BlessedStar, you would not be put off if I served beer & kept refering to it as urine while calling the snacks I serve feces? Yes, the food wouldn't really be excrement but the symbolism is off putting at the least and highly offensive to most people. Jews would be highly offended by a human blood and human flesh feast even if only symbolically. Why is such graphic & disgusting symbolism essential to the Jesus story? What is its point? It really doesn't further his philosophy any better than other symbols or analogies which could have been used which would have been more effective for a Jewish audience. Narkissos gives us just such an example.
An essay on Christ's very existence. Let's break it down.
by Spectrum 15 Replies latest jw friends
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joannadandy
Not the best essay indeed on this side of the debate. Robert M. Price's The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man makes a far better argument imo.
Was a GREAT read!
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peacefulpete
While his tone is hardly going to attract any believers most of the piece was sound albeit incomplete. My one question was why he insisted Paul had to have been a Jerusalemite. That was odd and had no bearing on the issues. Paul or (as the article rightly questioned) the writer of the generally accepted authentic Pauline letters claims he got his gospel through revelation and did not go to Jerusalem to make contact with the Jesus sect there for years. This is a strong argument that the composite Jesus character was derived through diverse traditions not some historical reality needing to be transmitted by eyewitnesses. Acts of course contradicts this.
Speaking of Acts, the conversion narrative of Paul is itself contrived from earlier stories such as 2 Maccabees or Joseph and Aseneth and has no foundation. Its misguided therefore to attempt to imagine an historical reconstruction from it. see: source of Paul's conversion story
The argument about the name 'Jesus' seemed to miss that the name is used as a savior title rather than personal name in some texts. see: Jesus, name or title?
This further suggests the mythic nature of the character at its earliest layers.
Bethlehem Ephrathah was a person not a place in the Micha 5:2 passage and therefore it most certainly was not a prophecy about Jesus' birth.
see: Bethlehem birth prophecy?
Nazareth likewise was drawn from OT midrash, altho it is possible that it arose from a misunderstanding of Nazarene. The Gospel varients of the word suggest a evolving interpreation. It may be relevant that an early sect of Christians called themselves Nazarenes.
The author of the article also missed the impossibilities of the Temple storming stories. The Temple was the largest finacial institution in the Roman province and guarded everyday by hundreds of armed men both Jewish temple guard and Roman soldiers. Jewish rebels/zealots made attempts to do this very thing using a band of fighting men and even then were soon killed.
The story about Jeus at 12 was likely the author of Luke's revision of Josephus' boast that at 14 he impressed the teachers with his knowledge. The author/revisor of Luke/Acts used Josephus at many points.
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Spectrum
Peacefulpete,
"The author/revisor of Luke/Acts used Josephus at many points."
This is a revelation for me. Is it for real or your conjecture? -
Leolaia
This is a revelation for me. Is it for real or your conjecture?
Here are some links:
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/lukejosephus.html
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/lukeandjosephus.html
The evidence overall is quite persuasive. A more complete list of parallels can be found in Moffatt (Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament, 1918), pp. 29-31. See also "Fresh Light on the Synoptic Problem: Josephus, a Lukan Source" in the American Journal of Theology (October 1913), pp. 614-21.
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Spectrum
"The evidence overall is quite persuasive."
I'd agree that the evidence is quite persuasive. What bothers me is there are people out there with an agenda because they are either anti religious or anti-christian. With such a mindset it is probably easy to weave an argument to suit your ends.
Once you unbrainwash your mind though from the idea that the bible is inerrant then it is possible to be objective about the whole thing.