Christians think Jesus existed

[davidmartin]

Christians think he existed, so too do the Rabbi's I watch on youtube (eg Rabbi Singer)
I can't see the idea he never existed ever being more than a fringe theory when the major players simply just think he did and are far more interested in what he might have said or meant. I was watching Rabbi Singer. He even sticks to the traditional dating, eg Acts 85, Mark 65-70 which surprised me and boy does he have it in for Paul, I think he said he wouldn't eat dinner with him. I think they think Jesus existed because the religious world is alive to them, everything exists, Moses, Adam and Eve and Jesus of Nazareth. What I mean is, it's not just about Jesus

[mlinssen]

Christians think he existed, so too do the Rabbi's I watch on youtube (eg Rabbi Singer)
I can't see the idea he never existed ever being more than a fringe theory when the major players simply just think he did and are far more interested in what he might have said or meant. I was watching Rabbi Singer. He even sticks to the traditional dating, eg Acts 85, Mark 65-70 which surprised me and boy does he have it in for Paul, I think he said he wouldn't eat dinner with him. I think they think Jesus existed because the religious world is alive to them, everything exists, Moses, Adam and Eve and Jesus of Nazareth. What I mean is, it's not just about Jesus

Don't forget the politics involved. If Christianity were to be toppled, Israel would be devoured by the surrounding countries

Of course no rabbi believes in anything about any Jesus, although it is evident that Paul didn't need an IS to wreck Judaism, he bases all of it on XS, and even his interpretation of that

[davidmartin]

Of course no rabbi believes in anything about any Jesus, although it is evident that Paul didn't need an IS to wreck Judaism, he bases all of it on XS, and even his interpretation of that

I've watched most of Rabbi Singer's video's, he really highlights how misquoted the scripture is in the NT he turned up a lot more examples than i was aware of. Like psalm 2 'kiss the Son' in the NIV, the mangling of Jeremiah in Hebrews 8, Paul's misquoting of muzzling an ox, and the 'seed' of Galatians I did know about, he rips that up. What he does is highlight how badly fitting Christianity is to Judaism, in other words this 'badly fitting thing' is a subsequent development to any hypothetical 'original movement'

The Rabbi zeroes in on Paul as the arch-begetter of this and gives him a good shredding, really rips him up but left suspended is the ultimate question, what then was 'the original movement'? That's what I want to know

I was reading Matthew 23 because the Rabbi mentioned in his view Matthew is more anti-semitic than John which is ironic because John is more anti-Judaic than Matthew. Sure I agree with him whoever wrote that really hated Pharisees but loved the Hebrew scripture. In a historicist reading it can't just be 2nd century Christian goons who wrote that, there must be some earlier source, but who would really hate them that much? The only ones I can think of are the Samaritans, right? Well they would hate them
This ties in with the Samaritan ideas found in the Ebionite Clementines and the Samaritan ideology found in Stephen's speech in Acts
Yeah, I think the Samaritans are connected to all this you have to add them to the mix for the madness to be complete

So I don't think it was just Paul that leveraged an anti-establishment IS to help them punch their enemies in the balls
I'll bet these Ebionites were, in fact, Samaritans and their gospel was violently anti-Pharisee which got reworked into Matthew later on
Not that Matthew 23 makes much sense - Jesus goes wild battering the Pharisees then when he's finished his disciples come up admiring the large stones of the temple like they're on the guided tour! What, didn't Jesus just have an epic verbal battle? Clearly this has been pieced together into a narrative. The historical Jesus never said that stuff going by the way he speaks in Thomas or John or it's paraphrased from Thomas-like sayings

All of this is what Rabbi Singer calls a 'train wreck'. Yep it sure is. But what was the original thing?
I think Thomas is engaged in the battle to define what Judaic spirituality is whereas Paul is trying to create a new religion
The saying about "If you seek the kingdom in the sky or the sea' is based on Deuteronomy 30:12-14

[mlinssen]

Of course no rabbi believes in anything about any Jesus, although it is evident that Paul didn't need an IS to wreck Judaism, he bases all of it on XS, and even his interpretation of that

I've watched most of Rabbi Singer's video's, he really highlights how misquoted the scripture is in the NT he turned up a lot more examples than i was aware of. Like psalm 2 'kiss the Son' in the NIV, the mangling of Jeremiah in Hebrews 8, Paul's misquoting of muzzling an ox, and the 'seed' of Galatians I did know about, he rips that up. What he does is highlight how badly fitting Christianity is to Judaism, in other words this 'badly fitting thing' is a subsequent development to any hypothetical 'original movement'

The Rabbi zeroes in on Paul as the arch-begetter of this and gives him a good shredding, really rips him up but left suspended is the ultimate question, what then was 'the original movement'? That's what I want to know

Completely free from any of those misappropriations, I would say

I was reading Matthew 23 because the Rabbi mentioned in his view Matthew is more anti-semitic than John which is ironic because John is more anti-Judaic than Matthew. Sure I agree with him whoever wrote that really hated Pharisees but loved the Hebrew scripture. In a historicist reading it can't just be 2nd century Christian goons who wrote that, there must be some earlier source, but who would really hate them that much? The only ones I can think of are the Samaritans, right? Well they would hate them

As I have stated before, the typical North & South scenario of Samaritans versus Judaics, and Samarians versus Judeans, is a legitimate scenario for fierce hate. Thomas hates both Judaics and Judeans (in that order), John certainly is a Samarian yet not a Samaritan, and *Ev perhaps has little business against Judeans but most certainly vehemently rejects Judaics

This ties in with the Samaritan ideas found in the Ebionite Clementines and the Samaritan ideology found in Stephen's speech in Acts
Yeah, I think the Samaritans are connected to all this you have to add them to the mix for the madness to be complete

Check

So I don't think it was just Paul that leveraged an anti-establishment IS to help them punch their enemies in the balls
I'll bet these Ebionites were, in fact, Samaritans and their gospel was violently anti-Pharisee which got reworked into Matthew later on

Check

Not that Matthew 23 makes much sense - Jesus goes wild battering the Pharisees then when he's finished his disciples come up admiring the large stones of the temple like they're on the guided tour! What, didn't Jesus just have an epic verbal battle? Clearly this has been pieced together into a narrative. The historical Jesus never said that stuff going by the way he speaks in Thomas or John or it's paraphrased from Thomas-like sayings

Thomas logion 71

All of this is what Rabbi Singer calls a 'train wreck'. Yep it sure is. But what was the original thing?
I think Thomas is engaged in the battle to define what Judaic spirituality is whereas Paul is trying to create a new religion
The saying about "If you seek the kingdom in the sky or the sea' is based on Deuteronomy 30:12-14

Judaic spirituality... Sigh.
Listen, just toss all that overboard and look at it from the North & South perspective, and then add hate towards religion.
That's Chrestianity, and Paul tries hard to undo all the anti-Judaism by fusing it with and in Judaism instead.
With hilariously fake and false results, indeed

Ask any rabbi about Christianity, and you get loathing of its alleged roots at best

[mlinssen]

I've watched most of Rabbi Singer's video's, he really highlights how misquoted the scripture is in the NT he turned up a lot more examples than i was aware of. Like psalm 2 'kiss the Son' in the NIV, the mangling of Jeremiah in Hebrews 8, Paul's misquoting of muzzling an ox, and the 'seed' of Galatians I did know about, he rips that up. What he does is highlight how badly fitting Christianity is to Judaism, in other words this 'badly fitting thing' is a subsequent development to any hypothetical 'original movement'

I've not done the math yet, but 80-20 sounds about right for mistranslated Tanakh versus proper stuff. How about the "they pierced my hands and feet" which is not even applicable to the NT because the only thing that gets pierced is the entire body of IS upon a stake.
That alone is evidence enough of the LXX being composed after the NT was composed AND after that the entire impaling got sweet talked into a dignified crucifixion by the FF

From the emergence of Christianity:

The core strategy behind both Paul and the gospels

In essence, the gospels thus share the same strategy as Paul ff:

1. Heal the wounds between Judaism and Chrestianity by ending the divide via bringing the opponents together;

2. Permanently align Chrestianity and Judaism by forging an unbreakable bond between the two via making one dependent on the other and vice versa

Paul (and ff) addresses the first point with his apologising for the Gentiles having received this new god and kingdom, even while being “Lawless” and uncircumcised, and he moves on to the second point by asserting that Chrestianity is the fulfilment of God’s plan (Romans 9:25-26);
Mark (and ff) handles the first issue by taking the anti-Judaism in *Ev and focussing all of it towards the ‘Pharisees and scribes’ - thereby catching two birds with one stone, and his way of addressing the second point is by taking not Chrestianity but only Jesus and to present him as the fulfilment of God’s plan (Mark 1:1-3).
And in the direct and immediate context of *Ev, the very first thing that Mark did was to follow up on this dual strategy and to turn John the Baptist into a friend of Jesus, to put them on the same team. While e.g. the resulting baptism of Jesus by John has forever haunted Christianity, Malachi 3:1 predicted that the Messenger would get a visit in his ‘temple’ and this was the best that Mark could come up with to have them do - and straight away we see implications of the application of this twofold strategy by Mark, and all this has to be done on top of *Ev within the confines of that text/story being fairly well known already. And it certainly was not an easy task at all, to follow the story of *Ev and alter the anti-Judaism by dropping that and adding (pro-) Judaism to it - while at the same time seek to even bond the two, Chrestianity and Judaism; yet Mark starts right away at the task in Mark 1:1-11 and he doesn’t skip a beat, he doesn’t miss a verse, without maximising both of these goals.
Yet the really initial thing that Mark did and which simply had to be done was to undo the death of Jesus and to resuscitate him, to turn the dead Jesus into a live one, and we can see how daring and monumental Mark 15:40-16:8 actually is: it takes a dead Jesus and turns him into a living one, and that is all that matters. We may perceive Mark 15:40-16:8 through our contemporary lens, tainted with tons of knowledge of “all that unfolded afterwards” and mistake Mark’s ending for a means without end, but it most certainly wasn’t, it was - and still is, and always has been - his entire ultimate goal. And what we now, from our luxurious armchairs and over more than a dozen centuries later, may perceive as a somewhat feeble, perhaps rather uneventful ending most definitely was very far from either of that; on the contrary, it was wild, daring, daunting, bold and brazen: it was a most magnificent counterstrike in the War Against Chrestianity.
The Chrestian fire must be quenched, the rage subdued, the risks mitigated, the damage controlled - and in love and war anything is allowed, definitely after more than a century of unrest, decades of decay, hundreds of thousands of deaths. Were the so-called “Church Fathers” lying? Of course they were, they were lying through the back of their teeth, and willing and able to do so; and while we shouldn’t forget that ‘writing history’ was looked upon slightly differently some 1,500 years ago, we must not forget what highly likely was at stake: the stability of the greater part of the Roman Empire. After every single other measure had been tried and tested - and failed - said stability was easily expressed in gigantic magnitudes of money due to its sheer size, but also equated to tens of thousands of lives: all this wasn’t necessarily about nothing but a mere power and land grab driven by greed and corruption, it primarily was directed at finally establishing peace and prosperity

Aftermath

Mark very successfully managed to turn the tide, and while Matthew must have cursed him more than a few times for the mistakes that he made it is evident that Matthew merely fixing Mark and following up on him is the greatest compliment that Mark could ever have received - but we can not - must not - forget that whatever Mark wrote immediately became history and “fact”: the baptism of Jesus is a fine example, and it is obvious how that which Mark did and which was ‘appreciated’ got continued, and that which didn’t get appreciated got either completely ditched or altered - to the best of the abilities of his successors, and within the confines of the possibilities as dictated by legacy itself.
But was it enough? Basically yes, but every story leads to others. And even if Mark (or even Paul) didn’t get written until the 3rd or even 4th CE, it took two more waves for the gospels to become ‘settled’. Irenaeus gives us a glimpse at the revolution during his time when he reveals the order of his ‘canonical’ to be John, Luke, Matthew, Mark - and it is evident how John is from the Chrestian camp, heavily redacted, offered up in good gesture followed by Luke who likewise has strong ties there (being an *Ev copy), with Matthew right behind it in order to strike at those who took that bait. What we see there is Irenaeus taking the knee at Chrestianity and we’re end 2nd CE at the earliest, and at the cutover from Chrestianity to Christianity, and that is where a Philip would fit in.
Yet the final concession to Chrestianity, to all of it, involved not only the incorporation of most of *Ev but also of some extra material from its own source, Thomas - and that attests to full awareness, a completely living testimony, around 200 CE, of and to both original sources to the NT that possibly date back to the 1st half of 1st CE or even earlier: the second wave namely consists of Matthew taking *Ev and turning it into Luke while writing his own on the side, and it doesn’t need to get any more complicated than that. When one accepts the possibility of ‘the making of gospels’ like Mark then anything goes and Matthew writing both his and Luke’s explains the remaining crux to the Synoptic Problem: textual criticism demonstrates that Luke used Matthew yet textual criticism also demonstrates that Matthew used Luke: indeed, Luke and Matthew are the outcome of two different yet similar ‘gospels’ meant for two completely different audiences - and they were written in unison.
Luke was nothing but *Ev in a Judaic straitjacket whereas Matthew was a much more rigid form of Mark, the new Judaic Chrestianity (still not rebranded Christianity). But the similarities and simultaneous discrepancies between Luke and Matthew are very pleasantly explained when we accept that Luke is merely ‘*Ev done right’ and really in need of some support from another source, as there is only so much that can be changed to a story when only one other story (Mark) is known to exist, and one that at points strongly deviates from it at that - and the very fact that there are so many minor disagreements between Luke and Matthew is the superglue to their agreements against Mark, and it is obvious how the birth narratives are divided over Luke as well as Matthew, how the same is done to the genealogy, John the Baptists’ “preaching”, how the Sermon on the Mount is mirrored in the Beatitudes and vice versa; they are reinforcing the central story of each of them exactly by and via the minor disagreements. ‘LukeMatthew’ really is a brilliant move because two people testifying to e.g. having seen a clown dressed in red paradoxically are perceived to be less credulous than one of them testifying to the clown wearing red with the other swearing it was blue: the clothing will forever be contested yet the very existence of the clown itself has become (much more) reliable.
And when we then consider these two different applications of one and the same strategy, the four gospels on one side and Romans ff on the other side, then Acts is the obvious glue in between: where ever the both share very little, Acts contains both; for instance disciples (gospels) versus apostles (Romans), heaven (2 occurrences in all of Romans versus 150 in the gospels), Jerusalem / Judea / Samaria / Galilee (65, 28, 4 and 54 occurrences in the gospels) versus 4 Jerusalems and 1 Judea in all of Romans, prophet / priest / Pharisee / Sadducee / scribe (91, 94, 91, 9 and 61 occurrences) versus 4 prophets and nothing more in all of Romans. There is a gaping void between the four gospels and the remainder of the NT, and Acts is simply filling it with a fusion of both, it is bridging the giant gap between these two evidently so decisively different drivers of change: Paul ff pleading his case for Chrestianity, almost blissfully unaware of Jesus, and Mark ff pleading his case for Jesus, (naturally) entirely unaware of Chrestianity

[davidmartin]

i surely am on board with the idea of these swings left and right and up and down. the exact way it went down is what's interesting to speculate. I think your base idea of this looks good to me but the details are difficult to pin down in my mind there's a lot of doubt

i'm wondering about something like this:
* An original movement that is anti-religious in a spiritual sense (Thomas) that is mysterious and we know little about
* A slight formalisation of this with some religious elements but no changing of the message (The Odes) - This would be Jewish Chrestianity
(It may have been this phase that connected IC with the messiah and son of God distinctly i don't know)
* Paul coming along is stealing from this and amplifying the anti-religious element, turning on Judaism and creating a 2nd covenant
All this occurs in the 1st century
We see only fragment of what was before Paul, distorted ones but the Odes show a lot and Thomas is probably the key but its not the easiest text to figure out

In the 2nd century
* Paul is too Greek and anti-judaic for the emerging orthodox Christians and Marcion is not their cup of tea, they go back and Judaise Paul (in Acts) and write Matthew. They also make sure to put blame on the Jewish people in a way that even Paul did not do, but Paul laid the groundwork for that. This wrong is at least being undone when some injustice is acknowledged but that blame only goes back to Paul, you can't extend the blame further back confidently i think but why would we want to, in Paul all the elements are there to attach blame to

A point about John is whatever earlier stuff it preserves Jesus is presented as a sacrifice there in a way more formal than the other gospels. He is identified as the 'lamb of God' then what Rabbi Tovia points out is the last supper is the day before the passover unlike the other gospels, so now Jesus is the sacrifice to be eaten/drank which if that came from 1 Corinthians is curious. These are just observations that's all

[Peter Kirby]

split from: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=301

[Stuart]

It all depends upon what sort of Christianity you were raised in. For me it's largely irrelevant. My father, the late right reverend, taught two basic principles: the NT is entirely allegorical (including Acts he emphasized), and heaven is life with God (not a fairyland after death; death is also to be read allegorically). This is almost a Buddhist viewpoint (he was not in the least influenced by Buddhism), and it inoculates me from any historical evidence for or against Jesus as a person existing. My views have changed and evolved on Jesus over the years, but my Christianity never depended upon it, because it was never about that.

This is unusual because for the last two hundred and fifty years the notion has been around to demythologize Jesus, to humanize him and look at the stories, not as allegory but as plausible things science can explain. But this broke the magic and has led to Christianity to devolve into two paths, one that breeds a communist like atheism, and another that demands a near Islamic like literalism. So, it's no surprise that many moderns are either angry at Christianity as a fraud that must be destroyed as it houses deluded people and con artists, or that belief in the historical accuracy of biblical events is required or else their whole belief pattern collapses. Both are rather unhealthy views.

If you read Christian texts more like a Jew or a Buddhist reads their texts, as wisdom from the ancients and stories to instruct us in proper behavior -or more importantly examples of how to approach moral questions-, then the actual existence of such-and-such is never required for being religious. David's existence or nonexistence is no more important for Jewish origins mythology than Remus and Romulus were for Romans or King Author is for the English. I always rejected the notion of Christian religion as a list of does and don'ts, with the eye of the needle allegory meaning that to a simple man the rules are simple, but to an intelligent man who wields real power, the path is more difficult (I always thought of the commander in War, having to balance the morality of dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima to try and end the war faster and saving more lives in the aggregate; not a clear cut right or wrong). But again I'm different.

[mlinssen]

It all depends upon what sort of Christianity you were raised in. For me it's largely irrelevant. My father, the late right reverend, taught two basic principles: the NT is entirely allegorical (including Acts he emphasized), and heaven is life with God (not a fairyland after death; death is also to be read allegorically). This is almost a Buddhist viewpoint (he was not in the least influenced by Buddhism), and it inoculates me from any historical evidence for or against Jesus as a person existing. My views have changed and evolved on Jesus over the years, but my Christianity never depended upon it, because it was never about that.

This is unusual because for the last two hundred and fifty years the notion has been around to demythologize Jesus, to humanize him and look at the stories, not as allegory but as plausible things science can explain. But this broke the magic and has led to Christianity to devolve into two paths, one that breeds a communist like atheism, and another that demands a near Islamic like literalism. So, it's no surprise that many moderns are either angry at Christianity as a fraud that must be destroyed as it houses deluded people and con artists, or that belief in the historical accuracy of biblical events is required or else their whole belief pattern collapses. Both are rather unhealthy views.

If you read Christian texts more like a Jew or a Buddhist reads their texts, as wisdom from the ancients and stories to instruct us in proper behavior -or more importantly examples of how to approach moral questions-, then the actual existence of such-and-such is never required for being religious. David's existence or nonexistence is no more important for Jewish origins mythology than Remus and Romulus were for Romans or King Author is for the English. I always rejected the notion of Christian religion as a list of does and don'ts, with the eye of the needle allegory meaning that to a simple man the rules are simple, but to an intelligent man who wields real power, the path is more difficult (I always thought of the commander in War, having to balance the morality of dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima to try and end the war faster and saving more lives in the aggregate; not a clear cut right or wrong). But again I'm different.

Hear hear, Stuart. Fully agreed - and regrettably, ideas and people like your father, who seems to have held a true Christian view as I think it should be meant, have come to be a thing of the past. The Catholic - Protestant feuds haven't helped either in NL, they have pushed both streams to extremes. Catholics are almost extinct here now, and a good lot has crossed over to Protestantism - although both their numbers are dwindling

In one sentence perhaps, in general, faith has been sacrificed for religion, which has been detrimental to Christianity

[lclapshaw]

I don't think he did because all the math seems wrong.

1: No written accounts in Aramaic or Hebrew, just Greek. Even though the Jewish people were very good at writing things down. This makes absolutely no sense at all.

2: The underlying aspects of the accounts are Greek and Roman and demonstrably not written for a Jewish audience even though it is obvious that the (Greek) LXX and the (Greek) histories of Josephus were used for background.

3: The cult migrates the wrong direction. Into the Roman sphere with an apparent origin in Greece even though it is supposed to be at odds with Rome, when Parthia and Arabia would have been much more logical, especially during the Jewish wars. Yet we see nothing of XCanity in Arabia until centuries later and it stops cold in eastern Syria, also centuries later. This is completely at odds with what we should expect from a Jewish based cult with origins in the Levant.

4: The cult only really seems to begin in the late 1st or early 2nd century, long after the supposed events. Even Paul is, IMO, a second century construct designed fill in and to support the Gospel stories and an evolving catholic cult based around the Gospels.

5: No physical artifacts of the man until the 4th century when Constantine's mom went looking for them (yeah, right! money talks!) not even someone selling tickets at the "empty" tomb or hawking charms in the market. Seriously! Give me a break.

A Jewish Jesus as the basis of a Jewish Messiah sectarian movement centered in Judea simply doesn't seem to add up.