Ask a Catholic

[pocaracas]

I saw your late edit to the previous post where you mention the EWTN site and the article DEAD SEA SCROLLS: THREAT TO CHRISTIANITY? by Fr. William Most (a friar? completely unbiased, huh?)

It is an interesting read, I admit. But I was dismayed by the good friar's comments on the "attacks on christianity":
1)

Yes, there are similarities between 4Q521 and the Gospel. But what of it?
Both draw on a common source, namely Isaiah 61:1. The fact that both draw on it does not prove any connection whatsoever between the Qumran text and Christianity. (Cf. also Biblical Archaeology Review Nov-Dec. 1992, pp. 60-65).

What of it, indeed... correlation does not imply causation. But it's a good hint, specially, when one comes well after the other.
And both draw on yet another text... what on earth does that mean? The gospel is inspired by Isaiah? Shouldn't it be somewhat independent so as to provide attestation of the prediction?

2)

No matter which way one reads the text, piercing or pierced, there is no problem for Christianity. A belief that a leader, probably the messiah, was killed or killed another—neither one—would not be so significant. We wonder what scholarship it is to rest a case against Christianity on so slender a reed. Geza Vermes (Biblical Archaeology Review Nov. Dec. 1992, p. 59) comments that the view of Eisenman and Wise along with Tabor, "would lead to an interpretation otherwise unparalleled at Qumran" We comment: What of it in any case? No problem at all for the origin of Christianity.

What of it, again?... odd... huh?

Finally

When the first scrolls were released around 1950, irresponsible claims were made the Jesus was just the same as the Teacher of Righteousness in the scrolls, and so would be not be original. Now in this major text, MMT, we find according to Shanks, that the authors of the work on MMT, Qimron and Strugnell conclude we do not really know who is speaking or who is being spoken too. So much for the dreadful threat to Christianity! There are other texts that mention the Teacher of Righteousness, but nothing that would make one think Jesus was the same.

Indeed... did I ever say they were the same?
I said that parts of the Jesus myth are included in the description of the life of the teacher. I couldn't care less if the teacher himself was a myth, what is plain is that there are common elements... and apparently the friar missed it, or wasn't aware at the time he wrote this article, there's that detail about a resurrection of the teacher after his crucifixion...

First up: I've searched for it and it seems there's a great controversy over who the teacher of righteousness may have been... however, the names "Yeshu" and "Jesus the pharisee" are never even candidates: http://www.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/deadsea.htm https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso...19666.html I could also not find a reference to that "Jesus the pharisee" anywhere, in the 10 minutes I spent googling that guy and Alexander Jannaeus. This later dude does seem to have crucified or hung some 800 pharisees... if one of them was called Jesus... well.... why not? So, it seems that, once more, Tim O'Neil is not aware of the teacher of righteousness... Oh, but he is! http://www.rationalskepticism.org/christ...-2560.html Which brings us back to the similarities in the extraordinary details of both tales. That's how, Tim. WUT?! Both guys resurrect after 3 days?! Second up: I agree.... Why set up the stories some 100 years after the fact? Indeed, it needs explaining... but if the tale is told a few decades after the real fact, where no fact-checking is possible, it could have happened 10, 20, 100 years before... no one would know.... and no one who maybe could fact-check it was interested in the story (the pharisee priests? the romans?). Maybe (and here I go into pointless speculation) the person telling the tale just didn't know... and used some elements from memory - some roman guy that was the big boss when the storyteller was a kid... or something. I'd like to know how things happened back then, but, except for the use of a time machine, there's no way we can find out, is there?

Yep. The eleven disciples sat around one night shortly after the death of Jesus (and Judas) trying to figure out what to do next. While fishing and tax collecting were obvious choices, there was no general agreement. As the night wore on and more wine was consumed, someone starting talking about the legend of Yeshu...one thing led to another...and they all swore a blood oath to never reveal the secret of how they invented the Legend of Jesus of Nazareth. I'll close with this: before I ventured into this forum, I knew that Christianity has its lunatic fringes. Now, I see that atheism does, too. As Bart Ehrman wrote in response to Richard Carrier, "My view is that there is no reason to take seriously people who cannot be taken seriously: a few indications of general incompetence is good enough."

Really?
The eleven disciples?
If a story like this was to be invented and passed on, then it would have been concocted by someone with more power over the people than the eleven disciples who, even after witnessing miracle after miracle, were still astonished with each one as if it was the first. Someone with a real intent... but no... such is not required.
In an oral tradition society, stories evolve with each generation. Such evolution can come by deliberate addition, or lack of memory, or memory misplacement where a person remembers something as associated with something else that has nothing to do with it... At this distance in time, we cannot tell how much of each of these elements is in the jesus myth... we can tell that it is an evolution of the jewish Yahweh myth, that was itself an evolution of the canaanite El myth, which was an evolution of the Sumerian Anu myth... and we have no records of any older myth, so we cannot keep tracking them further back in time.
Stories evolve, myths evolve. Is it not possible that such a man as the teacher lived, challenging the established clergy, drawing up a following and getting killed for it? The resurrection part, I think, goes beyond what we see happening to people, so I see it as a mythological addition... possibly inspired by Isaiah, like the friar said.
The disciples themselves may have been a storytelling artifact... who knows? They may have been real disciples... of the teacher? of someone else? of some Jesus guy that really existed around 30AD?

But, you know, I asked what is your take on the information regarding the teacher of righteousness... and you pointed me to Tim O'Neill, then to EWTN... I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter. After all, 10 years of apologetics should have provided you with a way to dismiss the teacher as just another priest who, like Tim said, lived under similar circumstances and resulted in a similar life... and death. I find the extraordinary elements of the teacher's story a bit too close to Jesus's to dismiss the whole story as Tim did.
But I admit I didn't read the scrolls, I'm relying on what's in the wiki. I think your best course in refuting this whole debacle would be to find that the scrolls never mention that the teacher was crucified, nor that he was resurrected. It may be possible to claim that Wise was lying... Like House said, Everybody lies.


PS: And no, this is not my go-to argument to dismiss christianity. This is just the last one I found and no one has managed to provide an answer to this.
My go-to argument is: I see no magic in the real world.
It works for any religion, any mythology.
But feel free to show me some actual real magic.



EDIT: OK, I've been re-reading a few things and it seems that the Teacher is never resurrected.... his followers expect his return within the 40 years after his death, but he never comes. The 40 years wait for the return of the "messiah" does appear a bit like a similar promise of a return before the witnesses would die by Jesus (a bit more careful with predictions, I see...).
Anyway, I apologize for adding that piece of information that wasn't true. My mind must have slipped into it and incorporated it into the tale... I can't explain it... but it is an example of what I was telling earlier that people can make additions to a story and not be consciously lying.