For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Minimalist]

Simon Magus is recorded in Acts of the Apostles.....and that is just as big a pile of shit as the rest of it.

Yes, there are all sorts of competing traditions about these people but there is no evidence that they were real. The Labors of Hercules are populated with plenty of people and beasts, too. So what?


However, if you have some historical evidence for Clement of Rome which was discovered after 1894 feel free to present it. I'm not aware of any.

[Justtristo]

PS: I'm persevering with Humphreys' site but his information does get very confusing.

Christianity Without Jesus.. He writes as if Paul really existed and this page appears to have been posted 10.10.11 if that's meant to be the date.

An early Jewish Gnostic was the Samaritan "Simon the Magus"

Probably the most successful student of Simon was the apostle Paul, who would concoct a new, Jewish-oriented version of the ancient mystery cult tradition of dying and rising gods.

However, quoted by Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians is a hymn, perhaps one which originated with the Essenes,

Paul himself passed on to heaven – or maybe just died .

St Paul the Apostle – Could it all be a fabrication? Here is a series of articles which give very good arguments that Paul didn't exist. Christian Mystics Of Knowledge is 14.11.11

The Samaritan "Simon the Magus" was an early Jewish Gnostic who inspired both the mystical "Kabala" (a refinement of Pythagorean "magic" numbers) and later Christian Gnostics – Basilides, Saturninus, Carpocrates among them. Later Catholic writers demonized the poor guy. He may actually be the figure on whom the apostle Paul is based!

I'm still trying to puzzle out how Paul can be based on Simon the Magus at the same time as being Simon The Magus's most successful student.

Hermann Detering a German pastor and scholar makes a very compelling case that the Paul of Tarsus character in the New Testament was based on Simon Magus. If Detering is correct (and I believe he is), then the Paul we know of from the New Testament did not exist.

[Minimalist]

Ah ha, Just! Then, ipso facto, Detering is not a real scholar as all real scholars believe otherwise.

[Confused Ape]

Hermann Detering a German pastor and scholar makes a very compelling case that the Paul of Tarsus character in the New Testament was based on Simon Magus. If Detering is correct (and I believe he is), then the Paul we know of from the New Testament did not exist.

Wikipedia gives a link to Detering's article on The Dutch Radical Approach to the Pauline Epistles

Dutch Radical Criticism is the usual name of a school that in the nineteenth century arose within Dutch New Testament scholarship, whose representatives aimed at vitiating two axioms of New Testament scholarship still cherished today. They contested a) the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth and/or b) the authenticity of the lot of the Pauline Epistles.

It's all very complicated although it seems that a lot of people think that Marcion was the chief culprit for forging the epistles. Detering's own idea is that there were already legends about Paul in Marcion's time.

The best proof for the existence of such a legend is none other than Luke's Acts of the Apostles. Yet the presentation of Paul in the Acts is by no means the only form of the Pauline legend; it rather presents only a very specific and tendential image, precisely that of Luke's church, i.e., of the Established (Catholic) Church.Also (and especially) in the circles of the second-century Gnostics and Marcionites stories and anecdotes seem to have been circulating, in which the apostle's life and work were presented in a likewise miraculous and legendarily embellished way. The legend found literary expression in the so-called Acts of Paul among which are also the Acts of Paul and Thekla.

Well, it would make life easier for Marcion if he had a legendary character to work with. He could then produce all the letters he'd 'found' without everyone asking "Who the heck was Paul?"

Now to Simon Magus.

b) But we cannot as yet satisfactorily explain all the character traits of the implied author of the Epistles by reference to the legend literature of the second century. The question must also be asked whether the Paul of the legendary literature may not after all be based on a particular historical person. The question of Paul's historical identity can, I think, be solved only simultaneously with the following problems:

ii) It should be investigated anew, why in a certain branch of the primitive Christian literature, the so-called Pseudo-Clementines and Kerygmata Petri, Paul is identified with Simon Magus. The basic problem found here may be formulated as follows: In the Pseudo-Clementines Simon is mentioned by name and combatted. The heresies he is reproached with are Marcionite. And the words that are put into his mouth are those of Paul.

The identification of Simon-Paul put forward in the Pseudo-Clementine literature has up to the present been one of the most difficult problems for New Testament scholarship. There is a series of solutions for it; in my Paulusbriefe ohne Paulus? I have thoroughly described the theory of the Tübingen scholars, who saw in Simon a caricature of Paul; today the problem is, in the majority of cases, solved in a most complicated, literary-critical way.

In our search for the historical Paul, the question, I think, forces itself on us more than ever: How seriously should we consider the statement that, for the author, or authors, of this Judaistic, anti-Pauline literature, Paul is indeed no one but Simon Magus?

f) Finally it should be asked, how it comes about that Marcion explicitly appeals to Paul (as his spiritual father), although the Fathers of the Church emphatically stick to the opinion, that Marcion is connected with Simon Magus through the heretic Kerdo, i.e., that he comes from the school of Simon the Magus, whom again Marcion mentions nowhere.74

After all that and a lot more I think he might be saying that Simon Magus could have been invented as a caricature of a mythical Paul but it's very unlikely that Paul was based on a real person called Simon Magus.

Ah ha, Just! Then, ipso facto, Detering is not a real scholar as all real scholars believe otherwise.

I did a search for all articles mentioning Simon Magus on jesusneverexisted.com and have yet to find one where Humphreys proves that Simon Magus never existed. Maybe I haven't used the right keywords and there's such an article somewhere.

I've been wondering why the site is so disorganised as if it's designed for cherry picking where various ideas are concerned and then I remembered what one of his qualifications is and where he's had life experience.

a post-graduate pedagogic certificate

He taught for many years both in the UK and abroad, the latter including periods in Turkey and Papua New Guinea, the former including a Senior Lecturership in Modern Languages.

This could explain his approach where he presents Simon Magus as being a real person in several articles. Maybe he wants his visitors to question whether Simon Magus existed rather than just taking his word for it. After all, a really good teacher teaches students to evaluate information and think for themselves. I've also found a few cases where he refers to a document as if providing a clue. "If you want more, search for it yourself."

As for 'real' scholars never coming up with ideas which others don't believe in, look at Bart Ehrman's book where he presents the 'real historical Jesus'.

[Justtristo]

Ah ha, Just! Then, ipso facto, Detering is not a real scholar as all real scholars believe otherwise.

Well I don't have any automatic respect for people just because they have the proper credentials. As the sheer amount of logical fallacies committed by real scholars shows. Those credentials are just pieces of paper, what matters to me is the substance of their arguments.

I admit I have not real very much of Ken Humphreys articles, however I have read the works of people such as Herman Detering, Earl Doherty and Robert M Price. Therefore I have concluded that the onus is on those who disagree with their positions.

[Minimalist]

proves that Simon Magus never existed.

I can not prove that invisible pink unicorns drinking margaritas in a Tiajuana bar at Mardi Gras do not exist either. However there is no evidence for them.

I doubt that Simon Magus is any more real than any of the other characters who make up xtian mythology. In any story, someone has to be the "bad guy." Makes for a better yarn.

[Justtristo]

proves that Simon Magus never existed.

I can not prove that invisible pink unicorns drinking margaritas in a Tiajuana bar at Mardi Gras do not exist either. However there is no evidence for them.

I doubt that Simon Magus is any more real than any of the other characters who make up xtian mythology. In any story, someone has to be the "bad guy." Makes for a better yarn.

I might add there are historical characters who appear in the gospels for example; Pontus Pilate, King Herod the Great, Herod Agrippa I and II. However this does not contribute at all to the historical reliability (lack therefore in this case) of the Gospels and the Book of Acts.

[Minimalist]

Funny how Alexander the Great never makes it into the OT. How did 'god' miss him?

[Justtristo]

Funny how Alexander the Great never makes it into the OT. How did 'god' miss him?

There two references to Alexander the Great the book of Daniel, namely the Ram* in Chapter 8 and the mighty king whose empire got divided into four after his death in Chapter 11.

* Alexander portrayed himself an manifestation of the god Amun Ra, there are coins with him wearing rams horn that have been found which can attest to this.

[Minimalist]

"God" didn't know his name?

As far as "Solomon" goes one need not go so far. The Assyrian king, Shalmeneser V ( the Greek rendering of his name ) was called Šulmanu-ašarid in Akkadian. Sulmanu? Solomon? Gee. I wonder where they got their inspiration from?