(January 12, 2015 at 2:00 pm)Lek Wrote: (January 11, 2015 at 9:46 pm)goodwithoutgod Wrote: The jesus myth is a fascinating study. Here are a few of my notes. The interesting thing is not only that is no evidence of a historical jesus, but the fact that no one who ever wrote of jesus, knew him. Also, I agree with Dr carrier that most likely the jesus myth was borrowed heavily from Romulus, who predates him by 800 years...
You're taking way too much liberty in saying that saying that your assertions are "fact". In fact, probably most historians and bible scholars disagree with your statement that there is no evidence of a historical Jesus. Also, your conjecture that none of the new testament writers knew him is much disagreed about among historians and scholars. You're presenting your assumptions as fact.
Quote:Mythology has always fascinated me. When you research mythology, you find the common strains, a rhythm, a philosophical skeletal system where the “hero god” is constructed, and the same system is used time and time again. It is almost as if one borrowed from another throughout time. It is impossible to ignore the implication of systematic fabrication. The jesus story, however, was not original. The entire story seems to have been plagiarized in bits and pieces, and sometimes blatantly intact, from ancient god/man mythology passed down by Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Persian cultures.
How about similar myths that were developed separately from this tradition, such as Buddha and Krishna? Do these stories come from the same previous tradition or were they be developed separately? Or does the gospel have to have come from these traditions? You're saying that because these traditions existed and were known that the gospel writers latched on to them. They wanted to produce something believable, so they took the myth of Romulus, which was well known to the Romans of the time, and decided to tweak to fit Jesus. I'm sure that is something that an intelligent philosopher would do. No one would realize that they were tweaking the Romulus myth. Your argument is not new. It was present in the days of the early church and did nothing to hinder the spread of christianity.
Quote:So the fact that the jesus son of god myth story has clearly been plagiarized from older Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Persian cultures, coupled with the fact that no one who wrote of Jesus actually knew him should make a thinking person take a pause, and reflect on the basis of their faith.
Here we go again with your conjecture. If that's an opinion, then fine, but don't try to pass it off as fact - even if it is an educated opinion.
I can substantiate all of my claims...can you my dear friend?
Lets ponder a few facts...
here are a few papers I have written, with sources...note majority of sources are christian textbooks I used while obtaining my degree in religious studies with specialization in christianity...not bragging, just establishing my credentials. Anyone can posit an opinion, I rather posit facts.
First, one about the undue influence of emperor constantine on christiainty...just to establish a baseline..
Any analysis of the impact of Emperor Constantine on the councils of Nicaea is bound to be one of controversy and debate. It is my position that Emperor Constantine had an inappropriately heavy and undue influence on the various councils that strived to answer various questions of Christianity. We must begin with the immeasurable impact that Emperor Constantine had on the spread of Christianity, and his successful suppression of incumbent Roman pagan beliefs. Legend has it that Emperor Constantine saw two stars cross in the sky, in which he took to be a sign from God that Christianity was the only true faith. Eusebius, in his written work Life of Constantine, claimed that Emperor Constantine had thought long and hard about which God to ask for help in the upcoming battles.
His decision rested on honoring his father’s God alone. He claimed that in his sleep the Christ of God appeared to him with the same symbol that he saw in the sky earlier in the day, and commanded him to make a likeness of that sign, and to use it as a safeguard for all future engagements with enemies (Stewart 67). While his conversion to Christianity in 312 CE was not truly the moment Christianity came to be the official religion of the Roman Empire, it definitely was one of the major contributing factors for its subsequent acceptance.
Emperor Constantine conducted a religious-based crusade against Licinius in a war to rescue Christians on the east from further persecution. In the years 312 CE to 313 CE, Emperor Constantine began a systematic policy in which he gave honors, privileges and financial donations to the Christian church and their clergy. In 324 CE, as the unchallenged controller of the East, he prohibited by Royal decree any cultic activities which until then fell under the traditional religions of the Roman Empire, and this is when the status of Christianity as the official religion of the state and its rulers was affirmed (Lieu 7).
Constantine used his imperial power to protect and support the Christian church. He was a sincere if somewhat simple believer. He knew portions of the Old Testament and perhaps the basic outline of biblical history, and he could summarize the story of the Gospels. For Constantine, God was a providential Judge who supports the righteous and destroys the wicked, and he believed that the church had to be unified if it was going to offer pleasing worship to God. Constantine expended an enormous amount of treasure on churches; it was used both on buildings and, with the emperor’s explicit encouragement, on establishing ministries of mercy to the poor, sick and the widows(Leithart 302).
Emperor Constantine also wanted to end the growing controversy between Arius, a priest in the church of Alexandria, and his Bishop Alexander. Bishop Alexander became concerned when he noticed a growing number of clergy members accepting and encouraging Arius’s views which went against the accepted teachings of the church in regards to the relationship between God and Jesus. Emperor Constantine called for the Council of Nicaea which was considered to be the first ecumenical Council of the church because bishops from both the eastern and western parts of the world would attend.
Emperor Constantine attempted to give the Council of Nicaea an inspiring opening speech designed to bring the 300 bishops in attendance to a focused unity. He even reminded them that Christ had instructed them to forgive one another. “… As soon as I heard that intelligence which I had least expected to receive, I mean the news of your dissension, I judged it to be of no secondary importance, but with the earnest desire that a remedy for this evil also might be found through my means, I immediately sent to require your presence. And now I rejoice in beholding your assembly; but I feel that my desires will be most completely fulfilled when I can see you all united in one judgment, and that common spirit of peace and concord prevailing amongst you all, which becomes you, as consecrated to the service of God, to commend to others” (Stewart 73).
Arius and his followers were in the minority against their counterparts from the West. Both groups presented arguments from Scripture, essentially canceling each other out. Part of the problem was that the scriptural terms used in the debate (such as father and son) were too ambiguous. The Arians exploited this ambiguity, insisting that it is only logical that he father must exist prior to his son. The Orthodox countered that the Arians were taking the analogy too literally (Albl 154). Then the debate began on the specific terminology for the Creed that they were trying to promulgate. They needed to be able to define the son’s relationship with the father in a philosophically precise term.
In the end however, the two sides refused to come to a common agreement over the term Homoousios, which means “of the same substance,” meaning that God the father and the son are not just alike in some way, but that they actually share the same divinity. The Arians wanted to make a small change by adding a letter to make the word homoiousios, which means “of similar substance”. When it was time to finish business and sign the Creed, 17 bishops remained opposed. Emperor Constantine threatened to depose these bishops and send them into exile. Two of the 17 bishops stood their ground and were subsequently deposed and exiled for their efforts (Stewart 73).
How is it possible to affirm that Jesus is somehow God while avoiding the undesirable conclusion that there are two gods? If they adopt John’s language, namely that Jesus is the logos become flesh, is this logos to be thought of as God properly speaking or some lesser divinity? How is it possible, if at all, for Christians to affirm that God “becomes” something when Christians also affirm that God is eternal and unchanging? These questions created conflict and confusion within the Christian movement as it spread across the Mediterranean world and increasingly interactive with Greco Roman culture and thought. Such confusion ultimately led to the need for Christian theologians and bishops to provide a conceptual framework in which to speak properly and consistently about Jesus’ identity (Mueller 121).
Some religious scholars concede that Emperor Constantine not only convened important council’s sessions, but also either presided over them, or appointed a Royal official to preside in his place. This reduced the very role of bishops and councils such as Nicaea and Tyre to utter insignificance by assimilating them to members of the Imperial consilium, whose advice was not binding on the Emperor. All decisions taken at the Nicene Council were made by Emperor Constantine alone, since he could completely disregard the advisory opinions of the bishops whom he had summoned to the Council (Lieu 8).
Other religious scholars contend that Emperor Constantine’s influence was minimal, and that he merely sat in on the councils out of personal interest. “He attended some of the councils and contributed to discussions but did not chair any council or determine the outcome” (Leithart 304). However, when we look at the Council of Nicaea of 359 CE, we see that Emperor Constantine again took a prominent role of control in the theological debate. Once the foundation of Christianity as a predominant religion of the Empire had been successfully established, Emperor Constantine later relinquished some of his control and influence by putting a seal of approval on the rulings of bishops declared at councils. The governors of provinces were not even allowed to rescind what they had decided, for he said the priests of God were more trustworthy than any magistrate (Lieu 10).
The first Council of Nicaea in 325 CE was called together by Emperor Constantine, and it worked to establish a settlement of the issue of the relationship between father and the son. The focus primarily was on defining Jesus Christ as a deity. Establishment of the Holy Spirit was largely unaddressed until after the father and son relationship was settled in 362 CE. After Nicaea, some bishops continued to prefer a term which had been discussed and rejected by the Council: homoiousios, in the sense of the son ‘being of like substance’ with the father. There were other bishops who were antagonistic to the term homoiousios because it was not biblical (O’Collins 184). Seven years later, the Trinitarian terminology was officially adopted after first Council Constantinople. Even Thomas Aquinas acknowledged that some words used in the churches official declarations are not biblical, but insisted that “the urgency of confuting heretics made it necessary to find new words to express the ancient faith about God” (Albl 155).
In its letter to Pope Damascus, a post conciliar synod confessed ‘one divinity, power, or substance’ in ‘three most perfect hypostasesin’ (O’Collins 185). At the Trinitarian level, Constantinople I reaffirmed the Nicene Council confession of faith that the son was ’of one substance’ with the father, as well as teaching the divinity of the Holy Spirit (O’Collins 186). Thus, the official establishment of Christian doctrine regarding the Trinity of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit was initiated. If It was not for the overbearing presence of Emperor Constantine upon the proceedings, to include the threat of deposing any opposing bishops to what he considered to be the way forward, Christianity would not be what it is today.
The councils findings were that God’s very self is encountered in Christ, not just a creature of elevated status, not a proxy. Jesus is the personal manifestation of God in the world according to the Christian tradition. A good analogy would be that God is like the sun, and Jesus is like the sunlight emanating from the sun. The same substance, the same source, and yet different in form and function.
If it was not for the overwhelming presence of Emperor Constantine at the various councils, deposing of bishops with differing views, issuing of decrees banishing all other forms of religion except Christianity, and his political, military, royal and financial support of Christianity, there is a good chance that the world’s dominant religion today could’ve been Mithraism. It is hard to conceive that Christianity would be the worldwide influential religion that is today if it were not for the impact of Emperor Constantine.
Works Cited:
Leithart, Peter J., Defending Constantine. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010. Print.
Lieu, Samuel N. C., and Montserrat, Dominic, Constantine: History, Historiography, and Legend. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.
O'Collins, Gerald, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.
Mueller, J.J., Theological Foundations: Concepts and Methods for Understanding the Christian Faith. Winona: Anselm Academic, Christian Brothers Publications, 2011. Print.
Albl, Martin C. Reason, Faith, and Tradition: Explorations in Catholic Theology. Winona: Anselm Academic, Christian Brothers Publications, 2009. Print.
Stewart, Cynthia., The Catholic church: a brief popular history. Winona, Mn: Anselm Academic, Christian Brothers Publications, 2008. Print.
(January 12, 2015 at 2:00 pm)Lek Wrote: (January 11, 2015 at 9:46 pm)goodwithoutgod Wrote: The jesus myth is a fascinating study. Here are a few of my notes. The interesting thing is not only that is no evidence of a historical jesus, but the fact that no one who ever wrote of jesus, knew him. Also, I agree with Dr carrier that most likely the jesus myth was borrowed heavily from Romulus, who predates him by 800 years...
You're taking way too much liberty in saying that saying that your assertions are "fact". In fact, probably most historians and bible scholars disagree with your statement that there is no evidence of a historical Jesus. Also, your conjecture that none of the new testament writers knew him is much disagreed about among historians and scholars. You're presenting your assumptions as fact.
Quote:Mythology has always fascinated me. When you research mythology, you find the common strains, a rhythm, a philosophical skeletal system where the “hero god” is constructed, and the same system is used time and time again. It is almost as if one borrowed from another throughout time. It is impossible to ignore the implication of systematic fabrication. The jesus story, however, was not original. The entire story seems to have been plagiarized in bits and pieces, and sometimes blatantly intact, from ancient god/man mythology passed down by Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Persian cultures.
How about similar myths that were developed separately from this tradition, such as Buddha and Krishna? Do these stories come from the same previous tradition or were they be developed separately? Or does the gospel have to have come from these traditions? You're saying that because these traditions existed and were known that the gospel writers latched on to them. They wanted to produce something believable, so they took the myth of Romulus, which was well known to the Romans of the time, and decided to tweak to fit Jesus. I'm sure that is something that an intelligent philosopher would do. No one would realize that they were tweaking the Romulus myth. Your argument is not new. It was present in the days of the early church and did nothing to hinder the spread of christianity.
Quote:So the fact that the jesus son of god myth story has clearly been plagiarized from older Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Persian cultures, coupled with the fact that no one who wrote of Jesus actually knew him should make a thinking person take a pause, and reflect on the basis of their faith.
Here we go again with your conjecture. If that's an opinion, then fine, but don't try to pass it off as fact - even if it is an educated opinion.
No one who wrote of jesus knew him, and contrary to popular urban legend, the gospels were not written by whom, or when most people think...but by anonymous groups long after his death, and the death of the author they penned them under...the very definition of pseudepigrapha.
Lets review a couple..
Why there are no records of Jesus Christ
It is not possible to find in any legitimate religious or historical writings compiled between the beginning of the first century and well into the fourth century any reference to Jesus Christ and the spectacular events that the Church says accompanied his life.
This confirmation comes from Frederic Farrar (1831-1903) of Trinity College, Cambridge:
"It is amazing that history has not embalmed for us even one certain or definite saying or circumstance in the life of the Saviour of mankind ... there is no statement in all history that says anyone saw Jesus or talked with him. Nothing in history is more astonishing than the silence of contemporary writers about events relayed in the four Gospels."
(The Life of Christ, Frederic W. Farrar, Cassell, London, 1874)
This situation arises from a conflict between history and New Testament narratives. Dr Tischendorf made this comment:
"We must frankly admit that we have no source of information with respect to the life of Jesus Christ other than ecclesiastic writings assembled during the fourth century."
(Codex Sinaiticus, Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, British Library, London)
There is an explanation for those hundreds of years of silence:
the construct of Christianity did not begin until after the first quarter of the fourth century, and that is why Pope Leo X (d. 1521) called Christ a "fable"
Philo of Alexandria
The early years of the Roman Republic is one of the most historically documented times in history. One of the writers alive during the time of Jesus was Philo-Judaeus (sometimes known as Philo of Alexandria).
Philo was born before the beginning of the Christian era, and lived until long after the reputed death of Christ. He wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Christ’s miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre occurred. He was there when Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He was there when the crucifixion happened with its attendant earthquake, supernatural darkness and resurrection of the dead took place – when Christ himself rose from the dead and in the presence of many witnesses ascended into heaven. These amazing marvelous events which must have filled the world with amazement, had they really occurred, were all unknown to him.
It was Philo who developed the doctrine of the Logos, or Word, and although this Word incarnate dwelt in that very land and in the presence of multitudes revealed himself and demonstrated his divine powers, Philo saw it not.
Philo might be considered the investigative reporter of his day. He was there on location during the early first century, talking with people who should have remembered or at least heard the stories, observed, taking notes, documenting. He reported nothing about Jesus.
Justus of Tiberius
There was also a historian named Justus of Tiberius who was a native of Galilee, the homeland of Jesus. He wrote a history covering the time when Christ supposedly lived. This history is now lost, but a ninth century Christian scholar named Photius had read it and wrote: “he [Justus] makes not the least mention of the appearance of Christ, of what things happened to him, or other wonderful works that he did.”
Tacitus, the Roman historian's birth year at 64 C.E., puts him well after the alleged life of Jesus. He gives a brief mention of a "Christus" in his Annals (Book XV, Sec. 44), which he wrote around 109 C.E. He gives no source for his material. Although many have disputed the authenticity of Tacitus' mention of Jesus, the very fact that his birth happened after the alleged Jesus and wrote the Annals during the formation of Christianity, shows that his writing can only provide us with hearsay accounts.
In regards to "christus".
"As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus (another spelling of Christus), he (Claudius) expelled them from Rome."
The Christian-preferred Latin of this sentence is as follows:
Iudaeos impulsore Christo assidue tumultuantis Roma expulit
However, it is now the scholarly consensus that the original Latin of this passage must have been the following:
Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantis Roma expulit
This latter version with the word Chrēsto, not Christo, is what our earliest extant manuscripts relate. Contrary to what Christian apologists and other fundamentalists assert, and despite the fact that the two words are evidently related through the roots χρίω and χράω, "Chrēsto," the ablative of Chrestus, is not an "another spelling of Christ." These terms represent Latinizations of two different Greek words that sound quite similar: Chrēstos, sometimes a proper name, means "good," "righteous" or "useful"; while Christos denotes "anointed" or "messiah." Hence, although an earlier generation of scholars believed that this passage reflected the uprisings of Jews against Christians in Rome, we are not certain at all that this purported "reference" has anything to do with Christ and Christians.
The term χρηστός chrestos was utilized not only in secular situations but also within ancient religion, philosophy, spirituality and the all-important mysteries, which concerned life and death, including near-death experiences and afterlife traditions. "Chrestos" was one of the titles for the dead in tomb writings "of the Greeks in all ages, pre-Christian as well as post-Christian." Examples of these epithets can be studied in August Boeckh's Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum. We read elsewhere that the epithet "Chrestos" appears commonly on the epitaphs of most citizens of Larissa, Greece, specifically in the form of chrestos heros , this latter term meaning "hero" and "demigod." The Greek word chrestos was popular also as an epithet or on epitaphs at various Egyptian funerary sites as at Alexandria and elsewhere.
As another example of the Pagan use of the word chrestos, in 2008 an evidently pre-Christian cup or bowl was found at Alexandria, Egypt, with the genitive form chrestou inscribed on it. This artifact could predate the common era by decades, part of the genre of magical bowls used for protection and incantation. Another artifact with significance in this analysis of the uses of chrestos in antiquity is the chi-rho symbol.
Chrestus/christus being disingenuously presented to mean christ or christians is conjecture at its best.
Christian apologetic fan’s most popular non-Christian writer that mentions Jesus is Flavius Josephus. Although he was born in 37 CE and could not have been a contemporary of Jesus, he lived close enough to the time to be considered a valuable secondhand source. Josephus was a highly respected and much quoted Roman historian. He died sometime after the year 100 and his two major tomes were ‘The antiquities of the Jews’ and ‘the wars of the Jews’. Antiquities was written sometime after the year 90 CE. In book 18, chapter 3, this paragraph is encountered:
“now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works – a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, and condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and 10,000 other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”
This does appear to give historical confirmation for the existence of Jesus. But is it authentic? Most scholars, including most fundamentalist scholars, admit that at least some parts of this paragraph cannot be authentic. Many are convinced that the entire paragraph is a complete forgery, an interpolation inserted by Christians at a later time. There are at least seven solid reasons for this:
1) The paragraph is absent from early copies of the works of Josephus. For example, it does not appear in Origen’s second century version of Josephus, in ‘Origen Contra Celsum’, where Origen fiercely defended Christianity against the heretical views of Celsus. Origen quoted freely from Josephus to prove his points, but never once used this paragraph, which would have been the ultimate ace up his sleeve.
In fact, the Josephus paragraph about Jesus does not appear at all until the beginning of the fourth century, at the time of Emperor Constantine. Bishop Eusebius, a close ally of the Emperor, was instrumental in crystallizing and defining the version of Christianity was to become Orthodox, and he is the first person known to have quoted this paragraph of Josephus. Eusebius once wrote that it was a permissible “medicine” for historians to create fictions – prompting historian Jacob Burckhardt to call Eusebius “the first thoroughly dishonest historian of antiquity.”
The fact that Josephus – Jesus paragraph shows up at this point in history – at a time when interpolations and revisions were quite common and when the Emperor was eager to demolish gnostic Christianity and replace it with literalistic Christianity – makes the passage quite dubious. Many scholars believe that Eusebius was the forger and interpolator of the paragraph on Jesus that magically appears in the works of Josephus.
2) Josephus would not have called Jesus “the Christ” or “the truth.” Whoever wrote these phrases was a believing Christian. Josephus was a messianic Jew, and if he truly believed Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah (the Christ), he certainly would have given more than a passing reference to him. Josephus never converted to Christianity. Origen reported that Josephus was “not believing in Jesus as the Christ.”
3) The passage is out of context. Book 18 (containing the interval of 32 years from the banishment of Archelus to the departure from Babylon) starts with Roman taxation under Cyrenius in 6 CE and talks about various Jewish sexts at the time, including the Essenes and a sect of Judas the Galilean, which he devotes three times more space than to Jesus. He discusses at great depth the local history in great detail. But oddly this single paragraph can be lifted out of the text with no damage to the chapter or the way it flows.… Almost as if it was added after the fact, which of course it was.
4) The phrase “to this day” shows that this is a later interpolation. There was no “tribe of Christians” during Josephus time. Christianity did not get off the ground until the second century.
5) In all of Josephus voluminuous works, there is not a single reference to Christianity anywhere outside of this tiny paragraph. He relates much more about John the Baptist than about Jesus. He lists the activities of many other self-proclaimed Messiahs, including Judas of Galilee, Theudas the magician and the Egyptian Jew Messiah, but is mute about the life of one whom he claims (if he had actually wrote it) is the answer to this messianic hopes.
6) The paragraph mentions that the “divine prophets” foretold the life Jesus, but Josephus neglects to mention who these prophets were or what they said. In no other place does Josephus connect any Hebrew prediction with the life of Jesus. If Jesus truly had been the fulfillment of divine prophecy, as Christians believe, Josephus would’ve been the one learned enough to document it.
7) The hyperbolic language of the paragraph is uncharacteristic of a careful historian: “… As the divine prophets had foretold these and 10,000 other wonderful things concerning him…” This sounds more like sectarian propaganda – in other words, more like the new testament – than objective reporting. It is very unlike Josephus.
Christians should be careful when they refer to Josephus as historical confirmation for Jesus. If we remove the forged paragraph, as we should, the works of Josephus become evidence against historicity. Josephus was a native of Judea and a contemporary of the apostles. He was governor of Galilee for a time, the province in which Jesus allegedly lived and taught. He transversed every part of this province and visited the places where but a generation before Christ performed his prodigies. He resided in Cana, the very city in which Christ is said to have wrought his first miracle. He mentions every noted personage of Palestine and describes every important event that occurred there during the first 70 years of the Christian era. But Christ was of so little consequence and his deeds too trivial to merit a line from this historian’s pen.
The Bible claims that Jesus made the following comment:
Matthew 16:28
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Jesus also advised against going to court over someone who steals something and also told people not to store up stocks or reserves for the future. Clearly, he thought the end was very near.
Likewise, Paul advised followers not to marry and that the end time was near. In this scripture he obviously believes that some of the people he is talking to will still be alive at the second coming.
I Thessalonians 4: 16-18
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
The obvious fact is that the second coming was not forthcoming at that time, or even close to being near. The 2000-year delay is a strong piece of evidence that Christianity is a failed religion.
The following quote from Stephen L. Harris, Professor Emeritus of Humanities and Religious Studies at California State University- Sacramento, completes this point with a devastating argument. Remember that Jesus was a Jew who had no intention to deviate from the Hebrew scriptures:
“Jesus did not accomplish what Israel’s prophets said the Messiah was commissioned to do: He did not deliver the covenant people from their Gentile enemies, reassemble those scattered in the Diaspora, restore the Davidic kingdom, or establish universal peace (cf.Isa. 9:6–7; 11:7–12:16, etc.). Instead of freeing Jews from oppressors and thereby fulfilling God’s ancient promises—for land, nationhood, kingship, and blessing—Jesus died a “shameful” death, defeated by the very political powers the Messiah was prophesied to overcome. Indeed, the Hebrew prophets did not foresee that Israel’s savior would be executed as a common criminal by Gentiles, making Jesus’ crucifixion a “stumbling block” to scripturally literate Jews. (1 Cor.1:23)”
Jesus’ immediate followers, mostly his 12 disciples, probably did not immediately identify this failure, because after Jesus’ body was likely stolen and concealed, a rumor spread that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead. A sense of optimism overcame their grief about his execution and renewed some hope that he was a true messiah. If they had known then that there was to be no return in the near or long-term future, they likely would have abandoned any further activity. Despite this resurgence in their faith, they never agreed with Paul’s concept of Jesus as being divine. Anything written in the Bible to suggest that they did is probably a result of later editing by some of Paul’s followers. Such a belief would have been an exceptional departure from the Jewish faith.
I apologize for long posts, but I like to substantiate my claims....and this is such a huge subject, that when I assert, no one seemed to know of jesus that wasn't based on hearsay, myth or absolute interpolations..it is important to validate such assertions. Speaking of interpolations, here are my favorite top ten...
It seems that some of the most familiar verses of the New Testament were not originally part of the text, but were added by later scribes. The scribal additions are often found in late medieval manuscripts of the New Testament, but not in the manuscripts of earlier centuries. Some of the best-known English editions of the New Testament, such as the King James Bible, were based not on early manuscripts, but later ones, these verses became part of the Bible tradition in English speaking lands.
1 John 5:7 - there are three that bear witness in heaven, the father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.
John 8:7 – let the one who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.
John 8:11 – neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.
Luke 22:44 – in his anguish Jesus began to pray more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground.
Luke 22:20 – and in the same way after supper Jesus took the cup and said, "this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood."
Mark 16:17 – these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons and they will speak with new tongues.
Mark 16:18 – and they will take up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any poison it will not harm them, and they will lay their hands on the sick and they will become well.
John 5:4 – for an angel of the Lord went down at certain times into the pool and disturbed the waters; and whoever was the first to step in when the water was disturbed was healed of whatever disease he had.
Luke 24:12 – but Peter rose up and ran to the tomb, and stooping down to look in, he saw the linen clothes by themselves. And he went away to his own home, marveling at what had happened.
Luke 24:51 – and when Jesus blessed them he departed from them and he was taken up into heaven.
Speaking of Mark; All scholars agree that the last 12 verses of Mark, are highly dubious and are considered interpolations. The earliest ancient documents of mark end right after the women find the empty tomb. This means that in the first biography, on which the others based their reports, there is no post-resurrection appearance or ascension of jesus.
Work Cited:
Ehrman, Bart. Misquoting Jesus: The story behind who changed the bible and why. New York, Harper Collins. 2005. Print.
You, not a mythical god, are the author of your book of life, make it one worth reading..and living.
![[Image: Bumper+Sticker+-+Asheville+-+Praise+Dog3.JPG]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=1.bp.blogspot.com%2F-d-3rfdI7nG0%2FTerwtFyFXoI%2FAAAAAAAACak%2F7kFSmHeVrng%2Fs320%2FBumper%2BSticker%2B-%2BAsheville%2B-%2BPraise%2BDog3.JPG)
