Carrier: Paul's Jesus is the Joseph Smith's Moroni: who would be the golden plates, then?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Giuseppe
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Carrier: Paul's Jesus is the Joseph Smith's Moroni: who would be the golden plates, then?

Post by Giuseppe »

“why would deliberate intent to deceive be more likely than [some]one having an hallucination and believing it was a vision?”

In my view, this rethorical question betrayes a fallacy of the false dichotomy.
  • Joseph Smith hallucinated really the angel Moroni, but he was a deliberate liar when he claimed to have received the "his" golden plates.
  • The historical Paul could have hallucinate really his celestial Jesus, but he could be a deliberate liar when he pointed out a historical crucifixion as the crucifixion of the his Jesus.


My point is that the historical Jesus may be as real as the golden plates "found" by Joseph Smith. And equally insignificant.

Richard Carrier may be seriously wrong in his analogy Paul's Jesus== Angel Moroni.

A better analogy would be:

The golden plates "found" by Joseph Smith == Paul's Jesus.
Giuseppe
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Re: Carrier: Paul's Jesus is the Joseph Smith's Moroni: who would be the golden plates, then?

Post by Giuseppe »

This to say that Paul could be (and indeed was) both a innocent hallucinator and a deliberate liar.
Giuseppe
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Re: Carrier: Paul's Jesus is the Joseph Smith's Moroni: who would be the golden plates, then?

Post by Giuseppe »

Three options:
  • 1) Paul invented everything as effect of an innocent hallucination
  • 2) Paul invented partially as effect of an innocent hallucination, and reported historical news as means of a deliberate intent to deceive.
  • 3) Paul never hallucinated but only lied.
Insofar I see Joseph Smith as a Paul redivivus, 2 is more probable than 1 and 3.
Giuseppe
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Re: Carrier: Paul's Jesus is the Joseph Smith's Moroni: who would be the golden plates, then?

Post by Giuseppe »

This blogger has answered to my question so:

Regarding Joseph Smith, we know he was a conman because we have records of his activities (including jail time), but nothing of the sort for Paul. While writing this review it occurred to me that religions founded very recently, like Mormonism and Scientology, are obviously founded by crooks. Further back, some would say Mohammed was another con man. Way back in time, “founders” like Gautama or Zoroaster seem safely mythological. Christianity seems to occur in a kind of “sweet spot,” close enough in time for people to demand “proof” but far enough away to make finding any difficult or impossible. Again, that doesn’t make it a lie.

(my bold)

The part in bold is very a perceptive observation.
I was thinking the same thing (that Christianity was founded very recently, i.e. within one or two years, without a real past - Celsus docet - therefore a lie had to be in action behind it), given my discomfort in finding possible traces of an old pre-Christian Jesus cult: there are none.
Giuseppe
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Re: Carrier: Paul's Jesus is the Joseph Smith's Moroni: who would be the golden plates, then?

Post by Giuseppe »


“There was no Paul” (a fringe but intriguing position) isn’t needed to refute Skrbina; what we know is that there was no author, period

Really? If the Pillars were mere leaders of a besieged Jerusalem (70 CE), then they couldn't be "authors" of a Christian thing. Paul could only be intent to propagandize a pro-Roman messianism.

Definitely, "Mark" (author) was innocent and not a liar, whatever theological agenda he could have had.

Even one of Papias’s informants’ sources, John (according to Papias), anciently said that Mark’s writing had things out of order (i.e. confused), because (so John explained, according to Papias’s informants) Mark had not written from personal knowledge but had reconstructed narrative out of fragmented hearsay.

(source, my bold)

Why couldn't Paul be the only author of all?
  • Josephus claimed that Vespasian was the real Jewish messiah. Only Josephus in all the world did first that claim.
  • Paul claimed that Jesus was the real Jewish messiah. Only Paul in all the world did first that claim.
Giuseppe
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Re: Carrier: Paul's Jesus is the Joseph Smith's Moroni: who would be the golden plates, then?

Post by Giuseppe »

And now I think that there is some evidence for Paul being a liar even in Mark.

Only read this crucial passage:

“When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

(Mark 13:14)

"let the reader understand" works as an indirect denial that the sense of the proposition is the common sense.
  • The common sense about the 'abomination that causes desolation' is that it was a gentile monster placed in the Temple or on the ruins of the Temple.
  • the esoterical sense given by the pauline "Mark" is the exact denial of the common sense: the "abomination that causes desolation" is a Jewish monster, a future Jewish rebel who will rebuild the Temple and will be placed inside it.


This is exactly the sense given by Paul in Thessalonians 2:2-12, where the Markan "let the reader understand" is already anticipated by the Pauline "now you know what is holding him back":

Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

5 Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? 6 And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. 7 For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

In essentia: both Paul and Mark:
  • know that there was a known Jewish source about a prediction of a Pagan monster who will stand in the Temple
  • interpret it esoterically to mean that the coming monster in the Temple will be a Jewish monster.
Corollary: the 'abomination of desolation' helps to date surely a terminus post quem for Mark, but also to realize the Paul's and Mark's common agenda: the use of an anti-Gentile Jewish eschatological prophecy in an anti-Temple/anti-Zealot and pro-Gentile function.

This alone is sufficient to make Paul a liar on behalf of the Flavian propaganda: the Absolute Evil is the Jew who will rebuild the Temple.

ADDENDA:
pace Carrier, Mark's Jesus can't be accused of being a failed apocalypticist, since his prophecy has been not still falsified: until today, the temple has not yet been rebuilt by a Jew, hence the 'abomination of desolation' has yet to appear.
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