Why do atheists even bother about debating Jesus?

[Confused Ape]

Although some scholars still postulate pre-Christian gnosticism, no evidence has been found to date.

I don't know when that article was dated, Ape, but recently The Gabriel Revelation stone which dates to the rebellions which broke out upon the death of Herod the Great ( c 4 BC ) indicates that there was a belief in someone coming back to life after 3 days.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0...85,00.html

Since this article was published the disputed word [hayeh] has been confirmed by scholars.

http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/extra.asp?Ar...ticleID=14

Thanks for the links. This definitely indicates that early Christians adopted the idea of resurrection from other sources.

An Introduction To Gnosticism and The Nag Hammadi Library

In the first century of the Christian era the term “Gnostic” came to denote a heterodox segment of the diverse new Christian community. Among early followers of Christ it appears there were groups who delineated themselves from the greater household of the Church by claiming not simply a belief in Christ and his message, but a "special witness" or revelatory experience of the divine. It was this experience or gnosis that set the true follower of Christ apart, so they asserted. Stephan Hoeller explains that these Christians held a "conviction that direct, personal and absolute knowledge of the authentic truths of existence is accessible to human beings, and, moreover, that the attainment of such knowledge must always constitute the supreme achievement of human life."2

That Gnosticism was, at least briefly, in the mainstream of Christianity is witnessed by the fact that one of its most influential teachers, Valentinus, may have been in consideration during the mid-second century for election as the Bishop of Rome

Have found a bit more out about Justin

Justin Martyr (c. 100/114 – c. 162/168), the early Christian apologist, wrote the First Apology, addresses to Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, which mentions his lost 'Compendium Against the Heretics', a work which reputedly reports on the activities of Simon Magus, Menander and Marcion; since this time, both Simon and Menander have been considered as 'proto-Gnostic' (Markschies, Gnosis, 37). Despite this paucity of surviving texts Justin Martyr remains a useful historical figure, as he allows us to determine the time and context in which the first gnostic systems arose

As he regarded the Gnostics as heresy and was writing to the Emperor about them there's no reason for him to have mentioned Paul seeing as Pauline Christianity was mainstream.

The article goes on to say this -

Outside of the earliest forms of gnosticism as indicted by the Apocalypse of Adam which is pre-Christian.

I then went to Apocalypse Of Adam

The Apocalypse of Adam discovered in 1946 as part of the Nag Hammadi library (codex V.5) is a Gnostic work written in Coptic. It has no necessary references to Christianity and it is accordingly debated whether it is a Christian Gnostic work or an example of Jewish Gnosticism. It proclaims one form of Sethian Gnosticism.

Adam in his 700th year tells Seth how he learned a word of knowledge of the eternal God from Eve and that he and Eve were indeed more powerful than their supposed creator. But that knowledge was lost in the fall when the subcreator - the demiurge - separated Adam and Eve.

Demiurge

The demiurge is a concept from the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy for an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics.

Gnosticism presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God and the demiurgic “creator” of the material. Several systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Being: his act of creation occurs in unconscious semblance of the divine model, and thus is fundamentally flawed, or else is formed with the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. Thus, in such systems, the Demiurge acts as a solution to the problem of evil.

Sethianism

The Sethians were a Christian Gnostic sect who may date their existence to before Christianity.[1] Their influence spread throughout the Mediterranean into the later systems of the Basilideans and the Valentinians[citation needed]. Their thinking, though it is predominantly Judaic in foundation, is arguably strongly influenced by Platonism. Sethians are so called for their veneration of the biblical Seth, third son of Adam and Eve, who is depicted in their myths of creation as a divine incarnation; consequently, the offspring or 'posterity' of Seth are held to comprise a superior elect within human society.

However, since Sethians identified Seth with Christ (Second Logos of the Great Seth), the view of Philaster that the Sethians had pre-Christian origins, other than in syncretic absorption of Jewish and Greek pre-Christian sources, has been questioned by some modern scholarship.[8]

Looks like scholars are still trying to figure out when Gnosticim in general started.

PS

There are beliefs of someone coming back to life after three days thousands of years before Christianity, see Osiris and Mithras. Three days relates to the period of time when the moon is completely dark before it returns "to life" in the sky.

Christianity developed from Judaism so it's likely that the early Christians got their idea straight from the "Gabriel's Revelation" tablet. The concept of resurrection in three days, however, probably came from the time before the Hebrews developed their monotheistic religion and it was absorbed into Judaism.

PPS: Has anyone found any more links to interesting information?