smooth flow...... all tghis kingdom of God stuff is Pauline, but not in sync with anything Cephas spoke of, imo.

Mark then immediately juxtaposes the Gospel with manual labor (in Mark 1:16-20) just as Paul does (in 1 Thessalonians 2:9).
What a stretch! Jesus calling Cephas and Andrew from the nets, versus the above? Nah!
Mark 1:29-31 indirectly reveals Peter was married, just as Paul indirectly reveals Peter was married (1 Corinthians 9:5).
There is nothing wooly about Cephas being married there, nothing at all. His Mum in Law was ill, for goodness sake. And decades later Cephas is still married....... So what?
Mark 2:16 describes Jesus being wrongly chastised by Pharisees (Mark’s principal stand-in for any arch-conservative Jews) for eating and drinking with “sinners and tax collectors” (i.e. Gentiles), just as Paul describes Peter being wrongly chastised by conservative Jews for doing the same thing (Galatians 2:11-14). Mark and Paul’s message is the same.
That is not correct. The most senior tax official for the lake could well have been Roman, but all the Toll collection and taxation officials were mosdt likely lower order Levites. Herod Antipas wanted his own to handle his province. Where is this stuff being dug up?
Mark 3:1-5 borrows themes and vocabulary from Paul’s discussions of the very same issue: Jesus looks upon his Jewish critics “with anger [orgês] and grieved [sullupoumenos] at their hardness [pôrôsei] of heart”; in Romans 9 Paul said he was for that very same reason grieved [lupê, v. 2] and God was for that very same reason angry [orgên, v. 22] at their hardness [v. 18], which Paul later describes with the same word used by Mark [pôrôsis, 11:25].
Of course Jesus was angry...... you should see what was going on within the Temple, its Priesthood and more. Fury would describe him well...... The term was ;probably a common idion back then..... hardness of heart. Not Paul's alone.
Mark 4:10-13 relates Mark’s model for the whole Gospel as disguising deeper truths allegorically within seemingly literal stories (“parables”); and in doing so declares that the uninitiated will not be allowed to see or hear the real meaning, just as Paul says (in e.g. Romans 11:7-10, 1 Corinthians 2:9-10, etc.).
Deeper truths my foot! Jesus's message needed to be clear as day and even then he wasn't gaining enough support. He may well have waxed in to strange stories if known spies rolled up, but all the parable and spin was within the early church....... Again, I reckon that early clerics played with this gospel. If you read through a few versions you can get a feeling for the 'run' of the account and the 'kingdom of God' bits and 'Son of God' even mentions of 'Christ' just begin to look dodgy.
Deep in the heart of the gospel, none of which Paul ever bothered to learn about (it seems) all is sound deposition.
It's just like a Statement that you could write after being tail-ended by a drunk driver has been doctored later on. :D
Mark 6:7 imagines Jesus sending missionaries in pairs; Paul often says he was paired with someone on his missions (1 Corinthians 1:1; 1 Corinthians 9:6; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Philippians 1:1; Philippians 2:22; Philemon 1:1).
Mark doesn't imagine anything! THat is exactly what Jesus did, he sent pairs throughout Galilee in an attempt to build support, but sadly these guys just could attract crowds quite like Jesus could. Soon after this Jesus threw his whole hand in to an attempt to win crowds over at Jerusalem.
Mark 6:8-10 has Jesus assume missionaries will be fed and housed by others, reifying into visceral and poetic terms Paul’s mention of the fact that “the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:14).
No he doesn't! Jesus clearly tells the pairs to travel light, take no money and to survive as best they can, if they get help, great.... of not, stuff 'em and move on. Paul's 'living in the gospels' is hkis own message to missionaries. Who tried to solder all this together? It's a sham.... honestly.
Must I go on? Must I?
Mark 7:20-23 lists as the sins that make one unclean “sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.” Accordingly, Paul says, “Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God”
Whoa! Stop you there. And there it is, the gaping hole between the two accounts.
Jesus loved his drink!! There is no reference to drink in Cephas's account. Can you see how Paul has chucked 'drunkeness' in there? Look, Cephas's true original account was his own. We know that Mark's gospel got messed with, but certainly Paul did not influence the true Gospel.
It is a true account, a deposition about what happened, probnably as seen through two witnesses' eyes, I reckon.
I must go to get my Covid Jab now........ must finish here.
So far you've got nothing.......... honestly.
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
It's isn't about Paul "telling anyone"? It's clear that Mark used the letters of Paul as a source to construct his fictional story.
Not possibly!
You haven't shown me a single instance where the account of Jesus's (or the Baptist's) movements were shown by Paul. Not one single incident, or account, or anecdote did Paul ever write about!

Mark uses Paul's vision of Jesus commanding future Christians and changes it into an event with people calling it Last Supper:
No..... Firstly Mark refers to it (incorrectly) as a Passover meal..... all his own error; the Passover meal was consumed within the Temple immediately after the sacrificial ceremony when the visitors would take their sacrifice to the Temple refectories for preparation and consumption. Mark's mistake, all his own. It was a Last Meal. And the text below shows how early clerics adjusted it, in exactly the same way that they (for example adjusted Josephus's mention of Jesus.

"The text in Paul reads as follows (translating the Greek as literally as I can):

"For I received from the Lord what I also handed over to you, that the Lord Jesus, during the night he was handed over, took bread, and having given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in the remembrance of me.” Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, as often as you might drink it in remembrance of me.” For as often as you might eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes"


Notably, “until he comes,” and not “until he returns.” This becomes in Mark (emphasis added):

"While they were eating, having taken bread, and having blessed it, he broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “Take; this is my body.” Then, having taken a cup, and having given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, that never again shall I drink from the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.” And having sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives."

This is all about Christianity and nothing to do with the real story, that much is true. ut you would need to weed this evangelical stuff out to find the true gospel under all.


Notice what’s changed. Paul is describing Jesus miming some actions and explaining their importance. His audience is future Christians. Mark has transformed this into a narrative story by adding people being present and having Jesus interact with them: now “they were eating” (Paul does not mention anyone actually eating) and Jesus gave the bread “to them” (does not occur in Paul) and instructs them to “take” it (no such instruction in Paul); and Jesus gave the cup “to them” (does not occur in Paul) and “they all drink it” (no such event in Paul); and Jesus describes the meaning of the cup “to them” (no such audience in Paul).
All I noticed was Christian manipulation and editing of a deposition about what happened.

You have not shown any evidence that Paul ever wrote anything about what Jesus and the disciples actually did.

Leading Scholarship
The principal works to consult on this (all of which from peer reviewed academic presses) are:
No they are not.....
The first name on that list is a Christian.
What you have shown is your own interpretation of a bunch of articles about whether (or not) Paul's letters influenced the ORIGINAL GOSPEL, which they did not...... although they may well have influenced the Christian clergy's later interference of them.

Your mention of peer reviewed academic presses means nothing and you surely know that. What do you do with 'peer reviewed' scholars who support the gospels as true, or part true? o you grip 'Peer Reviewed' opinions tightly then?

All you need to do is show me where Paul influenced any of the accounts about what Jesus did...... Oh, and the sending out of disciples in pairs throughout Galilee failed, so how is that helpful in the cause of Christianity? Hardly a big plus, eh?

There are a few negative reports like that in G-Mark, now why tell us about them?

Did Paul influence Mark to write this?:-
{15:34} And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Nah...... doesn't look much like anything Pauline to me. :p
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
This is not an argument for the gospel Jesus but only for a human Jesus. The leap from a human teacher to demigod is impossible to make without far better evidence.
But here it is not clear enough to claim he means biological brother. He easily could be distinguishing that Cephus is brother of the Lord, not an Apostolic Brother of the Lord. Paul uses that Greek work in another setting to do this. He does not ever mention a biological brother.
Scholarship on this:

"Ldifferentiated from Cephas (Peter) the Apostle. As I wrote in my summary, that’s indeed true: Paul is making a distinction; he uses the full term for a Christian (“Brothers of the Lord”) every time he needs to distinguish apostolic from non-apostolic Christians. The James in Galatians 1 is not an Apostle. He is just a rank-and-file Christian. Merely a Brother of the Lord, not an Apostolic Brother of the Lord. The only Apostle he met at that time, he says, was Cephas (Peter), the first Apostle (according to 1 Corinthians 15:5 in light of 1 Corinthians 9:1). Likewise the “Brothers of the Lord” Paul references in 1 Corinthians 9:5 are, again, non-apostolic Christians—and thus being distinguished from Apostles, including, again, the first Apostle, Cephas. Given what we have from Paul, this is just as likely, if not more likely, than the alternative reading, because we have evidence direct from Paul that he knows of cultic Brothers of the Lord (as in Romans 8:29 he says all Christians are brothers of the Lord), but no evidence he knows of biological brothers of the Lord, a significantly different category of person."



I have given more than enough evidence on Mark to discount this as fiction. Scholars don't even try to use this in favor of historicity.




Mark is crafting serious religious fiction. He is not lying in the traditional sense. There are thousands of religious scripture that are serious works of literary art and well intentioned. Yet we know they are not true. Mark is clearly basing his narrative on existing stories - OT, Josephus and fictional biographies were very common in this time. So if Paul's letters had a possible mention of a brother that is plenty of motivation to give him a brother.
At any rate this does not translate to a demigod. It translates to historicity of a man. In other words if Jesus was a teacher then he probably had a brother and when he was mythicized into a demigod obviously this was kept in.




Looking at 2 biblical historians, Carrier is sure they are late Christain interpolations.

"Analysis of the evidence from the works of Origen, Eusebius, and Hegesippus concludes that the reference to “Christ” in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200 is probably an accidental interpolation or scribal emendation and that the passage was never originally about Christ or Christians. It referred not to James the brother of Jesus Christ, but probably to James the brother of the Jewish high priest Jesus ben Damneus."

Carrier has a paper demonstrating the TF is also fraud and points to another paper:

"
G.J. Goldberg, “The Coincidences of the Testimonium of Josephus and the Emmaus Narrative of Luke,” in the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha (vol. 13, 1995), pp. 59-77. Goldberg demonstrates nineteen unique correspondences between Luke’s Emmaus account and the Testimonium Flavianum, all nineteen in exactly the same order (with some order and word variations only within each item). There are some narrative differences (which are expected due to the contexts being different and as a result of common kinds of authorial embellishment), and there is a twentieth correspondence out of order (identifying Jesus as “the Christ”). But otherwise, the coincidences here are very improbable on any other hypothesis than dependence.

Goldberg also shows that the Testimonium contains vocabulary and phrasing that is particularly Christian (indeed, Lukan) and un-Josephan. He concludes that this means either a Christian wrote it or Josephus slavishly copied a Christian source, and contrary to what Goldberg concludes, the latter is wholly implausible (Josephus would treat such a source more critically, creatively, and informedly)."
Jesus in Josephus • Richard Carrier


Bart Ehrman is a bit more optimistic but 100% believes Christains altered the TV so Josephus may have just been reporting on stories he heard. As you can see this only would support historicity, not supernatural tales.

"
If we take out the Christianized portions of the passage, what we are left with, according to one of the most convincing modern studies, is the following:

At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out. (John Meier, A Marginal Jew, 1991; vol. 1, p. 61)

If this is something Josephus wrote, as most scholars continue to think, then it indicates that Jesus was a wise man and a teacher who performed startling deeds and as a consequence found a following among both Jews and Greeks; it states that he was accused by Jewish leaders before Pilate, who condemned him to be crucified; and it points out that his followers remained devoted to him even afterward (Ant. 18.3.3).

It is useful to know that Josephus had this much information about Jesus. Unfortunately, there is not much here to help us understand specifically what Jesus said and did. We might conclude that he was considered important enough for Josephus to mention, although not as important as, say, John the Baptist or many other Palestinian Jews who were thought to be prophets at the time, about whom Josephus says a good deal more. We will probably never know if Josephus actually had more information about Jesus at his disposal or if he told us all that he knew."
Do Any Ancient Jewish Sources Mention Jesus? Weekly Mailbag | The Bart Ehrman Blog


This is heavily debated however, in Carrier's paper he concludes it's entirely BS.
There is an article here:
Josephus and Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Question

that cover all of the pros/cons regarding if Josephus even wrote this at all. The cons are very convincing. But even if Josephus wrote what Ehrman said it means there was a teacher named Jesus or he was going on stories he heard. If he wrote more about John the Baptist and other prophets then this isn't a good source at all for Christianity.
I'm a bit skeptical of Ehrman. He's an excellent historian but he built his career on showing Jesus was a real man (and definitely not a demigod and the gospels are fiction) but Carrier did a good job of debunking the reasons for historicity and Ehrman refuses to debate him.

Richard Carrier is like the" Kent Hovind" of the historical Jesus .few if any scholars agree with with his radical and absurd views.

Sure if you adopt a position of extreme skepticism no evidence would ever be enough to convince you that Jesus (or anyone else) is a historical person.

Can you show that Alexander the Grate was a historical person?


When it come to James the brother of Jesus

so Josephus may have just been reporting on stories he heard
.


Yes, all ancient historians report stories that they heard.by your logic we should reject alllllll history..... Jesephus was an honest and skilled historian he deserves the benefit of the doubt , probably he made sure to verify the stuff that he is reporting.

I have given more than enough evidence on Mark to discount this as fiction. Scholars don't even try to use this in favor of historicity.


So Mark wrote science fiction, and he randomly invented a brother whose name happened to be "James" the exact same name that Paul and Josephus invented.

indeed true: Paul is making a distinction; he uses the full term for a Christian (“Brothers of the Lord”) every time he needs to distinguish apostolic from non-apostolic Christians. The James in Galatians 1 is not an Apostle. He is just a rank-and-file Christian. Merely a Brother of the Lord

Richard carrier is simply trying to hard to aviod the obvious "James is a biological brother"

Any reference from any brother in any ancient text could be interpreted in the same way.

From the context we can infer that there was only one James that was a brother of Jesus ......are we to believe that there was only one "Christian brother" named James?
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Richard Carrier is like the" Kent Hovind" of the historical Jesus .few if any scholars agree with with his radical and absurd views.

Sure if you adopt a position of extreme skepticism no evidence would ever be enough to convince you that Jesus (or anyone else) is a historical person.

Can you show that Alexander the Grate was a historical person?


When it come to James the brother of Jesus

.

Yes, all ancient historians report stories that they heard.by your logic we should reject alllllll history..... Jesephus was an honest and skilled historian he deserves the benefit of the doubt , probably he made sure to verify the stuff that he is reporting.




So Mark wrote science fiction, and he randomly invented a brother whose name happened to be "James" the exact same name that Paul and Josephus invented.



Richard carrier is simply trying to hard to aviod the obvious "James is a biological brother"

Any reference from any brother in any ancient text could be interpreted in the same way.

From the context we can infer that there was only one James that was a brother of Jesus ......are we to believe that there was only one "Christian brother" named James?
Radical? Perhaps. Absurd, hardly. You would have a very tough time defending that claim. And unlike Hovind he has a real PhD. He is not afraid to put his ideas through peer review. He can read and understand the languages of the area and that time. His claims as a result have far more weight than any of yours and even of most of his opponents.
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
.......................Historians are saying the same thing I am saying so I will quote the historian who has done the recent Jesus historicity study.
These concepts are pretty standard in the field.
No..... Historians are not all saying the same thing.

"There is in fact only one explicit source for the historicity of Jesus: the Gospel of Mark. All other sources that mention the crucifixion of Jesus as an event in earth history derive that mention from Mark, either directly (e.g. Matthew, Luke, John; Celsus; Justin; etc.) or indirectly, as Christians simply repeat the same claims in those Gospels, which all embellish and thus derive from that same one Gospel, Mark, and their critics simply believed them because they would have thought it was too self-damning to make up, and because there was no way for them to check.
So all you can trawl from the above passage is that G-Mark is the source of the Jesus story and that we are not sure if he was crucified.
I am quite happy to propose that Jesus (son of the Father) was either pardoned and released by Pilate, or that he survived the cross....... in either event he was seen again in Galilee not long afterwards. So the above suits me fine.


“there are many independent sources that attest to Jesus’ crucifixion.” That assertion is false. Christian apologists are confusing the word “independent” with the word “different.” A hundred different sources attest to the existence of Hercules. But they are not independent sources. They all derive, directly or indirectly, from the same single source, a myth about Hercules. Who never existed.
Very poor analogy that.
You have to prove that Jesus didn't exist, and it is highly probable that he did.

Our only source attempting to tell us is Mark. A purely literary work of outlandish mythography. Every Gospel is just an embellished redaction of Mark."

. “The Gnostic Gospels”

Just more redactions of Mark. Useless.

41 Reasons We're, Like, Totes Sure Jesus Existed! • Richard Carrier

Sadly not........ What you (and Carrier) need to do is prove that the Baptist did not exist. When you have done that you have to prove that Jesus did not pick up the Baptist's mission and carry on for another year.......

Carrier has no chance, he cannot do it.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
I'm confused? You call for a leap of trust? Yet we have incredible evidence of what the actual sources are for the gospels and you suggest we ignore all that evidence and then while ignoring all that we make a leap of faith to assume the gospel writers were telling a real story?
How about no leap of faith and we follow actual evidence?

As I have pointed out we have clear evidence Mark used Paul's writings:
Mark's Use of Paul's Epistles • Richard Carrier

also used Josephus, Psalms and all sorts of triadic/ring structures which have to be made up. This is a fictional story?
Here is some of it visually

at 23:07 is Luke using Kings then he goes on to explain ring structure, baptism/crucifixion narratives matching, at 36:58 one from Matthew, these are literary devices that you have to invent. There are papers (and another Carrier video) on Acts and it's sources.
So we know the sources, it is not from a person but from other fiction. No leap of faith is needed, we have plenty of evidence.

Calling it "lying" is odd. All of the other religions including the 36 other Christian gospels (some which were considered mainstream in the 2nd century and were more Gnostic) were also "lying" but in these cases we all know it was a myth. Calling these lies as if that is improbable so it must be true is not a valid point because we all know all myths are not actually true. We know the 36 other gospels are "lies". We know the Thomas gospel is a "lie". But it was written to be a serious and real account of Jesus. So was the Infancy gospel where Jesus kills another child for harassing him as abuses his superpowers causing all kinds of trouble but then resurrects them at the end. One of the Dead Sea Scrolls was found unfinished in a cave next to a scroll of sayings by another prophet and they were in the middle of transcribing these sayings to a Jesus gospel and making them into Jesus sayings. This story is told by Richard Carrier in an interview. That would also be a "lie".

Still millions of people follow them. So the idea that this one version of one religion cannot be "lies" is just nonsense. Yes, it's made up. Same as the Gnostic gospels and the 7 other resurrecting savior gods in that region before Jesus and Krishna and about 10,000 other stories.
It is believed in scholarship that each gospel was written to be the actual one true gospel rather than ending up with a collection of conflicting stories.
When Constantine choose the final 4 it's likely he chose the 4 churches that were in the highest favor and each had a different gospel and they figured they would work it out. As Bart Ehrman says in one of his lectures there are serious contradictions.

All that is "crazyflat earth methodology" but even if Mark used Paul as a source....the fact that Mark described James as a biological brother shows that Paul was talking about a biological brother in his letters.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Radical? Perhaps. Absurd, hardly. You would have a very tough time defending that claim. And unlike Hovind he has a real PhD. He is not afraid to put his ideas through peer review. He can read and understand the languages of the area and that time. His claims as a result have far more weight than any of yours and even of most of his opponents.
I am talking about the methodology.

1 Be extremely skeptical and rise the bar as high as possible when it comes to claims that suggest that Jesus existed.

2 lower the bar a low as possible when it comes to the claims that support his view.

This is the same strategy that YEC and flat earthers use.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I am talking about the methodology.

1 Be extremely skeptical and rise the bar as high as possible when it comes to claims that suggest that Jesus existed.

2 lower the bar a low as possible when it comes to the claims that support his view.

This is the same strategy that YEC and flat earthers use.
As usual you have to make up your own false narrative. He only applies the same standards that are used for any other history. You in effect just claimed that the Bible is not historical by misrepresenting his work. Nice job!
 
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