Iesou Chresto -

[Mark Fulton]

[Minimalist]

Hey, Mark. Thanks for the input.

(I wasn't really suggesting you join here....you could have answered at TTA, there is a lot of cross-pollination between the two... but I'm glad you did.)

Christians probably didn't exist in the 50s and 60s, as witnessed by Paul's genuine letters. Yet I con tend that they knew nothing of Jesus. In fact I believe that Paul's Christ was not the Jesus that we think we know so well from the Gospels. I strongly suspect that can't prove that where Paul mentions "Jesus Christ" the Jesus has been interpolated into the writing. Paul said almost nothing about what Jesus said or did, which is why I think the above.

Yes, the problem is that all we know of Marcion is what Tertullian and Irenaeus, et al, tell us. Much as the first 3 chapters of luke were later add-ons (much as the last nine verses of mark were added on) we have no idea what these so-called pauline epistles said. We only know what the eventual winners claimed they said.

The whole Chrestus thing is confusing because we have only a few textual references to Chrestus ( and the ones we have seem to be those manuscripts which did not come from monastic sources.) However, we do have archaeological inscriptions - noted above - going way back to Antonia Minor who died in 37 AD and the term Chrestus was used as a Greek name in the Hellenstic world.

So.... we have early inscriptions of Chrestus but not of Christos. And we have early texts which say - or were edited to say - Christos by later scribes. In this I do not ascribe the same level of forgery to those scribes as I do to the obvious frauds of the Pastoral Epistles or the Testimonium Flavianum. I suspect that they genuinely thought they were just correcting the spelling of earlier, more careless, scribes with no intent to deceive.

[Mark Fulton]

Hey, Mark. Thanks for the input.

(I wasn't really suggesting you join here....you could have answered at TTA, there is a lot of cross-pollination between the two... but I'm glad you did.)

Christians probably didn't exist in the 50s and 60s, as witnessed by Paul's genuine letters. Yet I con tend that they knew nothing of Jesus. In fact I believe that Paul's Christ was not the Jesus that we think we know so well from the Gospels. I strongly suspect that can't prove that where Paul mentions "Jesus Christ" the Jesus has been interpolated into the writing. Paul said almost nothing about what Jesus said or did, which is why I think the above.

Yes, the problem is that all we know of Marcion is what Tertullian and Irenaeus, et al, tell us. Much as the first 3 chapters of luke were later add-ons (much as the last nine verses of mark were added on) we have no idea what these so-called pauline epistles said. We only know what the eventual winners claimed they said.

The whole Chrestus thing is confusing because we have only a few textual references to Chrestus ( and the ones we have seem to be those manuscripts which did not come from monastic sources.) However, we do have archaeological inscriptions - noted above - going way back to Antonia Minor who died in 37 AD and the term Chrestus was used as a Greek name in the Hellenstic world.

So.... we have early inscriptions of Chrestus but not of Christos. And we have early texts which say - or were edited to say - Christos by later scribes. In this I do not ascribe the same level of forgery to those scribes as I do to the obvious frauds of the Pastoral Epistles or the Testimonium Flavianum. I suspect that they genuinely thought they were just correcting the spelling of earlier, more careless, scribes with no intent to deceive.

That was quick! I should have edited my reply before I posted it. I meant to write Christians did exist.

[Minimalist]

There is a two hour time limit on editing here...just for future reference.

When one of the fundies says something really stupid - happens all the time - I always quote it so they can't go back and change it.

Perhaps, as Suetonius says, they were "Chrestians" who were tossed out of Rome under Claudius? And Pliny describes "Christians" who bear no resemblance to any "jesus" in the early 2d century as goveror of Bithynia-Pontus....coincidentally not so far from Sinope



before 112 AD. It seems more likely that Pliny wrote Chrestians and it was later changed by a helpful scribe.

[Mark Fulton]

There is a two hour time limit on editing here...just for future reference.

When one of the fundies says something really stupid - happens all the time - I always quote it so they can't go back and change it.

Perhaps, as Suetonius says, they were "Chrestians" who were tossed out of Rome under Claudius? And Pliny describes "Christians" who bear no resemblance to any "jesus" in the early 2d century as goveror of Bithynia-Pontus....coincidentally not so far from Sinope



before 112 AD. It seems more likely that Pliny wrote Chrestians and it was later changed by a helpful scribe.

Here's my two cents worth.

There were Jews who were kicked out of Rome under Claudius' orders, but they weren't Christians.

I think Paul's theology was inspired by the Roman government and was an attempt to undermine Judaism. There may have been many "Pauls," all working for the government, yet is it was only his writings that survived. Remember that Paul wrote a letter "to the Romans," and they quite clearly had some preconceptions about a Christ.

As the 60s progressed, it was obvious that Paul's version of Christianity was having absolutely no effect on dampening down Jewish messianic expectations. Paul (the person) faded off out of the pages of history. The military needed to be bought in. There was the big war of 66 to 70.

I think it was only after the war that the Roman propaganda machine decided to change tack and use a story of Jesus to create the Gospels. This story too was aimed at undermining Judaism.

I think that it was only later in the second century that a rather pathetic attempt to merge Paul's Christ with the story of a once living flesh and blood Jesus was made, and the Christianity that we now know began to take shape. It was a mix of Paul's Christ with the Jewish Jesus. Little remnants of the real Jesus story about the political insurgent were left dangling in the Gospels like dags on a sheep's bottom.

Was there ever a real historical Jesus? Possibly yes... and the barebones of his story was used to create the Jesus of the Gospels. That kicked the Jews directly in the shins, where it really hurt, because for them Jesus had been a brave political wannabe Messiah and an unsuccessful insurgent. The government turned him into something else...a pathetic pacifist who respected Rome, loved his enemies and paid his taxes. The propagandists then twisted the knife by claiming that Jesus' own people, the Jews, were responsible for his death.

Anyway, that's Mark's version of events for your interest.

[Ryantology]

Maybe they were trying to refer to him as "the snake oil salesman."

That's an insult to actual snake oil salesmen, as snake oil actually exists.

[Minimalist]

And I have to grant the possibility.

But it is equally possible that it was in the aftermath of the 3d revolt that the Romans had really had their fill of the jews. Marcion was intensely anti-semitic. That would have been popular attitude in the 140s AD.
Further, it is at that time that we start to hear about xtian apologies and Roman writers, i.e. Lucian of Samosata, start to write against them.

We don't get that in the aftermath of 70. What we get are Pliny and his xtians singing a hymn to Christus "as if to a god." He also reports that these same "xtians" cursed christ and sacrificed to the emperor.

This is not the story that xtians were putting forward some time later.

[Confused Ape]

The Latin word Christus comes from Χριστος in Greek. The root of the word, χριω, means "to be oily". Although the Greeks rubbed themselves with oil to bathe, the concept of anointment to pass on an office (or divine favor) was alien to them. It's a Jewish custom.

Chrestus, on the other hand, came from Χρηστος, meaning "good", or "worthy".

So when the Romans encountered a cult started by a man known as "the greasy one", or possibly "the guy who just finished his bath", they were sure they were hearing it wrong. These people had to mean "the worthy one", right?

The Romans obviously didn't have any good theologians. "The guy who just finished his bath" has to refer to Jesus after he'd been baptized in the river Jordan. Everything would have been so much simpler if they'd come to that logical conclusion.

[Minimalist]

I laugh my ass off when xtian pilgrims today go to be baptized in the Jordan River. It is basically an open pit sewer. They are dunking themselves in jewish and palestinian shit.

In the Roman baths though, since they did not have soap, they used oil and then had it scraped off.

[Cyberman]

I laugh my ass off when xtian pilgrims today go to be baptized in the Jordan River. It is basically an open pit sewer. They are dunking themselves in jewish and palestinian shit.

So what else is new?