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The Problems of Hellenized Judaism and interpretation of Christian Scripture

Brian2

Veteran Member
They look for evidence that points to what is the most likely truth.

"Most likely truth" means eliminating the supernatural for a start.

all the theology is re-used, real historians only mention people who believe the stories and the stories are written EXACTLY like all other myths. The literary devices and styles are extremely mythic. Jesus is as likely real as any Greek demigod. So it's possible but so is Romulus (he's Roman I guess).

All the theology is from the Hebrew scriptures.
Historians only know the people who believe the stories. The gospels are by those who were closer to the action.
Do you mean that all myths are written in a language and so the gospels must be mythical?

Historians have shown what the Bible tells us is ALL reworked mythology.

Atheist historians with a naturalistic bias write such things, but it is not showing anyone anything except the bias of the writers.

Are you purposely avoiding the point? Let's make it clearer. Do you think the historians who say the Quran is a syncretic blend of older Arabic myths, OT theology and Greek ideas are showing a cognitive bias because they are not assuming that Muhammad didn't actually get updates about Christianity from Gabrielle the angel?

No, they are showing a cognitive bias in secular scholarship is they claim that Muhammad did not hear from Gabriel. They don't need to agree with the Quran. Is it so hard to understand?
It's like a good newspaper. It gives the news, the facts, and leaves the opinions for the opinion part of the paper. The opinions are not the news, the facts, and the opinions of people like Richard Carrier is not the history, it is private opinion, private atheistic bias added to the facts to make it look like certain things happened which the evidence does not necessarily point to.

Or historians who write about the The Bhagavad Gita are showing a cognitive bias because they assume Krishna didn't really appear to Arjuna and give him this philosophy? They rather say the philosophy came from the Hindu scholars who over centuries of thinking and philosophizing came up with this philosophy and used a mythical setting to pretend like Krishna actually gave them the ideas. Are those cognitive bias?

Anything that goes beyond the history is opinion, and may or may not be true.
If a Christian historian studies the same stuff that Carrier does and does not agree with what Carrier's opinion is, does that mean that the Christian historian has a cognitive bias? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but the disagreeing is a personal opinion, just as it is with Carrier.
Just because Carrier is a historian does not mean that his opinions are history.

Because if you claim to not have a naturalistic bias then you should accept all the other claims as well.

I don't need to disagree with Hinduism and Islam because of anti supernatural reasons.

This is the real crank, Historians are not "anti-supernatural". That is a claim you need to prove. Some historians actually 100% believed in a supernatural power. Bart Ehrman was one. He was an evangelical Christian. What historians are is honest to what the evidence presents.

I don't say that all historians are anti-supernatural. What I say is that different historians come to different conclusions and just because someone has studied history and has a qualification does not make their opinion of the evidence correct.

No peer review means each new paper used the same evidence and standard of evidence. It isn't about sharing a bias?

If the "standard of evidence" means that the supernatural is dismissed and anything remotely similar in other religions means that one copied from another,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, that is sharing a bias.

The evidence is highly trained Greek school writers were writing fiction combining the new and popular Hellenistic ideas and this time doing it for Judaism. They also added Persian myths into it as well like Revelation, Satan vs God and a few others.
There is literally zero evidence that any of that is true.

That is opinion of the evidence.
Really it comes from Jewish theology. The Jewish theology that comes from as far back as 1400 BC, before the Persian and Greeks influence.

As I said Ehrman was a born again evangelical fundamentalist. He absolutely did not have any bias. He bought fully into it. He isn't the only historical scholar either. Dr Josh Bowden is another who was a fundamentalist.

Are you saying that these people agree with Carrier?

No, there is an alternative, it's just absurd. Savior demigods, virgin born who were there to provide salvation to baptized members in the form of eternal life through a passion/sacrifice (and all other copied myths) were happening as a result of the popularity of Greek and Persian theology and THEN, a run of the mill typical national God, Yahweh, who reads just like all Gods going back to Sumer (and liked to use Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Babylonian myths) decides to for real have a son do the dying/rising in 3 days thing. But this one time it's real.

This has nothing to do with naturalistic methodology, it's just clearly another myth..

So any historian who disagrees is biased I suppose.
You make glib statements about saviour demigods, virgin births, baptism and eternal life etc as if these things were the norm. The reality is that the lies that used to be told about demigods and the Jesus story being copied from them have been debunked many years ago and now exactly the same things are being taught by Carrier etc. and it is not because the virgin births, salvation etc has been now shown to be correct, it is because the interpretation by Carrier has expanded to make any little vague similarity into part of a theme. Easy, just have a naturalistic presupposition and say the OT was written late in the OT period and that plagiarisation from other religions is just a fact and deny the Jewishness of the gospel story, and use vague similarities in some other religions as themes , and discrediting the Bible. Discrediting is easy, just make up stuff and throw it and it sticks for those who want to believe it.

And during the entire 2nd century Christians were at least 50% Gnostic until Rome decided on a theology in the late 3rd century?

Rome did not decide on Christian theology. The Christian Church that dated back to the apostles and their writings was not the gnostic groups and that can be seen in the New Testament epistle and the Gospels.

Islam and Hinduism make all the same arguments you make. Yet they are wrong by your beliefs. Which demonstrates a flawed methodology.

Pointing out the flawed methodology in what claims to be history is flawed methodology?
 
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Brian2

Veteran Member
But archaeology says the opposite of what you are saying here. Thomas Thompsons work demonstrated Moses was a literary creation.

Not all of archaeology says the opposite. There is a comedy of errors in the dating of the conquest story, (even to the point of archaeologists wanting the conquest to be 200 years after the Bible says it was)and a misunderstanding of the story as written in Joshua (so that it is only those cities in Canaan that were dedicated to God which were completely destroyed and burned, and when Joshua says a city was just destroyed it means that the people were captured and wiped out and chased away, but not that the city was burned down) The archaeology of Canaan with these errors corrected yields a match for the conquest story.
One error builds on another and then theories about where Israel came from are added on to that and by magic the conquest story of the Bible has been shown to be wrong. But really it is the archaeology that is wrong.

Q: Is there mention of the Israelites anywhere in ancient Egyptian records?

Israel was not called Israel then.
There is evidence of Israel being in Egypt when the Bible says.
https://christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a027.html
If you want to say that Israel was not in Egypt because the evidence is not definitive then that is just a false argument.

First, there are 6 confirmed savior deities who resurrected who pre-date Jesus. The apologetics you are reading is not true. Funny you believe those without any problem. This demonstrates more bias on your part.

Original sources for resurrecting savior deities pre-Jesus -

Dying-and-Rising Gods: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/13890

I can't go through all that to try to find the 6 you are referring to.
The thing about Jesus is that all His theology can be seen in the OT with no help from any other religions and Jesus is someone who really existed and had witnesses to that who wrote about Him.

You believe he did get revelations from Gabrielle? Then you should pay attention to the information.

I did not say I believed he had revelation from Gabrielle.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
No there is evidence that Genesis was written in 600B.C.

Quoting your chosen scholars does not prove anything, and the same goes for when I do the same.
A consensus of modern scholarship means no more than "we have the numbers".
The truth is not determined by a popular vote and many scholars do disagree with the conclusions of modern scholarship. Even the modern scholarship is not consistent in what it says.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
"Most likely truth" means eliminating the supernatural for a start.


No if there was evidence for something supernatural then that would be included. If a supernatural event happened, was written about by historians of the day, evidence found in other cultures records, archaeological evidence, it would be a compelling mystery and would be considered.

All the theology is from the Hebrew scriptures.
Historians only know the people who believe the stories. The gospels are by those who were closer to the action.
Do you mean that all myths are written in a language and so the gospels must be mythical?


If you think the theology in the NT is from the OT you have never studied the theology. That is absurd.
Salvation, saviors, resurrection in 3 days, cosmopolitan ideology, baptism, eucharist, revelation, God vs the devil, a soul that redeemed goes to heaven, national deity upgraded to supreme deity, the word made flesh and so much more, all Greek and Persian.

Myths are written in mythical language. Jesus scores as high as King Arthur on the Rank Ragalin mythotype scale. Mark uses extensive parables, allegories, metaphors, several types of ring structure, Markan sandwiches, chiasmus and other mythic literary devices. These are NEVER used in historical writings.
That isn't even all of the literary devices used that show it's fiction.



Atheist historians with a naturalistic bias write such things, but it is not showing anyone anything except the bias of the writers.

That makes no sense at all. A believer can still write that in Greek Hellenism savior deities who provided salvation to members through a death/passion were popular. I already told you 2nd century Christian apologists admitted Jesus was just like all the Greek/Persian/Roman demigods? They DID NOT HAVE A NATURALISTIC BIAS? SO you are demonstrably wrong.


No, they are showing a cognitive bias in secular scholarship is they claim that Muhammad did not hear from Gabriel. They don't need to agree with the Quran. Is it so hard to understand?
It's like a good newspaper. It gives the news, the facts, and leaves the opinions for the opinion part of the paper. The opinions are not the news, the facts, and the opinions of people like Richard Carrier is not the history, it is private opinion, private atheistic bias added to the facts to make it look like certain things happened which the evidence does not necessarily point to.

They do not claim that Muhammad DID NOT hear from an angel. They report the facts, that that is the claim. There just isn't any evidence of angels visiting people except anecdotal stories. There isn't evidence Muhammad was visited. Like the Gospels the Quran is man-made and this is easy to see because we see the sources.
If it looked like the Gospels were actually historical accounts then they could be reported as historical accounts. Since there still isn't evidence of the magic then that would be up to the reader to decide. But with the Gospels it's written like a myth and used older theology and other fiction.
No evidence, except that it's exactly like all other religions - made up from other theologies, And that is exactly what is seen.

A good newspaper doesn't report mythology as news.



Anything that goes beyond the history is opinion, and may or may not be true.
If a Christian historian studies the same stuff that Carrier does and does not agree with what Carrier's opinion is, does that mean that the Christian historian has a cognitive bias? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but the disagreeing is a personal opinion, just as it is with Carrier.
Just because Carrier is a historian does not mean that his opinions are history.


Carrier doesn't give opinion. The fact that the theology appears in both cultures who occupied Israel for the 5 centuries before Christianity is a fact.
The mythical literary style of Mark is a fact.
No evidence of anything supernatural, fact.
Uses OT narratives to create a Jesus story, fact.
Uses Pauls letters to create events, fact.
all previous savior demigods were fiction, fact.
2nd century apologists agree Jesus is no different than the other saviors, fact.






I don't need to disagree with Hinduism and Islam because of anti supernatural reasons.

Can you explain why you would ignore Gabrielle giving revelations to Muhammad?


I don't say that all historians are anti-supernatural. What I say is that different historians come to different conclusions and just because someone has studied history and has a qualification does not make their opinion of the evidence correct.

No historian supports the narratives in the Gospels. They disagree on if Jesus was a man or complete fabrication. They analyze the evidence which makes it more probable than just reading an ancient story and assuming it's true.

If the "standard of evidence" means that the supernatural is dismissed and anything remotely similar in other religions means that one copied from another,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, that is sharing a bias.

Anything supernatural has no evidence. There are people today who claim to be Jesus. You need evidence or it's extremely likely it's just more fiction.
There is a literary process to understanding that a story was copied. But it's a fact that savior deities, who brought salvation and entry into an afterlife by dying and resurrecting was in earlier religions.
A war between God/devil on Earth where all followers get resurrected and live forever on Earth in paradise in a new body was a Persian myth BEFORE it was in Revelation.
If you don't see the similarities then you are in denial.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
That is opinion of the evidence.

Really it comes from Jewish theology. The Jewish theology that comes from as far back as 1400 BC, before the Persian and Greeks influence.


There is no heaven for souls in Jewish theology. Salvation/savior demigods who resurrected in 3 days is not in the OT and WAS in Greek religions.


In fact, you don't seem to get this because you are in hard denial, so I'm just posting more scholarship:


The Hellenistic World: The World of Alexander the Great


Hellenistic thought is evident in the narratives which make up the books of the Bible as the Hebrew Scriptures were revised and canonized during the Second Temple Period (c.515 BCE-70 CE), the latter part of which was during the Hellenic Period of the region. The gospels and epistles of the Christian New Testament were written in Greek and draw on Greek philosophy and religion as, for example, in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in which the word becomes flesh, a Platonic concept.

NOT JEWISH THEOLOGY





This shows all the Christian concepts come from Hellenism, a trend sweeping through all religions from 300 BC - 100Ad. This is why the "mystery religions" also had dying/rising sons/daughters of their one true God. Like Judaism they started out using Mesopotamian myths and then adopted Greek and Persian myths as well.

-the seasonal drama was homologized to a soteriology (salvation concept) concerning the destiny, fortune, and salvation of the individual after death.

-his led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for individual salvation, from focus on a particular ethnic group to concern for every human. The prophet or saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure.

-his process was carried further through the identification of the experiences of the soul that was to be saved with the vicissitudes of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the paradoxical figure of the saved saviour, salvator salvandus.

-Other deities, who had previously been associated with national destiny (e.g., Zeus, Yahweh, and Isis), were raised to the status of transcendent, supreme

-The temples and cult institutions of the various Hellenistic religions were repositories of the knowledge and techniques necessary for salvation and were the agents of the public worship of a particular deity. In addition, they served an important sociological role. In the new, cosmopolitan ideology that followed Alexander’s conquests, the old nationalistic and ethnic boundaries had broken down and the problem of religious and social identity had become acute.


-Hellenistic philosophy (Stoicism, Cynicism, Neo-Aristotelianism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Neoplatonism) provided key formulations for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim philosophy, theology, and mysticism through the 18th century

- The basic forms of worship of both the Jewish and Christian communities were heavily influenced in their formative period by Hellenistic practices, and this remains fundamentally unchanged to the present time. Finally, the central religious literature of both traditions—the Jewish Talmud (an authoritative compendium of law, lore, and interpretation), the New Testament, and the later patristic literature of the early Church Fathers—are characteristic Hellenistic documents both in form and content.

-Other traditions even more radically reinterpreted the ancient figures. The cosmic or seasonal drama was interiorized to refer to the divine soul within man that must be liberated.

-Each persisted in its native land with little perceptible change save for its becoming linked to nationalistic or messianic movements (centring on a deliverer figure)

-and apocalyptic traditions (referring to a belief in the dramatic intervention of a god in human and natural events)

- Particularly noticeable was the success of a variety of prophets, magicians, and healers—e.g., John the Baptist, Jesus, Simon Magus, Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander the Paphlagonian, and the cult of the healer Asclepius—whose preaching corresponded to the activities of various Greek and Roman philosophic missionaries


NOT JEWISH THEOLOGY


Revelations



but Zoroaster taught that the blessed must wait for this culmination till Frashegird and the 'future body' (Pahlavi 'tan i pasen'), when the earth will give up the bones of the dead (Y 30.7). This general resurrection will be followed by the Last Judgment, which will divide all the righteous from the wicked, both those who have lived until that time and those who have been judged already. Then Airyaman, Yazata of friendship and healing, together with Atar, Fire, will melt all the metal in the mountains, and this will flow in a glowing river over the earth. All mankind must pass through this river, and, as it is said in a Pahlavi text, 'for him who is righteous it will seem like warm milk, and for him who is wicked, it will seem as if he is walking in the • flesh through molten metal' (GBd XXXIV. r 8-r 9). In this great apocalyptic vision Zoroaster perhaps fused, unconsciously, tales of volcanic eruptions and streams of burning lava with his own experience of Iranian ordeals by molten metal; and according to his stern original teaching, strict justice will prevail then, as at each individual j udgment on earth by a fiery ordeal. So at this last ordeal of all the wicked will suffer a second death, and will perish off the face of the earth. The Daevas and legions of darkness will already have been annihilated in a last great battle with the Yazatas; and the river of metal will flow down into hell, slaying Angra Mainyu and burning up the last vestige of wickedness in the universe.


Ahura Mazda and the six Amesha Spentas will then solemnize a lt, spiritual yasna, offering up the last sacrifice (after which death wW be no more), and making a preparation of the mystical 'white haoma', which will confer immortality on the resurrected bodies of all the blessed, who will partake of it. Thereafter men will beome like the Immortals themselves, of one thought, word and deed, unaging, free from sickness, without corruption, forever joyful in the kingdom of God upon earth. For it is in this familiar and beloved world, restored to its original perfection, that, according to Zoroaster, eternity will be passed in bliss, and not in a remote insubstantial Paradise.

there are all kinds of trees and flowers


NOT JEWISH THEOLOGY


HERE ARE # EXCELLENT HISTORIANS EXPLAINING WHERE THE JEWISH THINKERS GOT THE IDEAS FROM (HINT, NOT JEWISH THEOLOGY)

Second Temple Judaism[edit]

During the period of the Second Temple (c. 515 BC – 70 AD), the Hebrew people lived under the rule of first the Persian Achaemenid Empire, then the Greek kingdoms of the Diadochi, and finally the Roman Empire.[47] Their culture was profoundly influenced by those of the peoples who ruled them.[47] Consequently, their views on existence after death were profoundly shaped by the ideas of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans.[48][49] The idea of the immortality of the soul is derived from Greek philosophy[49] and the idea of the resurrection of the dead is derived from Persian cosmology.[49] By the early first century AD, these two seemingly incompatible ideas were often conflated by Hebrew thinkers.[49] The Hebrews also inherited from the Persians, Greeks, and Romans the idea that the human soul originates in the divine realm and seeks to return there.[47] The idea that a human soul belongs in Heaven and that Earth is merely a temporary abode in which the soul is tested to prove its worthiness became increasingly popular during the Hellenistic period (323 – 31 BC).[40] Gradually, some Hebrews began to adopt the idea of Heaven as the eternal home of the righteous dead.[40]
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Are you saying that these people agree with Carrier?



All historians do not support the gospel narratives at all. Not Ehrman or Lataster. They follow the evidence.




So any historian who disagrees is biased I suppose.


You make glib statements about saviour demigods, virgin births, baptism and eternal life etc as if these things were the norm. The reality is that the lies that used to be told about demigods and the Jesus story being copied from them have been debunked many years ago and now exactly the same things are being taught by Carrier etc. and it is not because the virgin births, salvation etc has been now shown to be correct, it is because the interpretation by Carrier has expanded to make any little vague similarity into part of a theme. Easy, just have a naturalistic presupposition and say the OT was written late in the OT period and that plagiarisation from other religions is just a fact and deny the Jewishness of the gospel story, and use vague similarities in some other religions as themes , and discrediting the Bible. Discrediting is easy, just make up stuff and throw it and it sticks for those who want to believe it.



Is what the apologist damage control is trying to say. All historians agree that all of those myths were originally from Greek, Persian or Roman religions.



The Relationship between Hellenistic Mystery Religions and Early Christianity:


A Case Study using Baptism and Eucharist


Jennifer Uzzell



Baptism has been widely compared with initiation into the Mystery cults. In many of the Mysteries purification through ritual bathing was required as a prerequisite for initiation.


Dying/rising demigods



In Pagan Hellenistic and Near Eastern thought, the motif of a “Dying and Rising God” existed for millennia before Christ and there had been stories of divine beings questing into the underworld and returning transformed in some way.


Eucharist.



-Perhaps the clearest point of contact between the Mysteries and Christian Eucharist, and one of which the Church Fathers were painfully conscious, lay in a sacramental meal of bread or cakes and wine mixed with water in which initiates to the cult of Mithras participated.



They seek salvation from the debased material world through a spiritual ascent through the spheres. Mithras was expected to return to earth to lead his followers in a final cataclysmic battle between good and evil.



-The Mithraic sacramental meal almost certainly predates Christianity and cannot, therefore, be contingent upon it.



“Christianity is not a Jewish religion, it’s a Hellenistic religion.”




“Jesus is of Jewish ethnicity but is telling the story of a Hellenistic deity”








1:57



Carl A. P. Ruck (born December 8, 1935, Bridgeport, Connecticut), is a professor in the Classical Studies department at Boston University. He received his B.A. at Yale University, his M.A. at the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. at Harvard University.




Rome did not decide on Christian theology. The Christian Church that dated back to the apostles and their writings was not the gnostic groups and that can be seen in the New Testament epistle and the Gospels.



Several councils in the 3rd century decided on the current canon. The 2nd century was 1/2 Gnostic.


In the middle of the second century, the Christian communities of Rome, for example, were divided between followers of Marcion, Montanism, and the gnostic teachings of Valentinus.



Many groups were dualistic, maintaining that reality was composed into two radically opposing parts: matter, usually seen as evil, and spirit, seen as good. Proto-orthodox Christianity, on the other hand, held that both the material and spiritual worlds were created by God and were therefore both good, and that this was represented in the unified divine and human natures of Christ.[63] Trinitarianism held that God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit were all strictly one being with three hypostases.




Pointing out the flawed methodology in what claims to be history is flawed methodology?




a useless and incorrect tautology. Your argument about "naturalistic bias" can be employed by any religion to affirm they are the true religion. "People would know we were the true word of God if they didn't have a naturalistic bias".


Bias or no, ancient stories are still probably myths. The evidence surrounding them proves it.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Not all of archaeology says the opposite. There is a comedy of errors in the dating of the conquest story, (even to the point of archaeologists wanting the conquest to be 200 years after the Bible says it was)and a misunderstanding of the story as written in Joshua (so that it is only those cities in Canaan that were dedicated to God which were completely destroyed and burned, and when Joshua says a city was just destroyed it means that the people were captured and wiped out and chased away, but not that the city was burned down) The archaeology of Canaan with these errors corrected yields a match for the conquest story.
One error builds on another and then theories about where Israel came from are added on to that and by magic the conquest story of the Bible has been shown to be wrong. But really it is the archaeology that is wrong.

You are doing a tapdance of made up ideas to make this work.
First it doesn't, the New Chronology hasn't been shown to work and the dating even proved it.
The Israelites didn't "chase" people away. They had instructions from Yahweh to destroy, burn and completely wipe out these people.

As if an established city would just run away without a fight?

Dever: The settlements were founded not on the ruins of destroyed Canaanite towns but rather on bedrock or on virgin soil. There was no evidence of armed conflict in most of these sites. Archeologists also have discovered that most of the large Canaanite towns that were supposedly destroyed by invading Israelites were either not destroyed at all or destroyed by "Sea People"—Philistines, or others.

So gradually the old conquest model [based on the accounts of Joshua's conquests in the Bible] began to lose favor amongst scholars. Many scholars now think that most of the early Israelites were originally Canaanites, displaced Canaanites, displaced from the lowlands, from the river valleys, displaced geographically and then displaced ideologically.

So what we are dealing with is a movement of peoples but not an invasion of an armed corps from the outside. A social and economic revolution, if you will, rather than a military revolution. And it begins a slow process in which the Israelites distinguish themselves from their Canaanite ancestors, particularly in religion—with a new deity, new religious laws and customs, new ethnic markers, as we would call them today.

Israel was not called Israel then.
There is evidence of Israel being in Egypt when the Bible says.
https://christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a027.html
If you want to say that Israel was not in Egypt because the evidence is not definitive then that is just a false argument.

"Could this be the Israelites?" They don't know. This is amateur crank. Please link to a peer-reviewed paper.
If you believe Israel was called something else link to a paper on a peer-reviewed press.
I care about what is true, not what I want to be true.


I can't go through all that to try to find the 6 you are referring to.
The thing about Jesus is that all His theology can be seen in the OT with no help from any other religions and Jesus is someone who really existed and had witnesses to that who wrote about Him.

None of this theology was in the OT. Yahweh would NEVER be a man and no scholar disagrees that the NT theology is Greek and Persian.
Even the apologists agreed so you have nothing to stand on here.
Here is a summary. This is not OT theology.
The general features most often shared by all these cults are (when we eliminate all their differences and what remains is only what they share in common):

  • They are personal salvation cults (often evolved from prior agricultural cults).
  • They guarantee the individual a good place in the afterlife (a concern not present in most prior forms of religion).
  • They are cults you join membership with (as opposed to just being open communal religions).
  • They enact a fictive kin group (members are now all brothers and sisters).
  • They are joined through baptism (the use of water-contact rituals to effect an initiation).
  • They are maintained through communion (regular sacred meals enacting the presence of the god).
  • They involved secret teachings reserved only to members (and some only to members of certain rank).
  • They used a common vocabulary to identify all these concepts and their role.
  • They are syncretistic (they modify this common package of ideas with concepts distinctive of the adopting culture).
  • They are mono- or henotheistic (they preach a supreme god by whom and to whom all other divinities are created and subordinate).
  • They are individualistic (they relate primarily to salvation of the individual, not the community).
  • And they are cosmopolitan (they intentionally cross social borders of race, culture, nation, wealth, or even gender).
You might start to notice we’ve almost completely described Christianity already. It gets better. These cults all had a common central savior deity, who shared most or all these features (when, once again, we eliminate all their differences and what remains is only what they share in common):

  • They are all “savior gods” (literally so-named and so-called).
  • They are usually the “son” of a supreme God (or occasionally “daughter”).
  • They all undergo a “passion” (a “suffering” or “struggle,” literally the same word in Greek, patheôn).
  • That passion is often, but not always, a death (followed by a resurrection and triumph).
  • By which “passion” (of whatever kind) they obtain victory over death.
  • Which victory they then share with their followers (typically through baptism and communion).
  • They also all have stories about them set in human history on earth.
  • Yet so far as we can tell, none of them ever actually existed.
I did not say I believed he had revelation from Gabrielle.

Why? That could only be from a naturalistic bias. Why would you not believe he had revelations? If you have a reason that isn't naturalistic bias than scholars may also have that reason as well.
Muhammad said the message was not given accurately and this upset Yahweh. Without a naturalistic bias this is entirely possible. His evidence is as good or better than Biblical evidence. So without a bias it must be accepted.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Quoting your chosen scholars does not prove anything, and the same goes for when I do the same.
A consensus of modern scholarship means no more than "we have the numbers".
The truth is not determined by a popular vote and many scholars do disagree with the conclusions of modern scholarship. Even the modern scholarship is not consistent in what it says.

If you can quote historians then yes, it does prove something or lend evidence to something. These scholars learn the original language, all the text, the surrounding religions, the extrabiblical text, historians words and more. They have the big picture.

A consensus of modern scholarship means the evidence for a position is vastly overwhelming.

The truth is DEFINITELY not determined by ancient stories of supernatural beings that have zero evidence. Your standards are completely random as you reject Islam and believe the Bible.
The truth is not determined by denial of obvious facts like the OT being Mesopotamian stories re-worked.


Enuma Elish - The Babylonian Epic of Creation - Full Text

Genesis/Enuma Elish
The Enuma Elish would later be the inspiration for the Hebrew scribes who created the text now known as the biblical Book of Genesis. Prior to the 19th century CE, the Bible was considered the oldest book in the world and its narratives were thought to be completely original. In the mid-19th century CE, however, European museums, as well as academic and religious institutions, sponsored excavations in Mesopotamia to find physical evidence for historical corroboration of the stories in the Bible. These excavations found quite the opposite, however, in that, once cuneiform was translated, it was understood that a number of biblical narratives were Mesopotamian in origin.


Famous stories such as the Fall of Man and the Great Flood were originally conceived and written down in Sumer, translated and modified later in Babylon, and reworked by the Assyrians before they were used by the Hebrew scribes for the versions which appear in the Bible.



Both Genesis and Enuma Elsih are religious texts which detail and celebrate cultural origins: Genesis describes the origin and founding of the Jewish people under the guidance of the Lord; Enuma Elish recounts the origin and founding of Babylon under the leadership of the god Marduk. Contained in each work is a story of how the cosmos and man were created. Each work begins by describing the watery chaos and primeval darkness that once filled the universe. Then light is created to replace the darkness. Afterward, the heavens are made and in them heavenly bodies are placed. Finally, man is created.
 

pearl

Well-Known Member
Both Genesis and Enuma Elsih are religious texts which detail and celebrate cultural origins: Genesis describes the origin and founding of the Jewish people under the guidance of the Lord; Enuma Elish recounts the origin and founding of Babylon under the leadership of the god Marduk

I think it is not surprising considering the final editing of the Pentateuch probably took place during the Babylonian Exile.
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
The Problems of Hellenized Judaism and interpretation of Christian Scripture

Friend @joelr
“Christianity is not a Jewish religion, it’s a Hellenistic religion.”
“Jesus is of Jewish ethnicity but is telling the story of a Hellenistic deity”
#66
I agree with one on the above summarized sentences. It is not Jesus/Yeshua who is telling the story , it is Hellenist Paul (his associates and the Church) who is doing it, please. Right?

Regards
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
The Problems of Hellenized Judaism and interpretation of Christian Scripture

Friend @joelr
“Christianity is not a Jewish religion, it’s a Hellenistic religion.”
“Jesus is of Jewish ethnicity but is telling the story of a Hellenistic deity”
#66
I agree with one on the above summarized sentences. It is not Jesus/Yeshua who is telling the story , it is Hellenist Paul (his associates and the Church) who is doing it, please. Right?

Regards

Yes but it's also the Gospels. Jesus himself has all the characteristics of a Greek demigod - God father, earth mother, provides salvation, death and resurrection often in 3 days...

The Hellenistic World: The World of Alexander the Great

Hellenistic thought is evident in the narratives which make up the books of the Bible as the Hebrew Scriptures were revised and canonized during the Second Temple Period (c.515 BCE-70 CE), the latter part of which was during the Hellenic Period of the region. The gospels and epistles of the Christian New Testament were written in Greek and draw on Greek philosophy and religion as, for example, in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in which the word becomes flesh, a Platonic concept.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
I don't know that anybody sees 6BC as right after the exile.
After the return from Babylon. The Persian king allowed the return of the Jewish leaders.

"more recent thinking is that the Yahwist source dates to from either just before or during the Babylonian captivity in the 6th century BC, and that the Priestly final edition was made late in the Exilic period or soon after.[4] The almost complete absence of all the characters and incidents mentioned in Primeval history from the rest of the Hebrew Bible has led a sizeable minority of scholars to conclude that these chapters were composed much later than those that follow, possibly in the 3rd century BC.."



"Tradition credits Moses as the author of Genesis, as well as the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and most of Deuteronomy; however, modern scholars, especially from the 19th century onward, place the books' authorship in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, hundreds of years after Moses is supposed to have lived.[3][4] Based on scientific interpretation of archaeological, genetic, and linguistic evidence, most scholars consider Genesis to be primarily mythological rather than historical."

Book of Genesis - Wikipedia
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
Hellenistic thought is evident in the narratives which make up the books of the Bible as the Hebrew Scriptures were revised and canonized during the Second Temple Period (c.515 BCE-70 CE), the latter part of which was during the Hellenic Period of the region. The gospels and epistles of the Christian New Testament were written in Greek and draw on Greek philosophy and religion as, for example, in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in which the word becomes flesh, a Platonic concept.

John was writing to those with Greek background and who may have known something of Plato, whose idea was that the Logos was too pure to come to this physical realm.
Jesus was the opposite. He was pure but became a man out of love for us.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
After the return from Babylon. The Persian king allowed the return of the Jewish leaders.

"more recent thinking is that the Yahwist source dates to from either just before or during the Babylonian captivity in the 6th century BC, and that the Priestly final edition was made late in the Exilic period or soon after.[4] The almost complete absence of all the characters and incidents mentioned in Primeval history from the rest of the Hebrew Bible has led a sizeable minority of scholars to conclude that these chapters were composed much later than those that follow, possibly in the 3rd century BC.."



"Tradition credits Moses as the author of Genesis, as well as the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and most of Deuteronomy; however, modern scholars, especially from the 19th century onward, place the books' authorship in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, hundreds of years after Moses is supposed to have lived.[3][4] Based on scientific interpretation of archaeological, genetic, and linguistic evidence, most scholars consider Genesis to be primarily mythological rather than historical."

Book of Genesis - Wikipedia

Oh OK the 6th century BC. That makes more sense.
This find (especially amongst others concerning Israel in Egypt and the alignment of Canaan archaeology with the book of Joshua and a 1400 date for the conquest) tends to crush the idea of the 6th century writing of the Pentateuch.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Oh OK the 6th century BC. That makes more sense.
This find (especially amongst others concerning Israel in Egypt and the alignment of Canaan archaeology with the book of Joshua and a 1400 date for the conquest) tends to crush the idea of the 6th century writing of the Pentateuch.


Why would that "crush" anything? It's from around the time the Israelites were emerging from the Canaanite nation and it's even written in proto-Canaanite script. Which backs up the new modern archaeology that shows the Israelites came from the Canaanites. This demonstrates they were in the process of creating their language which would take a long time.
Curses like this are very common. The Pentateuch was written way later when the language was complete.
The earliest mention of Israelites was 1200 BCE. So it's reasonable that a few centuries earlier they were organizing, had a proto-language and were cursing things like everyone else.
 

Kelly of the Phoenix

Well-Known Member
The Jewish theology that comes from as far back as 1400 BC, before the Persian and Greeks influence.
Do you have texts that far back? 2 Kings practically announced that Josiah and Hilkiah were the sources of at least one book of the Bible, or at least someone in the monarchy period. God could have told them to fabricate scripture and that would be supernatural but false.
 
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