For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Undeceived]

I've invented a conspiracy theory about why Justin Martyr never mentioned Paul.

Marcion rejected the Old Testament, which is why he was so selective in his canon. He even went to far as to cut out Paul's Old Testament quotes. Your conspiracy theory would involve Marcion's canon being the original and Greeks adding Jewish verses after the fact. This is from Christians who didn't even want to be seen using the same scrolls as Jews! (Jews used scrolls, Christians codices.) Marcion was a radical. If Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism, it would not be so incredibly unrecognizable as Marcion's version. What you propose, to use a political analogy, is akin to a Conservative turning Liberal, and then filling the "Holy Book of Liberalism" with Conservative quotes so as to become a Moderate. Does that sound logical to you?

Let's go with this for a second. It is still clear that the story as a whole is a fabrication because the bit Matthew is quoting isn't even a prophecy to begin with. Even if it was, it hasn't been fulfilled. Notice Matthew's cheeky sleight of hand:

Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a young woman shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Matthew 1:23
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel.

Matthew has changed it from being the mother who will call the son Immanuel, to the general public calling him Immanuel "which means God with us", because quite clearly, the "messiah" isn't called Immanuel. The simple explanation to this is, as I stated, that Isaiah isn't talking about some messiah. He's talking with king Ahaz about his enemies and what not. So clearly, when one reads the chapter properly, the entire aura surrounding this verse as a "messianic prophecy" vanishes.

Actually, the literal Greek-English translation from the Septuagint is "Behold, the virgin [in the womb will conceive], and shall bear a son, and you shall call his name Immanuel." It generally means "his name shall be so called" which connotes the same meaning as Matthew's "they". Isaiah himself was speaking to the house of David, the royal family of Judah (Isaiah 7:13). They--his own people--shall call him Immanuel. But you're right that Isaiah meant the prophecy to be fulfilled in his time. Most prophecies are this way. The miracle isn't that Isaiah randomly predicted the future in the middle of a message to Ahaz. It is that all through history there are types--types of Messiahs, redeemers and saviors who illustrate and foreshadow the one Messiah who was to come. This isn't a fortune-telling. It's a demonstration of God's grand plan.

[Confused Ape]

Marcion rejected the Old Testament, which is why he was so selective in his canon. He even went to far as to cut out Paul's Old Testament quotes. Your conspiracy theory would involve Marcion's canon being the original and Greeks adding Jewish verses after the fact.

This is referring to the theory that Marcion forged some of Paul's letters and the fact that Justin Martyr never mentioned Paul by name in his own works. Minimalist and I have been talking about it elsewhere in this topic.

[FallentoReason]

Actually, the literal Greek-English translation from the Septuagint is "Behold, the virgin [in the womb will conceive], and shall bear a son, and you shall call his name Immanuel." It generally means "his name shall be so called" which connotes the same meaning as Matthew's "they". Isaiah himself was speaking to the house of David, the royal family of Judah (Isaiah 7:13). They--his own people--shall call him Immanuel. But you're right that Isaiah meant the prophecy to be fulfilled in his time. Most prophecies are this way. The miracle isn't that Isaiah randomly predicted the future in the middle of a message to Ahaz. It is that all through history there are types--types of Messiahs, redeemers and saviors who illustrate and foreshadow the one Messiah who was to come. This isn't a fortune-telling. It's a demonstration of God's grand plan.

Really now? By this definition of "prophecy", I expect the messiah to have commanded two bears to maul 42 people, like Elisha did.

This makes the whole Jesus story hardly impressive if we're going to grant ourselves the freedom to pick and choose what parts of the OT were highlighting the "grand plan".

[Minimalist]

This is referring to the theory that Marcion forged some of Paul's letters and the fact that Justin Martyr never mentioned Paul by name in his own works. Minimalist and I have been talking about it elsewhere in this topic.

Forged....(or edited.)

2 "Corinthians" 11:32

32 In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me.

This quite correctly describes a situation c 84 BC where the Nabatean king, Aretas III had conquered Damascus. Aretas III was also deeply involved in the palace intrigues of the crumbling Hasmonean dynasty in Jerusalem and the idea that he may have provided political sanctuary - or withdrawn sanctuary - to one side or another in that internecine squabble is not at all far-fetched.

Of course, xtians would rather slam their balls in a car door than admit that fucking "paul" is talking about a first century BC event. Can't say I blame them. Such an admission and their whole bible blows up in their fucking faces.

[Undeceived]

2 "Corinthians" 11:32

32 In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me.

This quite correctly describes a situation c 84 BC where the Nabatean king, Aretas III had conquered Damascus. Aretas III was also deeply involved in the palace intrigues of the crumbling Hasmonean dynasty in Jerusalem and the idea that he may have provided political sanctuary - or withdrawn sanctuary - to one side or another in that internecine squabble is not at all far-fetched.

Of course, xtians would rather slam their balls in a car door than admit that fucking "paul" is talking about a first century BC event. Can't say I blame them. Such an admission and their whole bible blows up in their fucking faces.

http://bible.cc/2_corinthians/11-32.htm

"Under Aretas the king" - There were three kings of this name who are particularly mentioned by ancient writers. The first is mentioned in 2 Macc. 5:8, as the "king of the Arabians." He lived about 170 years before Christ, and of course could not be the one referred to here. The second is mentioned in Josephus, Antiquities 13, xv, section 2. He is first mentioned as having reigned in Coele-Syria, but as being called to the government of Damascus by those who dwelt there, on account of the hatred which they bore to Ptolemy Meneus. Whiston remarks in a note on Josephus, that this was the first king of the Arabians who took Damascus and reigned there, and that this name afterward became common to such Arabian kings as reigned at Damascus and at Petra; see Josephus, Antiquities 16, ix, section 4. Of course this king reigned some time before the transaction here referred to by Paul. A third king of this name, says Rosenmuller, is the one mentioned here. He was the father-in-law of Herod Antipas. He made war with his son-in-law Herod because he had repudiated his daughter, the wife of Herod. This he had done in order to marry his brother Philip's wife; see the note, Matthew 14:3. On this account Aretas made war with Herod, and in order to resist him, Herod applied to Tiberius the Roman emperor for aid. Vitellius was sent by Tiberius to subdue Aretas, and to bring him dead or alive to Rome. But before Vitellius had embarked in the enterprise, Tiberius died, and thus Aretas was saved from ruin. It is supposed that in this state of things, when thus waging war with Herod, he made an incursion to Syria and seized upon Damascus, where he was reigning when Paul went there; or if not reigning there personally, he had appointed an ethnarch or governor who administered the affairs of the city in his place.

[Confused Ape]

This is referring to the theory that Marcion forged some of Paul's letters

Forged....(or edited.)

The question is, if Paul didn't exist and Marcion only edited Corinthians and the other letters, who wrote the letters?

I still suspect that Justin's own treatises against heresies and Marcion mysteriously vanished because he had a lot to say about Paul in them -Tertullian's faction didn't want his opinions in circulation because they didn't suit their own version of Paul, the super apostle.

[Minimalist]

He was the father-in-law of Herod Antipas. He made war with his son-in-law Herod because he had repudiated his daughter, the wife of Herod.

Yes. Aretas IV. And he NEVER controlled Damascus.

That was Aretas III. In the first century BC. Which plays hell with your holy horseshit, doesn't it?

I always keep this map handy to show how far Damascus was from Nabatea.



The Decapolis and Syria were Roman territory in the first century. While your quoting Josephus you might mention that he also tells us that when the Great Revolt broke out the good citizens of Damascus rose up and slaughtered the Jews in reprisal.

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Meanwhile, back to Candida Moss who does dissect each of the supposedly "legitimate" martyr stories which survived the church's own cutting block and, to no one's great surprise, finds them to be bullshit, too.

"It seems that all of the early Chrsitian martyr stories have been altered. From the Martyrdom of Polycarp to the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs, these accounts have been edited and shaped by later generations of Christians. In fact, there is no early Christian account that has been preserved without emendation. Often it is the martyr's own words that have been most clearly changed. Even in the case of the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity we cannot be sure that we have the words of the actual martyrs themselves."

In other words....in any fish story the fish always gets bigger!

[Minimalist]

Reached the point where Moss has examined the actual "persecutions" of Decius, Valentinius and Diocletian. Her conclusion is that Decius and Valerian issued edicts which effectively required a loyalty oath among the entire population and did specifically target xtians. Only Diocletian, the last of the 3 actually went after xtians.

For the record, it was later xtian writers (Lactantius and the noted liar, Eusebius) who started this persecution shit against both Decius and Valerian.

[MORETORQUE]

One thing that needs to be considered when Jesus was born according to the bible he had no father.

Which means he had nothing to do with father seeing as how Mary gave birth with no male partner.

The guy's who wrote it were pretty smart even by todays standards.

[Cyberman]

I don't know about "pretty smart". They couldn't even agree on a single coherent sequence of events for the same story, not to mention being ignorant of what would have been recent or even current history. Even Fox News is more reliable.