Rewriting the bible

[Minimalist]

It's been done, man. It's been done.

[Cyberman]

JC would totally walk all over Aquaman.

[ManMachine]

I'm not really interested in what you said but your signature lines intrigue me. Does God actually speak to you or are you putting words in his mouth (i.e. "Friedrich Nietzsche is dead... god") which I'm fairly sure under your religion is a sin.

Still, Hypocrisy is rife in Christianity, why would you be any different?


MM

Nothing sinful in my signature, and yes God speaks to me, if He didn't I would have something to worry about. The hypocrisy lives only in your mind.

GC

My point is, god never said that, ever... did he. You or some other pseudo-Theologian did.

I fully admit I am prone to hypocrisy and contradiction, not just in my mind but in some of the things I occasionally say or do, but I'm a decent human who'd rather not lie about the reality of who I am. Guess my atheist morality is better than Christian morality after all. Wow I'm finding out a lot of interesting things today.

MM

[abaris]

It's been done, man. It's been done.

Sweet, I was looking for something like this without finding it.

Btw, look up my prervious post. I edited my post to respond to your issued with Ehrman, which are basically mine too.

[Minimalist]

It wasn't what we would call history today. It was meant to present an ideal.

I can't agree strongly enough with this observation. What instantly springs to mind is Livy's History of Rome from its Foundation. Whenever the Romans win a battle it is because the commander is cool and calm and retains tight control of his troops. Whenever they lose a battle it is because the commander is rash or headstrong and fails to keep control of his troops. Sometimes, disaster is averted when a second body of Roman soldiers come to the rescue under a commander who is, once again, cool and calm. In the aftermath the rash commander always admits he was wrong and they live happily ever after.

The names change but the description of the battles takes on a certain sameness if you read enough of it!

---

When Romulus is described as the Son of God, born of a virgin, we understand that as a myth.

Well....you have to be careful with some of this internet stuff.

From Livy's History: The Romulus/Remus myth

http://global.oup.com/us/companion.websi...ives/livy/

Amulius drove his brother out and assumed the rule. He added foul deed to foul deed. He destroyed the male offspring of his brother and from Rhea Silvia, his brother’s daughter, he stole any hope of offspring by imposing perpetual virginity on her, when he chose her as a Vestal as if for the sake of honoring her.

But, as I see it, the origin of a very great city and the beginning of the greatest empire next to the power of the gods was predestined. When the Vestal was raped and gave birth to twins, she named Mars as the father of her children, either because she believed it was so or because a god was more respectable as the author of the deed.

So, she may have been a Vestal Virgin but she was not so chaste when she got pregnant. Even the primitive Romans weren't dumb enough to fall for that line of shit.

[quote]When Augustus is described as the Son of God, born of a mortal , we understand that as a myth.

Octavian was the adopted son of Gaius Julius Caesar who had in fact been declared a god by the senate. In those days the line between god and man could get a little blurry if you were successful enough.

The general point of that website is correct - there is nothing in early xtian bullshit which would have been really new to the Greco-Roman citizens of the empire. They'd heard it all before in one form or another.
Carrier's "On the Historicity of Jesus" spends a lot of time exploring the common literary motifs which xtians adopted.

Just be wary when they start to push the analogies too far.

[Godscreated]

Nothing sinful in my signature, and yes God speaks to me, if He didn't I would have something to worry about. The hypocrisy lives only in your mind.

GC

My point is, god never said that, ever... did he. You or some other pseudo-Theologian did.

I fully admit I am prone to hypocrisy and contradiction, not just in my mind but in some of the things I occasionally say or do, but I'm a decent human who'd rather not lie about the reality of who I am. Guess my atheist morality is better than Christian morality after all. Wow I'm finding out a lot of interesting things today.

MM

No, God never said that directly to me, it's something He would say in response to a comment made long ago, if He were to respond. The statements are true and that is the point to them, I am just implying that is what God would say if He responded, nothing sinful in what I wrote.

GC

[strawdawg]

OK, thanks for your feedback.

You don't have to be involved in reglion if you choose. Did your priest try to bugger you when you were in school? That will do it every time.

[xpastor]

There may well have been a raving rabbi called Jesus walking the desert.

There "may" have been but what Ehrman...and Aslan, and lots of others forget is that there is only one story. That of the miracle-working godboy.

They are all trying to shrink it down to something they think is 'reasonable' but simply refuse to admit that in doing so they are writing a new story. In Ehrman's case it is particularly ironic since he has made a career out of blasting the shit out of xtians who take the 4 gospel stories that made the cut in the committee and trying to ram them together into what he derisively calls the gospel of markmatthewlukejohn.

That book does not exist. Neither does the one that Ehrman claims for his apocalyptic preacher.

Min, I have to say I find your narrative a good deal less credible than Ehrman's and in violation of Ockham's Razor. (Historical note: What we call Ockham's Razor was well-known to the scientists and philosophers of ancient times. Richard Carrier cites two places where the astronomer Ptolemy invoked it.)

If I understand your position (not just from the above post) you think that Christianity was "invented" in the 2nd century CE. I see some problems with that view.

1. Why would these unknown conspirators set their mythical hero at least 150 years earlier and then put into his mouth prophecies of the end which obviously did not come true?
   
2. Why would the forged pastoral epistles show a much more developed church government (bishops, presbyters, and deacons) than the wild and wooly situation depicted in Corinthians and other epistles thought to be genuine writings of Paul?
   
3. Why would these people have written four wildly divergent accounts of the life of their central figure?
   

Ehrman's explanation is much simpler. We know that 1st century Palestine was filled with apocalyptic preaching. One of those preachers made more of an impression than the others. My own explanation is that Jesus was the most eloquent, see for instance, the Sermon on the Mount and the parables. He was crucified by the Romans, and his followers dealt with the cognitive dissonance by believing that he had been resurrected. We have plentiful examples down through the ages of cults refusing to accpt the facts when their expectations were dashed. The little sect grew mainly because of the conversion of Paul, who was a talented and indefatigable worker. As the church in different regions met different situations, they fabricated sayings of Jesus and miracle stories to back up their position, and so we have 4 gospels which contradict each other on many points. I guess it could have been 6 or 7 gospels, but sentiment favored these four.

[Minimalist]

We know that 1st century Palestine was filled with apocalyptic preaching.

We do?

What history tells us is that things were fairly quiet in Palestine for the most part. Direct Roman rule of Judaea began in 6 AD and ended with the appointment of Herod Agrippa I in 37 AD. He died in 44. There was a brief interregnum while Herod Agrippa II came of age during which Roman procurators ruled under the auspices of the Imperial Legate of Syria. By 51 the Romans had officially washed their hands of Palestine again although they continued to appoint procurators who also had deal with Agrippa II. However, things had begun to get awkward.

But during the reign of Tiberius and mostly for that of Augustus the Jews had it pretty well. It was the jews themselves who petitioned Augustus to remove Archaelaus and become a Roman praefecture and he gave them what they asked for. They had certain military requirements waived and were exempt from certain taxes. Ironically, this special treatment led to an anti-semitic uprising in Alexandria by Greco-Roman citizens protesting the special treatment they were getting. Philo's famous "Embassy to Gaius" was written as a result of this incident. It did lead Caligula to determine that the special treatment had to stop and he went so far as to order a statue of himself installed in the temple. The governor of Syria, Publius Petronius, no idiot he, delayed and was rewarded when Caligula was assassinated. Crisis averted but attitudes had changed and things started going down the shitter. It was 41 AD and according to the bible fables jesus had been dead for between 5-12 years.

So, yes, we start to see in Josephus that various rebels were showing up but dating them from the procurators who crushed the revolts these are all post 44 AD. Unlike Herod the Great, Herod Agrippa I and II were more Roman than Jew. Herod Agrippa II didn't even take up residence in his "kingdom" until 53 or so. Given the change in attitude by the Romans and the prospect of yet another foreign Herodian prince it does not seem unreasonable that there would have been some trouble. But. Even if the story is true, jesus was long dead by the time this stuff started.

First off, I reject the term "conspirators." Far too modern. This shit evolved over a period of time. No one sat down to create it. That's a red-herring. What we can see is that whoever wrote "luke" had no idea that at the time he was setting his tale that Galilee ( Nazareth?) and Bethlehem were in different polities. Galilee ruled by Herod Antipas and Judaea, as we have seen, a Roman prefecture initially governed by one Coponius. With all the changes which had taken place in the 2d century it certainly seems possible that a poorly educated writer might miss that but had he lived in the first century then, no. I can't buy it. The events would have been too recent.

Second, we don't know what the "original" epistles of "paul" said. We don't have any of them...as far as we know. We are told by church fathers that they were included in the canon created by Marcion who they condemned as a heretic. Justin Martyr, writing 20 years after Marcion never heard of any "paul" and, in spite of his alleged scriptural knowledge that 'scripture' turns out to be predominantly OT stuff. All we know is that while the proto-orthodox (to borrow Ehrman's term) were tossing Marcion out on his ear they decided to keep "paul" in the mix. Further, it looks like they decided that Marcion's idea of a canon had some merit, too, because that is when it seems they began to concoct one of their own. If you ever read up on Marcionism he makes a number of good points about the relationship of 'jesus' to 'yhwh.' What better time to separate from the jews than shortly after the end of the bar Kohkba revolt? The jews were on the top of the Roman Empire's shitlist after 3 revolts in 80 years. The key to understand xtian origins lies with Marcion, IMHO.

#3 is easy. Mark is the most primitive but generally matt and luke follow it and only go off on tangents if Mark is silent on a subject ( i.e. the nativity.) Luke seems to have been targeted to a Greco-Roman audience while Matty is more geared to Palestine itself. John is the oddball in the mix but you must remember that the xtian canon is the result of committee work. Ever serve on a committee? Lots of compromises are made. Sometimes really stupid compromises are made. John had its fans and those fans held out for its inclusion probably agreeing to support another group's favorite just like the horse-trading that goes on in Congress or Parliament to get a bill through.

but sentiment favored these four.

Politics favored those four. You're a great guy, X-P but the world does not run on 'sentiment.' Shit happens for a reason.

My own explanation is that Jesus was the most eloquent, see for instance, the Sermon on the Mount and the parables.

Blessed are the cheesemakers. The point remains that as of right now we have no evidence whatsoever for any jesus until the second century. If what Suetonius and Pliny say can be taken at face value ( i.e., they did not originally write 'chrestus" instead of "christos") then while they heard of xtians, they never heard of any "jesus" either. The first Greco-Roman writer to make reference to "jesus" is Lucian of Samosata c 165 and even he does not know the name:

It was now that he came across the priests and scribes of the Christians, in Palestine, and picked up their queer creed. I can tell you, he pretty soon convinced them of his superiority; prophet, elder, ruler of the Synagogue--he was everything at once; expounded their books, commented on them, wrote books himself. They took him for a God, accepted his laws, and declared him their president. The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day,--the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account.

--The Death of Peregrinus

No, we must wait for Celsus to actually write the name "Jesus" into the Greco-Roman narrative....c 185 AD.

No, thanks to Ehrman's work I find all of the NT thoroughly discredited. It's the old axiom "where one lie is detected a thousand are suspected." Best to dismiss the whole tale and just concentrate on the facts.

[Aractus]

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Min, I have to say I find your narrative a good deal less credible than Ehrman's and in violation of Ockham's Razor. (Historical note: What we call Ockham's Razor was well-known to the scientists and philosophers of ancient times. Richard Carrier cites two places where the astronomer Ptolemy invoked it.)

If I understand your position (not just from the above post) you think that Christianity was "invented" in the 2nd century CE. I see some problems with that view.

1. Why would these unknown conspirators set their mythical hero at least 150 years earlier and then put into his mouth prophecies of the end which obviously did not come true?
   
2. Why would the forged pastoral epistles show a much more developed church government (bishops, presbyters, and deacons) than the wild and wooly situation depicted in Corinthians and other epistles thought to be genuine writings of Paul?
   
3. Why would these people have written four wildly divergent accounts of the life of their central figure?
   

Ehrman's explanation is much simpler. We know that 1st century Palestine was filled with apocalyptic preaching. One of those preachers made more of an impression than the others. My own explanation is that Jesus was the most eloquent, see for instance, the Sermon on the Mount and the parables. He was crucified by the Romans, and his followers dealt with the cognitive dissonance by believing that he had been resurrected. We have plentiful examples down through the ages of cults refusing to accpt the facts when their expectations were dashed. The little sect grew mainly because of the conversion of Paul, who was a talented and indefatigable worker. As the church in different regions met different situations, they fabricated sayings of Jesus and miracle stories to back up their position, and so we have 4 gospels which contradict each other on many points. I guess it could have been 6 or 7 gospels, but sentiment favored these four.

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That's a good post, but I'd just point out that the gospels do not really contradict each other that much. Certainly no more so than would be expected from different authors writing about a number of real events (i.e. sermons, etc). Certainly they're not 100% accurate, but do describe for the most part (ignoring the nativity) a historical narrative.