120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[Lumpenproletariat]

We have 4 (5) sources for the Jesus miracles. You cannot huff-n-puff and blow away these sources by fiat.

But neither of these applies in the case of "the Jesus myth." We have 4 (5) sources for the Jesus events, and they are not traceable back to a common earlier source, and also there is no example of the gospel writers copying anecdotes about an earlier hero figure and applying it to Jesus.

No we don't. You can keep repeating this baseless assertion and I'm just going to show that it is false. GMark is the only source of this story. Everything else is a copycat.

You're misusing the term "copycat" here. A source which quotes from an earlier source and is describing the same event, applying the description to the same character, is not a copycat. It's just another version of the same thing, such as Mt and Lk using the Mk text, sometimes quoting it, and applying it to the same Jesus character that Mk refers to.

By contrast a "copycat" story is one where the later writer takes the description of a character, from an earlier source, and then applies this to a different character than that of the earlier story. So the later writer is presenting a different character of his own, but using something from an earlier writer who was describing some earlier different character. I.e., the two writers are not speaking of the same character.

Here's an example:

Acts 9:36-42 is a miracle story which really is lifted out of Mark 5:22-24 / 35-42. The similarities between these two healing stories cannot be coincidental. Or rather, the later story almost certainly borrowed elements from the earlier one.

The Acts miracle is attributed to Peter, but the earlier story being copied is of Jesus performing the miracle healing. This is a "copycat" story. The later story is claiming to be an event involving Peter, but major details of it are taken from the earlier account of a Jesus healing act.

The term "copycat" means there is something dishonest or misleading or inauthentic about the later story. The reader believes the story is about a unique event, not something being copied from an earlier story about a different character.

But if the later writer is simply repeating the same story about the same character, and perhaps only modifying it slightly as to a minor detail, then this is not misleading the reader about anything.

The reason for the extra version of the same story, like Mt quoting from Mk, is that the writer is presenting his own separate version of the same event and character, and this either adds something new for readers, because of other points in this version that were not in the earlier version, or this new version is simply to be added to the existing written documents in order to increase the availability of the published information.

The later account is simply a legitimate second version of the same character, to be added to the already published works, i.e., it is a perfectly reasonable addition to the existing records or documents. But to take a description of character A in an earlier account and insert it into a new account about character B, who is a completely different character, is obviously dishonest or misleading and is a fabrication, even if the intention is innocent. In which case the second account has to be regarded as less credible, at least partly fictional.

But it is perfectly reasonable to have extra accounts telling about the same original character being presented. The second version is added to the first in a way that is helpful to readers in giving them additional knowledge, and there is nothing misleading. The second version is just as credible, regardless of its reliance on an earlier account for some of its content.

If the other canonical gospels had appeared at the same time in different places you could at least claim with a straight face there were 4 sources for the Jesus events. That is not the case.

You mean there cannot be two "sources" for the same event unless the sources are from the same time? How much recorded and accepted history are you trying to throw out? There are many examples of separate sources which are far apart in the date of their appearance. You cannot eliminate a source simply because there's another source that appeared 50 years earlier. The appearance of an earlier source does not disqualify the later writing from being a source.

An example would be Livy and Plutarch both writing about the early Roman king Numa. The writers were about 100 years apart, but both are sources for the life of Numa. It would be asinine to say these are not two separate sources because they are so far apart in their date of appearance.

You need to get beyond your petty prejudice against the gospel accounts as sources which causes you to concoct these false criteria for what is a Real-McCoy "source" and what is not. You continue to make your case by imposing standards onto the gospel accounts which you do not apply to any other writings.

Decades separate each subsequent revision of the Jesus myth, . . .

Even if there are "revisions" of one kind or another, the sources are still sources. They do not suddenly cease to be a "source" simply because the accounts have differences in them. And even if they were separated by 100 years this does not mean they are not sources.

Historians use the apocryphal gospels as sources for Jesus, even though they are 100-200 years later. They are less reliable, but if they do not contradict the earlier more reliable sources, they are still given some degree of credibility. There are those who conjecture that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had an affair, maybe even procreated, based on much later "gospel" accounts of Jesus. These accounts are genuine "sources" but are less reliable in the matters where they differ from the 1st-century sources.

There is plenty of doubt about the details of the Jesus events. Much in the earlier 4 canonical gospels can be doubted. Much in Livy's history of Rome is doubted. But a "source" is still a "source" despite the doubts. You can't just throw out an entire source and claim it does not exist simply because there are some doubts about what the real events were.

Some parts of the gospel accounts are probably not true. But even so, these accounts are sources for the events of that period. And that we have 4 (5) sources instead of only one increases the credibility of the reported events where there is agreement among them.

. . . and we know for certain that whoever wrote those later versions were liars. They lied about Herod, they falsified genealogical records, they fabricated stories of earthquakes, eclipses, private conversations they couldn't possibly have knowledge of, etc.

So did Livy and Herodotus and Homer and Shakespeare and Plato and many others. But even so they are all "sources" for the events or people they wrote about. Some parts are discounted or given very low credibility, but other parts are taken seriously, or largely believed, some disputed or rejected as false. But even if this or that claim is rejected as false, that still does not mean that the document is not a source.

We can dispute this or that part, but it is petty and low-class to just throw out an entire document and claim it is not really a "source." All of them are sources, and it's understood that some are more reliable than others, or some parts much more reliable, others much less.

Your (5) is (I'm guessing) the authentic Pauline epistles, which we know did not mention a single miracle Jesus performed nor a place he visited, . . .

He mentions the most important miracle, which is the resurrection.

He omits biographical details generally, but he says enough that we can conclude beyond doubt that he is referring to the same Jesus Christ figure as is mentioned in the gospel accounts.

. . . where he lived, any of his teachings, nothing. Nothing.

He relates the resurrection event, the appearances, naming who saw Jesus afterward. This makes him a source for that event. He also says Jesus was "handed over," which has to refer to the betrayal event. There is no other way to explain what this refers to. So Paul does mention something, Something, even if very little that's biographical. But the omission element does not change the fact that he is a source for the little that he does mention.

Jesus was a nebulous voice talking to Paul and nobody else.

No, Paul never says this. He claims to have his own revelations, but it's clear that he's talking about someone who was seen and heard by others. In any case, he is a source for the resurrection event, which is the same event reported in the gospel accounts.

Actually though I'm wrong about something: We really have MORE than only 5 sources for the resurrection, because this is mentioned in most of the other New Testament writings, not just the epistles of Paul and the gospels. So we really have more like 8 or 9 sources for this, though the later ones only refer to it without any narration of it.

Paul only ever talks about the death and resurrection of Jesus. That's it.

And that's the most important part. Just because a writer leaves out what is less important does not mean he's not a source for the part that he does report.

You can demonstrate I'm wrong about any of this by producing actual evidence.

No, you need to produce evidence to show that the gospel writings do not exist. If they exist and date from the 1st century, then they are sources for those events.

Otherwise you are doing nothing but blathering the same debunked stuff over and over.

As long as you keep blathering that the gospel documents do not exist, I will continue to blather that they do exist.

A completely unique lie is still a lie.

The difference between the Jesus reported miracle events and the others is not that the Jesus case is unique, but rather, that it cannot be explained as a product of mythologizing as all the other reported cases can be.

This might be unique, but uniqueness per se is not the point.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The miracle stories of Jesus cannot be a product of mythologizing as is the case for all other mythic miracle heroes.

Jesus was not famous during his life and did not enjoy any such career or reputation (unless you believe the miracle stories, which are the reason given for his fame in the only references that say he had fame). To find an analogy to him, you have to find an example of a mythologized miracle hero who had no long career or widespread reputation when the mythologizing began.

You are assuming again that Jesus existed.

It's OK to assume this. We assume Confucius existed, or Zoroaster, and many others. There are many historical figures who we assume existed, probably did exist, but maybe there's a 1% chance they did not.

Christ belief is based on high probability, not on absolute 100% certainty. Like much of the history we know (maybe most).

The stories could have been around for a century or more and then they could have simply been attributed to the hero du jour.

But there were many heroes du jour, not just one. If you're correct, then the stories should have been attributed to some other heroes also. If this one was not special, there's no reason why all the storytellers should attribute these to only this one person and to no others.

In popular retellings the story is more important than the protagonist; the protagonist's identity is a minor detail.

OK, then there should be MANY protagonists, not just this one. We should see some other cases of reputed miracle healers to whom crowds came bringing the sick to be healed.

We even have church fathers trying to wriggle out of this one by claiming that the devil must have planted those stories such that Christianity, when it finally arrived, would look like a composite rip-off.

No, they did not claim the devil planted "those stories" -- rather, one of them, Justin Martyr, said that the devil planted some stories, or invented fictions about gods having various powers. But there are no stories of the pagan gods which have any resemblance to the Jesus healing miracles.

The phrase "the devil must have planted those stories" makes no sense unless it refers to any miracle stories of any kind. There are no stories in the gospel accounts that occurred earlier that could be called "those stories" unless you just mean virtually any stories about anything superhuman.

But more importantly, there are no such miracle events reported in documents which date near to the time the events reputedly happened. All the pagan miracle events reported are ones for which there is no written record until many centuries later than the events reportedly happened, or later than the myth hero lived, if he existed.

To find an analogy to him, you have to find an example of a mythologized miracle hero who had no long career or widespread reputation when the mythologizing began. Why can't you find such a case?

You aren't supposed to claim that until someone tried to do it, . . .

But they HAVE tried, many times. And they keep failing. They give examples, but the examples are always non-analogous. Horus and Perseus etc. are not examples, because if pagan figures like these did once exist in history at all, it was 1000+ years earlier than the published stories about them appeared. These acquired a widespread reputation at some point long before anything was published.

We have every reason to believe that if they were real historical figures, back in prehistory, they were persons of power or importance or of wide repute or celebrity status. E.g., Asclepius probably was a normal healer practitioner who had some success and gained a good reputation.

And reputed miracle-worker prophets like Moses and Elijah had wide recognition during their life, so that they easily became mythologized. Likewise Krishna and Gautama Buddha and Zoroaster and other widely-recognized prophets or gurus -- all with long careers and recognized status when they were alive.

These and others have been cited many times as parallels to Jesus. So the effort is made to find cases of miracle-workers similar to Jesus.

So you're making no sense when you say "You aren't supposed to claim that until someone tried to do it . . ." because many have tried to do it, and they just keep failing. Every example of a reputed miracle-worker they offer is someone who can easily be explained as a result of normal mythologizing, because it's someone whose myth evolved over many centuries, or someone who had a distinguished career as an historical figure and had a wide reputation, which explains how the mythologizing began. They are trying, but they keep failing to produce a parallel example to Jesus, i.e., a figure who had no established reputation during his lifetime but who became mythologized into a miracle hero within decades after his life.

. . . and judged from your performance here, I have to agree with Keith & Co. that it's not worth even trying.

But they ARE trying. And many others have tried. E.g., the "mythicists" or polemicists who claim there are other figures in history who stand out similar to Jesus as reputed miracle-workers and reputedly had power such as he reputedly had. And yet all the examples they give are of celebrity figures who were famous in their lifetime, having a wide reputation, who were normal humans but distinguished for some noteworthy achievement or status, and then were mythologized. Or legendary diety figures who either never really existed at all, or may have existed but whose superhuman reputation evolved only after centuries of story-telling rather than in a short time period.

So you can't say "it's not worth even trying" to find the examples, when many here in this message board and other places have been trying and just keep failing.

A short time span from the actual event to the later report does make it more credible, . . . compared to stories about Asclepius or Horus or all those other miracle gods.

That there was a short time span from the event or that there was even an event is part of what you have to prove, . . .

No, this is already proved and well-known.

The time span here refers to the time from about 30 AD to the time the first accounts appeared. The "actual event" refers to whatever happened at this time, i.e., the time when the Jesus events in the gospel accounts reportedly happened. Whether they really happened is not the point. The point is the time span from when they reportedly happened -- about 30 AD -- to when the first written accounts appeared, which is a relatively short time, like 30 or 40 or 50 years. Even 70 years for the John gospel is a relatively short time span for this.

These accounts are the epistles of Paul and then the gospel accounts. Paul attests to the resurrection event, and the healing miracles are in the gospel accounts. This is a short time span compared to any other reputed miracle events, such as the pagan myths. There is no need to prove this -- this is established historical fact. Even if you claim Jesus never really existed, still the time when the miracle events reputedly happened is about 30 AD and the written accounts are dated from the 50s AD up to about 100 AD.

So just the time span in question, between the alleged events and the written reports of them, is established and is a very short time compared to the pagan myths like Horus or Perseus and Asclepius and so on. If you can't get beyond this, you have a problem.

. . . not part of what you can use to prove the rest . . .

This short time span CAN be used to make the further point about the higher credibility of the reported miracle events. We know as a fact, beyond question, that this was a relatively SHORT time span. The original historical figures like Hercules or Perseus, if they were historical, lived many centuries prior to the written accounts about them, i.e., a far longer time period than the time span between the reported events of the gospel accounts and the date of the appearance of these accounts. This is a much much longer time span for the pagan myths, which greatly reduces the credibility of the pagan stories.

And thus, one cannot use the pagan myths as examples equal to the Jesus miracle events for comparison. Rather, one has to find examples of miracle claims where the time span between the reputed events and the later reports about them is much shorter. Then we can make the comparisons.

So, if it's so easy to create a Jesus-like miracle-worker, why do we have only one?

The alleged short timespan of Jesus' ministry is one arbitrary story aspect of Christianity which you are elevating to the pedestal of objectively positive proof of veracity.

No, there is no "positive proof of veracity." Rather, there is INCREASED CREDIBILITY in the case of the Jesus miracle stories. They are much more credible than the pagan miracle stories. But one might still have reasonable doubts. Eliminating all possible doubt is not the point.

If the Christian legend said Jesus lived to 150 years, you'd be flaunting that as the differentiating aspect of Christianity.

No, if he had lived that long, then that could easily explain the miracle stories, and one could reason that those events never really happened but were a result of normal mythologizing. In that case it would require much more evidence, such as many more accounts of his acts and confirmation from secular history. During such a long time period we would expect to find something in non-Christian sources attesting to his long career and impact, like we have for other celebrities who enjoyed a long career.

It's not more widespread because it's a somewhat arbitrary invention;

Telling us WHY Jesus had no "widespread reputation" is not what we need from you. What you're supposed to explain is how someone without any widespread reputation or distinguished career came to be mythologized into something superhuman. This kind of mythologizing never happens.

Mythic superhuman heroes begin from a real person who was special, probably famous for something, perhaps having power, or a wide reputation for something unusual, but still a normal human. Then, from this normal beginning, the hero is praised and eulogized and fictionalized into something superhuman, over a long period of storytelling, usually many generations or even centuries.

All mythic miracle heroes fit this pattern. But Jesus is an exception, and seems to be the ONLY exception (unless he really did perform the miracle acts and was widely recognized for this, in which case we have the explanation how mythologizing may have occurred, i.e., adding mythic elements beyond the actual miracle acts which really happened).

So your mission, if you choose to accept it, is not to explain why he had no widespread reputation, but to explain how Jesus came to be mythologized into a miracle hero even though he did not have any such wide reputation or distinguished career or celebrity status like all other mythologized heroes did. (This tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds.)

. . . because it's a somewhat arbitrary invention; either from whole cloth or from earlier myths . . .

Do you mean ". . . because the Christian legend is" etc? So

. . . because the Christian legend is a somewhat arbitrary invention; either from whole cloth or from earlier myths . . .

But if so, then we should have other examples of similar hero legends invented arbitrarily from whole cloth or from earlier myths, where the miracle-worker is reported in documents near to the time of the reported events. There is no reason why there should be only one such hero myth which was taken seriously enough that it became reported early in multiple accounts.

. . . or perhaps because the actual rebel who got crucified by the Romans and later got affixed all those legends originally referencing other people, was only about 30 years old.

But there were hundreds of such rebels who got crucified. Probably thousands over a few decades. And many more thousands over the centuries. Why is there only one miracle mythic hero for whom we have multiple documents near to the time the events reportedly happened? Including other cultures in the east and from the beginning of writing up to 1000 or 1500 AD, we should see a few other cases of this, even hundreds. Not only one.

So, a normal person, with no miracle power, like millions of other humans, even billions, who was only a rebel of some kind and was executed, making him one in a thousand or so -- if such a person can easily get mythologized into a deity in only a few decades and be published in multiple documents, why would such a thing happen ONLY ONCE in history?

There's no reason for it to be widespread because, despite of your objections to the contrary, it's an insignificant detail you are grasping at because you've really got nothing to show.

So a "widespread" reputation is insignificant? But then why is it that EVERY mythologized miracle hero was someone who had a widespread reputation in his lifetime?

Or, in cases where we don't know the origin of the myth, what we do know is that the myth evolved over many centuries, not just 40 or 50 years. Where is there an exception to this rule?

How can you say the widespread reputation does not matter, when there is NO OTHER EXAMPLE of a miracle myth hero who was an historical figure and did NOT have a wide reputation or celebrity status when he was alive and from which the mythologizing began?

Name such a case if there is any example. It seems very clear that a widespread reputation during his life is a condition WITHOUT WHICH the mythologizing does not happen.

 

[Atheos]

This is rich. Lumpenproletariat still wants us to buy the ridiculous proposition that it's more likely that a man floated unassisted off into the sky never to be seen again than to consider even for a moment that folks might have made up stories about such an event.

 

[Atheos]

The miracle stories of Jesus cannot be a product of mythologizing as is the case for all other mythic miracle heroes.

Yes. They can. There is no barrier preventing people from rapidly developing a myth the way you keep wishing we would believe.

The purveyors of the Jesus myth had all the ingredients handily set before them: The miracle-working prophets of the Jewish culture and the god-men of the Greek and Roman cultures. Assembling these into a mythical hero story written in Rome about some magic Jew who "lived" 40 years ago and 1500 miles away would have been a snap. In spite of all your hand-waving it remains much more plausible that the stories about Jesus' miracles were fabricated far away from the threat of gainsay than that they are recordings of actual witnessed events. The person or people who wrote GMark never claimed to be witnesses of the events they wrote about, nor did they ever claim to have talked to anyone who was.

To counter my point that the gospel authors were known liars you wrote:

So did Livy and Herodotus and Homer and Shakespeare and Plato and many others. But even so they are all "sources" for the events or people they wrote about. Some parts are discounted or given very low credibility, but other parts are taken seriously, or largely believed, some disputed or rejected as false. But even if this or that claim is rejected as false, that still does not mean that the document is not a source.

We can dispute this or that part, but it is petty and low-class to just throw out an entire document and claim it is not really a "source." All of them are sources, and it's understood that some are more reliable than others, or some parts much more reliable, others much less.

When a known liar says he often has to go take a piss when he gets up in the morning I have very little trouble taking him at his word. When the same known liar tells me a dude healed a blind man and restored an amputated appendage I'm well within my rights to expect more than just his say so. It is the height of wishful thinking to believe that this sort of "evidence" is worth as much as the paper it's often printed on.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Anonymous written stories that may easily have been completely fabricated, written by people who have already demonstrated a penchant for fabricating things does not qualify.

These "gospels" may or may not have been inspired by a person who actually existed. There may never be sufficient evidence to answer that question satisfactorily. But they are not evidence that this person (assuming he existed) actually performed miracles. They are evidence that people believed these things happened. Huge difference.

Finally, my use of "copycat" is no more invalid than your use of "source." GMark is the earliest known source of this story. Other people coming along years later and taking the same story and redacting it to fit their particular takes on the story (not having been witnesses either) are not additional sources.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

The varying, inconsistent and contradictory tall tales about Jesus' virgin birth demonstrate conclusively that people who wrote these gospels were not eyewitnesses and were not adverse to making stuff up to fill in the holes, that GMark left, from which they copied the core of their writings. We have varying tall tales. Luke tells us Jesus arose from the grave and then ascended to heaven on that same day. But Acts, supposedly written by Luke, tells us he was in Jerusalem for 40 days. Since GMark had no resurrection tale, one was added later, and the other gospels writers not knowing of that ending, wrote their own endings, all hopelessly contradictory.

The evidence here is, these writers were making things up, not reporting things they witnessed or had real knowledge of.

Further more, the point of these wild tales was that Jesus was soon going to return and the world was to end and a heavenly regime to be created. That did not happen as preached. Tis a silly set of tall tales and wild prophecies that failed.

At the time of Jesus, some Essenes were expecting the return of their executed "Teacher of Righteousness", even this apocalyptic type of religion was not new.

 

[atrib]

This claim has been demonstrated to be untrue in previous posts.

Maybe he hasn't reached those posts yet. He's more than a year behind the thread in answering posts.

Lumpy has repeated this lie many times in this thread, and mostly ignored the (just as numerous) refutations. He has attempted to address it once or twice in the past, and again today. He is very much aware that the supernatural claims of the Bible are NOT supported by 4 or 5 sources, just one source repeated several times with embellishments, and there are no historical sources outside the Bible that support the magical claims.

Lumpy cannot be shamed into having an honest discussion. Perhaps he believes it is ok to repeat lies as long as he is spreading the word of Jesus.

 

[atrib]

You're misusing the term "copycat" here. A source which quotes from an earlier source and is describing the same event, applying the description to the same character, is not a copycat. It's just another version of the same thing, such as Mt and Lk using the Mk text, sometimes quoting it, and applying it to the same Jesus character that Mk refers to.

If some anonymous person tweeted that his dead great- great- great- great-grandmother Agatha had come back to life and flown up into the sky under her own power after being dead for over a century, and 6 other random people with no connection to the story retweeted the original tweet and added their own personal take, would it make the claim more plausible than your story of the magic flying Jewish zombie? I mean, the story is supported by 7 fucking sources!

 

[atrib]

This is rich. Lumpenproletariat still wants us to buy the ridiculous proposition that it's more likely that a man floated unassisted off into the sky never to be seen again than to consider even for a moment that folks might have made up stories about such an event.

Lumpy has nothing and he knows it. I believe that is why he hides behind walls of text that say nothing and repeats untruths over and over.

 

[atrib]

Christ belief is based on high probability

What are the odds that a corpse would come back to life after several days of being dead and then float up into the atmosphere under its own power? How many times has it happened in the history of our species?

What are the odds that a human preacher got killed by people who did not like him 2,000 years ago, and some of his followers made up a story of him rising up from the dead and floating up into the sky, and someone wrote down this story he heard on the street after many decades and 1,500 miles away?

What are the fucking odds? Can you give us an honest response for once. No massive word dumps, just a succinct response to these questions. Can you do that?

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

It's LESS LIKELY that the stories were "made up" in the case of the Jesus reputed miracles.

. . . ridiculous proposition that it's more likely that a man floated unassisted off into the sky never to be seen again than to consider even for a moment that folks might have made up stories about such an event.

Not stories that people believed and were taken seriously enough that they were recorded in writing, more than 1000 years ago (when silly stuff was not written down by educated people who had more important matters to write about) and at a time close to the reputed events and in multiple documents rather than only one.

No, folks did not do that. There are no other such stories that were believed and passed on in written accounts.

If it was so ordinary for folks to make up such stuff and get it recorded and published in multiple documents, we should see some other examples of the same.

It makes no sense that ONLY ONE such miracle mythic hero cult did this.

In this case it's a reasonable possibility that the miracle events really did happen. Your only argument to the contrary is that ALL miracle claims per se have to be false. You need to come up with something beyond only this simplistic dogma for making your case.

It's not unreasonable to leave open the possibility, when there's evidence, that some miracle claims might be true, even if 99% of such claims are fiction.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Matthew and Luke are not "COPYCAT" stories stolen from Mark, but are legitimate additional sources for the same events.

The miracle stories of Jesus cannot be a product of mythologizing as is the case for all other mythic miracle heroes.

Yes. They can. There is no barrier preventing people from rapidly developing a myth the way you keep wishing we would believe.

But there are no other cases of it. Again, the closest examples would be of some figure who was famous, a powerful figure, or a celebrity or widely-reputed prophet or sage who had a wide reputation during his lifetime or a long career as a charismatic guru. This is what made the mythologizing possible. Not having this advantage prevents the mythologizing from taking place. If not, then why aren't there any examples of such a mythic miracle hero?

The purveyors of the Jesus myth had all the ingredients handily set before them: The miracle-working prophets of the Jewish culture and the god-men of the Greek and Roman cultures.

And so did the purveyors of the hundreds or thousands of other hero myths which have been forgotten because no one believed them or took them seriously enough to record them in writing. Why aren't there any others? They had the same "ingredients handily set before them" with which to propagate their cult hero myth. Why did only this one get taken seriously enough that it was recorded for us in multiple documents near to the time of the reputed events?

Assembling these into a mythical hero story written in Rome about some magic Jew who "lived" 40 years ago and 1500 miles away would have been a snap.

If it was such a snap, then why didn't any other mythical hero cult do the same and assemble their own hero story and pass it on in written records? Why only this one cult out of the hundreds of other minor and no more forgettable cults? Why isn't there at least a close second to the Jesus cult which did this easy task of enshrining their mythic miracle hero cult and passing him along to posterity?

In spite of all your hand-waving it remains much more plausible that the stories about Jesus' miracles were fabricated far away from the threat of gainsay than that they are recordings of actual witnessed events.

It doesn't matter exactly where the accounts were written/compiled. The geographical origin of those miracle reports was not the location of the final writers/editors, but earlier reports they had, written and oral. Anything that was "fabricated" was not fabricated by the final writers/editors/redactors.

The final writers/editors based their accounts on what they had received from earlier sources, whether those came from original witnesses or from indirect witnesses far removed, and whether the sources "made up" the stories or received them from someone earlier -- it was from these sources that the gospel writers/editors each put together their account, without any "fabricating" of their own, other than some conjecture or interpretation about details and some theologizing. They almost certainly had many items which they excluded, being selective to choose what they thought was important.

This is normally what editors do, and we can reasonably assume this is what the gospel writers/editors did.

The person or people who wrote GMark never claimed to be witnesses of the events they wrote about, nor did they ever claim to have talked to anyone who was.

That's fine. However, once again, there is at least some indication of an eye-witness element. I.e., the goofy incident in Mk 14:51-52, which a disconnected far-away writer would not fabricate.

When a known liar says he often has to go take a piss when he gets up in the morning I have very little trouble taking him at his word. When the same known liar tells me a dude healed a blind man and restored an amputated appendage I'm well within my rights to expect more than just his say so.

Yes, there should be more than one source attesting to it or to similar acts. For the Jesus miracle events we do have extra sources. Despite your fantasy that you can wave your magic wand and obliterate these sources from existence based on special rules you concocted to be applied only to the gospel writings and to no others.

It is the height of wishful thinking to believe that this sort of "evidence" is worth as much as the paper it's often printed on.

It is the same kind of evidence we rely on for much of the history we take for granted.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Extra evidence is what is required. More than only one account. Maybe even more than two.

Anonymous written stories that may easily have been completely fabricated, . . .

The description "may easily have been completely fabricated" fits many stories or accounts of real events which actually happened. A lot of things in life "may easily have been" something different than what they were, for all we know.

Anonymous written stories . . . written by people who have already demonstrated a penchant for fabricating things does not qualify.

There's no indication that they fabricated miracle stories. It's true that they were Christ believers, but this belief of theirs was mostly a RESULT of the miracle stories they had before them in their sources. I.e., those accounts explain why they believed and took it all seriously. Then, after already having these reports before them, which are what convinced them, they decided to produce their gospel account, and probably did add some embellishment to the account, based on their interpretation.

This does not disqualify them as credible sources, anymore than other sources which contain embellishment -- e.g., the anonymous Royal Frankish Annals -- are disqualified from being credible sources. Rather, they are treated with normal critical skepticism in regard to the miracle stories. These are discounted where there is only one source, but not necessarily if we have extra sources, in which case they are taken more seriously.

These "gospels" may or may not have been inspired by a person who actually existed. There may never be sufficient evidence to answer that question satisfactorily. But they are not evidence that this person (assuming he existed) actually performed miracles.

Yes they are evidence of this. Maybe not enough evidence, but they are evidence. It is conjectural how many sources are necessary in order to justify believing the claims. But these multiple sources, being reasonably close to the events, do constitute evidence, even though one might reasonably judge that it's not enough evidence to make it believable. Still, it's more believable than if there were no evidence or only one source.

All you can say is that it's NOT ENOUGH evidence, or less than one wishes to have, not that there is NO evidence here.

They are evidence that people believed these things happened.

That too. Which usually does not happen unless they had some REASON to believe it. Enough reason to pass on the reports to others, and to record the alleged events in writing. It's very rare that the believers go this far. So this is not just another typical case of people "making up shit" or believing it because they're gullible.

Huge difference.

Still unexplainable -- if the stories are fiction -- that they would believe to the point of passing on the stories so widely and that written accounts appeared so soon and were copied and spread. This is so rare that there is actually no other case of it that anyone can point out.

Again, the closest might be some cases of a widely-reputed prophet or sage or celebrity, or someone powerful or influential who had an impact and became mythologized. The Jesus case does not fit into this pattern, since he had no wide reputation and a very short career.

Finally, my use of "copycat" is no more invalid than your use of "source."

It's invalid to call it a "copycat" story only because it repeats the same story from an earlier account. This isn't a "copycat" story as long as it's clear that the later writer is only adding to the earlier story, i.e., relating the same story or the same events, and simply adding some new points to the earlier version. I.e., as long as the new writer is not creating a new story of his own with a new character and lifting content out of the earlier account to be applied to his new event or character.

There is nothing dishonest or misleading about repeating the same story from the earlier account and adding something new to it which is substantially consistent with the original version. This might be an "enhancement" or "improvement" on the original version, but not a "copycat" story which is inherently misleading or deceptive in pretending to be a new story but incorporating content from an earlier story which was essentially a different story than this new one.

The later Mt and Lk versions of the Mk content were not a substantially new story or an account of a totally new event, but were just new versions of the original Mk story. They are additional sources for the same original events, adding something new to the earlier version. This is perfectly legitimate, and these new versions are legitimate separate sources for the same events, despite your prejudice against these accounts and your dogmatic crusade to eliminate them from the record, which you do with no other documents of any kind.

GMark is the earliest known source of this story.

No, Paul is an earlier source for the resurrection event. Just as Cicero is an earlier source for the assassination of Caesar, even though later accounts give far more information than his references to the event.

Other people coming along years later and taking the same story and redacting it to fit their particular takes on the story (not having been witnesses either) are not additional sources.

Yes they are, just as Tacitus and Suetonius are later sources for the assassination of Caesar.

And even if they used Cicero or any other earlier source and quoted extensively from it, their own additional version of the event would be a legitimate source for that event.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Yes, extra sources make the miracle story more credible, all else being equal.

You're misusing the term "copycat" here. A source which quotes from an earlier source and is describing the same event, applying the description to the same character, is not a copycat. It's just another version of the same thing, such as Mt and Lk using the Mk text, sometimes quoting it, and applying it to the same Jesus character that Mk refers to.

If some anonymous person tweeted that his dead great- great- great- great-grandmother Agatha had come back to life and flown up into the sky under her own power after being dead for over a century, and 6 other random people with no connection to the story retweeted the original tweet and added their own personal take, would it make the claim more plausible than your story of the magic flying Jewish zombie? I mean, the story is supported by 7 fucking sources!

short answer: No, because the sources are too far removed timewise from the reputed event. So the story could have evolved over that long time even if no such event really happened.

However, if you remove the "great great . . . etc." part of it and just say this event is reported by someone living within a generation or so of the one who flew up into the sky, then the existence of the extra sources claiming this would make the claim more credible than if it was only one person reporting it.

Also, if this same anonymous person had lived in the 1st century AD (or anytime before 1500 AD or so), and made such a miracle claim, we would have no record of it, because such things did not get recorded in the written record in those times, i.e., assuming the story is not true. (Whereas the Jesus miracles did get recorded probably because those miracle events really did happen, which made them important enough to be recorded in writing.)

On the other hand, if some such claim about Agatha resurrecting and flying up did exist in the recorded documents that have survived, near to the time of the alleged miracle, then the existence of those 6 extra sources confirming this would add some credibility to the story. Especially if her name had been Cecilia Boomzinger instead of Agatha -- then the story would be the absolute truth beyond any doubt.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Again, through the ages, there have been many, many tall tales created about the miracles of many Christian saints. Ludicrous tales not noted in their day but a few decades after they die, the tales start being created and grow bigger and mor ludicrous as time goes on. This is how the minds of true believers have worked for centuries. We see the same sort of things happen in Buddhism. A few centuries after Buddha's death, the stories of miracles start getting wilder. Whole genres of tall tales such as Vergil's Aenead. Sorry but you are not convincing.

 

[Atheos]

Lumpenproletariat, there is a huge difference between "silly stuff" and "stuff we can use to gain power, control and money." The Jesus myth was (and remains) a powerful source of control for the few who can use it to get people to think in ways they want them to think and give them money. It never had to be about truth, it only needed to be about incentive. Paul had spent 20 years building the "Jesus" franchise up, and was by this time making a tidy profit from it. Galvanizing the followers of Paul's cult with a biography of the mythical hero of the cult was an obvious next step. This is consistent with the fact that Paul's earlier writings never mention any of these biographical details. They just suddenly show up decades later. This silence speaks volumes when Paul addresses subjects such as marriage/divorce/remarriage that the gospels specifically credit Jesus with handling. Paul's lack of appeal to things Jesus actually "said" on various subjects is the smoking gun. It is a near certainty that the historical Jesus did not exist during Paul's earlier writings and was fabricated later by whoever wrote GMark, or at the very least by various individuals fabricating stories that were eventually collected by the author of GMark.

Regarding "Silly Stuff", the  Theogony of Hesoid, which I have pointed out numerous times in this thread is a collection of writings hundreds of years older than the Jesus myth, and which contains elements equally silly. And they are written. The  Sumerian King List contains silly references to kings who lived 40,000 years and it was written in stone 2500 years before your Jesus myth was written. The Egyptian myth of the constant battle between Ra and Set was another silly thing that was written down. Your baseless assertion that 1000+ years ago nobody wrote silly stuff down is hereby shown to be false.

Finally, leave us not forget that GMark was written by someone 1500 miles removed from the events in question. It is all but dead certainty that whoever wrote GMark was not a witness to any of the stuff he wrote, and it is nearly equally certain that he did not meet anyone who was a first-hand witness. GMark is then a collection of stories the author heard from someone else. The author may have chosen to write it down because it made a great story, or possibly because he believed it was true. Literacy is not fraud insurance.

 

[funinspace]

Regarding "Silly Stuff", the  Theogony of Hesoid, which I have pointed out numerous times in this thread is a collection of writings hundreds of years older than the Jesus myth, and which contains elements equally silly. And they are written. The  Sumerian King List contains silly references to kings who lived 40,000 years and it was written in stone 2500 years before your Jesus myth was written. The Egyptian myth of the constant battle between Ra and Set was another silly thing that was written down. Your baseless assertion that 1000+ years ago nobody wrote silly stuff down is hereby shown to be false.

Thanks for actually reading the drivel, as this part is really way too funny. Yep, the Sumerian Kings list is one of the earliest surviving fantasy "silly" things. I wonder where the guys that penned Genesis got their really long lived people idea from I'm sure you will shortly read how this <stomp, stomp, stomp> doesn't comply with the Mythogical Heroes Official Requirements Checklist (MHORC), so it doesn’t count because you aren’t following the Lumpy rules….

Then there is what is consider the oldest surviving fantasy literary piece, with my favorite part of the silly 3,000 year old tale, being the Lady of the Rib/Life (Yeah, can't wait for Lumpy to declare that nobody believed the story was true):
Epic_of_Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia. Dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur (circa 2100 BC), it is often regarded as the earliest surviving great work of literature. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian poems about 'Bilgamesh' (Sumerian for 'Gilgamesh'), king of Uruk. These independent stories were later used as source material for a combined epic. The first surviving version of this combined epic, known as the "Old Babylonian" version, dates to the 18th century BC and is titled after its incipit, Shūtur eli sharrī ("Surpassing All Other Kings").

<snip>
While not directly discussed in the Epic itself, many of the characters in the Epic also have myths associated with them with close biblical parallels, notably Ninti, the Sumerian goddess of life, was created from Enki's rib to heal him after he had eaten forbidden flowers. Some scholars suggest that this served as the basis for the story of Eve created from Adam's rib in the Book of Genesis.

 

[Atheos]

That too. Which usually does not happen unless they had some REASON to believe it. Enough reason to pass on the reports to others, and to record the alleged events in writing. It's very rare that the believers go this far. So this is not just another typical case of people "making up shit" or believing it because they're gullible.

That's rich. I don't know what world you live in, but in the real world one only has to go to Snopes.com to get bitch-slapped with the magnitude of the gullibility of people. Oh, that's right. According to you nobody was gullible until the printing press was invented. My apologies.

Tell you what: You find the exact reason they believed it along with proof that that was the reason, then get back with us. Until then we can assume it's the same reason Marshall Applewhite's clan believed his "Heaven's Gate" bullshit, the same reason J.Z. Knight's disciples have given her millions of dollars being hoodwinked with her "Ramtha" bullshit and the same reason millions of people believe the bullshit Joseph Smith wrote. And the list goes on and on and on. We have hundreds, yea thousands of examples of people believing the most unlikely bullshit imaginable because the person telling it to them was convincing. We have yet to find a single example of someone who can replicate an extraordinary claim such as moving a mountain or giving sight to a blind person. Lots of hucksters, nothing real so far.

Meanshile, you have yet to present a single example of a single genuinely impossible event (of the magnitude of a man walking on storm-tossed water or levitating unassisted into the sky to disappear into the clouds) that historians genuinely accept as an actual historical event. Find us some examples of three or four anonymous reports of something truly extraordinary (such as, say, a tree-climbing elephant) that is accepted by historians as factual and maybe you've got something to go with. You have presented us with ancient documents that contain miraculous elements but also have some historical veracity, and we agree that such documents exist. But the historians do not accept the flying monkeys with the mundane, they cull the document for the mundane and reject the rest as fantasy projection.

I am more than willing to do that with your anonymous gospels. I have done as much already. Toss out the miracles and accept the rest. You end up with exactly the scenario I have presented all along. Itinerant charismatic preacher gathers a tight cult following, pisses off some religious leaders, gets his ass crucified. His followers refuse to believe he's really gone for good and begin making up stories about him coming back.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The 4 Gospels do exist -- Your Papal Bull cannot blot them out.

There are varying degrees of reliability, so you would have more doubt about this document than that one, but that doesn't mean the more doubtful one has no credibility for the historical record. Certain texts can be identified as problematic without meaning that the entire source is excluded as having no value.

This gave my wife a chuckle. No where in the world does it work this way.

Name one document earlier than 1000 AD that is rejected as having no value for the historical record. Including a document which has dubious elements about it, doubtful stories, etc. You can't name one that is excluded for historical value even though having problems of authorship etc.

See, she's grading coursework. And the plagiarism policy is pretty clear. If you catch one sentence that's plagiarized, the whole work is given a zero. You don't just take marks off for that sentence.

You're on the wrong topic. What we're discussing here are documents written 1900-2000 years ago and events from that time. I hope you're able to locate the right topic/"thread" for your above comment on grading school papers. Did you have a comment for our topic here which you possibly misplaced into the "grading school papers" topic?

Also, if you can identify part of a book review which includes elements that came from the movie instead of the book, you don't assume that the student read the book for the parts that matched.

It doesn't matter who read what book. What matters is what happened, and ALL sources about what happened -- the book, the book review, the movie, the movie review -- are useful for determining what happened.

And one of her geniuses supposedly read 'Lord Of The Rings,' and wrote that it was 'a shame they removed Tom Bombadill' from the book, because he was a critical part of the book.' Clearly she is plagiarizing a REVIEW of the movie, not the book, and she blindly replaced every instance of 'movie' with 'book.' It makes for a funny read, but she's still graded for having no credibility at all.

If she were a 1st-century writer she would have credibility.

Such a "review" document from the 1st century would be accepted as valuable for determining what happened in the 1st century.

Even if a doubtful part is rejected for a good reason, this does not cancel the value of the rest of the document for determining the events, and "plagiarizing" does not negate the credibility. The term "plagiarism" doesn't mean much prior to modern times. Quoting from an earlier document does not undermine the credibility.

If a scientist is caught faking data for one research project, his entire body of work for his entire career is suspect.

You're on the wrong topic. If you apply this to ancient documents, maybe they would all be rejected, and we would have no historical record, and no history to believe. You could make the case that all of them engaged in "faking data" for their accounts.

The phrase "faking data" means virtually nothing here, and is just used for emotional appeal.

Once you lose credibility, you lose credibility.

None of our sources for history prior to 1000 AD or so has 100% credibility. So your judgments on the gospel accounts are based on the premise that NO documents from history are credible and thus there is no historical record we can believe.

Repeatedly ALL your reasons to reject the gospel accounts for credibility, if applied to other documents, lead to the rejection of ALL documents. Repeatedly you impose standards for credibility to the gospel accounts which are NOT imposed onto other documents.

No other documents from history can be named which are required to meet these same standards, or are rejected for failing to meet them. Only these 4 documents, and no others.

Rules which you invent in order to be applied to one special case only, and to no others, are rules which have no validity other than for dogmatists who share your same prejudice which you are crusading for and promoting.

When you say that no one purposefully burned the gnostic gospels, you make it clear that you have no credibility on the subject at all. You'll say anything, anything at all, to preserve your view of how Christian history happened.

You can't produce any evidence whatever, from 1000 AD or earlier, that any gnostic gospels were burned by someone. You believe this only because some modern crusader mythicist pundit fed this to you and you slurped it up mindlessly.

There are many crusaders in modern times who keep repeating this falsehood, and these modern fanatics are your only source for this.

So when you say 'we can still use' you mean 'i will not discount,' because you work backwards from the conclusion you want, to the evidence you'll accept.

We can use the Vedas, the Koran, and ALL other sources for determining what happened back then. To exclude ANY source is based only on prejudice and bigotry.

No documents from history, from 1000+ years ago, are rejected as sources for the events of that time. You cannot name ONE such document that is rejected by historians, as you are demanding that these 4 documents, and these 4 ONLY, have to be rejected. You are demanding that they be rejected for reasons that are not applied, even by you, to ANY other documents whatever. You cannot name one.

 

[Keith&Co.]

You're on the wrong topic. What we're discussing here are documents written 1900-2000 years ago and events from that time. I hope you're able to locate the right topic/"thread" for your above comment on grading school papers. Did you have a comment for our topic here which you possibly misplaced into the "grading school papers" topic?

No, right place.
YOU were pretending that we can still depend on a document which we know at least partially was plagiarized, and think it's safe to assume the rest of it's valuable.
I'm not sure where 'papal bull' comes into being, as i am not even slightly catholic.

But you're trying to special case your approach to certain documents. In the real world, once we know PART of it is copied from someone else's work, we HAVE to treat the rest of it as suspect. Since we already know the author will sometimes steal things for his tale.
And if the author is (or authors are) anonymous, then any sort of credibility is just gone.

That's how it' works. Sorry.

We can use the Vedas, the Koran, and ALL other sources for determining what happened back then. To exclude ANY source is based only on prejudice and bigotry

Nicely demonstrated by your approach to, for example, the documentation for Joseph Smith's miracles.

Your special-case approach seems doomed to ultimate failure, when compared to how real historians really approach real documents from antiquity.
Here's a hint, they NEVER accept tales of magic, miracles, divine beings showing godly power or unicorns.

 

[atrib]

If some anonymous person tweeted that his dead great- great- great- great-grandmother Agatha had come back to life and flown up into the sky under her own power after being dead for over a century, and 6 other random people with no connection to the story retweeted the original tweet and added their own personal take, would it make the claim more plausible than your story of the magic flying Jewish zombie? I mean, the story is supported by 7 fucking sources!

short answer: No, because the sources are too far removed timewise from the reputed event. So the story could have evolved over that long time even if no such event really happened.

You misunderstood. An anonymous person claimed that Agatha rose up from her grave and flew up into the sky yesterday, supposedly in front of a caretaker at the cemetery where she was buried. This story was later reported to the anonymous family member who posted it online. We have no way to verify the story because the original poster was anonymous.

Also, if this same anonymous person had lived in the 1st century AD (or anytime before 1500 AD or so), and made such a miracle claim, we would have no record of it, because such things did not get recorded in the written record in those times,

This is an outright lie. We have writings that go back thousands of years. Like the story of Hanuman, the monkey king who could fly and lift up mountains. Quoting from Wiki:

Hanuman (/ˈhʌnʊˌmɑːn, ˈhɑːnʊ-, ˌhʌnʊˈmɑːn, ˌhɑːnʊ-/; Hanumān in IAST);[1] also known as Mahavira or Bajrangbali, is a Hindu god and an ardent devotee of the god Rama. He is a central figure in the Hindu epic Ramayana and its various versions. As he is Chiranjeevi, he is also mentioned in several other texts, including Mahabharata, the various Puranas and some Jain texts.

There are multiple sources for the story of Hanuman. Do you believe that these stories are credible? Can you name a modern historian who believes that Hanuman existed and did the supernatural things that have been attributed to him in these sources? The stories of Hanuman are much better documented than those of Jesus, yet you do not worship Hanuman as a god. You believe only the magical stories of your preferred god.

On the other hand, if some such claim about Agatha resurrecting and flying up did exist in the recorded documents that have survived, near to the time of the alleged miracle, then the existence of those 6 extra sources confirming this would add some credibility to the story. Especially if her name had been Cecilia Boomzinger instead of Agatha -- then the story would be the absolute truth beyond any doubt.

Really? If an anonymous source posted this story on the internet and 6 other people quoted this story, then the story should be considered absolute truth? Are you fucking high?

 

[skepticalbip]

short answer: No, because the sources are too far removed timewise from the reputed event. So the story could have evolved over that long time even if no such event really happened.

You misunderstood. An anonymous person claimed that Agatha rose up from her grave and flew up into the sky yesterday, supposedly in front of a caretaker at the cemetery where she was buried. This story was later reported to the anonymous family member who posted it online. We have no way to verify the story because the original poster was anonymous.

Also, if this same anonymous person had lived in the 1st century AD (or anytime before 1500 AD or so), and made such a miracle claim, we would have no record of it, because such things did not get recorded in the written record in those times,

This is an outright lie. We have writings that go back thousands of years. Like the story of Hanuman, the monkey king who could fly and lift up mountains. Quoting from Wiki:

Hanuman (/ˈhʌnʊˌmɑːn, ˈhɑːnʊ-, ˌhʌnʊˈmɑːn, ˌhɑːnʊ-/; Hanumān in IAST);[1] also known as Mahavira or Bajrangbali, is a Hindu god and an ardent devotee of the god Rama. He is a central figure in the Hindu epic Ramayana and its various versions. As he is Chiranjeevi, he is also mentioned in several other texts, including Mahabharata, the various Puranas and some Jain texts.

There are multiple sources for the story of Hanuman. Do you believe that these stories are credible? Can you name a modern historian who believes that Hanuman existed and did the supernatural things that have been attributed to him in these sources? The stories of Hanuman are much better documented than those of Jesus, yet you do not worship Hanuman as a god. You believe only the magical stories of your preferred god.

On the other hand, if some such claim about Agatha resurrecting and flying up did exist in the recorded documents that have survived, near to the time of the alleged miracle, then the existence of those 6 extra sources confirming this would add some credibility to the story. Especially if her name had been Cecilia Boomzinger instead of Agatha -- then the story would be the absolute truth beyond any doubt.

Really? If an anonymous source posted this story on the internet and 6 other people quoted this story, then the story should be considered absolute truth? Are you fucking high?

We have hundreds, if not thousands, of first hand eyewitness accounts recorded of anal probing aliens abducting people. So if the few hearsay accounts in the gospels convinces anyone of their veracity then they should see the accounts of anal probing extraterrestrial aliens as undeniable fact.