Skrbina's view about Jesus

[Giuseppe]

Paraphrasing Peter's words:

Yes, I do believe that people find it important to know whether Jesus existed. There exists a kind of spirituality, within and outside Christianity, that finds some measure of comfort in the idea.

...I can say equally:

Yes, I do believe that people find it important to know whether Paul (or who for him) was a liar or not, beyond if Jesus existed or not. There exists a kind of spirituality, within and outside Christianity, that finds some measure of comfort in the idea that Paul was not a liar.

The great anomaly is this: that both a Doherty and a McGrath (to cite only two people so different between them) believe that Paul didn't lie with a specific end in mind.

Bob Price betrayed this anomaly in himself, in his review of Joe Atwill, writing the following words:

Similarly, only the most obtuse reader, the most tin-eared, can possibly fail to appreciate the sublime quality of so much of the New Testament (agree or disagree with it), which is necessary to do if one is to dismiss the whole thing as an elaborate joke on the reader. Rather, the joke is on Atwill, whose great learning has apparently driven him mad. Just think of someone advancing the same theory about, say, the Buddhist scriptures. The worst of them are far too tedious and turgid to have been composed to fill out a hoax (who would have gone to the trouble?), while the more readable and winsome (like the Dhammapada) are filled with a wisdom beyond the reach of a worldly-minded scoffer. As to Jesus’ teachings, Atwill declares that “those who see spiritual meaning in his words are being played for a fool” (p. 234). Such a statement is only a damning self-condemnation, revealing the author’s own absolute inability to appreciate what he is reading. This is why one must not throw one’s pearls before swine.

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/rev_atwill.htm


Pace Bob Price, "the sublime quality of so much of the New Testament" doesn't prove at all that their authors didn't lie.

According to Skrbina, Paul created Christianity as a Jewish psychological warfare operation against Rome—the exact opposite conclusion from that of Atwill's “Caesar’s Messiah”, who argues that Rome created Christianity as a psychological warfare operation against the Jews. The qualitative difference between the two theses is simply... ...enormous!

[Jax]

I've just finished reading the book....... Suffice to say it left a bad taste in my mouth. Its almost like it has an undercurrent of negativity towards Jews.

Hi Mary, as it is unlikely that I am going to part with some beer money buying the book could you please assuage my curiosity as to why the author feels that Paul decided to pull this scam. Was Paul some kind of evil Jew bent on the overthrow of the Roman empire or something dumb like this?

Thanks, could use a good laugh.

Lane

Edit: Never mind. Just read the review bellow.

Some of it.

It's not just a case of Paul wanting to overthrow the Romans - it's his method of covertly going about it....Entice the 'detested' Gentiles to do the job for him.

As the initiator of the hoax, Paul earns the maximum amount of credit or, if you will, blame.  His ‘moment at Damascus,’ if that’s what it was, kicked off the whole series of events.  He constructed a simple and elemental lie, based on common ideas in mythology and a kernel of actual truth, in order to manipulate the Gentile masses for the benefit of the Jews.  It was, quite frankly, a brilliant plan. But to successfully pull it off, Paul must have been a brilliant liar.  He had to write down pure fiction as absolute truth.  He had to lie to people’s faces and pretend to believe it.  He had to entice and frighten innocent and simple-minded peasants into believing his outrageous concoction.  And he did it.  Paul—expert liar, artful liar, master liar.

Skrbina, David. The Jesus Hoax: How St. Paul's Cabal Fooled the World for Two Thousand Years (p. 84). Creative Fire Press. Kindle Edition.

=========

This is worth examining for a moment.  Samuel George Frederick Brandon was a British professor of religion who died in 1971.  In his books Jesus and the Zealots (1967) and The Trial of Jesus (1968) he indeed argued that Jesus was a Zealot.  He certainly made some observations that are consistent with my antagonism thesis.  He rightly understood that the Jewish Christians’ main aim was “the restoration of Israel’s freedom and sovereignty,” and that therefore, they would have been “instinctively hostile to the Gentiles” who wanted to join the church.[76]  Later he correctly notes that “the end which that ‘gospel’ [of the Jewish Christians] had in view, namely, the vindication of Israel, implied both an overthrow of Rome and the punishment of the Gentiles.”[77]  That’s exactly right, but he never considers the possibility that the Jews actively lied precisely in order to deceive the detested Gentiles, as a means to overthrow Rome.

Skrbina, David. The Jesus Hoax: How St. Paul's Cabal Fooled the World for Two Thousand Years (p. 94). Creative Fire Press. Kindle Edition.

my bolding

Seems to me we are right back to Jewish conspiracy theories.....

Yeah, the video you posted didn't fill me with much hope that the book would be worth while. Sorry you waisted some good money that could have gone towards a nice glass of wine.

[Giuseppe]

Paul, as we have seen, was likely a member of the violent Zealot movement that was militantly opposed to the Romans and anyone collaborating with them. Paul even sanctioned murder to achieve his ends.

(p. 66, my bold)

"Aren't you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists out into the wilderness some time ago?"

(Acts 21:38)

...immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones.

(Mark 5:3-5)

I was extremely ZEALOT for the traditions of my fathers.

(Galatians 1:14)

[Giuseppe]

This, in fact, is all we read in Paul's letters. No complicated theology, no life history of Jesus, not even any miracle stories - just a god in human form who preaches loves for all, and who was resurrected after death. Furthermore, the god-man is a Jew — that's perfect. His “father” is Jehovah, the Jewish God — that's also perfect. The story focuses on the afterlife, and thus is able to keep the masses in perpetual suspension, in a state of “hope”, for which they will expend their entire lives. The story also invites, even welcomes, suffering; all the better when it comes time to sacrifice for the cause. The whole outlook is thus simultaneously pro-Jewish and anti-Roman — an ideal situation.

But Paul needed one more thing: a message of resistance. It couldn't be explicit; that would be too obvious, would never draw in the masses, and would probably get him executed. It had to be more subtle. No explicit mention of Rome at all; just “evil”, “Satan”, “the worldly powers”. That would suffice.

(p. 70-71, my bold)

This is particularly true in the episode of the Gerasene Demonic:

• the Gerasene Demonic is Paul when he was openly still a Zealot;

• but curiously, a Paul visibly Zealot is said to be possessed by a Legion of demons: Romans

The message is clear: once you cease to be Zealot (to become Pauline), by then and only by then the Romans are defeated.

The vice versa is also true: the Roman Legions rule on you insofar you want to face them de visu, in open field.

Isn't this a mere "continuation of the politics with other means" (Clausewitz's definition of WAR) ?

lupus Paulus mutat pilum, non mentem