Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

[21:55]

Meeting the Authors of Christ Before Jesus: dbz wrote: ↑Fri Sep 06, 2024 7:54 am

[30:08]

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"Meeting the Authors of Christ Before Jesus". @time:00:21:55 per 2:18:26. YouTube. Godless Engineer. 31 August 2024.

[W]e are reminded of other passages in Josephus that seem to be echoed in the Gospel of Mark.

The one most elaborately discussed is the Jesus ben Ananias who was brought before the authorities and dismissed as mad before being killed by the Romans. See Tale of Two Jesus’s (notes from Theodore Weeden)

We also have Josephus (who is ben Matityahu) seeing three of his former acquaintances crucified, but still alive. He begged the Roman general to have them taken down. Two subsequently died but the third survived. The gospels speak of another “Josephus” (of Arimathea) having Jesus’ body, crucified with two others, taken down from the cross.

Then there is Josephus’s list of signs signalling the end of Jerusalem with an emphasis on deception by false prophets. For an earlier discussion see The signs of the end in Josephus and Mark

There are other suggestive links, too. Some involve considerable discussion to justify, some are open to a too free-wheeling association and lose their suggestiveness the more closely they are examined.

The point: if Mark did know of both Jewish War and Antiquities, then he could not have written the gospel before the mid-90s. (Compare Earl Doherty’s dating of Mark in the 90s.)

Some perspectives (e.g. those of Roger Parvus) would lead us to conclude that the John the Baptist scenes were later additions to an earlier gospel. That’s possible, I suppose, but if so, then the redactors have done a very good job of integrating John the Baptist well into various theological threads of the longer narrative.

Then there is Hermann Detering’s view that the “Little Apocalypse” of Mark 13 was composed with the Second Jewish War of the 130s in memory and was a later addition to the gospel. Again, perhaps. But that chapter seems to me to be so very well integrated textually and thematically into the Passion scene that I have to wonder.

It’s uncomfortable dating the Gospel of Mark so late. One feels a bit lost and lonely. But it is a possibility that I cannot ignore, either.

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--Godfrey, Neil (10 December 2020). "Another Pointer Towards a Late Date for the Gospel of Mark?". Vridar.

[A]rguments that place Mark after 70 are . . . Josephan dependance.
[...]
Josephan dependance is suggested by Theodore Weeden, who makes a powerful case that Mark borrowed from Josephus’ Jesus Ben Ananias story, with about twenty parallels between the two and which are all in the same order between the two documents, suggesting literary dependence.

A second argument for Josephan dependance: Josephus’ proper name was Joseph bar Matthias, and Joseph of Arimathea looks to be a slightly changed version of the name. Josephus relates a story about having three men taken down from the cross, one of whom survived, just as in the gospels three men are crucified and one is taken down and continues life by resurrection (or alternately Jesus did not really die in the story but only swooned, see Robert M. Price, The Case Against Case for Christ, ch. 11).

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--Covington, Nicholas (6 July 2024). "Review: Late Revelations". Hume's Apprentice.

Jesus Tales wrote: ↑Sat Sep 07, 2024 9:30 pm I think some of the connections between Josephus and Jesus can be explained in that Mark used Jeremiah imo and there are scholars who have compared Josephus's autobiographical content to Jeremiah's escapades prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. They even both end up going to Egypt after the destruction!
[...]
Other Jeremiah events lead to Josephus, such as trying to talk the leaders of JErusalem into laying down their arms and surrendering to a much greater military force.

Re: The women watching at the crucifixion of Jesus in Mark 15:40-41: dbz wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 12:23 pm

nightshadetwine wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 11:55 am This exaltation of Jesus is a lot like the exaltation of the Roman emperors in the imperial cult.

See:

"The Worship of Jesus and the Imperial Cult" by Adela Yarbro Collins in The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism (Brill, 1999)

Iesus Deus: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2014), M. David Litwa

"Greco-Roman Apotheosis Traditions and the Resurrection Appearances in Matthew" by Wendy Cotter in The Gospel of Matthew in Current Study: Studies in Memory of William G. Thompson (Eerdmans Publishing, 2001)

Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity (Routledge, 2014), Richard C. Miller

• N.B. the imperial practice of seating statues of reigning monarchs in the temples of greater gods, indeed at the right hand of the larger statue of that temple’s god. Esp. when the cult was taken to new levels with Hadrian.

Re: List of arguments to date Mark after Hadrian: dbz wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 11:00 am

D. Clint Burnett of Boston College argued that the terminology of the apocalyptic section of 2 Thessalonians (esp. 2:4) matched known epigraphic and literary evidence of a widespread and well-known royal and imperial practice of seating statutes of reigning monarchs in the temples of greater gods, indeed at the right hand of the larger statue of that temple’s god. He made an excellent case for that; this was clearly the practice the author of 2 Thessalonians was conjuring.

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Carrier (10 December 2018). “Adventures at the Society of Biblical Literature Conference, Part 3: Closing Out”. Richard Carrier Blogs.

• It is possible to date 2 Thessalonians to the “Emperor Cult Taken to New Levels” under Hadrian.

Re: The right and wrong of Roman Provenance: dbz wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 10:15 pm

Emperor Cult Taken to New Levels
. . . and they worshipped the beast (Rev 13:4)
.

Hadrian received more divine honors in the Greek East than any of his predecessors. These honors, among them the unprecedented erection of statues, his worship in shrines, and close association with many Greek divinities, strengthened his relationship with the region and placed him in the heart of religion and the Greek pantheon. In honoring him the Greeks identified Hadrian with major divinities of their pantheon. Hadrian became the manifestation of Zeus, Apollo and other gods on earth, and a number of epithets were used to address him as a god. (Kritsotakis 162)

.

Hadrian was hailed by the Greeks in an unprecedented association with Zeus and was viewed by them as the new Olympian who would preside over their councils and lead them. (Kritsotakis 163)

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--Godfrey, Neil (28 May 2022). "Hadrian the God". Vridar.

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Understanding 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12
Turmel writes that Bible commentators are at a loss to understand what is meant in this passage by “the falling away” or “apostasia”. They are also at a loss to explain the obstacle that prevents this defection from erupting until it is removed.

Also perplexing is the identity of the Man of Sin who exalts himself above all that is called god or that is revered, and how all this relates to the Temple. Even more unfathomable are the false miracles to be performed what it means that his followers will believe a lie.

Turmel believes all of these mysteries are resolved against the light of the Bar Kokhba rebellion. Without the perspective of the Bar Kokhba war this passage in 2 Thessalonians is an incoherent cluster of mysteries.

This Jewish rebellion was known as an “apostasy” (“falling away”) by contemporaries Justin and Pausanias.

It broke out in 130, but because of the presence of Hadrian’s army in Syria, but was kept “underground” until 132 when Hadrian left for Athens, thus removing the obstacle that prevented the spirit of revolt from declaring itself openly. From 130 to 132 the “spirit of iniquity” was kept in the shadows out of fear of the Roman army in neighbouring Syria.

Roman emperors were the objects of religious cults. They were worshiped as gods and sacrificial altars were erected for them. By rebelling against Hadrian Bar Kokhba was setting himself above someone called god. The emperor was “august”, reverenced in worship, and Bar Kokhba was exalting himself above one who was worshiped.

The Christians, however, viewed Bar Kokhba as the enemy, the adversary, the son of perdition, the wicked one, since he sought to kill them unless they renounced their faith. Their Jesus was also God and the Messiah, so it appeared to them that Bar Kokhba was also exalting himself above their God and the Messiah they worshiped. They saw Bar Kokhba as one who wanted to replace God himself in their lives.

The coins Bar Kokhba minted graphically portray his own symbol, the star, he himself, appearing to take possession of the Temple as his own.

And of course he claimed to be the Messiah, though his original name meant “Lie”, and he “proved” his claim by breathing out fire from his mouth. Those who followed him, therefore, were following and believing a Lie. He was really the persecutor of the “true people of God”, the Christians.

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--Godfrey, Neil (31 May 2011). "Identifying the "Man of Sin" in 2 Thessalonians". Vridar.

Jesus Tales wrote: ↑Sat Aug 31, 2024 11:12 pm Hello, Jesus Tales here.

dbz wrote: ↑Tue Sep 03, 2024 12:13 pm

M>>>We think that the Marcionite branch or some Proto Marcionite branch is . . . the origin for the Christian beliefs
[...]
J>>>Yes Luke 4:23 is the in you you can notice that or you can see in the English version of the Bible you can see where it's that's where it's more or less starting to stitch together with marcion's prior gospel

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"Meeting the Authors of Christ Before Jesus". @time:00:36:51 per 2:18:26. YouTube. Godless Engineer. 31 August 2024.

Re: Another argument supporting Marcionite priority of *Ev over the Canonical Gospels: spin wrote: ↑Fri Sep 06, 2024 4:38 am What you really first need to deal with is the relationship between the synoptic gospels and the gospel that Marcion used (you call *Ev). The textual evidence says that *Ev is closest to Lk and yet the textual evidence points to both Mt and Lk being derived from Mk. There is no direct sign that you can place *Ev prior to Mk on any text analysis basis (ie before you introduce narrative tropes).

This much text analysis says:

Mt <- Mk -> Lk

It may also say:

*Ev -> Lk

which might suggest:

Mt <- Mk -> *Ev -> Lk

but certainly not:

*Ev -> Mk

I tried very hard a while ago to make sense of the relationship of *Ev with the synoptics working from Roth's "The Text of Marcion's Gospel", without success, as the indications are too elusive. But it is only this sort of endeavor, ie working with text construction, that has a hope of giving priority.

Re: Another argument supporting Marcionite priority of *Ev over the Canonical Gospels: spin wrote: ↑Fri Sep 06, 2024 5:21 am Roth consistently puts the notion of the creator as Tertullian's interpretation, so where does this come from: They argue that the supposed "very text Marcion employed in his churches" still testifies to the Creator?

Roth's effort is quite a useful resource and is quite open to alternative outlooks on Marcion. It's the best we have to date...

This is an article about the oldest gospel. It discusses the dating and reconstruction of the gospel. The gospel likely began with Jesus’ baptism. It includes stories of healings and exorcisms. Jesus taught about the kingdom of God. He was eventually betrayed and crucified.

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-- https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400 ... 923575.pdf

This is an article about scholarship on Marcion’s Gospel. It discusses the recent publication of Matthias Klinghardt’s second edition of Das älteste Evangelium und die Entstehung der kanonischen Evangelien. The article reviews the book and compares Klinghardt’s approach to reconstructing Marcion’s Gospel to the author’s own approach. Some important points are that the second edition of Klinghardt’s work is 1,446 pages long. It is a revised and expanded version of the first edition. Klinghardt reconstructs Marcion’s Gospel and argues that it is a precanonical version of Luke. The author of the article disagrees with Klinghardt’s reconstruction.

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--Dieter T. Roth. "Klinghardt's approach to reconstructing Marcion's Gospel to the author's own approach" (PDF).

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Fri Sep 06, 2024 3:05 pm

spin wrote: ↑Fri Sep 06, 2024 5:36 am Who has done the textual analysis that gives *Ev priority??

Besides Klinghardt there's Markus Vinzent's Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels, Studia Patristica Supplements, 2, Leuven : Peeters, 2014. ISBN 978 90 429 3027 8, which, besides the argument for Marcionite priority, gives a very good account of the tangible and other possible 2nd century references to Marcion, including by Justin Martyr (via a likely scholar dialogue between the two). Vinzent's arguments for Marcion writing *Ev are imo a bit strained, though.

Klinghardt is criticised for including more canonical Luke is his *Ev reconstruction than others' think is warranted.

Jason BeDuhn will be, iiuc, be on the Marcionite priority train too, with his 2013, The First New Testament: Marcion's Scriptural Canon. As will a few other European scholars, eg., C Gianotto, PA Gramaglia, Andrea Nicolotti and Jan Heilmann (& likely others)

• Here's a 2023 Greek reconstruction of Marcion’s Evangelion of BeDuhn, thoroughly updated [from his 2013 English one]:
  
  Bilby, MG, BeDuhn, JD (2023) BeDuhn’s Greek Reconstruction of Marcion’s Gospel Journal of Open Humanities Data, 9:25, pp.1–6 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/ (and https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... n's_Gospel)

Also see
Bilby, M.G. (2021). Normalized Datasets of Klinghardt’s and Nicolotti’s Reconstructions of Marcion’s Gospel. Journal of Open Humanities Data, 7:32, pp.1–6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/johd.70 (and here)

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Fri Sep 06, 2024 3:18 pm Here's a link to a book by Pier Angelo Gramaglia which I think is titled, Marcione e il Vangelo (di Luca) [Marcion and the Gospel (of Luke): A Comparision with Matthias Klinghardt].

A translation of the description includes:

In this book is an Italian translation of the text proposed by Klinghardt and a detailed analysis of its theoretical reconstruction is provided. The author concludes in this way: the Gospel of Marcion is indeed prior to the Gospel of Luke, but only because it constitutes a first edition by the same hand of the author of the text of Luke that has come down to us; this Gospel was not written by Marcion ...

https://archive.org/details/GramagliaMa ... a/mode/2up

Re: A wonderful Mythicist book: I am talking about “Christ before Jesus” by M. Britt and J. Wingo: dbz wrote: ↑Tue Aug 20, 2024 7:36 am

• Britt, Matthew; Wingo, Jaaron (2024). "Christ Before Jesus: Evidence for the Second-Century Origins of Jesus". Cooper & Samuels Publishing.

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed Aug 14, 2024 3:45 am

In fact, it was likely the first gospel most Christians had ever come across, as whatever Proto-Mark, which came before Marcion’s Evangelion, looked like was different from our version and didn’t seem to cause as much stir as when Marcion published Evangelion.

(Ibidem, p. 162)

matthewbritt wrote: ↑Wed Aug 14, 2024 9:51 am So something I want to say is that we realized after the book was written that there seems to be no stylometric evidence of proto-Mark. We were working on the assumption of Markan priority, but we are more agnostic on that question now. Yes, we reconstructed what proto-Mark might be, but after extensive testing we found no evidence of anything there. There might be some kind of layer deep inside, but it would be so heavily re-written and a small portion with seemingly no logic as to what was added in a later redactional layer that we don't feel comfortable with a proto-Mark anymore. But in terms of a timeline, that's more or less where it is to the extent something might be there.

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed Aug 14, 2024 4:07 am

What we found is that Proto-Mark was roughly one third of the length of canonical Mark. It’s roughly the size of 1 Corinthians or Hebrews and lacks a significant portion of the miracles and teachings of Jesus found in canonical Mark. The travels and historical details are much more scarce, as well. In fact, the entire story seems to potentially take place over a period of just a few weeks. Despite having significant portions of the canonical version cut, though, the text still flows well. We believe it is likely, given Jesus descends to Earth in Evangelion, that this is how he first appears in Proto-Mark. In canonical Mark, a dove descends on Jesus and God declares him his son. The original was likely Jesus himself descending, with God declaring him his son. Jesus does not get baptized by John the Baptist, but immediately begins his teaching after descending. Likewise, the scriptural passage referencing Elijah (John the Baptist) coming before Jesus is usually cited at the beginning of canonical Mark, but it seems to be absent in Proto-Mark.

(p.282, my bold)

matthewbritt wrote: ↑Wed Aug 14, 2024 11:08 am

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed Aug 14, 2024 10:43 am

matthewbritt wrote: ↑Wed Aug 14, 2024 9:51 am we don't feel comfortable with a proto-Mark anymore.

[A]bandoning the Markan priority, according to you the first news about Jesus suffering on earth (news preceding the same fabrication of the epistles by the Marcion's school) came from the anti-demiurgist field, i.e. the field of gentile adorers of an unknown Father (not YHWH) as supreme god. Is that right?
[...]

Yes, I would say that the story came from groups in Asia Minor, probably similar to (and maybe competing with) the Hypsistarians and similar groups within the broader Hellenization of Judaism at the time. When you consider the possibility of things being in the second century, or even after 70, the re-evaluation of certain religious aspects makes more sense, in my opinion.

• Britt, Matthew; Wingo, Jaaron (2024). "Christ Before Jesus: Evidence for the Second-Century Origins of Jesus". Cooper & Samuels Publishing.

Meeting the Authors of Christ Before Jesus: "Godless Engineer" wrote: [21:55]
M>>> Scholars have known for a long time that especially the Pastoral Epistles which is first Timothy second Timothy and Titus were not written by the same person that wrote the rest and there are only seven that they generally attribute to this Paul figure so when we look at it we're able to see if that's true or not and if it's not true then every letter you take away from Paul even the the ones that aren't authentic that takes away a little bit of biographical information about him because each one has a little bit of info and the way we get we Whittle it down to a point where there's very little and we can talk about that in a bit.

More importantly we can look at the gospels and the reason the gospels are important is because right now you know people generally date Mark to 70 to 80 or so somewhere in that range sometimes they'll say 67 to 70 or something uh but it's right after the fall of Jerusalem in the first uh Roman Jewish War when we look at the Gospel of Luke we actually able to tell that a certain claim that was made at the end of the second Century about the authorship of the text is either true or false and it turns out that Luke looks like it was written in the 130s to 140s and if that's the case then you know the others would probably be around that time we know that John looks like it was relying at least in part on parts of Luke um Matthew seems to be in response to some aspects of this this uh I guess you could call it Proto gospel but at the time it was probably the first gospel written in the 130s or 140s.

The claim is uh that Marcion wrote the first gospel and that he that was his claim and that later Christians added the first three or four chapters of Luke and the last chapter of Luke and other content in there around the year 144 he either wrote it or or published it you know that part's a bit disputed and not clear the heresiologist especially uh Irenaeus said that no actually Marcion cut those chapters out and so what we're able to see is that when we look at a chapter level we would be able to tell did the same person write all of that text and then that would make Irenaeus's claim true and that would mean that the text was older than Marcion when it was published and so it would date back prior to 144 or is it actually the case where those first chapters were added by later Christians. It turns out those first three or four chapters were added by later Christians and the first Claim about the authorship of that gospel or at least the core content is dated to the 130s or the 140s and that turns out to also line up with the Bar Kokhba revolt.

Mark 13 is used to date Mark to the Jewish Roman war in the first century. That's actually very likely to be about the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 130s and then so that pushes pretty much all the gospel material into the 130s 140s and later. To tie that back into mythicism if you're not just looking at the first gospel story written 30 years or so or 60 or so years after Jesus you're looking at a 100 plus years before you get the first written story about Jesus

[25:10]
J>>> Not only that, but we see the evolution of the religion because the earliest attestation to the Christians that seems reliable and to be fair uh the attestation is from Pliny the Younger and there's already some questions using stylometry. There's already some questionable material there um but if it's authentic the first attestation to the Christians would be from Pliny the Younger in 111 and he doesn't mention anything about them that's in connection to Judaism uh to Judea any Jewish man that they worship he doesn't even say that it's a man doesn't say the name Jesus uh just connects them with a Christ figure um and so over time we see this character evolve not only does the First Gospel that's published would be evangelin from Marcion um in the like the early 140s maybe late 130s at at earliest um at at that particular point the gospel didn't have a birth story it just it kind of had Jesus as a demigod who came down descended out of heaven and over time he gets a birth story he gets a genealogy and there's you know 40 plus gospels that are written around this time to the third century and they just each one is more Fantastical than the rest you know it just gets more and more Bolder crazier claims.

[27:15]
M>>> So with Mark 13—that is paralleled in Matthew 24 and Luke 21—it's called the little apocalypse or the Olivet discourse. That is generally assumed to be talking about the fall of the Temple and it on the face value it is talking about the fall of the temple. But we can identify that the author of that is not the same author as the rest of Mark which is problematic uh even that aside there is very clear reference to something standing on the Temple mount the abomination of desolation uh St Jerome was writing on his commentary on Matthew that the Matthew version and also Mark and Luke by extension was either talking about when Pilate put pictures of um the emperor in the Temple or something like that which there's no evidence for and there may be one other claim for or it was a spiritual thing or it was talking about the Bar Kokhba revolt. So people knew it even back then that one of the possible things I was talking about was the Bar Kokhba revolt which happens in 135 and that destroyed all of Judea and we think that Mark 13 is using the same approach that Daniel does.

If you're familiar with the Book of Daniel, it is probably written in the 160s BCE but it's cast back about 400 years more uh but we know it's about 160 BC because it's talking about the original first destruction of the temple uh by the Greeks and they use the same language abomination of desolation when they put a statue in there and that's why they use it in Mark is because in 135 or around that time period after emperor Hadrian more or less wiped out the entire population of Judea and had Jerusalem there he put up a statue of Jupiter and himself and we have attestation to the statue in multiple sources.

When we tie that in with the fact that we can tell that the first three or four chapters of Luke were written by a different author than the rest of Luke and that the claim was that either this was from the same author and Marcion stole it or Marcion originally wrote the first chapters 4 through 23 or so and then other Christians tacked on to it around the same time as the Bar Kokhba revolt you start putting these things together the fact that the first collection of Paul's letters that we have comes from the 130s or 140s also with Marcion um you know we don't have really any attestation to Paul prior to that aside from you might say uh first Clement which we can get into the dating and the letters of Ignacius and Polycarp which again we can get into the dating.

It all seems to just happen around this 130 area and that's when we start seeing you know responses to Christianity you know Celsus starts replying probably 30 years after that it all starts to happen around this one time and we have evidence from multiple angles that it looks like that's when this really kicked off not to say that there weren't Christians before but that the story of Jesus and the early Apostles came from that era.
[30:08]

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"Meeting the Authors of Christ Before Jesus". @time:00:21:55 per 2:18:26. YouTube. Godless Engineer. 31 August 2024.

Meeting the Authors of Christ Before Jesus: "Godless Engineer" wrote: [30:09]
...there's three iterations of Christianity in the second century:

1. The earliest form of Christianity which would be like a mystery cult, so to speak, that doesn't have a gospel or Jesus really concept .
2. Then there's more of like the you could say gnostic period where it's almost a blend between this mystery cult or a pretty good blend between the mystery cult and Christianity as we know it.
   and
3. The third would be well Christianity, as we know it, with the gospels and everything like proto Catholicism...

[30:42]

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Re: A wonderful Mythicist book: I am talking about “Christ before Jesus” by M. Britt and J. Wingo: dbz wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2024 5:40 pm "Meeting the Authors of Christ Before Jesus". @time:00:30:09 per 2:18:26. YouTube. Godless Engineer. 31 August 2024.

31:20
GE>>> The question of Jesus existing as a mythical person rather than as a real physical person on Earth .

J>>> Part of the issue is the fact that a lot of the information even in the natural sense for Jesus is either lifted from you know some kind of Prior work uh or just doesn't really make much sense at all.

For instance in reality there's no evidence whatsoever or no good evidence to put Nazareth as an actual Community or actual town city there in the first three decades of the first century um there's evidence of you know human civilization in the area sure but I mean I can go out into the woods here in rural Texas and find money and forks and tires that doesn't mean that there's a city there um it just means that people are in the area of it um it Nazareth never shows up in any lists or Maps uh until oh my gosh I think from a non-Christian standpoint I don't think it shows up until the third or fourth Century um Josephus himself is From Galilee never mentions uh never mentions Nazareth but mentions a town that's pretty much right next to it it's not very big called sephus he mentions that multiple times um or never yeah yeah now another but part of the issue there is that within the gospels uh Nazareth is referred to as a place that has a synagogue which is already another an anachronistic kind of issue there uh but on top of that it's referred to in a negative sense as if people know uh they don't like it they say oh what good can come from Nazareth but that doesn't even line up with what Matthew says which he claims that there's a prophecy that says Jesus comes from Nazareth to fulfill what the prophets say but we don't have a prophecy that mentions Nazarene or Nazareth or anything it's not a town or a city that's mentioned in the Old Testament.
33:23

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"Meeting the Authors of Christ Before Jesus". @time:00:31:20 per 2:18:26. YouTube. Godless Engineer. 31 August 2024.

Meeting the Authors of Christ Before Jesus: "Godless Engineer" wrote: 36:51
M>>>We think that the Marcionite branch or some Proto Marcionite branch is more or less the origin for the Christian beliefs and they believed that Jesus was more or less a demigod like jiren was saying his first appearance is actually in Luke four what we call Luke 4 now at least where he descends into capernium he went down into capernium is how it's translated now but in the original version marcion's version he literally descends from the sky we have multiple attestations to this.

And you can see in the Gospel of Luke where the editors the later Christian editors in the 140s 150s 160s actually flip verses and they get the they mess the whole story up and you don't really see it it's not talked about a lot but it's Luke 4 let's see 23 right Jaren

J>>>Yes Luke 4:23 is the in you you can notice that or you can see in the English version of the Bible you can see where it's that's where it's more or less starting to stitch together with marcion's prior gospel

M>>>Right so what happens there is it's that line you know physician heal thyself um they say do here in your hometown because he just arrived at Nazareth again what you did in capernium well two problems with that first off in the story of Luke he has not been to capernium yet he doesn't go to capernum until 4:31 and on top of that he hasn't performed any Miracles or signs or healings yet because he doesn't do that until later in Luke but what happened is the later proto Catholic editors of what we have of Luke today messed up the order in marcion's gospel and so we can see that textual evidence there on top of the fact that we can see the prior three chapters were added on by a later author so the original Gospel of Luke at least was marcion's version and it's very possible that it was the original gospel and that's exactly when we start seeing attestation to all these figures for example Justin Martyr writing in the 150s and 160s never says the name Paul one time.

So he doesn't have access to gospels he he has what he calls Memoirs of the Apostles and maybe they're textual gospels at that point but he doesn't have our four gospels he seems to use some variation of the Gospel of Peter and before that we don't have anybody talking about gospels even if you attribute like ignacius and Clement to earlier they don't talk about any gospels so like you said you know the gospels might have been based on Paul whether it was that way or the other way around it's clear that nobody's really talking gospels until much later

J>>>Right so in order for the Jesus to be a historical figure uh that people are following and somehow connected to this Christianity it would have to be something that after 30 would have been so small that we don't see any sign of them whatsoever uh but somehow the story lives on and once Pliny runs into them up in Northern Asia Minor which means they spread so far from Judea that they go all the way to Northern Asia Minor uh that he doesn't even find a connection with Judaism or really anything there

There is a letter um quoted by a former slave of emperor hadrien that mentions that uh the Christians live exist in Alexandria this is in the 130s um and he says he's writing to a friend in Alexandria he says hey there's Christians in Alexandria Egypt but there's also uh there's also Christians up in the northern part of the Roman Empire and they worship Serapis Christus.

Now Serapis, in specific, was a God that was worshiped in Asia Minor um as well as you know Marcion comes from Sinope as Matthew stated that is the biggest city in the specific province that Piny the Younger was governor in 111 so it it's just there's no there's no evidence of connection between a Jesus figure and Christianity and the earliest form of Christianity.
A good 80 80 years after the supposed death of this person it just it's not just an argument of Silence from for Jesus it's for Jesus it's for Paul it's for the disciples it's for thousands of supposed Christians there's just nothing there but we do see it later as part of an evolution

And that's that's I guess where I'm coming from that I understand that people say hey how does dating the text later prove that Jesus doesn't exist and it's like okay if you understand how religions evolve if you understand how thought evolves over time we can see that in a much clearer view if things are in the second century that's why people like Bart Ehrman don't exactly want to um assume that Jesus is is uh fictional because if we have texts that are in the first century if we have texts that are dated with these mainstream dates then it's you know it's not that far off from the supposed death we don't see that Evolution like we're talking about as clearly.
42:16

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"Meeting the Authors of Christ Before Jesus". @time:00:36:51 per 2:18:26. YouTube. Godless Engineer. 31 August 2024.

Re: A wonderful Mythicist book: I am talking about “Christ before Jesus” by M. Britt and J. Wingo: dbz wrote: ↑Tue Sep 03, 2024 8:23 am "information even in the natural sense for Jesus is either lifted from you know some kind of Prior work"

• see @rgprice posts and study of this topic.

Jesus Tales wrote: ↑Sat Sep 07, 2024 9:30 pm I read the book. Great job.
[...]
[T]he whole of Jeremiah 16 is crucial to Mark's Jesus of Nazareth. It begins with a call to celibacy, in Jeremiah's case specifically because of the impending doom. This is echoed in Jesus's prediction of end times, which I take as the War in 66-70 CE. Then Jeremiah is told that YHWH will no longer be called the god of who brought them out of Egypt (Moses-Jesus son of Nun narrative) but the god who gathered his people and put them back into the land (Jesus son of Jehozadak). This promise is repeated in Jeremiah 23, just before the first promise of the Branch named "YHWH is our righteousness," which is also made twice and answered twice in Zechariah as Jesus son of Jehozadak (Jehozadak means "YHWH is Righteous").

Some Jeremiah events lead to Jesus, such as being arrested. Other Jeremiah events lead to Josephus, such as trying to talk the leaders of JErusalem into laying down their arms and surrendering to a much greater military force.

David Strauss (1808–1874), at the age of 27 years, pioneered the search for the "Historical Jesus" by rejecting all supernatural events as mythical elaborations. His 1835 work, Life of Jesus, was one of the first and most influential systematic analyses of the life story of Jesus, aiming to base it on unbiased historical research. Strauss viewed the miraculous accounts of Jesus' life in the gospels in terms of myths which had arisen as a result of the community's imagination as it retold stories and represented natural events as miracles.

Albert Schweitzer wrote in The Quest of the Historical Jesus that Strauss's arguments "filled in the death-certificates of a whole series of explanations which, at first sight, have all the air of being alive, but are not really so".

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--"Quest for the historical Jesus". Wikipedia. Retrieved 6 September 2024.

[T]hree minimal facts on which historicity rests:

1. An actual man at some point named Jesus acquired followers in life who continued as an identifiable movement after his death.
2. This is the same Jesus who was claimed by some of his followers to have been executed by the Jewish or Roman authorities.
3. This is the same Jesus some of whose followers soon began worshiping as a living god (or demigod).

That all three propositions are true shall be my minimal theory of historicity.

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--Carrier, Richard (2014). On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. Sheffield Phoenix Press. p. 34. [NOW FORMATTED].

[The Mythical Jesus viewpoint is] the theory that no historical Jesus worthy of the name existed, that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure, that the Gospels are essentially allegory and fiction...

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• Doherty, Earl (2009). Jesus: Neither God Nor Man - The Case for a Mythical Jesus. Age of Reason Publications. pp. vii–viii. ISBN 978-0-9689259-2-8.

dbz wrote: ↑Sat Jul 06, 2024 6:24 am

rgprice wrote: ↑Thu Jul 04, 2024 5:40 am For me the question is very simple. Were the Gospel narratives . . . accounts of the ministry teachings of a real person named Jesus?

If the answer is no then "Jesus did not exist."

If yes. Then Jesus, a H. sapien on Earth, is defined as one whose historicity is > 50 percent on a methodologically correct Bayesian approach to the putative valid evidence.

1. Highly plausible. This really would have been a typical cult for this time and place.
2. Also plausible. Crucifixion was a standard Roman means of executing rebels, and having a crowd loudly claim you were the true King of the Jews come to kick out the Romans was the sort of thing about which the Romans would probably not have been all that happy.
3. Possible. This sort of rationalisation is in line with how people have been known to react to events that should theoretically shatter their most deeply held beliefs.
4. Possible. While it’s highly doubtful that early Christianity showed the massive rate of growth that Luke tried to depict in Acts, there are always plenty of people around in search of passionate leaders who give them a dream to follow.
5. Plausible, since this hypothesis fits very smoothly with what we know about one particularly famous and influential Hellenised member of the early church; Paul. We know that he taught a theology that he believed he’d learned from visions, that he saw these visions as a better and more valid source of information than the teachings of the existing church, and (from Galatians) that he had at least one clash with the existing church over differences in teachings. We don’t know the details of the theological differences (because we have no pre-Pauline writings from the original church) and so can’t confirm whether ‘Paul reinterpreted the crucifixion as a sin sacrifice when the original church hadn’t seen it that way at all’ was the actual point of contention, but this is, at the least, a very plausible point at which that belief could have arisen.

Re: Why I think a historical Jesus is best explanation for earliest texts: neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 11:58 pm If neither gospels nor Paul speak of a historical Jesus then there is no evidence from the time of the gospels and Paul for a historical Jesus.

If there is no evidence for a HJ, then that counts, quite reasonably many would say, as evidence against an HJ having existed.

By then elaborating what happened in generations after the time of the supposed HJ does not add anything to an argument for an HJ.
[...]
If we don't have any evidence for unicorns we cannot say whether they exist or not -- because, to complete the circle -- we have no evidence.

Jesus Tales wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2024 10:40 am

Jesus Tales wrote: ↑Sat Aug 31, 2024 11:12 pm Mark is, imho, about the fall of Jerusalem.

...the two conquests of Jerusalem. It is YHWH's anointed who conquers Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Vespasian, are all picked by YHWH to interact with Israel for YHWH's purposes.

Jesus Tales wrote: ↑Sat Sep 07, 2024 8:25 pm We have the conquest in 586 BCE and in 70 CE. (I do think Zechariah 9-14 uses a rehash of Absalom's rebellion, and Mark uses both, to retell the conquest by Ptolemy in about 300 BCE, when he took lots of the elites as well as slaves to Alexandria).

• What is your Markan chronology of authorship & redaction?

• Jesus Tales wrote: ↑Sat Sep 07, 2024 8:45 pm My Markan chronology is basic. Immediately after Jerusalem falls in 70 CE. It is important to note that Vespasian does not only end the violence in Judea, he also ends the violence in Rome, after the year of four emperors. So a Mark located in Rome of some other major Greek city might be grateful to an end to war and being asked who they support and why.
  
  I have not looked at scholarship an how Mark was pieced together. The only portion I consider post-Mark is 16:9-... I am only looking at what in Mark can be directly explained from four huge sources that take up a lot of space in the OT.
  
  Certainly once a person sees Jesus of Nazareth as constructed from fiction, terms like "criterion of embarrassment" carry no weight. Arguments over the "empty tomb" or "taken down at evening" or was Judas original fall away because they are so directly linked to the OT sources.
  
  However..., seeing how well Matthew, Luke and John recognized Mark's sources and expanded on them, I would not be surprised to find that a later addition to Mark also used Mark's sources.
  
  But I have to put that side of things off to some later time, or leave it to someone else. I don't think I'll finish what I already have on my plate if I live another 60 years!!

Peter Kirby » May 25, 2015 wrote: ↑ I undertook to study the book of "Luke," broken up into logical units according to whether the verses are in the Sondergut (special Luke), double tradition (Luke//Matthew), or triple tradition & Mark//Luke. In just one case, that of the fourth chapter, I mixed in some data regarding Marcion's text. I also excluded the genealogy section entirely as it is highly irregular (for text) and unable to offer the kind of data about the habits in the use of natural language that stylometry requires.

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--"Who's the Source, "Luke"? -- A Basic Stylometric Study - Academic Discussion - Biblical Criticism & History Forum". earlywritings.com

mlinssen wrote: ↑Wed Oct 11, 2023 3:47 am Gospels, Epistles, Old Testament: the order of books according to Jesus Chri st
[...]
Sample first chapter and Table of Contents

Peter Kirby wrote: ↑Tue Sep 03, 2024 9:42 pm This thread has the relevant data. It surpasses ML's book in the presentation of the data.

Peter Kirby » Jan 23, 2024 wrote: ↑ I'd like to build up a database of primary source material and interpretation of it on the subject. The subject is that of these words, their associated abbreviations (if they are abbreviations), and related words in early Christian / Chrestian texts:

• Χρηστος
• Χριστος
• Χρειστος

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--"The X-Files: Chrēstos / Christos / Χρειστος - Academic Discussion - Biblical Criticism & History Forum". earlywritings.com.

GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Sat Sep 07, 2024 3:10 am

Detering wrote:

...there were no eyewitnesses or earwitnesses in the sense of the Gospels...

...there were no eyewitnesses or earwitnesses in the sense of the Gospels when Galatians were written because a Gospel Jesus didn't exist.

Host @37:51, "What about the slightly more modest claim that the gospels are still rooted in eye and ear witness testimony..."

Dr. Robyn Faith Walsh @38:59, "I think that's a fair portrait of what may be going on. The caveat..."
https://youtu.be/ll7OYDjk2F4?t=2339

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Did Eyewitnesses Write the Gospels? YouTube