Evidence Christianity started as mythicist

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Bernard Muller
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Re: Evidence Christianity started as mythicist

Post by Bernard Muller »

to Irish1975,
If those sayings in gThomas count as evidence for you of Jesus' historicity, it's clear that we have incompatible notions of what the question is or what would count as evidence.
15. Jesus said, "When you see one who was not born of woman, prostrate yourselves on your faces and worship him. That one is your father."
Is Jesus the father? No. What the disciples see is a Jesus born of woman because he is not "your father".
52. His disciples said to him, "Twenty-four prophets spoke in Israel, and all of them spoke in you."
He said to them, "You have omitted the one living in your presence and have spoken (only) of the dead."
The 24 prophets are dead. They were human beings on earth. But Jesus implies he is also a prophet, living in the presence of the disciples. That makes also Jesus human and on earth.

Conclusion: the gospel of Thomas cannot be considered as mythicist.

Cordially, Bernard
rgprice
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Re: Evidence Christianity started as mythicist

Post by rgprice »

The Gospel of Thomas is some second or third century forgery derived from the other Gospels and letters of Paul. Nothing to see here...
Secret Alias
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Re: Evidence Christianity started as mythicist

Post by Secret Alias »

"Forgery" is a strong terminology. Matthew and Luke are similarly 'forgeries' of Mark. I think we have to be careful of behaving like Americans (I know it's difficult when the idiocy is now baked in our genes) in order to win points from the rabble.

If Jesus never existed then there isn't anything to falsify. You have to allow that to sit in your head. Yes there can be 'copying' 'adulteration' even fraudulent copying and adulteration of manuscripts. But a non-existent Jesus allows for the development of a multitude of documents, a multitude of understandings, interpretations. If there is no truth there is also no long any lies. Everything falls into the realm of interpretation.

In a sense then I have always wondered whether Irenaeus believed in Christianity for this very reason. How do you end up with four gospels? When I was perusing through the Russian archives I noticed that among the earliest documents you see in Cyrillic are four columned gospels. There are literally half a dozen texts in Greek and Cyrillic from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries entitled 'Gospel in Four' or something like that. This is how I think the gospel appeared to Irenaeus. I can't get my head around that concept. I know in science we accept perspectivism. We accept the Kantian notion that between us and 'the event' there is our interpretation of the event. But surely a believer in 'the gospel' believes there was 'the gospel' - a text upon which 'truth' is grasped. I don't get four columns/four gospels. It's textual criticism not religion.
Last edited by Secret Alias on Tue Jan 05, 2021 9:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
rgprice
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Re: Evidence Christianity started as mythicist

Post by rgprice »

The claim that the writing is a record of authentic sayings makes it a forgery, or perhaps just a fraud. The letters is based on a false claim, that's evident.
Secret Alias
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Re: Evidence Christianity started as mythicist

Post by Secret Alias »

But if you're saying there was no event it changes your 'J'accuse' necessarily. It takes the force out of your complaint.
Secret Alias
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Re: Evidence Christianity started as mythicist

Post by Secret Alias »

If someone steals manure - fine it's a crime. But it's hard to argue for pain and suffering to be tacked on to the sentencing.
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Irish1975
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Re: Evidence Christianity started as mythicist

Post by Irish1975 »

The date and authorship of gThomas, and whether it was a “forgery,” is entirely irrelevant.

It offers no biographical data or historical pretense. Jesus does nothing. It’s a spiritual text in which the author uses Jesus to ventriloquize the wisdom (borrowed or otherwise) that he wants to convey.
Bernard Muller
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Re: Evidence Christianity started as mythicist

Post by Bernard Muller »

to MrMacSon,
Paul wrote about a minimal Jesus (but also, for Paul, pre/post-existent as a heavenly deity) who,
"from "Israelites, ... whose [are] the fathers, and of whom [is] the Christ, according to the flesh ..." (Ro9:4-5 YLT)
= a theological trope
Can you prove that?
"come of a woman, come under law" (Gal 4:4 YLT)
= necessary to fulfill the law: ie. a theological necessity
This statement by Paul is the clincher of a long argument which starts at Gal 3:16. See http://historical-jesus.info/18.html. Paul used the common knowledge Jesus had been an earthly man (from a woman) and a Jew (as descendant of Abraham) in order to clinch a long & complicated argument. If the existence of Jesus on earth was not accepted or even doubted, then the argument would simply not work.
as a descendant of (allegedly) Abraham (Gal 3:16), Jesse (Rom 15:12), & of David (Rom 1:3)
= the same theological trope as above
Can you prove that? [/quote]
"found in appearance as a man" (Php 2:8)
It was common to see and portray celestial beings such as angels as men. See the book of Zechariah.
Exactly. For Paul, Jesus was a heavenly being who became man (on earth). So that explained why Paul declares Jesus as "found in appearance as a man".
"in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom 8:3)
"in the likeness of" does not mean actually flesh
In that case, sinful flesh means human flesh: Gal 5:19 "Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness,"
"the one man, Jesus Christ" (Rom 5:15)
asserting he was a man does not mean he was.
Why not? more so if we consider the other "historicist" indications about Jesus being human.
(who had brothers (1Co 9:5), one of them called "James", whom Paul met (Gal 1:19))
brothers in arms; in Christ - brethren.

Gal 1:19 = 'the brother of the Lord' ie. it does not specify brother of a particular person
Lord is specified to be Jesus at Gal 1:3. Between Gal 1:3 and 1:19, there is no other "Lord" (who could mean God).
"humbled himself" (Php 2:8) in "poverty" (2Co 8:9) as "servant of the Jews" (Ro15:8)
Throwing disparate passages from different books of the bible isn't evidence Bernard, it's midrashim: it's what Paul and Mark were doing. To create an interesting narrative.
And how do you know that? What different books? why would Paul mine these books to come out with these phrases?
and "was crucified in weakness" (2Co 13:4) in "Zion" (Rom 9:31-33 & Rom 11:26-27).
More theology. Weak human Jesus = weak human Israel, after the first Roman-Jewish War (& perhaps even after the 2nd).
Since when human Jesus become Israel?
As for Hebrews: from http://historical-jesus.info/40.html:

"For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests." Heb 7:14
A theological trope, as is Hebrews 2:14-17 -
Can you prove that?
"Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature,
that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil,
and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.
For surely it is not with angels that he is concerned but with the descendants of Abraham.
Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect,
so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God,
to make expiation for the sins of the people."
That
.
"he had to be made like his brethren in every respect,
so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God,
to make expiation for the sins of the people
"
.

says it all.
I don't see why Heb 2:14b would make 2:14a false. Actually 2:14b has little connection with 2:14a: why a flesh and blood had to be a high priest in heaven?
As does

he himself likewise partook of the same nature,
that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil

partook = portrayed as.

More midrashim

.
Same comments as for the ones on Gal 2:14b

Cordially, Bernard
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MrMacSon
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Re: Evidence Christianity started as mythicist

Post by MrMacSon »

rgprice wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 9:24 am The Gospel of Thomas is some second or third century forgery derived from the other Gospels and letters of Paul. Nothing to see here...
Except Martijn Linssen, who has posted here recently, is arguing that G.Thomas was an [obscure] early document which Mark used and which was then was used more by Matthew and Luke: he thinks it was a early or even pre-Christian text.

See https://leidenuni.academia.edu/MartijnLinssen, especially Absolute Thomasine Priority: the Synoptic Problem solved in the most unsatisfactory manner

eta
In terms of the Synoptic Problem: Thomas is 'Q', Mark copied a third of it, and Luke and Matthew sat side-by-side writing their different gospels together: they doubled the copies from Thomas ... Luke addressed the Thomas supporters, and Matthew the (moderate) Jews: both changed and added to Mark what was needed at that time.https://www.academia.edu/40695711/Absol ... ory_manner

eta2
"Thomas is unique. Utterly unique. The person now known as Thomas wrote the text as a polemic against religion in general, and Judaism in particular - and especially everything Jewish. While at it, 'Thomas' also shows his disdain of Platonic concepts like duality, spiritual concepts like reincarnation, and in effect ridicules the entire concept of Seeking itself. Notwithstanding the latter, Thomas exhorts us to Seek - in order to find out that there is nothing to find, or seek for (logion 8), and to rid us of our split 'house'.
https://www.academia.edu/42110001/Inter ... normalised

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mlinssen
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Re: Evidence Christianity started as mythicist

Post by mlinssen »

rgprice wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 9:24 am The Gospel of Thomas is some second or third century forgery derived from the other Gospels and letters of Paul. Nothing to see here...
You will regret that statement in due time, Robert ;)

I have taken this year off and will write my Commentary on Thomas, and have published 3 logia so far.
The last one is of particular interest here as it is on logion 57, the seed and the Weed - which is "zizanion" both in Thomas and Matthew, and it is the only time in the entire history of mankind (tut tut) that this non existing word is mentioned

So either Thomas invented it and Matthew copied him, or Jesus / Matthew invented it and Thomas copied him

https://www.academia.edu/44840311/The_P ... dark_words

I have about a dozen other cases, similar in nature, but this one is a perfectly binary choice. Meier states:

Meier, ‘The Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds’, 726–727: ‘This Greek noun (probably of Semitic origin) does not occur in the LXX, in other Greek versions of the OT, in secular Greek before the Christian era, or in the Apostolic Fathers. In the NT, it occurs only in this parable of Matthew and its interpretation.’

The attractive part right here is that these two uniquely share another bit of text, which is the parable of the net. I challenged an NT scholar to argue the direction of dependency there being Thomas copying from Matthew, and he picked up the glove, and I anxiously yet patiently await that outcome

https://www.academia.edu/43780115/The_P ... ng_to_find

If you can be reasonably convincing that Thomas is dependent in both cases and manage to refute my findings in both papers, I'll owe you a book of your choice (let's cap it at 500 bucks).
If you try doing so but admit that you can't, I owe you my gratitude and you owe me the right to quote you on that

Deal?
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