The Christians' only hope for extrabiblical evidence for Jesus: Josephus

[OzmO]

Great posts, MCWAY!

Yes, I have more unanswered questions/challenges:

Produce any ancient texts that deny the existence of Jesus.

Produce any ancient texts which link Christianity to any pagan cult.

If Jesus is a myth, a lie invented by the original Christians, why did they leave everything behind to live a life of persecution, ridicule, poverty, torture and horrible death?  Why did they not fight back when done all these things to them, but instead showed restraint, patience, peace and love, the very things they claimed this Jesus taught them by word and by example?  Nobody would ever do anything like this for a lie they just invented themselves.

As MCWAY said
How do these alleged interpolations deny the existence of Jesus?  They may deny his divinity, but not his existence.  His existence/historicity is what we are discussing here.

I have no doubt that Jesus exsisted.  That much is evident.

What is in question is his divinity.   

Was it established long after his death when the gospels were written?

Was it a rumor that spread acroos the land of his alleged resurection that in time developed into a religion?

Was he in a coma on the cross and did he "miraculously" come out of the coma 3 days later and consequentially was viewed by those who ignorant to comas as rising from the dead?

did the writers of the gospel embelish this rising from the dead long after Jesus died of natural causes.   Were the goshpels then altered by those who could see the begginings of a new and powerful religion?

that's the problem with finding out facts fromt he past.  It's difficult to be accurate unless you were there to wittness it.

Was it all really just a political struggle between the house of herod and teh house of David for the crown?

[Deicide]

Great posts, MCWAY!

Yes, I have more unanswered questions/challenges:

Produce any ancient texts that deny the existence of Jesus.

Produce any ancient texts which link Christianity to any pagan cult.

If Jesus is a myth, a lie invented by the original Christians, why did they leave everything behind to live a life of persecution, ridicule, poverty, torture and horrible death?  Why did they not fight back when done all these things to them, but instead showed restraint, patience, peace and love, the very things they claimed this Jesus taught them by word and by example?  Nobody would ever do anything like this for a lie they just invented themselves.

As MCWAY said
How do these alleged interpolations deny the existence of Jesus?  They may deny his divinity, but not his existence.  His existence/historicity is what we are discussing here.

Not a lie, but a saviour deity who was crucified and slain in a mythic realm. This is the standard neo-platonic view of things, much as Attis, Osiris and others were killed and raised in mythic realms. This is how St. Paul views the Christ Jesus figure as he has heard of none of the Gospel events.

Early Christians' behaviour can be sufficiently explained by sociological factors. Never mind that you are making blanket statements. When did they do and show these things? When they were burning books? Or when they killed Hypathia?

An interpolation can occur when no other information is offered or available. Apologists of later centuries (2nd and 3rd) eager to see their myths vindicated readily invented 'evidence' where there was none. Ever hear of the Donation of Constantine? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine There can be multiple motivations.

Read or reread Robert Price's Essay:

Christ a Fiction (1997)
Robert M. Price
 

I remember a particular Superboy comic book in which the Boy of Steel somehow discovers that in the future, he is thought to be as mythical as Peter Pan and Santa Claus. Indignant at this turn of events, he flies at faster than light speed and enters the future to set the record straight. He does a few super-deeds and vindicates himself, then comes home. So Superboy winds up having the last laugh --or does he?

Of course, it is only fiction! The people in the future were quite right! Superboy is just as mythical as Santa Claus and Peter Pan.

This seems to me a close parallel to the efforts of Christian apologists to vindicate as sober history the story of a supernatural savior who was born of a virgin, healed the sick, raised the dead, changed water into wine, walked on water, rose from the grave and ascended bodily into the sky.

I used to think, when I myself was a Christian apologist, a defender of the evangelical faith, that I had done a pretty respectable job of vindicating that story as history. I brought to bear a variety of arguments I now recognize to be fallacious, such as the supposed closeness of the gospels to the events they record, their ostensibly use of eyewitness testimony, etc. Now, in retrospect, I judge that my efforts were about as effective in the end as Superboy's! When all is said and done, he remains a fiction.

One caveat: I intend to set forth, briefly, some reasons for the views I now hold. I do not expect that the mere fact that I was once an evangelical apologist and now see things differently should itself count as evidence that I must be right. That would be the genetic fallacy. It would be just as erroneous to think that John Rankin [?] must be right in having embraced evangelical Christianity since he had once been an agnostic Unitarian and repudiated it for the Christian faith. In both cases, what matters is the reasons for the change of mind, not merely the fact of it.

Having got that straight, let me say that I think there are four senses in which Jesus Christ may be said to be a "fiction."

First (and, I warn you, this one takes by far the most explaining): It is quite likely, though certainly by no means definitively provable, that the central figure of the gospels is not based on any historical individual. Put simply, not only is the theological "Christ of faith" a synt hetic construct of theologians, a symbolic "Uncle Sam" figure. But if you could travel through time, like Superboy, and you went back to First-Century Nazareth, you would not find a Jesus living there. Why conclude this? There are three reasons, which I must oversimplify for time's sake.

1) In broad outline and in detail, the life of Jesus as portrayed in the gospels corresponds to the worldwide Mythic Hero Archetype in which a divine hero's birth is supernaturally predicted and conceived, the infant hero escapes attempts to kill him, demonstrates his precocious wisdom already as a child, receives a divine commission, defeats demons, wins acclaim, is hailed as king, then betrayed, losing popular favor, executed, often on a hilltop, and is vindicated and taken up to heaven.

These features are found world wide in heroic myths and epics. The more closely a supposed biography, say that of Hercules, Apollonius of Tyana, Padma Sambhava, of Gautama Buddha, corresponds to this plot formula, the more likely the historian is to conclude that a historical figure has been transfigured by myth.

And in the case of Jesus Christ, where virtually every detail of the story fits the mythic hero archetype, with nothing left over, no "secular," biographical data, so to speak, it becomes arbitrary to assert that there must have been a historical figure lying back of the myth. There may have been, but it can no longer be considered particularly probable, and that's all the historian can deal with: probabilities.

There may have been an original King Arthur, but there is no particular reason to think so. There may have been a historical Jesus of Nazareth, too, but, unlike most of my colleagues in the Jesus Seminar, I don't think we can simply assume there was.

2) Specifically, the passion stories of the gospels strike me as altogether too close to contemporary myths of dying and rising savior gods including Osiris, Tammuz, Baal, Attis, Adonis, Hercules, and Asclepius. Like Jesus, these figures were believed to have once lived a life upon the earth, been killed, and risen shortly thereafter. Their deaths and resurrections were in most cases ritually celebrated each spring to herald the return of the life to vegetation. In many myths, the savior's body is anointed for burial, searched out by holy women and then reappear alive a few days later.

3) Similarly, the details of the crucifixion, burial and resurrection accounts are astonishingly similar to the events of several surviving popular novels from the same period in which two lovers are separated when one seems to have died and is unwittingly entombed alive. Grave robbers discover her reviving and kidnap her. Her lover finds the tomb empty, graveclothes still in place, and first concludes she has been raised up from death and taken to heaven. Then, realizing what must have happened, he goes in search of her. During his adventures, he is sooner or later condemned to the cross or actually crucified, but manages to escape. When at length the couple is reunited, neither, having long imagined the other dead, can quite believe the lover is alive and not a ghost come to say farewell.

There have been two responses to such evidence by apologists. First, they have contended that all these myths are plagiarized from the gospels by pagan imitators, pointing out that some of the evidence is post-Christian 2E But much is in fact preChristian. And it is significant that the early Christian apologists argued that these parallels to the gospels were counterfeits in advance, by Satan, who knew the real thing would be coming along later and wanted to throw people off the track. This is like the desperate Nineteenth-Century attempts of fundamentalists to claim that Satan had created fake dinosaur bones to tempt the faithful not to believe in Genesis! At any rate, and this is my point, no one would have argued this way had the pagan myths of dead and resurrected gods been more recent than the Christian.

Second, in a variation on the theme, C.S. Lewis suggested that in Jesus' case "myth became fact." He admitted the whole business about the Mythic Hero archetype and the similarity to the pagan saviors, only he made them a kind of prophetic charade, creations of the yearning human heart, dim adumbrations of the incarnation of Christ before it actually happened. The others were myths, but this one actually happened.

In answer to this, I think of an anecdote told by my colleague Bruce Chilton, how, staying the weekend at the home of a friend, he was surprised to see that the guest bathroom was festooned with a variety of towels filched from the Hilton, the Ramada Inn, the Holiday Inn, etc. Which was more likely, he asked: that representatives from all these hotels had sneaked into his friend's bathroom and each copied one of the towel designs? Or that his friend had swiped them from their hotels?

Lewis's is an argument of desperation which no one would think of making unless he was hell-bent on believing that, though all the other superheroes (Batman, Captain Marvel, the Flash) were fictions, Superboy was in fact genuine.

3) The New Testament epistles can be read quite naturally as presupposing a period in which Christians did not yet believe their savior god had been a figure living on earth in the recent historical past. Paul, for instance, never even mentions Jesus performing healings and even as a teacher. Twice he cites what he calls "words of the Lord," but even conservative New Testament scholars admit he may as easily mean prophetic revelations from the heavenly Christ. Paul attributes the death of Jesus not to Roman or Jewish governments, but rather to the designs of evil "archon," angels who rule this fallen world. Romans and 1 Peter both warn Christians to watch their step, reminding them that the Roman authorities never punish the righteous, but only the wicked. How they have said this if they knew of the Pontius Pilate story?

The two exceptions, 1 Thessalonians and 2 Timothy, epistles that do blame Pilate or Jews for the death of Jesus, only serve to prove the rule. Both can easily be shown on other grounds to be non-Pauline and later than the gospels.

Jesus was eventually "historicized," redrawn as a human being of the past (much as Samson, Enoch, Jabal, Gad, Joshua the son of Nun, and various other ancient Israelite gods had already been). As a part of this process, there were various independent attempts to locate Jesus in recent history by laying the blame for his death on this or that likely candidate, well known tyrants including Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate, and even Alexander Jannaeus in the first century BC! Now, if the death of Jesus were an actual historical event well known to eyewitnesses of it, there is simply no way such a variety of versions, differing on so fundamental a point, could ever have arisen!

And if early Christians had actually remembered the passion as a series of recent events, why does the earliest gospel crucifixion account spin out the whole terse narrative from quotes cribbed without acknowledgement from Psalm 22? Why does 1 Peter have nothing more detailed than Isaiah 53 to flesh out his account of the sufferings of Jesus? Why does Matthew supplement Mark's version, not with historical tradition or eyewitness memory, but with more quotes, this time from Zechariah and the Wisdom of Solomon?

Thus I find myself more and more attracted to the theory, once vigorously debated by scholars, now smothered by tacit consent, that there was no historical Jesus lying behind the stained glass of the gospel mythology. Instead, he is a fiction.

Rejoinders:

1) We deem them myths not because of a prior bias that there can be no miracles, but because of the Principle of Analogy, the only alternative to which is believing everything in The National Inquirer. If we do not use the standard of current-day experience to evaluate claims from the past, what other standard is there? And why should we believe that God or Nature used to be in the business of doing things that do not happen now? Isn't God supposed to be the same yesterday, today, and forever?

2) The apologists' claim that there was "too little time between the death of Jesus and the writing of the gospels for legends to develop" is circular, presupposing a historical Jesus living at a particular time. 40 years is easily enough time for legendary expansion anyway, but the Christ-Myth Theory does not require that the Christ figure was created in Pontius Pilate's time, only that later, Pilate's time was retrospectively chosen as a location for Jesus.

a) See Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History on the tendency in oral tradition to keep updating mythic foundational events, keeping them always at a short distance, a couple of generations before one's own time.

b) And even if there were a historical Jesus and we knew we had eyewitness reports, the apologists fail to take into account recent studies which show that eyewitness testimony, especially of unusual events, is the most unreliable of all, that people tend to rewrite what they saw in light of their accustomed categories and expectations. Thus Strauss was right on target suggesting that the early Christians simply imagined Jesus fulfilling the expected deeds of messiahs and prophets.

3) It is special pleading to dismiss all similar stories as myths and to insist that this case must be different. If you do this, admit it, you are a fideist, no longer an apologist (if there is any difference!).

Second, the "historical Jesus" reconstructed by New Testament scholars is always a reflection of the individual scholars who reconstruct him. Albert Schweitzer was perhaps the single exception, and he made it painfully clear that previous questers for the historical Jesus had merely drawn self-portraits. All unconsciously used the historical Jesus as a ventriloquist dummy. Jesus must have taught the truth, and their own beliefs must have been true, so Jesus must have taught those beliefs. (Of course, every biblicist does the same! "I said it! God believes it! That settles it!"). Today's Politically Correct "historical Jesuses" are no different, being mere clones of the scholars who design them.

C.S. Lewis was right about this in The Screwtape Letters: "Each 'historical Jesus' is unhistorical. The documents say what they say and cannot be added to." But, as apologists so often do, he takes fideism as the natural implication when agnosticism would seem called for. What he imagines the gospels so clearly to "say" is the mythic hero! When, in his essay, "Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism," Lewis pulls rank as a self-declared expert and denies that the gospels are anything like ancient myths, one can only wonder what it was he must have been smoking in that ever-present pipe of his!

My point here is simply that, even if there was a historical Jesus lying back of the gospel Christ, he can never be recovered. If there ever was a historical Jesus, there isn't one any more. All attempts to recover him turn out to be just modern remythologizings of Jesus. Every "historical Jesus" is a Christ of faith, of somebody's faith. So the "historical Jesus" of modern scholarship is no less a fiction.

Third, Jesus as the personal savior, with whom people claim, as I used to, to have a "personal relationship" is in the nature of the case a fiction, essentially a psychological projection, an "imaginary playmate." It is no different at all from pop-psychological "visualization" exercises, or John Bradshaw's gimmick of imagining a healing encounter with loved ones of the past, or Jean Houston leading Hillary Clinton in an admittedly imaginary dialogue with Eleanor Roosevelt.

I suppose there is nothing wrong with any of this, but one ought to recognize it, as Hillary Clinton and Jean Houston, and John Bradshaw do, as imaginative fiction. And so with the personal savior.

The alternative is something like channeling. You have "tuned in" to the spirit of an ancient guru, named Jesus, and you are receiving revelations from him, usually pretty trivial stuff, minor conscience proddings and the like. Some sort of imaginary telepathy.

In fact I don't believe most evangelical pietists mean anything by "having a personal relationship with Christ" than a fancy, overblown name for reading the Bible and saying their prayers. But if they did really refer to some kind of a "personal relationship," it would in effect be a case of channeling. I suspect this is why fundamentalists who condemn New Age channelers do not dismiss it as a fraud pure and simple (though obviously it is), but instead think that Ramtha and the others are channeling demons. If they said it was sheer delusion, they know where the other four fingers would wind up pointing!

Especially in view of the fact that the piety of "having a personal relationship with Christ" and "inviting him into your heart" is alien to the New Testament and is never intimated there as far as I can see, it is amazing to me that evangelicals elevate it to the shibboleth of salvation! Unless you have a personal relationship with Jesus, buster, one day you will be boiling in Hell. Sheesh! Talk about the fury of a personal savior scorned!

No one ever heard of this stuff till the German Pietist movement of the Eighteenth Century. To make a maudlin type of devotionalism the password to heaven is like the fringe Pentecostal who tells you can't get into heaven unless you speak in tongues. "You ask me how I know he lives?" asks the revival chorus. "He lives within my heart." Exactly! A figment.

Fourth, Christ is a fiction in that Christ functions, in an unnoticed and equivocal way, as shorthand for a vast system of beliefs and institutions on whose behalf he is invoked. Put simply, this means that when an evangelist or an apologist invites you to have faith "in Christ," they are in fact smuggling in a great number of other issues. For example, Chalcedonian Christology, the doctrine of the Trinity, the Protestant idea of faith and grace, a particular theory of biblical inspiration and literalism, habits of church attendance, etc. These are all distinct and open questions. Theologians have debated them for many centuries and still debate them. Rank and file believers still debate them, as you know if you have ever spent time talking with one of Jehovah's Witnesses or a Seventh Day Adventist. If you hear me say that and your first thought is "Oh no, those folks aren't real Christians," you're just proving my point! Who gave Protestant fundamentalists the copyright on the word Christian?

No evangelist ever invites people to accept Christ by faith and then to start examining all these other associated issues for themselves. Not one! The Trinity, biblical inerrancy, for some even anti-Darwinism, are non-negotiable. You cannot be genuinely saved if you don't tow the party line on these points. Thus, for them, "to accept Christ" means "to accept Trinitarianism, biblicism, creationism, etc." And this in turn means that "Christ" is shorthand for this whole raft of doctrines and opinions, all of which one is to accept "by faith," on someone else's say-so.

When Christ becomes a fiction in this sense he is an umbrella for an unquestioning acceptance of what some preacher or institution tells us to believe. And this is nothing new, no mutant distortion of Christianity. Paul already requires "the taking of every thought captive to Christ," already insists on "the obedience of faith." Here Christ has already become what he was to Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor, a euphemism for the dogmatic party line of an institution. Dostoyevsky's point, of course, was that the "real" Jesus stands opposed to this use of his name to sanction religious oppression. But remember, though it is a noble one, Dostoyevsky's Jesus is also a piece of fiction! It is, after all, "The Parable of the Grand Inquisitor."

So, then, Christ may be said to be a fiction in the four senses that 1) it is quite possible that there was no historical Jesus. 2) Even if there was, he is lost to us, the result being that there is no historical Jesus available to us. And 3) the Jesus who "walks with me and talks with me and tells me I am his own" is an imaginative visualization and in the nature of the case can be nothing more than a fiction. And finally, 4) "Christ" as a corporate logo for this and that religious institution is a euphemistic fiction, not unlike Ronald McDonald, Mickey Mouse, or Joe Camel, the purpose of which is to get you to swallow a whole raft of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors by an act of simple faith, short-circuiting the dangerous process of thinking the issues out to your own conclusions.[/b]

[Deicide]

I have no doubt that Jesus exsisted.  That much is evident.

What is in question is his divinity.   

Was it established long after his death when the gospels were written?

Was it a rumor that spread acroos the land of his alleged resurection that in time developed into a religion?

Was he in a coma on the cross and did he "miraculously" come out of the coma 3 days later and consequentially was viewed by those who ignorant to comas as rising from the dead?

did the writers of the gospel embelish this rising from the dead long after Jesus died of natural causes.   Were the goshpels then altered by those who could see the begginings of a new and powerful religion?

that's the problem with finding out facts fromt he past.  It's difficult to be accurate unless you were there to wittness it.

Was it all really just a political struggle between the house of herod and teh house of David for the crown?

Read Price's essay too!

[Deicide]

I've been to his site a few times, and I've interacted with him on different forums. That's partially how I found out where you kept getting all these long-winded tirades.

The "proclaiming without evidence" part falls on you, as you've proclaimed that certain texts with references to Jesus Christ were forgeries, with little proof to back your statement. Instead, you've relied on flimsy speculation. A prime example is your reference to the Sanhedrin account of Jesus. You called it "late" (when it's in all likelihood, it's the earliest known copy in existence); you accused it of being inaccurate, because it "mentions stoning and hanging", not knowing (or forgetting) that stoning the the normal punishment for being convicted of sorcery and the Hebbrew word for "hanging" can refer to crucifixion.

Another example is your attempt to find fault with the Tacitus account, based on the "incorrect" title for Pilate. The claim that he was a prefect, not a procurator, is weak. The term "prefect" is a more generic title than the term "procurator" is. To recap:

Prefect - any of various high officials or magistrates* of differing functions and ranks in ancient Rome.
(*magistrate - a local official excercising administrative and often judicial functions)

Procurator - an officer of the Roman empire, entrusted with management of financial affairs of a province and often having administrative powers as the agent of the emperor.[/i]


As far as interpolations go, the only extra-Biblical accounts that has been shown to have such is the Greek version of the Testimonium. But, it's been clearly shown that:

- Such only relate to Jesus' divinity, not His existence (which is the whole focus of this discussion).
- Such interpolations is only with the first reference to Jesus, not the second.
- No such interpolation occurs in the Arabic version of the Testimonium


Speaking of unanswered questions, there are plenty on your plate you might want to digest, before complaining about yours not being addressed. They include:

Loco's asking you to produce a copy of the Testimonium with no reference to Jesus Christ, whatsoever, to back your claim about all the references to Him being forgeries.

Finding a "Jesus", other than Jesus Christ who (as far as Josephus' Testimonium goes):

- Had followers named after Him
- Was executed by Pilate
- Had His disciples reporting that He'd ressurected from the dead

Finding a "Yeshua", other than Jesus Christ who (as far as the Sanhedrin account goes):

- Was accused of sorcery
- Was "hanged", aka crucified, to death
- Had the aforementioned death occur on the eve of Passover

Or, another Christus who (as far as Tacitus goes):

- Had followers named after Him
- Had the "pernicious superstition" repressed due to His death
- Had the aforementioned death carried out by Pilate
- Had the "pernicious superstition" break out afresh like a plague, shortly after His death

Loco probably has some more questions you haven't addressed. But, I'll let him refresh your memory on those. The bottom line is that your claims about there being no extra-Biblical evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ are as false today as they were the first time you posted them here and went spam-crazy.

I noticed the former prison guard turned expert apologist style in you. Lots of abusive language, strong assertions without connecting the dots. J.P. Holdings is a fraud. Robert Turkel (his real name):

http://www.truthbeknown.com/holding.htm

James Patrick Holding, aka Robert Turkel, was a prison librarian somewhere in Florida and has no credentials, other than a streetfighter's sharp mouth. My own credentials--meager in quantity but not in quality--are far greater than Holding's, but he is a hypocrite living in a glass house and throwing stones, and there is little one can do about it except call him on it.

Worse, he is a thug and a vulgar, unkind person:

http://the-anointed-one.com/quotes.htm

"It's quite clear that even you admit that 'honesty' works under the assumption that the recipient has a RIGHT to the truth. When they don't, the moral hierarchy shifts and it is patently absurd to call them 'lies' or 'deceptions' in a derogatory sense."

"It's an example of exactly how Western society has become sick and anemic and worthless, trying to escape the judgment and scorn that it richly deserves." 9/9/04

comment:
This comment was made in reply to a poster on TWEB. The poster asked Turkel why he was so obnoxious and insulting to people there. Holding tried to justify his behavior by referring to something called the "challenge riposte" paradigm, which is cited in this Tektonics.org article. Here is an excerpt:


"We shall see that differing rules apply in a situation in which the venue is a public forum, as this site is. Now let us consult Malina and Rohrbaugh to see why."
"Many ancient societies (and we shall see below, certain modern social groups) engage in a process known as challenge-riposte. The scene of such processes is public venues in which two persons or groups have competing honor claims: '...the game of challenge-riposte is a central phenomenon, and one that must be played out in public.' [42] The purpose is for each party to try to undermine the honor, or social status, of the other in an exchange that 'answers in equal measures or ups the ante (and thereby challenges in return).' In the Gospels, Jesus 'evidences considerable skill at riposte and thereby reveals himself to be an honorable and authoritative prophet.'"

The TWEB poster contacted the author-Dr. Malina-whose work Turkel cited in his essay. Here is what the poster wrote to Dr. Malina:
"I'm hopeful I'm not being too presumptuous in contacting you here on such a trivial matter. It's a peeve, really, but I don't like bullies, esp those who claim a divine right to be such."
"There is an apologist(internet and some articles for Christian Research Journal) who cites your writing as justification for what reasonably appears to be abusive comportment with opponents. The only thing he actually cites is the last line in the following paragraph, taken from a short article."


"'Many ancient societies (and we shall see below, certain modern social groups) engage in a process known as challenge-riposte. The scene of such processes is public venues in which two persons or groups have competing honor claims: "...the game of challenge-riposte is a central phenomenon, and one that must be played out in public.[42]"'"
"He's educated, thorough, and really very clever at times but something wrong is lurking there. I can accept a little Schadenfreude but there is too much cruel-intent. The intellectual honesty of his apologetics is another point...but one I haven't the acumen to make."

...

"FYI: I am now an agnostic but I retain a fondness for Christianity. My wife is a sweetly devout voice, and with her, I don't wish to see it go away but rather become more noble."

This is what Dr. Malina wrote in reply:


"It sounds as though the person you refer to is using my description of behavior in the Mediterranean world of antiquity to sanction his behavior in the 21st century. If that is the case, then he is being silly. We live neither in the 1st century nor in the Mediterranean."
"People have been citing the bible for centuries in the name of some 'My Will Be Done' project (or religion). That some are doing this with my writings is no surprise."

In response to this embarrassing criticism, Turkel attacked Dr. Malina's statement, attacked the poster's comments and promptly closed the discussion thread-apparently in the hope that it would fade into obscurity.

A true scholar  :

"In your arrogance you missed it; you were so busy waving your giant pee-pee around that you bonked yourself on the head with it and didn’t even notice."

And a gentleman:

"Darn right I am. Responding, rebutting, lashing, destroying, making them cry and whine and get frustrated. You're victim #2,456, Bilbo...Sure has you running for cover, coward. Sure has you in denial. Sure has you refusing to enter the ring. Stay under your rock, burying beetle, the stench of dead meat becomes you."

comment:

The following few quotes are from e-mail exchanges Turkel had with fellow Christians.

Once again the that part of the Talmud was composed in the 3rd or 4th centuries and is so far from being contemporaneous as to be worthless. Documents written centuries later have little bearing on the matter at hand.

Obviously all the copies we have of the Testimonium (much like the Donation of Constantine) have this passage. Josephus would not write favourably about 'Jesus' You out and out claim that interpolation is impossible. What is the point is arguing about interpolation if you do not even concede its possibility? I have quoted Christians who call the Testimonium a outright fraud and yet you ignored them. Believe at any price has its merits I suppose. Speaking of Price, read Price's Essay.

[nzhardgain]

Which calender do u use trapezekerl?

[MCWAY]

I have no doubt that Jesus exsisted.  That much is evident.

What is in question is his divinity.   

Was it established long after his death when the gospels were written?

Well, according to traditional Biblical scholars, the Gospels were written shortly after Jesus' death, the latest being the gospel of John in the 90s A.D.

Was it a rumor that spread across the land of his alleged resurection that in time developed into a religion?

Had it been, it could have been easily squashed.

If it had just been a spiritual resurrection, the enemies of the New Testament church would have put the body of Jesus on a cart, walked it right down the streets of Jerusalem and killed Christianity, not just in the cradle but in the womb. There would have been no New Testament church, if they had the body. - Josh McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, also from the "Who is This Jesus? Is He Risen" special.

I would suggest that, even without Jesus' body, had Jesus not resurrected, all the Romans would have had to do was find the disciples and torture them, until they confessed that the whole thing was a fraud. The disciples did NOT come to the tomb to get His body. According to the gospel of Matthew, the guards at the tomb went to the Pharisees for help, because Jesus was gone and they faced the death penalty for letting that seal on the tomb get broken.

All they had to do was make sure that Jesus' body stayed in the tomb until Monday (or whatever the corresponding day was back then); then, both they and the Pharisees' could have simply stated that His body was stolen.

Plus, Paul states that Jesus appears to the disciples and to 500 witnesses, over the span of about six weeks.

Was he in a coma on the cross and did he "miraculously" come out of the coma 3 days later and consequentially was viewed by those who ignorant to comas as rising from the dead?

Here's what Dr. Gary Habermas from the special, Who Is This Jesus? Is He Risen, and author of the book The Historical Jesus, had to say on the claim that Jesus may not have actually died on the cross (aka the “Swoon Theory”):

The Swoon Theory is held by virtually no reputable scholars today. Death by crucifixion is essentially death by asphyxiation; you don’t get down off the cross alive. Plus, there’s the nature of the spear, which enters the chest cavity through the rib cage and penetrates the heart. In short, it would have killed Him, if He weren’t already dead.

In the Gospels, Joseph of Arimithea asks Pilate for the body of Jesus. When Pilate hears of Jesus’ death, he is surprised that He died so, relatively speaking, quickly (remember that crucifixion was designed to maximize suffering). So, Pilate sent someone to confirm that Jesus was indeed dead, before releasing custody of His body to Joseph. I'd hardly classify Joseph or Pilate as "ignorant".

And, you will recall that, when the women go to the tomb, they go with spices with the intent of finishing the burial process. All the while, they are contemplating how they are going to move the stone, which has since been sealed with a Roman seal and had guards there, due to the Pharisees’ fear that the disciples would steal Jesus’ body and then claim that He’d risen from the grave, as Jesus said He would.

did the writers of the gospel embelish this rising from the dead long after Jesus died of natural causes.   Were the goshpels then altered by those who could see the begginings of a new and powerful religion?

The power of Christianity and the foundation of it is the Resurrection. Remember the disciples saw Jesus die firsthand and were scared to death. They didn't believe it, when the women reported that He'd risen. Some disciples didn't believe it, even when the other disciples saw the risen Christ (the most famous of which is Thomas).

that's the problem with finding out facts fromt he past.  It's difficult to be accurate unless you were there to wittness it.

That's why the closer ancient manuscripts are to the events they describe, the more likely they are to be authentic. No other ancient documents can match the Gospels in that category.

Was it all really just a political struggle between the house of herod and teh house of David for the crown? 

Nope! Jesus made it clear, that He did NOT come to establish an earthly kingdom. Despite that, some of His disciples didn't get it. The mother of two disciples was politicking to get her sons cushy positions in what she perceived to be Jesus' new earthly kingdom. Some believe that the motive behind Judas' betrayal of Jesus was forcing His hand, so that He would start a crusade to crush Rome and set up shop (with Judas having a nice desk job as treasurer; he was, after all, the one who held the bag).

[MCWAY]

I noticed the former prison guard turned expert apologist style in you. Lots of abusive language, strong assertions without connecting the dots. J.P. Holdings is a fraud. Robert Turkel (his real name):

http://www.truthbeknown.com/holding.htm
 

Worse, he is a thug and a vulgar, unkind person:

http://the-anointed-one.com/quotes.htm
 
 

A true scholar  :

And a gentleman:

And this information about Holding/Turkel vindicates your not addressing the aforementioned questions poised to you how?

 

Once again the that part of the Talmud was composed in the 3rd or 4th centuries and is so far from being contemporaneous as to be worthless. Documents written centuries later have little bearing on the matter at hand.

Then, you should be able to provide the information that shows that the known 200 A.D. Talmud document is the original, instead of a copy. Otherwise, it's yet more flimsy speculation on your part. Plus, you have yet to back your assertion that any of the information about "Yeshua" (Jesus) is incorrect. Again, show me a "Yeshua", other than Jesus Christ, who died on Passover Eve, by crucifixion, after being accused of sorcery.

Talking about Holding's background doesn't help your case one bit, yet alone address the topic of the historicity of Jesus Christ.

Obviously all the copies we have of the Testimonium (much like the Donation of Constantine) have this passage. Josephus would not write favourably about 'Jesus' You out and out claim that interpolation is impossible. What is the point is arguing about interpolation if you do not even concede its possibility? I have quoted Christians who call the Testimonium a outright fraud and yet you ignored them. Believe at any price has its merits I suppose. Speaking of Price, read Price's Essay.

Say what? I pointed out that, of the copies of the Testimonium known to us, the interpolation is only on the Greek version (and, only with regards to Jesus' divinity, NOT His existence). And, to top it all off, it's only on one of the two references to Jesus Christ. The Arabic version doesn't have such interpolation on either one.

Lest you use your "orthodox Jew" argument to bolster your claim about Josephus, not mentioning Jesus, remember that orthodox Jews penned the Old Testament that foretold Jesus' appearance. And, I already listed a number of orthodox Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah (or at least, has some divine power).

I have quoted Christians who have stated, specifically where the Testimonium was interpolated and which version had such interpolations (the Greek). You've ignored them. I guess denial at any price has its merits. Loco and I (independently of each other) have asked YOU to point out, specifically, where the alleged interpolations of Jesus' existence are, other than the known ones in the Greek version. You have not done so. All you've done is speculate that Josephus would or would not have said about Jesus Christ, an argument I addressed some time ago.

We pointed out where the divinity interpolations are. You claim that the whole thing was an interpolation: Bring your example of the Testimonium that does NOT have the name of Jesus Christ in it. Or at the very least, show where the Arabic version was altered.

[Deicide]

And this information about Holding/Turkel vindicates your not addressing the aforementioned questions poised to you how?

 
Then, you should be able to provide the information that shows that the known 200 A.D. Talmud document is the original, and not a copy. Otherwise, it's yet more flimsy speculation on your part. Plus, you have yet to refute that any of the information about "Yeshua" (Jesus) is incorrect. Again, show me a "Yeshua", other than Jesus Christ, who died on Passover Eve, by crucifixion, after being accused of sorcery.

Yapping about Holding's background doesn't help your case one bit, yet alone address the topic of the historicity of Jesus Christ.

Say what? I pointed out that, of the copies of the Testimonium known to us, the interpolation is only on the Greek version (and, only with regards to Jesus' divinity, NOT His existence). And, to top it all off, it's only on one of the two references to Jesus Christ. The Arabic version doesn't have such interpolation on either one.

I have quoted Christians who have stated, specifically where the Testimonium (Greek) was interpolated. You've ignored them. I guess denial at any price has its merits. Loco and I (independently of each other) have asked YOU to point out, specifically, where the alleged interpolations of Jesus' existence are. You have not done so. All you've done is speculate that Josephus would or would not have said about Jesus Christ, an argument I addressed some time ago.

We pointed out where the divinity interpolations are. You claim that the whole thing was an interpolation: Bring your evidence that the entire reference to Jesus was inserted.

Unfortunately in historical enquiry, particularly in ancient history all we can speak of are probabilities. We cannot speak in absolutes concerning ancient history. However I remind you that Josephus was an extremely strict orthodox Jew, thus the divine content can be thrown out right away. As for the the Arabic version we can readily see from the Bible how often manuscripts are altered and changed to suit the needs and wishes of those copying them. The Arabic version dates to the 10th century, why assume that the content of a 10th century manuscript is more original than that of a 4th century manuscript (the oldest we have of Josephus). The passage itself stems from a history of the world written by an Arab Christian bishop. He was a Christian writing in a Muslim dominated Syria. If you look at the passage:

 "At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders"

This version still paints a would be Messiah and rabble rouser in too favourable a light. Josephus would never call one of the many Messianic nutcases running around at the time a 'wise man' whose conduct was 'good'. You should read what he writes about similar such characters. This account, as I have already alluded to, corresponds well with the Muslim view of Joesphus. Again, all we can speak of are probabilities. Is is likely that Josephus would write these things about this Jesus? No, for he never writes them about all the other Messianic nuts he documents.

A document written in 200 CE is far to late to contain accurate information about a human Jesus/Yeshua. By then everyone knew what Christians believed and thought their founder was.

From all of this one thing should be apparent: the age of Jesus was not an age of critical reflection and remarkable religious acumen. It was an era filled with con artists, gullible believers, martyrs without a cause, and reputed miracles of every variety. In light of this picture, the tales of the Gospels do not seem very remarkable. Even if they were false in every detail, there is no evidence that they would have been disbelieved or rejected as absurd by many people, who at the time had little in the way of education or critical thinking skills. They had no newspapers, telephones, photographs, or public documents to consult to check a story. If they were not a witness, all they had was a man's word. And even if they were a witness, the tales above tell us that even then their skills of critical reflection were lacking. Certainly, this age did not lack keen and educated skeptics--it is not that there were no skilled and skeptical observers. There were. Rather, the shouts of the credulous rabble overpowered their voice and seized the world from them, boldly leading them all into the darkness of a thousand years of chaos. Perhaps we should not repeat the same mistake. After all, the wise learn from history. The fool ignores it.

Not in the habit of fact checking back then; 200 CE is too late to be considered of any value for relevance to events that purportedly happened in 30 CE. That is a fact. BTW, why is Paul not familiar with any of the events in the Gospel with the exception of the crucifixion and resurrection? Would not have he mentioned the Gospel story to strengthen his position? Ever think about that....?

[MCWAY]

Not a lie, but a saviour deity who was crucified and slain in a mythic realm. This is the standard neo-platonic view of things, much as Attis, Osiris and others were killed and raised in mythic realms. This is how St. Paul views the Christ Jesus figure as he has heard of none of the Gospel events.

That is simply incorrect. Once again, you forget that Paul personally interacted with at least two of Jesus' disciples (Peter and John). Therefore, he indeed heard of the Gospel events.

Early Christians' behaviour can be sufficiently explained by sociological factors. Never mind that you are making blanket statements. When did they do and show these things? When they were burning books? Or when they killed Hypathia?

What sociological factors would these be, especially when they were in an environment where it was in their best interestes sociologically NOT to be Christians?

An interpolation can occur when no other information is offered or available. Apologists of later centuries (2nd and 3rd) eager to see their myths vindicated readily invented 'evidence' where there was none. Ever hear of the Donation of Constantine? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine There can be multiple motivations.

An interpolation can indeed occur. Your problem is that you have yet to show one that actually DOES occur (and don't bother counting the larger passage in the Greek version of the Testimonium; Loco and I pointed that out, when we posted it on this thread).

Where's the interpolation in the Arabic version of the Testimonium, or Tacitus' Annals, or the Talmud?

[Deicide]

That is simply incorrect. Once again, you forget that Paul personally interacted with at least two of Jesus' disciples (Peter and John). Therefore, he indeed heard of the Gospel events.

What sociological factors would these be, especially when they were in an environment where it was in their best interestes sociologically NOT to be Christians?

An interpolation can indeed occur. Your problem is that you have yet to show one that actually DOES occur (and don't bother counting the larger passage in the Greek version of the Testimonium; Loco and I pointed that out, when we posted it on this thread).

Where's the interpolation in the Arabic version of the Testimonium, or Tacitus' Annals, or the Talmud?

I addressed the issue of interpolation just prior. I spoke of probabilities. There is seldom absolute proof in issues of ancient history. Probabilites, get it? Some Muslims blow themsleves up and sacrifice themselves for a cause they believe in. Does that make their credo true?

Paul mentions ZERO of the events of the Gospels, save crucifixtion and resurrection. You know that. Why is this the case?

[MCWAY]

Unfortunately in historical enquiry, particularly in ancient history all we can speak of are probabilities. We cannot speak in absolutes concerning ancient history. However I remind you that Josephus was an extremely strict orthodox Jew, thus the divine content can be thrown out right away. As for the the Arabic version we can readily see from the Bible how often manuscripts are altered and changed to suit the needs and wishes of those copying them. The Arabic version dates to the 10th century, why assume that the content of a 10th century manuscript is more original than that of a 4th century manuscript (the oldest we have of Josephus). The passage itself stems from a history of the world written by an Arab Christian bishop. He was a Christian writing in a Muslim dominated Syria. If you look at the passage:

Unfortunately for whom?

I remind you, again, that orthodox Jews penned the Old Testament, which foretold of Jesus' appearance. And, at least one orthodox Jew, Simeon, saw Jesus as an infant.

I've looked at the passage. Quit the speculating and produce something solid.

This version still paints a would be Messiah and rabble rouser in too favourable a light. Josephus would never call one of the many Messianic nutcases running around at the time a 'wise man' whose conduct was 'good'. You should read what he writes about similar such characters. This account, as I have already alluded to, corresponds well with the Muslim view of Joesphus. Again, all we can speak of are probabilities. Is is likely that Josephus would write these things about this Jesus? No, for he never writes them about all the other Messianic nuts he documents.

What made Jesus a "rabble rouser"? He didn't encite riots or cause a rebellion against Roman authority. He did get under the Pharisees' skin by pointing out their wicked and hypocritical ways. In fact, Jesus was often criticized for being compassionate to the social outcasts of that day. Furthermore all the other "Messianic nuts", as you called them, had their own earthly agenda. Jesus did not.

A document written in 200 CE is far to late to contain accurate information about a human Jesus/Yeshua. By then everyone knew what Christians believed and thought their founder was.

Again, who says that this document was written in 200 A.D.? Where is your support that this is the date the document was composed?

Furthermore, the information, regardless of when it was written, is accurate.

Was Jesus accused of sorcery? YES!!
Was the punishment for conviction of practicing sorcery death by stoning? YES!! (Lev. 20:27)
Was Jesus "hanged" (aka crucified) YES!!!
Did this occur during the eve of Passover? YES!!!

So, where oh where are these alleged inaccuracies of which you speak?

Not in the habit of fact checking back then; 200 CE is too late to be considered of any value for relevance to events that purportedly happened in 30 CE. That is a fact. BTW, why is Paul not familiar with any of the events in the Gospel with the exception of the crucifixion and resurrection? Would not have he mentioned the Gospel story to strengthen his position? Ever think about that....?

So, Paul's not mentioning the Gospel accounts, outside the crucifixion and Resurrection, means he's not familiar with them? That's a stretch, a supreme one at that, especially considering he interacted with the disciples of Jesus firsthand.

Also is a stretch is your pitiful claim that the Talmud was written too late to be of any revelance. As mentioned earlier, you haven't even shown that it was written in 200 A.D., in the first place. Even if you could, you also stated that its supposed late date means the information about Jesus is inaccurate. Yet, you cannot point out a single inaccuracy there.


Luke 1:1-4
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word. It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.

So much for folks not fact-checking back then!! Luke did his homework.

[Deicide]

Unfortunately for whom?

I remind you, again, that orthodox Jews penned the Old Testament, which foretold of Jesus' appearance. And, at least one orthodox Jew, Simeon, saw Jesus as an infant.

I've looked at the passage. Quit the speculating and produce something solid.

What made Jesus a "rabble rouser"? He didn't encite riots or cause a rebellion against Roman authority. He did get under the Pharisees' skin by pointing out their wicked and hypocritical ways. In fact, Jesus was often criticized for being compassionate to the social outcasts of that day. Furthermore all the other "Messianic nuts", as you called them, had their own earthly agenda. Jesus did not.

Again, who says that this document was written in 200 A.D.? Where is your support that this is the date the document was composed?

Furthermore, the information, regardless of when it was written, is accurate.

Was Jesus accused of sorcery? YES!!
Was the punishment for conviction of practicing sorcery death by stoning? YES!! (Lev. 20:27)
Was Jesus "hanged" (aka crucified) YES!!!
Did this occur during the eve of Passover? YES!!!

So, where oh where are these alleged inaccuracies of which you speak?

So, Paul's not mentioning the Gospel accounts, outside the crucifixion and Resurrection, means he's not familiar with them? That's a stretch, a supreme one at that, especially considering he interacted with the disciples of Jesus firsthand.

Also is a stretch is your pitiful claim that the Talmud was written too late to be of any revelance. As mentioned earlier, you haven't even shown that it was written in 200 A.D., in the first place. Even if you could, you also stated that its supposed late date means the information about Jesus is inaccurate. Yet, you cannot point out a single inaccuracy there.


Luke 1:1-4
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word. It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.

So much for folks not fact-checking back then!! Luke did his homework.

Unfortunately for whom?

I remind you, again, that orthodox Jews penned the Old Testament, which foretold of Jesus' appearance. And, at least one orthodox Jew, Simeon, saw Jesus as an infant.

I've looked at the passage. Quit the speculating and produce something solid.

Talking about something like prophecy in a serious discussion about history invalidates whatever is being said. The OT did not predict Jesus' appearance in any event.

Again, who says that this document was written in 200 A.D.? Where is your support that this is the date the document was composed?

Furthermore, the information, regardless of when it was written, is accurate.

Was Jesus accused of sorcery? YES!!
Was the punishment for conviction of practicing sorcery death by stoning? YES!! (Lev. 20:27)
Was Jesus "hanged" (aka crucified) YES!!!
Did this occur during the eve of Passover? YES!!!

I was being overly generous with the dating. My point, which you continually miss, is that the Talmud (much like Tacitus) is simply repeating what Christians believed at the time. If it were a contemporaneous doument it would be different but it is not.

Luke 1:1-4
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word. It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.

So much for folks not fact-checking back then!! Luke did his homework.

Yes indeed, Luke did his homework! by plagiarising from Josephus...

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/lukeandjosephus.html

Conclusion
Luke almost certainly knew and drew upon the works of Josephus (or else an amazing series of coincidences remains in want of an explanation), and therefore Luke and Acts were written at the end of the 1st century, or perhaps the beginning of the 2nd. This also results in the realization that almost every famous person, institution, place or event mentioned in L that can be checked against other sources is also found in Josephus, so that efforts to prove the veracity of L by appealing to these checks is cut short by the fact that he appears to have gotten all this information from Josephus, and simply cut-and-pasted it into his own "history" in order to give his story an air of authenticity and realism. He could thus, for all we know, have been writing historical fiction--using real characters and places, and putting them in fictional situations, all dressed up as history--history with a message, and an apologetic purpose. We thus cannot really know what in L is true or false with regard to the origins of Christianity or the actions of early Christians, since these particular details are the most prone to manipulation for didactic, symbolic, politico-ecclesiastical and apologetic reasons, and have very little if any external corroboration (and no external corroboration from a non-Christian).

[MCWAY]

I addressed the issue of interpolation just prior. I spoke of probabilities. There is seldom absolute proof in issues of ancient history. Probabilites, get it? Some Muslims blow themsleves up and sacrifice themselves for a cause they believe in. Does that make their credo true?

Paul mentions ZERO of the events of the Gospels, save crucifixtion and resurrection. You know that. Why is this the case?

Muslims have nothing to do with the subject at hand, the existence of Jesus Christ.

As for Paul, I'd love to know what your point is, regarding not mentioning the events of the Gospels. That means zip, when it comes to the existence of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, his not mentioning them certainly does not mean that he knew nothing about them, given his encounters with the disciples (Probabilities, get it?).
 
Plus, Paul knows that Jesus is of the seed of David (Romans 1:3), he knows Jesus' brother, James (Gal. 1), which means he likely knows who the rest of Jesus' earthly family is. The Gospels refers to Jesus as the son of David. So, it's safe to say that, at the very least, he had a cursory knowledge of the Gospel events.

[MCWAY]

Talking about something like prophecy in a serious discussion about history invalidates whatever is being said. The OT did not predict Jesus' appearance in any event.

I was being overly generous with the dating. My point, which you continually miss, is that the Talmud (much like Tacitus) is simply repeating what Christians believed at the time. If it were a contemporaneous doument it would be different but it is not.

Since you can't show that the Talmud was indeed written in 200 A.D., instead of such being the date of the earliest known copy, your point is woefully moot.

Nor, by the way, have you shown that (regardless of when it was written) that the data about Jesus Christ was inaccurate, which was part of your initial claim concerning the Talmud, in the first place.

Yes indeed, Luke did his homework! by plagiarising from Josephus...

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/lukeandjosephus.html

That all hinges, of course, from your skeptical assumptions that the gospel of Luke was written late. Of course, holding to the dates that traditional Biblical scholars use, Luke penned his gospel around the 50s-60s A.D., which means he gathered his info independently of Josephus.

Plus, if Luke plagrarized from Josephus' work, that would mean that he used, in his Gospel about Jesus, a source that ALREADY MENTIONED this same existing Jesus, something you keep claiming that Josephus never did.

[Deicide]

Muslims have nothing to do with the subject at hand, the existence of Jesus Christ.

As for Paul, I'd love to know what your point is, regarding not mentioning the events of the Gospels. That means zip, when it comes to the existence of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, his not mentioning them certainly does not mean that he knew nothing about them, given his encounters with the disciples (Probabilities, get it?).
 
Plus, Paul knows that Jesus is of the seed of David (Romans 1:3), he knows Jesus' brother, James (Gal. 1), which means he likely knows who the rest of Jesus' earthly family is. The Gospels refers to Jesus as the son of David. So, it's safe to say that, at the very least, he had a cursory knowledge of the Gospel events.

Of course. The Gospels and Paul's letters are crafted from the OT. The David figure is used to legitimate the origin of the Jesus figure. Look up Midrash. Not mentioning the Gospels hardly means zip. The Gospels are so integral to the Jesus figure that if Paul had knowledge of them and consequently of an earthly Jesus then he surely would have mentioned them.

[Deicide]

Since you can't show that the Talmud was indeed written in 200 A.D., instead of such being the date of the earliest known copy, your point is woefully moot.

Nor, by the way, have you shown that (regardless of when it was written) that the data about Jesus Christ was inaccurate, which was part of your initial claim concerning the Talmud, in the first place.

That all hinges, of course, from your skeptical assumptions that the gospel of Luke was written late. Of course, holding to the dates that traditional Biblical scholars use, Luke penned his gospel around the 50s-60s A.D., which means he gathered his info independently of Josephus.

Fundamentalist Biblical scholars who believe that Mark writes about the destruction of the temple based on prophesy... rather than a 70 CE or post 70 CE date...

Remember probability...?

[MCWAY]

Fundamentalist Biblical scholars who believe that Mark writes about the destruction of the temple based on prophesy... rather than a 70 CE or post 70 CE date...

Remember probability...?

Loco covered this earlier; none of the gospels (not even that of John, dated in the 90s A.D.) mention the destruction of the Temple. So, claims of the Gospels being written late don't quite wash. Probablility, indeed!!!

Again, if Luke plagiarized from Josephus, it would hold that Josephus' work already had references to Jesus Christ, which pretty much kaboshes your entire stance.

Of course. The Gospels and Paul's letters are crafted from the OT. The David figure is used to legitimate the origin of the Jesus figure. Look up Midrash. Not mentioning the Gospels hardly means zip. The Gospels are so integral to the Jesus figure that if Paul had knowledge of them and consequently of an earthly Jesus then he surely would have mentioned them.

He would have mentioned them, because...........

Why wouldn't Paul have knowledge about an earthly Jesus from the disciples AND from Jesus' own brother, James? That, plus his own Damascus experience would be sufficient for him to undergo his ministry.

Edit - Plus, there's this little matter: Acts 19:4,

Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.

Paul knew about John the Baptist and that he baptized people, that they would believe in Jesus, who would come after Jesus' earthly cousin. That's part of the Gospels as well. So, Paul knew of Jesus' lineage, where He lived, His family, and the other forementioned items.

And, BTW, you've STILL yet to show that the Talmud was originally composed in 200 A.D. and/or the information about Jesus in that document is inaccurate.

[MCWAY]

....And to further refute your claims that Paul knew nothing about the Gospels:

Acts 13:16-32:



Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand said, "Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, give audience.
The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an high arm brought he them out of it. And about the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness. And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Chanaan, he divided their land to them by lot.


And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet. And afterward they desired a king: and God gave unto them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of forty years. And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will.

Now, here's the part, displaying Paul's knowledge of the Gospels:

Knowledge of Jesus' lineage and the work of John the Baptist (Jesus' earthly cousin):

Of this man's seed hath God according to His promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus: When John had first preached before his coming the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John fulfilled his course, he said, 'Whom think ye that I am? I am not he. But, behold, there cometh one after me, whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose.'



Paul's statement that the religious rulers ignore the prophecies concerning Jesus:

Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent.
For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.

Paul's stating that Jesus was innocent of the charges brougth on Him; but the leaders called for His death

And though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain.  And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.

Paul's statement that Jesus rose and that such was a fulfillment of prophecy

But God raised him from the dead: And he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people. And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers."

So, Paul indeed knew of the events of the Gospels. Again, how could he not know, given his interactions with the disciples and with Jesus' brother?

Once again, another claim of yours is weighed in the scales and found wanting.

[Deicide]

Paul did not write acts:

[

b]It is almost universally agreed that the author of Acts also wrote the Gospel of Luke. The traditional view is that both books were written c. 60, though most scholars, believing the Gospel to be dependent (at least) on Mark's gospel, view the book(s) as having been written at a later date, sometime between 70 and 100[/b]

Considering this I fail to see how adducing Acts as an example is valid.

[MCWAY]

Paul did not write acts:

Tell me something I don't know; Luke wrote that book.

Considering this I fail to see how adducing Acts as an example is valid.

Luke and Paul interacted with each other, as Paul went about his preaching. The bottom line is Luke recorded Paul's statements at events. And this shows that, contrary to your assertion, Paul had knowledge of the events in the Gospels.

So, that leave you with yet ANOTHER claim that you can't back, to go along with the Talmud stuff (again, anytime you're ready, please show that the Talmud originated in 200 A.D. and that the information about Jesus is wrong).

[Deicide]

Tell me something I don't know; Luke wrote that book.

Luke and Paul interacted with each other, as Paul went about his preaching. The bottom line is Luke recorded Paul's statements at events. And this shows that, contrary to your assertion, Paul had knowledge of the events in the Gospels.

So, that leave you with yet ANOTHER claim that you can't back, to go along with the Talmud stuff (again, anytime you're ready, please show that the Talmud originated in 200 A.D. and that the information about Jesus is wrong).

I never claimed that the Babylonian Talmud was dated at 200 CE, I merely proposed it as a date. It could be significantly later.

We don't have any evidence that the statements Luke makes in Acts are legitimate, accurate and attributable to Paul. It is a leap of faith, much like everything else in your invented religion.

[MCWAY]

I never claimed that the Babylonian Talmud was dated at 200 CE, I merely proposed it as a date. It could be significantly later.

OR......it could be signficantly earlier.

We don't have any evidence that the statements Luke makes in Acts are legitimate, accurate and attributable to Paul. It is a leap of faith, much like everything else in your invented religion.

I get it now; when you think the historical documents back your points, they are accurate and legitimate. But, when you're asked to support your claims and assertions and you can't do it, you resort to this pitiful excuse.

You are the one, who made the claim that the Talmud was written in 200 A.D. When I suggested that this may be the date of the earliest-known copy, you again insisted that it was composed then. But, when asked to support your claims, you bailed and started making excuses, even trying to sidestep the issue by bringing up the backgrould of J.P. Holding.

You also insisted that the information, concerning Jesus was inaccurate because it mentioned "stoning and hanging". When the explanation for that was given and you were again asked to show exactly what about the data on Jesus was wrong, you ducked the issue.

Now, you've come with another wild claim that Paul knew nothing about the information, provided in the Gospels. But, we have Biblical evidence that he did, as he's quoted by Luke in the book of Acts. One more time, Paul knows (at the very least) about:

- Jesus' lineage from David
- Jesus' immediate earthly family
- The prophecies, foretelling His arrival
- The work done by John the Baptist (another earthly relative of Christ)
- Jesus being convicted to die, despite being falsely accused
- Jesus' death and Resurrection, fulfilling prophecy foretold by the fathers of Israel

All of that information is in the Gospels and of all that information Paul is aware, according to Luke.

That leaves you with two options: 1) Come up with some solid legitimate information to support your assertions about Paul (or the Talmud, or Josephus, for that matter); 2) Dredge up some more atheist/skeptic conspiracy theories from Lord-knows-where.