Did Christianity Start with Jesus?

[Miken]

You reject a PhD historian yet reference some movement scholars all say we know noting about?
As if this makes any point at all?

As I have stated many times, Carrier’s PhD was not about scriptural studies. Neither was mine. In fact, in the physics research laboratory where I originally worked, it was considered mockery to address someone as Doctor. Everyone had a PhD. Continually bringing up his PhD serves no purpose and suggests that you are unable to answer my criticisms in any other way.

That there was a Jesus movement before Paul is obvious from Paul’s writings. He refers to the Apostles who knew Jesus. He tries to answer earlier missionaries that deny key elements of Paul’s gospel like the abandonment of Jewish Law, the alleged supernatural meaning of the crucifixion, which both Jews and Greeks knew of but apparently assigned no extraordinary meaning to it, and even the resurrection. I have provided scriptural references for these things. The Gospel of Matthew was written for a Jewish Christian community. If there was no original Jewish Christian community - and remember Paul says there was – how did that come about?

Sorry, dying/rising savior Gods were a trend. Elements change in each cult, that's what religious syncretism means. Each new group makes modifications. It's still a trend. I already sourced the book that covers the blending of Hellenistic ideas with each region.

There were, in fact, numerous pre-Christian savior gods who became incarnate and underwent sufferings or trials, even deaths and resurrections.

Carrier, Richard. On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt (p. 77). Sheffield Phoenix Press. Kindle Edition.

“There were, in fact, numerous pre-Christian savior gods who became incarnate and underwent sufferings or trials, even deaths and resurrections. [4] None of them actually existed. Neither did Romulus. Yet all were placed in history, and often given detailed biographies. Just like Plutarch’s.

4. Most certainly Osiris, Zalmoxis, Dionysus, Inanna

Carrier, Richard. On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt (pp. 77-78). Sheffield Phoenix Press. Kindle Edition.”

Osiris

Incarnate?
No. Osiris was a god and never became human

Sufferings?
He was killed. So?
Lots of humans got killed.

Trials?
No. Osiris was never tried.

Death?
Yes. Osiris died.
Lots of humans died.

Resurrection?
No. Osiris stayed dead and went to the underworld where he became the judge of the dead. If the person lived a moral life their soul could live on. If not, their soul was permanently destroyed. There was no resurrection of the righteous. They would be united with Re, the supreme sun god.

Savior?
No. It is entirely one’s actions in life that determines one’s afterlife. Osiris does not influence that.

Zalmoxis

Incarnate?
No. Zalmoxis was an ordinary human. He was later declared a god but without explanation of how that happened.

Sufferings?
I am unaware of any reference to that. Although he was human after all

Trials?
No.

Death?
Yes. Zalmoxis was human and presumably died although there appears to be no details recorded.

Resurrection?
No. Zalmoxis was not resurrected.

Savior?
Zalmoxis taught that there is an afterlife as per Pythagoras and that one’s fate in that afterlife depended on how one acted in this life. But Zalmoxis did not do anything to influence that.


Dionysus

Incarnate?
No. He was born human. He was not the incarnation of an existing god.

Sufferings?
No. There are many different versions of the Dionysus story with many variations. In some he just dies in some unspecified but apparently non-violent way. In others there is no mention of his death at all. There are attempts to connect Dionysus with Orpheus, who in that story is killed by mad and drunken Bacchantes. But there is no ancient story connecting them. In fact, all of the stories concerning Dionysus date from the 2nd century CE and later.

There was a Dionysian cult involving drunken parties with the theme being the cycle of the seasons. That is probably very old, originating possibly as early as 1500 BCE. But that does not seem to involve Dionysus ever having been a person, simply a deification of the agricultural cycle.

Trials?
No. None of the stories involve Dionysus being tried

Death?
As noted above there is no story about Dionysus dying other than possibly old age. And in the cult of Dionysus, he was never an actual person.

Resurrection?
Not really. Those who wish to connect Dionysus with Jesus like to call them resurrections but the term is hardly applicable. There are two stories that get labeled resurrection.

In one story, Hera (in disguise) incites the pregnant girlfriend of Zeus to demand that he reveal his true form to prove he is really who he says he is and not just some imposter who jumped her bones. Zeus reveals his true form (thunderbolts) but the mortal girlfriend dies from the experience, exactly as Hera planned. Zeus takes the unborn child (Dionysus) and embeds it in his hip to complete the development process after which Dionysus gets born. There is no mention of the child being dead, which runs against the grain of the story, that development of the unborn child continues just in an unusual location. This is not a resurrection story.

The other story has Dionysus being born but being tracked down, killed and eaten by Titans. But they do not get around to eating the heart which is rescued and Dionysus is magically recreated alive by Zeus. This is a resurrection story but hardly comparable to the Pauline story, that the resurrection of Jesus was a guarantee of the promise of a resurrection and judgment of the faithful, an idea that was already 250 years or more old as seen in the Book of the Watchers in 1 Enoch.

Savior?
No. None of the stories mention any such thing. Nor does any early description of the Cult of Dionysus.


Inanna

Incarnate?
No. Inanna was always a goddess

Sufferings?
Trials?
Death?
Resurrection?
Savior?

Inanna tried to conquer the underworld by force but failed. She was tried for this by the underworld judges and killed therefore unable to leave the abode of the dead. Inanna’s second in command the goddess Ninshubur managed to convince one of the judges to let Inanna leave the underworld and therefore be alive again, But the price would be that Inanna’s husband, also a god, had to die, the two would exchange places every six months.

One would expect resurrection to be permanent, especially if you want to tie into the Christian resurrection into it. In the Inanna story, it is an isolated temporary event involving only gods. Neither is there any mention of ordinary people getting resurrected much less Inanna having anything to do with it.

And finally, the Inanna story was popular around 2000 BCE in Akkadia. Can we reasonably expect that Paul would know about it?

 

[Miken]

Also:
"The very concept of an eschatological messiah and an end-times resurrection of the dead are actually Zoroastrian (as are belief in a burning hell, and a Satan as God’s adversary), imported into Judaism by cultural diffusion just a few centuries before Christianity arose."

As I have already documented – and you ignored - the idea of raising the dead does not appear in in the Gathas, the only Zoroastrianism scripture that existed at the time the Jews lived under the Persians. The first mention of a resurrection is in the Younger Avesta, not written down until the 5th or 6th century CE. Before that it was strictly an oral tradition. The major differences between different manuscripts show that there were significant differences in the traditions being passed along orally. In addition, to be influential in forming Christianity it would have required someone fluent in spoken Younger Avestan, a language so obscure that it is named after the Zoroastrian texts written in it

Wrong again. Carrier makes the argument we cannot be sure but still counts that in favor of historicity.
The fact that you continue with this idea that Carrier cannot read Greek puts you in the conspiracy theory group.

Carrier claims that each of the three interpretations that Carrier presents are all equally probable. This is ludicrous. The figure of speech in Romans 1:3 about from the seed of someone is used sense hundreds of times in the Jewish scriptures and in the New Testament to mean the line of descendants from some person despite the phrase clearly being used in exactly that sense with no exceptions at all. If Carrier had been able to read Greek, he would know that. But that would not sell books. Getting to use the word sperm when talking about Jesus does.

If Carrier had been able to read Greek, he would have known that the references to other verses he uses do not say what Carrier claims they do. Instead he is just word mining, looking up words in a Concordance. It still comes down to Carrier looking at the KJV incorrect translation of ‘made’, when that would require (a) a different word and (b) a different voice. Discovering that this is the wrong word, Carrier then has to make all occurrences of the word mean ‘made’, facilitated by the KJV continuing to mistranslate. I have addressed all of this in detail earlier. Maybe you could reply to that instead of playing “But Carrier says”

Your insistence that Carrier "fails big time" because you have your own speculation is also crank.
His blog post allows comments. Why don't you take your conspiracy to the source? Why do you think I gave his messenger?

I present loads of evidence to support my position. I do not see you present any response to the details of my argument or any response at all except “But Carrier says”

The argument is here. The source is you. You are not pushing me off because you cannot deal with my arguments.

Right, you read Carrier's book but then sourced an old encyclodedia article on dying/rising demigods which Carrier already has chapters on with full source. It completely destroys that ridiculous article. Yet, you sourced it. You are lying, you did not read anything.

No, Carrier did not full source anything. He made a lot of claims that turn out to be incorrect as in the claims about dying/rising gods that I addressed above.

I am not lying, I have read OHJ and his blog entries and quoted from them with criticisms. It would appear that you are unable to address my arguments so you have to accuse me of lying. Your argument consists entirely of “But Carrier says”.

Here is yet another example of how Carrier misconstrues things to support his argument.

“So the fact that Christianity also turned what was originally a communal aim (the resurrection and salvation of Israel as a whole) into an individualistic one (the resurrection and salvation of individual Christians, hence of only those who individually chose to join the faith

Carrier, Richard. On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt (p. 117=118). Sheffield Phoenix Press. Kindle Edition.”

Carrier seems unaware that Judaism was already in individual resurrection and salvation mode hundreds of years before Paul in the Book of the Watchers in 1 Enoch and in Daniel 12 and in the teachings of the Pharisees. But not knowing that or ignoring it allows Carrier to call Christianity a new cult. Which of course sells books.

Had you bothered to even read just a blog post you would know he already said "came to be" was the best literal translation? But again, he does not count this against historicity.

I not only read that blog post but quoted it and criticized it at length and in fine detail. But you are unable to respond to my criticisms so you have to pretend they do not exist.

BTW when Carrier covers that topic in OHJ
(Carrier, Richard. On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt (p. 658). Sheffield Phoenix Press. Kindle Edition.)
He misspells the translation from the Greek as genomenos. It should be genomenou. The νου ending is what makes it middle voice.
νος is not a legitimate verb ending. You would think Carrier would know that.

He also clearly worked with the original Greek. Acknowledging this would make you a conspiracy theorist so I guess you cannot go there.

Show me why you think Carrier worked with the original Greek as opposed to a Concordance that would identify all the places a word is used.

None of the most literal translations of the Bible, from the Protestant King James edition (whether original or updated), or even the old Catholic Douay–Rheims edition, to the even more modern Darby, YLT, and BLB, render Paul’s word as “born.” They always say “made” or “came.” Because that’s what the Greek says. In fact, “came” is less literal a translation than “made,” as a more literal translation would be “came to be,” and Paul’s usage with respect to other bodies (the first of all bodies, Adam’s, and our future resurrection bodies) always employs it in the sense of “made, manufactured.” And Paul should be translated in light of how Paul himself speaks and uses words.

What Did Paul Mean in Romans 1:3? • Richard Carrier

But Carrier said that manuscripts were changed, which is absolutely not the case.

‘Made’ is a flatly wrong translation. As I have shown several times now. Where Carrier claims Paul wants it to mean ‘made’ it very clearly means ‘became’. I have quoted Carrier’s blog on this and shown that Carrier is just plain wrong. Putting ‘made’ in place of ‘become’ destroys the sense of what Paul is trying to say and why he is saying, which are very plain if one can understand the Greek. But the KJV mistranslation says ‘made’ and that is good enough for Carrier. Before responding with “But Carrier says” respond to my detailed arguments in detail.

 

[Miken]

What was mythical about what Paul said? Just because they werent mentioned in the four gospels doesn't mean that they arent true. They are part of the same Testament. I dont think they were a made up story or a hallucination because what did Paul have to gain by saying that he saw the risen Jesus? He went to jail and was executed.

What Paul had to gain was getting himself recognized as a legitimate Apostle so that he could sell 'his' gospel which was not the same as the Apostles were preaching. What was and was not real does not matter here. The allegedly mythical elements being offered to show that Jesus was mythical are irrelevant because these were not part of the original story,

 

[Miken]

I do not understand what you are saying. If you'd like to be more specific, that is ok. The Jesus that spoke to Paul was not dead anyway. He was resurrected (brought back to life) by God and given glory in heaven when he spoke to Paul.

So Jesus maybe forgot to tell the Apostles the whole story, like why he was going to get crucified, or that there is going to be a resurrection, or that they should stop following Jewish Law,

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

@Miken, thanks for some excellent posts.

Make sure that you keep track of them for future reference. While (according to their theology) Jesus was resurrected but once, the mythicist mantra seems to get resurrected almost semi-annually in these forums, so you'll have ample opportunity to use them again.

 

[Miken]

@Miken, thanks for some excellent posts.

Make sure that you keep track of them for future reference. While (according to their theology) Jesus was resurrected but once, the mythicist mantra seems to get resurrected almost semi-annually in these forums, so you'll have ample opportunity to use them again.

I compose in Word and save the significant ones.. I often get bombarded from both sides, my conclusions being the product of facts and logic and not ideology,

Off topic aside...

I am quite pleased that you know about Gladys West. I was peripherally involved in GPS conceptual development and her work on geodesy was essential as was the related issue of mapping gravitational variation. I got to help figure out what issues needed to be addressed and how to integrate them, But happily I escaped the hard work of programming and implementing the ongoing recalibration.of the expected flight path of each satellite.

But enough side tracking...

 

[Skywalker]

What Paul had to gain was getting himself recognized as a legitimate Apostle so that he could sell 'his' gospel which was not the same as the Apostles were preaching. What was and was not real does not matter here. The allegedly mythical elements being offered to show that Jesus was mythical are irrelevant because these were not part of the original story,

Paul talked about Jesus being the Creator and Savior, just like the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Paul didnt sell a gospel-he was persecuted and went to jail. What Paul taught had the same message as what the apostles taught-just like how the 66 books of the Bible all have the same message even though they are written by different authors.

 

[YoursTrue]

So Jesus maybe forgot to tell the Apostles the whole story, like why he was going to get crucified, or that there is going to be a resurrection, or that they should stop following Jewish Law,

Again, the one who spoke to Paul was alive. That's called a resurrection from the dead. See, first Jesus died. Then he was raised from the dead. (Have a nice day.)

 

[Miken]

Well I thought that but then you got all apologeticy.

Translation: I dared contradict the Prophet Carrier who cannot possibly be wrong.

My point was that your dates for the Persian myths were pre-Christian and they were.

Only the Gathas were pre-Christian. There is no mention of resurrection in the Gathas. The first mention of resurrection is in the Younger Avesta which was an oral tradition in an obscure language that was not written down until the 5th century CE and there are significant variations between manuscripts that point to a much less rigorous tradition of oral preservation than for the Gathas. I have documented this earlier but you simply ignored that,

And speaking of you ignoring things, here is what I said in the posted you replied to. As can be seen, you refused to address it completely

“concerning the word Saoshyant

“In the Gathas, the most sacred hymns of Zoroastrianism, believed to have been composed by Zoroaster himself, the term is used as a common noun to refer to the prophet's own mission and to his community of followers, who "bring benefit" to humanity. The common noun also appears in the Younger Avesta (e.g. Yasna 61.5), where it generically denotes religious leaders, including Zoroaster (e.g. Yasna 46.3)[1] Another common noun airyaman "member of community" is an epithet of these saoshyants. In contrast, the standing epithet of the saviour figure(s) is astvat-әrәta "embodying righteousness,"[2] which has arta/asha "Truth" as an element of the name.[3] These saviours are those who follow Ahura Mazda's teaching "with acts inspired by asha" (Yasna 48.12).”
Saoshyant - Wikipedia

The word Saoshyant does not mean ‘savior’. It means the mission of Zoroaster, or his followers, or religious leaders, or members of the community. Saoshyants are never called saviors. BTW the reference for that is Boyce.

Saoshyans were not demigods but people. And they did not die and rise.”

It is clear why you would not want to address that. The scholar you introduced as an expert, a point I previously agreed with, is saying that Zoroaster and the others called Saoshyants were not called saviors and neither they nor the ones actually called saviors were not messianic figures.

My prediction is that you will continue to ignore this.

Oh my God. You are sourcing an old encyclopedia article again and I sourced a PhD sourcing Pyramid Texts?
Wow. (Hint - you lose)

The encyclopedia I referenced is the Encyclopedia Britannica and the article is fairly recent as Egyptology studies go, about 20 years old. But it contradicts Carrier the Great so it must be wrong.

It is actually Carrier who is wrong about the Pyramid Texts by his usual methodology of quote mining. Why would language put inside the tomb of a king depict Isis talking to Osiris? And why would it talk about the reconstruction of Osiris in the future tense?

The answer is that in the opening of Pyramid Texts, the king being buried is referred to as Osiris. Here is the opening of the Pyramid Text of King Unas. Unas was king of Egypt in the Fifth Dynasty in the 24th century BCE

134: O Unas, you have not gone dead, you have gone alive to sit on the throne of Osiris. Your scepter is in your hand that you may give orders to the living, the handle of your lotus-shaped scepter in your hand. Give orders to those of the Mysterious Sites (the dead)!

The king is not subject to judgment at death. Osiris, the judge of the dead, has no authority over him. The king has become a god.

145: There is no seed of a god which has perished, neither (has he) who belongs to him. You will not perish, who belong to him. Re-Atum does not give you to Osiris, he does not reckon your heart, he has no power over your breast. Re-Atum does not give you to Osiris, he has no power over your breast.

146: Osiris, you cannot have power over him, your son cannot have power over him. Horus, you cannot have power over him, your father cannot have power over him.

147: You belong, o this one, to this god, as the Twins of Atum said:
"Lift yourself up", so said they, "in your name God", and so you become Atum for every god.

The Pyramid Texts are for kings (and few queens). There is no actual resurrection for them because they ascend to heaven without having died.

#149 refers to “ascend to heaven, and you ascend” and to “You did not pass away, your ka does not pass away. You are a ka!” The ka is the spirit part of a person.

The book Carrier uses in Mercer’s The Pyramid Texts. This is a difficult work to use because it is a merging of the many different Pyramid Text versions found in Pyramids. They are generally similar but not identical. I linked a single instance, the very earliest one of Unas. Carrier wants those verses to be about Osiris but they are not. They are about the king of Egypt. (Yes I also have that book.)

Oops. Almost forgot. You just had to slip in the PhD business again. Carrier’s PhD did not involve any study of scriptures or of Egyptology. And his ‘sourcing’ of the Pyramid Texts is just his usual quote mining out of context to support an unsupportable point.

And the apologetics are back. There may have been some other ways but Yahweh loves the magic blood atonement.


Blood. Sacrifice. Point made.

So ‘apologetics’ is the new code word for “I can’t answer that so I will pretend it didn’t happen”. You said it was a sin atonement blood sacrifice. It isn’t that simple. Only rarely in Judaism is a blood sacrifice needed for sin atonement.

I pointed out that if Paul invented the whole story, he would have Yom Kippur as the setting for the story, not Pesach. In 1 Cor 10, Paul refers to how after the meal they would share the bread and drink the wine. In a Seder the bread eaten after the meal is the afikomen\an matzoh, the last thing eaten. This is shared and recapitulates the point of the Seder, the sacrificed lamb that led to the Israelites gaining their freedom from Egypt. Having the matzoh be the body of Jesus makes Jesus be the lamb that brought freedom. The Third Cup of wine is drunk after the afikomen. This is the Cup of Redemption. Referring to being freed from the Babylon Captivity. Paul has Jesus say that the cup is his blood shed for a new covenant, making Jesus the Redeemer, the next and final stage in Judaism where they are ‘freed’ from the Law.

It is far more complex and meaningful than just Blood Sacrifice. But you, just like Carrier, are blind to subtleties. Especially since Paul not choosing Yom Kippur as the setting and the Pesach lamb not being a sin atonement sacrifice points to a real Jesus really getting crucified. However, Paul says he got the story directly from Jesus and the Jerusalem people do not really have any sense of the crucifixion being a sacrifice with supernatural meaning. A simple explanation would be that Jesus got tricked into getting killed while in Jerusalem for Pesach and Paul latched onto that to weave into his story.

 

[Miken]

Yup and there are lots. Do you need more sources? Do you have some encyclopedia articles that trump original sources? The Persians had the concepts (I already posted many times) that were added to the OT. I do not know of an actual demigod who died and rose in that cult. They are known for having the concept of a messiah. Do we have to go around and around on this? Professor Fransesca Stravopolou already cleared this matter up.

The criteria Carrier puts forth are:

Carnate (a god born as a human)
Suffering
Trials (Before judges)
Death
Resurrection
Savior
Named Savior

Tell me about all these gods who each and everyone meet all these criteria. And include the original sources, ones that work in actual original context. I have yet to see anything like that from you.

And while you are at it, give me a source that explicitly has Professor Stavrakopoulou say that the Zoroastrian influence on Judaism ending in the 4th century definitely included messianism. I happen to agree with Stavrakopoulou on just about everything but whenever you claimed she said something in that video you posted, it simply was not there.

And keep in mind what I previously quoted from Mary Boyce – you remember her, the one you introduced as THE expert on Zoroastrianism – that the concept of a single world saving savior does not appear in that form in canonical Zoroastrianism.

Sigh. All biblical historians say the same thing. There is a giant black ole here were all other writings are gone.

All Bible historians say that there was a Jesus movement before Paul with different ideas than Paul? Those that do tend to restrict the different ideas thing to whether or not to follow Jewish Law and that it supposedly was Jesus telling Paul he changed his mind about that. Those who are of a non-religious bent tend to skip over it because looing at it too closely points toward the existence of a real historical Jesus and that it was Paul introducing the mythical sounding elements. That the earliest Jesus followers did not believe those supernatural elements takes the wind out of mythicist sails.

Paul might admit it but anything contradictory is gone. Are you not aware that heretical writings were punishable by death? The Dead Sea Scrolls were hidden unfinished (so quickly) and just happened to have been missed.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are thought to have been written over a long period of time, the last three centuries BCE and the first century CE. It includes a great deal of writings on varied subjects, including quite a bit consisting of copies of Jewish scriptures and none of the rest being not far from standard Judaism. Which at that time was still very diverse. Because of the rather haphazard nature of the contents of the DSS, it is not reasonable to say that there was some stage at which it could be called finished. A possible reason for the DSS writing tradition to come to an end in the 1st century CE is the aftermath of the terrible Jewish War. Many many people were dead, the economy was shattered including the destruction of the biggest city, Jerusalem. There was no longer much means of support for a monastic style community.

But of course you are making the same mistake that many amateurs do, confusing the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Nag Hammadi Library. The writings found there did not even start to be written until Qumran was out of business. It is often called the Gnostic Library although there is an enormous range of beliefs represented much of which cannot reasonably be called gnostic. Although there had been a battle of wits between Gnostics and proto-orthodox Christian writers from the beginning of the 2nd century, serious formal repression of Gnosticism did not really get going until after Emperor Theodosius came into power in the late 4th century and outlawed any belief system other than the newly defined form of Christianity. That is when the books at Nag Hammadi were hidden.

But this has nothing to do with what happened in the first half of the 1st century.

Are you saying that it was writings that supported or contradicted Paul’s version that were suppressed? If it was writings that supported Paul why would they be suppressed? If it was writings that were suppressed, then you are saying that such writings existed. If you are saying that such works never existed then why are you talking about suppression at all? But that non-Pauline beliefs existed before Paul is known from Paul himself. Which is an argument against mythicism. The mythical elements began with Paul not with the original followers of the Jesus movement.

As Carrier shows in his book, other savior demigods went through this also but in the celestial realm. I already sourced a lecture no? Mystery religions - demigod dies and rises on Earth but then when you join you learn it was actually in the celestial realm?

So name some and demonstrate that their stories connect to Carrier’s claims. No. I am not going to do your homework for you, You introduced the claim. You back it up.

we get revelations of a resurrected savior, that's it.

What about that sperm stuff Carrier insists on? Sounds pretty earthly to me. Crucifixion and getting buried are definitely earthly. But I have made these arguments before and you just ignored them.

That's funny, Mr Britannica complaining that I'm sourcing the only PhD who's done a Jesus historicity study since 1926.
Yup, Carrier.
And Bart Ehrman and Fransesca Stravopolou and Mary Boyce and Marc Goodacre....

You are obsessed with that PhD thing, aren’t you? Since, as everyone here already knows, his dissertation was not related to scriptural studies, his PhD is irrelevant. But if merely having those three letters to add after your other letters regardless of what it is for, then I can be as much of an expert as Carrier. More, since investigating what the writers intended to convey to their readers and the reason for that and in the context of the times and to the extent I can the original language (Koine Greek yes, Hebrew not so much), has been a serious hobby of mine for 50 years.

Carrier did not do a genuine history study. As I have been showing all along, either his competency level or his honesty level is quite low. But saying wacky things sells books these days. Carrier’s work is at the same level as the Aliens Built the Pyramids kind of thing Carrier makes fun of.

Ehrman seems to just be parroting the fad belief of the day. And not doing it very well. I am guessing that after losing his faith in his mind he is still trying to lose it in his heart by embracing whatever idea he can lay his hands on. I realized there was a problem with his understanding of scriptures when he said he did not know why Luke put his genealogy back in Chapter 3.

Professor Stavrakopoulou {note spelling} is an expert in Hebrew scriptures but not in NT scriptures.

Mary Boyce is all about Zoroastrianism and very good at it. Mark Goodacre (Mark with a K) is a no-Q proponent but never goes beyond that to seek an explanation of why Luke would so often deal with subjects original to Matthew but in a manner totally opposite to Matthew.

So what was the point of all that? You wanted to say PhD again because none of your arguments are working?

 

[Miken]

The Ancient Persian Doctrine of a Future Life on JSTOR


page 158:


no doubt on one point, the Sayoshant (savior) doctrine is pre-Christian

"conceived by virgin bathing...the Avestan text shows connection with the resurrection..

I did not see this earlier.

Three things you should be aware of:

1) The article was first published 124 years ago in 1896.Eighteen Ninety Six. The author, A. V. Williams Jackson, died even before I was born.

2) As I have documented a couple of times lately, Mary Boyce has stated very clearly that Saoshyant (note spelling) does not mean 'savior' and that the word that does mean savior (astvat-әrәta) refers to those (plural) who act righteously.

3) Also as I have documented earlier, the story of a virgin in a lake getting pregnant by Zoroaster’s sperm still floating around does not appear until the non-canonical Denkard written in the 9th or 10th century and describes a series of real historical events in Persia as late as the Muslim invasion in the 7th century.

Validate your sources before posting.

 

[YoursTrue]

Translation: I dared contradict the Prophet Carrier who cannot possibly be wrong.,

Who's the prophet Carrier?

 

[YoursTrue]

As I have already documented – and you ignored - the idea of raising the dead does not appear in in the Gathas, the only Zoroastrianism scripture that existed at the time the Jews lived under the Persians. The first mention of a resurrection is in the Younger Avesta, not written down until the 5th or 6th century CE. Before that it was strictly an oral tradition. The major differences between different manuscripts show that there were significant differences in the traditions being passed along orally. In addition, to be influential in forming Christianity it would have required someone fluent in spoken Younger Avestan, a language so obscure that it is named after the Zoroastrian texts written in it



Carrier claims that each of the three interpretations that Carrier presents are all equally probable. This is ludicrous. The figure of speech in Romans 1:3 about from the seed of someone is used sense hundreds of times in the Jewish scriptures and in the New Testament to mean the line of descendants from some person despite the phrase clearly being used in exactly that sense with no exceptions at all. If Carrier had been able to read Greek, he would know that. But that would not sell books. Getting to use the word sperm when talking about Jesus does.

If Carrier had been able to read Greek, he would have known that the references to other verses he uses do not say what Carrier claims they do. Instead he is just word mining, looking up words in a Concordance. It still comes down to Carrier looking at the KJV incorrect translation of ‘made’, when that would require (a) a different word and (b) a different voice. Discovering that this is the wrong word, Carrier then has to make all occurrences of the word mean ‘made’, facilitated by the KJV continuing to mistranslate. I have addressed all of this in detail earlier. Maybe you could reply to that instead of playing “But Carrier says”



I present loads of evidence to support my position. I do not see you present any response to the details of my argument or any response at all except “But Carrier says”

The argument is here. The source is you. You are not pushing me off because you cannot deal with my arguments.



No, Carrier did not full source anything. He made a lot of claims that turn out to be incorrect as in the claims about dying/rising gods that I addressed above.

I am not lying, I have read OHJ and his blog entries and quoted from them with criticisms. It would appear that you are unable to address my arguments so you have to accuse me of lying. Your argument consists entirely of “But Carrier says”.

Here is yet another example of how Carrier misconstrues things to support his argument.

“So the fact that Christianity also turned what was originally a communal aim (the resurrection and salvation of Israel as a whole) into an individualistic one (the resurrection and salvation of individual Christians, hence of only those who individually chose to join the faith

Carrier, Richard. On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt (p. 117=118). Sheffield Phoenix Press. Kindle Edition.”

Carrier seems unaware that Judaism was already in individual resurrection and salvation mode hundreds of years before Paul in the Book of the Watchers in 1 Enoch and in Daniel 12 and in the teachings of the Pharisees. But not knowing that or ignoring it allows Carrier to call Christianity a new cult. Which of course sells books.



I not only read that blog post but quoted it and criticized it at length and in fine detail. But you are unable to respond to my criticisms so you have to pretend they do not exist.

BTW when Carrier covers that topic in OHJ
(Carrier, Richard. On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt (p. 658). Sheffield Phoenix Press. Kindle Edition.)
He misspells the translation from the Greek as genomenos. It should be genomenou. The νου ending is what makes it middle voice.
νος is not a legitimate verb ending. You would think Carrier would know that.



Show me why you think Carrier worked with the original Greek as opposed to a Concordance that would identify all the places a word is used.



But Carrier said that manuscripts were changed, which is absolutely not the case.

‘Made’ is a flatly wrong translation. As I have shown several times now. Where Carrier claims Paul wants it to mean ‘made’ it very clearly means ‘became’. I have quoted Carrier’s blog on this and shown that Carrier is just plain wrong. Putting ‘made’ in place of ‘become’ destroys the sense of what Paul is trying to say and why he is saying, which are very plain if one can understand the Greek. But the KJV mistranslation says ‘made’ and that is good enough for Carrier. Before responding with “But Carrier says” respond to my detailed arguments in detail.

You know--thinking about (some of) this-- it is possible, very possible, that after these other beliefs were propagated by some that God the true and almighty one, sent his prophets, including Jesus, to state the truth. Jesus did say he is the truth and the life. So, when he was resurrected, it is written that his disciples saw him and recorded the occasions and preserved the writings.

 

[YoursTrue]

The criteria Carrier puts forth are:

Carnate (a god born as a human)
Suffering
Trials (Before judges)
Death
Resurrection
Savior
Named Savior

Tell me about all these gods who each and everyone meet all these criteria. And include the original sources, ones that work in actual original context. I have yet to see anything like that from you.

And while you are at it, give me a source that explicitly has Professor Stavrakopoulou say that the Zoroastrian influence on Judaism ending in the 4th century definitely included messianism. I happen to agree with Stavrakopoulou on just about everything but whenever you claimed she said something in that video you posted, it simply was not there.

And keep in mind what I previously quoted from Mary Boyce – you remember her, the one you introduced as THE expert on Zoroastrianism – that the concept of a single world saving savior does not appear in that form in canonical Zoroastrianism.



All Bible historians say that there was a Jesus movement before Paul with different ideas than Paul? Those that do tend to restrict the different ideas thing to whether or not to follow Jewish Law and that it supposedly was Jesus telling Paul he changed his mind about that. Those who are of a non-religious bent tend to skip over it because looing at it too closely points toward the existence of a real historical Jesus and that it was Paul introducing the mythical sounding elements. That the earliest Jesus followers did not believe those supernatural elements takes the wind out of mythicist sails.



The Dead Sea Scrolls are thought to have been written over a long period of time, the last three centuries BCE and the first century CE. It includes a great deal of writings on varied subjects, including quite a bit consisting of copies of Jewish scriptures and none of the rest being not far from standard Judaism. Which at that time was still very diverse. Because of the rather haphazard nature of the contents of the DSS, it is not reasonable to say that there was some stage at which it could be called finished. A possible reason for the DSS writing tradition to come to an end in the 1st century CE is the aftermath of the terrible Jewish War. Many many people were dead, the economy was shattered including the destruction of the biggest city, Jerusalem. There was no longer much means of support for a monastic style community.

But of course you are making the same mistake that many amateurs do, confusing the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Nag Hammadi Library. The writings found there did not even start to be written until Qumran was out of business. It is often called the Gnostic Library although there is an enormous range of beliefs represented much of which cannot reasonably be called gnostic. Although there had been a battle of wits between Gnostics and proto-orthodox Christian writers from the beginning of the 2nd century, serious formal repression of Gnosticism did not really get going until after Emperor Theodosius came into power in the late 4th century and outlawed any belief system other than the newly defined form of Christianity. That is when the books at Nag Hammadi were hidden.

But this has nothing to do with what happened in the first half of the 1st century.

Are you saying that it was writings that supported or contradicted Paul’s version that were suppressed? If it was writings that supported Paul why would they be suppressed? If it was writings that were suppressed, then you are saying that such writings existed. If you are saying that such works never existed then why are you talking about suppression at all? But that non-Pauline beliefs existed before Paul is known from Paul himself. Which is an argument against mythicism. The mythical elements began with Paul not with the original followers of the Jesus movement.



So name some and demonstrate that their stories connect to Carrier’s claims. No. I am not going to do your homework for you, You introduced the claim. You back it up.



What about that sperm stuff Carrier insists on? Sounds pretty earthly to me. Crucifixion and getting buried are definitely earthly. But I have made these arguments before and you just ignored them.

I'm not up to your speed, I can see you've done a lot of thinking and research. I have done some reading, and would like to say that impalement (crucifixion as you and many others call it), and getting buried are definitely earthly. (Handled by man.) But resurrection is not. So thanks for that, good point as far as I am concerned.

 

[YoursTrue]

So Jesus maybe forgot to tell the Apostles the whole story, like why he was going to get crucified, or that there is going to be a resurrection, or that they should stop following Jewish Law,

They weren't following the law of God. They made up their own laws, as he said, leaving out justice and mercy

 

[metis]

They weren't following the law of God. They made up their own laws, as he said, leaving out justice and mercy

Jewish Law covers both quite thoroughly. Judaism 101: A List of the 613 Mitzvot (Commandments)

 

[Miken]

Paul talked about Jesus being the Creator and Savior, just like the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Paul didnt sell a gospel-he was persecuted and went to jail. What Paul taught had the same message as what the apostles taught-just like how the 66 books of the Bible all have the same message even though they are written by different authors.

By 'sell' his gospel, I meant that Paul sought to convince people to accept the ideas he was putting forward as opposed to the ideas that others were. I did not mean that anyone gave him money or anything material. Paul himself said that he never accepted anything material but worked to support himself. Luke in Acts said that Paul made tents, the Greek word used referring to a small portable tent suitable for one or two persons. This would be popular among travelers passing through the crossroads cities Paul visited.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about other missionaries who came to Corinth with other ideas such as the meaning of the crucifixion (not the fact but the meaning), and even the fact of the resurrection. Although he never says which missionary held what point of view, Paul names Cephas (Peter) as having his own followers among the Corinthians. Also, Paul was not considered an Apostle, one ever in contact with Jesus, suggesting that there were others who were considered Apostles and had different teachings than Paul.

In several letters in addition to 1 Corinthians, Paul speaks of being given information by Jesus several years after the resurrection when Jesus was in ‘the third heaven’. The implication is that the information given to Paul was not known to the Apostles before that, exactly as indicated in 1 Corinthians. The question is why.

 

[Miken]

I'm not up to your speed, I can see you've done a lot of thinking and research. I have done some reading, and would like to say that impalement (crucifixion as you and many others call it), and getting buried are definitely earthly. (Handled by man.) But resurrection is not. So thanks for that, good point as far as I am concerned.

According to Carrier Jesus was crucified in outer space. Can't possible have the slightest hint of Jesus actually existing on earth after. all. Besides, the crazier a book is (like getting to mention Jesus and sperm in the same sentence) the more copies it will sell. Von Daniken anybody?

My point in the post you quoted was that Carrier insists that there were many mythical figures who met every single of those criteria. The truth is that . not none of them did. Time and again Carrier quotes way out of context or just plain lies. Or has near zero understanding of what is being said. But that is how to see books these days.

 

[Miken]

They weren't following the law of God. They made up their own laws, as he said, leaving out justice and mercy

In Mark it was the Pharisees who were following laws not found in the Written Torah. Whether Jesus was opposed to the Oral Torah or only to certain newly propagated rules is not clear. In Matthew it was again Pharisees that Jesus berated for not following the spirit of the law although the did following the letter of the law. But it was certainly not the Apostles that Jesus was faulting. We definitely see Jesus and his Apostles follow the Written Law. So why did Jesus not tell the Apostles to stop following Jewish law completely like Paul tells Jewish Christians to do?

 

[Skywalker]

By 'sell' his gospel, I meant that Paul sought to convince people to accept the ideas he was putting forward as opposed to the ideas that others were. I did not mean that anyone gave him money or anything material. Paul himself said that he never accepted anything material but worked to support himself. Luke in Acts said that Paul made tents, the Greek word used referring to a small portable tent suitable for one or two persons. This would be popular among travelers passing through the crossroads cities Paul visited.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about other missionaries who came to Corinth with other ideas such as the meaning of the crucifixion (not the fact but the meaning), and even the fact of the resurrection. Although he never says which missionary held what point of view, Paul names Cephas (Peter) as having his own followers among the Corinthians. Also, Paul was not considered an Apostle, one ever in contact with Jesus, suggesting that there were others who were considered Apostles and had different teachings than Paul.

In several letters in addition to 1 Corinthians, Paul speaks of being given information by Jesus several years after the resurrection when Jesus was in ‘the third heaven’. The implication is that the information given to Paul was not known to the Apostles before that, exactly as indicated in 1 Corinthians. The question is why.

Paul not getting money or anything material supports what I said about Paul had nothing to gain by being an apostle. Paul not agreeing with other peoples ideas doesn't mean that he had anything to gain from believing in Jesus. Paul’s Martyrdom: Killed For Believing Jesus Appeared To Him | Reasons for Jesus

Paul’s Martyrdom: Killed For Believing Jesus Appeared To Him
By
James Bishop

It is quite remarkable that Paul, who persecuted and executed the early Christians and Christian movement, became a prominent leader and church planter himself. But what does Paul say was the cause behind this?

Well, he says it was the resurrection in that Jesus appeared to him and convinced him that he had been raised from the dead. This belief would eventually result in his martyrdom. What is the historical evidence for Paul;s death?

Firstly, we read in 2 Timothy 4:6–8 that Paul seemed to be anticipating his soon demise:

“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

What is important to note here, however, is that 2 Timothy is not held by most scholars to be a genuine Pauline epistle, but rather a letter written by someone else other than Paul, and attributed to Paul. This was standard practice in the ancient world in which a student of a specific person would attribute letters to his teacher especially if the teacher had died. Given this in the above verse we see that whoever authored it had knowledge of Paul’s death. If one holds that someone other than Paul wrote this after the fact, I then think that makes it more reliable as a reference to his martyrdom. By the time a pseudo-Pauline author would have written that, they would open themselves up to being discovered if what they wrote didn’t fit with the facts of Paul’s demise.

Sources for Paul’s martyrdom
Although Paul’s death is not directly recorded in the New Testament, we find the early church father Ignatius, probably writing around 110 AD, affirming his martyrdom. Ignatius was also connected personally to the disciples which gives reason to think that he might have had first-hand testimony of Paul’s death. Ignatius writes in praise of the Ephesians that:

“YE ARE INITIATED INTO THE MYSTERIES OF THE GOSPEL WITH PAUL, THE HOLY, THE MARTYRED, THE DESERVEDLY MOST HAPPY, AT WHOSE FEET MAY I BE FOUND…”

Further, we have First Clement (AD 95) who was most likely a disciple of Peter; Peter probably died around the same time as Paul. In 1 Clement Chapter 5 we read that:

“Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labours; and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned.

After preaching both in the east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and come to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects.”

Much later Eusebius, the well-known church historian of the 4th century, believed that Paul was beheaded at the order of the Roman emperor Nero or one of his subordinates. According to historian William Smith we have the following examination:

“For what remains, we have the concurrent testimony of ecclesiastical antiquity, that he was beheaded at Rome, about the same time that St. Peter was crucified there. The earliest allusion to the death of St. Paul is in that sentence from Clemens Romanus… which just fails of giving us any particulars upon which we can conclusively rely.

The next authorities are those quoted by Eusebius in his H. E. ii. 25. Dionysius, bishop of Corinth (A. D. 170), says that Peter and Paul went to Italy and taught there together, and suffered martyrdom about the same time. This, like most of the statements relating to the death of St. Paul, is mixed up with the tradition, with which we are not here immediately concerned, of the work of St. Peter at Rome” (1).

Historically speaking, it is not in dispute that Paul was martyred for his proclamation of the risen Jesus. His death his attested to in numerous sources from early Christian testimony outside of the New Testament thus suggesting a consistent tradition and knowledge of Paul’s death. We also saw that Paul’s death was indirectly attested to in 2 Timothy.

The apostles didnt receive the information that Paul received by Jesus when Jesus was in the third heaven for the same reason they didnt receive what Paul wrote about in his epistles. Paul came after the apostles. Pauls writings are part of the New Testament because the Bible wasnt complete when the four gospels were written-there was still the writings of Paul and the apostle John to be included in the Bible.