There is NO Historical Evidence for Jesus

[joelr]

It wasn’t hyperbole, just completely wrong.

Fine, if you are going to jump to denial I'll just source the same material again.

You are literally ignoring all cases of temple destruction and forced take-over of temples. The laws in Rome forbid Pagan practices.
You have hit a wall so hard it must have knocked you into denial mode?




"the Emperor Justinian decided to destroy them. Accordingly, Narses, . . . destroyed the temples on the emperor’s orders, held the priests under guard, and sent the statues to Byzantium.""


"
"In 472 Leo I published a new law in 472 which imposed severe penalties for the owner of any property who was aware that pagan rites were performed on his property. If the property owner was of high rank he was punished by the loss of his rank or office and by the confiscation of his property. If the property owner was of lower status he would be physically tortured and then condemned to labor in the mines for the rest of his life."



Journal paper by Professor Dr. Jitse H.F. Dijkstra
Classics and Religious Studies,

" The archaeological evidence that has now been collected for most parts of the Roman Empire, however, shows overwhelmingly that the destruction of temples and their reuse as churches were exceptional rather than routine events, and merely two aspects of the changing sacred landscape in late antiquity."

" am currently working on a project that will build on these recent trends by conducting the first book-length study of religious violence in late antique Egypt.12 Thus far the idea that violence, in particular against temples and statues, was widespread in late antique Egypt has been persistent.13 To quote the much-discussed study Religion in Roman Egypt by David Frankfurter: “the gutting and conversion of traditional Egyptian temples, often still functioning, was a widespread phenomenon in Egypt during the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries.”14 My regional study of the process of religious transformation from the Ancient Egyptian religion to Christianity in the First Cataract region in southern Egypt, which exhaustively studies all sources from Philae and the two other towns in the region, Aswan and Elephantine, is a strong counter-argument against such views. It argues that the religious transformation in the whole region, including Philae, consisted of a gradual and complex process that was essentially peaceful.15 The present project extends the picture of a complex and gradual process of religious transformation, in which religious violence only occasionally occurred in specific local or regional circumstances, to Egypt as a whole."


Oh look, my words, destroy temples ........."These barbarians retained the temples on Philae right down to my day, but the Emperor Justinian decided to destroy them. Accordingly, Narses, . . . destroyed the temples on the emperor’s orders, held the priests under guard, and sent the statues to Byzantium."

"We have discussed three cases that have been taken as exemplary for widespread religious violence in late antique Egypt or even for the pervasive nature of religious violence in the late antique world. Each of these three cases is well documented in Christian literature, and even secular literature (Eunapius, Procopius), which describes the violence in dramatic terms as a direct consequence of Christian – “pagan” conflict, thus seemingly confirming the picture that the fourth and fifth centuries saw a struggle between the old and the new religion, leading to Christian triumph."

You claimed that the lack of evidence for your position was because the super powerful church systematically destroyed it all.

I noted this was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the power of the church to do so, even the Emperor couldn’t have achieved this effectively.

I quoted some sources that supported my view, you kindly quoted some sources that showed you were wrong too.

And more denial. Easily fixed. (probably not, but anyways....) Temple destruction did happen.

"Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began during the reign of Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) in the military colony of Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), when he destroyed a pagan temple for the purpose of constructing a Christian church.[1] Rome had periodically confiscated church properties, and Constantine was vigorous in reclaiming them whenever these issues were brought to his attention."

"From 313, with the exception of the brief reign of Julian, non-Christians were subject to a variety of hostile and discriminatory imperial laws aimed at suppressing sacrifice and magic and closing any temples that continued their use."

" During the reigns of Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius I anti-pagan policies and their penalties increased."

"Constantine openly supported Christianity after 324;[24] he destroyed a few temples and plundered more, converted others to churches, and neglected the rest;[22]: 523  he "confiscated temple funds to help finance his own building projects", and he confiscated funds in an effort to establish a stable currency; he was primarily interested in hoards of gold and silver, but he also, on occasion, confiscated temple land;[27] he refused to support pagan beliefs and practices while also speaking out against them; he periodically forbade pagan sacrifices and closed temples, outlawed the gladiatorial shows while still attending them,[28] made laws that threatened and menaced pagans who continued to sacrifice, while also making other laws that markedly favored Christianity; and he personally endowed Christians with gifts of money, land and government positions."

"Some scholars have long asserted that not all temples were destroyed but were instead converted to churches throughout the empire.[190][191] According to modern archaeology, 120 pagan temples were converted to churches in the whole empire"


Some accounts may have been dramaticized and some scholars argue for less destruction, really no point here. It happened to some degree, the end.

If you think that has any connection to anything I’ve said, you might want to try reading more carefully.

Because you declared me a conspiracy theorist and then continued to remark as if I accepted your position. Now you take issue with a deserved rebuttal? Do you have those things.......what are they called......oh, POINTS?

Let’s see if you can be a bit more nuanced from now on eh and respond with something resembling what i said?



Would you say it would be accurate for a future historian to talk about how in the 20th and 21st century atheists "destroyed" thousands of churches across Europe and America?

I’d say it would be a gross distortion to claim that converting former churches that were no longer economically viable into cafes and apartments constitutes destruction.

Even though Soviet communists did destroy churches deliberately, I’d also say jumbling up the deliberate destruction with the conversion of defunct churches would be pretty silly.

That’s what you are doing though.

I provided evidence that it happened. Why is this still a thing? Oh right, you used denial.

 

[joelr]

It's not completely correct, as we shall see.


Shall we see what your own source that you quoted says about this…


And now shall we look at what it says in the sentences that follow directly from the end of your quote?

As it now becomes more and more accepted in Late Antique Studies to discard the triumphalist overtones of our Christian sources and to view religious transformation as a gradual and complex process, in which violence only rarely erupted, these cases have been re-evaluated. It has been argued that, if we take away the emphasis on violence and take proper account of the other sources available (inscriptions, papyri, and material remains), it becomes clear that all three incidents occurred in specific local, socio-political circumstances: the Serapeum incident arose from the explosive situation in the capital, perhaps induced but not necessarily directly related to the imperial edict of June 391, the anti-“pagan” rhetoric of Shenoute needs to be seen in the context of his power struggle with the local elite and the closure of the Isis temple at Philae was probably no more than a propaganda stunt of Justinian’s that would have had a minimal effect on a local level. We have also seen that in each case, the literary sources speak of a “destruction” of temples and idols, whereas in reality the violence was something less extreme.


Amazingly it says exactly the same thing I said in my previous post that contained the multiple peer reviewed sources you pretended not to notice.

As I already stated and the sources confirmed, there was violence at times, but localised, temporarily limited and ad hoc.

Paganism declined over many centuries, just as Christianity is in the process of doing now in Europe. While there were some persecutions (as there have been in modern Europe) most of the decline is organic due to new belief systems being in the ascendancy, and the decline of the institutional power of paganism.

This should be easy to understand as we can see the process happening today.

This is all completely pointless. You also forgot the part where it says scholars are divided in 2 camps. I am familiar with the camp that believes things changed more on the violent side. Due to harsh violence and legislation. So many scholars DO agree with me. It's not a period I know much more about and do not care. What I know is I wasn't wrong about some temples being destroyed and violence did happen. I do not know the source and motivation for these different findings. Is it more apologists padding history as they do over and over? I don't know. I would have to research the findings and see who is saying what. I already have enough material to go over on the origins of the religion.



"Scholars fall into two categories on how and why this dramatic change took place: the long established traditional catastrophists who view the rapid demise of paganism as occurring in the late fourth and early fifth centuries due to harsh Christian legislation and violence, and contemporary scholars who view the process as a long decline that began in the second century, before the emperors were themselves Christian, and which continued into the seventh century. "

That's a bit like making a blanket statement that "paganism actively tried to end Christianity and Manichaeism" because of the Diocletian persecution.

As your source showed, the truth is far more nuanced than the pop-culture narrative you are peddling.

Paganism declined over centuries and there was no systematic destruction of temples and heretical materials.

There was some destruction of heretical materials.



After Constantine, Christianity gradually became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire. In the view of many historians, the Constantinian shift turned Christianity from a persecuted religion into a persecuting religion.[8]: 22  However, the claim that there was a Constantinian shift has been disputed. Theologian Peter Leithart argues that there was a "brief, ambiguous 'Constantinian moment' in the early fourth century", but that there was "no permanent, epochal 'Constantinian shift'".[33]: 287 [34]: 19  According to Michele R. Salzman, fourth century Rome featured sociological, political, economic and religious competition, producing tensions and hostilities between various groups, but that Christians focused on heresy more than pagans.





Anti-pagan legislation reflects what Brown calls "the most potent social and religious drama" of the fourth-century Roman empire.[156]: 640  From Constantine forward, the Christian intelligentsia wrote of Christianity as fully triumphant over paganism. It didn't matter that they were still a minority in the empire, this triumph had occurred in Heaven; it was evidenced by Constantine; but even after Constantine, they wrote that Christianity would defeat, and be seen to defeat, all of its enemies - not convert them.[156]: 640 


The laws were not intended to convert; "the laws were intended to terrorize... Their language was uniformly vehement, and... frequently horrifying".

Temple destruction and conversion


According to Brown, Theodosius was a devout Christian anxious to close the temples in the East. His commissioner, the prefect Maternus Cynegius (384-88) commissioned temple destruction on a wide scale, even employing the military under his command and "black-robed monks" for this purpose.[170]: 63 [171] [172] Garth Fowden says Cynegius did not limit himself to Theodosius' official policy, but Theodosius did not stop him.[172][170]: 63 


It is not a "pop-culture narrative" These are just a few examples. So there was some level of pagan support and at times they were allowed to live in peace, great. Doesn't change the fact that some temples were destroyed and anti-pagan propaganda was real.

 

[joelr]

It wasn’t hyperbole, just completely wrong.

Fine, if you are going to jump to denial I'll just source the same material again.

You are literally ignoring all cases of temple destruction and forced take-over of temples. The laws in Rome forbid Pagan practices.
You have hit a wall so hard it must have knocked you into denial mode?




"the Emperor Justinian decided to destroy them. Accordingly, Narses, . . . destroyed the temples on the emperor’s orders, held the priests under guard, and sent the statues to Byzantium.""


"
"In 472 Leo I published a new law in 472 which imposed severe penalties for the owner of any property who was aware that pagan rites were performed on his property. If the property owner was of high rank he was punished by the loss of his rank or office and by the confiscation of his property. If the property owner was of lower status he would be physically tortured and then condemned to labor in the mines for the rest of his life."



Journal paper by Professor Dr. Jitse H.F. Dijkstra
Classics and Religious Studies,

" The archaeological evidence that has now been collected for most parts of the Roman Empire, however, shows overwhelmingly that the destruction of temples and their reuse as churches were exceptional rather than routine events, and merely two aspects of the changing sacred landscape in late antiquity."

" am currently working on a project that will build on these recent trends by conducting the first book-length study of religious violence in late antique Egypt.12 Thus far the idea that violence, in particular against temples and statues, was widespread in late antique Egypt has been persistent.13 To quote the much-discussed study Religion in Roman Egypt by David Frankfurter: “the gutting and conversion of traditional Egyptian temples, often still functioning, was a widespread phenomenon in Egypt during the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries.”14 My regional study of the process of religious transformation from the Ancient Egyptian religion to Christianity in the First Cataract region in southern Egypt, which exhaustively studies all sources from Philae and the two other towns in the region, Aswan and Elephantine, is a strong counter-argument against such views. It argues that the religious transformation in the whole region, including Philae, consisted of a gradual and complex process that was essentially peaceful.15 The present project extends the picture of a complex and gradual process of religious transformation, in which religious violence only occasionally occurred in specific local or regional circumstances, to Egypt as a whole."


Oh look, my words, destroy temples ........."These barbarians retained the temples on Philae right down to my day, but the Emperor Justinian decided to destroy them. Accordingly, Narses, . . . destroyed the temples on the emperor’s orders, held the priests under guard, and sent the statues to Byzantium."

"We have discussed three cases that have been taken as exemplary for widespread religious violence in late antique Egypt or even for the pervasive nature of religious violence in the late antique world. Each of these three cases is well documented in Christian literature, and even secular literature (Eunapius, Procopius), which describes the violence in dramatic terms as a direct consequence of Christian – “pagan” conflict, thus seemingly confirming the picture that the fourth and fifth centuries saw a struggle between the old and the new religion, leading to Christian triumph."

You claimed that the lack of evidence for your position was because the super powerful church systematically destroyed it all.

I noted this was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the power of the church to do so, even the Emperor couldn’t have achieved this effectively.

I quoted some sources that supported my view, you kindly quoted some sources that showed you were wrong too.



If you think that has any connection to anything I’ve said, you might want to try reading more carefully.

Let’s see if you can be a bit more nuanced from now on eh and respond with something resembling what i said?



Would you say it would be accurate for a future historian to talk about how in the 20th and 21st century atheists "destroyed" thousands of churches across Europe and America?

I’d say it would be a gross distortion to claim that converting former churches that were no longer economically viable into cafes and apartments constitutes destruction.

Even though Soviet communists did destroy churches deliberately, I’d also say jumbling up the deliberate destruction with the conversion of defunct churches would be pretty silly.

That’s what you are doing though.



It's not completely correct, as we shall see.


Shall we see what your own source that you quoted says about this…


And now shall we look at what it says in the sentences that follow directly from the end of your quote?

As it now becomes more and more accepted in Late Antique Studies to discard the triumphalist overtones of our Christian sources and to view religious transformation as a gradual and complex process, in which violence only rarely erupted, these cases have been re-evaluated. It has been argued that, if we take away the emphasis on violence and take proper account of the other sources available (inscriptions, papyri, and material remains), it becomes clear that all three incidents occurred in specific local, socio-political circumstances: the Serapeum incident arose from the explosive situation in the capital, perhaps induced but not necessarily directly related to the imperial edict of June 391, the anti-“pagan” rhetoric of Shenoute needs to be seen in the context of his power struggle with the local elite and the closure of the Isis temple at Philae was probably no more than a propaganda stunt of Justinian’s that would have had a minimal effect on a local level. We have also seen that in each case, the literary sources speak of a “destruction” of temples and idols, whereas in reality the violence was something less extreme.


Amazingly it says exactly the same thing I said in my previous post that contained the multiple peer reviewed sources you pretended not to notice.

As I already stated and the sources confirmed, there was violence at times, but localised, temporarily limited and ad hoc.

Paganism declined over many centuries, just as Christianity is in the process of doing now in Europe. While there were some persecutions (as there have been in modern Europe) most of the decline is organic due to new belief systems being in the ascendancy, and the decline of the institutional power of paganism.

This should be easy to understand as we can see the process happening today.



That's a bit like making a blanket statement that "paganism actively tried to end Christianity and Manichaeism" because of the Diocletian persecution.

As your source showed, the truth is far more nuanced than the pop-culture narrative you are peddling.

Paganism declined over centuries and there was no systematic destruction of temples and heretical materials.

 

[joelr]

So what, ??even accepting your ridiculous conspiracy theory, …………… it is still a fact that Paul and Mark didn’t copied from each other nor form a common source. Hence they are independent, this is true regardless if other books where dropped or not

Paul and Mark are not independent. There are dozens of examples of Mark's use of the Epistles. A few are here.

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

• Michael Bird & Joel Willitts, Paul and the Gospels: Christologies, Conflicts and Convergences (T&T Clark 2011)
• David Oliver Smith, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul: The Influence of the Epistles on the Synoptic Gospels (Resource 2011)
• Tom Dykstra, Mark: Canonizer of Paul (OCABS 2012)
• Oda Wischmeyer & David Sim, eds., Paul and Mark: Two Authors at the Beginnings of Christianity (de Gruyter 2014)
• Eve-Marie Becker et al., Mark and Paul: For and Against Pauline Influence on Mark (de Gruyter 2014)
• Thomas Nelligan, The Quest for Mark’s Sources: An Exploration of the Case for Mark’s Use of First Corinthians (Pickwick 2015)

Some examples from Dr Carrier:

In Romans 13, Paul writes up his own opinions about taxation, arguing Christians should dutifully pay their taxes. We know these remarks are just his own opinions; not only because he represents them in no other way and has to contrive arguments for them—yet never resorts to the most potent argument of all (“the Lord said!”)—but also because so far as we can tell, everywhere else when Paul had “a commandment from the Lord” on something he was arguing for, he said so. For example: 1 Corinthians 7:10-12, 1 Corinthians 7:25, 1 Corinthians 9:14, 1 Corinthians 11:23, 1 Corinthians 14:37, 1 Thessalonians 4:2, 1 Thessalonians 4:15 (see Ch. 11.6 of OHJ). So when we find a clever story about Jesus promoting the paying of taxes in Mark 12:13-17, where did Mark get that story? Why had Paul never heard of it, even after decades of “preaching Jesus” and engaging with other Christians, even the first Apostles, across a dozen or so provinces?

It’s quite obvious that Mark has taken Paul’s teaching and simply rewritten it into a pithier teaching from Jesus. Before Mark did that, there was no teaching from Jesus on the subject. Mark’s license to give authority to the teachings of apostles by attributing them to Jesus is a thing we will see many more examples of below; and many more are discussed in the literature cited above. And it’s the same as Matthew’s license in fabricating such elaborate discourses as The Sermon on the Mount, which mainstream peer reviewed scholarship has found to be a late invention of Greek authors that post-dates the Jewish War (see OHJ, pp. 465-68), and thus was never actually taught by Jesus. A conclusion all the more obvious from the fact that every parallel in it one might find in Paul comes from Paul’s own thoughts; Paul conspicuously shows no awareness of Jesus having ever said anything quotable on the same subjects. John likewise is generally agreed to have made up tons of speeches for Jesus as well. It’s what all other Gospel authors did. And if they all did it, we should assume Mark did too.

That Mark adapted Paul’s teaching about taxes into a teaching from Jesus is further confirmed by the Pauline Chiasmus (which we’ll get to shortly). It is the plainest instance of Mark doing this.

Paradigmatic Example: The Last Supper​

Another example is “the last supper.” This began as a vision Paul had of Jesus relating to him what he spoke mystically to all future generations of Christians, as we see in 1 Corinthians 11:23-27. As Paul there says, he received this “from the Lord.” Directly. Just as he says he received all his teachings (Galatians 1:11-12; Romans 10:14-15; Romans 16:25-26). In Paul’s version, no one else is present. It is not a “last” supper (as if Jesus had had any others before), but merely “the bread and cup of the Lord.” And Jesus is not speaking to “disciples” but to the whole Christian Church unto the end of time—including Paul and his congregations.

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.

1 CORINTHIANS 11:23-26


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.
MARK 14:22-26

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).

Then Jesus says he will not drink “again” until the kingdom comes, a statement that fits a narrative event, implying Jesus drank, and here drank, and often drank, and will pause drinking until the end times. Likewise Jesus “blesses” the bread (which also doesn’t happen in Paul), implying the actual literal bread he has in his hand is thereby rendered special to the ones about to eat it; whereas in Paul that makes no sense, because no one is there to eat it, Jesus is just depicting and explaining a ritual others will perform in his honor, not that he is performing for them. So it is notable that all of these things are absent from Paul. There is no narrative context of this being the last of many cups Jesus has drunk and of Jesus pausing drinking or of his blessing the bread and giving it to people present. In Paul, the whole scene is an instruction to future followers, not a description of a meal Jesus once had.

This is how Mark reifies a revelation in Paul, relating Jesus’s celestial instructions for performing a sacrament and its meaning, into a narrative historical event. Mark has even taken Paul’s language, about Jesus being “handed over,” which in Paul means by God (Romans 8:32, exact same word) and even by himself (Galatians 2:20, exact same word), not by Judas, and converted it into a whole new narrative of a betrayal by “the Jews” (the meaning of Judas, i.e. Judah, i.e. Judea). Paul has no knowledge of a betrayal. Indeed in Paul, all of “the twelve” get to see Jesus right after his death and are recognized as apostles (1 Corinthians 15:5; see Proving History, pp. 151-55).

Mark's Use of Paul's Epistles • Richard Carrier Blogs

Many studies have argued the Gospel that came to be labeled “according to Mark” based some of its content on the Epistles of Paul. Here I’ll discuss this scholarship and its evidence. “Mark” is of course the earliest Gospel we have any surviving text or even any real evidence of. It was then...

www.richardcarrier.info

 

[joelr]

So what, ??even accepting your ridiculous conspiracy theory, …………… it is still a fact that Paul and Mark didn’t copied from each other nor form a common source. Hence they are independent, this is true regardless if other books where dropped or not

few other examples of Mark using Paul:
Scholars have long suspected Mark knew the Epistles because Mark is full of memorably Pauline themes.

Paul of course equated Jesus with both the Passover and the Yom Kippur sacrifice, both rolled into one (his death atones for all sins like the Yom Kippur, and saves us from death like the Passover lamb), even though they are months apart in the Jewish ritual calendar. And yet Mark also merges the two themes into one: having Jesus die on Passover (indeed at the very same hour as a temple sacrifice) and enact at the same time a Yom Kippur ritual (with Barabbas as the scapegoat; see OHJ, pp. 402-08).

Likewise Mark reifies Paul’s theme of a Torah-free Gospel (by use of metonymy, one feature standing in for all): Mark 7:15 says “nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them,” and in 7:19 that Jesus “declared all foods clean,” just as Paul says “I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean” (Romans 14:14) and “all food is clean” (Romans 14:20). Indeed, Mark 7 has Jesus speak of the clean and unclean, and literal washing, transferring it to a message about internal cleanness replacing literal cleanness, exactly as Paul does in Romans 14. Extending the same reasoning to every other Torah command would then form a major component of Mark’s community’s mission—which was also Paul’s.

Mark 10:1-12 has Jesus also teach the same thing about divorce that Paul did. Though in this case Paul does say he has that teaching from Jesus (likely, as we just saw, from some revelation or spirit conversation). But Mark still inaccurately has Jesus mention women divorcing husbands (Mark 10:12), as Jewish law did not provide for women to initiate a divorce (see Divorce in the Bible and Divorce in Judaism); whereas Paul, working with Gentile congregations, assumes they could as a matter of course in his own teachings on divorce (in 1 Corinthians 7). Mark then has Jesus teach essentially what Paul did. Which shows Mark has gotten Jesus’s teaching through the filter of Paul. Just as Paul says, “A wife must not separate from her husband, but if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband,” Mark’s Jesus says “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her and if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.” It’s the same teaching. Yet this specific form of it can only have come from Paul, not Jesus.

Another example is how Mark 14:36 puts in the mouth of Jesus Paul’s repeated duplicative “Abba, Father” (despite both words meaning the same thing, in Romans 8:15 & Galatians 4:6), and does so in a similar context: Mark has Jesus utter it in a prayer for strength to endure and not fall away from his faith in God’s salvation; and Paul references it in discussing precisely the same subject (Galatians 4:7-20 & Romans 8:16-30). In fact the parallels are so apposite, the otherwise inexplicable narrative in Mark (why is Jesus, who well knows who he is and what will really happen, at all concerned about this?) makes more sense when read in light of these passages in Paul, as if Mark knew a reading of Paul would complete one’s understanding of what he was narratively portraying: Jesus as a model for the ideal Christian believer, and as a fellow heir to the promise of resurrection.

Similarly, Mark 8:31-33 crafts Jesus’s rebuke of Peter after Paul’s rebuke of Peter (Galatians 2:11-14). The many congruences are well analyzed in Dykstra (Mark, pp. 97-99). For example, Paul says, “Am I now seeking the favor or men, or of God?”; Jesus says, “You are not thinking of the things of God but of the things of man.” Then Mark 8:34-37 adapts material from Philippians 3:7-8. For example, Paul says, “Whatever gain [kerdê] I had, I counted as a loss [zêmian]” and “I suffered the loss [zêmian] of all…that I may gain [kêrdêsô] Christ”; Jesus says, “What does it profit a man to gain [kêrdêsai] the whole world and lose [zêmiôthênai] his life?” rather than, Jesus explains, “losing” all for Christ and his gospel in exchange for eternal life. The links continue (as summarized by Dykstra), but you get the point.

 

[joelr]

As an analogy

If you claim to have seen a Ghost, I would not believe you.

But if:

1 Multiple people saw the Gohst, you family, your neighbors, the pizza delivery guy etc. during multiple different occasions

2 you had to run away from your house, despite the fact that you lost your property and your money (you had no reason to lie)

3 your experience was clear an unambiguous, you didn’t saw a distant shadow, but an actual image, you talk to him, an interacted with him



That would meet my standards.

Then your standards are terrible and misleading. Belief in a proposition is withheld until reasonable evidence is presented.

Multiple people may have seen many things that were there, a tech induced illusion, unknown plasma energy, a purposeful hoax, improper memory, group hallucinations. Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and many other have had multiple witness sightings of their deities. You don't believe Krishna or Sai Baba is really performing magic. Or the many witnesses to the moon splitting in half of Gabrielle giving revelations. Yet many attest to seeing it.

Clear experience? Could be an alien. A hoax with technology. An illusion. People are easily fooled.

Paul had nothing of the sort. He claims visions of Jesus with a spiritual body that cannot be described.
Mark wrote a fictional story. Mark borrows a framework from the Socratic-Aesopic mythotype and traditional pagan heroic translation fables.
He uses half of the Rank Ragalin mythotype. The Passover narrative has 21 points of similarity with the Jesus Ben Ananias story written about in Josephus. Too many parallels to be a coincidence.
Clearing the Temple scene is hardly believable, the temple grounds were 40 acres, hugely populated, heavily guarded to prevent this exact sort of thing.
When Jesus clears the temple he quotes Jer 7.11 whose narrative bears too many coincidental parallels to be accident. Jesus and Jeremiah both enter the temple, make the same accusation against the corruption of the temple cult, Jer quotes the Lord Jesus quotes Jer. and predict the destruction of the temple.
Mark's reference to false witness is an allusion to the false prophets who accused Jeremiah at trial. Both stand trial for the temples destruction.

Mark is saying the Jews have continued to fail at repenting their crimes and like the first temple being destroyed by a foreign army the 2nd temple will also be destroyed.
The Passover Narrative and the trial sequence and the Barabbas story and the cleaning of the temple have no historical plausibility. They have obvious symbolic meaning. Like the fig tree withering.

The information on the temple and other is from George Nickelsburg - The Genre and Function of the Markan Passover Narrative, Harvard Theological Review. April 1980

He breaks down the entire symbolic meaning of the entire story.

 

[Augustus]

You are literally ignoring all cases of temple destruction and forced take-over of temples.

You don’t seem to read my posts or even your own sources and keep repeatedly this ludicrous strawman.

The statement below basically reflects what I said and supported with multiple sources.

Yours merely confirmed what I said as accurate.

I won’t add any more detail so maybe you can understand and not keep in pretending I said something else.

The archaeological evidence that has now been collected for most parts of the Roman Empire, however, shows overwhelmingly that the destruction of temples and their reuse as churches were exceptional rather than routine events,

Got it now?

 

[Augustus]

There was some destruction of heretical materials

Again that is what I said and provided sources to support.

My point was that you were vastly overstating it by saying they destroyed all temples and all non canonical materials.

Even accounting for hyperbole that is not remotely accurate.

As I said, localised, limited and ad hoc is very different from empire wide, continuous, and systematic.

 

[leroy]

Paul and Mark are not independent. There are dozens of examples of Mark's use of the Epistles. A few are here.


Some examples from Dr Carrier:

In Romans 13, Paul writes up his own opinions about taxation, arguing Christians should dutifully pay their taxes. We know these remarks are just his own opinions; not only because he represents them in no other way and has to contrive arguments for them—yet never resorts to the most potent argument of all (“the Lord said!”)—but also because so far as we can tell, everywhere else when Paul had “a commandment from the Lord” on something he was arguing for, he said so. For example: 1 Corinthians 7:10-12, 1 Corinthians 7:25, 1 Corinthians 9:14, 1 Corinthians 11:23, 1 Corinthians 14:37, 1 Thessalonians 4:2, 1 Thessalonians 4:15 (see Ch. 11.6 of OHJ). So when we find a clever story about Jesus promoting the paying of taxes in Mark 12:13-17, where did Mark get that story? Why had Paul never heard of it, even after decades of “preaching Jesus” and engaging with other Christians, even the first Apostles, across a dozen or so provinces?

Richar Career is an “Atheist Version” of Kent HOvind or Ken Ham, he simply throws a bunch of fallacious information, in a way that he sounds smart and convincing

If you pick randomly any of his claims it is easy to see his falsehoods

I am I not aware of romans 13, but form his words alone, it is obvious that Mark is not coping from Paul, as Carrier claims, Paul is giving his personal opinion about taxes and Mark claims that Jesus gave the instruction to pay taxes. There is a fundamental difference in their claims about taxes, and this difference would not be expected to be they copied form each other.

 

[leroy]

You've already seen the rebuttal to this relating to the editing that came later in cobbling a Bible together. But even before that, even if Paul and Mark never met or compared notes, they were subjected to many of the same influences. Many of their thoughts were not original to them, but received teaching spread by word of mouth from believer to believer.

Yes both Mark and Paul where influenced by the same people, (first generation Christians) but this is a good thing.

My ideas are very similar to many other RF posters whom I have never met or had any contact with before RF, but our thinking isn't independent. We have been subject to a common culture.

I agree, but that is not an issue for stablishing truths in ancient history. the documents are still independent even if they are influenced by the same people

The bias is against belief by faith, not magic. If magic can be shown to exist empirically, then the empiricist will provisionally accept that it does. Belief is ALWAYS tentative, that is, less than certitude.

Any evidence that is best explained as the suspension of the known laws of physics. If you put a spell on an ice cube preventing it from melting when it should, that would be evidence for magic.

Well abiogenesis, life doesn’t come from non life naturally, in the same was water doesn’t become ICE at 100c degrees.

but we know that abiogenesis occured atleast once..............so there is your evidnece for magic, accordign to your criteria.

But your belief isn't adequately supported by the evidence you cited subject to the laws of valid reason. You use different rules that vary case to case and always "support" your faith-based belief. Different evidence would result in the same conclusion - Jesus was resurrected. You might change your mind about some other conclusion such as that there were multiple independent witnesses to the resurrection, but if you're honest with yourself, you'll recognize that there is nothing at all that would make you stop believing that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. You will always supply your own rules to connect whatever evidence exists to you faith-based belief. And then you begin trying to connect your evidence and conclusions with fallacious argument rather than saying you choose to believe in resurrection even if insufficiently evidenced.

Again, the evidnece for the resurection is as strogn as the evidnece for any other historical claim that you would accept as fact.

Take this challenge:

Give me an example of an even in the gospels that meets these 3 points:

1 Is also reported by Paul

2 that is not accepted as a historical fact by most non-Christian scholars (including atheists)

3 That doesn’t have theological implications that atheist don’t like

You will not find a single example.+

This confirms that events that are reported by Paul and atleast 1 gosplel are taken as historical truths even by atheist scholars. …….. they only make arbitrary exceptions with the particular stuff that have theological implications they don’t like.

Hence they have a bias.

This shows that the combination of Paul + 1 Gospel is good enough to establish a historical truth , you would only make exceptions with things that you don’t like (hence you have a bias)

You might argue that this bias is justifiable, but this would be a different issue that goes beyond the scope of “historical evidence”

 

[leroy]

The evidence for a person coming back from the dead and bodily ascending to heaven is "strong" in your opinion?
Your standards of evidence are abysmal.

I'm sorry but your assertion that "evidence for the resurrection is as strong (and usually stronger) the evidence for any other event from ancient history that you would accept as a nearly certain historical fact" is ludicrous.

On what planet?

You addressed nothing I said in that post.

Nope.

Again, please reed my comments and try to make an honest effort to understand them

The evidence for the resurrection is as strong as the evidence for any other event for ancient history that scholars (and *you *) would accept as fact.

1 When an event is attested in 2 or more independent sources , historians accept them as fact

2 events that are reported in Paul and at least 1 gospel are accepted as fact by most historian

3 historians only make an arbitrary exception, when they don’t like the theological implications of that event.

This shows that The evidence for the resurrection, is good enough for anyone that doesn’t have a bias against supernatural events.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Well abiogenesis, life doesn’t come from non life naturally, in the same was water doesn’t become ICE at 100c degrees.

but we know that abiogenesis occured atleast once..............so there is your evidnece for magic, accordign to your criteria.

LMAO! No, abiogenesis cannot occur now. The environment for it no longer exists Molecular oxygen would have been a huge deterrent to it. As is life itself. To existing life the chemicals that are needed for life to form fit into the category of "food".

I need to remind you once again to even have evidence you need a testable hypothesis. What is your hypothesis? Or in other words, what is your model? What predictions does it make? Lastly and most important, how could those predictions possibly refute your hypothesis?

 

[leroy]

Specifically, if an event (like the resurrection) is attested in 2 or more independent sources, it will be considered a historical fact

@SkepticThinker On what planet?

In this planet…………………………… Give me an example of any event form ancient history that is

1 reported in 2 or more independent sources

2 that is not accepted by most historians

You won’t find such an example, except for stuff that is rejected for theological reasons (or some other reason that has nothing to do with history)

 

[Subduction Zone]

Again, please reed my comments and try to make an honest effort to understand them

The evidence for the resurrection is as strong as the evidence for any other event for ancient history that scholars (and *you *) would accept as fact.

No, that is your claim and you have never supported it properly. Your claims in that matter have been refuted.

1 When an event is attested in 2 or more independent sources , historians accept them as fact

Too bad that the pasteurization of the Bible left you with only one source there. This has been explained to you.

2 events that are reported in Paul and at least 1 gospel are accepted as fact by most historian

Only the mundane ones. And some of those claims have been shown to be wrong by historians as you well know.. You need evidence for the magical ones and there is none for that.

3 historians only make an arbitrary exception, when they don’t like the theological implications of that event.

No, they do not make an exception for the Bible. Various bits of evidence confirm the Trojan war. But historians still all reject the magic gods part =s of those stories. The Bible is not singled out this way.

This shows that The evidence for the resurrection, is good enough for anyone that doesn’t have a bias against supernatural events.

No, you are incorrect. In fact you only show your own bias because there are many historical events that have magic associated with them. By your standards you would have to accept all of those magical claims, but you only accept the magical claims of the Bible. Your standards are broken.

 

[Subduction Zone]

In this planet…………………………… Give me an example of any event form ancient history that is

1 reported in 2 or more independent sources

2 that is not accepted by most historians

You won’t find such an example, except for stuff that is rejected for theological reasons (or some other reason that has nothing to do with history)

I need to remind you once again that the Bible is just one source.

 

[Thrillobyte]

The evidence for the resurrection is as strong as the evidence for any other event for ancient history that scholars (and *you *) would accept as fact.

This shows that The evidence for the resurrection, is good enough for anyone that doesn’t have a bias against supernatural events.

It is stunningly ridiculous comments like this that makes me despair of ever hearing anything halfway intelligent from a Christian.

leroy, you are actually asserting that the evidence for the resurrection is as solid as the evidence that the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burned down the temple in 70 CE?

 

[Subduction Zone]

It is stunningly ridiculous comments like this that makes me despair of ever hearing anything halfway intelligent from a Christian.

leroy, you are actually asserting that the evidence for the resurrection is as solid as the evidence that the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burned down the temple in 70 CE?

I will steelman his position (though I may be giving him more credit than he deserves) in that he may be comparing it to other events that often had magical claims associated with them. But even if I do that he loses since historians regularly reject the magical parts of those histories just as they do with Christian claims. For some reason he cannot see that.

 

[leroy]

LMAO! No, abiogenesis cannot occur now. The environment for it no longer exists Molecular oxygen would have been a huge deterrent to it. As is life itself. To existing life the chemicals that are needed for life to form fit into the category of "food".

I need to remind you once again to even have evidence you need a testable hypothesis. What is your hypothesis? Or in other words, what is your model? What predictions does it make? Lastly and most important, how could those predictions possibly refute your hypothesis?

No, abiogenesis cannot occur now.

You are not following the conversation

My point is not that abiogenesis was caused by magic, my point is that “the law of biogenesis” corresponds to what @It Aint Necessarily So calls a law of nature.

If I show you evidence that ICE melted when it wasn’t supposed to melt according tu current knowledge of the laws of physics, you will simply say that “something happened” and invent an excuse for not calling it a miracle.

My ultimate point is that definition of a “law” is too vague and ambiguous, it is impossible to tell if something breaks a law, hence it is impossible to show by your standards that “magic” is possible.

 

[leroy]

It is stunningly ridiculous comments like this that makes me despair of ever hearing anything halfway intelligent from a Christian.

leroy, you are actually asserting that the evidence for the resurrection is as solid as the evidence that the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burned down the temple in 70 CE?

Well I don’t know, I am not familiar with the sources for that event…………. let’s see.

What is the evidence that the temple was destroyed in 70ad?

In the case of the resurrection we have at least 2 independent sources (Paul and the Gospels) from authors that wrote about the events within 1 generation after the event.

What are your sources for the burning of the temple in 70AC?

Why do you think those sources are better than Paul and the Gospels?

 

[leroy]

I need to remind you once again that the Bible is just one source.

Jajaaja you keep repeating your lies…. That is funny and pathetic

But ok new challenge

Give me an example of a claim that has no theological implications that atheist don’t like, that is made in the gospels that:

1 is also made by paul

2 it is not accepted by most historians as a historical fact.