God and Conscoiusness

There are those who think that its contradictory of me to use analogies for God like Buddhism's Buddha mind or the Hegelian dialectic and still hold out that God loves and works miracles. This is not inconsistent, I think these people have lot sight of have lost sight of the fact that everything said about God is metaphor. All religious language is analogical. We cannot speak directly about God because we can't have direct absolute knowledge about God.

In saying that my view of God is analogus to things like he Buddha mind, I am not saying that God is an impersonal force. I never said that I thought that and Tillch never said that.Tillich said that God contains the structure from which personal nature of man is derived, the "personal itself." God is the basis of consciousness.

We need to keep in mind that God is beyond the threshold of human understanding. We can only a few things that are logically derived, such as God's eternal nature but not the personal nature or what it would be like. But it would be foolish to try and decide what God can do an what he can't do. It's just as foolish to say "God can't work miracles" as it is to say "God is a big man in the sky."

Just because we don't know the mechanisms for things doesn't mean they can't be. We don't know anything. We as a species know next to nothing about all that could be known, I'm sure (that's a guess obviously). Atheists are so narrow minded they are afraid to speculate or to ask questions about the nature of the universe. They pretend to but you have to ask the question they want asked and don't ever ask the one's they can't answer.

Perhaps faith is the mechinism that leads to healing. It's clear that one must be in 'the zone' to get healing. But be that as it may we can't rule out anything. God doesn't have to be a big man in the sky to have a form of consciousness. Its' a higher level of consciousness, one we can't understand, but it's still consciousness.

Consciousness itself is not anthropomorphic. You think it is because you are only willing to think about it in terms of what we know, and you never admit how limited our understanding is.If consciousness is just an individual effort that comes with brain function then God can't be conscious, or if he was he would have to be the big man in the sky. But God is beyond our understanding. We can't pin him down by saying he can't be conscious or work miracles anymore than we can say he is a big man in the sky.

There are thinkers and even scientist who are willing to question our presuppositions abut consciousness and nature. If consciousness a basic property of nature than ti's more than brain function and property of individual organisms, then God can be basis of the consciousness.

There is a physicist at Cambrige who studies with Hawking, Peter Russell. Here's what he says:




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The 'Hard Problem' of Consciousness

The really hard problem-as David Chalmers, professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona, has said-is consciousness itself. Why should the complex processing of information in the brain lead to an inner experience? Why doesn't it all go on in the dark, without any subjective aspect? Why do we have any inner life at all?

This paradox-namely, the absolutely undeniable existence of human consciousness set against the complete absence of any satisfactory scientific account for it-suggests to me that something is seriously amiss with the contemporary scientific worldview. For a long time I could not put my finger on exactly what it was. Then suddenly, about four years ago on a flight back to San Francisco, I saw where the error lay.

If consciousness is not some emergent property of life, as Western science supposes, but is instead a primary quality of the cosmos-as fundamental as space, time, and matter, perhaps even more fundamental-then we arrive at a very different picture of reality. As far as our understanding of the material world goes, nothing much changes; but when it comes to our understanding of mind, we are led to a very different worldview indeed. I realized that the hard problem of consciousness was not a problem to be solved so much as the trigger that would, in time, push Western science into what the American philosopher Thomas Kuhn called a "paradigm shift."

The continued failure of science to make any appreciable headway into this fundamental problem suggests that, to date, all approaches may be on the wrong track. They are all based on the assumption that consciousness emerges from, or is dependent upon, the physical world of space, time, and matter. In one way or another they are trying to accommodate the anomaly of consciousness within a worldview that is intrinsically materialist. As happened with the medieval astronomers, who kept adding more and more epicycles to explain the anomalous motions of the planets, the underlying assumptions are seldom, if ever, questioned.

I now believe that rather than trying to explain consciousness in terms of the material world, we should be developing a new worldview in which consciousness is a fundamental component of reality. The key ingredients for this new paradigm-a "superparadigm"-are already in place. We need not wait for any new discoveries. All we need do is put various pieces of our existing knowledge together, and consider the new picture of reality that emerges.





Consciousness and Reality

Because the word "consciousness" can be used in so many different ways, confusion often arises around statements about its nature. The way I use the word is not in reference to a particular state of consciousness, or particular way of thinking, but to the faculty of consciousness itself-the capacity for inner experience, whatever the nature or degree of the experience.

A useful analogy is the image from a video projector. The projector shines light onto a screen, modifying the light so as to produce any one of an infinity of images. These images are like the perceptions, sensations, dreams, memories, thoughts, and feelings that we experience-what I call the "contents of consciousness." The light itself, without which no images would be possible, corresponds to the faculty of consciousness.

We know all the images on the screen are composed of this light, but we are not usually aware of the light itself; our attention is caught up in the images that appear and the stories they tell. In much the same way, we know we are conscious, but we are usually aware only of the many different experiences, thoughts, and feelings that appear in the mind. We are seldom aware of consciousness itself. Yet without this faculty there would be no experience of any kind.

The faculty of consciousness is one thing we all share, but what goes on in our consciousness, the content of our consciousness, varies widely. This is our personal reality, the reality we each know and experience. Most of the time, however, we forget that this is just our personal reality and think we are experiencing physical reality directly. We see the ground beneath our feet; we can pick up a rock, and throw it through the air; we feel the heat from a fire, and smell its burning wood. It feels as if we are in direct contact with the world "out there." But this is not so. The colors, textures, smells, and sounds we experience are not really "out there"; they are all images of reality constructed in the mind.

It was this aspect of perception that most caught my attention during my studies of experimental psychology (and amplified by my readings of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant). At that time, scientists were beginning to discover the ways in which the brain pieces together its perception of the world, and I was fascinated by the implications of these discoveries for the way we construct our picture of reality. It was clear that what we perceive and what is actually out there are two different things.

This, I know, runs counter to common sense. Right now you are aware of the pages in front of you, various objects around you, sensations in your own body, and sounds in the air. Even though you may understand that all of this is just your reconstruction of reality, it still seems as if you are having a direct perception of the physical world. And I am not suggesting you should try to see it otherwise. What is important for now is the understanding that all our experience is an image of reality constructed in the mind.

Now of course there are thsoe who say I'm trying to have it both ways. I am trying to have God be an impersonal force and a man in the sky, (the big guy in the sky). The reason they think that is because they don't understand the concept of mystery. The think it has to be either one or the other of who stark literalistic choices. But the reason its' not having it both way is because of the limiations I'm willing to put on it.

Since I have stipulated a range of attributes that we can rule out,such as the ability to do nonsense, or to defy logically necessity, then clearly I'm willing to limit the concept. Since I've stipulated that "personal nature" is not a primary attribute of God --not one of those things that makes him uniquely God--then clealry I'm not trying to have it both ways.


I've trying to account for the things I've seen in the most intelligent framework I can come up with.

Jesus Mythers Fail to Meet Burden of Proof Part II

still the list of things from 1st century that don't mention Jesus. this is a comparison of the things that do and do not mention him to show how little material form the century survives and of that comparatively little doesn't mention him.

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Of all these writers, only Seneca may have conceivably had reason to refer to Jesus. But considering his personal troubles with Nero, it is doubtful that he would have had the interest or the time to do any work on the subject. * From the 70s and 80s A.D., we have some poems and epigrams by Martial, and works by Tacitus (a minor work on oratory) and Josephus (Against Apion, Wars of the Jews). None of these would have offered occasion to mention Jesus. * From the 90s, we have a poetic work by Statius; twelve books by Quintillian on oratory; Tacitus' biography of his father-in-law Agricola, and his work on Germany. [Blaik.MM, 13-16] "To this Meier adds [ibid., 23] that in general, knowledge of the vast majority of ancient peoples is "simply not accessible to us today by historical research and never will be." It is just as was said in his earlier comment on Alexander the Great: What we know of most ancient people as individuals could fit on just a few pieces of paper. Thus it is misguided for the skeptic to complain that we know so little about the historical Jesus, and have so little recorded about Him in ancient pagan sources. Compared to most ancient people, we know quite a lot about Jesus, and have quite a lot recorded about Him!" So there just aren't that many overall sources to go by in the first palce. But why wouldn't more of Jesus' contempoaries write about him? 3) Why Jesus wouldn't be mentioned more than he is. Jp Holding:Tekton apologetics. We turn to John P. Meier [Meie.MarJ, 7-9] and Murray Harris [Harr.3Cruc, 24-27] for several reasons on this point: a. Roman Historians were only concerned with issues that directly effected them where they lived, or pertained to the fortunes of the empire. He didn't address the Roman Senate, worte no treatesies, histories, poems or palys, never travaled outside of Palestine, and did not change the socio-economic situation in Paltestine. He was a strictly local affair, of regional importance only, in his own lifetime. Harris adds that "Roman writers could hardly be expected to have foreseen the subsequent influence of Christianity on the Roman Empire and therefore to have carefully documented" Christian origins. How were they to know that this minor Nazarene prophet would cause such a fuss?" Jesus and History On Line Electronic books Edward C. Wharton From Pagan Sources "Palestine of the first century has been referred to as an unimportant frontier province in the Roman Empire. Those provincial governors assigned to that region of the world were often thought to have received hardship posts. Too, those who wrote the history of Rome were in the upper strata of Roman society and usually had a personal dislike of Orientals, disapproved of their religions and looked upon their superstitions as very un-Roman. [Micahel Green , Runaway World, Inter-Varsity Press, p. 12.] This partially accounts for the little trickles of information that comes from their pens about the Christian religion. They wrote about it only as it forced its way into the mainstream of their view. Yet what they did write is proof positive that Jesus Christ was both a real person and that he had made such an impact upon society that the Roman world found it increasingly difficult to disregard him." b. Jesus was not a big enough threat to the Romans He was enough of a threat to warrent his exicution, but there had been many other Messianich "pretenders" who warrented harher treatment. The Romans never had to call out troops to quell a revolt led by Jesus or his followers. c. His death as a criminal made him even more marginal, and as one of many criminals exicuted by Rome during their stay in Palestine he was unremarkable. d. He was itinerant J.P. Holding: "Jesus marginalized himself by being occupied as an itinerant preacher. Of course, there was no Palestine News Network, and even if there had been one, there were no televisions to broadcast it. Jesus never used the established "news organs" of the day to spread His message. He travelled about the countryside, avoiding for the most part (and with the exception of Jerusalem) the major urban centers of the day. How would we regard someone who preached only in sites like, say, Hahira, Georgia?" e. He was a nerdowell. Holding agin: "Jesus lived an offensive lifestyle and alienated many people. He associated with the despised and rejected: Tax collectors, prostitutes, and the band of fishermen He had as disciples." f. He was unimportant, poor, migrant, in an empire the captial of which was very far away, ran by rich tyrannts and he could do nothing to imporve their power. Why should they have an interest in him? g. Not concerned with Roman gods. Jesus' bore a message of eschatological and spiritual significance about an obscure foreign God most Romans knew little about. They had no particular reason to see him as anything other than a strictly regional private matter concerning a religion that seemed barbaric and about which they had no interest. h. No evening News. News travaled slowly, the distances were great. They had no mass communications. It took months for Rome to learn of events in Palestine, and most of the events there were of little interest to them. Moreover, his work only lasted three years. By the time he was begining to reach the height of his fame in Jerusalem word of his very existence might just be reaching Rome, where it would have been gretaed coldly with no real interest anyway. Than suddenly he was gone, exicuted as a torulbe maker and good ridence! Reports of his resurrection would not flood Rome as great astounding news, other supernatural claims were made all the time from all parts of the world, including Rome itself, so who would believe or care about this one? i. One of many wonder workers. There were actually quite a few "wonder workers" and Messianic claimants in Jesus' time. In fact he may have seen one himself, a man called "The Egyptian" who led a revolt in Jesus' childhood, in The Galillee, but his followered were slaughtered and the Egyptian disappeared. Why should the Romans Take notice of just one more. (Now many will argue well see Jesus was just one more of these guys, but for an answer on that see "How do I know that Jesus is the Son of God?")

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Second, the fact that later Christians (and modern Christians) do refer to the story constantly despite the fact that it is well-known also undermines the argument. References in everyday life to Jesus permeate our culture and that wasn't the same then, but my point is that a "common knowledge" of an event does not preclude the reference to that event. One does not abstain from referencing an event because it is known commonly, but the other way around: It is referenced because it is known.

(1) we have mass media sweet heart. they did not. why is it so hard fo you guys to understand what that means in terms of common knowledge


(2) judging their culture by ours. you can't second guess how an ancient culture would handle narratives by the way we do it.

(3) I think the uneven and combined development is a better answer anyway than the "they knew the story" argument.


I think I started that. I don't' mean to take credit for it and if its' used by someone like Craig or something I don't know I'm not saying I know for a fact. I know I argued against Carrier years ago because I thought of it myself. So assume I thought of it and then other apologists started using it. But it's really taken out of context. It doesn't really pertain to the overall lack of mention of such details. it really pertains just the way Paul presents his material in letters like the one to the Romans.

I think the better answer is that the canonical gospels had to have time to circulate. If you accept 70-90 as the dates then it would take 20 years (rule of thumb) to get up to the north and circulate in Rome.

Johanine community was very closed in (see 1 John)> So they didn't just openly mix with the Pauline community at least until the death of both Paul and John.

__________________

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So maybe the rationalization camp has it turned around. Maybe Paul does not reference details about Jesus in his letters because others do not know the details. But then, wouldn't this be the point of his mission? To relate the details, to tell the story?

Paul himself would not know the material in the way its perstented. He tells us stuff he leanred from the Jerusalem church about Jesus life, about the resurrection.who did he meet? He met James. What does he say learned? that Chrsit appeared first to James. So James didn't tell him about the women, he told him about himself. He assumed got it first because it was good for his position to tell it that way.

you might guess I am not a big fan of James. Maybe its because I have a brother named James and he's a jerk. But I see James as an opportunist. That's just a side bar.

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This is usually argued by another rationalization: Paul was only concerned about the Crucifixion and the Resurrection so just didnt' bother with the story. But isn't, just as it is for modern Christians, the story so powerful and compelling that it is hard to imagine a dedicated apostle ignoring it? No. Once again, the easier explanation for Paul's silence on this subject is that he didn't know these stories. Given his familiarity with actual supposed players in the story, I think it is doubtful that he wouldn't know the story. So the fact that he doesn't talk about the story when he would have known it suggests strongly that he didn't know because it did not yet exist.

I think that's a half truth. Paul would have been concerneed with his petigree and apparenly he was satisfied of it because he relfects upon it in Roamns 1:3 that he had a flesh and blood linage and its' th right one for the Messiah.

Paul would not have been concerned with a lot of things we take for granted as basic to the story, like being Nazareth or his mother, or women at the tomb. But he would have been concerned with things pertaining to this messianic credentials.

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No. All of this underscores the basic fact that the story of the life of Jesus does not emerge until and coalesce around a set of "facts" until the second century, after the emergence of the Gospel of Mark. The fact that the New Testament writings as Bultmann observes present the occurrence of Chrst in a mythological framework is due to the actual lack of any "actual event" as the basis for the story. The legendary christ is based on the mythical Christ, not on a real person (though there may have been inspirations lying in the memory of the final compiler the Mark - 16:9 on version).

that does not mean it wasn't circulating, we know it was and this is explained by the argument I just made, the argument that the Gospels didn't circular in the north of the Mediterranean until around the 90s and latter. Before that knowledge of it was more fragmentary. Even Paul's knwoledge of Jesus' actual life was fragmentary.

but he knew he existed! He doesn't have to know that much to know that!

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One more thing before I go: the issue of timeline. One problem can be that if Mark was written in the 70s it might be impossible to think people would except that the story happened as recently as the 30's. There would be people around (though few, I'd say) who could say: "Hey, I don't remember that! I was there in the Temple that day!" Or something to that effect. I don't think this is a particularly powerful argument. Even in modern times with modern methods of documenting events, it is very difficult to claim that some event did not happen. The few who might raise such objections would be swept aside. Believers can believe whatever they want (Look at how people cling to the persistent myth that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks!). Those who didn't believe may have had no recourse to dispute it or, most likely, didn't hear the story in 70's anyway since the location of the advent of Mark is assuredly not Jerusalem (Probably Alexandria or Syria). This is no problem.

that date is pushed back to just 18 years latter (ad 50) by the stuff Koester says about the passion narrative and PMR>

the idea that "hey I don't remember him" would certainly have been the cult would not have grown in Jerusalem nearly as fast as it did.

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As far as timelines go, the most difficult timeline to reconcile is not the mythicist case, but the "Jesus to Christ" case (and I am not talking about Metacrock's historical "Jesus of Nazareth" who is also Christ Jesus, Lord and Savior, ascendant via worm holes to heaven). I don't have time to deal with this but just consider how rapidly a man Jesus would have to be claimed as a God, not a god in the sense of Caesar, the deification of whom was for political reasons, but THE God whom people saw perform miracles and such. Even a few short years later. I think it is difficult for the "Jesus to Christ" (who like Metacrock are really equivcating on the concept of the Historical Jesus) to justify this without allowing for outright fabrication on the part of Jesus followers.

that's some crazy logic you got there. you are so backwards to the normal way of thinking. What's obvious is myths take time, truth is instant. that's just nuts to think the would need time to develop the myth so that proves it was a myth? that's crazy?

Your logic really baffles me there.

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I mean it is true that the followers of Charles Manson too claimed he performed miracles, but at least we can blame that one on the pervasive use of hallucinogenic drugs withint their cult, but few claim this for theJesus cult (some do, though, and, in fact, you can find it asserted as an axiomatic truth at ritualistic gatherings known as "4-20" and "Burning Man" and whatnot--along with the "truth" that the entire US government was founded as a conspiracy against the saving powers of the devil weed marijuana).

what now? That makes no sense at all. I really can't figure what you think you are saying. Jesus was proclaimed rizen Lord and savior no latter than the middle of the century. It woul take decades or even centruies for a standard codified myth to take shape. One of my argument arugments for hsitoricity is that there is only one story.

there are not other versions of the Jesus story. no version where he has a differnt mother, from a different town, died in a different way. Clearly the same story was written in stone from the beginning.

that could only be true if it was based upon fact because the group spread so rapidly and had no controls after a certain point. yet even the gnostic heretics didn't change the basic details like who his mother was and how he died.

Only one form of control would keep all that in place. that the story was known ealry and set in stone as fact.

Metacrock

Jesus Mythers Fail to Meet Burden of Proof Part I

On Carm one of my favorite dialouge partners ( say that seriously) from the Jesus myth camp has a huge tome directed against my arguments. His name is Grog and here is my answer to him:




There Major points I ask you to keep in mind before I put up Grog's argument:


I. I have eight arguments to prove Jesus existed. grog has never answered one of them. When I put them people have knit picked until the thread was crowded and ever got around to answering them.

II. The Jesus myth posiition has the burden of proof: Jesus existed as a man in history this is acceted as historical fact, it's in all major reference books, it's backed by all major historians and has been for 2000 years. No one ever questioned it until 1900 years after the fact.

By everything we mean when we use the word "fact" Jesus' existence as a man in history is historical fact! Those who seek to overtun that have the burden of proof. It is not enough for them to argue from silence. they must use positive proof.


III. Grog totally misses the point of the argument about Gospels as historical artifacts. He keeps arguing it from the stand point that there's not enough corroboration to show facts, But that totally misses the boat.

the argument is not that any one aspect of the story can be proven, the point is that the people who wrote it believed it to be historical fact. That means the story was accepted as fact from as early as AD 50 or so becasue the sources they worked from were being circulated in writing that early.

Gorg's argument:

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I want to highlight this position because it still seems to lie at the base of foundational assumptions about who Jesus of Nazareth was as a person in history. From all quarters, I have observed the Gospels as cited as evidence for the basics of the Jesus story.

What I want to do here is demonstrate that this idea has been essentially discarded by modern scholarship.

This is far from being the case. I have sited Crosson, who is the probably the leading Bible scholar of the era, and I can and will site many others.I think we are talking at corss purposes. I think Grog is speaking of the accuracy of the stories in terms of the details, I am speaking of just the idea of Jesus existence per se.


In the latter sense the great overwhelming majority agree with Crosson who said:

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Crosson:
My very general arguments are: (1) that existence is given in Christian, pagan, and Jewish sources; (2) it is never negated by even the most hostile critics of early Christianity (Jesus is a bastard and a fool but never a myth or a fiction!); (3) there are no historical parallels that I know of from that time and period that help me understand such a total creation. There is, however, a fourth point that I touched on in BofC 403-406. It is crucially important for me that Jesus sent out companions and told them to do exactly what he was doing (not in his name, but as part of the Kingdom of God). The most basic continuity that I see between Jesus and those companions was, as I put it, not in mnemonics, but in mimetics. In other words, they were imitating his lifestyle and not just remembering his words. I find that emphasized in the Q Gospel’s indictment of those who talk, but do not do, and in the Didache’s emphasis on the ways (tropoi) of the Lord (not just words/logoi). When, therefore, I look at a phrase such as "blessed are the destitute," and am quite willing to argue that it comes from the historical Jesus, I am always at least as sure that it represents the accurate summary of an attitude as the accurate recall of a saying. For analogy: If Gandhi had developed a large movement after his death of people who are living in non-violent resistance to oppression, and one of them cited an aphorism of Gandhi, namely "if you do not stand on a small bug, why would you stand on a Big Bug," I would be more secure on the continuity in lifestyle than in memory and could work on that as basis.

Quote:Grog
Several times in the last week I've quoted Kloppenborg (1996) on this

"...the simple link between the historical Jesus and any of the gospels had decisively been severed."
He is not speaking of the sheer existence of Jesus, he's speaking of the details of the story.

Grog goes on:

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Rudolf Bultmann says:

"There is no question that the New Testament represents the Christ occurrence as a mythical occurrence." (Bultmann, 1952)

Bultmann said it was madness to say that Jesus didn't exist.

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Bultmann"Of course the doubt as to whether Jesus really existed is unfounded and not worth refutation. No sane person can doubt that Jesus stands as founder behind the historical movement whose first distinct stage is represented by the Palestinian community."[Jesus and the Word (2nd ed.; New York: Scribners, 1958).p.13

Quote:Grog
We have no documented line of transmission between actual events in the first century and the written stories contained in the Gospels.

I don't know what he means by "line of transmission." I guess he means we don't know who wrote them. But yes, we do. the communities wrote them. The communities contained eye witnesses. see my essay on "Community as Author" There is a ton of strong evidence on this.

Quote:Grog
References to "communities' and "oral tradition" are speculative first, and, second, dependent upon the assumption that something really did happen in the 30's or so that inspired the story of Mark (the first Gospel).

such hypocrisy. the same scholars he's so proud of quoting to ditch the Gospels are the same one's who do these speculations.

Read the link!(above)

Quote:grog
Metacrock makes a lot out of "pre-Mark" redaction without being specific as to the nature of what he is talking about.

a specificity he is not willing to meet. Balance that against his arguments form silence.

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There is no question at all that in the evolution of the legendary Christ that there was also an evolution of stories, collections of sayings about that Christ. Kloppenborg warns against attributing anything from these sayings sources--which were composed documents, not oral tradition-to the actual person Jesus (whoever that may or may not have been).

He's speaking of the Gosepl of Thomas and stuff he's not talking about Matt or John. "saying source" he's talking about Q. that doesn't pertain to Apostolic authority for the Gospels in the canon. Most importantly, this statement in no way contradicts what Koester and Crosson say about the pre Mark redacting being mid century. Here Grog is trying to pull a fast one by mis applying it to something it's not speaking of. The fact that G.Thomas, G.Peter, Egerton 2 and others can be shown to share an early background with the canonical Gospels is absolutely proven and is not contradicted by this statement.

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When we look at these collections of sayings and pieces of possible narrative, we do not find the full blown Gospel story. In the sayings, there is no crucifixion, resurrection, etc. The narrative, a passion narrative, is based on an amalgam of OT "prophecy"--Psalms 22 and Isaiah amongst others and pagan practices common to the area in which the passion narrative evolved. Paul references this drama play when he says in Galatians.

He's talking about saying sources like Q. of course you are not going to find narrative pieces in a saying source. It's just a list of sayings. why do you think they call it saying source!??

that is very disingenuous. It certainly doesn't apply, It applies to Q but not to GPete or the canonical gospels. There were early narrative just as there were early saying sources, although the saying sources were probably written first. That's the whole point of Crosson's Cross Gospel.


literary allusions to OT were a habit of Jewish writing they are not proof that they made it up and were unoriginal and patterned it after the OT.

Quote:Grog quoting Galatians in evidence of the previous point:
Gal 3:1You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.

There is no hint in Paul that the actual event of Jesus's crucifixion was a) recent or b) by the Romans.
you just quoted it.

Nor does their need to be. Galatians was written between 54 and 59, so how recent is that in Paul's consciousness? He wasn't even around when it happened. There just is no reason to think Paul would reflect upon the events in the same way that those who lived them would have. Why would he mention the Romans as crucifying Jesus when his audience was Greek, Roman and Turkish? Paul was culturally Roman he didn't see the Romans with the kind of animosity that the Jews of Jerusalem did.

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The details of the Jesus story only emerge in conjunction with the advent of the Gospel tradition. Early christians do not have a clear and consistent picture of Jesus until after (and it seems well after) the supposed time of the traditional dating of the Gospels(70-100).

That's true in a sense. That in no way proves it didn't happen before that, but it true that the canonical gospels were told in oral from and then written and redacted and circulated with in closed circles of their own community and only began to emerge by the end of the century. But that certainly doesn't prove the events didn't happen. The Koester stuff about passion narrative disproves the whole myther nonsense. It proves that the Jesus story, with empty tomb was circulating by ad 50 or there about. I have already demonstrated that most scholars (the scholars he tries to enlist on his side take the canonical as artifacts that indicate belief. But Grog only listens to them when they back him up, when they say stuff like Mark was written in 70 they don't know anything).

Most scholars believe mark was written in 70. But new sources push the dates back to the 60s. The pre Mark stuff pushes it back to the 40s.


1 Clement is clearly aware of the story and the Gospels. It quotes from Matt and Luke and uses quotes form the Ot in the way that Mark uses them.

But what he doesn't get is that the grounding of narrative in OT passages does not mean that they were unoriginal and made them up by patterning them after the old testament. They are siting he passages in an allusion for prophecy they are not trying to pull a fast one and write the same story in a new form.

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I documented in an earlier response to Metacrock the divergent views of early Church Fathers. Metacrock's challenge was based on flawed information, which I demonstrated as well.

He demonstrated by mentioning that he disagreed, not by presenting evidence. of course he' ignoring the arguments I used that he didn't even answer.

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(He asked for reference on Origen, and I did find the reference to Jesus being invisible in de pincipiis, on the incarnation (shapeshifting I did not find which may be a flawed remembrance or I just didn't find it. I remember reading a passage somewhere, but I will let go of that one).

there is no quote where he says Jesus was a shape shifter! that's crazy. Quote it to me here! I can't believe you would actually say that.

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So we first hear of Pilate in relation to the execution of Jesus from a non-gospel source through Ignatius in the early second century. No other detail of the Life of Jesus is to be found before this time (sayings, yes, details no): no cleansing of the Temple, no flogging, no Pilate, no Caiaphas, no Mary of Bethany, no virgin birth, etc., etc.

(1) He totally ignores that fact that Pilate is accepted as historical because he is mentioned in secular history twice.

(2) he just pretends the gospels didn't exist. see how backward myther thinking is? clearly the gospels written much earlier are being discussed and martial in them spoken of decades latter by latter writers. but by pretending they didn't exist and just taking out of reality they can pretend tha those discussing the material in them mention that material for the first time.

Its' a mania, it's a disease its crazy.I cant' tell you how grossly absurd this whole contagion is.

Quote:
After the emergence and dispersion of the Gospel stories, references to details about Jesus's life become common. It is often argued that the earliest Christians had no need to refer to the story of Jesus because it was so well-known, still fresh in the memory, but this assumption (necessary to maintenance of the normative paradigm), is seriously flawed and must, if you are holding it, be examined thoroughly.

First, is it common that, even if an event is well-known it is not referred to? No, in fact, it is the other way around. You find references in the literature. People refer to what happened as a source of inspiration. People retell and retell

(1) Of course again he's leaving out the whole trajectory of the Gospels. take them out of reality put them in a little bubble they didn't' exist and those who wrote them didn't' believe anything and had no effect on the community.

(2) after this pretense they just ignore aspects of the story mentioned in other works of the day: Paul, who does mention details of the gospels, but the mythers just totally ignore them and pretend they don't' say them because they don't' say the one's the are looking for Mary, and the manger and all this stuff. the crucifixion is a detail form Jesus life that Paul meantions and they of course totally pretend he does not.


(3) Hebrews, 1 Clement, The Dideque, (Teaching of the twelve) gospel of the savior, Egerton 2, 34 lost gospels, all of these mention details of the narratives in the canonical gospels. Somehow they just manage not ignore them completely.

(4) they would have had uneven and combined development of knowledge. In other words. The Gospels weren't just dispatched to Rome the day they were written. They circulated in the community for yearsa nd were unknown in other parts of the church. It took time for them to be circulated outside of their communities. It was that period where no one knew much that we are talking about. They jsut begin to show up in wide circulation around the 90s. that's why it appears they just making up the details of the story that late, becasue the particular telling just made it there then.

but they knew some details before that as we see in Pauline writings.

Quote:
Remember that great catch by Lynn Swann over Rod Perry (was it Perry?)? And they write about it. That Paul just didn't need to retell the story of Jesus to the Galatians or the Romans because it so permeated society that there was no need is a thinly disguised rationalizatoin for the lack of references to the story until the second century. Paul when describing the burdens he carries for Christ doesn't refer to Simon the Cyrene? No. Not because he thinks everybody's heard the story so he doesn't have to recount it, but because the story doesn't yet exist.

They didn't all have the same sets of info at the same time. that's just a simple fact of the reality of the ancient world. The writings we know as the canonical gospels were unknown to Paul, but the basic story line was not. He says nothing to substantially contradict it. We have tons of indications that this is the case. The time that it starts to catch up in terms of dissemination of the Gospel writings is the late first century, tah make sit look to the mythers like they are just making it up then.

of course those guys don't need any real facts.

Quote:
The secondary assumption that the story was common and needed no retelling is undermined by the fact that there is no reference to it in the contemporary literature. Philo does not reference this story about Jesus of whom his followers claimed was the Son of God, the very intermediary that Philo had written so much about. Either for or against, one would expect Philo to say something. Josephus makes no mention, at least in his earliest work, it ever. Seneca--no mention. No one who was contemporary with time recorded this event.

foolish and dishonest argument. I've told you before, and I've proven it by documenting tom the life of Philo, he was not in Alexandra in the time Jesus did his thing.


That means he could not have heard of Jesus until latter, and he was not important to him that through your head. you don't know what you are talking about that's Jesus myther dishonesty. distorting the facts. the facts.




this is from my website Doxa:

Quote:Metacrock: Doxa
First century Sources that don't mention Jesus.

[form JP Holding--Teckton Apologetics]


"A final consideration is that we have very little information from first-century sources to begin with. Not much has survived the test of time from A.D. 1 to today. Blaiklock has cataloged the non-Christian writings of the Roman Empire (other than those of Philo) which have survived from the first century and do not mention Jesus. These items are":

* An amateurish history of Rome by Vellius Paterculus, a retired army officer of Tiberius. It was published in 30 A.D., just when Jesus was getting started in His ministry.

* An inscription that mentions Pilate.

* Fables written by Phaedrus, a Macedonian freedman, in the 40s A.D.

* From the 50s and 60s A.D., Blaiklock tells us: "Bookends set a foot apart on this desk where I write would enclose the works from these significant years." Included are philosophical works and letters by Seneca; a poem by his nephew Lucan; a book on agriculture by Columella, a retired soldier; fragments of the novel Satyricon by Gaius Petronius; a few lines from a Roman satirist, Persius; Pliny the Elder's Historia Naturalis; fragments of a commentary on Cicero by Asconius Pedianus, and finally, a history of Alexander the Great by Quinus Curtius.

Happy Days Are Here Again

Happy Days Are HERE AGAIN!


Ok so I'm happy to say I was wrong the election stealing thing, but yEEEEEEHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaa!

Realizing God

Even though I have 42 arguments for the existence of God (42 = answer to God the universe and everything) I feel that making God arguments is beneficial but not necessary. Atheists often react with chagrin when told this. But the fact is I don't ever claim to "prove the existence of God." I really do believe that God is beyond our understanding and thus, would be unnameable to objective proof. This flys in the face of the way most atheists see things. Most atheist tend to orbit around the concept of objective proof, empirical science, absolute demonstration and on. In fct most atheists use a warfare model of discussion.They don't discuss beliefs, they "attack arguments." It's all about proving and that means conquering the enemy.

I want to side step that entire attitude. God is beyond our understanding, but not beyond are experince. We can't prove objectively that God exists, this is far form meaning that it's not worth it to believe or that belief is irrational or makes you stupid if you believe. There are many beliefs atheists take for granted that can't be proved, but that doesn't even give the pause since these are essential to getting by in the world: like the concept of other minds, or the idea that the sun will come up tomorrow. That we are not brains in vats. Atheists scough at this stuff all the time, but they rarely stop to consider what it means. It means your mockery of it due to the fact that you take it for granted. You don't have any scientific evidence that proves you exist, or that other minds exist, or that the future will be like the past and so on. all of that is obtained through the very means that people of faith use to belief. You mock their beliefs and take your own for granted. That's because that warfare model of argumentation doesn't allow for a searing self examination.

The basic model would be not to argue for the existence of God, but to realize that God is reality. It's a matter of opening your eyes to see something that is already there, that you know it there you just never bothered to understand it before.It's just that, open your eyes and realize God is there. How is this done? By expanding the categories of knowledge so that they now include the relevant information necessary to see things in a new way. Here are the categories required:

Phenomenology
existentialism
cultural constructivism
modal logic
the transcendental signifer
(and with it deconstruction and postmodernism)


these things are not augments. They the basis out of which arguments might be made, but more importantly, they are fields of thought which include both logic and data the apprehension of which will help one understand why people believe in God. Once understanding that one will see the reality of God is plain. God's reality has been masked by Western thought since philosophy and modern science has segmented our understanding, breaking up epistemology from metaphysics and ontology, make seperate categories so we can't connect globally to different categories of knowledge that make it possible to see connections.




I am not saying that if you read all this stuff you will agree with me. But to understand why belief with being able to prove it "objectively" is not irrational you have to expand your understanding of what knowledge is and what it means to have beliefs.

Belief in God is not merely adding a fact to the universe. Yesterday I did not know there is a God now I know there is one. So the universe yesterday had swizzle sticks and pop corn and tooth brushes and combs, and today it has those things and God. This is not what belief in God is. It is not just adding a fact to the universe. It's understanding the nature of being in such a way that we see the holy aspect of being.

Paul Tillich said "if you know that being has depth you cannot be an atheist." What does this mean? That's what reading this stuff is about.If you expand your knwoledge categories and broader your understanding then you see that being is more than just a fact of existence, you come to realize God is reality; The ground of Being.



Please read that link there, several pages to get the idea of what I mean by saying that God is the ground of being. When you realize the nature of being you can't help but understand that God has to be. Now to explain about these knowledge categories.

Phenomenology

this is an approach to ontology (the study of being) through which one allows the sense data to suggest it's own categories.It was pioneered by Brintano in the late nineteenth century but is best known for its two major thinkers: Hulleral and Heidegger. Science, and all forms of metaphysics (in Heidegger's sense of the term) sense data is pre screened into pre selected categories. This is what the atheist is doing when he says "I want objective evidence." Hes saying I have already decide what evidence I will accept and what I want accept. Any evidence that doesn't tally with his pre set ideology is automatically discounted. What one needs to do is allow the experinces of the divine, or so we don't beg question, experinces which some might take to be the divine--the sense of the numinous to suggest their own categories.

existentialism

Philosophy made famous by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. But it has a strong Christian wing the van Guard of which was led by Kierkegaard, and brought up in its main body by Gabriel Marcel. Existentialism starts from the premiise of the individual's own understanding of the authenticity of his existence and it's meaning in the universe.

cultural constructivism

The idea that any idea that can or must be put into language is a cultural construct, that is an idea constructed by previously constructed meaning in society. These ideas are found in all language because all language is an artifact of culture. So everything we can rationally talk about is a cultural construct.

this means that science is not absolute knowledge, It' not objective, objectivity is impossible. Science is just another culturally bound language game.

modal logic

this comes much closer to real truth anything in science. but of course it depends upon pre selected premises. Yet is essential for understanding concepts about God.


the transcendental signifier
(and with it deconstruction and postmodernism)

The "TS" as I will call it is essentially God. That is to say God functions in the economy of a religious tradition as a Transcendental signifier. This is a very complex idea and requires a lot of real close reading. I have two blog spots in which I explained it pretty good.

Here's the "arguemnt" (except now it's not an argument but it's why the TS is a connection Between the TS and God.

these are background to understand the idea of the Trascendental Signifer.

Derridian Background of the TS

TS part 2

Finally, you need to know about the vast body of scientist work surrounding mystical experinces. When all of this comes together you realize there's really point to deny the reality of God. the nature of the universe takes shape around God and you realize that concept is the center.

More stark realizations about the end of democracy

from OPed news

Have you forgotten? Private Republican corporations count and compile the votes with secret and unverifiable software! Just as they did in 2000 and in 2004, and we all know how that turned out.

Accordingly, the stark fact remains: the Republicans might "win" this election, regardless of the preference of the voters. The culprits who rigged the previous elections are fully aware that they might face hard time in the federal slammer if President Obama's Attorney General is ordered to investigate past elections. Thus they are acutely motivated to use their considerable resources to keep Obama out of the White House.

The only way Obama can win is to win by over 60%, so big that a theft would just be implausable. We have to get everyone we can to vote!

The Gop has sued Ohio for the names of new voters who do not exactly match their recoreds. That's exactly how they stole the last election. They will expunge the names of thousands of new voters. In 2004 they took a million voters off the roles. That would have been enough to put Kerry over the top, who led in the polls by a narrow margin. according to commondreams.org newcenter.

In this case they are targeting 200,000 voters who registered since january first.

Last week, after a twisted back-and-forth trail of contradictory lower court decisions, the Supremes ruled that the Republicans "are not sufficiently likely to prevail" in their argument that such discrepancies pose a significant threat to the legitimacy of the electoral process. The Court also ruled that the GOP had not standing as a private organization to file such a suit.

The decision pertains to Ohio, but could have major national impact. Throughout the US, the GOP has been working to strip voters from registration rolls and challenge voting rights predominantly in districts leaning toward the Democrats. Our next article will include an estimate of how many voters that campaign could actually disenfranchise in Ohio.

But the GOP continues to seek ways to disrupt the registration and voting process. In a separate case, the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled 4-3 that the Secretary of State must allow partisan observers into voting stations where early voting is proceeding. Outside the early voting sites, Republican operatives have photographed early voters and recorded their license plates in an attempt to intimidate and challenge new voters.

The GOP has foisted this trumped up garbage about acorn in order to divert attention from their own vote stealing practices. Plain said "we cannot allow activists like ACORN to steal the election" that's because they want to steal the election themselves. The Republicans around the country are leading massive drives to stop people from voting,based upon the myth that voter fraud is rampant.

common dreams newscenter again:

The idea of massive fraud by voters continues to be proven as a hyped-up myth. The Cincinnati Enquirer has provided a detailed analysis of Ohio's more than 8 million registered voters and found that problems involving illegitimate voting are minimal. The Enquirer found only 6567 voters who had duplicate registrations. All are individuals who registered twice at their own address, a common routinely resolved by election officials and poll workers. An investigation by Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips of the 2004 election found that of the nearly 800 duplicate registrations he analyzed, none voted more than once. The Enquirer also flagged 589 registered voters who won't be 18 on Election Day.

So contrary to Republican hype, overall the total number of problematic voters appears to be miniscule. The Enquirer concluded that "Data-entry errors make matching voters to other databases an inexact science. Variations on first names, maiden names, and misspellings could red-flag an otherwise eligible voter

say bye bye, Democracy: Republicans se to steal anoher election!

Wake up people! We have to face some hard realities here! the last two elections were stolen, IN 2004 over a million new voteres were just not allowed to vote. The decenting justice in the 2000 deicison that put Bush in the Whitehouse said the election was bieng stolen.

An article in rolling stoneexpounds up on the whole ugly mess.

This November, what happened to Maez will happen to hundreds of thousands of voters across the country. In state after state, Republican operatives — the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics — are wielding new federal legislation to systematically disenfranchise Democrats. If this year's race is as close as the past two elections, the GOP's nationwide campaign could be large enough to determine the presidency in November. "I don't think the Democrats get it," says John Boyd, a voting-rights attorney in Albuquerque who has taken on the Republican Party for impeding access to the ballot. "All these new rules and games are turning voting into an obstacle course that could flip the vote to the GOP in half a dozen states."


Suppressing the vote has long been a cornerstone of the GOP's electoral strategy. Shortly before the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, Paul Weyrich — a principal architect of today's Republican Party — scolded evangelicals who believed in democracy. "Many of our Christians have what I call the 'goo goo' syndrome — good government," said Weyrich, who co-founded Moral Majority with Jerry Falwell. "They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. . . . As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

Today, Weyrich's vision has become a national reality. Since 2003, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, at least 2.7 million new voters have had their applications to register rejected. In addition, at least 1.6 million votes were never counted in the 2004 election — and the commission's own data suggests that the real number could be twice as high. To purge registration rolls and discard ballots, partisan election officials used a wide range of pretexts, from "unreadability" to changes in a voter's signature. And this year, thanks to new provisions of the Help America Vote Act, the number of discounted votes could surge even higher.

Passed in 2002, HAVA was hailed by leaders in both parties as a reform designed to avoid a repeat of the 2000 debacle in Florida that threw the presidential election to the U.S. Supreme Court. The measure set standards for voting systems, created an independent commission to oversee elections, and ordered states to provide provisional ballots to voters whose eligibility is challenged at the polls

Election defense alliance sounds the warning about a new house bill will make it easier for the Republicans to steal the election:

Senate Democrats and Republicans alike are now poised to pass H.R. 6304, known as the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, a bill touted by both House and Senate leaders to be a compromise proposal to prior Senate Bill 2248. Unfortunately, H.R. 6304 may give the Bush administration, in its last months, the ammunition it needs to hijack the 2008 presidential election.

It has been known for some time that, since 2001, the Bush administration has conducted mass surveillance of the email and telephone calls made by American citizens. All electronic messages passing through switches in the US, regardless of whether they were international or domestic communications, have been systematically intercepted and screened by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Technologies, which were installed at major hubs of telecommunication companies throughout the nation copy and deposit all electronic messages into a giant NSA computer network. The NSA then uses complex algorithms to parse through these messages using matching criteria such as key words, phone numbers, and dates, and linking these data to further data--anything from credit card and bank records to movie rentals.

H.R. 6304 does not, on the face of it, require that these complex algorithms that are used to parse through our electronic messages be examined and approved by a FISA Court. The role of the FISA Court seems to be limited to approving the general design of the software used in conducting acquisitions of information.

This consists of reviewing the authorizations made by the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence to see if this general design satisfactorily conforms to "minimization procedures," that is, that they take reasonable precautions to avoid targeting American citizens. However, without access to the algorithm itself, as well as to the actual source code and a representative sampling of the data that ultimately get caught in its electronic net, there is no way to confirm that the actual proce

Go Vote! Go Vote! Go Vote!see this source on Bush stealing electiosn

Answering The DC Crowd on the Nature of Christianity

Here I go lecturing again. It's really funny to me how these atheists will make arguments that just absolutely turn upon not knowing something because they refuse to read theology. Then they use their lack of knowledge as a means of arguing against Christianity. When you point out to them that they would understand more about the issue if they read some theology, they soud like kids who skipped school and forged a note form mom, "I don't have to do this I have my note." Except in this case "I don't have to read theology because Dawkins (mom) says it's stupid." But if you read theology you would know better.

The issue this time is an argument going around over there that there is no clear cut means of understanding what Christianity is or how to be a Christian, or what it means to be one. Therefore, they conclude, Christianity must be stupid and wrong and this us just a dandy reason not to believe n it.. Here I go again, "If you read some theology you would know how to define Christianity and what it means to be a Christians and so froth. Of course they would rather have their excuse not to know than to actually find out. This is just another excellent illustration of the intellectual bankruptcy of atheism.

Here's one of the posts:

By Harry McCall at 10/20/2008

With respect to some of the comments I’ve read to my posts that as a former Christians John and I are often told we never knew what Christianity was. In light of this claim, would some Christians care to give the posters here at DC a working definition of Christianity? Or is there really no standard definition believers can agree on?

Statements like “It’s a belief in God” or “It’s a belief in Jesus” are so vague that the character Satan could be a Christian too. And again, statements like “It’s trusting Jesus Christ for salvation.” fails too in that hundreds of denominations who believe this attack one another as false religions (some weird oxymoron isn‘t it?).

A case in point:
A so called “Christian” commenter here at DC who goes by the name Jason tells me there are no righteous dead in Heaven be they Enoch, Elijah, or Moses, neither are there any wicked / unsaved dead in Hell, nor is there any Great White Throne Judgment where the lost or cast into a Lake of Fire.

If Jason can deny clear orthodox Biblical teachings and still be a Christian, exactly how much of the Bible can one deny and still be “saved” or salvation just a subjective term that can have over 20,000 sectarian or denominational meanings which make it basically meaningless?

Jason has stressed in comments to my posts that the “saved” or “righteous” dead or just like the “lost” or “unsaved” dead; in their graves. So be you Christian or atheist, your fate at death is the grave.

By rejecting historical orthodox dogma as traditional historical Christianity has always felt the Bible clearly teaches, is Jason a Christian while John and I never were?

In short:

A. What makes one a Christian?

B. How much of the Bible can one deny and still be a Christian?

C. What is the difference between historical orthodox doctrinal denial and Biblical denial?

All comments welcomed.

Let's take this step by step:

With respect to some of the comments I’ve read to my posts that as a former Christians John and I are often told we never knew what Christianity was. In light of this claim, would some Christians care to give the posters here at DC a working definition of Christianity? Or is there really no standard definition believers can agree on?

I would not say John never knew what Christianity is.I can't speak for Harry because he don't know enough of his posting. But anyone who says that about Lofuts probably hasn't bothered to choose his words carefully.

Statements like “It’s a belief in God” or “It’s a belief in Jesus” are so vague that the character Satan could be a Christian too. And again, statements like “It’s trusting Jesus Christ for salvation.” fails too in that hundreds of denominations who believe this attack one another as false religions (some weird oxymoron isn‘t it?).

A case in point:
A so called “Christian” commenter here at DC who goes by the name Jason tells me there are no righteous dead in Heaven be they Enoch, Elijah, or Moses, neither are there any wicked / unsaved dead in Hell, nor is there any Great White Throne Judgment where the lost or cast into a Lake of Fire.

If that is the Jason I think it is he's a universalist so he doesn't' have conventional interpretation. But this Harry person equates Christian identity with acceptance of an inerrant bible and literal interpretation. That would be a good reason to suspect he doesn't' know anything about Christianity. Now that's not to say that a hell of a lot of Christians don't know anything about it either. That's not a bad surmise. Many Christians don't know beans about their own faith tradition and just going to church is no guarantee you will know anything. We are not saved by our own righteousness, the bible does say no one is righteous "no not one." This Harry seems to lack basic instruction in the faith.

If Jason can deny clear orthodox Biblical teachings and still be a Christian, exactly how much of the Bible can one deny and still be “saved” or salvation just a subjective term that can have over 20,000 sectarian or denominational meanings which make it basically meaningless?

Another point of ignorance. Belief in judgment and hell is only understood as "sound orthodox teaching" by certain groups, it is not understood as such by major denominations such as Episcopal, Anglican, United Methodist, and is different in Eastern Orthodox terms, (although they do have judgment and hell but they would think most of the fundamentalists will be there). If he knew something about theology he would know this.

By rejecting historical orthodox dogma as traditional historical Christianity has always felt the Bible clearly teaches, is Jason a Christian while John and I never were?

This highlights one of the major weaknesses of his alleged "orthodox" understanding: no creed, no council, not the bible, not any gatekeeper of Christian id anywhere in any ways makes acceptance of hell a prerequisite for salvation. The Catholic church does not say "unless you believe in hell, you are going there." No they do not say that. Many fundies believe that, but no official magisteria of the church ever says that. That is not the nature of of it means to be a Christina. Christian identity is not defined by belief in hell. Nor does the Bible teach that hell is eternal conscious torment for the soul. The only thing it does teach and can be understood as a literal teaching about hell is that it is "destruction of the soul." That is the only literal statement and everything else is metaphor.

The same with the Bible. No magisteria of the church teach that belief in the Bible is the limit on salvation. No one in the Bible ever makes a statement connecting belief in the Bible to salvation. Come to that, there is no mention of a "Bible" in the Bible. There is mention of something called "scripture" but no "Bible."If scripture is synonymous with the canon of the two testaments (ie "The Bible" as we know it) no one ever says. No Creed, no council, no pope, no saint no theologians has eve made any official statement on the theses matters that could be construed as definitive for the church as a whole.

So we can answer Harry's questions like so:

A. What makes one a Christian?

An expressed faith based statement links one's ends and the goals of one's life, the purposes of one's living in connection with a belief in Jesus of Nazareth, his death and his resurrection, as redemptive and soteriological.

B. How much of the Bible can one deny and still be a Christian?

all of it. everything and the binding. Nothing in Christian magisteria connects belief in the bible to salvation. There were Christians before there was a canon of the Bible. Christians lived and died before any books of the New Testament were written, how do you suppose they were saved?

C. What is the difference between historical orthodox doctrinal denial and Biblical denial?

What you are calling "historical Orthodox doctrine" is largely a matter of what community one wishes to belong to. Its' as different for an Anglican as is for a Baptist or an Eastern Orthodox person. No official doctrine of the statements that belief in the bible is the basis of salvation. Luther did not say that. Knox did not say it, no pope every said it. No creed ever said "I believe in the bible."

The fact that you think so shows us how deeply the fundies have let down the Gospel faith they pretend to guard.

The basic doctrines of the church are historically set out in the creeds. That's what the creeds were for. Protestant Churches that have abandoned the creeds have set themselves apart from historical Christianity. Fudnies who think the Bible is the basis of salvation have separated themselves from historical Christianity even twice over; once as abandoning the creeds, again as setting up the Bible as a standard of salvation that it never was in Church history.

Harry, how can you go about try to debunk something you refuse to learn about? You should know this. Every Christian should know this, but unfortunately you have to go to seminary to learn it. Loftus should know it.

Early Date for Mark

Most Jesus mythers and a lot of atheists take the old nineteenth century view that Mark was written in the second century. They accept modern scholarship when it ways Mark came first and Mat and Luke are dependent upon him, then shed modern scholarship when it says (and the vast majority do) that AD 70 was the Date for Mark.

I have argued that a new trend has emerged giving earlier dates for the Gospels. What do you suppose atheists said? I'm a liar of course! I will show that there is a much better basis for thinking of the gospel of Mark (I will just stick with Mark to makes things easier) as written before AD 70!

The major reason scholars put the date as 70 is the destruction of the temple. Mark records Jesus prediction that the temple would be destroyed. So most scholars today assume the naturalistic answer that they can't base dating on prophesy, so they have to put it after 70. It can't be much after 70 or it would cease to be very relevant. There are other and better reasons for putting around 70. That's the limit on how early they think it can be. they think it can't be latter than that becasue its too Jewish, the eschatology expectations doesn't match the second century.


there are good reasons to think Mark was written earlier than 70.

(1) The destruction of the temple does not have to be taken as a limit on the date. The problem is the basic assumption that no one expected the temple to be destroyed is wrong.

Jews of the first century had different expectations of the Messiah than do Jews today, or in subsequent centuries. Th view that has emerged from Qumran shows us that Jesus fit exactly what many Jews of the frist century expected. He doesn't fit the only profile but he does fit one profile that we know did exist, right down to the redemption. There was a view that saw Messiah as born, rejected by his people, executed, returns, and his death was redemption for the people.

Within that view they saw the temple's destruction connected with Messiah's birth. This is found in Yalkut the earliest volume of the Talmud, material from that segment goes back to the first century. This documented by Alfred Edersheim in Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah.



"Suffice it to say, according to the general opinion, the birth of the Messiah would be unknown to his contemporaries, that he would appear, carry on his work, than disappear--probably for 45 days, than appear again and destroy the hostile powers of the world..." (Edershiem, 436, Yalkut on Is. vol ii, )

"[Messiah]...his birth is connnected with the destruction, [of temple] and his Return with the restoration of the temple" (on Lamintations i.16 WArsh p 64 in Edersheim "He might be there and be known or the might come and be again hidden for a time" comp Sanhedirin 97a Midrash on CAnt.

So they already had the idea that the temple would be destoryed. If Jesus followers were expecting this, they would already be aware that since he had grown to manhood the destruction of the temple had to come soon. So they could have expected that before it happened, even by a couple of decades. This means the Evangelical apologetic loses a prophet fulfillment, but they have plenty of those to spare.

Other reasons for early date:

(1) The Jewish expectations of the Messiah are fit by Jesus in general and the view that fits him to a exactly is found at Qumran.


http://www.doxa.ws/Messiah/Messiah1.html


http://www.doxa.ws/Messiah/Fulfill.html

By the early second century this view was shifting away. Separation form the Gentile church, the bad blood that developed after the fall of the templ, the move away form the LXX and to their own translation that the Christians didn't use, made this view obsolete among Jews byt he early second century. Thus we can see the atmosphere and the Jewishness of Mark reflects an earlier period. It fits perfectly with the 30s, 40, 50s.


(2) The eschatology expectations fit the Jews of the first but not the second century. (see the links above)

The idea of the end times, the Messiah coming, the temple would be destoryed, this was all the sort of expectations they had int he time of Christ and even a bit before. But by the second century that gap with the Christians, the Jewish Christians didn't leave many writings from that period. The church was outgrowing those kind of eschatology by that time.

(3) different versions of Mark (used by Mat and Luke)

that means the date must be pushed back because you had to have time for different versions to develop.

"External evidence for two different versions of Mark circulating at an early date can be derived only from the observation that Luke does not reproduce the section Mark 6:45-8:26. Luke 19: 19= Mark 8:27 follows directly upon Luke 9:17= Mark 6:44. Luke may have used a copy of Mark that had accidentally lost a few pages. However there are some special features which differentiate this particular from the rest of Mark's Gospel. It begins with Jesus going to Bethsaida (Mark 6:45) and ends with the healing of a blind man from Bethsaida (Mark 8:22). Thereafter Jesus goes to Cesaria Philippi and the town of Bethsaida never occurs again the Gospel. This section is also of a number of other doublets of Markan pericopes. 6:44-54 the walking on the water is a variant of the stilling of the tempest (Mark 4:35-41). 8:1-10 the feeding of the 4000 is a secondary elaboration of the feeding of the 5000 (Mark 6:30-44)...The cumulative evidence of these peculiarities may allow the conclusion that an earlier version of Mark, which was used by Luke did not yet contain the Besiada section (Mark 6:45-8:26) whereas Matthew knew the expanded version which must have come into existence very soon after the original composition of the original gospel." (Koester, 285)."

Koester doesn't' argue for a complete UrMarkus ..as a more permeative version of the Gospel, but this evidence does suggest different versions of the same Gospel. While we can't find an UrMarkus, we can see clearly that the redactor who first formed the Gospel used several sources. The passion narrative has been mentioned, moreover, a miracle story source that is compatible with John, two written documents of saying sources are also recognizable. These include a collection of parables and one of apocalyptic material. (p.287)

But does this mean that Mark [the primary redactor] is merely a "cut and paste" which destorts previous sources and collects rumors and legends with no historical value? Where the skeptic sees this aspect, Koester does not. What Koester sees is a faithful copyist who has collected materials known to be of value to the community, and forged them into a certain order for the purposes of edification to the community.

"Mark [the primary redactor] is primarily a faithful collector. In so far as he is also an author he has created an overriding general framework for the incorporation of traditional material but he has still left most of his material intact.His Gospel is therefore a most important witness for an early stage for the formative development of the traditions about Jesus. The world which these traditions describe rarely goes beyond Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem, which is not the world of the author [primary redactor] or the readers for whom the book was intended. Mark's information about Palestine and its people is fairly accurate whenever he leaves his sources intact. But from his redaction of the sources it is clear that the author is not a Jewish Chrstistian and that he does not live in Palestine." (Koester p.289)

As for a trend to early dating Errantskeptic. org provides this list of both conservative and liberal scholars who are pushing toward earlier dates for Mark.

Mark

Believer's Study Bible, A.D. 65 to 68
Allan Black, Ph.D. early AD 60's
Raymond E. Brown, Ph.D. AD 60 to 75, most likely between AD 68 & 73
F.F. Bruce, Ph.D. AD 64 or 65
D.A. Carson, R.T. France, and G.J. Wenham, eds. New Bible Commentary: 21 Century Edition, 60 to 70 CE
M. G. Easton M. A., D. D. Probably about AD 63
James M. Efird, Ph.D. AD 65 to 70
David A. Fiensy, Ph.D. AD 66 or 67
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Ph.D. AD 60 to 70
Robert A. Guelich, Ph.D. AD 67 to 70
Donald Guthrie, Ph.D. New Testament Introduction, 65 to 70 CE
William Hendriksen, Ph.D. AD 40 to 65, with the earlier date favored.
Martin Hengel, Ph.D. AD 69
A.E. Hill, Ph.D. AD 50 to 70
R. Jamieson, A.R. Fausset, and D. Brown, eds. AD 54 to 68
Howard Clark Kee, Ph.D. AD 70
Craig S. Keener, Ph.D. AD 64
Werner Georg Kummel, Ph.D. AD 70
William L. Lane, Th.D. AD 60 to 70
John MacArthur, Ph.D. AD 50 to 70
K.E. Malberg, AD 68 to 69
Bruce Metzger, Ph.D. AD 65 to 75
M.S. Mills, Ph.D. AD 68
N. Perrin, Ph.D. after AD 64/65
J.A.T. Robinson, Ph.D. Complete by AD 62
Edward P. Sanders, Ph.D. AD 65 to 70
Carsten Peter Thiede, Ph.D. Before AD 62 Director of the Institute for Basic Epistemological Research in Paderborn, Germany
Edward J. Tinsley, Ph.D. AD 60 to 70
Joseph B. Tyson, Ph.D. AD 70 AD
J. Wenham, Ph.D. AD 45
Franklin W. Young, Ph.D. AD 65 to 70

JAT Robinson is very liberal. He's one of the primary people in the early 60s who started the idea of levels to Q. Ray Brown was farily liberal, he was one instrumental in starting the trend to study non canonical gospels.

__________________

Jesus's

Jesus ben Kurasawa............................Jesus ben who?


The Jesus mythers have a new trick. It's similar to the old find the pea under the thimble scam, but it involves historical figures instead of peas. All the associated people who back up the historicity of Jesus, such as Paul and James, they muddle the identification of them as real people, and as the same people. For example, Jesus who was mentioned by Josephus as the brother of James doesn't have to be the same Jesus int he Testamonium Flavious. Of course the James in the passage Jo speaks of is not the same James as James the Just, nor is the the same as James the Just in the New testament. Of course now they deny that Dual existed.

What we see happening here is the horrible lack of scholarly standards imploding upon itself. Since they were rebuffed so many times with historical data they had to get rid of the supports holding up the case for Jesus' historicity. Thus they place these figures in their magic pressure cooker of wish fulfillment and--whoosh woosh--away it goes. Just as they rid themselves of those pesky Gospels by insisting that they can't have any validity until finally they became so irrelevant that they are not viewed as any sort of evdience at all. Just as they did with he dying rising savior Gods, they are lying through their teeth. The mythers lied about the evidence of the dying rising gods and distorted what real mythology said about them, then they were careful to use only old Jesus myth books and claim them are real scholarship. Christian apologists such as Miller, Holding, (dare I include myself?) finally succession in putting about the facts, Mithra didn't die on a cross, none of them did. Then they shift their lies to other areas. This muddle of figures in evidential support is the latest version.

One example is people named Jesus in the first century. I was arguing on carm yesterday and found a post by a guy who made a list of several people named Jesus, who one of whom could be one or both of the mentions of Jesus by Josephus. Of course they act like just the fact of having the same name means they would easily be confused. It's a very hazy theory, because it isn't clear weather they are saying that these guys are just the person referred to in that one chapter, or perhaps one or more of these people were actually fundamental inspirations for the "idea" of Jesus in the first place?

Here's the list:

Jesus ben Sirach. This Jesus was reputedly the author of the Book of Sirach (aka 'Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach'), part of Old Testament Apocrypha. Ben Sirach, writing in Greek about 180 BC, brought together Jewish 'wisdom' and Homeric-style heroes.
Jesus ben Pandira. A wonder-worker during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (106-79 BC), one of the most ruthless of the Maccabean kings. Imprudently, this Jesus launched into a career of end-time prophesy and agitation which upset the king. He met his own premature end-time by being hung on a tree – and on the eve of a Passover. Scholars have speculated this Jesus founded the Essene sect.


Jesus ben Ananias. Beginning in 62AD, this Jesus had caused disquiet in Jerusalem with a non-stop doom-laden mantra of 'Woe to the city'. He prophesied rather vaguely:

"A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against the whole people."
– Josephus, Wars 6.3.

Arrested and flogged by the Romans, he was released as nothing more dangerous than a mad man. He died during the siege of Jerusalem from a rock hurled by a Roman catapult.


Jesus ben Saphat. In the insurrection of 68AD that wrought havoc in Galilee, this Jesus had led the rebels in Tiberias. When the city was about to fall to Vespasian's legionaries he fled north to Tarichea on the Sea of Galilee.


Jesus ben Gamala. During 68/69 AD this Jesus was a leader of the 'peace party' in the civil war wrecking Judaea. From the walls of Jerusalem he had remonstrated with the besieging Idumeans (led by 'James and John, sons of Susa'). It did him no good. When the Idumeans breached the walls he was put to death and his body thrown to the dogs and carrion birds.
Jesus ben Stada was a Judean agitator who gave the Romans a headache in the early years of the second century. He met his end in the town of Lydda (twenty five miles from Jerusalem) at the hands of a Roman crucifixion crew.


Jesus ben Thebuth. A priest who, in the final capitulation of the upper city in 69AD, saved his own skin by surrendering the treasures of the Temple, which included two holy candlesticks, goblets of pure gold, sacred curtains and robes of the high priests. The booty figured prominently in the Triumph held for Vespasian and his son Titus.*

The major problem with all this is that these guys don't meet the criteria the mythers want us to apply to Jesus. They always say "there's no record of his birth, no writing from anyone who knew him (of course the Gospels, but they dismiss those as though they don't exist because if they dint' their theory would go up as a tissue of lies) and they put loads of stress recent and contemporary writings about them. Well can any of these other Jesus's be proven to have lived? We no records of any of their births, we have no writings by any of them, except of course Ben Sira author of the Wisdom of Ben Sira, but there's a problem I'll get to it in a moment. We have none of these criteria, no sources that new them contemporaneously, nothing. In fact, as I shall show, one is pretty well non existent, and three are actually Jesus of Nazareth in the Talmud the others can be clearly removed as candidates for the persons referred to by Josephus.





Jesus ben Sira

according to Jewish encyclopedia.com It's not certain he ever lived at all. He's quite probably not the author of Ben Sira and the name "Jesus" was put on him in the middle ages and a fictional life story made up for him based upon Jesus of Nazareth to compete with Christianity.

The alleged intercourse between Ben Sira and Nebuchadnezzar is the invention of the author, while the miraculous birth and early history of Ben Sira are a Jewish echo of a Christian legend, in which Jesus Ben Sira is made to play the part of Jesus of Nazareth. According to the "Evangel of the Childhood of Jesus," a pseudepigraph written in Arabic (Thilo's "Codex Apocryphus Novi Testam." i. 122 et seq.), Jesus spoke to his mother (chap. i.) while he was still in the cradle, and said: "I, whom thou hast brought forth, am Jesus, the son of God." Ben Sira, likewise, had teeth when he was born and could talk, for he at once told his mother who he was, whence he came, his name, and what he would accomplish (ed. Venice, 17a, b). Furthermore, just as the "Evangel" chap. xlviii.) mentioned above narrates that Jesus, while a schoolboy, astonished his teacher by explaining the names, form, and order of the Hebrew letters—in this book Ben Sira is said to have done the same. The story of the extraordinary conception of Ben Sira by his mother, p. 16b, is evidently a parody of the familiar Christian dogma....

The chief interest attaches to the animal fables, which are of great value for comparative folk-lore. The following may serve as an instance: At the creation of the world God consigned a male and a female of every kind of animal to the sea. When the Angel of Death ("Malak ha-Mawet"), who was charged with the duty of sinking them in the water, was about to take the fox, that animal began to cry. The Angel of Death asked him why he did this. The fox answered that he wept because his friend had been condemned to live in the water; and going to the shore, he pointed to his own image in the water. The Angel of Death, believing that a fox had already been sunk, allowed him to go. Leviathan, the ruler of the sea, now tried to lure the fox into its depths, because he believed that if he could eat the heart of so cunning an animal he would gain in wisdom. One day, while the fox was walking by the sea, some fishes came and spoke to him. They told him that Leviathan was nearing his end and wanted the craftiest of animals to be his successor. They promised the fox to carry him to a rock in the sea where he could erect his throne without fear of the surrounding waters. When he reached the high seas the fox knew that for once he had been tricked; but he did not lose his self-possession. "What!" said he, "It is my heart you want, is it? Well, why did you not say so before? I would then have brought it here; for usually, you know, I do not carry it with me." The fish quickly conveyed him back to the shore, and in exultation he leaped about. The fish called to him to fetch his heart and come with them; but the fox replied: "To be sure, I went with you when I had no heart" (the ancients considered the heart the seat of wisdom); "but now I have my heart, I'll stay here. I got the better of the Angel of Death; how much easier, then, to fool stupid fish!" (Ed. Venice, pp. 27a-28b; partly given, according to the MS. version by Schorr, in "He-Ḥaluẓ," viii. 170, 171.)

The next three are quite amusing because they may have had some grounding in real personalities but they show up in the Talmud as lose covers for Jesus of Nazareth. All the information I'm giving here about the Talmud is found on my website on the arguments about Jesus in the Talmud Jews had to be careful in dealing with those segments of the Talmud that speak of Jesus, because they feared pogrom, persecution in Christian counties. In fact twice the Talmud was self centered by Jews and the name Jesus was changed. There were overt statements about Jesus but they were taken out or changed or the name was either coped as small 0's or changed to some epithet like "such a one." From a Jewish commentary on the History of the Talmud:

The Babylonian Talmud

translated by MICHAEL L. RODKINSON
Book 10 (Vols. I and II)
[1918]
The History of the Talmud

from Vol I chapter II

Thus the study of the Talmud flourished after the destruction of the Temple, although beset with great difficulties and desperate struggles. All his days, R. Johanan b. Zakkai was obliged to dispute with Sadducees and Bathueians and, no doubt, with the Messiahists also; for although these last were Pharisees, they differed in many points from the teaching of the Talmud after their master, Jesus, had broken with the Pharisees

that is speaking of the section covering the first century.

The three figures named in the Talmud who show up on this list, and I can find other extra Talmudic documentation of them:

Jesus ben Pandira. A wonder-worker during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (106-79 BC), one of the most ruthless of the Maccabean kings. Imprudently, this Jesus launched into a career of end-time prophesy and agitation which upset the king. He met his own premature end-time by being hung on a tree – and on the eve of a Passover. Scholars have speculated this Jesus founded the Essene sect.

That gives the impression that this guy was a real figure. I have reason to suspect that he was not. There is no evidence for this guy stating what it says above except on myther websites. The objective source of "Jesus never existed".org is the objective source for that statement. But where they got it who knows. Where can find this name is the Talmud and there's a very good possibility that the guy being talked bout is Jesus of Nazareth. Of course the Talmudic record always distorts talk of Jesus so that they have plausible deniable. They know who they mean, and we know too thanks to Celsus. But the accounts don't match the Gospels to add confusion and enabel them to deney it.

Morey quotes from the Soncino edition of the Babylonian Talmud:

Footnote in Soncino: "Supposed by Tosah, to be the Mother of Jesus; cf. Shab. 104b in the earlier uncensored editions. Her description Megaddela (hairdresser) is connected by some with the name of Mary Magdalene whose name was confused with the name of Mary, the mother of Jesus." (Ibid., p. 7) Some scholars also see an allusion to the virgin birth of Christ in the term, "son of Pandira." This is due to the fact that "Pandira" seems to be a play on the Greek word for virgin, parthenos, the very term used in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke when recording Jesus' virgin birth. McDowell & Wilson report:

"... Scholars have debated at length how Jesus came to have this name (i.e., ben Pandira) attached to his. Strauss thought it was from the Greek word pentheros, meaning 'son-in-law.' Klausner and Bruce accept the position that panthera is a corruption of the Greek parthenos meaning 'virgin.' Klausner says, 'The Jews constantly heard that the Christians (the majority of whom spoke Greek from the earliest times) called Jesus by the name "Son of the Virgin"... and so, in mockery, they called him Ben ha-Pantera, i.e., "son of the leopard."'... The theory most sensational but least accepted by serious scholars was dramatized by the discovery of a first century tombstone at Bingerbruck, Germany. The inscription read, 'Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera, an archer, native of Sidon, Phoenicia, who in 9 c.e. was transferred to service in Germany.'... This discovery fueled the fire of the theory that Jesus was the illegitimate son of Mary and the soldier, Panthera. Even Origen writes that his opponent, Celsus, in circa A.D. 178, said that he heard from a Jew that 'Miriam' had become pregnant by 'Pantheras,' a Roman soldier; was divorced by her husband, and bore Jesus in secret.

"If 'Pantheras' were a unique name, the theory of Mary's pregnancy by the Roman soldier might be more attractive to scholars. But Adolf Deissman, the early twentieth-century German New Testament scholar, verified, by first century inscriptions, 'with absolute certainty that Panthera was not an invention of Jewish scoffers, but a widespread name among the ancients.'... Rabbi and Professor Morris Goldstein comments that it was as common as the names Wolf or Fox today. He comments further:

It is noteworthy that Origin himself is credited with the tradition that Panther was the appellation of James (Jacob), the father of Jospeh, the father of Jesus... So, too, Andrew of Crete, John of Damascus, Epiphanius the Monk, and the author of Andronicus of Constantinople's Dialogue Against the Jews, name Panther as an ancestor of Jesus...

"Jesus being called by his grandfather's name would also have agreed with a statement in the Talmud permitting this practice. Whereas Christian tradition identified Jesus by his home town, Jewish tradition, having a greater concern for genealogical identification, seems to have preferred this method of identifying Jesus. Goldstein presents more evidence to argue the case convincingly." (McDowell & Wilson, pp. 66-67)

Hence, why or how Jesus came to be called ben Pandira is an issue which scholars have not come to an agreement.

one other name also stand out as Talmudic covers for Jesus of Nazerath:

Jesus ben Stada was a Judean agitator who gave the Romans a headache in the early years of the second century. He met his end in the town of Lydda (twenty five miles from Jerusalem) at the hands of a Roman crucifixion crew.

That's what the myther sites say. But let's look at the Talmud, again see the link above:

One of the oldest sources of Talmud is the Mishna. It dates to second or Thrid century, but draws upon mateial that goes back to the fist. There are two Talmuds, Jerusalem and Babylonian. The latter is more improtant, the Mishna belons to the former. In the Mishna, this is drawing upon first century sources (see opening quote above)

R. Papa said: When the Mishnah states a MESITH IS A HEDYOT, it is only in respect of hiding witnesses. For it has been taught: And for all others for whom the Torah decrees death, witnesses are not hidden, excepting for this one. How is it done? - A light is lit in an inner chamber, the witnesses are hidden in an outer one [which is in darkness], so that they can see and hear him, but he cannot see them. Then the person he wishes to seduce says to him, "Tell me privately what thou hast proposed to me"; and he does so. Then he remonstrates; "But how shall we forsake our God in Heaven, and serve idols?" If he retracts, it is well. But if he answers: "It is our duty and seemly for us," the witnesses who were listening outside bring him to Beth din, and have him stoned. ["And thus they did to Ben Stada in Lydda, and they hung him on the even of Passover." Ben Stada was Ben Pandira. R. Hisda said: The husband was Stada, the paramour Pandira. But as not the husband Pappos b. Judah? - His mother's name was Stada. But his mother was Miriam, a dresser of woman's hair? - As they say in Pumpbaditha, This woman has turned away (satath da) from her husband, (i.e. committed adultery).] (Morey, p. 6)

This quote links Pandira with Stada as the same guy. That at least should cut down on the number of Jesus's running around, if it doesn't link them to JC of Naz. But don't forget the mythers cannot document these guys as real people with anything like the kind of criteria they require of Jesus of Nazareth.

Talmud Shabbat 104b, Sanhedrin 67a>

"It is taught: R. Eliezer told the sages: Did not Ben Stada bring witchcraft with him from Egypt in a cut that was on his skin? They said to him: He was a fool and you cannot bring proof from a fool."

Ben Stada is Ben Pandira.

R. Chisda said: "The husband was Stada and the lover was Pandira.

[No,] the husband was Pappos Ben Yehudah and the mother was Stada.

[No,] the mother was Miriam the women's hairdresser [and was called Stada]. As we say in Pumbedita: She has turned away [Stat Da] from her husband."

Summary:

"What we see from here is that there was a man named Ben Stada who was considered to be a practicer of black magic. His mother was named Miriam and also called Stada. His father was named Pappos Ben Yehudah. Miriam (Stada) had an affair with Pandira from which Ben Stada was born."

Proof:

"Some historians claim that Ben Stada, also known as Ben Pandira, was Jesus. His mother's name was Miriam which is similar to Mary. Additionally, Miriam was called a women's hairdresser, "megadla nashaia" [for this translation, see R. Meir Halevi Abulafia, Yad Rama, Sanhedrin ad. loc.]. The phrase "Miriam megadla nashaia" sounds similar to Mary Magdalene, a well-known New Testament figure."

Here's where Student argues against the passage being about Jesus, as he does with all the passages:

Problems:

1. Mary Magdalene was not Jesus' mother. Neither was Mary a hairdresser.

Of course the hair dresser bit is new information that would be part of the unique Jewish soruces and kept out fo the Gosepsl, or if we look at it in another way, added as propaganda value since a working woman was supect. We see from Celsus' comments tha they also said she spun for living. Association wiht Mary Magdelon is based upon the assumption of a pun. Maybe they weren't making a pun. Maybe they were just running two figures from the Gospels together as if to say they all common women.

2. Jesus' step-father was Joseph. Ben Stada's step-father was Pappos Ben Yehudah.

Who knows what that means. It looks offhand like its dervied from the Roman Pappa, meaning father, ben = son, Yehudah might mean something derogatory.

3. Pappos Ben Yehudah is a known figure from other places in talmudic literature. The Mechilta Beshalach (Vayehi ch. 6) has him discussing Torah with Rabbi Akiva and Talmud Berachot 61b has Pappos Ben Yehudah being captured and killed by Romans along with Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva lived during the second half of the first century and the first half of the second century. He died in the year 134. If Pappos Ben Yehudah was a contemporary of Rabbi Akiva's, he must have been born well after Jesus' death and certainly could not be his father.

that leads me to suspect that his use here is polemical.


If nothing else it is clear the myther are just reaching for any connection to the name Jesus and these Talmudic figures are confused and muddled are place holders for the passages that once openly cursed Jesus of Nazareth. This is far from any kind of documentation that Josephus could have referred to any such people.

But a good couple of clues that these figure do all have some relation to Jesus of Nazareth is that the Genealogy given for "such a one" matches that of Jesus given by Luke and that Celsus tells us the Jews are talking about Jesus of Nazareth.

(1) Genealogy:

According to the Jewish Tractate of Talmud, the Chagigah a certain person had a dream in which he saw the punishment of the damned. In the dream, "He saw Mary the daughter of Heli amongst the shades..." (John Lightfoot, Commentary On the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica [Oxford University Press, 1859; with a second printing from Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 1995], vol. 1, p. v; vol. 3, p.55)

Compare this with Luke 3:23.

(2)Celsus


The following quotes are taken from Celsus On the True Doctrine, translated by R. Joseph Hoffman, Oxford University Press, 1987:

Celsus:

"Let us imagine what a Jew- let alone a philosopher- might say to Jesus: 'Is it not true, good sir, that you fabricated the story of your birth from a virgin to quiet rumourss about the true and insavoury circumstances of your origins? Is it not the case that far from being born in the royal David's city of bethlehem, you were born in a poor country town, and of a woman who earned her living by spinning? Is it not the case that when her deceit was uncovered, to wit, that she was pregnant by a roman soldier called Panthera she was driven away by her husband- the carpenter- and convicted of adultery?" (57).



why a Jew? or Philospher? Celsus was obviously reading the jewish sources. This is one of the charges made in the Talmud.

Here he claims to have secret knowledge that Christians don't have:

"I could continue along these lines, suggesting a good deal about the affairs of Jesus' life that does not appear in your own records. Indeed, what I know to be the case and what the disciples tell are two very different stories... [for example] the nonsensical idea that Jesus foresaw everything that was to happen to him (an obvious attempt to conceal the humiliating facts)." (62).

where is that from? It has to be the Talmud, or sources commonly drawn upon by the Talmud.But how does this prove it was Jesus? Celsus sure thought it was. Apparently his Jewish contracts told him this is the straight scoop on Jesus' life. We see that everywhere in the Talmud Jesus is talked about as a living person,and connections are made to his family and genealogy.

Celsus pushes the knowledge back to late second century, but due to the availability or Rabbinical writings it must have been around for some time before that. The Jews were very conscious of genealogies and family connections. why would they not pick up on the fact that Jesus had none and no one had ever seen him personally, if indeed that was the case?

The talk about Pandira also might hint at an answer to another myther argument. Some say because Paul never talks about "Jesus of Nazareth" this implies that he had not heard of him. But the name could have been a proper last name, or it could be a play on the Greek Parthenos, virgin, alluding to the allegedly illegitimate origins of Jesus. Nazareth was a Podunk hick town the Gentiles had never heard of. People in Rome and Corinth and Asia Minor wouldn't know anything about that. So rather than refer to him as "Jesus of this Podunk hick town," or "Jesus the illegitimate bastard" he uses "Christos" which the Greeks used to mean "hero" and the Jews used to mean "messiah." We beileve in "Jesus the Hero" or "Jesus the savior," that's how the Greek and Romans would have understood it. Paul was referring to Jesus as "son of God" when he used the term Christ because "son of of God" was an euphemism for Messiah.

that leaves the others mentioned above. None of them lived before the 60s. Thus the pre mark redaction was already circulating. No change they could have been the influence of the legend. Now they could have been the people to whom Josephus alluded but how likely is that? They don't fill the bill. We have no documentation on them. But how likely would it be that Jo would not mention that Jesus was Priest? None of those guys had followers, claimed to be Messiah, or worked miracles. What he says about Jesus in TF indicate that the Jesus he does mention has all of those things.


Jesus was a very common name but how many Jesus's were running around claiming to be Messiah and leading followers and working miracles? The Jesus myth theory is prenicious because it's a just a bloody minded determination not to accept any facts that don't squire wtih a pipe dream.