For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Confused Ape]

Ah...Clement of Rome!

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/beginni...lementrome

Sorry, but I'm not accepting Kenneth Humphreys' opinion about the dating of the First Epistle Of Clement. Here's his university degrees.

Kenneth Humphreys holds a Master's degree from the University of Essex in history and social sciences, a post-graduate pedagogic certificate from the University of Leicester, and a higher national certificate in business studies.

Religion, and in particular the claims of Christianity, have been a life-long interest.

Please find analyses by scholars who have the right qualifications to judge how old this text really is. I honestly don't mind if they disagree with each other because their opinions will be interesting to read.

His saying that Clement never existed is irrelevant to the text itself, anyway, because somebody wrote it even if it wasn't Clement.

Recall the timing though. Marcion allegedly is writing c 144. Justin is writing a mere 16 years (more or less) later.

No, Justin's knowledge of Marcion may have been of another perhaps even rival group.

I had a go at finding an article or book explaining why Justin never mentioned Paul. Paul And The Second Century devotes Chapter 6 to discussing the arguments of someone called Skarsaune who seems to think that Justin quoted Paul. The chapter ends on page 125 with the conclusion that the answer is unknown.

I then did a search for the author, Dr. Michael F Bird, and found Interview with Michael Bird on Having a Fresh Encounter with Paul

The other reason we should read Paul is because he was the first great “missionary theologian” of the church. Most of Paul’s theology (biblical and practical theologies I should say) was done on his feet, on the move, in some cases while on the run, while on the mission field.

This isn't very helpful because we need the opinion of a qualified scholar who doesn't think that Paul existed.

In either case, Ape, you must contrast it with the OFFICIAL STORY. That Paul was this virtual founding figure in the first century AD who single-handedly brought xtianity to the gentiles.... except no one seems to know about him until much later.

So why don't you have a go at finding a text which qualified scholars have judged to be the first ever authentic mention of Paul. We're not looking for when the official story was fully fledged anyway, just when the basic tradition of Paul could have got started.

I managed to find Tertullian's Against Marcion. It looks like Tertullian believed that Paul had existed and wrote epistles because he's tediously going on about how Marcion had tampered with the texts. This quote reveals something very interesting, though.

CHAP.XVII.--THE EPISTLE TO THE LAODICEANS. THE PROPER DESIGNATION IS TO THE EPHESIANS.

We have it on the true tradition of the Church, that this epistle was sent to the Ephesians, not to the Laodiceans.

Epistle To The Ephesians

The Epistle to the Ephesians, often shortened to Ephesians, is the tenth book of the New Testament. Its authorship has traditionally been credited to Paul, but it is considered by some scholars to be Deutero-pauline, that is, written in Paul's name by a later author strongly influenced by Paul's thought.[1][2][3][4] Bible scholar Raymond E. Brown asserts that about 80% of critical scholarship judges that Paul did not write Ephesians,[5] while Perrin and Duling[6] say that of six authoritative scholarly references, "four of the six decide for pseudonymity, and the other two (PCB and JBC) recognize the difficulties in maintaining Pauline authorship. Indeed, the difficulties are insurmountable."

Looks like Marcion and Tertullian were fooled by a fake letter.

but you'd think some tough sailors 2000 years ago could have been able to get his boat inland a mile or two, or just swim the thing if it tipped. Not panic with "OH MY GOD! THERE'S A WAVE! [splish]".

It must have been a miraculously bad storm that day just so Jesus could show he really was the Son of God.

In the year 2000, the tourist bureau installed a plexiglass walkway just under the water so you could get photos of yourself doing the "Jesus walk".

An interesting tourist attraction.

My guess is that he was close to shore already, stood on a nearby rock and said "Hey crybabies, get out of the damn boat!"

Or maybe the story was written by somebody who was used to storms in the Mediterranean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHdqqOGYMi8