Gamaliel Never Existed

[Nimzo]

Of course, if there was no Gamaliel then who was "Paul's" teacher? At what point does the whole house of cards start to come down?

You're right - Gamaliel's non-existence is another nail in the coffin for the Pauline existence theory. No doubt there are all other kinds of figures who we can also rule out using the same kinds of arguments: James (the Jamesian reference in Josephus being a Christian forgery), Peter (the letters ascribed to him are often argued to be pseudipigrapha, and there are no non-Biblical non-Christian references to Peter), every "disciple" actually.

We can start to piece lots of things together now:
The Gospels and Acts are works of fiction written no earlier than the 80s CE (probably much later).
The Pauline epistles, Petrine epistles, letters of James, Jude and John are pseudipigrapha, presumably written around the same time if not even later.
There are wholesale forged passages in both Josephus and Tacitus.
Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, John, Gamaliel, ... - none of these folks actually existed.

Clearly, a group of "Christians" at some point sat down, came up with their Jesus story, being careful to use a few known characters like Herod and Pontius Pilate to make it sound believable. They realised that to make it really believable, Jesus' "disciples" would have had to have some history as well - hence Acts and the letters ascribed to the different followers. They added credibility by introducing a few differences and historical inaccuracies in the four accounts, to make them seem like real historical documents. They named the Gospels after famous followers to make them sound credible too. Final step was to take all the known copies of Josephus and Tacitus, and rewrite them with references to their newly-created characters. And then, mission complete. They then just had to sell their story to some gullible Jews and Gentiles to get the thing started off.

[DeistPaladin]

We can start to piece lots of things together now...

How about this as an alternate scenario:

The Jewish people considered themselves specially blessed as a chosen people of God with a divine promise that the line of David would rule eternally. They had to reconcile that theology with the harsh reality of being the province of various empires, from the Selucids to the Romans. Someone had to explain what happened to that covenant.

The ancient Hebrews were not only occupied by different foreign pagan empires but they also were at the crossroads of three continents. Further, they already had an established history of adopting the myths and folklore of other nations. The "flood" myth of Genesis likely came from the epic adventures of Gilgamesh. Early Hebrew books deny the existence of the afterlife (see Sheol) but later books had vague ideas of an afterlife (see the story of Samuel and King Saul) which seemed reminiscent of Greek ideas of Hades. The character Satan was once the punisher working for Yahweh (in the OT) and later changed to be the nemesis of Yahweh in the NT.

Furthermore, the new religion, Christianity, had as many pagan concepts as Jewish. The very ideas of an afterlife or an intercessor with the divine were pagan concepts. The "messiah" offered by Christians is nothing like what the Jews defined.

So we've established the Jews were open to influence from other cultures. We've established that some of the elements of Christianity are either foreign or, in some cases, blasphemous to the Jewish faith.

Then we have the real history of Christianity itself. There was not one Jesus or one Christianity but many. The Ebionites, Marcionites, Docetics, Valentians, Arians and others all had their own ideas of what Jesus was, when he lived, whether he was a real flesh-and-blood being, how many gods there were, whether to honor the OT and what the path to salvation would be.

Finally, we have the total dearth of evidence contemporary with Jesus' supposed miracles and the supposedly successful, famous and controversial ministry. Evidently, nobody considered Jesus noteworthy in his own lifetime. Even the Gospels weren't penned until at least 70 CE.

Put it all together, and here's my proposed scenario:

A sect of Jews decided the promised kingdom was in a higher world, were influenced by pagan concepts of a divine intercessor and thought this being would vanquish the Romans (see Revelation, the earliest NT book). The early Jesus was a celestial king, born in Heaven to rule on earth. Eventually, this Jesus' birth was moved to earth so he might rule in Heaven. At first, these stories were parables but later people started thinking of them as true stories. "Paul", if he didn't exist, was the poster prophet for the second century Marcion, who was later co-opted by the Trinitarians much the same way they co-opted John the Baptist. The triumphant Chruch, now ruling Rome, wrote history as they saw fit. The rest is history.

[Minimalist]

They then just had to sell their story to some gullible Jews and Gentiles to get the thing started off.

Sell? No.

Impose.


http://ethnikoi.org/persecutions.html

353
An edict of Constantius decrees the death penalty for all forms of worship involving sacrifice and "idols".

354
A new edict of Constantius orders the closing of all Pagan Temples. Some of them are profaned and turned into brothels or gambling rooms. Executions of Pagan priests. The first burning of libraries in various cities of the Empire. The first lime factories are built next to closed Pagan Temples. A large part of Sacred Gentile architecture is turned into lime.

356
A new edict of Constantius orders the destruction of the Pagan Temples and the execution of all "idolaters".

Just a small sampling.

[Nimzo]

I like your version DeistPaladin, except for the fact that you refer to a number of things and people for which there simply isn't any good evidence. You refer to these "early Hebrew books", when there is simply no evidence that they existed until the second century BCE. And I am aware of no contemporaneous accounts for "Marcion's" life.

A strong point in your version is the bit about the Christians rewriting history. I think this line of enquiry has a lot of potential. If there was a complete rewriting of 1st century history to make room for their "Jesus" character (or characters), an interesting question arises for consideration:

We already know that the Christians rewrote whole sections of Josephus' writing - what is to say that whole books of his were not written by the Christian forgers? In fact, Josephus himself could be an entirely literary creation to provide a "Jewish" perspective. After all, the Christians had already forged whole books and letters in people's names - Josephus would seem to be the perfect candidate for a Jew to validate the Christian version of history. Of course, there are many Christian factions at this point, which explains the discrepancies between "Josephus'" own writings (think of the contradictory portrayals of his period as "general" in 66-67 CE), and with other "1st century" writers (compare the irreconcilable versions of Cumanus' registration with Tacitus for example).

[Minimalist]

There is some validity to the Criteria of Embarrassment, Nimz. Had a xtian forged Josephus it would have read more like the gospels and less like a vindication of Josephus' patrons, the Flavian family. There would have been more than the brief Testimoniam Flavianum about their boy. The secondary reference in Book XX seems like a minor error or perhaps a case of xtian wishful-thinking: They saw the word "christos" and desperately wanted to believe that it was a reference to their boy.

I know a guy from other boards who insists that all references to xtians are 4th century or later forgeries....including Pliny. But the Criteria of Embarrassment* argues in favor of authenticity at least as far as a xtian forger would be concerned. Pliny writes to Trajan:

Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ.

What xtian would write that? They were working up a whole phony history of xtian martyrs gladly going to their deaths for dear ole jesus and some asshole suddenly writes that when faced with torture they said "fuck that.....Hail Caesar!"


*The criterion of embarrassment, also known as criterion of dissimilarity, is an analytical tool that Biblical scholars use in assessing whether the New Testament's accounts of Jesus' actions and words are historically probable. Simply put, trust the embarrassing material. If something is awkward for an author to say and he does anyway, it is more likely to be true.

[Jaysyn]

I like your version DeistPaladin, except for the fact that you refer to a number of things and people for which there simply isn't any good evidence. You refer to these "early Hebrew books", when there is simply no evidence that they existed until the second century BCE. And I am aware of no contemporaneous accounts for "Marcion's" life.

A strong point in your version is the bit about the Christians rewriting history. I think this line of enquiry has a lot of potential. If there was a complete rewriting of 1st century history to make room for their "Jesus" character (or characters), an interesting question arises for consideration:

We already know that the Christians rewrote whole sections of Josephus' writing - what is to say that whole books of his were not written by the Christian forgers? In fact, Josephus himself could be an entirely literary creation to provide a "Jewish" perspective. After all, the Christians had already forged whole books and letters in people's names - Josephus would seem to be the perfect candidate for a Jew to validate the Christian version of history. Of course, there are many Christian factions at this point, which explains the discrepancies between "Josephus'" own writings (think of the contradictory portrayals of his period as "general" in 66-67 CE), and with other "1st century" writers (compare the irreconcilable versions of Cumanus' registration with Tacitus for example).

Arguments like this make me wonder if the Bible is a historical fiction ala Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon or Baroque Cycle.

[Nimzo]

There is some validity to the Criteria of Embarrassment, Nimz.

You must be joking Minimalist. You can apply the Criterion of Embarrassment to pretty much anything to try and argue that it's "true" - even the flipping Gospels!
For example, what if you applied the Criterion of Embarassment to "Mark's" gospel where he says:

"He ["Jesus"] could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them." Mark 6:5

The precious "Criterion of Embarrassment" would have us believe that the Christians couldn't possibly make this up, as they would be embarrassed that Jesus, their omnipotent GodMan, couldn't do miracles. But we know that Jesus didn't even exist!

So much for the Criterion of Embarrassment.

[Minimalist]

A strong point in your version is the bit about the Christians rewriting history.

Have you read Bart Ehrman's Lost Christianities, Nimz.

[Nimzo]

Have you read Bart Ehrman's Lost Christianities, Nimz.

No I haven't; I have to confess, after Bart came out as saying that Jesus existed I've been very put off from reading his work, as he is clearly carrying over some of his old presuppositions from his time at Fundiementalist Moody Bible College.

[Emanuel]

[...]
Rabbis begin with "rabbinic judaism" which, not so oddly, begins only after the temple is burned to the ground. Josephus tries to portray that as an accident but he's full of shit on that one. Rabbinic judaism thus only gets started after 70....and probably not really until the 2d century which is when they started to compile the talmud. But this brings up an anachronism. Why would anyone call jesus a 'rabbi?' He was supposed to be dead long before the idea of a rabbi got going. But, if the gospels were second century writings then the only jews they would have come in contact with would have been post-temple judaism survivors and the term 'rabbi' might have been in general usage.
[...]

If I recall correctly, "rabbi" means "teacher"; teacher of the Torah, if I'm not mistaken. I don't find it hard to believe that there were people who teaching to people and were generally called "rabbi" -by the laymen at least- before the Temple's destruction. Do you truly have a very strong case that calling someone "rabbi" before 70 a.D. is completely anachronistic?