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  • #16
    Originally posted by eider View Post
    So true..... I have heard that there are over 3000 different Christian Creeds, Churches and Denominations, but please don't ask me to name them.
    Well it is certainly correct that Christianity has never been one cohesive religion. Orthodoxy could only eventually be enforced at the end of the fourth century by Imperial edict and the threat of severe punishment to those who dissented. However, many continued to disagree.



    Originally posted by eider View Post
    Sorry....... By HJ I mean Historical Jesus.
    What historical evidence can be gathered about Jesus, Early 1st century Northern Palestine esp Galilee, Farming, Industry, Fishing, Taxation, etc etc.
    You have an uphill struggle there. No contemporary evidence exists.
    Last edited by Hypatia_Alexandria; 01-15-2021, 06:35 PM.
    "It ain't necessarily so
    The things that you're liable
    To read in the Bible
    It ain't necessarily so
    ."

    Sportin' Life
    Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post


      You have an uphill struggle there. No contemporary evidence exists.
      In much the same way that there is no contemporary record for the 79 A.D. eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, which annihilated several Roman cities including Pompeii and Herculaneum, and was witnessed by the tens of thousands of eyewitnesses in and around Naples. Yet the first mention for it dates from some 30 years later by Pliny the Younger.

      OTOH, Paul writes of the resurrection of Christ and his post-resurrection appearances in I Corinthians in the early to mid 50s A.D., roughly 20 years after His time, and includes a pre-Pauline creed in the first 11 verses, that dates from even earlier.

      I'm always still in trouble again

      "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
      "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
      "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
        In much the same way that there is no contemporary record for the 79 A.D. eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, which annihilated several Roman cities including Pompeii and Herculaneum, and was witnessed by the tens of thousands of eyewitnesses in and around Naples. Yet the first mention for it dates from some 30 years later by Pliny the Younger.
        Volcanoes happen whereas bodily resurrections, generally speaking, do not. Plus, there is abundance of geological evidence of the Vesuvius eruption and none for the resurrection other than the New Testament, which was compiled by Christian authors attempting to promote Christianity.

        OTOH, Paul writes of the resurrection of Christ and his post-resurrection appearances in I Corinthians in the early to mid 50s A.D., roughly 20 years after His time, and includes a pre-Pauline creed in the first 11 verses, that dates from even earlier.
        Creeds are merely evidence of what some people believed. And extraordinary claims about supernatural occurrences require extraordinary evidence – to paraphrase Carl Sagan.
        “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

          It ranks among my favourite movies.

          The other classic scene is where the two groups of Jewish would-be kidnappers end up killing one another while Roman soldiers watch in amused bewilderment. And let us never forget the Latin lesson!

          I have no idea from whence you arrived at the 1960s. It was released for cinema in 1980.
          1980's ...... ?...... !!!!! Oh dear........ my time clock is surely busted.

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
            Well it is certainly correct that Christianity has never been one cohesive religion. Orthodoxy could only eventually be enforced at the end of the fourth century by Imperial edict and the threat of severe punishment to those who dissented. However, many continued to disagree.
            Surely...... If one scrutized Christianity throughout the World the list would by huge, even if not in the thousands. And so many dismiss all the others.


            You have an uphill struggle there. No contemporary evidence exists.
            Yes.... there is.
            The first thing I thought of was archaeology.
            And I don't mind written accounts in the 1st century, even Oral Traditions which got written eventually.
            Farming practices, Fishing, Taxation, Roman history, etc.......

            It's surprising what can be dug up, imo.

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
              In much the same way that there is no contemporary record for the 79 A.D. eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, which annihilated several Roman cities including Pompeii and Herculaneum, and was witnessed by the tens of thousands of eyewitnesses in and around Naples. Yet the first mention for it dates from some 30 years later by Pliny the Younger.
              Nice. I like the analogy.

              OTOH, Paul writes of the resurrection of Christ and his post-resurrection appearances in I Corinthians in the early to mid 50s A.D., roughly 20 years after His time, and includes a pre-Pauline creed in the first 11 verses, that dates from even earlier.
              That does help Christianity, but it doesn't help me much because my searches end not long after that last week in Jerusalem.
              Historical Jesus research is different from Historical Christianity searches. So many HJ Scholars come unstuck by trying to join the two investigations together.

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by Tassman View Post

                Volcanoes happen whereas bodily resurrections, generally speaking, do not. Plus, there is abundance of geological evidence of the Vesuvius eruption and none for the resurrection other than the New Testament, which was compiled by Christian authors attempting to promote Christianity.
                You're thinking of Christian apologetics of course.
                Historical Jesus research ends (for me) not long after the last week in Jerusalem and any rdeferences to resurrection in G-Mark were later additions........ even the first sentence of that book was fiddled with.

                Creeds are merely evidence of what some people believed. And extraordinary claims about supernatural occurrences require extraordinary evidence – to paraphrase Carl Sagan.
                Sure.....
                I don't challenge Creeds directly, I try to acknowledge them, but obviously some of my ideas do bump in to Christianity..... quite hard.
                But I have more trouble with the Mythers, to be honest.

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                  Volcanoes happen whereas bodily resurrections, generally speaking, do not. Plus, there is abundance of geological evidence of the Vesuvius eruption and none for the resurrection other than the New Testament, which was compiled by Christian authors attempting to promote Christianity.
                  I think it's generally reasonable to assume that the public ministry of the Jesus described in the gospels is largely correct.

                  It depicts a person who speaks of himself as a prophet and who had a lot of teachings about social reform. There's nothing at all inherently unusual about that, given Israel's multi-century history of self-proclaimed prophets (e.g. see the OT), and given that Josephus notes a couple of dozen different reform and revolutionary movements active in Israel within a +/- 70 year window of Jesus.

                  As far as his supposed miracles go, gullible people in every religious group have believed their leader performs miracles. The followers of Muhammed thought he performed miracles, in the 20th-21st century the followers of Sathya Sai Baba thought he performed miracles, many Pentecostal denominations are convinced that miracles happen weekly in their own churches, etc.

                  So the gospel depiction of the public ministry of Jesus as a guy who called himself a prophet, taught about social reform and revolution, and whose followers thought he performed miracles, is pretty believable in that time period, especially given the large number of similar movements.

                  If the 4 gospels themselves were our only evidence I'd be happy to leave it at that. But when we look beyond those to other gospels, and other early Christian writings, the picture becomes far less clear. In the 2nd century there was a massive flourishing of gnostic and docetic Christianity, especially versions of it that held that Jesus was a spiritual being only and had never had true flesh. Since they believed the physical world to be corrupt, and the true spiritual realm to be accessible through visions, these groups of Christians wrote about their experiences of the spiritual figure Jesus and his teachings but insisted he would never have had flesh for to do so would have been for him to become evil.

                  The question then becomes, how sure are we that what is now 'orthodox' Christianity with its teaching that Jesus was a real person came first and only later developed into docetic and gnostic Christianity with their teaching that Jesus wasn't a real person, rather than the other way around?

                  There are plenty of references to visions etc throughout the canonical writings in the NT (e.g. Revelation is all a vision, Paul has a vision of the resurrected Jesus etc) and in places like 1 Corinthians 12 Paul talks about his churches getting teachings and messages through these sorts of revelations "To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit", and the limits to the kinds of information he seems to think can be imparted to the church this way are pretty shockingly broad: "I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit." So members of the congregations could apparently tell other members that the Spirit had imparted to them any kind of teaching so long as it wasn't explicitly anti-Jesus, which is rather broad in scope for them to be 'told' things about what Jesus did and said!

                  Given this rather broad license for fictitious invention Paul gives to his congregations, and given that Paul's letters were probably written decades before the gospels, this raises the question of whether the canonical gospel contents are mostly or entirely fictitious 'revelations' to believers in the early churches of the 'truth' of the life of Jesus, rather than having any basis in any actual life of any historical person.

                  Those seem to me to be the two main options. Jesus the historical preacher of social reform who branded himself a prophet, seems to be the most likely option on the whole. But the possibility that Jesus didn't actually exist and that the early congregations got revelations from the spirit about him and wrote the gospels based on those, seems hard to rule out fully.
                  "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                  "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                  "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                    I think it's generally reasonable to assume that the public ministry of the Jesus described in the gospels is largely correct.
                    It depicts a person who speaks of himself as a prophet and who had a lot of teachings about social reform. There's nothing at all inherently unusual about that, given Israel's multi-century history of self-proclaimed prophets (e.g. see the OT), and given that Josephus notes a couple of dozen different reform and revolutionary movements active in Israel within a +/- 70 year window of Jesus.
                    Cool..... But I don't think Jesus was prophetic, nor had a ministry. I reckon Jesus picked up the Baptist's campaign after that great man's arrest, and carried it as far forward as he could for one year as described in G-Mark. Sadly it ended in Jerusalem after that last week.

                    As far as his supposed miracles go, gullible people in every religious group have believed their leader performs miracles. The followers of Muhammed thought he performed miracles, in the 20th-21st century the followers of Sathya Sai Baba thought he performed miracles, many Pentecostal denominations are convinced that miracles happen weekly in their own churches, etc.
                    So the gospel depiction of the public ministry of Jesus as a guy who called himself a prophet, taught about social reform and revolution, and whose followers thought he performed miracles, is pretty believable in that time period, especially given the large number of similar movements.
                    Those miracles...... it's a stretch but believe that the miracles described in G-Mark did really happen, or seemed amazing actions to those who saw them. I met a man, a healer, called Harry Edwards at Letherhead, England in 1974 and he was amazing, absolutely amazing. My late wife suffered from full seizures (called grande-mal back then) and after seeing him these seizures stopped until about 1976-7 (I forget the date now) ..... anyway, I tried to contact Harry again but he had just died. They returned when he died..... that coincidence just pushes at me, all the time.
                    But... yes, I think G-Mark's miracles happened, but not G-John's.

                    If the 4 gospels themselves were our only evidence I'd be happy to leave it at that. But when we look beyond those to other gospels, and other early Christian writings, the picture becomes far less clear. In the 2nd century there was a massive flourishing of gnostic and docetic Christianity, especially versions of it that held that Jesus was a spiritual being only and had never had true flesh. Since they believed the physical world to be corrupt, and the true spiritual realm to be accessible through visions, these groups of Christians wrote about their experiences of the spiritual figure Jesus and his teachings but insisted he would never have had flesh for to do so would have been for him to become evil.
                    The question then becomes, how sure are we that what is now 'orthodox' Christianity with its teaching that Jesus was a real person came first and only later developed into docetic and gnostic Christianity with their teaching that Jesus wasn't a real person, rather than the other way around?
                    There are plenty of references to visions etc throughout the canonical writings in the NT (e.g. Revelation is all a vision, Paul has a vision of the resurrected Jesus etc) and in places like 1 Corinthians 12 Paul talks about his churches getting teachings and messages through these sorts of revelations "To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit", and the limits to the kinds of information he seems to think can be imparted to the church this way are pretty shockingly broad: "I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit." So members of the congregations could apparently tell other members that the Spirit had imparted to them any kind of teaching so long as it wasn't explicitly anti-Jesus, which is rather broad in scope for them to be 'told' things about what Jesus did and said!
                    Given this rather broad license for fictitious invention Paul gives to his congregations, and given that Paul's letters were probably written decades before the gospels, this raises the question of whether the canonical gospel contents are mostly or entirely fictitious 'revelations' to believers in the early churches of the 'truth' of the life of Jesus, rather than having any basis in any actual life of any historical person.
                    Those seem to me to be the two main options. Jesus the historical preacher of social reform who branded himself a prophet, seems to be the most likely option on the whole. But the possibility that Jesus didn't actually exist and that the early congregations got revelations from the spirit about him and wrote the gospels based on those, seems hard to rule out fully.
                    I agree....... The story about Jesus, this I take interest in.
                    The story about Christianity I leave to others to review

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by eider View Post
                      Surely...... If one scrutized Christianity throughout the World the list would by huge, even if not in the thousands. And so many dismiss all the others.
                      I am not entirely sure what you are trying to suggest but from early sources we know there was never one cohesive religion until an orthodox belief was imposed in the late fourth century, and even then there were those who dissented.

                      Christianity has never been a monolithic religion and in its first two and half centuries was entirely fluid, no more so than in its theology.

                      Bart Ehrman rather humorously sums up these differences in theology in his opening chapter of
                      The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament. He writes of Christians “who believed in only one God, others, however, claimed there were two Gods”. He discusses the Hebrew Scriptures [Septuagint] where some Christians accepted these as “a revelation of the one true God” while others contended that the God of the Old Testament was an “evil deity . Concerning Creation some early Christians believed that this was a divine act and that God would soon redeem mankind, others that the deity had "neither created the world nor ever had any dealings with it". The salvic aspect of the death of the Christ was accepted by some as the salvation of the world, while others disputed what bearing his death had on universal salvation. Some even contended he had never even died.


                      Of course all these various theologies were contested and/or condemned by Christians of other theological persuasions. However, it remains a fact that in those two and a half centuries there was a plethora of different beliefs and a variety Christian scripture circulating.

                      As to the Nature of the Son there we find some seriously ludicrous contentions. Was the Son already divine or was he an ordinary man adopted by God? If the Christ had been born as only a man then the salvic impact of his work [and possibly his death] was called into question. If he was divine, what died on the cross? When was he divine during his ministry? How did his divinity rank with that of God's?

                      Hence by the early fourth century, by which time Christianity had become a tolerated religion, the continuing schisms and theological arguments led to Constantine calling the First Council of Nicaea in order to establish some form of orthodoxy and by doing so bring about cohesion and political stability.

                      Unfortunately he was somewhat less than successful.


                      Originally posted by eider View Post
                      It's surprising what can be dug up, imo.
                      What have you found so far?

                      "It ain't necessarily so
                      The things that you're liable
                      To read in the Bible
                      It ain't necessarily so
                      ."

                      Sportin' Life
                      Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                        In much the same way that there is no contemporary record for the 79 A.D. eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, which annihilated several Roman cities including Pompeii and Herculaneum, and was witnessed by the tens of thousands of eyewitnesses in and around Naples. Yet the first mention for it dates from some 30 years later by Pliny the Younger.
                        There is both geological and archaeological evidence of the eruption.

                        Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                        OTOH, Paul writes of the resurrection of Christ and his post-resurrection appearances in I Corinthians in the early to mid 50s A.D., roughly 20 years after His time, and includes a pre-Pauline creed in the first 11 verses, that dates from even earlier.
                        If by that comment you are suggesting that the lack of a contemporary [i.e. to the year] written source for an event calls into question the occurrence of that event then it should be noted that we do not have any of Paul's original texts.

                        The earliest MSS fragments date from the late second/early third century CE which is a passage of time considerably greater than "some 30 years later” .

                        "It ain't necessarily so
                        The things that you're liable
                        To read in the Bible
                        It ain't necessarily so
                        ."

                        Sportin' Life
                        Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
                          [SIZE=14px][FONT=Verdana] There is both geological and archaeological evidence of the eruption.
                          I'm talking about a written accord or record since it is irrational to think otherwise when making such a comparison.




                          I'm always still in trouble again

                          "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                          "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                          "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                            I'm talking about a written accord or record since it is irrational to think otherwise when making such a comparison.


                            You contended there was "no contemporary record" you did not specify a written contemporary record from the exact year. And as I remarked there is a wealth of material that may be included as a "contemporary record" for the eruption of Vesuvius.

                            However, if you are challenging an event's occurrence because no written record dated to the precise year of that event exists then you cannot contend that what has come down to us concerning Paul's writings [or indeed any NT texts] should be considered reliable. .
                            "It ain't necessarily so
                            The things that you're liable
                            To read in the Bible
                            It ain't necessarily so
                            ."

                            Sportin' Life
                            Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
                              I am not entirely sure what you are trying to suggest but from early sources we know there was never one cohesive religion until an orthodox belief was imposed in the late fourth century, and even then there were those who dissented.

                              What was I trying to suggest?
                              I was saying that when I visit Christian venues to meet and chat that I don't make mention of other venues, because sometimes I get told that the other venues are not Christians.

                              Can you think of one Church or group that denies others?

                              [/QUOTE]
                              What have you found so far?

                              [/QUOTE]
                              Jesus was a real person. He joined up with the Baptist's campaign cleansing and redeeming the working people for free so that they didn't spend all their savings on at the corrupt Temple.
                              It goes on from there.

                              What do you think of Jesus.??
                              ​​​​​

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Meanwhile, I see less and less division among evangelistic churches as they realize we, to some degree, are "all in this together" when persecution comes.

                                And, by NO MEANS do I believe that American Christianity is under persecution to ANY extent like they are in other parts of the word, but where the Church is persecuted, a common enemy is recognized.
                                The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                                Comment

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