Jesus of Nazareth unknown to early Christians
Greetings Jenyar,
Paul was writing about events that people already were familiar with
This is your faithful belief, but you have shown NO EVIDENCE to support it.
Paul's writings mention nothing about the Gospel Jesus, merely vague spiritual formulae.
Similarly, all the early Christian writings are equally MISSING any mention of Jesus of Nazareth.
If YOU claim the Gospel Jesus of Nazareth was already known in Paul's time, why can't you provide any evidence of such?
When you mention an event or personality, the first impression you get is that it refers to something real.
Oh really?
So, when you read about the dismemberment of Osiris, you believe Osiris was real?
And when you read about the castration of Attis, you believe it really happened?
And when you read about the exploits of Hercules, you believe he was real?
Jenyar - all ancient stories must be evaluated for accuracy and credibility - only FAITHFUL Christians believe the Gospel stories about Jesus - historians do NOT.
If he wanted them to believe the images he was mentioning were of a spiritual nature, he would have specified it.
He did.
He described Jesus as being crucified by the Archons of this Aeon - these are the spiritual beings which occupy the spiritual realm just "above" the physical plane.
If he wanted his readers to believe he was mentioning a real person he would have mentioned :
* when he was born,
* where he was born,
* his family,
* his teachings
* his miracles
* etc. etc.
Paul did NOT mention ANYTHING about an actual historical life of a real person. He makes all sorts of vague references which CAN be seen as physical if you want to - and clearly YOU want to, but I have yet to see any hard evidence that Paul knew ANYTHING about Jesus of Nazareth.
Spiritual beings don't baptize, or get crucified
Rubbish.
Do you believe Osiris was REALLY dismembered?
Do you beieve Attis was REALLY cut?
Do you believe Hercules REALLY did those labours?
Ancient mythology is FULL of such events - which are understood to be NOT historical events, but rather spiritual or mythic events.
There were no spiritual crucifictions by Romans.
Obviously not.
But Paul does NOT say Jesus was crucified by the Romans.
He said Jesus was crucified by the Archons of this Aeon - spiritual beings who crucified Jesus on the spiritual plane. This is straightforward middle or even neo- Platonism - the idea that events on the plane above would affect our world.
If it was a spiritual event, Paul would have had to clarify that he didn't refer to a Christian who was martyred.
On the contrary, there is NOTHING in Paul which refers to Christ being martyred.
If Paul had refered to a historical event, he would have given historical references - names, dates, places, actors, context - but he does NOT.
The historical setting was known.
You keep saying this,
I keep asking for evidence,
but you have yet to provide any evidence.
There is NO EVIDENCE that the historical setting was known to ANYONE until a CENTURY after the alleged events.
I am not asking you to repeat your faithful Christian beliefs -
I am asking you to provide some evidence to support it.
Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?
Paul SAW Jesus in a VISION - he NEVER met Jesus in real life - and then he describes himself as JUST as good an apostle as the others - which clearly shows the other apostles never really met Jesus either, it was all just VISIONS.
A Christian does not revere the empty tomb or Calvary
You totally missed the point.
James' test of Paul's Christianity has NO mention of anything relating to the Gospel stories - the CENTRAL aspect of Christianity to Paul and James is the TEMPLE - not a word about any alleged Gospel events. This clearly shows James and Paul had no knowledge of any historical Jesus of Nazareth.
The test wasn't to see if he was a "real Christian", but to show that he was not a heretic.
What?
Its exactly the same thing!
To be a real Christian is to be not a heretic.
To be a heretic is to be not a real Christian.
Can you explain the difference between being
a "real Christian"
and being
not a heretic?
Either unknown, taken for granted, or likely simply unimportant
"taken for granted"? that is meaningless.
Unimportant? The empty tomb story is unimportant to Christians?
Are you serious? the empty tomb is NOT IMPORTANT to Christians?
Rubbish.
The only reasonable option is that the empty tomb story was unknown to early Christians, but was added later.
Did you know that empty tomb scenes were a popular theme in first century Roman FICTION?
I don't know how you can think Paul was not referring to a real person,
Because he says nothing about a real person - no time, date, places, names, events, context.
You have not shown anything in Paul which MUST refer to a real person - merely vague comments which CAN be twisted that way.
If Jesus died between 30 and 35 CE, then the earliest copy already is found within 40 years after his death.
Rubbish.
There is no evidence of the Gospels existing until early-mid 2nd century.
Christians like to BELIEVE the Gospels are early, but its not supported by any evidence.
Perhaps you are refering to the crackpot theories of Thiede and P64?
No scholar agrees with his wild flights of fancy.
The earliest Gospel fragment is P52, which MAY be from early 2nd century - this is a tiny scrap of parchment which MAY be from John's Gospel.
The earliest substantial Gospel fragments date to the turn of the 3rd century.
There are no surviving copies of his work, so I don't know why you would lean on him any more than the gospels. The only mention we still have of it is from Photius:
Yes, I know all that.
My point is that a HISTORIAN, who was a CONTEMPORARY, and from the SAME REGION as the alleged Jesus - says NOTHING about Jesus.
What is your explanation for that?
G.Mark was first, and G.Luke and G.Matthew copied most of G.Mark, changing some events to suit their audience - clearly showing they were not writing history, merely telling a story.
G.Mark shows ignorance about the region's geography and culture, and was probably written in Rome.
The Gospels were un-named originally (Aristides, Justin), only being named in the late 2nd century by Irenaeus.
So,
the Gospels were :
* anonymous,
* not histories,
* not written locally,
* unknown until a century after the events,
* (full of mythical stories.)
Compared to a HISTORIAN who was a CONTEMPORARY, and from the SAME PLACE as Jesus.
Philo ... lived in Alexandria - he would not have had any way to know Jesus until Paul's missionary travels:
Rubbish.
Philo visited Jerusalem (and Rome), he wrote plenty about Jerusalem and various figures who lived in Jerusalem and various events which took place in Jerusalem.
He had plenty of opportunity to learn about Jesus and to write about him - the fact that he did not argues there was no such Jesus.
Within the first century, most Christians had only just heard who Jesus was
I thought you said it was common knowledge?
Who did they hear it from?
Paul says nothing about who Jesus was as a person.
No Christian mentions details of Jesus as a person until 2nd century,
THEN, after the Gospels arise,
Christian writers start mentioning all the details ad nauseum, over and over ...
How is it that the earliest Christians show NO MENTION, and NO interest in Jesus and his miracles and teachings,
but,
later Christians all mention these details endlessly, filling whole libraries with these very details which YOU say were NOT IMPORTANT to early Christians, yet somehow were COMMON KNOWLEDGE, even though NO ONE mentioned them?
Nonsense.
The only reasonable conclusion is that Paul's Iesous Christos was not a historical person, but later MISTAKEN as a real person after the fall of Jerusalem had destroyed all the records and dispersed or killed the Jews.
Iasion