by yaddayadda 57 Replies latest watchtower bible
Hi Lily:
Personally I feel Jesus was historical for obvious reasons (my faith rests on it) but I cannot rule out 100% that some legend, oral traditon, and exagerations or collaboration of details all had a part in the story of Jesus of the bible.
This is my problem now. I cannot believe in anything unless I have that 100% proof. I've been too hurt to have blind faith anymore.
Ian
Dansk, Thanks for that link. It will keep me busy for a while.
Blueblades
Dansk,
Thanks for the link. I will certainly check it out.
Pete,
I was wondering if you could tell me what the source of your beliefs about Peter and Paul are from so I can do more research? Thanks, Lilly
Midget-S,
Thanks for the reference. I'll try to find it.
Pete,
Agree with lovelylil. Could you especially supply references for these statements:
Peter appears to also be a literary composite of a couple characters, Cephus, and Simon.
I do feel the generally accepted Paulines have been seriously edited, both by Marcion and then the later Orthodoxy when they eventually annexed/succeeded the Marcionite movement and adopted Paul as a Church icon and the Marcionite Paulines with him.
PP will do a thorough job of summarizing the reasons and proposals of different scholars. But if you're interested in a little prep work before that just using the NWT bible and their concordance try seeing where the names Peter, Simon and Cephas are found.
I could only find "Peter" being mentioned in Galatians. None of the other Pauline writings (genuine and not) have that name. Nor do the Paulines have the name "Simon". And if you look at the passage at Galatians 2:7-9, Peter is noted for having a ministry given to him, but Paul doesn't name him as one of "the 3 pillars" (James, Cephas and John). Why wasn't "the rock", upon which the church was to be built, included? Remember that, the gospels which put together the names Simon Peter and give Peter the name "rock" were written decades after an historical Paul.
Cephas is again mentioned in the letter of 1 Corinthians. Interestingly some of the passages there involves believers saying they're students of Paul or Cephas etc. So you can sort of see how Cephas has a similar role to Peter from Galatians....There's one overlap or blurring of roles then. I'll leave the meatier stuff to PP and Narkissos.
Lovelylil
You are right the matter of faith is another issue entirely. Sometimes they do get mixed up don't they?Personally I feel Jesus was historical for obvious reasons (my faith rests on it)
Not to nitpick, but I think your last sentence formally contradicts the first -- or, is a good case of "mixing" the issues.
What does your faith actually rest on? Historical facts about some 1st-century Galilean, or the experience of a relationship with "God" which only mythical talk can express?
Even the most optimistic historical reconstruction of Jesus would never add up to the only thing which matters to faith, namely that God reveals himself among mankind. Otoh, this message can be perfectly carried by myth. What matters, mythically speaking, is that "the heavens are opened" to you through your relationship with the Gospels' Jesus -- the relationship of the latter with history can indeed be considered "another issue entirely". Most liberal Christians, for instance, couldn't be brought to consider the "virgin birth" stories as a historical fact, but this doesn't prevent them from getting the spiritual point of those stories -- God among us.
MS,
Another fascinating detail is the correspondence between "Cephas/Peter, James and John" as the "pillars" in Galatians and "Peter, James and John" as the inner circle of the disciples in the Synoptic Gospels. But this raises many questions about the characters involved. First, there is the difference between Cephas and Peter who may have been originally two different characters (something Ehrman pointed out long before he became famous), only identified as one in John. Second and perhaps more importantly, in the present state of the texts "James" is not the same. The Gospels make James an insignificant "brother" of Jesus (or even an unbeliever according to John 7), while they posit another James as one of the Twelve. Then Acts 12 has the "James of the Twelve" conveniently killed by Herod (just like John the Baptist) just before an unqualified "James" pops us as the universally recognised head of the Jerusalem "church". This seems to reflect different attempts at redefining the role of James (either as an apostle, or as a "brother of the Lord") in relationship to Jesus, which is very similar to the attempts at redefining John the Baptist's role as Jesus' "precursor". Squeezing Jesus between John the Baptist and James, two figures of some historical consistency, seems to have been one big worry of early Christian tradition.
Boy, thats what I get for tossing out too much. Well the conclusion that Simon, Symeon,Peter and Cephus may be more than one character is an ancient one. Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History separates the two Cephus and Peter: "This is the account of Clement, in the fifth book of his Hypotyposes, in which he also says that Cephas was one of the seventy disciples,a man who bore the same name as the apostle Peter, and the one concerning whom Paul says, ?When Cephas came to Antioch I withstood him to his face?? Also The Epistle of the Apostles lists Cephas and Peter as 2 separate persons: ?(We,) John and Thomas and Peter and Andrew and James and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Nathanael and Judas Zelotes and Cephas, we have written to the churches of the East and the West, towards the North and the South, recounting and proclaiming to you concerning our Lord Jesus Christ?. Recently Bart Ehrman has taken the position that these names originally represented two charcters. "Simon, Cephas, Peter," Harvard Theological Review 14 [1921]: 96-97. See also Bart Ehrman, ?Cephas and Peter,? Journal of Biblical Literature(JBL) 109 [1990]: 463-474)
'Cephas' is mentioned only once in the Gospels (John1:40-42) where Jesus told Simon Peter that henceforth he would be called Cephas, but Simon Peter is never again called Cephas. Odd no? It seems to some scholars that this verse was a deliberate gloss make Peter and Cephas seem synonymous. The Paulines have the reverse situation. Paul refers to a Jerusalem Jewish Christian as Cephus 8 times. The only times 'Peter' is used is in a couple strongly suspected interpolations such as Gal 2 and 1 Cor 15. (those Midgetsasquatch mentioned).
There have been scholars like Arthur Drews who for well over a hundred years that have recognized the parallels of the Gospel story Peter with Mithras the God of the Rock, or Janus. Its possible then that, like many other facets of the stories, Peter was an evolved character from mythology who took on a life of its own through the Gospels. This character's anchor to history seems plausibly to have been this his merging with the Ebionite Cephus that had issue with Paul. Simon/ Symeon is another question. Are we to assume that Simon was always identified with Peter? Its possible as the use of nicknames is attested. But especially if the Gospel 'Peter' is a literary character, this seems unlikely IMO. What this character's original name? He is addressed as Simon, Simon "called Peter", Simon Peter, Simon son of Jona, and just Peter all in Matthew. There is no break in usage or reason offered for the switching. Mark says that Jesus surnamed Simon, Peter (mark 3:16) but Matthew doesn't seem to suggest that, an odd thing given his using Mark as source. Luke as usual is a mix of the two Matt and Mark. John written last has fully intigrated the two names by always referring to the character as "Simon Peter" except as I said in the sole verse where he renames him Cephus, then returns to calling him Simon Peter for the rest of the text. Well I have to correct that last sentence, John too is inconsistant, calling the character Simon, Simon son of John, Simon Peter and just Peter.
The question are many the answers are few. The irregularities in name use is very hard to explain using conservative approaches.
As for the Paulines and Marcion, just do a google. Sorry but short of time just now.
Narkissos,
I don't know if you are personally a Christian or not? But as one for over 25 years I admit that many things are not important to my faith that the bible contains but I disagree that whether Jesus was a historical person should have a bearing on my faith. The Christian faith for the majority of us rests upon that Christ came, gave his life for our sins, was put to death, raised to life, and will come again. The hope we all await is to be united with our Lord Jesus. These are very basic beliefs among most Christians regardless of denomination.
Even if you disagree and as a fellow Christian these issues are not important to you - you really cannot define to someone how they should prioratize what they believe is important to their faith. Faith is subjective in many ways and it often varies from one person to the other.
Also I don't really understand your response. I was not being flip in any way. I was simply trying to explain my personal thoughts.
Dansk,
I read the link you sent. I have a few issues with it. It of course is very biased having been written by someone trying to refute the gospel accounts entirely. While I agree with some things such as most information we have on Jesus is hersay as we do not have anything tangible to say whether he did exist (birth records, something he wrote, etc) , there are some conclusions and statements made by the author I disagree with totally. I will make this brief so that I do not hijack this whole thread and if any want to discuss this further they can pm me.
Although there is evidence that there is one earlier gospel account (earlier than the others and many scholars say Mark), and the others drew from this work as a foundation for their gospels which they geared to specific audiences, this does not mean that something dubious is going on or that the gospel accounts are totally fiction.
The reason I say this as for some like myself, this confirms for us that all the gospel writers were in complete harmony with each other as far as the testimony of Jesus is concerned. They kept what was written in Mark about Jesus because they fully agreed with it, but expounded in areas they felt most important to their own target audience. Personally I have no problem with this collaboration of writing between them at all and niether do most biblical scholars. Nothing in this itself is conclusive proof that Jesus is not an histoical person. It does not pove he is or is not either way. But the author seems to think it proves that Jesus was not historical.
The author asserts that since we only have copies of copies and that we cannot have anything similiar to the original writings and I disagree on this. Many times when later copies were compared to older copies, it was found that the information was virtually the same. (dead sea scrolls) where there were differences, it did not change the overall message of the gospel at all which is a testimony of Jesus Christ. And many "discrepencies" that people point out also usually do not have any bearing on the overal message of the bible. I think this is key as it is not every word we should hang on but the overall message is what is important for us.
Another issue I have is that the overall tone of the article is that Christians are stupid and gullable for believing in a historical Jesus. And that we cannot even read books properly as we have read fiction books and thought they were fact. Personally I have never done that but the author seems to lump all of us together. Many times the author makes statements that the bible constantly contradicts itself and then gives no evidence to support it. Or states there are many discrepencies and does not cite the text. I would have liked more evidence to wiegh for myself.
Some of the proof texts given do do back up what the author is saying. For instance the author says that at 1Peter 5:12 it states that Silas wrote this book and this statement contradicts the fact that we believe Peter wrote it. And this statement is used as proof of an inconsistancy. That is not what it says at 1Peter 5:12 it clearly states "With the help of Silas, whom I regard as a faithful brother, I have written you briefly". Therefore, Silas had imput but Peter is still considered the writer. The fact than any of the early Christians worked together on these books (letters really) does not bother me at all if one of them is given most of the writing credit.
For Luke - The author makes it seem like gullable Luke just accepted what he was told and wrote it as fact without investigating it. Not true according to his opening statements. He claims to have thoroughly looked into the matter to investigate for himself.
John - The authors says since the writing style is so different between book of John and Revelation "they could hardly be the same person" - Most bible scholars disagree and many understand that it is because Revelation is written in signs and symbols. Much of the book of Revelation were statements written against the Romans during John's time and he wrote the book in codes that the Christians could understand to avoid being put to death for writing against Rome. That is why the style is very difference.
These are just a few things I found that I could not agree with. I found other problems as well. But I am thankful you sent me the link as it is always worth looking at other views against your own. Lilly
Pete,
I don't have the "Epistle of the Apostles" so I can't comment on that. But, Cephas is Peter. It is clear from the scripture you cited at John 1:40-42 that Peter used to be known as Simon Peter but now Jesus told him "you will be called Cephas" - Cephas when translated simply means Peter. So Jesus was saying from now on - you will simply be called Peter (or Cephas), not Simon Peter. It makes no difference if they call him Cephas or Peter, the name means the same thing. My bible the NIV has a note in it and put the translation in parenthesis. Which translation are you using?
And yes Cephas is only in the gospels once but is in other bible letters when Peter is clearly being identified. here are all the verses that contain the name Cephas: I have included the citations of the full text so everyone can read it in its full context. Lilly
