The First Century Void

[Minimalist]

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

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!

[Fake Messiah]

Hey let's face it Jesus is made up. You don't have to look further then your own Bible and Matthew 16:8 where women ran screaming from the tomb in terror, and never told anyone that Jesus had risen is a clever device to explain why no one had ever heard the story before now, decades later when it was written. I also mention this passage because this is THE END of Matthew. Now, if you open your Bible you'll see few more verses (clear amount depends of version you have) which were added centuries later and if you look closer, you may find a footnote or a pair of brackets telling you verses 16:9+ are not found in "some of the oldest manuscripts," and that the translation team (along with most biblical scholars today) believe they were not part of the original text. At least, that's what you'll find if the translators are being honest; and not all of them are.

So since this is clearly a forgery (to something that is already historical forgery) clearly demonstrates that early Christians felt free to doctor manuscripts of the Gospels and also invent the whole thing in the first place without ever having to conspire to do anything. If each independently did what made sense to him, each on his own initiative, the effect on the evidence that survives for us now will have been the same. For example, no one "colluded" to forge an ending to Mark. It was not an order issued from the Pope or some cabal of archbishops. Someone just did it. Any such community will organically produce the same effect as a conspiracy.
And during 1st and 2nd centuries there were not just different Christianities but different Christs. Even Paul in letters complains that his rivals are evil deceivers, with false Christs and false gospels that he accuses them of being agents of Satan and even lays curses and threats upon them.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

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.

[vorlon13]

Hey let's face it Jesus is made up. You don't have to look further then your own Bible and Matthew 16:8 where women ran screaming from the tomb in terror, and never told anyone that Jesus had risen is a clever device to explain why no one had ever heard the story before now, decades later when it was written. I also mention this passage because this is THE END of Matthew. Now, if you open your Bible you'll see few more verses (clear amount depends of version you have) which were added centuries later and if you look closer, you may find a footnote or a pair of brackets telling you verses 16:9+ are not found in "some of the oldest manuscripts," and that the translation team (along with most biblical scholars today) believe they were not part of the original text. At least, that's what you'll find if the translators are being honest; and not all of them are.

So since this is clearly a forgery (to something that is already historical forgery) clearly demonstrates that early Christians felt free to doctor manuscripts of the Gospels and also invent the whole thing in the first place without ever having to conspire to do anything. If each independently did what made sense to him, each on his own initiative, the effect on the evidence that survives for us now will have been the same. For example, no one "colluded" to forge an ending to Mark. It was not an order issued from the Pope or some cabal of archbishops. Someone just did it. Any such community will organically produce the same effect as a conspiracy.
And during 1st and 2nd centuries there were not just different Christianities but different Christs. Even Paul in letters complains that his rivals are evil deceivers, with false Christs and false gospels that he accuses them of being agents of Satan and even lays curses and threats upon them.

Funny thing for Paul, of all people, to be complaining about.  He wasn't shy about countermanding Jesus, why wouldn't he expect others to play the game by his rules too??

[Minimalist]

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.

[Minimalist]

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.

That's pretty far up there on the bizarro meter alright. 

Although Carrier does make a fairly solid argument that the earliest forms of jesusism were a Mystery Cult like so many of the others in the first century.  Knowledge was passed from masters to initiates orally without written texts.  Part of the issue is that we have no datable written texts from the alleged beginning of the cult so they are doubtlessly right that the entire bible is fake.  Of course, are they claiming that jesus appeared to them in a revelation and gave them the whole story?  If so, that's when it is time to make reservations in the padded cell.  But in fairness, its the same thing that the alleged "paul" claimed!

[Fake Messiah]

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.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Meh, they're idiots.

[Minimalist]

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.

[vorlon13]

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 . . . .