RE: Is Christianity based on older myths?
February 5, 2015 at 11:54 am
(This post was last modified: February 5, 2015 at 11:59 am by SteveII.)
(February 5, 2015 at 11:41 am)Cato Wrote:(February 5, 2015 at 11:13 am)SteveII Wrote: He knew, met with, and corresponded with actual disciples of Jesus. So for your theory to work, the actual eyewitnesses to Jesus' life would have had to lie to Paul who passed it on in his letters. The eyewitnesses also wrote letters (at least John, Peter, and James' survived) where they lied.
Paul disagrees with you:
Galatians 1:11-12 (NIV)
11 I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.
19 I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. 20 I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.
It is funny you skipped verse 18: Galatians 1:18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days.
Cephas is Peter.
Galatians 1 is a chronological series of events Paul is relaying. In Gal 2:9 he talks about meeting Peter and John at another time.
(February 5, 2015 at 11:47 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote:(February 5, 2015 at 11:28 am)SteveII Wrote: I don't care if you believe the events of Jesus' life actually happened or not. But the consequences of rejecting the gospels is that a significant number of people intentionally lied. Then the question is to what end? This all goes toward the probability assessment of whether the first Christians believed in the actual key events in Jesus' life.
You...do know that people can honestly and genuinely believe something, and simply be wrong about it, right? We're not saying that early Christians were consciously spreading and dying for something that they were lying about, we're saying that they were wrong.
Can you please acknowledge at least this point?
Sure I understand that. But at some point in the causal chain of belief, someone had to start the lie. After reading the epistles you would have to assume the lie started with the actual disciples (with or without Paul's involvement). Relevant to this thread, that would mean the Galilean fisherman borrowed from ancient myths (with or without Paul's help) to concoct the story they would tell as true.
