oh my god, another Jesus mythicist. time to destroy you then. [QUOTE="Fauxjangles"] Let me make a startling disclosure.
Let me tell you that the New
Testament itself contains the strongest possible proof that the Christ
of the Gospels was not a real character.fanofazrienoch
ehh, sorry, but the existence of jesus is attested by many pagan, jewish, and christian historians. The testimony of the Epistles
of Paul demonstrates that the life story of Jesus is an invention.Fauxjangles
how so? Of
course, there is no certainty that Paul really lived.Fauxjangles
he signed his letters:PLet me quote a
passage from the Encyclopaedia Biblica, relative to Paul: "It is true
that the picture of Paul drawn by later times differs utterly in more
or fewer of its details from the original.Fauxjangles
Paul was not writing a biography of Jesus. Luke, the author of Acts and Luke, was a companion of Paul. Paul was definitely aware of the biographical details of Jesus of Nazereth. Legend has made itself
master of his person.
The simple truth has been mixed up with
invention; Paul has become the hero of an admiring band of the more
highly developed Christians.Fauxjangles
Please make an effort to speak more coherently. Thus Christian authority admits that
invention has done its work in manufacturing at least in part, the
life of Paul.Fauxjangles
really? the life of Paul is known from Luke's Acts of the Apostles. read it sometimeIn truth, the ablest Christian scholars reject all but
our of the Pauline Epistles as spurious.Fauxjangles
really? Some maintain that Paul was
not the author of any of them.Fauxjangles
name one historian who agrees with this position, other than Acharya S. of course.The very existence of Paul is
questionable.Fauxjangles
once again, he signed his letters. please name one historian who agrees with you. But for the purpose of my argument, I am going to admit that Paul
really lived; that he was a zealous apostle; and that all the Epistles
are from his pen. There are thirteen of these Epistles.
Some of them
are lengthy; and they are acknowledged to be the oldest Christian
writings. They were written long before the Gospels.
If Paul really
wrote them, they were written by a man who lived in Jerusalem when
Christ is supposed to have been teaching there.Fauxjangles
ehh, no. the epistles were written from 40 A.D to 50 A.DNow, if the facts of
the life of Christ were known in the first century of Christianity,
Paul was one of the men who should have known them fully.
Yet Paul
acknowledges that he never saw Jesus; and his Epistles prove that he
knew nothing about his life, his works, or his teachings.Fauxjangles
actually in 1 Corinthians, he mentions the following details about Jesus: The last supper, the crucifixion, the resurrection (and its physical nature if you wanted to delve into the notion of a gnostic paul) the appearences to the twelve, James, and more than 500 other people In all the Epistles of Paul, there is not one word about Christ's
virgin birth.Fauxjangles
fallacy: argument from silence. also, Paul was not writing a biography of Jesus. The apostle is absolutely ignorant of the marvellous
manner in which Jesus is said to have come into the world.Fauxjangles
the term "wrong" cannot even begin to describe this notion. Luke was a companion of Paul. Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke. For this
silence, there can be only one honest explanation -- the story of the
virgin birth had not yet been invented when Paul wrote.Fauxjangles
*ahem* read the Gospel of Luke sometime okay?A large
portion of the Gospels is devoted to accounts of the miracles Christ
is said to have wrought.
But you will look in vain through the
thirteen Epistles of Paul for the slightest hint that Christ ever
performed any miracles.Fauxjangles
Paul mentions his resurrection and his post resurrection appearences. Is it conceivable that Paul was acquainted
with the miracles of Christ -- that he knew that Christ had cleansed
the leprous, cast out devils that could talk, restored sight to the
blind and speech to the dumb, and even raised the dead -- is it
conceivable that Paul was aware of these wonderful things and yet
failed to write a single line about them? Again, the only solution is
that the accounts of the miracles wrought by Jesus had not yet been
invented when Paul's Epistles were written.Fauxjangles
fallacy: argument from silence. Not only is Paul silent about the virgin birth and the miracles of
Jesus, he is without the slightest knowledge of the teaching of Jesus.Fauxjangles
read: The Gospel according to Luke
The Christ of the Gospels preached a famous sermon on a mountain: Paul
knows nothing of it.Fauxjangles
read: 1 Corinthians 15Christ delivered a prayer now recited by the
Christian world: Paul never heard of it.
Christ taught in parables:
Paul is utterly unacquainted with any of them.Fauxjangles
read: the Gospel of LUke and Acts of the Apostles. Is not this
astonishing? Paul, the greatest writer of early Christianity, the man
who did more than any other to establish the Christian religion in the
world -- that is, if the Epistles may be trusted -- is absolutely
ignorant of the teaching of Christ.Fauxjangles
all your evidences supporting this thesis have been debunked. In all of his thirteen Epistles he
does not quote a single saying of Jesus.Fauxjangles For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." 25In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." 26For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Paul in 1 Corinthians 23-26
Paul was a missionary. He was out for converts.
Is it thinkable
that if the teachings of Christ had been known to him, he would not
have made use of them in his propaganda? Fauxjangles
so Paul was writing a biography?
Can you believe that a
Christian missionary would go to China and labor for many years to win
converts to the religion of Christ, and never once mention the Sermon
on the Mount, never whisper a word about the Lord's Prayer, never tell
the story of one of the parables, and remain as silent as the grave
about the precepts of his master? Fauxjangles
not of these people to whom this missionary is writing ARE christians. the people to whom Paul wrote were christians
What have the churches been teaching
throughout the Christian centuries if not these very things? Are not
the churches of to-day continually preaching about the virgin birth,
the miracles, the parables, and the precepts of Jesus? And o not these
features constitute Christianity? Is there any life of Christ, apart
from these things? Why, then, does Paul know nothing of them? There is
but one answer.Fauxjangles
Paul wasn't writing a biographyThe virgin-born, miracle-working, preaching Christ was
unknown to the world in Paul's day.Fauxjangles
fallacy: argument from silenceThat is to say, he had not yet
been invented!Fauxjangles
AAAHAHAHA! wow. The Christ of Paul and the Jesus of the Gospels are two entirely
different beings. The Christ of Paul is little more than an idea.Fauxjangles
then why does he talk about his last supper, his death, his resurrection, and his appearences?He
has no life story. He was not followed by the multitude.Fauxjangles
see: ALL 4 GospelsHe performed
no miracles. He did no preaching.Fauxjangles
see: ALL 4 GospelsThe Christ Paul knew was the Christ
he was in a vision while on his way to Damascus -- an apparition, a
phantom, not a living, human being, who preached and worked among men.Fauxjangles
It has physical manifestations. his traveling companions saw it. This vision-Christ, this ghostly word, was afterwards brought to the
earth by those who wrote the Gospels.Fauxjangles
see: 1 Corinthians 15He was given a Holy Ghost for a
father and a virgin for a mother.Fauxjangles
fallacy: argument from silenceHe was made to preach, to perform
astounding miracles, to die a violent death though innocent, and to
rise in triumph from the grave and ascend again to heaven.
Such is the
Christ of the New Testament -- first a spirit, and later a
miraculously born, miracle working man, who is master of death and
whom death cannot subdue.Fauxjangles
fallacy: argument from silenceA large body of opinion in the early church denied the reality of
Christ's physical existence.Fauxjangles
only some gnostics believed such a thing. In his "History of Christianity," Dean
Milman writes: "The Gnostic sects denied that Christ was born at all,
or that he died," and Mosheim, Germany's great ecclesiastical
historian, says: "The Christ of early Christianity was not a human
being, but an "appearance," an illusion, a character in miracle, not
in reality -- a myth.Fauxjangles
how is that relavent? Miracles do not happen. Stories of miracles are untrue.
Therefore,
documents in which miraculous accounts are interwoven with reputed
facts, are untrustworthy, for those who invented the miraculous
element might easily have invented the part that was natural.Fauxjangles
fallacy: begging the question. how do you know that miracles dont happen? and please define "miracle" Men are
common; Gods are rare; therefore, it is at least as easy to invent the
biography of a man as the history of a God.Fauxjangles
ooookay. For this reason, the whole
story of Christ -- the human element as well as the divine -- is
without valid claim to be regarded as true.Fauxjangles
sorry, but we have 2 Gospels written by eye-witnesses to support this thesis. If miracles are fictions,
Christ is a myth.Fauxjangles
fallacy: begging the question. Said Dean Farrar: "If miracles be incredible,
Christianity is false.
fallacy: begging the question
[QUOTE="Fauxjangles"]" Bishop Westcott wrote: "The essence of
Christianity lies in a miracle; and if it can be shown that a miracle
is either impossible or incredible, all further inquiry into the
details of its history is superfluous.Fauxjangles
2 fallacies: begging the question, appeal to authority" Not only are miracles
Fauxjangles
incredible, but the uniformity of nature declares them to be
impossible. Miracles have gone: the miraculous Christ cannot remain.
fallacy: begging the question
There's the rest of the article. Read and discuss.
already did. im bored:(There were many Gospels in circulation in the early centuries, anda large number of them were forgeries. Among these were the "Gospel of
Paul," the Gospel of Bartholomew," the "Gospel of Judas Iscariot," the
"Gospel of the Egyptians," the "Gospel or Recollections of Peter," the
"Oracles or Sayings of Christ," and scores of other pious productions,
a collection of which may still be read in "The Apocryphal New
Testament." Obscure men wrote Gospels and attached the names of
prominent Christian characters to them, to give them the appearance of
importance. Works were forged in the names of the apostles, and even
in the name of Christ. The greatest Christian teachers taught that it
was a virtue to deceive and lie for the glory of the faith. Dean
Milman, the standard Christian historian, says: "Pious fraud was
admitted and avowed." The Rev. Dr. Giles writes: "There can be no
doubt that great numbers of books were then written with no other view
than to deceive." Professor Robertson Smith says: "There was an
enormous floating mass of spurious literature created to suit party
views." The early church was flooded with spurious religious writings.
From this mass of literature, our Gospels were selected by priests and
called the inspired word of God. Were these Gospels also forged? There
is no certainty that they were not. But let me ask: If Christ was an
historical character, why was it necessary to forge documents to prove
his existence? Did anybody ever think of forging documents to prove
the existence of any person who was really known to have lived? The
early Christian forgeries are a tremendous testimony to the weakness
of the Christian cause.
Spurious or genuine, let us see what the Gospels can tell us about
the life of Jesus. Matthew and Luke give us the story of his
genealogy. How do they agree? Matthew says there were forty-one
generations from Abraham to Jesus. Luke says there were fifty-six. Yet
both pretend to give the genealogy of Joseph, and both count the
generations! Nor is this all. The Evangelists disagree on all but two
names between David and Christ. These worthless genealogies show how
much the New Testament writers knew about the ancestors of their hero.
says he was born when Herod was King of Judea. Luke says he was born
when Cyrenius was Governor of Syria. He could not have been born
during the administration of these tow rulers for Herod died in the
year 4 B.C., and Cyrenius, who, in Roman history is Quirinius, did not
become Governor of Syria until ten years later. Herod and Quirinius
are separated by the whole reign of Archelaus, Herod's son. Between
Matthew and Luke, there is, therefore, a contradiction of at least ten
years, as to the time of Christ's birth. The fact is that the early
Christians had absolutely no knowledge as to when Christ was born. The
Encyclopaedia Britannica says: "Christians count one hundred and
thirty-three contrary opinions of different authorities concerning the
year the Messiah appeared on earth." Think of it -- one hundred and
thirty-three different years, each one of which is held to be the year
in which Christ came into the world. What magnificent certainty!
Log in to comment