For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[The Grand Nudger]

Christianity started around 2,000 years ago. How and why did it start? That's what I'm asking people to come up with ideas about.

I suppose the trouble would be that christianity is still "starting" and will likely continue to do so - if the past few k are any indicator. The question itself is a bit nebulous as the reader is left to assume what the writer means by it. What would we consider a starting point for christianity? The explicit mention of a christ figure and savior named jesus?

I mean, I could say that christianity got started the very first time uncle Og said "therefore spirits" or whatever the equivalent was 50,000 years ago. I don't think that this would be a very satisfying response for many folks reading it though. I, like perhaps DP, don't see christianity as anything distinct or unique whatsoever but a continuation of a very long and extremely varied pre-existing narrative.

[EGross]

Actually, the Yeshu (not a Hebrew name found anywhere. It's an acronym) story in the Talmud does not have any magic powers at all, and it was obviously a later edit to make him an unlearned fellow with an eye for the ladies, who has an ego problem and worships idols. No powers. And the older texts don't seem to have the polemics. Centuries later, the Rabbis would perform an internal censoring "Enough is enough!" to get rid of of stuff finding it's way into the texts. Today, the uncensored versions are published by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, although he doesn't go back to the oldest text, but uses the ones just before the censoring, which makes for an interesting read to see how far the editors went.

A later story, many centuries later, do the who supernatural polemic with him flying into the sky and some other rabbi has to fly up and piss him down (gotta love those Spaniards and their bathroom humor). At the time, forced conversions were going on, so they fought back by lampooning the enemy. Interestingly enough, it may have helped the conversion cause more than hinder it.

[DeistPaladin]

If Marcion c.85 – c.160. invented Paul, how did the teachings of a Jewish sect get taken to the Gentiles? I had a go at inventing Fred just to see if I could come up with an idea about how Christianity could have got started without a Jesus or a Paul. I found no Jesus easier to explain than no Paul so I had to resort to somebody Paul could have been based on.

I'm not arguing that Marcion invented Paul. I am questioning whether or not Paul wrote anything consistent with Trinitarian beliefs. How much was added later?

We do know that Paul's authorship of some of the epistles attributed to him is questionable. Roughly half of them are considered to be of questionable authenticity. Interpolation was also a problem and it's reasonable to question how much has been changed.

We do know:

1. Paul was the poster boy for Marcionite Christianity.
   
2. Marcionite scripture primarily included Paul's epistles
   
3. Paul in Acts was later reworked as a character to be submissive to other church authorities. His passive nature sits oddly alongside his bombastic epistles where he felt like he answered to no one but Christ.
   

Now, remember the church habit of incorporating the prophets of other religions. The Christians did this with the Mandeans, followers of John the Baptist. The Mandeans were rivals of the early Christians and yet the Gospels depict their messiah groveling at the feet of Jesus. That's how it works. Icons of a victorious church always wind up with the icons of the losing church kneeling before them.

So what do you think? Do you believe that Paul pointed to Trinitarianism and Marcion hoped no one would notice? Or a later victorious church inserted a few choice words into the Pauline epistles we have today?

[The Grand Nudger]

An amusing and more recent corollary to the John the Baptist bit can be found in Acallam na Senórach, where St. Patrick meets Caílte mac Rónáin and Oisín (members/warriors of Fianna - one of them the deer-son of a mythical warrior and leader regarded as immeasurably and mystically wise after eating a salmon that had eaten a nut and grandson of a legitimate god) and a sort of symbolic "passing of the torch" is performed between christianity and earlier beliefs to which these characters (and their narratives) are attached. This story comes to us from the 12th century (at the latest) though we know that other variants of it were told before this up to and including St. Patrick meeting pagan gods and same said pagan gods conceding that christ was king (then dispersing like mist).

[Nobody]

Actually, the Yeshu (not a Hebrew name found anywhere. It's an acronym)

Don't rely on Wikipedia for your information. (Etymology - "...Another explanation given is that the name "Yeshu" is actually an acronym for the formula (ימח שמו וזכרו(נו (Y'mach Sh'mo V'Zichro(no)) meaning "may his name and memory be obliterated". ) Yeshu is not an acronym.

And 'Yeshua' is a Hebrew name.

[Confused Ape]

I suppose the trouble would be that christianity is still "starting" and will likely continue to do so - if the past few k are any indicator. The question itself is a bit nebulous as the reader is left to assume what the writer means by it. What would we consider a starting point for christianity? The explicit mention of a christ figure and savior named jesus?

The generally accepted idea seems to be that there was an original Jewish sect and then Paul decided to do his own thing. So, for this exercise, think of Christianity as starting when Paul or somebody like him headed off to preach to Greek speaking Gentiles around 2,000 years ago. All kinds of things got added on later

Today, the uncensored versions are published by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, although he doesn't go back to the oldest text, but uses the ones just before the censoring, which makes for an interesting read to see how far the editors went.

What could people have been saying about him 2,000 years ago? He must have captured people's imaginations so they kept adding details but it would be interesting to know how the story developed.

A later story, many centuries later, do the who supernatural polemic with him flying into the sky and some other rabbi has to fly up and piss him down (gotta love those Spaniards and their bathroom humor). At the time, forced conversions were going on, so they fought back by lampooning the enemy. Interestingly enough, it may have helped the conversion cause more than hinder it.

Sorry, but I'm not familiar with this period of history. Who was being forced to convert to which religion?

So what do you think? Do you believe that Paul pointed to Trinitarianism and Marcion hoped no one would notice? Or a later victorious church inserted a few choice words into the Pauline epistles we have today?

If you're talking about Marcion Of Sinope, he didn't believe in the Trinity as such - there was the Heavenly Father, the Demiurge and Jesus who was a divine spirit.

According to Marcion, the god of the Old Testament, whom he called the Demiurge, the creator of the material universe, is a jealous tribal deity of the Jews, whose law represents legalistic reciprocal justice and who punishes mankind for its sins through suffering and death. Contrastingly, the god that Jesus professed is an altogether different being, a universal god of compassion and love who looks upon humanity with benevolence and mercy.

Marcion is sometimes described as a Gnostic philosopher. In some essential respects, Marcion proposed ideas which would have aligned well with Gnostic thought. Like the Gnostics, he argued that Jesus was essentially a divine spirit appearing to men in the shape of a human form, and not someone in a true physical body.[8]

If Paul really did talk about Jesus as a spiritual being it might have inspired Marcion to come up with the above idea although it got him branded as a heretic.

As for the Trinity -

Ignatius of Antioch is provides early support for the Trinity around 110,[17] exhorting obedience to "Christ, and to the Father, and to the Spirit."[18]

Reference 18 is Eusebius. He keeps turning up everywhere.

Justin Martyr (AD 100–ca.165) also writes, "in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit." [19]

The thing is, though, that Paul or somebody like him must have told the Gentiles something.

[EGross]

Actually, the Yeshu (not a Hebrew name found anywhere. It's an acronym)

Don't rely on Wikipedia for your information. (Etymology - "...Another explanation given is that the name "Yeshu" is actually an acronym for the formula (ימח שמו וזכרו(נו (Y'mach Sh'mo V'Zichro(no)) meaning "may his name and memory be obliterated". ) Yeshu is not an acronym.

And 'Yeshua' is a Hebrew name.

I was not speaking of a real Hebrew name, like יהושוה (Yehoshuah or some variant, like Yoshua, Hoshea, and so forth. I was speaking of ישו as not being any proper Hebrew name, not even an abbreviation, and so taking the first letter of each of the three words and getting ישו certainly is an acronym.

Quoting from a messianic cult isn't the best way to go here. To say that there could even be a name like "Yashua", with a patach after the first syllable falls as well falls flat, since there is no evidence that there ever has been such a name. They are somehow trying to consolidate two incompatible faiths, being Cristian while trying to cloak it in some sort of pseudo-judaism.

A kametz katan would take place there in an abbreviated form ("Yoshu") which would require an additional vav, inferred or indicated (as in the word כל or כול).

And no, I am not using Wikipedia. I am speaking of out of experience after decades of speaking and learning in Hebrew and the traditions that ones learns for the Charadei teachers in the process.

Yeshu isn't a name, but a polemical joke.

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A later story, many centuries later, do the who supernatural polemic with him flying into the sky and some other rabbi has to fly up and piss him down (gotta love those Spaniards and their bathroom humor). At the time, forced conversions were going on, so they fought back by lampooning the enemy. Interestingly enough, it may have helped the conversion cause more than hinder it.

Sorry, but I'm not familiar with this period of history. Who was being forced to convert to which religion?

I thought that including "Spaniards" and "Jews" would have been a hint about forced conversions. It was the Spanish Inquisition and the period that proceded it that I was speaking of.

---

Today, the uncensored versions are published by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, although he doesn't go back to the oldest text, but uses the ones just before the censoring, which makes for an interesting read to see how far the editors went.

What could people have been saying about him 2,000 years ago? He must have captured people's imaginations so they kept adding details but it would be interesting to know how the story developed.

It was not what peoplle were mocking 2000 years ago, but what they were mocking prior to the middle ages, and later. The Rabbinical texts were not even brought together as a Bavli and Yirushalmi Talmud until centuries after the fall of the second Temple.

[Confused Ape]

I thought that including "Spaniards" and "Jews" would have been a hint about forced conversions. It was the Spanish Inquisition and the period that proceded it that I was speaking of.

I've never really looked at the history of the Spanish Inquisition so I wasn't sure what you meant by -

A later story, many centuries later, do the who supernatural polemic with him flying into the sky and some other rabbi has to fly up and piss him down (gotta love those Spaniards and their bathroom humor). At the time, forced conversions were going on, so they fought back by lampooning the enemy. Interestingly enough, it may have helped the conversion cause more than hinder it.

Does that mean Yeishu ha-Notzri was invented as a way if mocking Christianity? Sorry about all these questions but it's very difficult to find any real information on the internet. The wikipedia article is labelled 'neutrality disputed' and 'may contain original research' but all it really says is that people have been arguing about him for centuries. Yeshu According To Wikipedia.

There are also many discussions about this article - Refuting Missionaires by Hayyam ben Yehoshua . The article isn't very helpful because the author just provided a short list of books for further reading without saying which book he got the following information from -

it is clear that the first century Christians in Israel considered themselves to be a continuation of the Notzri movement which had been in existence for about 150 years. One of the most notorious Notzrim was Yeishu ben Pandeira, also known as Yeishu ha-Notzri. Talmudic scholars have always maintained that the story of Jesus began with Yeishu. The Hebrew name for Jesus has always been Yeishu and the Hebrew for "Jesus the Nazarene" has always been "Yeishu ha-Notzri

One of the authors in his reading list must have come up with the idea that the Notzri movement had been around for 150 years but I haven't the faintest idea who it was. Some of the internet discussions also refer to Allegro's idea that Jesus originated with a psychedelic mushroom cult.

Anyway, on to Paul -

Well, if Paul believed in a "son of David" and he knew someting about Judaism, then he must have held that Jesus was (1) human and (2) had a human father. To have a non-Jewish father (god is not Jewish) creates a lot of legalisting problems.Unlike David, where they could retroactively validate him as being a proper leader, having a non-Jewish father tosses the entire premis into the can. So I would suggest that Paul would have not held with the virgin birth story (which he never mentions) or a non-Jewish supernatural father.

It's unlikely that Paul taught about the virgin birth if he never mentioned it but how far can we rely on him where the beliefs of the original sect are concerned? If he decided to start his own religion, could he have adapted some things to appeal to pagans? It's unlikely that pagans would have cared about legal problems any more than the Christians who invented the virgin birth did.

[EGross]

After running an errand, I though about my post about the use of Hebrew names and thought I would post it in a more clear explanation, since using terms like "kametz katan" and things like that may be confusing.

In the story about Moses, we read of a fellow named Hosea who was his servent. Later on, Moses adds a letter "yud" (sort of like a "Y") to the front of his name. And when you add a yud (י) as a prefix, it gets a half-beat count, like a short "eh". This device is called a "sh'vah", and very often causes the lengthening of the next to the last vowel of a word. And so Ho-shay-ah becomes Ye-ho-shoo-ah, or, in English, "Joshua".

(It is interesting to note that Esubius writes that the early church fathers were not sure if they "Hoshea" or "Yehoshua" sould be the name of Jesus. The meanings vary depending on your intent.)

So you have a Christian cult who took "Joshua" and just turned the "J" into a "Y" sound. (I cringe when I see this done with Isaiah by Christians to be "Yishiah"), so you have Yoshua, and because they want the prefix to be about god ("ya") you end up with "Yashua" by the messianic christians.

But when the Rabbis wanted to mock Christianity they did a very cute thing. First of all Y'ShU, a 3-character name cannot be found anywhere in all of Rabbinical writings unless it is mocking Christianity. It is not a real name, nor even a nick name. There is no root in it for anything. I have run a scan against my database of hundreds of Rabbinical writings and that is the way it is. Early Rabbis made up a polemical acronym that also has the same gematria as ריק (Riq - empty and void). Gematria is the prodess of converting letters to numbers and providing a bit of hidden meaning.

So Orthodox Jews all over the world, at least three times a day, originally had, concerning the Christians, an affirmation to god in the midst of their praises: "For they (the nations) bow to vanity and (riq) emptiness, one who cannot give them salvation." When the Church got wind of this, it was censored, but in the past few decades it has been reinserted, since it is safe to say it. Some communities, like those in England (the yekkies) won't say it, while the Chareidim (black hatters) certainly will say so, and with great fervor.

All of it is polemical. The Rabbis made up a fake name to insult Christians in multiple ways, the Church picke a related name that they like as a reference after some debate, but stayed with the Greek/Roman variant "Jesus", which, while it relates to either Hoshea or Yehushua, certainly doesn't have any connection to the modern cultic fiction "Yashua".

By the way, some Chareidim have a strange practice to learn "Toldot Yeshu" on Christmas morning, as a way of descrating what they see as a "holiday of idolotry". (I always felt it was weird to focus on Jesus on Christmas, and would learn something else that day).

So that's it. There is no "Jesus" in any Rabbinical writings. The three-letter name that has no root within it was assiged to be one of mockery and insult and was done centuries after those who lived during that time had remained silent about it were long dead.

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There are also many discussions about this article - Refuting Missionaires by Hayyam ben Yehoshua . The article isn't very helpful because the author just provided a short list of books for further reading without saying which book he got the following information from -
[snip]

I read his page and found errors from the beginning. (Saying that Christians were always called "notzrim", which means he never really studied the last "book" in his list, or he would have known that they were initially called "minim" as an insult ("a species") as talmidai Yeshu ("the students or followers of Yeshu"), and that "notzrim" was a name that came a bit later. I believe I read that the Jews that gave up on Judaism gave themselves that name, and it stuck.

His work isn't scholarly and his cut and paste of the "ben Pandeira" story incorrectly assigns it as being talmudic, when it is really outside of those texts and came many centuries later. My guess is that he compiled different ideas from different anti-missionary web sites since they don't have a lot of cohesiveness.

He also seems to combine the bereitas, which contain nothing of this story and were quite early un their unedited form with the writings of the tosaphists that occured 600 or so years ago.

This would explain his lack of citing any real sources because it would have required some real work.

A scholarly exposition on this very topic was written in Tarbiz, a publication by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, which analyzes the earlier fragments as uncovered in the Cairo Geneiza, that seems to imply that this story may not have originated in 12th century Spain, but around the 8th century. It's quite a long piece and not in English, but it is very good. Given that a genaiza is a trash depository, the explanation for these peices are under debate.

But that is the difference between someone who has made a study of this and can cite references, and someone who does no research and pulls inverified details together.

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It's unlikely that Paul taught about the virgin birth if he never mentioned it but how far can we rely on him where the beliefs of the original sect are concerned? If he decided to start his own religion, could he have adapted some things to appeal to pagans? It's unlikely that pagans would have cared about legal problems any more than the Christians who invented the virgin birth did.

Actually, there were lots of Virgin Birth stories already existing. One might have thought that Paul, if he was who he said he was and was marketing his religion to slaves and women (according to one Christian marketing book I read, it was the best marketing plan - give it to the women and let them convert their men folk! Give it to the slaves and let them convert their masters). Tammuz, Bacchus, Dyonisius are thee similar stories that come to mind that he might have adapted. But it doesn not appear that he was familiar with the gospels or with the pagen stories either, or just didn't care about them.

[Confused Ape]

His work isn't scholarly and his cut and paste of the "ben Pandeira" story incorrectly assigns it as being talmudic, when it is really outside of those texts and came many centuries later. My guess is that he compiled different ideas from different anti-missionary web sites since they don't have a lot of cohesiveness.

After running an errand, I though about my post about the use of Hebrew names and thought I would post it in a more clear explanation, since using terms like "kametz katan" and things like that may be confusing.

Thanks for the help and clearing the mystery up - I've pasted your post into a document so I don't lose the information.

So, people see similarities between YHN and Jesus because they're supposed to.

Actually, there were lots of Virgin Birth stories already existing. One might have thought that Paul, if he was who he said he was and was marketing his religion to slaves and women (according to one Christian marketing book I read, it was the best marketing plan - give it to the women and let them convert their men folk! Give it to the slaves and let them convert their masters). Tammuz, Bacchus, Dyonisius are thee similar stories that come to mind that he might have adapted.

The idea of a Saviour who gave the poor and downtrodden a place in heaven would have appealed to women who were second class citizens and slaves. Maybe he thought that this divine being having ordinary parents and supposedly fulfilling prophecies about the Jewish Messiah would be enough.

But it doesn not appear that he was familiar with the gospels or with the pagen stories either, or just didn't care about them.

There's a lot of argument about when the gospels were written

Scholars variously assess the majority (though not the consensus [29]) view as follows:
Mark: c. 68–73,[30] c. 65–70[31]
Matthew: c. 70–100.[30] c. 80–85.[31]
Luke: c. 80–100, with most arguing for somewhere around 85,[30] c. 80–85[31]
John: c. 90–100,[31] c. 90–110,[32] The majority view is that it was written in stages, so there was no one date of composition.

Traditional Christian scholarship has generally preferred to assign earlier dates.

Matthew: c. 50 to 70s
Mark: c. 50s to early 60s, or late 60s
Luke: c. 59 to 63, or 70s to 80s
John: c. 85 to near 100, or 50s to 70

Paul is supposed to have died in AD 67 so, even with the earlier dating, they might have originated after his death. Did he hear about any ideas which were being passed round before they were written down? It's possible and it could be a case of him not caring because it showed that his new religion was becoming popular.

PS: Looks like my Fred idea needs changing. I'll make him a member of that mysterious mushroom cult instead.