The First Century Void

[Minimalist]

Ah, but he was a johnny-come-lately, V.  Lots of assholes got in there ahead of him.

[ignoramus]

We have no idea what the earliest pauline epistles said.  All we have are copies, many of which are abject forgeries, and even the so-called "authentic" epistles have come under scholarly scrutiny for being nothing more than cut and paste jobs of multiple letters.

All of this crap is made up bullshit.

and then Joe Smith got in the game . . . .

followed by the big guns!
Scientology!

[vorlon13]

that's the real thing . . .

[Succubus]

I just loves me some John E Remsburg  The Christ. It's an absolute gem, well referenced and easy to read. Open the thing anywhere and you will find jewels.

Jesus of Nazareth, the Jesus of humanity, the pathetic story of whose humble life and tragic death has awakened the sympathies of millions, is a possible character and may have existed; but the Jesus of Bethlehem, the Christ of Christianity, is an impossible character and does not exist.

He makes this observation regarding Philo-Judaeus

Philo was born before the beginning of the Christian era, and lived until long after the reputed death of Christ. He wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Christ’s miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre occurred. He was there when Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He was there when the crucifixion with its attendant earthquake, supernatural darkness, and resurrection of the dead took place—when Christ himself rose from the dead, and in the presence of many witnesses ascended into heaven. These marvellous events which must have filled the world with amazement, had they really occurred, were unknown to him. It was Philo who developed the doctrine of the Logos, or Word, and although this Word incarnate dwelt in that very land and in the presence of multitudes revealed himself and demonstrated his divine powers, Philo saw it not. (my emphasis)

And as the OP points out, neither did anyone else. I've yet to hear from the nut jobs any sort of even semi plausible reason why this should be, my personal favourite? Paper and ink were expensive in the 1st century. That's right folks, you herd it here first! There is no period in ancient history as well documented as the 1st century, and yet, it didn't occur to the omni-notoverlookingthings god to provide some means of recording the boy's road trip.
I'm pretty sure there are threads here on the historical Jebus, but I have no intention of looking for the bastards. I think this: Here be dragons should be mentioned in despatches. 2,000 pages, 42,000 posts and 2,000,000 hits. Some of the interwebs finest examples of rational thinking, and as you will no doubt surmise, some of the saddest examples of what religion can do to the human intellect.
My take on the historical Jesus? That depends on how we define the HJ.
An eloquent, charismatic teacher who inspired many and gathered a large following? No chance! If under Roman occupation you find yourself being followed by a large crowd, your countdown to the beyond will be in single figures, they would have killed him on the spot.
A fire and brimstone radge who got his arse nailed up for giving the facking Romans lip? An absolute certainty!


So how did the story of those two sad bastards get morphed into the water walking necromancer? Fuck knows, but there was certainly more Jebus's than those two. Today we have a massive pool of Christian (yes I know) names, but not then, Jesus was a very common name. Jerusalem was shoulder deep in prophets, messiahs and preachers, all with their own repertoire of conjuring tricks, ripping yarns and snake oil potions. It's how they fed themselves, how they earned a living. The competition must have been fierce. All vying for the best sites and all with a polished delivery, think cockney market stall patter.

'All right my darling, how are you this lovely morning, have you considered the lily’s? Just a few drops of this secret elixir and your flowers will be a tall as a Centurion, just five shekels a bottle... What? Are you trying to insult me! Me with a poor dieing grandmother... All right then two shekels.'

'Hello there sir, you look like a man of the world, did you hear the one about the virgin, the cheese maker and the ghost... Hahahaha... Thank you sir, most generous of you sir and god bless you sir.'

No doubt some would employ shills, and wait for a decent crowd of mugs.

A young lad at the back calls out: 'Sir, can you help my father, he's blind.' Fetch him over here son: Applies elixir...
I was blind and now I can see!!! A miracle! A fucking miracle!!!
The elixir is now ten shekels a bottle.

And these sort of antics are going on all over the city, all performed by a preacher named Jesus, but not necessarily the same one. So over the years and a few generations the stories of 'these' raconteurs and healers called Jesus are conflated into 'a' Jesus. A bit fanciful? Perhaps, but to me it's more plausible than  the utterly insane church version of events.

[RoadRunner79]

One of Richard Carrier's most compelling arguments, the utter failure of any first century Greco-Roman writer to mention anything about xtianity.

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We know emperors Vespasian and Titus published commentaries on
their government service, including their prosecution of the Jewish War
(these being among the sources, again, that Josephus used). So if Christians
ever significantly came up in their invasion and conquest of Judea,
or in their government of Rome, they would have mentioned it, too. We
know Seneca the Elder wrote a History of Rome that covered events from
the first century BCE to around 40 CE. Then Seneca the Younger wrote a
treatise On Superstition sometime between 40 and 62 CE that lambasted
every known cult at Rome, even the most trivial or obscure-including
the Jews-but never mentioned Christians, an omission Augustine later
struggled to explain.

Italics added to show that later xtians....unlike modern xtian apologists... were bothered by the fact.  We can be grateful to Augustine for mentioning this failure of Seneca to mention xtians as a first century cult as no one bothered to preserve the text.... which is another point Carrier gets into later.  In similar manner we can be grateful to Origen for preserving the words the Celsus in his attempted rebuttal and in much the same manner as Minucius Felix preserved some of the words of Fronto who denounced xtians in the 180's and Cyril of Alexandria who was royally pissed at the writings of Emperor Julian the Apostate.

If Seneca lambasted every known cult why did he miss the xtians?  The obvious answer is that they had no presence in first century Rome.... as opposed to the bullshit story they concocted later and which so confused poor Augustine!

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The argument from silence, albeit a favored one of some skeptics, is a difficult one to maintain.  It is a form of absence of evidence, and the burden is on the one putting forth the argument to support it as a evidence of absence.  Normally it is put forth rather vaguely, and my first question is who?  Often (as later in this thread) Philo is mentioned, but if you look at Philo's works, it is mostly philosophical in nature, and the subject of Christianity; doesn't fit in.  But in any case all the one opposing this type of claim, needs to do, is posit some form of reasonable doubt.  

In this instance you brought up Seneca the Younger.  As I look through his works on Wikipedia I get a similar feeling.  Although it wasn't cited, as near as I can tell, the reference to Augustine is the following

Seneca, among the other superstitions of civil theology, also found fault with the sacred things of the Jews, and especially the sabbaths, affirming that they act uselessly in keeping those seventh days, whereby they lose through idleness about the seventh part of their life, and also many things which demand immediate attention are damaged. The Christians, however, who were already most hostile to the Jews, he did not dare to mention, either for praise or blame, lest, if he praised them, he should do so against the ancient custom of his country, or, perhaps, if he should blame them, he should do so against his own will.

Augustine of Hippo. (1887). The City of God. In P. Schaff (Ed.), M. Dods (Trans.), St. Augustin’s City of God and Christian Doctrine (Vol. 2, p. 120). Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company.

From this, I would ask what other is your above quote based on (other than a wild imagination)  because it appears to outreach the quote from Augustine on a work that is now lost to us.  

You also have the problem with this theory, because it isn't just about Christ, but about Christians.  And I think you will find an increasing and linear progression of history from the first century, in which you need to push back quite a bit, and explain quite a bit more, in order to fulfill this conspiracy theory.  You also have to ignore those who did write early such as These early writers who mention Christian's and Christianity

There is a reason that Wikipedia says:

Arguments from silence, based on a writer's failure to mention an event, are distinct from arguments from ignorance which rely on a total "absence of evidence" and are widely considered unreliable; however arguments from silence themselves are also generally viewed as rather weak in many cases; or considered as fallacies.

[Minimalist]

First off, it is Carrier's observation - although I have checked it out and found it accurate - and frankly he has a PH D in history which I daresay beats some guy waving a bible around.

I also disagree about the argument from silence which is a canard that jesus freaks trot out whenever their nonsense does not show up in the record.  Usually, they misuse it or truncate it by ignoring the admonition that the silence must be in a context where one would expect the evidence to be.  To wit, when an inscription about Thutmoses III does not mention Alexander the Great this should not ring any alarm bells as Thutmoses predated Alex by over a thousand years.  However, when the 2d century xtian writer, Justin Martyr does not mention "paul" or any of the named gospels which you guys hold so dear, that silence speaks volumes.

To anyone who is willing to listen, that is.

[RoadRunner79]

First off, it is Carrier's observation - although I have checked it out and found it accurate - and frankly he has a PH D in history which I daresay beats some guy waving a bible around.

I also disagree about the argument from silence which is a canard that jesus freaks trot out whenever their nonsense does not show up in the record.  Usually, they misuse it or truncate it by ignoring the admonition that the silence must be in a context where one would expect the evidence to be.  To wit, when an inscription about Thutmoses III does not mention Alexander the Great this should not ring any alarm bells as Thutmoses predated Alex by over a thousand years.  However, when the 2d century xtian writer, Justin Martyr does not mention "paul" or any of the named gospels which you guys hold so dear, that silence speaks volumes.

To anyone who is willing to listen, that is.

Yes... it's Carrier's observation,  which you are proposing here (and still seem to be supporting).  And and I did mention, that the same with the evidence of absence, that the burden is on the one putting the argument forth to show why the evidence should be there when it is not.   I also don't accept your argument from authority;  you will need to do better than that (besides there are many PHD's who disagree with Carrier and his method if you want to play dueling scholars).

As for Justyn the Martyr, that may be explained by both his background and his audience.  Such as his often referenced Ddialog with Trypho, (a Jew).  I suppose again, you would only focus on this one person, while ignoring other early writers.   I did a search in the Anti-Nicene Fathers Volume 1 which is within that period.  Romans is quoted 131 times, as is 1 Corinthians quoted 212 times; the list goes on, but I think you get the idea. 

You are also incorrect, about Justin Martyr.   While he may not refer back to the New Testament as much as others, he does reference them on occasion.   He may not reference them by name, but he does refer to them in some of his arguments using phrases such as "it is written" and "it is recorded"  and he refers to them as "Memoirs of the apostles" or just "Memoirs"  He also refers to Revelations and cites it specifically to one of the Apostles of Christ whose name was John.  You can see more here:  http://www.ntcanon.org/Justin_Martyr.shtml

So yes, I don't hear as much as you it seems from the silence, but a little research shows that you need to do more (research) if you are trying to make a valid case agaisnt!

Edit to add:  The reasoning from silence isn't impossible, but it is difficult to maintain as a logical argument.  Which is why I think the the Wiki article I cited earlier just defaults to fallacious.  Besides, I don't think you can cherry pick what one person didn't say from that period, and ignore the volumes that others did say.  Your reasoning looses footing rather quickly.

[Minimalist]

As for Justyn the Martyr, that may be explained by both his background and his audience. 

Yes, apologists always come up with shitty, ad-hoc explanations.  Congratulations for continuing the trend.

The church put out a story  - probably in the late 2d century - that "paul" brought the faith to the gentiles in the mid first century.  That would make him an important sonofabitch... right up there with the other (most likely fictional) apostles.  But Justyn, sitting in his ass in Rome over 100 years later doesn't know fuckall about him.  He knows Marcion, though. 

I'm afraid you will have to try harder.

[vorlon13]

Not clear to me that Christians should want more hard copy/documentation from that early era. Don't they have enough problems as it is with Apostle Paul countermanding Jesus and hijacking the movement?

How can more information about that clusterfuck help ??

[Secular Elf]

Great thread here, thanks for opening it Min.  I studied some Early Christian history on my own, read some stuff based on more recent scholarship.   Man I wish I had my notebook with me, I wrote a full article on this stuff.  Some of the details may a be bit fuzzy to me right now, but I will try my best to explain.

I have not read Carrier but I have read about Early Christianity online.  From my point of view, if Yeshua ben-Yusef actually existed, he was only one of many Yeshua's walking around Palestine during the late 1st Century BCE and early 1st Century CE, and he may have just been a rabbi that was a thorn in the side of the Pharisees and Sanhedrin.  Romans did not usually like to get involved in local politics and culture unless said local politics and culture becomes a threat to Roman control and power.

It is my understanding that the First Christians were nothing more than Jews.  Makes sense: they still revered the Torah and continued on with Judaic religious rituals and beliefs.  The only thing that marked these particular Jews as another Judaic sect was their reverence for a particular rabbi named Yeshua (Jesus, as he was called in Latin).

From the very beginning Christianity was diverse, more diverse in the mid to late 1st Century and early 2nd Century CE than even today.  The Jewish Christians had three different flavors depending how Jesus was viewed: Ebionites, Nazarenes, and another group that I can't think of right now.  Anyway, the thing they had in common they revered Jesus, but they revered him through three different lenses: one thought Jesus was their Messiah, one thought Jesus was a son of Yahweh, and the other thought Jesus had a metaphysical presence.  It is a little bit fuzzy here for me....damn my memory!

As time goes on, some Christians were gnostic in their theology.  Then there is the Essene influence on the sect.  Then you had the Judeo-Roman Wars (there were three of them) from around 50 CE to 150 CE.  By 150 CE you had a split, Judaism went its way and the Jesus Jews went their separate way as more and more Gentiles came into  the Religion.  Theology on beliefs concerning who Jesus was and which rituals to observe were all over  the place.  Then there is Paulline Christianity, which eventually won out and became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the 300's CE.  Then you had Gnostic Christians, Roman Civil War, the Donatist controversy, the Decian Persecution, Traditores, Novationism, the Council of Nicaea, etc. etc.  Then there is all the theological differences: Adoptionism, Arianism, Docetism, Valentinianism, Marcionism.  Early Christianity in  the context of the Roman world is a bit complex, to say the least.

That would be Early Christianity (the Apostolic Age and the Ante-Nicene Period) in a nutshell.

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One thing about Carrier that annoys me is that he does not get into the likelihood of the paul story.  There is a simple reason for this.  "Paul" as written does not harm Carrier's argument for mythicism at all, so why bother?  There is precious little in paul which indicates that jesus was anything other than another cosmic figure who resided in the heavens except for a few obvious interpolations stuck in by later xtian editors to make it sound better.

Also Carrier treats as "authentic" letters which he himself admits (along with other scholars) that were merely combinations of multiple letters crammed together by editors.  I always considered paul as incoherent drivel and that explains why.  I keep wondering where the "authentic" part comes in.

The mythicism that exists within Christianity can be traced to several sources: Greco-Roman religion for beliefs in heaven and hell (the Jews had only the concept of Sheol, which is cognate with the Assyro-Bablyonian and Sumerian Netherworld called Irkalla, and it was their belief that all who died went there, regardless of what their behavior on earth was), and the ancient Egyptian religion for groupings of deities in threes, the paradise of the Field of Reeds, the resurrection theme. The Church of Alexandria had a significant influence on Early Christian and later Medieval theology.

There were were so many religious texts being written and being used by different groups, with some overlap of literature used. It was not until Marcion that Christian literature was being selected and rejected in lists of what was considered to be acceptable Christian literature. There was no canon until after Marcion, and it was further developed at the Council of Nicaea.

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Some of my cousins have started their own sect, claiming Jesus was real but the ENTIRE BIBLE is faked. They keep trying to get me to listen to this shit. I explain that they are trying to commit suicide if they keep trying.

And perhaps they're less wrong then people who think that Gospels in the Bible describe "real" Jesus. Like I noted Paul was furious that people are worshiping wrong Jesuses and wrong Gospels and when you look the Jesus' teachings that Paul preached you can see they were from different Jesus then the one in the surviving Gospels of the Bible, like here are few examples:

In Matthew 10:5 and 15:24 Jesus proclaims that he is strictly here just for the Jews and not for the Gentiles (whom he even sometimes refers as dogs) like "Salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22); but Paul's Jesus is total contradiction because he says "The Lord has commanded us, saying, I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth" (Acts 13:47), "Henceforth, I [Paul] will go unto the Gentiles" (Acts 18:6), and "I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles" (Romans 15:16)

Or one of the most famous Jesus proclamations in Matthew 5:17-19 that he has come to fulfill the law of the prophets, I mean he is clearly for it; but Paul on the other hand again speaks about some different Jesus because in Romans 7:4 he says, "My brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ" and in Galatians 3:13 he says, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law."
I mean these are without doubt as different Jesuses as you can get.

In Acts 20:35 Paul says, "Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'" Nowhere in Gospels does this Bible's Jesus make this statement. And on and on...

So from Paul's perspective Gospels in the Bible do indeed look like the one that he describes as "wrong ones" which also means "works of Satan" as well. So if there was some sort of Son of God preaching on Earth we have no surviving scriptures of his teaching. I guess that also tells of feeble power god has.

Paul 2 Corinthians 11:4 For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.

2 Corinthians 11:13-15 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

I think what you are referring to Fake Messiah is the fact that during the late 1st Century to the early 2nd Century CE there were all these different conceptions of who Jesus was. There were like close to a hundred or so sects and cults and sub-sects. Some were Gnostic in flavor(salvation through secret knowledge) and others Adoptionists (Jesus adopted by god at his baptism), while some were Arians (Jesus was not divine), Docetists (Jesus physical body and crucifixion was an illusion), the Marcionists were dualistic in their theology (the Old Testament Yahweh is the evil god, the god of the New Testament is love), and then there were the Montanists (Christianity expressed in prophetic, ascetic, and celibacy terms). Bart Ehrman argued that the Roman Christians developed what he called a "proto-orthodox" Christianity which was represented by Pauline theology. It was the proto-Orthodox Pauline Christianity that eventually won as the official religion of the Roman Empire under Constantine, and Marcion's work Antithesis which started the development of the Christian canon that developed into the Bible.