Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ : a Study in Creative Mythology
Front Cover
Alvar Ellegård
Century, 1999 - Bible - 322 pages
0 Reviews
The starting point for the book is the following anomoly -If Jesus lived as has been supposed at the beginningM of the 1st century AD, theonly NT documents written by a near contemporary, the Epistles of St Paul, make no mention of him as an historical figure, neither do they record any of his sayings, but rather they talk of him as a vision or mystical experiences e of the risen Christ. Furthermore, contemporary records of the region from non-Christian sources, such as those by theJewish historian Josephus, fail to mention Jesus at all where we would expect them to; the mentions that there are have recently been shown to be later interpolations by medieval Christian apologists - the gospel accounts of Jesus and his millieu are inaccurate in all major respects e.g. the relative dates of Herod and Pilate, if contemporary Roman and Jewish historians, who had no theological axe to grind, are taken as measure. By comparative textual studies, the author showsthat the gospel accounts of Jesus' life and sayings were written approximately 100 years after Jesus is supposed to have lived, and so 100 years later than alleged contemporaries such as Paul, Clement, Josephus etc.
More »
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
Has anyone collated the possible sources of a composite Jesus of Nazareth? A few - the teacher of righteousness, new Adam, new Elijah , son of man, Angel in the wilderness ....
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
Isn't this the classic god bothering question? How do you get the gods to listen to you, help you and save you?
From Darius, the simplification of bothering one God rather than many was taking place, and rituals were becoming unified and hierarchical - the Jewish temple, imported from the rivers of Babylon, with plato's intellectual one God.
Various people were evolving their rituals - some thought they were getting the gods to make the sun rise each morning through a ritual human sacrifice.
The destruction of the temple wrecked a huge chunk of intellectual and emotional understanding.
Out of the wreckage various incompatible groups eventually merged leaving us now at the end of this process.
Another major outcome of all of this is Islam.
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
Robin lane Fox has wonderful descriptions of the Spartans going to war, complete with huge wagon trains of animals and birds and many priests to sacrifice them, read their entrails and how the smoke rises to tell the generals what to do and feed the troops - as gods live on sweet smoke dotchaknow
Rituals "my body and blood" are riffs on this. Arguments about priesthood of all believers are about do you worship your own gods or someone else's?
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
Christianity is a fascinating symbiosis of all of these strands, actually very powerful emotionally and intellectually. A relationship with the true god the bride of christ, the lion laying down with the lamb, a new heaven and earth? Not bad deal!
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
Tom Holland relates a story of the critical importance of getting ritual absolutely right. If one farted during a meal one would be expected to commit suicide.
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
Clive wrote:Why is this not accepted? It is far superior to the faith based assertions that fly around.
The views of dutch radical criticism were never afforded much thrift. It would be an interesting exercise to catalog the arguments of normative scholarship against their various postulations.
I saw a Naked girl ,Slowly emerge in front of me，Greek hairstyle，Very beautiful，She has a beautiful [fine] profile.; She is fine in profile. the view of profile,hard to tell.
Sounds like harrumph reactions - do not people realise they are emotionally committed to their perspectives and maybe should ask why they react as they do instead of thinking through arguments?
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
Clive wrote:Sounds like harrumph reactions - do not people realise they are emotionally committed to their perspectives and maybe should ask why they react as they do instead of thinking through arguments?
Present the arguments, then.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
