Did Jesus Exist?

[AlexBP]

There is a lot of overlap in thought, but could it just be common tradition, or common sayings of the time? Both may say let your yes be yes, but could that not simply have been a common expression among the Christians of the time?

Earlier in this thread you promoted the theory that the Gospel of Mark was copied off the works of Homer, based on such facts as that Mark features a short boat trip while the Odyssey is entirely about a sea voyage, or that both feature a protagonist who suffers. You've also endorsed the idea that Luke copied from Josephus. The evidence there is, if anything, weaker. I'll be happy to debunk that claim too if you'd like, but trust me, making that argument will, if anything, prove even more embarrassing than relying on the Mark-Homer nonsense.

Yet now here you are trying to claim that two separate communities produced the synoptic gospels and the epistles, even though they are both about the same figure, both center around the crucifixion and resurrection, share many quotes in common, often present those quotes in the same order, use a great many of the same metaphors and bits of poetical language, address many of the same themes (centrality of love, forgiveness, voluntary poverty, marriage and divorce, avoiding hypocricy, attacks against the Pharisees, etc...) The position that these came from separate, non-overlapping communities simply doesn't stand. I normally try to avoid playing the 'most scholars agree' card but in this case I can't name a single one who holds the position that you hold on this. Doherty, as already mentioned, is not a scholar.

Obviously either one of these positions would be quite difficult to maintain by itself. Put together, it becomes almost ridiculous. How can you insist that one word copied another based on trivial similarities in a few areas while also saying that works that are entirely about the same person and devoted to all of the same themes and share a lot of material in common are utterly unrelated? If you think about it, isn't it fairly obvious that in order to support your argument, you're having to apply vastly different standards to evidence, accepting claims that support your argument no matter how tenuous they are, while rejecting obvious things if you have to reject them to get the result you want?

 

[Johnnz]

It's very likely that underlying debate against the reliability of the gospels and other NT documents is rooted in a prior metaphysical presupposition, the child of Enlightenment obeisance to rationality'. Since the material is all that concerns us, or for some, all that does actually exist, an incarnate God, miracles and some divine oversight of the composition and transmission of documents doesn't fit within that framework. Thus there must be other explanations for the apparently impossible events recorded in the NT. No amount of historical scholarship will change that mindset.

John
NZ

 

[AlexBP]

Why do you think it is historical?

The evidence for the historicity of Acts is overwhelming, so much so that one scarsely knows where to begin in discussing it. Acts and Luke were originally conceived as a single work. I've already mentioned how we know that the gospels are eyewitness testimony rather than fiction or cobbled-together stuff passed through many instances of oral transmission. When we read the gospels we see an enormous amount of textual, historical, and visual detail. We see specific names of people, names and titles of real historical figures, specific place names, time frames, visual details, facts about the size of crowds, the specific natures of various technologies and objects and buildings, and so forth. Scholars of ancient history use this sort of material to distinguish factual from fictional writing. By this standard the gospels are historical and not fictional. As I mentioned before, specifics here can be found in the book Lord of Legend: Wrestling with the Jesus Dilemma, by Boyd and Eddy.

Well, what is true for all the gospels is especially true of Luke and Acts. There is a wealth of historical detail that we find matched in virtually nothing from ancient times before Tacitus. Of particular note is the fact that the Romans had a bewildering array of titles for their officials. Acts mentions a ton of officials and gets all their titles and assignments correct. It is all correct about an enormous number of other details, ranging from the structure of Jewish society and worship in the first century, to the relative prominence of various Greek and Asian cities, to travel times, legal practices, types of ships, local economics, and even weather and tides. No work of fiction in ancient times included a level of detail like this, nor is it plausible that Luke could have been correct about so much if he was writing over a century removed from the facts.

When looking at Acts, what it doesn't mention tells just as much as what it does. For example, it doesn't mention Paul's death in 65 A.D., despite the fact that Luke was focused on Paul and very interested in those who were martyred for Christ. The most logical explanation for this omission is that it was written before Paul died. Also Acts places great emphasis on the Saducees and portrayed them as almost equal to the Pharisees in power. This was true in the 50's and 60's. In the revolt of 69 A.D., the Saducees were all but wiped out. It's unlikely that anyone writing later than that date would have paid so much attention to the Saducees. Acts places great emphasis on how Paul used his special privileges as a Roman citizen. By the second century those privileges would were altered or abolished, so it's unlikely that Luke would bother to mention them. There are also suggestive similarities between verses in Acts and both letters of Clement, Polycarp, the Didache, and Barnabas. Lastly, Acts contains no mention or reference, direct or indirect, of any event past the year 70, nor does it show any trace of the changing literary styles that appeared in the Roman Empire after that date. While none of these things individually is a proof for early composition, taken together they overwhelming point to a date in the 60's for composition.

Here is an excellent (though lengthy) article providing the details, with references, on all of the above and more:
www.christiancadre.org/Acts%20Article.DOC

Interestingly, when Peter and Paul "talk" in Acts, they sound very much like each other, and like the writer of Acts, instead of like the Peter of the gospels, or the Paul of the epistles. Could it be the writer is just putting words into their mouths?

I would have to know exactly what you're referring to here to respond to it. To me the remarkably realistic nature of the speeches in Acts is an argument in favor of reliability. One of the things that's so striking about the book is the realistic development of Paul's character. Compare his speech at Athens [17:16-31] to his later speeches and you see him changing from a bombastic and aggressive orator to a cautious and mature one. It may be true that Luke altered the wording of speeches somewhat; that was common among historians at the time, but overall I think speeches and dialogue of Paul and Peter point towards authenticity.

We already covered this. The sacred meal here is close to the sacred meal of Mithras and other savior cults. Paul and Mark both indepently seem to be applying that tradition to Jesus.

First of all, in that article you linked to about the sacred meal of the Mithras Cult, I really don't see much similarity to the eucharist at all. Secondly, Paul and Mark could not have been "applying that tradition to Jesus" because no such tradition existed when Paul and Mark were alive. The Roman cult of Mithras did not exist until several generations later, nor did the other groups usually lumped together as "mystery religions". (Some people get confused because there was also a character named Mithras from Persian mythology several centuries earlier, but that shared nothing but the name with the Roman version.)

 

[doubtingmerle]

You need to layout what you think happened for our imaginary jury.

What do I think happened? The following involves some speculation, but it represents a scenario that I think is likely close to what happened.

The Jews of the Diaspora had beome intemixed with Greek and other cultures. Many Jews adapted Greek philosophy and savior god mythology into their Judaism (and some Gentlies adapted some aspects of Judasism). There was a general belief of a personified wisdom, or a mythical medium between God and man. Some clung to verses that spoke of a dying savior, patterning this belief after the Greek savior god myths. Some used the Jewish name "Jesus" meaning savior to represent their view of a Jewish savior. Some clung to the belief that their Messiah or Christ would come as a king to rescue them. From this mix came many who were following some belief in a mythical, heavenly, or future expected Christ, and they called themselves Christ-ians.

Around 50 AD Paul became a champion of a variant of the Jesus savior myth in Asia minor and Greece, proclaiming his savior god based on his interpretations of scripture. This had nothing to do with a man who had lived on earth. Paul had contact with a Peter, James, and John of Jerusalem whom he considered as peers and competitors, who apparently preached a similar Jesus myth with a more Jewish flavor.

Meanwhile, in a widespread community of Galilee and Syria, Greek cynic philosophy and Judaism were mixed to produce Q, a document with the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings that they lived by.

When the temple was destroyed in 70 AD and the Jews were scattered from Jerusalem, the people were devastated, and apocalypatic ferver for a coming Messiah intensified. Mark combined Jewish Messiah ferver, Q teaching, Jewish "midrash" use of scripture, Greek epic tale structure, and the dying Jesus legend to tell his own story of a hero who had lived on earth. Sticking with the theme of the day, he called his savior Jesus. Mark adds that this Jesus had prophesied the fall of Jerusalem (Mark 13), that this event was really the abomination spoken of by Daniel, and that therefore they should expect the Messiah to come soon. Mark's Jesus had indicated that he was the one that would come back to set things straight. Mark concludes that the grave was found empty by women who told nobody else about it (the original book probably ended at Mark 16:8).

To make his story realistic, Mark wrote the historical Jerusalem apostles, Peter, James, and John into his story. He portrays them as clueless men who didn't understand what Jesus said about the resurrection, and who had never seen the empty tomb. Since Mark probably wrote in the region of Syria far from Jerusalem, and some 40 years after the events recorded, there really was little chance that anyone was going to find those clueless disciples to ask what had happened. Besides, according to the original Mark, there is no indication they actually saw the risen Christ. As Mark portrays it, Peter just denies it all and says "I know nothing!" when asked about Jesus, so don't expect him to give you any confirmation of the story.

Mark could have written this as a detailed historical novel, as a deliberate attempt to deceive, or as an honest attempt to tell the truth based on whatever sources he had available.

Mark's gospel caught on in the Q community. People began to fill in missing details into the story. It was natural to expect stories of the risen Christ, and the expected birth in Behtlehem. So around 90 AD Matthew and Luke decided independently to fix the shortcomings of Mark. Each wrote an account combining Mark, Q, birth stories, resurrection stories, and other details.

The earthly Jesus story remained popular in some areas, but by no means did it immediately conquer Christianity. Other Christians had never heard this localized story. The mythical Jesus story continued, stressing a "Logos" that was a revealer of God. This would lead to the Logos theology popular in the second century.

Meanwhile, another Christian group stressed a revealer Jesus who was on earth, but this Jesus was a spirit-like being. They probably wrote a book known as the signs gospel. John decided to combine this signs gospel with the crucifixion story found in Mark or Luke, and wrote a completely independent story about his signs-gospel Jesus as the Logos on earth.

Elsewhere, the idea of Jesus as a revealer, led to another huge and varied Christian strand, Gnosticism, which became popular in many areas in the second century. The Gnostics were attracted to a spiritual world instead of a physical world. It appears many of them taught that Jesus did not have a physical body.

So the first half of the second century had many strands of Christianity including Logos wisdom teachers, various forms of Gnosticism, historical Jesus teaching, and a Pauline savior god. All apparently called themselves Christians, with all believing in some sort of annointed one (greek "Christ").

In those days religion was not as exclusive as what it is now. One could pick and choose as many gods as one wanted among the collection of gods offered. One could even believe in multiple versions of a Jesus savior god.

Some became fond of both Paul and the historical Jesus story. (Even the Gnostic "heretic" Marcion adopted a version of Luke and 10 Pauline epistles as his canon in 140 AD.) The merging of these two Christian strands led to the book of Acts to tie it all together. These Christians had a strong emphasis on church hierarchy, writing I Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus to "prove" that Paul supported their heirarchy. They edited the gospels to make the earthly Jesus revealed there more compatible with Paul. They taught that they alone had the truth, and had no need of other religions. If you joined them, you abandoned other gods. These proto-orthodox believers would lead to the Orthodox views of the third century that would later overwhelm Christianity.

Around 150 AD, Justin Martyr, who had earlier come to faith in Jesus as a Wisdom source, now began to teach a historical Jesus in the gospel tradition, a view he apparently adoped years after his conversion to the Christian Wisdom figure.

As the gospels became more popular and widespread, others who had believed in a Logos wisdom-source Jesus became familiar with the historical Jesus story, and modified their views to allow that this Logos had been on earh. They proposed that their wisdom-giving spirit Christ had entered into the body of a human named Jesus at baptism (like a bad science fiction movie) or that Jesus was a spirit who only appeared to be a person. These views were known as Docetism.

By the time Irenaeus arrives on the scene in 180 AD., the proto-orthodox view was becoming dominant. Irenaeus writes "Against Heresies", strongly condemning gnosticism and docetism, the last strong remants of the mythical Jesus views. Mythical Jesus views faded from the scene as "heresies".

In the coming centurys, the "Orthodox" with their strong church hierarchy had dozens of scribes copy texts that best supported their views, while condemning everything else. As the winners, they rewrote history to say that they were always dominant, and everybody else was just a sideshow.

Nobody knows exactly how it happened, but I suggest that the above scenario is very likely.

 

[doubtingmerle]

I continue to be intrigued by your refusal to cite meaningful critiques of scholars such as N T Wright and William Lane Craig and their like. Have you ever listened to material available on a site such as veritas.org? Or bethinking.org?

So it is my job to cite those who support your case? I thought I was here to listen to Christians make their case. Since an unlimited number of Christians are allowed to join this thread, but only one skeptic is allowed on the thread, how can you ask the skeptic to then make the case for both sides? Shouldn't you be able to handle your side without my help?

Your surmising is little more than that, and your sources, like you, don't engage in well founded debate with men like those I mentioned.

Interesting. So I am not engaging with those who differ with me? That's odd. I thought I was doing exactly that.

And yes, I welcome N T Wright and William Lane Craig to join in, even as I welcomed GasukeiDon to join in. I would gladly debate them here if they are interested.

It may well be the age old question faced by sceptics "What would I do if I did find truth?"

What would I do if I found a truth that was different from what I now know? I certainly intend to embrace that new truth.

And how about you? What would you do if you found the truth was very different from what you now believe? Do you intend to then heartily embrace that new belief, even if it completely changes your current views about God?

 

[Johnnz]

The classic wriggle position. I will avoid contrary scholarship, and refute from within my own fixed stance anything that contradicts what I already believe. No reputable academic would adopt such a position.

You are free to hold to you minority and subjective reconstructions. But that's what they are. A forum such as this cannot repeat massive scholarship readily available elsewhere.

John
NZ

 

[doubtingmerle]

Now we come to Minucius Felix. First let me admit that I messed up on that. It's been a while since I had read that link, but I should have read again before finding a quick quote. Yes, in the paragraph in question, Felix was putting words into a pagan's mouth. Those are not the words that Felix puts into the defender of the faith.

Felix has the pagan accuse the Christians of believing in a man who died on the cross for wickedness. In response, Felix does not admit that he does indeed believe a righteous man who died on the cross. Instead, he argues that the man is misrepresenting Christianity by portraying the savior as a wicked man.

But we have such a quote. In the article we are discussing, Doherty quotes Minucius Felix:

"This abominable congregation should be rooted out . . . a religion of lust and fornication. They reverence the head of an ass . . . even the genitals of their priests . . . . And some say that the objects of their worship include a man who suffered death as a criminal, as well as the wretched wood of his cross; these are fitting altars for such depraved people, and they worship what they deserve . . . . Also, during initiations they slay and dismember an infant and drink its blood . . . at their ritual feasts they indulge in shameless copulation."
​

Thsi is a Christian apologist condemning those who worship a man who died on a physical cross

First of all, as already mentioned, the dating of this work is highly questionable. It shares much with the works of Tertullian so one must have copied the other. Scholarly opinion leans towards Felix copying Tertullian, and St. Jerome affirms this, which would put it in the third century. However, even if Tertullian was the copyist, that gives no evidence that Felix wrote before about 190 A.D. Felix wrote in Latin and no Christian writer from the mid-2nd century wrote in Latin; they wrote in Coptic and Greek. Hence this work really can't be trusted to tell us anything about the views of Jesus in Christianity in the time period were concerned with.

The argument can be made--as Doherty does--that Felix was first, for Tertullian clearly expands on Felix, and that is more reasonable than that Felix chopped out important parts of Tertullian.

Second, almost everyone agrees that there were heretical gnostic Christianity movements spring up by around 200 A.D. Many scholars believe that Felix belonged to one of these movements, and substantial evidence in the text supports it. "Gnostic" covers a wide range of beliefs, but many believed that Jesus was not a man, but rather a spiritual being who took on the form of a man and did everything the gospels said, but never actually was human or had a body. This would explain why Felix denies the possibility that a man who was crucified could be proven a God.

Exactly. Felix could have been a Gnostic or Doceitc Christian, and thus denying the true humanity of Jesus. The point is that such beliefs were common in the second century.

However, the main point is simply that Octavius is a record of a debate in which the title character takes on a Pagan critic who is making savage attacks against Christians. The passage that you've quoted comes from the Pagan critic, and Octavius subsequently rebuts it.

As this article explains, Doherty's explanation of what Felix is actually presenting in Octavius is dishonest. Indeed mentioning this work can be seen as working against your argument because it proves that even Pagan critics at whatever time it was written knew about Jesus as a person who was crucified. The only dispute was about whether he was truly a man in the flesh or a God taking on the exact appearance of a man in the flesh.

No, Doherty is not dishonestly claiming that the words are the Christian response. He is saying that these are the words that Felix puts into the pagan's mouth.He stresses that point at the link.

Yes, of course the pagan critics might have known about the claim of Jesus as a man in the flesh. After all, Mark is thought to have written in 70 AD.

May I suggest that you start doubting Doherty, rather than accepting whatever he claims? I don't mean you should stop believing his theories; but at least approach his quotes as something that might be worth verifying. Otherwise, what flavour do you want that Koolaid?

Certainly.
But in this case the mistake was mine, not Doherty's.

 

[doubtingmerle]

The classic wriggle position. I will avoid contrary scholarship, and refute from within my own fixed stance anything that contradicts what I already believe. No reputable academic would adopt such a position.

You are free to hold to you minority and subjective reconstructions. But that's what they are. A forum such as this cannot repeat massive scholarship readily available elsewhere.

I agree that we should be reading the works of scholars that disagree with us. I have read works of apologists.

Just curious. What works of sketpics have you read?

 

[Johnnz]

I was raised on Bultman, Schweitzer and their kind. Theirs was the dominant viewpoint in my student days. These men raised the issues which we now call textual criticism. From there I have witnessed the rise of conservative scholarship, become familiar with those whose views they respond to and am well aware of the evidential material such conservative scholars rely on.

John
NZ

 

[doubtingmerle]

Earlier in this thread you promoted the theory that the Gospel of Mark was copied off the works of Homer, based on such facts as that Mark features a short boat trip while the Odyssey is entirely about a sea voyage, or that both feature a protagonist who suffers.

No, I did not say Mark copied Homer. The point is that Mark knew of Homer, and patterned his book after Homer, but with a Jewish theme and a Messiah hero.

Did you get nothing more out of that link--http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/homerandmark.html--then that Mark portrayed Jesus as a seafaring protagonist who suffered? How did you miss all the parallels that are drawn there?

You've also endorsed the idea that Luke copied from Josephus. The evidence there is, if anything, weaker. I'll be happy to debunk that claim too if you'd like, but trust me, making that argument will, if anything, prove even more embarrassing than relying on the Mark-Homer nonsense.

Again I turn to Carrier, who has shown a clear link between Luke and Joesphus at Luke and Josephus.

Yet now here you are trying to claim that two separate communities produced the synoptic gospels and the epistles, even though they are both about the same figure, both center around the crucifixion and resurrection, share many quotes in common, often present those quotes in the same order, use a great many of the same metaphors and bits of poetical language, address many of the same themes (centrality of love, forgiveness, voluntary poverty, marriage and divorce, avoiding hypocricy, attacks against the Pharisees, etc...) The position that these came from separate, non-overlapping communities simply doesn't stand. I normally try to avoid playing the 'most scholars agree' card but in this case I can't name a single one who holds the position that you hold on this. Doherty, as already mentioned, is not a scholar.

Ah, you have two Jewish religious works who share the same themes of centrality of love, forgiveness, voluntary poverty, marriage and divorce, avoiding hypocricy, attacks against the Pharisees, etc., so therefore one copied the other? Uh, wouldn't we expect such themes in any Jewish religious work?

The gospels and epistles share many quotes in common? Really? Can you give me an example, please?

If you read two books that said, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch", would you conclude that one copied from the other? If the phrase is a common saying, both books can be repeating verbal tradition.

So to prove a quote, you would either need to find one book saying it was quoting the other, or have a substantial quote that it is unlikely that both were simply using the same common saying.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Well, what is true for all the gospels is especially true of Luke and Acts. There is a wealth of historical detail that we find matched in virtually nothing from ancient times before Tacitus. Of particular note is the fact that the Romans had a bewildering array of titles for their officials. Acts mentions a ton of officials and gets all their titles and assignments correct. It is all correct about an enormous number of other details, ranging from the structure of Jewish society and worship in the first century, to the relative prominence of various Greek and Asian cities, to travel times, legal practices, types of ships, local economics, and even weather and tides. No work of fiction in ancient times included a level of detail like this, nor is it plausible that Luke could have been correct about so much if he was writing over a century removed from the facts.

Its been said that nearly all of the historical people, places, and events of Acts are found in Josephus. If Luke had a copy of Josephus' works, he could have duplicated all of that.

You seem to be suggesting that historical propaganda is not possible. For that is what historical propoganda does: seeks to cover details that look like a true story, but is actually a biased account to prove a point.

When looking at Acts, what it doesn't mention tells just as much as what it does. For example, it doesn't mention Paul's death in 65 A.D., despite the fact that Luke was focused on Paul and very interested in those who were martyred for Christ. The most logical explanation for this omission is that it was written before Paul died.

This has been explained by the fact that Luke was writing specifically to show that Paul spread the gospel to Rome. Having gotten Paul there, he had no need to continue. Also, the author of Acts takes great pains not to incriminate a Roman official, so it would not be in his interest to say that the Romans killed Paul.

 

[ebia]

Theres also the fact that Luke wants Paul's story to have certain echos of Jesus' story - but only to a certain point. Acts is really about the Holy Spirit. If it finished with or shortly after Pauls martyrdom it would look way too much like a gospel with Paul replacing Jesus. Acts had a carefully crafted shape - it doesn't just end when it gets to "now".

I don't agree with most of what you've written, but you are correct on this point.

 

[Spirko]

No, of course not. What could possibly make you think that I reject historical events that were not recorded at the time?

So then you only reject historical events that are religious in nature.

Yes, of course I think Constantine was a historical figure. Why do you ask?

How do you know?

No sir, this is not a game to me. I am looking for serious discussion. If you too are interested in serious discussion, then welcome aboard. But please don't come here and attack the motives of other people.

I didn't attack your motives. I attacked your words and the standard that you require us to adhere to.

I do no insist on holding evidence to a standard that any historian would find ridiculously constraining. If I have ever done that, please write back the words where I actually say what you claim.

You have said that you will only accept evidence that was written at the time of Jesus' ministry.

Now that you understand that I am not actually saying the things you claim

I didn't merely make the claim that you said these things. I quoted your words that show that you said them.

Are you now saying that you will accept later evidence?

 

[AlexBP]

Much larger pile? Who exactly is on that larger pile of believers in an earthly Jesus?

All right. This discussion started when you posted the following claim:

And no, Mark's idea did not conquer Christianity. In fact, if you look at early second century Christian writings, the traditions of both Mark and Paul were marginal. Instead folks were talking about the Logos (Word) as a revealer of God.

So we're counting up, on the one hand, the second-century sources which show clearly that they did following the tradition of the gospels and the epistles that point to an earthly Jesus, and comparing that to the number of Christians who supposedly believed in an unearthly Logos. In the first group we have the following:
Ignatius of Antioch
Polycarp
Aristides
The Martyrdom of Polycarp
Justin the Martyr
The Epistle of Barnabas
Papias
Quadratus of Athens
The Oxyrhynchus Gospel fragment
The Gosepl of the Ebionites
Clement of Rome
Miltiades
Melito of Sardis
Valentius
Hegesippus
Irenaeus
Basilides
Now for some of those sources you disputed that they pointed towards an earthly Jesus, but GakuseiDon provided the actual quotes in post #177. So right there we've got 17 sources from the early second century in the pro-historical, pro-gospel, pro-epistle column.
Next up we can look at the non-canonical gospels. Several of these are definitely gnostic so their theology is quite different from mainstream Christianity, but they agree with all the historical facts about Jesus Christ and his disciples. They typically borrow an outline from the original gospels and add material to that. We can't put exact dates on any of them, but at least these ones probably come from the mid-to-late second century: Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Infancy Gospel of James, Gospel of Phillip, Gospel of Judas, the works of Marcion, and the Gospel of Mary. That brings us up to 23 sources.
In addition, we could throw in two non-canonical works about the apostples, the Acts of Peter and the Acts of John. That brings us up to 25.
Next we have second-century pagan historicans who wrote about Christianity: Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger. All three mention Jesus Christ. No historian from that period questions the existence of Jesus. That brings us to 28.
And lastly we have the enemies of Christianity, those specifically setting out to prove the claims of Christianity wrong. Even among them, we've no record of anyone questioning the existence of Jesus. Two sources probably date from the second century. One is Celsus. The other is the Jewish Talmud, which though not written until the late third century, contains oral traditions dating from earlier. That brings us to 30.
Now when making your claim about the second century, you linked to that article by Earl Doherty about the second century Christian writers. He brings in five sources to support his theory that Logos belief predominated over historical Christian belief in the second century. Those being Theophilus, Athenagoras, the Epistle to Diognetus, Tatian, and Octavius. I will point out once more that most likely none of the works come from the early second century. Now let's work through them one by one.
The epislte to Diogentus I have already addressed, linking to a version online that shows it is completely intertwined with the gospels and the letters of Paul, and thus goes against what you're claiming. We can thus move it into the 'pro' column, bringing the total there to 31.
Ocatvius we have also looked at, and seen that it gives no reason to suppose Felix was against the idea a historical Jesus.
Next up is Tatian. Obviously he was a believer in a historical Jesus when he wrote the Diatessaron. Doherty argues that he believed in Logos Christianity first and later switched to believing in Jesus as a historical figure. This, I think we can agree, is a rather thin argument. But it actually gets worse, because Tatian's Oration to the Greeks says this: "We do not act as fools, O Greeks, nor utter idle tales, when we announce that God was born in the form of a man." Doherty flails around for a couple paragraph trying to explain this quote away, but can't come up with any meaningful way to make this fit with the theory that Tatian didn't believe in a historical Jesus while writing this. Further, Oration to the Greeks contains many overlaps with the gospels and epistles, such as chapter 5, obviously coming from John's prologue. Doherty insists that it doesn't actually come from John's prologue, but he can't give any reason why he believes this. Thus Tatian moves into the 'pro' camp as well, bringing the total to 32.
Athenagoras we've already looked at and noted that he uses the gospels. Thus he can hardly be used to prove that the gospels were 'marginal' at any time in the second century.
So now you're left only with Theophilus. Theophilus makes no specific references to a historical Jesus, but neither does he make any references against that. Hence we've no reason to doubt that his theology of the Logos was similar to that of John's. But just for the sake of it, I won't put him in either column.
So in total we have 32 second-century sources who certainly believed in the accuracy of the historical Jesus--though a few had theological interpretations that differed from the gospels--and not a single source who gives much reason to believe that they did not. Furthermore, I could point out that church fathers from the following years, such as Irenaeus, Eusebonius, Origen, and St. Jerome, all wrote about Christian history, traced the origins of Christians, and listed heretical beliefs. If there had been a large group of Christians in the mid-second century who did not believe in Jesus Christ, don't you think that at least one of these guys would have mentioned that as a heretical belief?
So, after all that, are you still going to assert that "if you look at early second century Christian writings, the traditions of both Mark and Paul were marginal. Instead folks were talking about the Logos (Word) as a revealer of God"?

 

[ElijahW]

What do I think happened? The following involves some speculation, but it represents a scenario that I think is likely close to what happened.

Thanks man. I appreciate the effort in laying out your position.

The Jews of the Diaspora had beome intemixed with Greek and other cultures. Many Jews adapted Greek philosophy and savior god mythology into their Judaism (and some Gentlies adapted some aspects of Judasism).

The problem I have here is that you are combining Greek mythology and Greek philosophy and they are not the same, Greek philosophy actually opposes taking myth literal and poetic representations of gods. What you are suggesting here is that the Jews took on literal interpretations of pagan myths while were unaware of the philosophical argument against them made famous by Plato.

I don’t know of the text from a Jew who took Greek poetry literally back then and it’s hard to imagine what the argument would look like. Philo and Origen were interpreting the OT with the complaints of Greek philosophy in mind. I don’t know who their counterpart would be back then. You seem to think Paul took Greek poetry literally but I’m not sure how you are determining that.

There was a general belief of a personified wisdom, or a mythical medium between God and man. Some clung to verses that spoke of a dying savior, patterning this belief after the Greek savior god myths. Some used the Jewish name "Jesus" meaning savior to represent their view of a Jewish savior. Some clung to the belief that their Messiah or Christ would come as a king to rescue them. From this mix came many who were following some belief in a mythical, heavenly, or future expected Christ, and they called themselves Christ-ians.

There is a whole collection of beliefs you have going on here. How many groups are we talking about at this point in your model and what are the major points that are going to be borrowed later on… or relative to the progression of ideas that lead to Christianity?
You are saying that they had an anthropomorphic understanding of wisdom that they imagined lived someplace else? Not that wisdom was a spiritual element similar or exactly the same as reason/logos that a person could personify? You think they are speaking of an actual anthropomorphic entity who was also wisdom living someplace else?

You have a regular expectation of a messiah that comes and leads them to victory but no one who has combined the idea of a king with a story about a god sacrificing himself? Do you have a dying savior that you think was influencing them on this particular point?

Around 50 AD Paul became a champion of a variant of the Jesus savior myth in Asia minor and Greece, proclaiming his savior god based on his interpretations of scripture. This had nothing to do with a man who had lived on earth. Paul had contact with a Peter, James, and John of Jerusalem whom he considered as peers and competitors, who apparently preached a similar Jesus myth with a more Jewish flavor.

What are they preaching? Kingdom of heaven? Inclusion of the gentiles by faith? If so why are they using faith in this savior god instead of faith in their creator god? How does this savior god relate to an individual’s salvation? Is this where the messiah is understood as living and dying in heaven or is it a god that is unrelated to the expected king of the Jews?

Meanwhile, in a widespread community of Galilee and Syria, Greek cynic philosophy and Judaism were mixed to produce Q, a document with the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings that they lived by.

Is this where the kingdom of god being at hand message started or from someone earlier? And you don’t think the text was from the perspective of a messiah claimant but just a collection of sayings focused on what?

When the temple was destroyed in 70 AD and the Jews were scattered from Jerusalem, the people were devastated, and apocalypatic ferver for a coming Messiah intensified. Mark combined Jewish Messiah ferver, Q teaching, Jewish "midrash" use of scripture, Greek epic tale structure, and the dying Jesus legend to tell his own story of a hero who had lived on earth. Sticking with the theme of the day, he called his savior Jesus. Mark adds that this Jesus had prophesied the fall of Jerusalem (Mark 13), that this event was really the abomination spoken of by Daniel, and that therefore they should expect the Messiah to come soon. Mark's Jesus had indicated that he was the one that would come back to set things straight. Mark concludes that the grave was found empty by women who told nobody else about it (the original book probably ended at Mark 16:8).

To make his story realistic, Mark wrote the historical Jerusalem apostles, Peter, James, and John into his story. He portrays them as clueless men who didn't understand what Jesus said about the resurrection, and who had never seen the empty tomb. Since Mark probably wrote in the region of Syria far from Jerusalem, and some 40 years after the events recorded, there really was little chance that anyone was going to find those clueless disciples to ask what had happened. Besides, according to the original Mark, there is no indication they actually saw the risen Christ. As Mark portrays it, Peter just denies it all and says "I know nothing!" when asked about Jesus, so don't expect him to give you any confirmation of the story.

Mark could have written this as a detailed historical novel, as a deliberate attempt to deceive, or as an honest attempt to tell the truth based on whatever sources he had available.

The last part is a problem in explaining what you think happened. You can’t be sure he wasn’t trying to tell an honest truth based on the sources available? But you are certain none of those historical sources believed in a historical core to their messiah claimant? Why? What do you mean by the “dying Jesus legend”? Where does that come from?

So when the temple was destroyed they wrote the Gospel/s, not like the Jews, being concerned that the stuff in the Talmud would be lost; or because the nation was no longer in a condition to support an actual king/messiah. They just wanted one so bad they wrote fan fiction about what he could have been like? Where were Paul and Peter during this time of writing Mark? Were they martyred? What did the size of their two groups look like when Mark decided to make up a history for the spiritual figure they were worshiping?

Mark's gospel caught on in the Q community. People began to fill in missing details into the story. It was natural to expect stories of the risen Christ, and the expected birth in Behtlehem. So around 90 AD Matthew and Luke decided independently to fix the shortcomings of Mark. Each wrote an account combining Mark, Q, birth stories, resurrection stories, and other details.

Why was it natural to expect stories of a risen Christ? Did they both write a virgin birth story independently of one another? What type of communities did these texts come from and what was the response to the Markian community about them adding virgin birth and resurrected Christ stories?

The earthly Jesus story remained popular in some areas, but by no means did it immediately conquer Christianity. Other Christians had never heard this localized story. The mythical Jesus story continued, stressing a "Logos" that was a revealer of God. This would lead to the Logos theology popular in the second century.

And is this not about a person personifying reason/logos but that the logos existing anthropomorphically someplace that tells/reveals information to people?

Meanwhile, another Christian group stressed a revealer Jesus who was on earth, but this Jesus was a spirit-like being. They probably wrote a book known as the signs gospel. John decided to combine this signs gospel with the crucifixion story found in Mark or Luke, and wrote a completely independent story about his signs-gospel Jesus as the Logos on earth.
Elsewhere, the idea of Jesus as a revealer, led to another huge and varied Christian strand, Gnosticism, which became popular in many areas in the second century. The Gnostics were attracted to a spiritual world instead of a physical world. It appears many of them taught that Jesus did not have a physical body.

What did John change about the story from Luke and Mark with the addition of the signs gospel? Was the signs gospel about another messiah claimant offering salvation and talking faith, who sacrifices himself… or what was the point if not of the original signs gospel?

So John, Luke and Mark are all coming from faith based movements that are trying to exalt him as the messiah. In addition we have Gnostic groups represented by texts like the Gospel of Thomas. That wanted to present Jesus as a teacher and had no understanding of what was going on with the sacrifice or him being the messiah and rejected the notion of building a kingdom here based around him.

What sources do you think the Gnostics used to base their conclusion that Jesus was trying to teach something and that was the importance and not the messiahship? Do you think they had actual writings from a Gnostic who sacrificed his life or are just composting what was popular back then into GThomas?

So the first half of the second century had many strands of Christianity including Logos wisdom teachers, various forms of Gnosticism, historical Jesus teaching, and a Pauline savior god. All apparently called themselves Christians, with all believing in some sort of annointed one (greek "Christ").

We have people who thought Jesus lived but was a teacher… Gnostics. We have people who thought he was a historical messiah who sacrificed themselves… Orthodox. Both of whom would see him as personifying the logos but differentiating on philosophy regarding matter and what the point of his message was. What I don’t know about is the Pauline savior god and what the thinking was there. What text do you think from that time best reflects the kind of salvation from these savior gods so I can try and get an idea of what you think Paul is talking about? It’s an anthropomorphic understanding of a spirit that dies in heaven and does something right? No interpretation, just take it literal and it’s supposed to mean something?

In those days religion was not as exclusive as what it is now. One could pick and choose as many gods as one wanted among the collection of gods offered. One could even believe in multiple versions of a Jesus savior god.

If exclusiveness wasn’t the case then why assume that Paul or anyone else didn’t believe in both and that’s why you have mentions of a earthly figure dying and a spiritual figure enlightening? If the thinking can overlap, what are the key phrases you look for that mean they thought he never existed.

Some became fond of both Paul and the historical Jesus story. (Even the Gnostic "heretic" Marcion adopted a version of Luke and 10 Pauline epistles as his canon in 140 AD.) The merging of these two Christian strands led to the book of Acts to tie it all together. These Christians had a strong emphasis on church hierarchy, writing I Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus to "prove" that Paul supported their heirarchy. They edited the gospels to make the earthly Jesus revealed there more compatible with Paul. They taught that they alone had the truth, and had no need of other religions. If you joined them, you abandoned other gods. These proto-orthodox believers would lead to the Orthodox views of the third century that would later overwhelm Christianity.

Why does Paul support their hierarchy? Aren’t you saying that they used basically (as is) the texts of someone who didn’t believe in an earthly Jesus or was an actual apostle to support their line of apostles from an earthly messiah who sacrificed himself?

Why not grab some texts from one of the groups that actually believed in what they were preaching? What did Paul say that was so important and unique for them to try and attach it to themselves? Doesn’t a spiritual savior of Paul and an earthly messiah who died from the gospels, contradict each other unless one was produced by the other?

Around 150 AD, Justin Martyr, who had earlier come to faith in Jesus as a Wisdom source, now began to teach a historical Jesus in the gospel tradition, a view he apparently adoped years after his conversion to the Christian Wisdom figure.

Faith in the Logos which was a source of enlightenment for all men including Jesus.

As the gospels became more popular and widespread, others who had believed in a Logos wisdom-source Jesus became familiar with the historical Jesus story, and modified their views to allow that this Logos had been on earh. They proposed that their wisdom-giving spirit Christ had entered into the body of a human named Jesus at baptism (like a bad science fiction movie) or that Jesus was a spirit who only appeared to be a person. These views were known as Docetism.

So you’re saying that people who believed in an entity that existed only spiritually, heard of a story of the spirit coming to earth as a person and not that a guy was said to personify that spirit? What would make them think that was the case or even possible?

By the time Irenaeus arrives on the scene in 180 AD., the proto-orthodox view was becoming dominant. Irenaeus writes "Against Heresies", strongly condemning gnosticism and docetism, the last strong remants of the mythical Jesus views. Mythical Jesus views faded from the scene as "heresies".

I don’t know if either of those can be looked at as remnants of the mythical Jesus. Gnosticism is just saying what he was teaching was where the salvation was at and docetism is about the nature of his body, or when personification of the Logos begins, not about him never existing or teaching.

In the coming centurys, the "Orthodox" with their strong church hierarchy had dozens of scribes copy texts that best supported their views, while condemning everything else. As the winners, they rewrote history to say that they were always dominant, and everybody else was just a sideshow.

What do you think they rewrote and when?

When do you think the martyrdom started and how did it spread… if it isn’t something the church later made up. I’m trying to figure out if Jesus didn’t start it, who did?

 

[doubtingmerle]

Whoa! We are here to examine Christianity on this forum, yes? Are you finding the alternative more interesting? Why so many questions about the alternative?

Thanks man. I appreciate the effort in laying out your position.

You are welcome.

The problem I have here is that you are combining Greek mythology and Greek philosophy and they are not the same, Greek philosophy actually opposes taking myth literal and poetic representations of gods. What you are suggesting here is that the Jews took on literal interpretations of pagan myths while were unaware of the philosophical argument against them made famous by Plato.

No, I am not combining them. Greek philosophy influenced Q. Greek mystery cults probably influenced Paul.

What argument against pagan myth was made famous by Plato? Are you saying that nobody believed in Greek myth after Plato?

I don’t know of the text from a Jew who took Greek poetry literally back then and it’s hard to imagine what the argument would look like. Philo and Origen were interpreting the OT with the complaints of Greek philosophy in mind. I don’t know who their counterpart would be back then. You seem to think Paul took Greek poetry literally but I’m not sure how you are determining that.

It wasn't so much the Greek poetry as the Greek mystery cults. See http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp13A.htm .

There is a whole collection of beliefs you have going on here. How many groups are we talking about at this point in your model and what are the major points that are going to be borrowed later on… or relative to the progression of ideas that lead to Christianity?

Yes, many beliefs, many groups, many combinations of beliefs in the Diaspora.

You are saying that they had an anthropomorphic understanding of wisdom that they imagined lived someplace else? Not that wisdom was a spiritual element similar or exactly the same as reason/logos that a person could personify? You think they are speaking of an actual anthropomorphic entity who was also wisdom living someplace else?

Different people had different views of wisdom, but many seemed to personify wisdom as does the writer of Proverbs:

20Wisdom shouts in the street,
She lifts her voice in the square;
21At the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings:
22"How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded?
And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing
And fools hate knowledge?
23"Turn to my reproof,
Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you;
I will make my words known to you.
24"Because I called and you refused,
I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention;
25And you neglected all my counsel
And did not want my reproof;
26I will also laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when your dread comes, (Prov. 1, emphasis added)
​

You have a regular expectation of a messiah that comes and leads them to victory but no one who has combined the idea of a king with a story about a god sacrificing himself?

The proto-orthodox combined these.

Do you have a dying savior that you think was influencing them on this particular point?

See http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp13A.htm .

What are they preaching? Kingdom of heaven? Inclusion of the gentiles by faith?

You are responding to a paragraph which mentioned several names. Who all are you including in the pronoun "they"?

Paul preached a salavation by faith in the blood of Jesus through a baptismal ritual. Paul never mentions a kingdom of heaven.

As I said, we don't know what the Peter, James and John that Paul referred to believed.

If so why are they using faith in this savior god instead of faith in their creator god?

Actually Paul stresses that this is the gospel of God. I don't understand your question.

How does this savior god relate to an individual’s salvation?

Paul taught salvation through a baptismal ritual which showed faith in the death of Jesus. For instance, Romans 6 (emphasis added):

2May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
3Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
4Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
7for he who has died is freed from sin.
8Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
9knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
10For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
11Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
​

Is this where the messiah is understood as living and dying in heaven or is it a god that is unrelated to the expected king of the Jews?

Paul doesn't say where he thought Jesus died.

Is this where the kingdom of god being at hand message started or from someone earlier?

Q taught the kingdom of God, yes. Others may have taught it earlier.

And you don’t think the text was from the perspective of a messiah claimant but just a collection of sayings focused on what?

I don't think Q had anything to do with a messiah claimant. Do you think Q was written from that perspective? Why?

The last part is a problem in explaining what you think happened. You can’t be sure he wasn’t trying to tell an honest truth based on the sources available?

I don't know Mark's motives. I think most likely he was sincerely trying to write a novel to give hope, just like parents tell kids about Santa Claus.

But you are certain none of those historical sources believed in a historical core to their messiah claimant? Why?

I don't know if Mark had a source with such a claim.

 

[doubtingmerle]

(continued)

What do you mean by the "dying Jesus legend"? Where does that come from?

Isaiah 53. Early Christian writers commonly quoted it as proof of a dying savior.

So when the temple was destroyed they wrote the Gospel/s, not like the Jews, being concerned that the stuff in the Talmud would be lost; or because the nation was no longer in a condition to support an actual king/messiah. They just wanted one so bad they wrote fan fiction about what he could have been like?

Santa's mailbox at the post office was full of requests for food and clothes this year. I heard several of them read on the evening news. It was amazing--and heartbreaking--to hear these letters of people pleading with Santa for new shoes, for instance, since they didn't have any.

People do not stop writing stories of hope, just because times are rough.

Where were Paul and Peter during this time of writing Mark? Were they martyred?

One tradition says Paul was released and went to Spain. Another tradition says he was martyred in Rome. Which one is right?

We don't know. Traditions about what happened to the apostles are so contrradictory and poorly supported, we simply don't know what happened to them.

What did the size of their two groups look like when Mark decided to make up a history for the spiritual figure they were worshiping?

Would you also like to know Mark's shoe size?

Are these serious questions, or an attempt to waste my time?

My answer: I don't know, probably somewhere between 100 and 1,000,000.

And Mark did not necesarily mean his book to apply to a particular man of the past.

Why was it natural to expect stories of a risen Christ?

For the same reason that, once some people came to believe that Elvis was still alive, storys of Elvis sightings became popular.

If Jesus was thought to be alive, everybody who believed it would have wanted to talk about what happened next.

Did they both write a virgin birth story independently of one another?

Do you not agree that the storys of the birth of Jesus in Matthew and Luke contradict?

What type of communities did these texts come from and what was the response to the Markian community about them adding virgin birth and resurrected Christ stories?

Apparently a number of people liked the books of Matthew and Luke. For they were copied many times, and survived 2000 years.

And is this not about a person personifying reason/logos but that the logos existing anthropomorphically someplace that tells/reveals information to people?

Something like the wisdom figure in Proverbs, yes.

What did John change about the story from Luke and Mark with the addition of the signs gospel?

Have you not noticed that John 1-17 is very different from the synoptics? The signs gospel is thought to be the core of John 1-17.

Was the signs gospel about another messiah claimant offering salvation and talking faith, who sacrifices himself… or what was the point if not of the original signs gospel?

The signs gospel is all about Jesus as a revealer. (It never really tells us what Jesus actually revealed.) Probably this was not speaking about a specific person from recent history.

So John, Luke and Mark are all coming from faith based movements that are trying to exalt him as the messiah.

The gospels try to exalt their Jesus as the messiah. We don't know how much the movement existed before the books were written. We don't know if the writers thought the Jesus they wrote of was historical, or if they thought they were writing a novel.

In addition we have Gnostic groups represented by texts like the Gospel of Thomas. That wanted to present Jesus as a teacher and had no understanding of what was going on with the sacrifice or him being the messiah and rejected the notion of building a kingdom here based around him.

The Gospel of Thomas presents a Jesus that is little more than a phrase--"Jesus said..."--at the start of each verse. This book's Jesus could have been no more real then the Wisdom figure who spoke in proverbs.

What sources do you think the Gnostics used to base their conclusion that Jesus was trying to teach something and that was the importance and not the messiahship?

Gnostism had many varieties. Some probably saw their revealing Jesus as the messiah.

Do you think they had actual writings from a Gnostic who sacrificed his life or are just composting what was popular back then into GThomas?

Probably just "composting" their gnostic wisdom into a book.

We have people who thought Jesus lived but was a teacher… Gnostics.

The gnostics were varied, and interpreted many texts with spiritual meanings. It is difficult to know what they taught.

We have people who thought he was a historical messiah who sacrificed themselves… Orthodox.

The Orthodox sacrificed themselves?

Both of whom would see him as personifying the logos but differentiating on philosophy regarding matter and what the point of his message was.

And whether Jesus was a historical person.

What I don’t know about is the Pauline savior god and what the thinking was there.

Then perhaps you should read Paul.

What text do you think from that time best reflects the kind of salvation from these savior gods so I can try and get an idea of what you think Paul is talking about?

Romans and Galations, for instance.

It’s an anthropomorphic understanding of a spirit that dies in heaven and does something right? No interpretation, just take it literal and it’s supposed to mean something?

Huh?

If exclusiveness wasn’t the case then why assume that Paul or anyone else didn’t believe in both and that’s why you have mentions of a earthly figure dying and a spiritual figure enlightening?

Paul stresses that his gospel of Jesus comes from scripture. He never says anything about it coming from a man on earth.

If the thinking can overlap, what are the key phrases you look for that mean they thought he never existed.

Doherty summarizes at http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp12One.htm

Thus, in the absence of a ministry of preaching, miracles, apocalyptic prophecy or the events of the Passion story, nothing in the New Testament epistles can be reliably linked to the Gospel picture. When this pervasive silence is set alongside the positive statements the epistle writers do make, that Christ is a newly revealed "secret/mystery" of God hitherto hidden for a long period of time, and that knowledge about him comes from scripture and revelation (e.g., Romans 16:25-26, Colossians 1:26 and 2:2, Ephesians 3:5), that the critical events and God’s actions in the present age are solely this process of revelation through the Spirit (e.g., 2 Corinthians 1:22 and 5:5), when it is God who is spoken of as providing the gospel and appointing apostles (e.g., Romans 1:1, 1 Corinthians 12:28), when it is God who is said to have instituted the love command and other ethical teachings (e.g., 1 Thessalonians 4:9, 2 John 6 and several times in 1 John), when Paul says that it is he, not Jesus, who has been given the task of establishing the new covenant (2 Corinthians 3:5), when all the epistle writers speak of Christ being "revealed" and "manifested" in these final days (e.g, 1 Peter 1:20, Hebrews 9:26), or of their expectation of Christ’s future appearance on earth, giving no suggestion that he had already appeared here in the recent past (e.g., Hebrews 10:37, 1 Peter 1:7)—then we have a clear picture of a faith movement that was not started by any figure in living memory, but one based on revelation and a new interpretation of scripture, all of it governed by the dominant philosophical and religious ideas of the age.
​

Why does Paul support their hierarchy?

Paul doesn't support a church hierarchy. That's why the proto-orthodox wrote I Tim., 2 Tim., and Titus to make it look like he did.

Aren’t you saying that they used basically (as is) the texts of someone who didn’t believe in an earthly Jesus or was an actual apostle to support their line of apostles from an earthly messiah who sacrificed himself?

When combined with the gospels and Acts, Paul's books could be interpreted as talking about an earthly Jesus. But when taken at face value, Paul seems to be saying something else.

Why not grab some texts from one of the groups that actually believed in what they were preaching?

Which texts could they have used besides the ones they picked? Do you have something in mind?

What did Paul say that was so important and unique for them to try and attach it to themselves?

Paul stresses salvation through the blood to a much greater degree than the gospels do. If you are going to stress the blood atonement, then you need Paul and the writer of Hebrews.

Doesn’t a spiritual savior of Paul and an earthly messiah who died from the gospels, contradict each other unless one was produced by the other?

Not at all. Two groups can develop widely different views from the same starting point of Jewish scripure, messianic hope, and the Diaspora culture mix.

Faith in the Logos which was a source of enlightenment for all men including Jesus.

Justin's conversion experience seems to be based on that Logos, not on the crucifixion of a man in history.

So you’re saying that people who believed in an entity that existed only spiritually, heard of a story of the spirit coming to earth as a person and not that a guy was said to personify that spirit? What would make them think that was the case or even possible?

If one already believes that personified wisdom exists as a heavenly being, then it is a simple step further to believe that personified wisdom entered a physical man in the past, or that this personified wisdom made an appearance on earth in the form of a man. That appears to be the origin of docetism.

How do you think docetism originated?

I don’t know if either of those can be looked at as remnants of the mythical Jesus. Gnosticism is just saying what he was teaching was where the salvation was at and docetism is about the nature of his body, or when personification of the Logos begins, not about him never existing or teaching.

Gnosticism covered a wide range of belief. Many gnostics believed in a docetic Jesus.

What do you think they rewrote and when?

Huh? I just told you what they rewrote. They "rewrote history". That's an expression meaning they wrote history to conform with the way they wanted it to be written.

Eusebius in the fourth century is a good example.

When do you think the martyrdom started and how did it spread… if it isn’t something the church later made up. I’m trying to figure out if Jesus didn’t start it, who did?

The church father, Origin, writes around 250 AD that martyrdom had been rare. See http://www.theskepticalreview.com/tsrmag/4front97.html .

Roman Martyrdom reached its peak at the end of the third century when Orthodox Christians refused to participate in worship of other gods. This angered the Romans, who thought these rituals were necessary to promote the common good.

 

[Johnnz]

It has been calculated that between the first persecution under Nero in 64 to the Edict of Milan in 313, Christians experienced 129 years of persecution and 120 years of toleration and peace.

Domitian persecution may have been the subject behind the Book of Revelation. Nero had preceded his efforts against Christians. Diocletian initiated a major persecution of Christians, which was later reversed by Constantine.

Persecution was a fact of life for many Christians from the time of the NT church and for the next centuries.

John
NZ

 

[AlexBP]

Paul does not say that a recent Jeus on earth was the seed of David.

What he says is that he was called to the gospel of God which he got from the scriptures "Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh" (Rom 1:3) Paul says he gets this from the scriptures.

Paul does say that a Jesus on earth was a descendant of David. At that time, in that place, saying "A was born of the seed of B" meant that A was descendant of B. It meant physical descent. It did not mean metaphorcial similarity between A and B. As already mentioned, the Jews placed tremendous emphasis on knowing each individual's ancestry because so much of the Jewish law and scripture related to that. The idea that Paul would idly toss around phrases like "of the seed of David" to mean nothing in particular but only something metaphorical is therefore wrong. Twice already I've asked whether you're able to name any instance in ancient Jewish history where any Jew used that phrase to mean anything other than literal ancestry. You haven't answered, from which I assume the answer is 'no'.

Further, Paul does not say that he got the gospel from the scriptures. He says, quoting from the NKJV:

called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh

So that fits with the explanation that Paul believed the messiah was promised through the scriptures and that than arrived in the person of Jesus Christ. It does not fit with the theory that Paul believed this gospel to be only material found in the scriptures and not involve a physical descendant of David. We can bury your theory further by looking at the definition of the Greek word that becomes "gospel" in English translations. Everyone knows that the word in question means "good news", but not everyone has absorbed that the "news" in question is exactly what we mean by news today, like what we read in the papers. So the "gospel" is the good reports about events. It is not and cannot be simply a good interpretation of a scriptural passage. By using the word "gospel", Paul made clear that he was talking about recent events. Further, it's likely that Paul modeled the first verses of Romans 1 on a birth announcement for the son of a Roman Emperor. Hence he was basically saying, "the Romans make a big deal about the arrival of an emperor's son, but I've got news of an arrival that's even better".

I have found that, often when Paul quotes the Old Testament he is taking the verse completely out of context, and is assigning it a figurative meaning that has nothing to do with what the verse literally meant in context. How do you know he is not simply taking "seed of David" figuratively?

To understand how Old Testament scripture is used in the New Testament, you have to understand the concept of a Midrash, which was very common in Jewish culture at the time. Defining Midrash exactly is like nailing jelly to the wall, but generally a Midrash is some form of commentary, teaching, or explanation for something employing the Old Testament scriptures. Paul's usages of Old Testament quotes are within the tradition of Midrash. There was nothing unusual about taking a passage refering to one thing and using it to explicate some current event. The instances in Paul's epistles that you're thinking of are examples of that.

But discussing ancestry is not something that Paul would play around with in that manner because, as already mentioned, the Jews attached such huge importance to it. Further, as already mentioned, the only way that Paul would justify such a radical shift in theology away from traditional Jewish beliefs would be if he believed the Messiah had arrived and ushered in the Messianic Age. The Messiah was a physical person and a descendant of David. The Messiah could not be anything else. Paul believed Jesus to be the Messiah. Ergo Paul believed Jesus to be a physical person and a descendant of David.

The word "brother" in Acts and the epistles often refers to somebody other than a physical brother. How do you know this use of the word brother has to mean a literal, physical brother?

Because Paul didn't refer to James as "brother". He referred to James as "the brother of Jesus". Repeatedly. He never referred to anyone else as "the brother of Jesus". Nor did anyone else ever refer to anyone else as "the brother of Jesus".

 

[AlexBP]

Ah, you have two Jewish religious works who share the same themes of centrality of love, forgiveness, voluntary poverty, marriage and divorce, avoiding hypocricy, attacks against the Pharisees, etc., so therefore one copied the other? Uh, wouldn't we expect such themes in any Jewish religious work?

No, we would not, at least not if we're familiar with the facts about Jewish beliefs in the first century. The Pharisees were the dominant Jewish group at the time, both in number and authority. Waging an outright verbal war against them would be very rare for any participant in mainstream Judaism. There were, of course, splinter groups such as the Sadducees and the Essenes, but obviously neither Paul and James nor any of the gospelers had any ties to them. The gospels show that Jesus Christ regularly participated in the tri-annual appearances in Jerusalem, Rabbinical readings and teachings, and other instances of the mainstream culture. Paul was raised a Pharisee and regularly preached in the synagogues of the cities he visited. That both of them would separately launch attacks on the Pharisees, to the point of using the same words in many cases, is unlikely in the extreme.

Furthermore, it is simply not true that the themes listed were common in Jewish thought. The predominant understanding at the time was that the wealthy were the one's closest to God's favor. This understanding is demonstrated in Mark 10, where Jesus tells the disciples that "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God", and they respond "Who then can be saved?" For Jesus to declare that the poor are more in God's favor than the rich is a complete inversion of the social structure in contemporary Judaism, and utterly off-the-wall for those familiar with Jewish thought at the time. Why would both Paul and the gospelers come up with the same very strange idea if they were unrelated to each other?

Forgiveness is another theme where both Paul and the gospelers tell the same story, but it's a story radically different from what mainstream Judaism would provide at the time. In Mark, Jesus has the ability to forgive sins, and demonstrates it many times. The most famous is in Mark 2, in the story of the paralytic:

Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . .” He said to the paralytic, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all.

So Mark clearly knew that forgiveness of sins came through Jesus. Similarly Paul knew that forgiveness of sins came through Jesus and hammered that theme on countless occasions. Now what would any member of mainstream Judaism have thought about forgiveness? They would have thought that the only way to achieve forgiveness of sins was through the rituals of animal sacrifice, purification, isolation, and so forth as described at great length in the Books of Moses and at even greater length in the Talmud. To contemporary Jews, that was the only route to forgiveness. The idea that Paul and Mark would both come up with the idea of forgiveness through Jesus Christ separately is off the wall.

Or let's look at divorce. What would contemporary Jews believe about divorce? They'd believe that it's fully permissable for a husband to divorce his wife, since that's codified in Deuteronomy and again the Talmud. Yet in Mark Jesus says this:

“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Likewise Paul says that "a wife must not divorce her husband" and "a husband must not divorce her wife". [1 Cor 7] Paul also makes it very clear and specific that this command was taught by Jesus Christ. So both Paul and Mark were familiar with the teachings of Jesus Christ about divorce that overturned the earlier teachings from the Law of Moses. How could this be true if they didn't know each other and neither knew a historical Jesus?

Let's look at the centrality of love. Mark 12 has the following passage:

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Paul was obviously familiar with this saying of Jesus, since he mentions part of it in Galatians 5. While the quote "love your neighbor as yourself" comes from Leviticus, nothing in contemporary Judaism would lead anyone to label that as "the greatest commandment". How could Mark and Paul have both gotten the same idea if they didn't get it from Jesus?

On the avoidance of hypocricy, Paul's take on the subject in Romans 2 and other places contains undeniable echos of how Jesus treated the topic. While they were obviously not unique in disliking hypocricy, nonetheless there's no way that Paul and Mark could write such similar material on the topic if they didn't get it from Jesus.

So, in short, when you said this:

Wouldn't we expect such themes in any Jewish religious work?

The answer is a major 'no'. There's a large amount of material in common between Paul and Mark's gospel alone that is not shared by contemporary Judaism and that flatly contradicts what contemporary Judaism strongly believed in. You've asked for specific examples of such similarities and now you have a very small fraction of them. Please believe when I say that it's only a very small fraction. All of the cases in which the Epistles of Paul and the gospels parallel each other could fill a sizeable book. How exactly does your theory that Paul and the Synoptic gospels arose from separate, non-overlapping communities account for these facts?