Luke was a Gentile and wrote the book labelled by his name. Historical, having talked to those who were later called Apostles.
It would not be available with no historical Jesus and there would be no gospel.
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Is Christ Myth Theory Credible?
- Thread starter steveb1
- Start date
Luke was a Gentile and wrote the book labelled by his name. Historical, having talked to those who were later called Apostles.
It would not be available with no historical Jesus and there would be no gospel.
Terry Sampson
Well-Known Member
So is the opinion of an atheist, but who's complaining? This isn't my thread and I'm not a Moderator.
Ahhh, ... the "don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger" defense. Sorry, I've never heard of The Jesus Seminar until you mentioned it.
Oh, I dunno, ... the consistency of a faux pearl, maybe? If I were offered one, I wouldn't typically concern myself with the question: "Is there a grain of sand at the center of it?" or "How much is this fake pearl worth?"
Besides, ... the consistency of the "mythical Jesus" isn't the end of the matter, is it?
LOL! That's funny, IMO. The script has been written already. I'm not a "Jesus Myth" collector, much less a "Jesus Myth" appraiser. I'm surprised that there are such appraisers among atheists; I wouldn't have expected there to be.
Audie
Veteran Member
The arrogance of Christian humility is
always a lol, exceptin' it is not actually funny.
My mistake: I assumed you were interested in reasonable discussion. If you're looking for someone to snark at, find someone else.
Ponder This
Well-Known Member
The question of credibility has to do with who is making the claim.
So, no, there isn't much credibility to the claim of non-historicity at this time.
Terry Sampson
Well-Known Member
You came looking for a Christian "patsy" and I've disappointed you. Excuse me while I weep.
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
The communities that produced Q (Galilean) And Thomas (Syrian) must have separated very early, in order for the Thomas community to find its way to where it finally landed, and become settled enough for writing to appear. When we find multiple attestations of Jesus quotes (both Q and Thomas are collected sayings) that are found in both documents, it means that the quotes are very, very early (before the communities separated). This gets us back to less than probably 7 years following the crucifixion, 30 or more years earlier than the earliest Gospel account.
Terry Sampson
Well-Known Member
My apologies. "Snarking" is what I tend to do when someone ignores my question and wants to focus on the "fakeness" of a Christian pearl while conceding that there may be a grain of sand in it, all the while avoiding the opportunity to consider the possibility that Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism offer fake pearls too.
So...
- you wanted to take the thread off-topic.
- I didn't take the bait.
- you didn't like this, so you felt justified in responding rudely.
Not a great way to behave, especially if you want people to engage with you.
Terry Sampson
Well-Known Member
Actually,
--you took the thread off-topic;
--I pointed that out;
--you said it was irrelevant;
--I expanded the theme of the thread before you showed up (from Christian myth to Abrahamic myth, which together with Buddhist myth, took the topic into Religious myth;
--you wanted to focus on your off-topic amendment but not my amendment;
--I got miffed and disappointed you.
Feel free to ignore me like I'm going to ignore you.
Audie
Veteran Member
Arrogant, and inclined to falsehoods. See all three
above claims for latter.
Actually, you meet or exceed expectations.
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
A 'Myth Theory' is incredible, surely?
But Jesus the man was very real.
Celcus wrote about Jesus and his disciples, and was copied by Origem. Celcus offered some new information about all 13 persons.
Josephus obviously wrote about Jesus because of where he placed this description, but Christians obviously edited it to suit.
Celcus wrote about Jesus from other sources than those of the Christians which is how he could add information for us.
All the above shows clearly how Paul has little or no value to the student of the real Jesus. Paul either didn't know about, or didn't care about Jesus's life and times.
The original account of what the Baptist and Jesus did was recorded in G-Mark from which Matthew and Luke were copied, and G-John had a bunch of stories, some true, but he didn't know the timeline to place them in his account. Ergo.... useful anecdotes but rubbish overall.
The early bible manuscripts mention a 'Jesus Son of the Father' who rioted in Jerusalem and caused a death, but the people so loved him that Pilate felt obliged to pardon and release him. Later Bibles withdrew his first name (Jesus) and used the E-Aramaic Barabba (Son of the Father).
Jesus may never have been executed, or if he was he was taken down, his lungs cleared and he was got away.
The last verses of G-Mark were added. There was no resurrection in the original G-Mark.
That far back, historians can only work on the balances of probability and possibility. Jesus probably did exist.
There is too much circumstantial and oral tradition (2nd-3rd hand) evidence. And the Baptist most certainly did exist. Jesus just picked up the Baptist's mission and carried it on for a further 11-12 months.
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
The Jesus Seminar is a diverse collegium of NT, Greek and anthropological scholars whose sole purpose is to search for and define the historical Jesus. It is a well-known and respected group.
Just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it’s neither real nor credible. It simply means that you don’t spend much time in biblical scholastic circles.
Desert Snake
Veteran Member
If anything is made up in scripture, the most likely is the crucifixion. Not only is it 'not literal', it also is a "teaching" that would be part of the religion
John 10
•
Most seem to think it the 'most likely occurence, without realizing how "mythical", the scenario actually is, religiously.
Either way, not concerned with proving the historicity of Jesus, personally.
Desert Snake
Veteran Member
Problem with that is, Jesus taught things that weren't explained, in scripture.
That is the nature of a actual teaching, written down by scribes.
The church goofed on some things, also. Why would they goof on something they wrote?
So, if it is "mythical", it was not invented by the church, although they tried to shape christianity using the textual material of course
susanblange
Active Member
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Well, there is no Siddhartha Gautama. ;0)
I was trying to show that it was most unlikely to have happened. As such it'd be consistent with at the least a fictitious biography added onto a virtually unknown historical Jesus, and with no more effort, consistent with a wholly imaginary Jesus.
Yes, the use of a name meaning Son-of-Father is odd from any angle; it could almost be a joke played by an Aramaic speaker on a Greek speaker, but the context doesn't fit that view.
In my view, we don't need an historical Jesus at all to explain Paul or the gospels. It's simply one of the two possibilities.
On the one hand, we'll never know. On the other, since he did get it from somewhere, which seems more likely ─ from a hard source like an official record, or from reports whose origin was Christian, if not the informer himself?
Or someone's version of them. Paul's earthly bio of Jesus will fit in two lines. Mark's can be mapped onto the Tanakh, a fictitious fulfillment-of-purported-prophecy Jesus, and the Jesuses of Matthew and Luke, and the later Jesus of John, are all reliant on Mark.
As to how Josephus would know about him, as above; as a story, give some thought to Bart Ehrman's view ─ that what accounted for its popularity out of all the other stories in an age of stories was the idea of a real resurrection that made resurrection available to all.
But your question also touches on the heart of the problem ─ if there was an historical Jesus, how come all the followers we know about have not a clue about who he really was.
Exactly.
David J
Member
Regardless of historical records, what is within the Synoptic Gospels, compared to what came after in John, Paul, and Simon the stone (petros) is too profound to be made up by mortals; Yeshua's words and teachings interlink across the whole of the Tanakh, like a beautiful sinister tapestry to catch out the whole world in their lack of Dharma.
In my opinion.
I don't find anything profound in the writings. For example, Jesus never offered any teaching that was scientifically unprecedented, he just relied on supernatural magic. He never bothered to disclose us with his vast universe, that if we are truly alone here on Earth. He never shed any physics, astronomy, biology, chemistry, etc that would have been mind-blowing at the time.
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Perhaps because you're looking for science. These aren't science texts. In fact, Jesus comes to us with a broad disclosure: "You who have seen me have seen the Father." (John 14:9)