iskander wrote:

The early history of Christianity is the history of Judaism where it was conceived and carried in the womb until it was born as an alien sect and later acquired the capacity for independent life.

dejuror wrote:

iskander wrote:

The early history of Christianity is the history of Judaism where it was conceived and carried in the womb until it was born as an alien sect and later acquired the capacity for independent life.

Your statement is fallacious. There is no history of the Jesus cult Christian religion in the history of Judaism.

1. All existing Jesus cult Christian manuscripts from antiquity were found OUTSIDE Judea.

2. There is NO KNOWN Jew who was a Jesus cult Christian at any time before the 2nd century.

Christianity is BLASPHEMY to Judaism and was conceived by NON-Jews sometime in the 2nd century .

The writings attributed to Philo, Josephus, Pliny the Elder, Tacitus and Suetonius are evidence that the Jesus cult of Christians had NO history up to at least c 115 CE.

dejuror wrote:

There is no history of the Jesus cult Christian religion in the history of Judaism.

1. All existing Jesus cult Christian manuscripts from antiquity were found OUTSIDE Judea.

2. There is NO KNOWN Jew who was a Jesus cult Christian at any time before the 2nd century.

Christianity is BLASPHEMY to Judaism and was conceived by NON-Jews sometime in the 2nd century .

The writings attributed to Philo, Josephus, Pliny the Elder, Tacitus and Suetonius are evidence that the Jesus cult of Christians had NO history up to at least c 115 CE.

proudfootz wrote::thumbup:

The simplest explanation for the 'christian' literature originating outside of Judea is that that is where christianity originated.

IanS wrote:The whole entire issue here is whether or not there is reliable evidence of Jesus ever known to anyone as a human person in the 1st century.

And the answer to that is actually very clear and straightforward. There is actually no reliable evidence of anyone at all ever meeting any such person as Jesus.

2Curious wrote:

jerome wrote:There are serious problems with it, but as I have only just arrived I'd prefer to not get in to a full blown discussion of it just now. As a resource i'll post that of my historical sources for Jesus document I still have backed up. An RD forum member called Rational Revolution wrote a book called Jesus: A very Jewish Myth published on lulu which si much better: I still think he is wrong, but his arguments are much stronger that Doherty's in my opinion.
Before Tim arrived i dedicated huge amounts of energy to arguing the flaws in Jesus Mythicism: but I don't mind showing you where to find the best case I know -- http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-b ... yth/687167 Worth reading, unlike most Myther books .

j x

Thanks for the link, think I'll get the book and give it a look see.

Christianity did not start out as a unified movement. We have to remember that the disciples were probably dispersed at a very early time.... That is, at a time where there was no fixed formulation what the set of Christian beliefs should be. What Christian rituals should be. What they should think about Jesus or what they should tell about Jesus. The sources that we have tell us that Christianity started as a very diverse movement, as the founding of churches... moved into very different cultural and language contexts....

Paul's conversion as an apostle to the gentiles may date as early as three years after Jesus' death. No later than the year 35, but probably already 32 or 33.... He was in Damascus when he was called, according to his own witness. So we have, already, within two years or three or five years, of Jesus' death probably Greek speaking communities outside of Palestine, very early in Antioch, but we have also the founding of communities in Samaria.... We have apparently more isolated Christian communities founded very early in Galilee. Paul's mission carried Christianity all the way over Asia Minor, present Turkey into Macedonia, into Greece, within 20 years. And at the end of that period, Paul already knows that there's a Christian community in Rome which he has not founded.

With this explosive spread of Christian churches, not a very slow moderate growth, getting a few new members every few years, but an explosive spread of this movement, it cannot be expected that everywhere, everybody was doing and believing the same thing, singing the same hymns and reading the same scriptures and telling the same story. So we have a beginning with great diversity, and the slow process, particularly in the second century, to establish a greater unity among the very diverse churches. Already a process in Paul's churches themselves, because that's why Paul writes letters, because he wants to make sure that these newly converted Christians in Ephesus and Philippi and Thessaloniki and in Corinth have some unanimity in their beliefs. And his work is made even more difficult because once he had left Corinth, some people came to Corinth and told them, "Really Paul has not told you enough of the deep wisdom of the words of Jesus. Those you have to contemplate in order to learn the wisdom that comes from Jesus," and Paul has to write back and say, "Now, I taught you nothing but Christ crucified, not Christ wisdom." So you get a conflict of different traditions also at a very early stage.

Ducktown wrote:

Christianity did not start out as a unified movement. We have to remember that the disciples were probably dispersed at a very early time.... That is, at a time where there was no fixed formulation what the set of Christian beliefs should be. What Christian rituals should be. What they should think about Jesus or what they should tell about Jesus. The sources that we have tell us that Christianity started as a very diverse movement, as the founding of churches... moved into very different cultural and language contexts....

Paul's conversion as an apostle to the gentiles may date as early as three years after Jesus' death. No later than the year 35, but probably already 32 or 33.... He was in Damascus when he was called, according to his own witness. So we have, already, within two years or three or five years, of Jesus' death probably Greek speaking communities outside of Palestine, very early in Antioch, but we have also the founding of communities in Samaria.... We have apparently more isolated Christian communities founded very early in Galilee. Paul's mission carried Christianity all the way over Asia Minor, present Turkey into Macedonia, into Greece, within 20 years. And at the end of that period, Paul already knows that there's a Christian community in Rome which he has not founded.

With this explosive spread of Christian churches, not a very slow moderate growth, getting a few new members every few years, but an explosive spread of this movement, it cannot be expected that everywhere, everybody was doing and believing the same thing, singing the same hymns and reading the same scriptures and telling the same story. So we have a beginning with great diversity, and the slow process, particularly in the second century, to establish a greater unity among the very diverse churches. Already a process in Paul's churches themselves, because that's why Paul writes letters, because he wants to make sure that these newly converted Christians in Ephesus and Philippi and Thessaloniki and in Corinth have some unanimity in their beliefs. And his work is made even more difficult because once he had left Corinth, some people came to Corinth and told them, "Really Paul has not told you enough of the deep wisdom of the words of Jesus. Those you have to contemplate in order to learn the wisdom that comes from Jesus," and Paul has to write back and say, "Now, I taught you nothing but Christ crucified, not Christ wisdom." So you get a conflict of different traditions also at a very early stage.

The Diversity of Early Christianity

When you read something like that from Koester it's a given that christianities were well under way well before there were ever Jesus stories as presented in the NT.

proudfootz wrote:Interesting the author has to presume the alleged disciples were 'scattered' early on to get the movement started in a lot of different places at the same time. Is the big idea that these illiterate fishermen went separately to the great centers of learning of the ancient world and established rival 'christian' cults all over (everywhere BUT Judea) the Mediterranean?

Sounds like a realistic idea. [/sarcasm]

Ducktown wrote:

Christianity did not start out as a unified movement. We have to remember that the disciples were probably dispersed at a very early time.... That is, at a time where there was no fixed formulation what the set of Christian beliefs should be. What Christian rituals should be. What they should think about Jesus or what they should tell about Jesus. The sources that we have tell us that Christianity started as a very diverse movement, as the founding of churches... moved into very different cultural and language contexts....

Paul's conversion as an apostle to the gentiles may date as early as three years after Jesus' death. No later than the year 35, but probably already 32 or 33.... He was in Damascus when he was called, according to his own witness. So we have, already, within two years or three or five years, of Jesus' death probably Greek speaking communities outside of Palestine, very early in Antioch, but we have also the founding of communities in Samaria.... We have apparently more isolated Christian communities founded very early in Galilee. Paul's mission carried Christianity all the way over Asia Minor, present Turkey into Macedonia, into Greece, within 20 years. And at the end of that period, Paul already knows that there's a Christian community in Rome which he has not founded.

With this explosive spread of Christian churches, not a very slow moderate growth, getting a few new members every few years, but an explosive spread of this movement, it cannot be expected that everywhere, everybody was doing and believing the same thing, singing the same hymns and reading the same scriptures and telling the same story. So we have a beginning with great diversity, and the slow process, particularly in the second century, to establish a greater unity among the very diverse churches. Already a process in Paul's churches themselves, because that's why Paul writes letters, because he wants to make sure that these newly converted Christians in Ephesus and Philippi and Thessaloniki and in Corinth have some unanimity in their beliefs. And his work is made even more difficult because once he had left Corinth, some people came to Corinth and told them, "Really Paul has not told you enough of the deep wisdom of the words of Jesus. Those you have to contemplate in order to learn the wisdom that comes from Jesus," and Paul has to write back and say, "Now, I taught you nothing but Christ crucified, not Christ wisdom." So you get a conflict of different traditions also at a very early stage.

The Diversity of Early Christianity

When you read something like that from Koester it's a given that christianities were well under way well before there were ever Jesus stories as presented in the NT.

Scot Dutchy wrote:Just how did they communicate? To be an explosive growth would require good communications.

Xtianity has never been united. The first split was the orthodox and catholic church and everything has been splitting since.

Leucius Charinus wrote:

IanS wrote:The whole entire issue here is whether or not there is reliable evidence of Jesus ever known to anyone as a human person in the 1st century.

And the answer to that is actually very clear and straightforward. There is actually no reliable evidence of anyone at all ever meeting any such person as Jesus.

Let us assume the hypothesis that "As an historical person, Jesus was not known by anyone in the 1st century" to be true.

Where do we go from there?

I have my own ideas about where to go from this point - I'd suggest to ask the question whether or not there is reliable evidence of "Christians" ever known to anyone as a group of people in the 1st century. (And we can forget about following Eusebius's hypothesis that that "Therapeutae" mentioned in writings attributed to Philo, were "Christians")

But I am interested in hearing of other ideas about where to go, given that the hypothesis above is true.

IanS wrote:[
And of course, it's not exactly unknown for religious beliefs to be mistaken. In fact afaik, out of all the many billions of such religious beliefs in human history, it appears that not a single one of them was ever true!

Owdhat wrote:

IanS wrote:[
And of course, it's not exactly unknown for religious beliefs to be mistaken. In fact afaik, out of all the many billions of such religious beliefs in human history, it appears that not a single one of them was ever true!

Except of course of all these other billions of religions none of them ever had at their heart a mundane backwoods preacher who was so ineffective he managed to get executed after the shortest reign of any supposed god ever, the elephant in the room will have to be dealt with at some point.

angelo wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:Just how did they communicate? To be an explosive growth would require good communications.

Xtianity has never been united. The first split was the orthodox and catholic church and everything has been splitting since.

Yep, apart from good communications, they needed tickets to heaven as well.

Owdhat wrote:

IanS wrote:[
And of course, it's not exactly unknown for religious beliefs to be mistaken. In fact afaik, out of all the many billions of such religious beliefs in human history, it appears that not a single one of them was ever true!

Except of course of all these other billions of religions none of them ever had at their heart a mundane backwoods preacher who was so ineffective he managed to get executed after the shortest reign of any supposed god ever, the elephant in the room will have to be dealt with at some point.

The very first Christians, the Ebionites, Nazorenes, Gnostic Christians and others, were all adoptionists. In accordance with the first hundred years of Christian belief and with the oldest manuscripts of the Bible, Jesus was born in a normal way like the rest of us, to his parents, Joseph and Mary, from the line of David as prophesized (Matt. 1:1,9:27, Lk. 1:32, Jn. 7:41-3, Acts 13:23, 2 Tim. 2:8, Rev. 5:5 and 22:16). Jesus kept God's laws so well that on his baptism, God adopted him as his son, and sent him to the cross as a truly innocent, perfect sacrifice, to atone for the sins of all mankind, to fulfil promises made in the Jewish scriptures.

http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/christi ... onism.html

Adoptionism: ... Jesus was a human being who was "adopted" by God at his conception, at which point he developed a divine nature. Later versions sometimes suggest that he was adopted later, such as when he was baptized by John the Baptist.

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/heresies.html

Socianism: A version of Arianism called Socianism (from the Latin socius, meaning "companion") simply says that Jesus was an extraordinary man. This heresy still lives on in two very different forms, the Unitarians and the Jehova's Witnesses.

Leucius Charinus wrote:

angelo wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:Just how did they communicate? To be an explosive growth would require good communications.

Xtianity has never been united. The first split was the orthodox and catholic church and everything has been splitting since.

Yep, apart from good communications, they needed tickets to heaven as well.

They seem to have used passwords.

In the Nag Hammadi Library, NHC 5.3 First Apocalypse of James, Jesus dispenses Gnostic Passwords to James on how to ascend to the seventy-second heaven - a late instruction course on the appropriate passwords for the maximum ascension after crucifixion.

Is this a joke or what?

In parable 5, the author mentions a Son of God, as a virtuous man filled with a Holy "pre-existent spirit" and adopted as the Son.[5] In the 2nd century, adoptionism (the view that Jesus Christ was at least initially, only a mortal man) was one of two competing doctrines about Jesus' true nature, the other being that he pre-existed as a divine spirit (Logos); Christ's identity with the Logos (Jn 1:1) was affirmed in 325 at the First Council of Nicaea.[6] Bogdan G. Bucur, however, notes how widely accepted the Shepherd of Hermas was among "orthodox" Christians, yet was never criticized for apparently exhibiting an adoptionistic Christology. He suggests that the passage in question should be understood as Jesus making his dwelling within those who submit to his spirit, so that the "adoption" that takes place is not of Jesus but of his followers.[7] It has been pointed out that "It refers to the 'Son of God' (a much older Egyptian and Babylonian and Persian deist concept) but never uses the word 'Christ,' 'Jesus,' nor 'Christian'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sheph ... hristology

IanS wrote:

Owdhat wrote:

IanS wrote:[
And of course, it's not exactly unknown for religious beliefs to be mistaken. In fact afaik, out of all the many billions of such religious beliefs in human history, it appears that not a single one of them was ever true!

Except of course of all these other billions of religions none of them ever had at their heart a mundane backwoods preacher who was so ineffective he managed to get executed after the shortest reign of any supposed god ever, the elephant in the room will have to be dealt with at some point.

I don't think there were "billions of religions". What I said was "billions of religious beliefs", i.e. countless beliefs and claims within each of those many religions all throughout mans history.

However, your so-called "elephant in the room", who you just said was a human person who was executed, as if that was a fact (look at your own words please), is NOT an elephant in any room at all. And your own words (look at them!) are assuming his existence as a starting point! That is completely unacceptable. Because the whole point here is that his existence is the very thing which is in dispute! ... so you cannot just assume, as you just did (i.e. above) that he was indeed "an ineffective person who was executed" ... such that he therefore becomes your "elephant in the room".

The actual elephant in the room here, which believers like you "have to deal with" (to use all your words), is that over the last 200 years or so, indisputable evidence has been discovered to show that the figure described as Jesus in the bible could not possible have been true, and that the biblical authors were seriously unreliable and not remotely credible as writers of historical facts. And in particular, it turns out that they were all anonymous religious writers who had never known any such person as Jesus, and who were writing centuries after the events (and probably writing in Egypt!).

And if you needed any more than that, it also turns out that the gospel writers were certainly doing exactly what Paul repeatedly insisted he had done to learn about Jesus, and that was to use "fulfilment citation" by searching the OT scriptures for any stories they wished to re-cast as referring to Paul's figure called "Iesous" (actually "Yehoshua", i.e. in modern /middle English "Jesus"), who according to Paul was known to him from divine revelation confirmed in ancient scripture.

And unlike your Jesus speculations, the above is apparently (even acceding to the most religious of Christian bible scholar academics), actual FACT.