120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[Atheos]

Philo was "silent" on many others who were more important than Jesus before 50 AD.

Sorry, the only thing I got out of this post is (1) you still don't have anything from a contemporary historian talking about this Jesus person and (2) Everyone whom Philo wrote about was more important than Jesus. Got it.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Misusing/Distorting Justin Martyr to prove "similarities" of Christ belief to earlier pagan myths

Any use of quotes from Justin Martyr's First Apology is invalid without taking into account his complaints about the threats to Christians and without explaining what the connection is between the quotes and these complaints. You don't know what his reference to the pagan myths means unless you relate it to these complaints which are the central topic of this Apology.

The only "apologetic" or polemical elements are digressions from his real point, which is to complain against Romans who are oppressing Christians unjustly, or who are spectators to the oppression and should correct the bad behavior of the oppressors.

He speaks of the Christians being arrested, convicted and punished for no offense other than their identity as Christians, which is the only "crime" of which they are guilty. Even if his charges are exaggerated, you have to include them within any references you make to this document and quotes from it.

Unless you recognize this point he is making about the persecution of Christians and relate it to the quotes you use from him, you are misquoting him and using the quotes falsely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Martyr

Saint Justin, also known as Justin Martyr (Greek: Ιουστίνος ο Μάρτυρας, Latin: Iustinus Martyr) was an early Christian apologist, . . . . He was martyred, alongside some of his students, and is considered a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and a dialogue did survive. The First Apology, his most well known text, passionately defends the morality of the Christian life, and provides various ethical and philosophical arguments to convince the Roman emperor, Antoninus, to abandon the persecution of the fledgling sect.

Here are excerpts to show what is the context of all the quotes. The entire text is at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/richardson/fathers.x.ii.iii.html . Some text relating to the main point of the document is highlighted. You have to explain these parts of the text if you presume to use quotations from the document as prooftexts for some argument you're making about what he's saying or what he means.

1. To the Emperor Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius Augustus Caesar, . . . on behalf of men of every nation who are unjustly hated and reviled, I, Justin, . . . have drawn up this plea and petition.

. . . the lover of truth ought to choose in every way, even at the cost of his own life, to speak and do what is right, though death should take him away. . . . but asking you to give judgment according to strict and exact inquiry—not, moved by prejudice or respect for superstitious men, or by irrational impulse and long-established evil rumor, giving a vote which would really be against yourselves. For we are firmly convinced that we can suffer no evil unless we are proved to be evildoers or shown to be criminals. You can kill us, but cannot do us any real harm.

3. But so that no one may think that this is an unreasonable and presumptuous utterance, we ask that the charges against us be investigated. If they are shown to be true, [let us] be punished as is proper. But if nobody has proofs against us, true reason does not allow [you] to wrong innocent men because of an evil rumor—or rather [to wrong] yourselves when you decide to pass sentence on the basis of passion rather than judgment. . . .

4. The mere ascription of a name means nothing, good or bad, except for the actions connected with the name.

He means the name "Christian" -- i.e., this label per se does not make one a criminal, and the charges must be of actual crimes, not simply having this label or being "Christian" or having this belief.

Indeed as far as the name charged against us goes, . . . we do not think it right to ask for a pardon because of the name if we are proved to be criminals—and on the other hand, if neither the appellation of the name nor our conduct shows us to be wrongdoers, you must face the problem whether in punishing unjustly men against whom nothing is proved you will yourselves owe a penalty to justice. Neither reward nor punishment should follow from a name unless something admirable or evil can actually be shown about it. Among yourselves you do not penalize the accused before conviction; but with us you take the name as proof, although, as far as the name goes, you ought rather to punish our accusers. For we are accused of being Christians; . . . Again, if one of the accused denies the charge, saying he is not [a Christian], you dismiss him, as having no proof of misconduct against him; but if he confesses that he is one, you punish him because of his confession. You ought rather to investigate the life of the confessor and the renegade, so that it would appear from their actions what sort of person each is. . . .

Christians are put to death just as Socrates was:

5. . . . You do not make judicial inquiries in our case, . . . Instead, you punish us injudicially without deliberation, driven by unreasoning passion and the whips of evil demons. . . . When Socrates tried by true reason and with due inquiry to make these things clear and to draw men away from the demons, they, working through men who delighted in wickedness, managed to have him put to death as godless and impious, saying that he was bringing in new divinities.

And now they do the same kind of thing to us. For these errors were not only condemned among the Greeks by reason, through Socrates, but among the barbarians, by Reason himself, who took form and became man and was called Jesus Christ.

7. But someone will say, "Some [Christians], have been arrested and convicted as criminals." Many at various times, perhaps, if you examine in each case the conduct of those who are accused; but do not condemn [all] because of those previously convicted. . . . They are all listed as Christians. So we ask that the actions of those who are denounced to you be investigated, in order that whoever is convicted may be punished as a criminal, but not as a Christian, and that whoever is shown to be innocent may be freed, committing no crime by being a Christian.

Being Christian, or confessing Christ, results in the death penalty:

8. Consider that we have said these things for your sake, since when put to trial we can deny [that we are Christians]—but we do not wish to live by telling a lie. For, longing for the life which is eternal and pure, we strive to dwell with God, the Father and Fashioner of all things. We are eager to confess, being convinced and believing that those who have shown to God by their actions that they follow him and long to dwell with him, where no evil can disturb, are able to obtain these things.

11. When you hear that we look for a kingdom, you rashly suppose that we mean something merely human. But we speak of a Kingdom with God, as is clear from our confessing Christ when you bring us to trial, though we know that death is the penalty for this confession. For if we looked for a human kingdom we would deny it in order to save our lives, and would try to remain in hiding in order to obtain the thing we look for. But since we do not place our hopes on the present [order], we are not troubled by being put to death, since we will have to die somehow in any case.

He compares Christ to pagan deities, and Christians like himself to earlier teachers and poets, and argues that Christ belief is at least as reasonable and legitimate as these earlier beliefs, or even the same as or similar to them:

13. . . . It is Jesus Christ who has taught us these things, having been born for this purpose and crucified under Pontius Pilate, who was procurator in Judea in the time of Tiberius Caesar. We will show that we honor him in accordance with reason, having learned that he is the Son of the true God himself, and holding him to be in the second place and the prophetic Spirit in the third rank. It is for this that they charge us with madness, saying that we give the second place after the unchanging and ever-existing God and begetter of all things to a crucified man, not knowing the mystery involved in this, to which we ask you to give your attention as we expound it.

18. . . . there are the men who are seized and torn by the spirits of the dead, whom everyone calls demon-possessed and maniacs, and the oracles so well-known among you, of Amphilochus and Dodona and Pytho, and any others of that kind, and the teaching of writers, Empedocles and Pythagoras, Plato and Socrates, and the ditch in Homer and the descent of Odysseus to visit the dead, and other stories like this. Treat us at least like these; we believe in God not less than they do, but rather more, since we look forward to receiving again our own bodies, though they be dead and buried in the earth, declaring that nothing is impossible to God.

20. . . . We think that God, the Maker of all, is superior to changeable things. But if on some points we agree with the poets and philosophers whom you honor, and on others [teach] more completely and more worthily of God, and are the only ones who offer proof, why are we above all hated unjustly? When we say that all things have been ordered and made by God we appear to offer the teaching of Plato—in speaking of a coming destruction by fire, that of the Stoics; in declaring that the souls of the unrighteous will be punished after death, still remaining in conscious existence, and those of the virtuous, delivered from punishments, will enjoy happiness, we seem to agree with [various] poets and philosophers; in declaring that men ought not to worship the works of their hands we are saying the same things as the comedian Menander and others who have said this, for they declared that the Fashioner is greater than what he has formed.

21. In saying that the Word, who is the first offspring of God, was born for us without sexual union, as Jesus Christ our Teacher, and that he was crucified and died and after rising again ascended into heaven we introduce nothing new beyond [what you say of] those whom you call sons of Zeus. You know how many sons of Zeus the writers whom you honor speak of—Hermes, the hermeneutic Word and teacher of all; Asclepius, who was also a healer and after being struck by lightning ascended into heaven—as did Dionysus who was torn in pieces; Heracles, who to escape his torments threw himself into the fire; the Dioscuri born of Leda and Perseus of Danae; and Bellerophon who, though of human origin, rode on the [divine] horse Pegasus. Need I mention Ariadne and those who like her are said to have been placed among the stars?

Here he falsely describes earlier deities as doing acts similar to those of Jesus, or suggests parallels between them. It's obvious what Justin's motive is for suggesting these parallels.

But these are not actual example of any such similarities. None of the above "ascended" into heaven according to any of the pagan myths, nor were any crucified or raised from the dead.

. . . and what of your deceased emperors, whom you regularly think worthy of being raised to immortality, introducing a witness who swears that he saw the cremated Caesar ascending into heaven from the funeral pyre?

There's no source for the story of any of the emperors "ascending into heaven" from a funeral pyre. There's not anything in the pre-Christian literature to support any of these supposed "similarities" or parallels. All these are just projections of Christian beliefs back onto earlier heroes or pagan figures.


Similarity of Jesus to Romulus?

One possible "parallel" would be the tradition of Romulus "ascending to heaven" in some form. The most common version of this is that he "vanished" or "disappeared" during a storm. But there is also some suggestion of him being taken to Heaven.

There are several accounts of the disappearance of Romulus, mainly from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, Ovid, and Livy. Since many versions of the story occur, it's not surprising that among them it might be said that he went to "Heaven" or joined the gods and other such language. Also that he appeared to someone after his disappearance. There's no actual account of him being killed, though there was a storm which might have killed him.

If Romulus really existed, which is plausible -- setting aside the folklore -- it's reasonable to conclude that he encountered death during a battle and/or a violent storm where perhaps his body could not be found later. Or something irregular.

Plutarch suggests that some nobles who opposed him may have murdered him and contrived a story to mislead the populace.

If there were only one story, that he ascended up into the clouds among a group of witnesses who saw him go up, and that was the only version, it would be a striking similarity to the ascension of Jesus In Luke 24 and Acts 1. And the Jesus story might be dismissed as a copycat version of this.

Or something very close with only minor difference in details. But the "translation" of Romulus is mostly not of an "ascension" but several narratives of how he was transformed into another dimension, how he joined the gods, or was dispersed into the ether, etc.

There are no accounts claiming to describe it as it actually happened, as eye-witnesses might describe it, such as the Jesus ascension in Luke-Acts. Rather, the accounts say something of what certain witnesses claimed, and these reports say nothing of Romulus going up, but only of him being covered by a cloud, or being lost in the storm, disappearing from view, and being gone when they looked for him later.

The stories of him being "taken to Heaven" are not part of the eye-witness stories, but are later explanations.

So no existing accounts say he really was taken to Heaven or any such thing. But they say he disappeared and could not be found later. And then Plutarch and Dionysius mention claims by some that he was taken to Heaven. And they give differing versions of these claims, so that one or two such claims might resemble some language in the gospels about Jesus "ascending to heaven" or going to the "right hand" of the Father, etc.

In his account Plutarch uses the "ascend" word, but says nothing of his physical body going upward or into the sky:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Romulus*.html
We must not, therefore, violate nature by sending the bodies of good men with their souls to heaven, but implicitly believe that their virtues and their souls, in accordance with nature and divine justice, ascend from men to heroes, from heroes to demi-gods, and from demi-gods, after they have been made pure and holy, as in the final rites of initiation, and have freed themselves from mortality and sense, to gods, not by civic law, but in very truth and according to right reason, thus achieving the fairest and most blessed consummation.

He doesn't really say here that there was an event where Romulus physically ascended.

He says a certain Proculus, claiming to have encountered Romulus after his disappearance, reported the words of Romulus to him:

"It was the pleasure of the gods, O Proculus, from whom I came, that I should be with mankind only a short time, and that after founding a city destined to be the greatest on earth for empire and glory, I should dwell again in heaven."

And about the actual event of the disappearance, he says:

. . . and when the storm had ceased, and the sun shone out, and the multitude, now gathered together again in the same place as before, anxiously sought for their king, the nobles would not suffer them to inquire into his disappearance nor busy themselves about it, but exhorted them all to honour and revere Romulus, since he had been caught up into heaven, and was to be a benevolent god for them instead of a good king. The multitude, accordingly, believing this and rejoicing in it, went away to worship him with good hopes of his favour; but there were some, it is said, who tested the matter in a bitter and hostile spirit, and confounded the patricians with the accusation of imposing a silly tale upon the people, and of being themselves the murderers of the king.

So there is the "caught up into heaven" language here, but this is a later interpretation of the event rather than a description of what witnesses saw, and Plutarch implies there was only the "disappearance" and no actual sighting of Romulus going "up" to heaven.

Here is a blog offering a long list of Romulus parallels to Jesus:
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2012/01/romulus-and-jesus-compared.html
The first one - - "Missing body" -- says nothing except that Romulus disappeared, and so he was not to be seen. But is this analogous to the "missing body" story in Mark 16? The Jesus empty tomb story is about a body that had been buried, known to be dead, but then was gone when someone visited the tomb. This has virtually no similarity to a story about someone who disappeared and was thought to have been killed or taken away to Heaven.

Anyone seriously claiming parallels of Jesus to Romulus or other hero figure can go through this list, or similar list of parallels, where the pre-Christian texts are given which supposedly give the story showing the similarity of the earlier story to the Jesus story. This is what you need to do to show any serious parallel, rather than quote from Justin Martyr in the 2nd century AD.

In the following, where is the "missing body" parallel to Mark's empty tomb story?

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 2.56.2-6
These are the memorable wars which Romulus waged. His failure to subdue any more of the neighbouring nations seems to have been due to his sudden death, which happened while he was still in the vigour of his age for warlike achievements. There are many different stories concerning it. 2 Those who give a rather fabulous account of his life say that while he was haranguing his men in the camp, sudden darkness rushed down out of a clear sky and a violent storm burst, after which he was nowhere to be seen; and these writers believe that he was caught up into heaven by his father, Mars. 3 But those who write the more plausible accounts say that he was killed by his own people; and the reason they allege for his murder is that he released without the common consent, contrary to custom, the hostages he had taken from the Veientes, and that he no longer comported himself in the same manner toward the original citizens and toward those who were enrolled later, but showed greater honour to the former and slighted the latter, and also because of his great cruelty in the punishment of delinquents (for instance, he had ordered a group of Romans who were accused of brigandage against the neighbouring peoples to be hurled down the precipice after he had sat alone in judgment upon them, although they were neither of mean birth nor few in number), but chiefly because he now seemed to be harsh and arbitrary and to be exercising his power more like a tyrant than a king. 4 For these reasons, they say, the patricians formed a conspiracy against him and resolved to slay him; and having carried out the deed in the senate-house, they divided his body into several pieces, that it might not be seen, and then came out, each one hiding his part of the body under his robes, and afterwards burying it in secret. 5 Others say that while haranguing the people he was slain by the new citizens of Rome, and that they undertook the murder at the time when the rain and the darkness occurred, the assembly of the people being then dispersed and their chief left without his guard. And for this reason, they say, the day on which this event happened got its name from the flight of the people and is called Populifugia down to our times. 6 Be that as it may, the incidents that occurred by the direction of Heaven in connexion with this man's conception and death would seem to give no small authority to the view of those who make gods of mortal men and place the souls of illustrious persons in heaven. For they say that at the time when his mother was violated, whether by some man or by a god, there was a total eclipse of the sun and a general darkness as in the night covered the earth, and that at his death the same thing happened. 7 Such, then, is reported to have been the death of Romulus, who built Rome and was chosen by her citizens as their first king. He left no issue, and after reigning thirty-seven years, died in the fifty-fifth year of his age; for he was very young when he obtained the rule, being no more than eighteen years old, as is agreed by all who have written his history.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus/2B*.html

So here again is the "up into heaven" language, similar to Plutarch. But where is there any "missing body" similarity to the Mark empty tomb story?

So I'm stopping at this first "parallel" of Jesus to Romulus. , but you have the list of the "parallels" on this page http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2012/01/romulus-and-jesus-compared.html . Can you find here a convincing "parallel" of Jesus to Romulus? Or is there another list of such parallels to pagan heroes or deities? Such parallels are so hard to find when you check them out seriously.

Some of the above Romulus account may be historically true. A famous powerful figure gets killed somehow, maybe unexpectedly, and many rumors emerged about what happened. And 500+ years later some written accounts appear, containing some facts mixed with fiction.

This hardly sheds light on how a person in 30 AD who had no status and a short career became mythologized into a miracle-working superhuman hero in less than 50 years. How does the Romulus story explain this?

These are the closest to any ascension story in the pre-Christian sources. There are no death-and-resurrection stories -- despite all the false claims of such parallel stories in the pagan myths. No one ever quotes from any of the original pagan myths or from any pre-Christian source narrating any such stories.

All we ever get is Justin Martyr as a source, from about 150 AD.

22. . . . When we say, as before, that he was begotten by God as the Word of God in a unique manner beyond ordinary birth, this should be no strange thing for you who speak of Hermes as the announcing word from God.

This implies some parallel between Jesus and Hermes. But there is none. Justin is straining to find such parallels in order to make his plea that the Christian god, or the Christian belief, is essentially no different than the belief in pagan figures like Hermes. Obviously there is no parallel, and it's obvious what Justin's motive is in falsely suggesting these parallels.

The crucifixion of Jesus is similar to the sufferings of earlier deities:

If somebody objects that he was crucified, this is in common with the sons of Zeus, as you call them, who suffered, as previously listed. Since their fatal sufferings are narrated as not similar but different, so his unique passion should not seem to be any worse—indeed I will, as I have undertaken, show, as the argument proceeds, that he was better; for he is shown to be better by his actions. If we declare that he was born of a virgin, you should consider this something in common with Perseus.

Why does Justin name Perseus out of the hundreds of miracle birth or miracle conception stories? He could have named some historical figure, like Alexander the Great. The comparison means nothing. But Justin is trying to strengthen his case that the Christian believers are just as innocent as believers in the pagan myths.

When we say that he healed the lame, the paralytic, and those born blind, and raised the dead, we seem to be talking about things like those said to have been done by Asclepius.

There are no stories of Asclepius healing the lame or any of the above acts, other than accounts of people who prayed before a statue of the ancient deity and who claimed to have been healed, just as millions of worshipers today pray and sometimes claim to have recovered.

The only connection to the Jesus belief would be that there were claims of healing miracles, but all the pagan healing practices were based on ancient healing traditions dating from centuries earlier, not on a deity that had just arrived recently like Jesus in the gospels. The Asclepius cult might have been the most popular of these temple- or statue-worshiping cults. Its existence offers no explanation how a reputed miracle-healing hero suddenly appears about 30 AD from nowhere, unconnected to an ancient tradition of a healing god worshiped for centuries into the past.


(to be continued in the next wall of text)

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Misusing/Distorting Justin Martyr to prove "similarities" of Christ belief to earlier pagan myths

(continued from previous wall of text)


Again, Christians are killed for being Christians:

24. The first point is that though we say the same as do the Greeks, we only are hated, because of the name of Christ. We do no wrong but are put to death as offenders [because of our worship, though] others everywhere worship trees and rivers, mice and cats and crocodiles and many kinds of irrational animals, and the same objects are not honored by all, but different ones in different places, so that all are impious to each other, because of not having the same objects of worship. Yet this is the one complaint you have against us, that we do not worship the same gods that you do, . . .

25. Secondly, out of every race of men we who once worshiped Dionysus the son of Semele and Apollo the son of Leto, who in their passion for men did things which it is disgraceful even to speak of, or who worshiped Persephone and Aphrodite, who were driven mad by [love of] Adonis and whose mysteries you celebrate, or Asclepius or some other of those who are called gods, now through Jesus Christ despise them, even at the cost of death, and have dedicated ourselves to the unbegotten and impassible God.

It should be obvious that Justin does not really consider the Christian beliefs "similar" to or "parallel" to the pagan beliefs, but fundamentally different. When he contradicts this elsewhere, suggesting the parallels, he is only arguing his main point that the Christians are innocent for holding their beliefs, and equating these beliefs to the pagan beliefs helps to make that point. I.e., whatever the beliefs, one is not guilty or a criminal for holding them.

The double standard -- Others are not persecuted, even though they're similar:

26. A third point is that after Christ's ascent into heaven the demons put forward various men who said that they were gods, and you not only did not persecute them, but thought them worthy of honors. One was a certain Simon, a Samaritan from the village of Gitta, who in the time of Claudius Caesar, through the arts of the demons who worked in him, did mighty works of magic in your imperial city of Rome and was thought to be a god. He has been honored among you as a god by a statue, which was set up on the River Tiber, between the two bridges, with this inscription in Latin, SIMONI DEO SANCTO. Almost all the Samaritans, and a few in other nations, confess this man as their first god and worship him as such, . . .

This and other exaggerations by Justin can easily be explained. He gives examples of other messiahs or deities or heroes worshiped by many, and he points out that the Romans did not persecute them as they did the Christians. His point is the double standard of persecuting only Christians for their practices/beliefs, while ignoring others who were more extreme or were a real threat to society as opposed to the Christians.

He might be wrong in saying none of the other cults was persecuted. But he perceived the Christians as specially targeted, and this is the point of his appeal and his misstatements about similarities between Christ belief and pagan belief, even if some other cults were persecuted as well.

. . . and a woman named Helena, who traveled around with him in those days, and had formerly been a public prostitute, they say was the first Concept produced from him. Then we know of a certain Menander, who was also a Samaritan, from the village of Capparetaea, who had been a disciple of Simon's, and was also possessed by the demons. He deceived many at Antioch by magic arts, and even persuaded his followers that he would never die; there are still some who believe this [as they learned] from him.

Justin comes close to saying these false teachers performed miracles. But these were 1st-century figures, 100 years earlier than Justin, which explains how such fictional claims could emerge, given the necessary time lapse. However, he attributes no miracle power to his contemporary Marcion:

Then there is a certain Marcion of Pontus, who is still teaching his converts that there is another God greater than the Fashioner. By the help of the demons he has made many in every race of men to blaspheme and to deny God the Maker of the universe, professing that there is another who is greater and has done greater things than he. As we said, all who derive [their opinions] from these men are called Christians, just as men who do not share the same teachings with the philosophers still have in common with them the name of philosophy, thus brought into disrepute. Whether they commit the shameful deeds about which stories are told—the upsetting of the lamp, promiscuous intercourse, and the meals of human flesh, we do not know; but we are sure that they are neither persecuted nor killed by you, on account of their teachings anyway.

So Justin's point here is the double standard, i.e., that Christians are punished because of false witness brought against them, while other beliefs or cults or heresies etc. are not similarly punished.

27. . . . You charge against us the actions that you commit openly and treat with honor, as if the divine light were overthrown and withdrawn—which of course does no harm to us, who refuse to do any of these things, but rather injures those who do them and then bring false witness [against us].

Justin uses Hebrew prophecy as his proof, not the Jesus miracles per se:

30. But lest someone should argue against us, What excludes [the supposition] that this person whom you call Christ was a man, of human origin, and did these miracles you speak of by magic arts, and so appeared to be God's Son?—we will bring forward our demonstration. We do not trust in mere hearsay, but are forced to believe those who prophesied [these things] before they happened, because we actually see things that have happened and are happening as was predicted. This will, as we think, be the greatest and surest demonstration for you too.

31. There were among the Jews certain men who were prophets of God, through whom the prophetic Spirit announced in advance events that were to occur. The successive rulers of the Jews carefully preserved their prophecies, . . . But though they read them, they do not understand what they say, but consider us their enemies and opponents, putting us to death or punishing us, as you do, whenever they can, as you can realize—for in the Jewish War recently past Bar-Cochba, the leader of the revolt of the Jews, ordered Christians only to be subjected to terrible punishments, unless they would deny Jesus the Christ and blaspheme [him]. We find it predicted in the books of the prophets that Jesus our Christ would come, . . . This was prophesied over five thousand years before he appeared, then three thousand, and two thousand, and again one thousand, and once more eight hundred [years before]. For there were new prophets again and again as the generations passed.

We needn't deal with the errors in the above, like the "over five thousand years before he appeared" etc. This is what he believed, and it explains or makes clear his understanding of the pagan deities. He believed that all the pagan myths are copies of the Jewish-Christ-prophecy narrative dating back thousands of years earlier and not from the 1st century AD.


Demons invented the pagan deities/myths in response to the prophecies:

54. But those who hand on the myths invented by the poets offer no demonstration to the youngsters who learn them—indeed I [am prepared to] show that they were told at the instigation of the wicked demons to deceive and lead astray the human race. For when they heard it predicted through the prophets that Christ was to come, and that impious men would be punished by fire, they put forward a number of so-called sons of Zeus, thinking that they could thus make men suppose that what was said about Christ was a mere tale of wonders like the stories told by the poets.

This refers to the "tale of wonders" told by the Hebrew prophets. Not about Jesus in the 1st century AD.

These stories were spread among the Greeks and all the Gentiles, where, as they heard the prophets proclaiming, Christ would especially be believed in.

Justin is exaggerating the knowledge of the "Greeks and all the Gentiles" concerning the Hebrew prophets. But it's this prior narrative spread among those pagans which Justin is saying the demons copied. He assumes there was wide pagan knowledge of the Hebrew prophecies many centuries before the 1st century AD, and this prophecy tradition was all about the coming Christ.

But, as I will make clear, though they heard the words of the prophets they did not understand them accurately, but made mistakes in imitating what was told about our Christ.

I.e., it's not the Jesus narrative of the 1st century AD, but "the words of the prophets" or "what was told about" the coming Christ that the "demons" responded to.

The prophet Moses was, as I said before, older than all [Greek] writers, and this prophecy was made through him, as previously cited: "The ruler shall not depart from Judah, nor the governor from his thighs, until he come for whom it is reserved; and he shall be the expectation of the nations, binding his colt to the vine, washing his robe in the blood of the grape." So when the demons heard these prophetic words they made out that Dionysus had been a son of Zeus, and handed down that he was the discoverer of the vine (hence they introduce wine in his mysteries), and taught that after being torn in pieces he ascended into heaven.

Justin here is trying again to make a comparison of a pagan god to Jesus, saying that Dionysus "ascended" into heaven. But there is no such pagan story of Dionysus ascending into heaven. This is all just projecting later Christian belief back onto the pagan gods.

Now the prophecy given through Moses did not precisely indicate whether he who was to come would be the Son of God, and whether, mounted on a colt, he would remain on earth or ascend into heaven; and the word "colt" can indicate the colt of an ass or a horse. So not knowing whether the predicted one would bring the colt of an ass or of a horse as the symbol of his coming, and, as said above, whether he was the Son of God or of a man, . . .

The scene of Jesus entering Jerusalem:

Matthew 21:
1 And when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Beth'phage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find an ass tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3 If any one says anything to you, you shall say, 'The Lord has need of them,' and he will send them immediately." 4 This took place to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet, saying, 5 "Tell the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of an ass." 6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7 they brought the ass and the colt, and put their garments on them, and he sat thereon. 8 Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!"

This scene of Jesus riding into Jerusalem "mounted on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of an ass" is clearly supposed to be a fulfillment of Zechariah 9:

9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass.

This is a clear example how the gospel account, or the Jesus narrative, is partly derived from Hebrew prophecy. Matthew adds the extra wording to Mark to make this fit the Zechariah prophecy word-for-word. There's an obvious dependency of the Mt wording on the Zechariah text. By comparison, there is NO dependency of anything in the gospels on any pagan mythology. Justin has no trouble showing Jesus as a fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy, given the Mt account here, but he gives no such connection of anything to the pagan myths.

. . . they said that Bellerophon, a man and born of men, had gone up to heaven on the horse Pegasus.

This is a pathetic attempt to draw a connection somehow between Bellerophon and Jesus. It's ridiculous because there is no such ascension of Bellerophon "up to heaven" in the pagan myth. This pattern of showing no real comparison repeats over and over: there is no parallel to the pagan myths.

Then when they heard it said through that other prophet Isaiah that he was to be born of a virgin and would ascend into heaven by his own [power], they put forward what is told about Perseus.

There's no "ascend into heaven" element in the Perseus myth.

There are countless miracle-birth stories (never called "virgin birth"), and no reason to say any of them was derived from earlier such stories.

All birth stories are "similar" to all earlier birth stories. If a miracle is thrown in somewhere, or something contrary to normal procreation or childbirth, this does not magically connect that story with a previous story that might include a miracle in it somewhere.

When they learned that it was said, as has been quoted, in the ancient prophecies, "Strong as a giant to run his course," they said that Heracles was strong and had traveled over the whole earth.

Justin is using Ps. 19:

1 The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. 2 Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. 3 There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; 4 yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, 5 which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs its course with joy.

Justin seems to say that the demons invented the Hercules story as some kind of false fulfillment of this Psalm as a messianic prophecy. This correlation is ridiculous, except to try to show that Christian believers are similar to the believers in Hercules and other pagan heroes. He obviously doesn't really equate pagan belief to Christian belief, but intends to arouse sympathy toward Christians by making this comparison, as a weapon against the persecutions he complains about.

Again when they learned that it was prophesied that he would heal every disease and raise the dead, they brought forward Asclepius.

Justin's phrase "that he would heal every disease and raise the dead" is not really from the Hebrew prophecies. The closest prophecy is from Isaiah 35:

4 Say to those who are of a fearful heart, "Be strong, fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you." 5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6 then shall the lame man leap like a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;

And there's nothing about Asclepius here, except that worshipers prayed at statues of this ancient healing diety, and some claimed to be healed by him.


The "demons" created Simon and Menander?

56. The wicked demons were not satisfied with saying before the appearance of Christ that there had been the so-called sons of Zeus. After he had appeared and lived among men, when they learned how he had been predicted by the prophets, and saw how he was believed on and looked for in every race, they again, as we showed before, put forward others, Simon and Menander of Samaria, who by doing mighty works of magic deceived and are still deceiving many. For as I said before, Simon lived in your own imperial city of Rome under Claudius Caesar, and so impressed the Sacred Senate and the Roman people that he was thought to be a god and was honored with a statue like the other gods whom you honor. We ask you therefore to join the Sacred Senate and your people as joint judges of this petition of ours, so that if any are ensnared by his teachings they may be able to learn the truth and flee from this error. And, if you will, destroy the statue.

Here again, Justin draws the analogy to Simon, from 100 years earlier, exaggerating the story about him, and supporting his argument that if such a person could be respected by the Romans and not persecuted, or his followers, why are the Christians persecuted? Except to make this point, Justin has no reason to make these exaggerated claims about Simon. His confused remarks below show continued anxiety about Christians being killed, hated, martyred, murdered, etc.:

57. Nor can the wicked demons persuade men that there will be no burning for the punishment of the impious, just as they were not able to keep Christ hidden when he came. All they can do is to make men who live contrary to reason, having been brought up in bad habits of passion and prejudice, kill and hate us. . . . For they do not kill us in order to set us free, but rather murder us in order to deprive us of life and its pleasures.

Plato borrowed from Moses. I.e., if you respect Plato, you also have to respect our prophets:

59. So that you may learn that Plato borrowed from our teachers, I mean from the Word [speaking] through the prophets, when he said that God made the universe by changing formless matter, hear the precise words of Moses, who as declared above was the first of the prophets and older than the Greek writers. The prophetic Spirit testified through him how in the beginning God fashioned the universe, . . . So by God's word the whole universe was made out of this substratum, as expounded by Moses, and Plato and those who agree with him, as well as we, have learned it [from him], and you can be sure of it too. We also know that Moses had already spoken of what the poets call Erebus.

Christian Connection to Mithras Cult:

66. This food we call Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things we teach are true, and has received the washing for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ handed down to us. . . . For the apostles in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, thus handed down what was commanded them: that Jesus, taking bread and having given thanks, said, "Do this for my memorial, this is my body"; and likewise taking the cup and giving thanks he said, "This is my blood"; and gave it to them alone. This also the wicked demons in imitation handed down as something to be done in the mysteries of Mithra; for bread and a cup of water are brought out in their secret rites of initiation, with certain invocations which you either know or can learn.

Justin's point is that the Mithra worshipers do something similar to the Christian ritual, and yet only the Christians are persecuted.

But as to this being a pagan "parallel" to Jesus, all the parallels or similarities to Mithras are explained by the fact that most of what is known of the Mithras cult is from later sources, after 100 AD. This cult was changing, and there is no "parallel" to Jesus in this cult other than elements added after 100 AD. So these "parallels" are not about anything Christians adopted from the pre-Christian pagan myths.

Even that famous date of December 25, which is really irrelevant, was not adopted as the birth date of Mithras until later, at the same time that it was chosen for the birth of Jesus. So even this celebrated "parallel" of Jesus to paganism is not about anything predating the Jesus events. It is more likely that the Mithras cult borrowed from Christianity.

68. If what we say seems to you reasonable and true, treat it with respect—if it seems foolish to you, then despise us as foolish creatures and do not decree the death penalty, as against enemies, for those who do no wrong. I have said before that you will not escape the future judgment of God if you continue . . .

The whole point throughout is to defend Christians from the persecutions. This explains how he says there are similarities to the pagan beliefs even though there are not any such similarities.

I have subjoined a copy of the letter of Hadrian, so that you may know that I speak the truth in this matter. Here is the copy:

Hadrian to Minucius Fundanus. I have received the letter addressed to me by your predecessor the Honorable Serenius Granianus, and it does not seem right to me to pass over this report in silence, lest innocent people should be molested and false accusers given the opportunity of doing harm. So if the people of your province can formally support their petition against the Christians by accusing them of something before [your] tribunal, I do not forbid their following this course; but I do not permit them to make use of mere requests and clamorous demands in this matter. It is much more proper, if anyone wishes to bring an accusation, for you to take cognizance of the matters brought forward. Therefore if anyone brings an accusation and proves that the men referred to have done anything contrary to the laws, you will assign penalties in accordance with the character of the offenses. But you must certainly take the greatest care, that if anyone accuses any of these people merely for the sake of calumny, you will punish him with severe penalties for his offense.

This letter of Hadrian, noting the false accusations, is probably authentic. However the letter of Pliny the Younger to the emperor Trajan, about 112 AD, is more reliable to add credibility to Justin's charges, making it clear that Christians were punished, sometimes even executed, for being Christian, apparently without the necessity to have committed any crime other than just being Christian:

http://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/pliny.html
Meanwhile, in the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have observed the following procedure: I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed.

In his reply to Pliny, Trajan said:

You observed proper procedure, my dear Pliny, in sifting the cases of those who had been denounced to you as Christians. For it is not possible to lay down any general rule to serve as a kind of fixed standard. They are not to be sought out; if they are denounced and proved guilty, they are to be punished, with this reservation, that whoever denies that he is a Christian and really proves it--that is, by worshiping our gods--even though he was under suspicion in the past, shall obtain pardon through repentance.

That Justin himself was finally martyred indicates further that his accusations were probably true, even if you assume he exaggerated.


So to sum up, this letter by Justin is about trying to put a stop to the persecutions of Christians in the 2nd century AD. If you completely ignore this, which is the whole purpose for writing this letter, then any conclusions you draw from it, or whatever point you're trying to make, is refuted and not worthy to be taken seriously.

So whatever point you think you're making by quoting this 2nd-century source, you need to restate it in terms of its connection to his complaint to the emperor and Romans generally about these injustices being committed against the Christians.

It is not any kind of evidence of "parallels" between Christ belief and pagan belief, or of any dependency of the Christ belief on earlier pagan myths, or of the Jesus events being somehow "inspired" by the earlier pagan myths or deities.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

We should believe the witnesses or written account of what happened (unless we know someone is just being silly).

You never gave any sources for that story. Besides, I admitted that maybe it really happened, if you'd just give more evidence and make it clear that you're claiming this really happened and you're not just being silly.

The story was exactly in accordance with the parameters you set: Extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence, only more evidence. In this case the story that Jesus appeared and levitated to the top shelf, retrieved the cookies and brought them down was the story told by 4 children. The story that "Timmy climbed up on the counter and got the cookies down" was told by only 1 child.

Your response was "Mom knows the other kids are only pulling her leg."

To which I reply, "And for the exact same reason we know that the authors of GMark, GMatt, GLuke and GJohn (and others) were also "pulling our legs."

O cut it out. It's not funny anymore.

Until you can come up with something better than that by which to weigh the merits of these stories it is more likely by your parameters that Jesus actually did appear and get the cookies down.

No, someone did appear and got the cookies. That's not a miracle. Even if he was dressed in a Jesus costume. You have to explain your example better if we're to take it seriously.

Why not forget your hypothetical example and offer a real case instead. But if you stick to your hypothetical example, you must give sufficient information.

There's nothing supernatural about someone coming into the room dressed in a Jesus costume and getting a cookie for the kid. We should believe this version of the story if the 4 witnesses insist that this is what they saw.

(This is really a poor example for you to use to make your point, even if there's a serious point.)

GMark was a myth.

There may be fictional elements in it, but on the whole it's about real events.

The copycats who were inspired by the popularity of GMark and decided to write their own embellished variants do not serve as "additional witnesses."

Who are you quoting here? -- i.e., "additional witnesses"?

Mt and Lk are additional sources for the events. These are legitimate sources, like all documents from the period must be accepted as sources for those events. We can analyze them to determine if some parts of them are less reliable than other parts. But ALL the documents are sources.

Until the extraordinary claims in the original story are validated by compelling evidence these additional variants of the story only serve as copycats.

They are additional sources, especially the extra content they added. The extra part beyond Mark is something further we can use as a source for the events. Something is not a "copycat" just because it quotes an earlier source.

Virtually no historical claims are "validated by compelling evidence." If you're simply imposing a de facto rule that ALL "extraordinary claims" are automatically excluded from the historical record, that is just your personal dogmatic premise that not all humans are required to accept. We do need extra evidence for miracle claims, but not a rule like yours which categorically excludes them all automatically despite any evidence.

The story told by GMark doesn't jive with the historical record. If someone had done the extraordinary things GMark claims this man did, attracting crowds numbering over 5,000 and getting the attention of such notables as Herod there would have been an indelible mark left in the historical record.

That's just speculation. We can go to the other extreme and say it's incomprehensible that an unknown person of no status or power in society and who was publicly active for only three years could ever get mentioned at all in any document that came down.

ALL the characters we encounter in the ancient documents were people of high status and importance and who had long public careers. There are NO exceptions, and it's inexplicable how this person who had no connection to power or to anyone important ever became mentioned in the historical record.

There should be no record at all of this person. Unless he really did perform those miracle acts. It's inconceivable how such a person of no status could have been preserved in any written accounts.

(There's no need to get hung up on exact numbers like the 5,000 spectators or on claims about Herod Antipas being interested in Jesus. Claims like these could be later embellishment on the original story. It's petty to nitpick at those details.)

You can apologize all you want to for the silence of the contemporary historical record.

No, it's the opposite -- how did he get mentioned at all, in Josephus and Tacitus and Suetonius? That he is there at all cannot be explained. No one has an explanation why he exists at all in any written record.

Don't you understand that 99.9999% of all humans 2000 years ago (or 1000 years ago) never were mentioned in the historical record? The "silence" is the norm. What needs to be explained is the opposite -- why there is anything at all written about him. And you have no answer.

What you cannot do is demonstrate that it was not silent.

The "contemporary" record was silent about millions of important persons. Hardly any historical persons that long ago are known to us from any "contemporary" accounts.

The vast majority of those historical events and characters are known to us from later than any "contemporary" record.

That we know of Jesus from accounts as close as only 25-30 years after the events is astounding. The vast majority of historical figures of the time are not known to us from any record that close to their time.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The evidence is that it was NON-disciples of Jesus who spread the word of his miracle acts, unlike the Joseph Smith stories.

There's no indication that any of the claims came from anyone other than these devotees after years of being influenced by his charisma. We need some indication of the claims coming from outside this inner circle of devout followers.

That's a fascinating position to hold on the credibility of a historical source.

I know you have declared that the gospel accounts came from disinterested bystanders...

No, they came from believers writing 40 or 50 or 60 years later. But they used reports from earlier sources. We obviously don't know who those sources were.

But in several of the accounts it's clear that observers were present who were not disciples of Jesus. These included the ones he healed.

It's also clear that the word of what he did went out and spread to surrounding regions for several miles. It could not have been his disciples only who spread these reports around, even if they did speak it to others.

In the first mention of the miracles and the spread of "his fame," it's very clear that the word being spread of him has to be from people other than his disciples:

Matthew 4: 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him. 23 And he went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people. 24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. 25 And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decap'olis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.

This follows directly after Jesus recruits his first 4 disciples. It's impossible that these four only could have spread "his fame" all around the region as described here. Rather, it's clear that they remained with him and did not travel everywhere else.

Even if the account exaggerates the events, which is likely the case, it's still obvious that if anything like this did happen, then the word of him was being spread by people who were not these four disciples or others joining his close circle of followers.

No matter exactly how large his inner group was and whether some of them left him to go out and tell others, the whole scenario cannot be explained unless he was actually performing these miracle acts, or everyone imagined he was doing it, which explains why the crowds were attracted, and unless the word was being spread by many who had no ideological interest but were simply impressed by his deeds and wanted to tell others.

The only way to explain this account, but also deny that non-disciples were the ones who spread the stories, is to insist that this whole scenario, in all 3 synoptics, is total fiction. You have to reject entirely the whole scene given here of Jesus recruiting his disciples and then performing the miracles and his "fame" spreading. All of it has to be complete fiction, totally fabricated by storytellers.

It's not necessary for a reasonable person to impose this condition on miracle claims. Not on the Jesus stories, or on the Joseph Smith stories, or on the Apollonius of Tyana stories. If we accept the general story as having some truth to it, even allowing some exaggeration or distortion, then the conclusion to be drawn here is that non-disciples were spreading the word of these miracle reports.

If we take all such accounts at face value, assuming that the scenarios presented are generally true, or not total fabrication, we can see that in the JS miracle stories, it's always the direct disciples of JS only who originated the stories and spread them. But for the Jesus miracle stories, it's clear that non-disciples were spreading the word about them.

Some of the stories say explicitly that the word was spread by non-disciples:

Mark 1: 40 And a leper came to him beseeching him, and kneeling said to him, "If you will, you can make me clean." 41 Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I will; be clean." 42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 And he sternly charged him, and sent him away at once, 44 and said to him, "See that you say nothing to any one; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to the people." 45 But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

This leper was not a disciple of Jesus at first. Virtually none of the victims Jesus healed were his disciples, according to the accounts. But in the Joseph Smith miracle stories, ALL the victims were direct disciples of the Prophet who had been under his charismatic spell for a long time.

This is one reason why the Jesus miracle stories are so much more credible than those of other assorted gurus and prophets.

But you never offered anything like 'some indication' that you could identify the source of the gospel accounts.

There are millions of manuscripts supposedly from centuries ago which came from some source. I have no way to verify any of them -- I just believe the scholars.

Perhaps "the Church" planted these manuscripts for researchers to find, and drugged the scholars and brainwashed them to date them back to the first century, and invented the whole story and had everyone programmed to believe it.

There's no limit on what "those bastards" will do to manipulate us.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

What Justin Martyr really said, and what he intended, when he referred to the pagan myths.

He did not really believe the pagan myths and Christian beliefs were similar

What is this based on?

First, they are NOT similar. There is no such similarity. Unless you mean that Superman is similar to Siegfried the dragon-slayer. Or Babe Ruth is similar to William Tell.

You can always toss around similarities between this hero character and that.

However, there is such a thing as REAL similarities, where it's not something trivial. (Like the Sinbad the Sailor story which is a copycat story from Homer's story of the giant cyclops.)

Secondly, Justin Martyr never really says there are similarities, except in one particular context, where he is trying to convince Romans to stop persecuting Christians. Except for this context, he never says there is any similarity. On the contrary, he says the Christian beliefs are true, whereas the pagan myths are false inventions from demons.

For the complete explanation of this and what Justin Martyr really said, and what he meant, see

Any use of quotes from Justin Martyr's First Apology is invalid without . . .

and

Again, Christians are killed for being Christians:

Now, since there are in fact no real similarities, why should we assume Justin thought there were such similarities?

The only time he says such a thing is when he's trying to persuade Romans to stop persecuting Christians for being Christians.

There are other points where he speaks of the "demons" making up stories, but he never says these stories are similar to anything about Jesus. You may interpret him as thinking there's a similarity, but he never says there is any such similarity.

Only when he's insisting on the innocence of Christians does he suggest there's a similarity of the pagan myths to the Christian beliefs. This is obviously not because he believes there's a similarity, but because he's trying to influence Romans to stop persecuting the Christians.

 

[Keith&Co.]

That's a fascinating position to hold on the credibility of a historical source.

I know you have declared that the gospel accounts came from disinterested bystanders...

No, they came from believers writing 40 or 50 or 60 years later. But they used reports from earlier sources. We obviously don't know who those sources were.

But in several of the accounts it's clear that observers were present who were not disciples of Jesus. These included the ones he healed.

Lumpy, you just fouled yourself.

If we don't have corroboration of the story, we don't know that it really happened. That's why we question the story's veracity.
The fact that the STORY ITSELF includes disinterested bystanders can NOT be used to pretend that the story was transmitted by disinterested bystanders to the person who wrote it down.
You cannot use the story as an element to verify the story. That's cheating.

You're just making shit up to pretend there's a good historical reason to accept the story.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Why can't you find some prooftext other than Justin Martyr? Obviously you have no evidence that the Christ belief and pagan myths were similar.

Christians were being murdered because of their beliefs and their rejection of pagan customs and beliefs.

Justin was making an appeal to the emperor, and to Romans generally, to stop murdering Christians, because the Christians posed no threat to Roman society. The Christians were harmless, because their beliefs and practices were no more dangerous than the current pagan beliefs and practices, and there were even many similarities between the Christian beliefs and the traditional pagan beliefs about their gods, he said.

Justin made this appeal in an effort to persuade the Romans to stop murdering Christians. He did not really believe the pagan myths and Christian beliefs were similar, but rather wanted to persuade Romans of the innocence of the Christians, so they would stop persecuting them out of the false notion that their beliefs or practices were a threat to the society.

So you know that Justin did not believe this.

Since it wasn't true, we should not assume Justin believed it.

He was lying when he said the stories were "no different."

Call it "lying" or whatever makes you feel good. He obviously was trying to convince Romans to stop persecuting Christians. Except for this motive, he never said the Christian beliefs were similar to the pagan beliefs.

Now that you've provided this explanation I'd be interested in the evidence you have that Christians were being murdered. As James Brown so eloquently asks, "What is this based on?"

Semantical quibbling over the exact meaning of "murdered" is not necessary. If you think it was OK for Pliny and other Romans to order Christians to be executed because they would not renounce their Christ belief, then maybe you can argue that it was not "murder."

And though we don't know how widespread these persecutions were, you have to keep in mind that Justin himself was eventually killed and also some of his students. So this was going on here and there. He did not hallucinate these killings.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

If your theory about the pagan myths had any merit, you could come up with something more than only Justin Martyr.

While Lumpenproletariat is cogitating over how he's going to prove Justin Martyr didn't actually believe that the ancient Greek and Roman myths had similarities to the Jesus myth, maybe it's as good a time as any for us to let old Justin speak for himself.

First Apology Chapter 54:

But those who hand down the myths which the poets have made, adduce no proof to the youths who learn them; and we proceed to demonstrate that they have been uttered by the influence of the wicked demons, to deceive and lead astray the human race. For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ was to come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished by fire, they put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvellous tales, like the things which were said by the poets. And these things were said both among the Greeks and among all nations where they [the demons] heard the prophets foretelling that Christ would specially be believed in; but that in hearing what was said by the prophets they did not accurately understand it, but imitated what was said of our Christ, like men who are in error, we will make plain...

Nowhere in this text does he say there is a similarity between the Jesus events and the pagan myths.

The closest is: "they put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvelous tales, like the things which were said by the poets."

He's not saying there's any similarity. Rather, he's saying a false idea is being produced in men, including that the Christ prophecies were mere marvelous tales, similar to those of the poets (myth-makers). But Justin did not believe this false idea himself. These Christ prophecies were NOT mere marvelous tales like those of the poets.

He's not saying there is in fact a similarity or that he believes there is, but rather is denying any such similarity. What the poets said were mere tales, but the Christ prophecies were not.

It goes on for some time, but the point of this apology appears to be an explanation of why these similarities exist.

No, the above quote (not the entire Apology) is an explanation why the false tales exist, not why any "similarities" exist between these tales and the Christ prophecies.

But, this is NOT the point of the Apology, as I point out in

Any use of quotes from Justin Martyr's First Apology is invalid without . . .

and

Again, Christians are killed for being Christians:

where I show that Justin's purpose is to persuade Romans to stop persecuting Christians. You cannot cite the Apology without taking into account this purpose of his. Within this treatise he digresses into some standard apologetics and attacks on paganism, etc., but this is not the "point" of the Apology.

Justin Martyr argues that wicked demons read what was written by the prophets about Jesus and imitated what was said, creating the poetry about sons of Jupiter.

You can use the word "imitated" to depict Justin's point, but he never says here that there is a similarity between the two. He says there will be a false impression that the Christ prophecies are "mere marvellous tales" like those of the poets. But this is clearly a false impression, according to him, and there is not this similarity to the tales of the poets.

They did so in an attempt to deceive and lead astray the human race.

This does not sound to me like someone who honestly does not believe that these similarities exist.

He clearly says that an idea is produced which he does not believe, i.e., that the demons were "able to produce in men the idea that the things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvelous tales, like the things which were said by the poets."

Obviously Justin himself does not hold this idea, so for him there is not the similarity, even if someone else thinks falsely that there is.

The truth is that there is no such similarity. At other points where he says there is a "similarity" and tries to offer examples, he obviously fails completely. He gives no example of any such similarity. But his point, when he says it, is only to convince Romans to stop persecuting Christians. Except for this, he never says there is any "similarity." You can't explain him without taking into account his whole point of defending Christians against these persecutions.

The only "similarity" you can possibly claim is simply that something miraculous happens. So, Superman is "similar" to Siegfried, or Krishna is "similar" to St. Francis, and you can go on and on insisting that every miracle claim is "similar" to every other miracle claim. Or any claim of something unusual. So Babe Ruth's ability to hit 60 home runs is "similar" to William Tell's ability to shoot an apple off his son's head.

Any great deed is "similar" to any other great deed that ever happened.

And so what is that supposed to prove? The deed never happened because someone claims it's "similar" to some earlier claim of a deed that happened? Babe Ruth never really hit any 60 home runs, because this sounds "similar" to an earlier claim of some alleged great deed?

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

You can't impose the arbitrary rule that no weird events can ever happen.

There is nothing reasonable about a corpse reanimating itself and flying into space. You will not touch the resurrection story with a 10 foot pole because you know it is shit that somebody made up. The emperor has no clothes.

We are still waiting for you to explain why it would be reasonable for anyone to believe that a corpse reanimated itself and flew off into space under its own power.

The only reason we believe any particular event ever happened is that someone said it happened, i.e., we have a written record saying it happened.

If it's something unusual, we require extra evidence.

We have extra evidence for the Jesus healing miracles and for the resurrection, so it's reasonable to believe these did happen, but also to have doubts.

Since there's only one (or two) sources for the ascension, this one is more doubtful, but still may have happened along with the others for which there are the extra sources. The fewer accounts for the ascension may be due to the fact of far fewer witnesses present at the one-time event. One could reasonably believe the other miracles but not this one due to the fewer sources for it.

Explaining HOW something happened is not necessary in order to believe it, if there is evidence, and if there is EXTRA evidence for something unusual.

A great deal of history would have to be discarded if there had to always be an explanation HOW it happened first, before it can be believed.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

We have some evidence, and this is a basis for reasonable hope in the possibility of eternal life.

We are still waiting for you to explain why it would be reasonable for us to believe that a corpse reanimated itself and flew off into space under its own power.

I am kind of curious about the steps.

Let's assume that we accept the anonymous account of one miraculous healing. How does this miracle support any claims that souls exist, and that Jesus has (had?) the power to determine their afterlife disposition?

How does that work? What's the chain of evidence or the logical steps? Show your work, Lumpy.

We don't know how extensive his power was (is). If it's extensive enough, it includes the power to extend life indefinitely. The ultimate "illness" or "disease" or "deformity" is that we die.

Something has to go wrong to make death happen. Eternal life means this is corrected and death is overcome.

If he could raise the dead, and if he resurrected himself, this means the possibility of life resuming after death.

It all depends on how far his power goes. It's a reasonable hope. Just because we don't know doesn't mean it's unreasonable to hope his power goes that far and makes eternal life possible.

Of all the claims ever made, or of all the possibilities ever suggested, this one offers the greatest hope that eternal life is possible, because it's the only case where we have some evidence of such power.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

We have to judge each miracle claim by itself, not reject them all in one collective mass.

Lumpy doesn't take the entire The Books as gospel (aheh-heh). He's quite willing to jettison any verse which provides any logical difficulty, or which may require that he live his life in accordance with Jesus' instructions if that takes any effort on his part.

We should take ALL documents at face value, treating them all the same. Take each part and judge it critically, believing some parts and rejecting others, or doubting them in degrees. No "Book" is entirely the truth or entirely to be condemned. We have to pick and choose.

So i wonder what Lumpy accepts as the logical chain that connects the healing of biology to the existence of non-corporeal personality elements with post-mortem persistence and their distribution based on their accepting the miracles as valid history.

If it's because 'The Books Sayeth Thus,' then i want to know how he verified those verses as valid.

We have to pick and choose. Some "verses" are more credible than others. You can't lump them altogether in one giant mass and either believe it all or reject it all en bloc.

It's reasonable to believe those Jesus miracle acts did happen. But not every detail, and not every other event in "The Books" -- some parts are more credible than others.

If there's some other means i'd like to see the math on the chalkboard.

If someone wrote that it happened, generally it's reasonable to believe it happened, with some questions.

But if it's something unusual, we need an extra source. Highly unusual, miracle event, requires 3 or 4 sources. And we want sources reasonably soon after the alleged events, unlike the sources for the miracles of Hanuman, or Apollonius of Tyana, or Perseus, or Mohammed.

A claim that it happened is evidence that it happened, but not all claims are equal. Some are too far removed from the alleged events to be considered credible.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

There are different factors which make the miracle claim more credible, or less credible.

We have the written accounts saying it happened, which makes it a possibility.

No, it doesn't, Lumpy. It's the other way around.

The fact that we know of no way such a thing could happen actually makes the account more likely to be fiction.

But if there are extra sources, that reduces the likelihood that it's fiction.

That we don't know how it happened does not make it impossible or eliminate the possibility that it's true.

Also if it's more difficult to explain the account itself, that makes it more likely to be true. E.g., if we know the account comes only from a direct disciple of the guru and from nowhere else, then it's less likely to be true. But if it comes from an observer who was not a direct disciple, then the credibility is higher.

Or, if the miracle story is about a person of no status or widespread recognition, that makes it more likely to be true than if it's about a famous celebrity or a notorious figure of wide repute.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Jesus should not be in the historical record at all, in any form (unless he really did those miracle acts).

Philo was "silent" on many others who were more important than Jesus before 50 AD.

Sorry, the only thing I got out of this post is (1) you still don't have anything from a contemporary historian talking about this Jesus person . . .

Hardly any person in those times was mentioned by a "contemporary historian." Only a very few of the tiny elite rich and powerful, and even many/most of these were not mentioned by any "contemporary" writer.

. . . and (2) Everyone whom Philo wrote about was more important than Jesus. Got it.

They were the rich and powerful elite, yes.

Considering that he was not in this elite class, it's amazing that Jesus got into the record at all, in less than 100 years. It's astounding and unheard-of. There's no other example. How is this explained?

 

[Keith&Co.]

I am kind of curious about the steps.

Let's assume that we accept the anonymous account of one miraculous healing. How does this miracle support any claims that souls exist, and that Jesus has (had?) the power to determine their afterlife disposition?

How does that work? What's the chain of evidence or the logical steps? Show your work, Lumpy.

We don't know how extensive his power was (is). If it's extensive enough, it includes the power to extend life indefinitely.

That's kind of a big if, really.
The best you've got is stories of someone being raised once. There's nothing about them being immortal after that, or raised a second time, or any indication that it's more than a one-shot deal.

Something has to go wrong to make death happen. Eternal life means this is corrected and death is overcome.

No.
The 'eternal life' that's on offer in connection with Jesus is something we get after we die. We HAVE to die to take advantage of this special offer. It's eternal life for our souls, not our bodies. You really ought to read the literature, you're mixing things up.

If he could raise the dead, and if he resurrected himself, this means the possibility of life resuming after death.

Again, a big if.
And there's no one who made it even 100 years to provide an eye-witness account of 'life everlasting' being within Jesus' power. Much less eternal life on this Earth.

It all depends on how far his power goes.

Yes, that's my whole point. How do you get from point A to point B? What elements of the story can you point to to show that Jesus can get you into Heaven?
What can you point to as evidence that there is a YOU after you die that can reach Heaven?

It's a reasonable hope.

No, it's not the result of 'reason.' It's an emotional, desperate hope, not a reasonable one. You cannot provide the logical chain that builds from even your flimsy evidence to the conclusion.

You just have a big 'what if' and 'maybe' supposition. You want to believe it's true, so you're pretending it's rational.

Just because we don't know doesn't mean it's unreasonable to hope his power goes that far and makes eternal life possible.

Actually, that's exactly what it means. We don't know, we cannot, therefore, use 'reason' to reach your conclusions.

Of all the claims ever made, or of all the possibilities ever suggested, this one offers the greatest hope that eternal life is possible, because it's the only case where we have some evidence of such power.

But that's just it.
Even if we accept the anonymous, uncorroborated stories of miracle healing, that's not evidence that souls exist, that gods exist, that Heaven exists, that the guy that got nailed to the tree has any pull with the guy at the gate for Heaven.

It's not even close to a case of some evidence 'of such power.'

 

[Keith&Co.]

We should take ALL documents at face value, treating them all the same.

Why? And when should we do this? You do not practice this rule.
You treat the Jesus miracles completely differently than you treat all other miracle claims.

Take each part and judge it critically, believing some parts and rejecting others, or doubting them in degrees. No "Book" is entirely the truth or entirely to be condemned. We have to pick and choose.

But you've offered no critical, objective method for determining which parts to believe, and which parts to reject. Clearly, you want to accept that parts that save you from oblivion, and clearly you also want to reject the parts that put a burden on you in how you live your life.
Feh.

We have to pick and choose. Some "verses" are more credible than others. You can't lump them altogether in one giant mass and either believe it all or reject it all en bloc.

Why not? The verses are uncorroborated. They're an anonymous account. They're separated in time and space from the events.
I'd treat them much as any hearsay, until actual evidence is applied.

It's reasonable to believe those Jesus miracle acts did happen.

No, not as a conclusion using 'reason' to evaluate the facts that are available.
Just emotions.

If someone wrote that it happened, generally it's reasonable to believe it happened, with some questions.

Nope.
You're not going to find any historian who champions this approach to the historical record.

Hell, we can't even apply it to Trump's speeches.

But if it's something unusual, we need an extra source. Highly unusual, miracle event, requires 3 or 4 sources.

Purely made-up-bullshit on your part, Lumpy.
There's no rule about extra sources or a minimum number of sources.
And you bitch at other people for 'arbitrary' rules being applied?

That's funny.

 

[Keith&Co.]

No, it doesn't, Lumpy. It's the other way around.

The fact that we know of no way such a thing could happen actually makes the account more likely to be fiction.

But if there are extra sources, that reduces the likelihood that it's fiction.

You keep flogging the gospels as 'extra' sources. They don't qualify.

That we don't know how it happened does not make it impossible or eliminate the possibility that it's true.

Eliminate? No.
But that's not what i actually wrote, now, is it?

Also if it's more difficult to explain the account itself, that makes it more likely to be true.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Sorry, no. Bullshit is NOT an accepted benchmark of veracity.

Seriously, Lumpy, stop making shit up.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Is Jesus a fiction because Philo did not mention him? Is the Sanhedrin a fiction?

Philo was "silent" on many others who were more important than Jesus before 50 AD.

Sorry, the only thing I got out of this post is (1) you still don't have anything from a contemporary historian talking about this Jesus person and (2) Everyone whom Philo wrote about was more important than Jesus. Got it.

Sorry, the only thing I got out of this post is (1) you still don't have anything from a contemporary historian talking about this Jesus person . . .

Hardly any person in those times was mentioned by a "contemporary historian." Only a very few of the tiny elite rich and powerful, and even many/most of these were not mentioned by any "contemporary" writer.

. . . and (2) Everyone whom Philo wrote about was more important than Jesus. Got it.

They were the rich and powerful elite, yes.

Considering that he was not in this elite class, it's amazing that Jesus got into the record at all, in less than 100 years. It's astounding and unheard-of. There's no other example. How is this explained?

On the "more important than Jesus" point, you are overlooking an important fact when you say "Everyone whom Philo wrote about was more important than Jesus."

It's also true that Many whom Philo did NOT write about were more important than Jesus.

In 30-50 AD there were many of them:

• The Zealots, Judas of Galilee, and others, who were more visibly involved in events than Jesus and causing disturbances and killing people and getting themselves killed, even crucified.
  
  
• The two famous rabbinical teachers Hillel and Shammai, who were more widely-known and followed during this time. Also two successors to them, Gamaliel and Yohanan ben Zakkai, are totally ignored.
  
  
• John the Baptist, whose sect probably was more numerous than that of Jesus. He was important enough to be mentioned by Josephus in a major passage, unlike Jesus who is hardly a footnote in Josephus.
  
  
• Herod Antipas who was a powerful rich ruler at the time, totally ignored by Philo.

No doubt there are others. The following are probable, though I can't determine for sure that Philo didn't mention them.

• Herod Archelaus, who succeeded Herod the Great as "governor" of Judea, 4 BC-6 AD. He's important enough to be mentioned by Josephus and in Matthew 2:22. Important powerful ruler, controversial, eventually deposed for offenses which Philo must have known about and should have mentioned like he mentioned those of Pilate.
  
  
• Theophilus ben-Ananus, high priest, 6-15 AD. He was important enough to be mentioned by Josephus, who pays tribute to him and notes that his five sons also held this high office, which is a very rare distinction.
  
  
• Joseph Caiaphas, high priest, 18-37 AD. Important figure, close to Pilate, mentioned by Josephus.

Philo pays much attention to the office of high priest, and yet doesn't mention the particular contemporary individuals who held this high office over several years.

• Honi ha-M'agel (Honi the Circle-Drawer) --
  
  

  During the 1st century BC, a variety of religious movements and splinter groups developed amongst the Jews in Judea. A number of individuals claimed to be miracle workers in the tradition of Elijah and Elisha, the ancient Jewish prophets. The Talmud provides some examples of such Jewish miracle workers, one of whom is Honi ha-Ma'agel, who was famous for his ability to successfully pray for rain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honi_ha-M'agel

(None of the above is mentioned in any pre-Christian literature, however that doesn't mean there were no oral reports of them, such as there probably were about Jesus, in the early first century, contemporary to Philo. Honi and other Joseph Smiths are later mentioned in the Talmud. I.e., the Jesus stories were soon recorded in writing, in the mid-1st-century, unlike the others which had no credibility and were dismissed out of hand.)

If Philo had any interest in reputed miracle-workers, he surely could not fail to mention these figures of folklore during his time. Jesus was a late-comer in this regard, and surely any rumors about him in 30-50 AD would be dismissed by Philo even more than he dismissed Honi and his 1st-century BC comrades. Philo obviously had no interest in such stories circulating around.

• The Sanhedrin. Does Philo omit any mention whatever of this important institution? Apparently.
  

All the above were more widely-recognized than Jesus before 50 AD. Anyone who would totally ignore them would also ignore Jesus, who had nowhere near the same degree of notoriety that any of them had at the time.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Is Jesus a fiction because Philo did not mention him? Is the Sanhedrin a fiction? .

Is anyone claiming that Jesus is a fiction BECAUSE Philo didn't mention him?
Anyone?
Anywhere?

Why do you flog the strawmen so very much?

 

[funinspace]

Is Jesus a fiction because Philo did not mention him? Is the Sanhedrin a fiction? .

Is anyone claiming that Jesus is a fiction BECAUSE Philo didn't mention him?
Anyone?
Anywhere?

Why do you flog the strawmen so very much?

I think I remember this guy saying it