Since the time I finally rejected Christianity (initially on a philosophical ground, then scientific, then historical) -- I've always wondered about the motive of those who were responsible for the creation of the myth. Was it deception for personal gain?
Jesus Myth?
by ISP 19 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Crazy151drinker
So your trying to tell me that Paul and all the other diciples died preaching about someone they made up???? What would be the point?
Very nice article though.....
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ISP
IW, the teachings of Jesus were hardly unique. Take for example the 'Golden Rule'.....this was in circulation around 600BCE. I commented on this on another thread. I'll get it for you if I can find it!
Best
ISP
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seven006
ISP,
That was a great summery. I don't think I have ever seen those thoughts put together in such a compact and precise manner that is as direct and to the point as in your post. I only cut and paste a very few significant posts from this board but yours is definitely going into my files. Thank you for your work and comments.
Dave
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Double Edge
On the other side of the coin, here are some thoughts from a historian who believe He did exist:
Professor A. N. Sherwin-White is not a theologian; he is an eminent historian of Roman and Greek times, roughly contemporaneous with the New Testament. According to Professor Sherwin-White, the sources for Roman history are usually biased and removed at least one or two generations or even centuries from the events they record. Yet, he says, historians reconstruct with confidence what really happened. He chastises NT critics for not realizing what invaluable sources they have in the gospels. The writings of Herodotus furnish a test case for the rate of legendary accumulation, and the tests show that even two generations is too short a time span to allow legendary tendencies to wipe out the hard core of historical facts. When Professor Sherwin-White turns to the gospels, he states for these to be legends, the rate of legendary accumulation would have to be 'unbelievable'; more generations are needed. All NT scholars agree that the gospels were written down and circulated within the first generation, during the lifetime of the eyewitnesses. Indeed, a significant new movement of biblical scholarship argues persuasively that some of the gospels were written by the AD 50's. This places them as early as Paul's letter to the Corinthians and, given their equal reliance upon prior tradition, they ought therefore to be accorded the same weight of historical credibility accorded Paul. It is instructive to note in this connection that no apocryphal gospel appeared during the first century. These did not arise until after the generation of eyewitnesses had died off. These are better candidates for the office of 'legendary fiction' than the canonical gospels. There simply was insufficient time for significant accrual of legend by the time of the gospels' composition. Thus, I find current criticism's skepticism with regard to the appearance traditions in the gospels to be unwarranted.
Link to the above:
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ISP
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=14545&site=3
Thats the thread on the 'golden Rule'...for IW!
ISP
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ISP
The earliest writings about Jesus are those of Paul, who produced his epistles no earlier than the mid 50s. Strangely, Paul mentions very little about the life of the historical Jesus. The Jesus of whom Paul writes is a disembodied, spiritual Christ, speaking from the sky. He never talks about Jesus's parents or the virgin birth or Bethlehem. He never mentions Nazareth, never refers to Jesus as the "Son of man" (as commonly used in the Gospels), avoids recounting a single miracle committed by Jesus, does not fix any historical activities of Jesus in any time or place, makes no reference to any of the twelve apostles by name, omits the trial, and fails to place the crucifixion in a physical location (Jerusalem). Paul rarely quotes Jesus, and this is odd since he used many other devices of persuasion to make his points. There are many places in the teachings of Paul where he could have and should have invoked the teachings of Jesus, but he ignores them. He contradicts Jesus's teachings on divorce (I Corinthians 7:10) allowing for none while the Gospel Jesus permitted exceptions. Jesus taught a trinitarian baptism ("in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost"), but Paul and his disciples baptized in Jesus's name only, which makes perfect sense if the concept of the trinity was developed later.
Paul never claims to have met the pre-resurrected Jesus. In fact, one of the most glaring contradictions of the bible appears in two different accounts of how Paul supposedly met the disembodied Christ for the first time. When Paul was traveling to Damascus one day in order to continue persecuting Christians, he was knocked to the ground and blinded by a great light (struck by lightning?). In both versions of this story, Paul heard the voice of Jesus, but in one account the men who were with Paul heard the voice (Acts 9:7), and in the other his men specifically "heard not the voice" (Acts 22:9). Did Paul's men hear the voice, or didn't they? There have been many ad hoc attempts by apologists to reconcile this contradiction (for example, pretending that the different declensions imply "voice" vs. "sound," or that "hear" means "understand" in one passage - a dishonest lactic employed by some modern translations, such as the popular New International Version), but they are defensive and unsatisfactory.
The "silence of Paul" is one of the thorny problems confronting defenders of a historical Jesus. The Christ in Paul's writings is a different character from the Jesus of the Gospels. Paul adds not a speck of historical documentation for the story. Even Paul's supposed confirmation of the resurrection in I Corinthians 15:3-8 contradicts the Gospels when it says that Jesus first was seen of "Cephas [Peter], then of the twelve." (See "Leave No Stone Unturned.")
151...you may want to comment on the above re Paul!
ISP
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ISP
In brief Paul and others believed in a mystical Jesus. The gospel accounts and 'Acts' attempted to bring the mystical into a reality.
I thought for a long time that if the Jesus story was true....God would have made sure it was recorded at the time and in incontrovertible detail. The 'inspired' accounts in the gospels are close to shambolic.
ISP
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userper
I think Paul founded the Christian religion as we have it today. There was it seems some group involved with James but they considered themselves Jews.
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seedy3
Yes Userper,
The earliest Christians felt they were Jews. They were more or less a different sect of that belief, they didn't feel they were a different religion at all until Paul came along. There is still oneo or two groups of them in existance today, One is mentioned on the sullavancounty website, the others are a group of John the babtist followers, I forget their name.
Seedy