Epicure wrote:If Jesus is not a historical figure, than the progressive Christian fantasy of being able to rub the collective conservative Christian noses in a hippy, social reformer Jesus will never come to pass. Witness all the "Jesus was a Socialist" bumper stickers out there.

The establishment is moderate/progressive theologians who want to dump all the "bad things" in the NT and only celebrate the "Good Things" in the NT. So an MJ - or agnosticism on Jesus being either HJ or MJ - hurts their cause.

And yes, as you say Proudfootz, Paul's commands for slaves to obey their masters, and the other bits about rendering what is Caesar to Caesar, and nevermind being poor because you'll be rich in heaven, is all so progressive and not reactionary!

B-b-but, I hear the liberal theologians say, if we work our intellectual alchemy and look for the subtext, we'll see the hippy progressive Jesus whose words were later twisted. It'll all be in Q, if we ever find it!

Except for dejuror's posts, I think this is the most vapid post in this thread ever. With some margin, even.

Epicure wrote:If Jesus is not a historical figure, than the progressive Christian fantasy of being able to rub the collective conservative Christian noses in a hippy, social reformer Jesus will never come to pass. Witness all the "Jesus was a Socialist" bumper stickers out there.

The establishment is moderate/progressive theologians who want to dump all the "bad things" in the NT and only celebrate the "Good Things" in the NT. So an MJ - or agnosticism on Jesus being either HJ or MJ - hurts their cause.

And yes, as you say Proudfootz, Paul's commands for slaves to obey their masters, and the other bits about rendering what is Caesar to Caesar, and nevermind being poor because you'll be rich in heaven, is all so progressive and not reactionary!

B-b-but, I hear the liberal theologians say, if we work our intellectual alchemy and look for the subtext, we'll see the hippy progressive Jesus whose words were later twisted. It'll all be in Q, if we ever find it!

Yes, there does seem to be a lot at stake in the 'who's got the authentic Jesus' game, and made all the more fun because there's precious little material to work with.

There's probably enough 'historical Jesuses' to populate a small town by now. For someone who's supposed to have been such a great 'teacher' it's pretty sad no one seems to know what it is exactly he taught.

GakuseiDon wrote:

lpetrich wrote:GakuseiDon is indeed right that Mark is the least mythical of the Gospels by Lord Raglan standards. But it gets its low score because it starts off with Jesus Christ getting baptized by John the Baptist, thus omitting his entire previous life.

Are you suggesting that the gMark author only knew a certain part of Jesus Christ's life, and that is what he had to work with? So the gMark author was not writing fiction? Why doesn't gMark have Jesus born of a royal virgin, marry a princess and become actual king of the Jews in the time of Pilate, etc?

I think that is the key question here. Is the gMark author only including those elements that he/she knew matched the heroic myth story, and felt he/she was not free to make things up? If so, what is stopping 'Mark' from making things up? Either the author was trying to fit things into history about a person called Jesus Christ (even though he/she knew that such a person didn't exist) but in a historically realistic framework, or the author was constrained by his/her knowledge of an actual person called Jesus Christ, and only fitted those things that he/she thought actually happened. (By the time later Gospels told the story, the myth had grown, so the Gospel authors were able to fit in more elements of the heroic story) So why does gMark score so much less on the Raglan scale?

We have gone through many questions. I hope you realise questions are not evidence of anything. Why this and why that are not resolutions.

Simply because people of antiquity believe Myth Fables do not make them history. In fact, it is virtually impossible from preventing belief. Belief does not require any actual evidence but presumptions and or sepeculation.

Why did the author of the short version gMark claimed Jesus was truly the Son of God?

The answer is extremely easy.

It was because he was writing about the Son of God, a Myth.

1. Mark 5:7 KJV---- What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.

2. Mark 9:7 KJV -------And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying , This is my beloved Son: hear him.

3. Mark 14. KJV------Again the high priest asked Bhim, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? 62And Jesus said , I am

4. Mark 15------Truly this man was the Son of God.

dejuror wrote:

GakuseiDon wrote:

lpetrich wrote:GakuseiDon is indeed right that Mark is the least mythical of the Gospels by Lord Raglan standards. But it gets its low score because it starts off with Jesus Christ getting baptized by John the Baptist, thus omitting his entire previous life.

Are you suggesting that the gMark author only knew a certain part of Jesus Christ's life, and that is what he had to work with? So the gMark author was not writing fiction? Why doesn't gMark have Jesus born of a royal virgin, marry a princess and become actual king of the Jews in the time of Pilate, etc?

I think that is the key question here. Is the gMark author only including those elements that he/she knew matched the heroic myth story, and felt he/she was not free to make things up? If so, what is stopping 'Mark' from making things up? Either the author was trying to fit things into history about a person called Jesus Christ (even though he/she knew that such a person didn't exist) but in a historically realistic framework, or the author was constrained by his/her knowledge of an actual person called Jesus Christ, and only fitted those things that he/she thought actually happened. (By the time later Gospels told the story, the myth had grown, so the Gospel authors were able to fit in more elements of the heroic story) So why does gMark score so much less on the Raglan scale?

We have gone through many questions. I hope you realise questions are not evidence of anything. Why this and why that are not resolutions.

Simply because people of antiquity believe Myth Fables do not make them history. In fact, it is virtually impossible from preventing belief. Belief does not require any actual evidence but presumptions and or sepeculation.

Why did the author of the short version gMark claimed Jesus was truly the Son of God?

The answer is extremely easy.

It was because he was writing about the Son of God, a Myth.

1. Mark 5:7 KJV---- What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.

2. Mark 9:7 KJV -------And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying , This is my beloved Son: hear him.

3. Mark 14. KJV------Again the high priest asked Bhim, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? 62And Jesus said , I am

4. Mark 15------Truly this man was the Son of God.

That last line, "Truly this man was the Son of God." is intriguing. A "Son of God" concept was known of and then consequently applied to this Jesus character, in other words, THIS man was the Son of God. If Paul's Son of God was known of first, and then later applied to this Jesus of Nazareth character, it would explain a few things. The author of gMark historized Paul's Son of God, he placed him in the time of Pilate, just before Paul's time as an apostle. Maybe.

dogsgod wrote:....That last line, "Truly this man was the Son of God." is intriguing. A "Son of God" concept was known of and then consequently applied to this Jesus character, in other words, THIS man was the Son of God. If Paul's Son of God was known of first, and then later applied to this Jesus of Nazareth character, it would explain a few things. The author of gMark historized Paul's Son of God, he placed him in the time of Pilate, just before Paul's time as an apostle. Maybe.

Perhaps one may argue that the author of Genesis historicize Adam and Eve but not Jesus of Nazareth.

The author of gMark did not historize Jesus of Nazareth he made it clear that his Jesus was the Son of God.

Myth Gods and Sons of God are not figures of history.

If it is presumed that the Pauline letters were first then then the author of gMark merely stated what the Son of God while he was on earth.

One does not historize a character by claiming he walked on the sea, transfigured and was raised from the dead.

The author of gMatthew even went further and declared that Jesus was born after his mother was made pregnant by a Ghost.

There was no attempt to historicize Jesus.

The author of gLuke confirmed that Jesus was the product of a Ghost and the author of gJohn went another step and admitted his Jesus was the Logos and God the Creator.

It really does not matter where the Pauline letters are placed because the Pauline revelations are from the non-historical Jesus--the resurrected Jesus in Paul's head.

Paul's claims about the resurrected Jesus cannot be historical--- resurrected dead men don't talk.

The authors of the Gospels or their sources must have invented the biographies of Jesus if it is admitted the Pauline revelations from the resurrected Jesus was first.

In "Against Celsus" it is claimed that Celsus argued that Jesus was the bastard son of Panthera but Origen declared that Jesus was born of a Holy Ghost and a Virgin which is found in the Gospels.

The Gospels do not historize Jesus they attest to mythology.

Please, remember the Gospels were known to people of antiquity.

dejuror wrote:

dogsgod wrote:....That last line, "Truly this man was the Son of God." is intriguing. A "Son of God" concept was known of and then consequently applied to this Jesus character, in other words, THIS man was the Son of God. If Paul's Son of God was known of first, and then later applied to this Jesus of Nazareth character, it would explain a few things. The author of gMark historized Paul's Son of God, he placed him in the time of Pilate, just before Paul's time as an apostle. Maybe.

Perhaps one may argue that the author of Genesis historicize Adam and Eve but not Jesus of Nazareth.

The author of gMark did not historize Jesus of Nazareth he made it clear that his Jesus was the Son of God.

Myth Gods and Sons of God are not figures of history.

If it is presumed that the Pauline letters were first then then the author of gMark merely stated what the Son of God while he was on earth.

One does not historize a character by claiming he walked on the sea, transfigured and was raised from the dead.

The author of gMatthew even went further and declared that Jesus was born after his mother was made pregnant by a Ghost.

There was no attempt to historicize Jesus.

The author of gLuke confirmed that Jesus was the product of a Ghost and the author of gJohn went another step and admitted his Jesus was the Logos and God the Creator.

It really does not matter where the Pauline letters are placed because the Pauline revelations are from the non-historical Jesus--the resurrected Jesus in Paul's head.

Paul's claims about the resurrected Jesus cannot be historical--- resurrected dead men don't talk.

The authors of the Gospels or their sources must have invented the biographies of Jesus if it is admitted the Pauline revelations from the resurrected Jesus was first.

In "Against Celsus" it is claimed that Celsus argued that Jesus was the bastard son of Panthera but Origen declared that Jesus was born of a Holy Ghost and a Virgin which is found in the Gospels.

The Gospels do not historize Jesus they attest to mythology.

Please, remember the Gospels were known to people of antiquity.

OK, "historized" was perhaps the wrong word. Paul's Christ was brought down to earth and crucified on earth by the author of gMark. GMark has everything take place on earth, it portrays certain apostles in Christ as disciples of an earthly Jesus. An earthly Jesus was the invention of whomever it was that wrote gMark. However, there is also the possibility that the author of gMark combined a Jerusalem Christ cult with a Galilean Jesus movement by writing his work of fiction the way he did.

proudfootz wrote:

Epicure wrote:If Jesus is not a historical figure, than the progressive Christian fantasy of being able to rub the collective conservative Christian noses in a hippy, social reformer Jesus will never come to pass. Witness all the "Jesus was a Socialist" bumper stickers out there.

Yes, there does seem to be a lot at stake in the 'who's got the authentic Jesus' game, and made all the more fun because there's precious little material to work with.

There's probably enough 'historical Jesuses' to populate a small town by now. For someone who's supposed to have been such a great 'teacher' it's pretty sad no one seems to know what it is exactly he taught.

This reminds me of how a century ago, Albert Schweitzer concluded that many of his fellow historical-Jesus questers had made their resulting HJ's in their likenesses. The sort of thing that Xenophanes had noted about 2500 years ago: people tend to imagine the deities they worship in their likenesses, whatever that might be.

lpetrich wrote:In another board, a certain someone had made claims like that about Jesus mythicism: "Jesus mythicism is simply reactionary politics, an attempt to keep the revolutionary ideas of the New Testament out of the hands of ordinary people."

That was the case for many centuries when the bible was only written and available in Latin. One had to learn the language before you could read the nonsense. When the layperson could get his/hers hands on the final product is when these quests started.
The apologist ignored, or tried to explain away the murder and mayhem especially in the O/T and picked and choose what was palatable to the masses. Who was it that said that religion is the opium of the masses? Marx wasn't it?

lpetrich wrote:

proudfootz wrote:

Epicure wrote:If Jesus is not a historical figure, than the progressive Christian fantasy of being able to rub the collective conservative Christian noses in a hippy, social reformer Jesus will never come to pass. Witness all the "Jesus was a Socialist" bumper stickers out there.

Yes, there does seem to be a lot at stake in the 'who's got the authentic Jesus' game, and made all the more fun because there's precious little material to work with.

There's probably enough 'historical Jesuses' to populate a small town by now. For someone who's supposed to have been such a great 'teacher' it's pretty sad no one seems to know what it is exactly he taught.

This reminds me of how a century ago, Albert Schweitzer concluded that many of his fellow historical-Jesus questers had made their resulting HJ's in their likenesses. The sort of thing that Xenophanes had noted about 2500 years ago: people tend to imagine the deities they worship in their likenesses, whatever that might be.

Yep, a Jesus in their image.

proudfootz wrote:
Yes, there does seem to be a lot at stake in the 'who's got the authentic Jesus' game, and made all the more fun because there's precious little material to work with.

There's probably enough 'historical Jesuses' to populate a small town by now. For someone who's supposed to have been such a great 'teacher' it's pretty sad no one seems to know what it is exactly he taught.

Here's something I don't understand. Most doctrines, political, religious, even scientific, have some kind of core corpus. We are assured, for example, that the Beatitudes are essential to Christianity.

If the Beatitudes are so essential to Christianity, why are there no mentions of the Beatitudes in Paul's writings? Where are the Beatitudes in John and Mark?

Epicure wrote:If the Beatitudes are so essential to Christianity, why are there no mentions of the Beatitudes in Paul's writings? Where are the Beatitudes in John and Mark?

I reckon there's a good chance that the stories attributed to Paul are from an initially different line of belief to the fore-runners of the gospels, about an initially different character. ie. two story-lines merged together.

Epicure wrote:

If the Beatitudes are so essential to Christianity, why are there no mentions of the Beatitudes in Paul's writings?

Because Paul was an egotist?

Stein

lpetrich wrote:

proudfootz wrote:

Epicure wrote:If Jesus is not a historical figure, than the progressive Christian fantasy of being able to rub the collective conservative Christian noses in a hippy, social reformer Jesus will never come to pass. Witness all the "Jesus was a Socialist" bumper stickers out there.

Yes, there does seem to be a lot at stake in the 'who's got the authentic Jesus' game, and made all the more fun because there's precious little material to work with.

There's probably enough 'historical Jesuses' to populate a small town by now. For someone who's supposed to have been such a great 'teacher' it's pretty sad no one seems to know what it is exactly he taught.

This reminds me of how a century ago, Albert Schweitzer concluded that many of his fellow historical-Jesus questers had made their resulting HJ's in their likenesses. The sort of thing that Xenophanes had noted about 2500 years ago: people tend to imagine the deities they worship in their likenesses, whatever that might be.

So what do you have to say of the reconstruction of Jesus -- apocalyptic folk preacher -- that isn't in the image of the scholars making it (unless they moonlight in sandwich boards)?

RealityRules wrote:I reckon there's a good chance that the stories attributed to Paul are from an initially different line of belief to the fore-runners of the gospels, about an initially different character. ie. two story-lines merged together.

I think this is more and more a possibility. There seems to be a substantial divide between the Gospels and Paul.

Is there mention of overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the Pauline Letters? It is mentioned in all the gospels, and it's supposed to be one of the "Authentic" bits about Jesus. It's been a while, but I don't recall Paul referencing this story, and also it doesn't jive well with Paul's focus on being a humble, modest, obedient person, a theme repeated through his works.

If Paul is supposed to be closer to the time of the crucifixion, and indeed alleges he met those who knew Jesus in his lifetime, it's even more odd that he doesn't relate the overturning of the tables OR the Beatitudes, both of which seem to be Jesus' acts that would have been witnessed by the greatest number of people.

Byron wrote:
So what do you have to say of the reconstruction of Jesus -- apocalyptic folk preacher -- that isn't in the image of the scholars making it (unless they moonlight in sandwich boards)?

I can see similarities in the life of an itinerant preacher and a postgraduate theologian. They wander from the land from temporary position to temporary position, like Lenny and George. And yet one day they postulate they will live off the fat of the land, when they get tenure.

dogsgod wrote:
OK, "historized" was perhaps the wrong word. Paul's Christ was brought down to earth and crucified on earth by the author of gMark. GMark has everything take place on earth, it portrays certain apostles in Christ as disciples of an earthly Jesus. An earthly Jesus was the invention of whomever it was that wrote gMark. However, there is also the possibility that the author of gMark combined a Jerusalem Christ cult with a Galilean Jesus movement by writing his work of fiction the way he did.

The very first error you make is that because gMark's Jesus was on earth you imply he was human when in Jewish Mythology God himself was on earth when he made the MYTHS called Adam and Eve.

Gods are not considered human beings merely because they came to earth.

Satan and Evil Spirits were on earth in the time of Jesus the Transfiguring Sea Water Walker.

Now, there is no evidence whatsoever that the Pauline writer started the Jesus cult or was known in the Jesus cult by non-apologetics up to the 2nd century.

Examine the NT Canon.

No author of the Entire Canon used a ten word phrase or even half of a sentence of the Pauline letters.

No author of the Canon used the Pauline post resurrection sightings of Jesus.

However, it is the complete reverse with gMark.

It is the story in gMark that was well known in the Canon.

We have two version of gMark that are virtually 100% identical except for 12 verses.

We have gMatthew that used virtually all of gMark.

We have gLuke that used gMark also.

Astonishingly, we have virtually ALL of gMark in other Canonised writings and NOTHING of Paul.

The Pauline letters do NOT represent the early Jesus cult.

The Pauline writer claimed he Persecuted the Churches of Christ in Judea.

No such Churches in Christ have been found or no-one wrote about the Persecution of Churches of Jesus Christ in the 1st century.

The NT is a pack of 2nd century or later Myth Fables with the propaganda that the Jewish Temple was destroyed because the Jews delivered up the Son of God to be killed.

Aristides' Apology

The Christians, then, trace the beginning of their religion from Jesus the Messiah; and he is named the Son of God Most High. And it is said that God came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew virgin assumed and clothed himself with flesh; and the Son of God lived in a daughter of man. This is taught in the gospel, as it is called.......... But he himself was pierced by the Jews..

Justin Dialogue with Trypho

Accordingly, these things have happened to you in fairness and justice, for you have slain the Just One.

Hippolytus' Treatise Against the Jews

7. But why, O prophet, tell us, and for what reason, was the temple made desolate?............ it was because they killed the Son of their Benefactor...

Tertullian's Answer to the Jews

.....the Jews were predicted as destined to suffer these calamities on Christ's account, and we find that they have suffered them, and see them sent into dispersion and abiding in it, manifest it is that it is on Christ's account that these things have befallen the Jews...

[/quote]

The fabrication of the Jesus character, the Son of God, can be easily seen as soon as it is realized all the stories about Jesus in the Canon, the Entire Canon, were composed AFTER the Fall of the Jewish Temple.

Byron wrote:So what do you have to say of the reconstruction of Jesus -- apocalyptic folk preacher -- that isn't in the image of the scholars making it (unless they moonlight in sandwich boards)?

Tellers of tall tales == tellers of tall tales, including the notion that civilisiation will fall if we start treating Jeebus as mythical. See: Department of tautology department. Of course, literalism is literalism, too. It's funny how literalism is only a bad thing in fundamentalist xians and literary critics. Otherwise, it's, like, science.

Epicure wrote:

RealityRules wrote:I reckon there's a good chance that the stories attributed to Paul are from an initially different line of belief to the fore-runners of the gospels, about an initially different character. ie. two story-lines merged together.

I think this is more and more a possibility. There seems to be a substantial divide between the Gospels and Paul.

Is there mention of overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the Pauline Letters? It is mentioned in all the gospels, and it's supposed to be one of the "Authentic" bits about Jesus. It's been a while, but I don't recall Paul referencing this story, and also it doesn't jive well with Paul's focus on being a humble, modest, obedient person, a theme repeated through his works.

If Paul is supposed to be closer to the time of the crucifixion, and indeed alleges he met those who knew Jesus in his lifetime, it's even more odd that he doesn't relate the overturning of the tables OR the Beatitudes, both of which seem to be Jesus' acts that would have been witnessed by the greatest number of people.

Good points.

RealityRules wrote:

Epicure wrote:If the Beatitudes are so essential to Christianity, why are there no mentions of the Beatitudes in Paul's writings? Where are the Beatitudes in John and Mark?

I reckon there's a good chance that the stories attributed to Paul are from an initially different line of belief to the fore-runners of the gospels, about an initially different character. ie. two story-lines merged together.

This would be a very good and straightforward explanation for the riotous diversity of early christianities: the gathering together of disparate elements into one creed over a period of several generations.

Even Q seems to show some signs of having been re-worked to join outlooks which don't really go together very well. The original layer of 'wisdom' sayings serve as a root stock for other layers such as the eschatological sayings. If we were to apply Occam's Razor at this point we'd have to conclude the 'apocalyptic preacher' was either a later evolution of the Jesus tale or perhaps a rival version absorbed by the authors of Q.

Still, the 'street corner ranter' is considered a very useful tool among certain anti-atheists.

We have the evidence from antiquity that Jesus was a Mythological character.

Codices have been found in pristine condition that show what the Jesus cult believed.

They believed and argued for hundreds of years that Jesus was born of a Ghost and a Virgin.

In fact, it was made public throughout the Roman Empire and some time perhaps in the 4th century or later even the Roman Emperors proclaimed that Jesus was indeed a God and was One with the Holy Ghost.

Jesus, the Holy Ghost and God are ONE.

1. Mark 14---Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? 62And Jesus said , I am....

2. 1 Cor.15---And so it is written , The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

3. Ignatius' Ephesians 18 For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Ghost.

4. Aristides' Apology -----The Christians, then, trace the beginning of their religion from Jesus the Messiah; and he is named the Son of God Most High. And it is said that God came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew virgin assumed and clothed himself with flesh; and the Son of God lived in a daughter of man.

5. Justin's Apology -----And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven,

6. Irenaeus' Against Heresies--- To this effect they testify, [saying,] that before Joseph had come together with Mary, while she therefore remained in virginity, "she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

7. Tertullian's "On the Flesh of Christ"---[b]He was able to have God for His Father without a human mother, so likewise, after He was born of the virgin, He was able to have a woman for His mother without a human father.

8. Preface to De Prinicipiis---it was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit

9. Epistula Apostolorum---3 This know we: that our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ is God the Son of God, who was sent of God the Lord of the whole world, the maker and creator of it..

10. Hippolytus ---4. For whereas the Word of God was without flesh, He took upon Himself the holy flesh by the holy Virgin, and prepared a robe which He wove for Himself, like a bridegroom, in the sufferings of the cross....

Jesus of Nazareth was a myth fable fabricated AFTER the Fall of the Jewish Temple.

And further, the very fact that the Jesus cult argued that Jesus had no human father for hundreds of years support the argument that there no records at all of a human Jesus and no-one knew of a father of Jesus.

It would have been absolutely idiotic for the Jesus cult to have claimed the Father of Jesus was a Ghost if it was already known not to be true.

proudfootz wrote:

RealityRules wrote:

Epicure wrote:If the Beatitudes are so essential to Christianity, why are there no mentions of the Beatitudes in Paul's writings? Where are the Beatitudes in John and Mark?

I reckon there's a good chance that the stories attributed to Paul are from an initially different line of belief to the fore-runners of the gospels, about an initially different character. ie. two story-lines merged together.

This would be a very good and straightforward explanation for the riotous diversity of early christianities: the gathering together of disparate elements into one creed over a period of several generations.

Even Q seems to show some signs of having been re-worked to join outlooks which don't really go together very well. The original layer of 'wisdom' sayings serve as a root stock for other layers such as the eschatological sayings. If we were to apply Occam's Razor at this point we'd have to conclude the 'apocalyptic preacher' was either a later evolution of the Jesus tale or perhaps a rival version absorbed by the authors of Q.

Still, the 'street corner ranter' is considered a very useful tool among certain anti-atheists.

A street corner ranter that no one but the gospelers seem to have noticed. But there were many street corner ranters around in that time frame. Which one became the son of god?