The Bible: literal or metaphorical?

[Too Few Lions]

Coupled with the historical evidence that we do have about Jesus, the experience has enough substance to create faith.

What do we know about jesus historically other than he maybe existed?

There are all sorts of historical nuggets in the letters of Paul, if you would get over your unfounded prejudice against these writings and view them from an historical perspective.

Bruce, I thought the letters of Paul were famous for not mentioning much on the supposed life of Jesus, and not metioning most of the things in the gospels (eg the Lord's Prayer, the Transfiguration, the Sermon on the Mount, Mary, Joseph, Bethlehem, the 3 Wise Men, Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents, Galilee, Nazareth, Pontius Pilate, Judas Iscariot, Gethsemane, Calvary, the Temptation by Satan etc etc. He also never refers to Jesus as the 'Son of Man')

What are the 'historical nuggets' of Jesus' life that you've found in the writings of Paul?

[Gawen]

I read the Jesus Puzzle in English and in Spanish (for a lark). He's a journalist/novelist.  I remain absolutely unconvinced by his core argument about Paul. He missed the boat.  (Let's see, how much effort do I want to put into this?  Hmmmm.)

Doherty has a lot more information than you ascribe to him. Missing the boat is one thing Doherty doesn't do; he's rowing his own boat. Stacking the deck on a mega-Christian cruise liner like Bart Ehrman, Marcus Borg, N.T. Wright, Bart Ehrman, Bruce Metzger, John Dominic Crossan, Larry Hurtado and their ilk do doesn't lead anyone anywhere closer to the subject.

1. Paul probably at least saw the physical Jesus ("in the flesh") and alludes to this in II Corinthians 5:16.

"Probably" and "alludes to" is not the same as "He saw" and "Here's 100% evidence". Even Christian scholars debate this point. One line in II Cor. that alludes to possible first hand knowledge cannot wipe away 1700 years of tradition and the inconsistencies in Acts and Peter. Paul's usurpation of the new Jerusalem Church yelling and screaming his own agenda and self proclaimed Apostleship, well, he would say anything to become top dog. Paul, if he ever said what was written in IICor may have been writing to people or a person of a community that DID see Jesus alive before the resurrection.

Let's again use a sample of II Corinthians to see what an honest fellow Paul was:  12:16 Be that as it may, I have not been a burden to you. Yet, crafty (panourgos) fellow that I am, I caught you by trickery (dolos)!
As you can clearly see Paul was spying on people out by using dishonest methods; not the characteristics of a truthful and honest person.

In today's court of law any information given by a person that is contradictory, and is also illogical, this information is thrown out and the witness is discredited and cannot be taken as a reliable person and witness at all. Neither Acts nor Paul's epistles claim that Paul met Jesus before his Assumption into heaven; only you believe it otherwise.

2. Paul, as a Pharisee, would have been in Jerusalem at the Passover, and would have been involved in the Pharisees' encounters with Jesus during that last week.  As a young man, he may not have been personally introduced, but probably saw Jesus and heard him teach and argue.  That would explain the reference in II Corinthians 5:16.

Paul was a Hellenistic Diaspora Jew, claimed son of a tent maker. His claim of Pharseeship and study under Gamaliel is unfounded by the hacking job he does with Hebrew Bible text and the lack of funds of a tent makers son. Acts cannot be regarded as history. There is no contemporary evidence that Paul was a Pharisee and it is doubtful, that if he was, he wouldn't have written the crap he did.

In Roman's, Paul says he's an Israelite, "of the stock of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin" . It seems that Paul was not anxious to impart that he came from somewhere so remote as Tarsus. The impression he wished to give, of coming from an unimpeachable Pharisaic background, would have held little weight by the admission that he in fact came from Tarsus, where there were few, if any, Pharisee teachers and a Pharisee training would have been hard to come by and expensive.

Information (Paul's often autobiographical) given by any person about himself always has to be treated with a certain reserve, since everyone has strong motives for putting himself in the best possible light. And the information given about Paul in Acts also requires close scrutiny, since this work was written by someone committed to Paul's cause.

The Gospels do not mention any of the Apostles meeting Paul and these were written after Paul's Epistles.

I can bash Paul all day long. He is unreliable, a liar, a cheat, and a mega-maniacal usurper; not to be relied upon.  And like the majority of Christians, you rely on Paul...as if quoting Paul makes it all true.

13.  Earl Doherty is not a recognized NT scholar.

Oh...he will be.

14.  Josephus confirms the existence of James the Just, brother of Jesus.

For those that do not know, Josephus's two major tomes are History of The Jewish War (written in the 70's) and The Antiquities of the Jews (written in the 90's). In a single paragraph (the so-called Testimonium Flavianum) Josephus confirms every salient aspect of the Christ-myth:

1. Jesus's existence
2. his 'more than human' status
3. his miracle working
4. his teaching
5. his ministry among the Jews and the Gentiles
6. his Messiahship
7. his condemnation by the Jewish priests
8. his sentence by Pilate
9. his death on the cross
10. the devotion of his followers
11. his resurrection on the 3rd day
12. his post-death appearance
13. his fulfillment of divine prophecy
14. the successful continuance of the Christians.

Now that is a miracle because in 127 words, Josephus confirms everything! Not a single writer before the 4th century (Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, etc.) makes a single reference. If Josephus (a Jew living in Rome) really thought Jesus had been 'the Christ' surely he would have added more about him than one (out of context) paragraph in the Testimonium Flavianum, which is also a casual aside in Pilate's story. The Josephus paragraph about Jesus does not appear until the beginning of the fourth century, at the time of Constantine and Bishop Eusebius, that great self-confessed liar-for-god, was the first person known to have quoted this paragraph of Josephus, about the year 340 AD. This was after the Christians had become the custodians of religious correctness. It is...striking...Josephus confirms everything Christians could wish for, but he adds nothing that is not in the gospel narratives that would have been unknown by Christians already.

Josephus writes more about John the Baptist than about Jesus. He also reports in great detail the antics of other self-proclaimed messiahs, including Judas of Galilee, Theudas the Magician, and the unnamed 'Egyptian Jew' messiah...more detail than the alleged real Christ.

15.  Tacitus confirms that Jesus was crucified under Pilate.

Jesus has no part in Tacitus's history of the Caesars, except for one questionable reference in the Annals (Tacitus Book 15, chapter 44).
Sometime before 117 CE he allegedly wrote:
"Nero looked around for a scapegoat, and inflicted the most fiendish tortures on a group of persons already hated for their crimes. This was the sect known as Christians. Their founder, one Christus, had been put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. This checked the abominable superstition for a while, but it broke out again and spread, not merely through Judea, where it originated, but even to Rome itself, the great reservoir and collecting ground for every kind of depravity and filth. Those who confessed to being Christians were at once arrested, but on their testimony a great crowd of people were convicted, not so much on the charge of arson, but of hatred of the entire human race.

Their deaths were made farcical. Dressed in wild animals' skins , they were torn to pieces by dogs, or crucified, or made into torches to be ignited after dark as substitutes for daylight."

The term 'Christian' was not in use during the reign of Nero and there would not have been 'a great crowd' unless we are speaking of Jews or pagans.

But wow!!! No Christian apologist for centuries ever quoted the passage of Tacitus until it had appeared almost word-for-word in the writings of Sulpicius Severus, in the early fifth century, where it is mixed in with other myths. Sulpicius liked fantasy: his Life of St. Martin is replete with numerous 'miracles', including raising of the dead and personal appearances by Jesus and Satan.

In short, the passage in Tacitus is a fraud and adds no evidence for a historic Jesus.

16.  No contemporary of Paul disproves anything that he said in his epistles.

Contemporary what? Biblical? Extra Biblical? There are no other extra biblical contemporaries before 115CE. All you have to go on is what's written in the Bible and non-canonical writings.

19.  It was clear early on that Christians preached the resurrection of Jesus.

It is also clear that at the same time, other people and other religions also preached resurrection. This mythical junk was believed by a lot of people, not just proto-Christians.

No contemporary of the early church disproves that Jesus lived, was crucified, was buried or was resurrected.

That's because there aren't any. Everything written about Jesus was after the fact by a believer for belivers, inconsistent, full of miracles, full of interpolations and redaction's.

Nobody produced the body, which would have been easy to do.

Oh please, Bruce...not the empty tomb crap. Really? I mean...really? If you must resort to this sort of evidence (all that you posted) it would not seem strange to me if you believe Ray Comforts argument that the  banana is a perfect proof of God's existence.

21.  Even if the early Christians didn't see Jesus as JUST a man, they clearly saw him as a man, and celebrated him as such.

So? Red herring...Mormons think Joseph Smith just a man. Muslims think Muhammad just a man. Buddha was just a man....

Score:
Bruce 0 (for wishful thinking and shoehorned evidence...)
Me 1 (for showing him just that)

[Tank]

{snip}
Score:
Bruce 0 (for wishful thinking and shoehorned evidence...)
Me 1 (for showing him just that)

Was that bit really necessary 

[Too Few Lions]

1. Paul probably at least saw the physical Jesus ("in the flesh") and alludes to this in II Corinthians 5:16.

That's a blatant fib. That line reads 'Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer.'

In no way shape or form can one induce that Paul met Jesus from that line.  I don't think Paul ever claims to have met a historical Jesus in his writings. If you can find a passage that indicates otherwise, please let me know.

To my knowledge Paul doesn't mention very much on a historical Jesus. He also never quotes Jesus to back up his arguments, instead he quotes the Greek version of the OT, proving he was a Greek speaker who used the Greek version of the OT.

2. Paul, as a Pharisee, would have been in Jerusalem at the Passover, and would have been involved in the Pharisees' encounters with Jesus during that last week.  As a young man, he may not have been personally introduced, but probably saw Jesus and heard him teach and argue. 

Please provide evidence of this. It seems like another piece of false history you've just made up.

3. As a Jew living in Palestine, Paul would have been aware of the events and history of his day, just as I am aware that Barack Obama is President of the USA, even though I've never met him personally.  As a contemporary, he would be capable of giving general history about Jesus.

Firstly we have no evidence that Jesus ever lived, secondly I don't think we have any concrrete evidence that Paul was in Palestine at the time.

4.  Paul confirms in Galatians 4:4 that Jesus was both a man ("born of a woman") and a Jew.

But Paul never met Jesus, so what he wrote is just hearsay. Plus what he says can't be taken as historical becasue he was very much at the forefront of creating Christianity. He wasn't an impartial historian.

5.  Paul confirms in Galatians 3:1 that Jesus was crucified.

Indeed, that is the central part of the Christian myth, which itself in a large part may well have been created by Paul. Paul was not an eyewitness to any such event and he is not an objective historical source.

6.  Paul confirms in Galatians 1:18 that apostle named Peter (Cephus) existed, and in Galatians 2:9 that an apostle (pillar) named John existed.

Dittto the above. Paul just claims to have met these people (thus no doubt trying to prove his authority), that in no way shape or form proves they ever existed or that he ever met them. He does rather amusingly follow that claim with 'what I write is plain truth; before God I am not lying', which suggests he is to me!

7.  Paul confirms in Galatians 1:19 that James was Jesus' brother (clearly to distinguish him from the other Jameses who were not his brothers, like James the son of Zebedee).

Ditto the above it's from the same 'honest guv I'm not lying' passage!

9.  In I Corinthians 11:23-26 Paul confirms that Jesus was betrayed at night, that he said and did specific things, and that he instituted the Lord's Supper (Eucharist).

Trouble with that is that similar eucharists were already being practiced in pagan religions such as Mithraism and the mysteries of Dionysus. That's where the Christian eucharist really came from.

10.  In I Corinthians 15:1-11 Paul confirms that Jesus died, was buried, and rose on the third day, and was seen by specific witnesses, including himself (eyewitness testimony).

Paul claims to have seen Jesus in a vision years after his supposed death, so he's hardly 'eyewitness testimony'. The fact that he claims 500+ other people saw the resurrected Jesus means nothing, he just made that up! He wasn't there at the time and there's no evidence to back his claims up.

11.  In I Thessalonians 2:15 Paul confirms that Jesus was killed at the instance of Judeans, just like they had killed their previous prophets.

Ditto above, Paul was not an eyewitness to any such events. Just because he claims this happened means nothing. He was trying to promote Christianity and convert pagans, in no way shape or form are his writings objective historical accounts. For me he's just recounting the basics of the Jesus myth, which is a variant of plenty of other myths that were already in existence.

12.  The vast majority of scholars, including agnostic scholars, accept the authentic epistles of Paul as having been written by him, around the 50's, and that we have a good idea of what he said from the available manuscripts (see, for example, Bart Ehrman).

I hardly consider Bart Ehrmann to be critical of the NT and and Christianity. Having read several of his books, he's constantly affirming the historicity of Jesus and the twelve apostles, and the 'inherent Jewishness' of Jesus and his message. Both of which a more critical scholar might question, particularly given that 100% of all the earliest Christian works are written in Greek!

14.  Josephus confirms the existence of James the Just, brother of Jesus.

Again you're fibbing Bruce. Scholars consider that to be a third century Christian addition to the original text to try and prove Jesus (and James) were historical people.

15.  Tacitus confirms that Jesus was crucified under Pilate.

Not factually correct I'm afraid Bruce. Tacitus wrote that in 116 CE, some 85 years after Jesus' supposed lifetime and he mentions just really basic stuff that any Roman could have known as hearsay.

16.  No contemporary of Paul disproves anything that he said in his epistles.

??? meaning what? there's barely anything factual or historical to prove! it's mainly just Paul's views and teachings promoting his version of Christianity. Christianity was an irrelevant religion of religious extremists in the first century, no-one really paid too much attention to them or their writings.

17.  Mark wrote his gospel before 70 A.D.  Besides Paul (and probably "Q"), his is the earliest account of Jesus.  No contemporary of Mark disproves anything he said in his gospel.

No-one writes anything that confirms it either. Plus no-one called Mark ever wrote that gospel, the gospels were anonymously written and the evangelsists' names ascribed to them at a later date to try and pretend they were eyewitness accounts of Jesus' supposed life. Plus I have serious reservations over when that gospel or the others were written, so we can't really say who was a contemporary! The earliest mention of the gospels date from the second century, as do the earliest fragments known of them. Paul doesn't mention them, and appears unaware of them in his writings. Otherwise surely he would have mentioned them and used them to back up his arguments.

18.  The "Q" sayings are attributed to Jesus in non-canonical works such as the Gospel of Thomas, which may be 1st Century.  No contemporary disproves that Jesus uttered sayings such as these.

No-one proves it either. The gospel of Thomas is just a collection of sayings in Greek ascribed to Jesus. Nowhere does it suggest he was a historical person, he could have been a mythical philosophical figure like Hermes Trismegistus.  Indeed the Gospel of Thomas was a Gnostic work, and they didn't see Jesus as a historical real person.

19.  It was clear early on that Christians preached the resurrection of Jesus.  No contemporary of the early church disproves that Jesus lived, was crucified, was buried or was resurrected.  Nobody produced the body, which would have been easy to do.

No contemporary even mentions Jesus, Paul, the apostles or or the early Church, which rather nullifies your argument. If Jesus and the apostles are mythological and never existed, how could any contemporary have disproved any of the above? or produced the body of Jesus?  It would be like producng the body of Diosnysus!

20.  The author of Hebrews, a second generation believer, clearly understood Jesus to have been an historical man, of the tribe of Judah and lineage of David.  He didn't understand Paul to be talking about some spiritual/mythical Jesus.

I would firstly question that dating of Hebrews, there's no evidence that the author was 'a second generation believer'. Secondly, we can find evidence of Christians who did believe in a mythical Jesus just as we can find evidence of Christians who believed in a historical Jesus. We also need to remember that the 'orthodox' Imperial Church went to great lengths to outlaw any forms of Christianity that looked at Jesus as a mythical figure, and ordered all their writings to be burned and destroyed in the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries. It's only good fortune that some were rediscovered in the 20th century.

21.  Even if the early Christians didn't see Jesus as JUST a man, they clearly saw him as a man, and celebrated him as such. 

Bruce, that isn't remotely true, and I'm sure you know it. Plenty of early Christians didn't see Jesus as a real man at all.  The Gnostics never believed that, indeed their writings claimed that Christians such as yourself follow 'an imitation' Church, that 'proclaims the doctrine of a dead man and lies' (Second  Treatise of the Great Seth)

Plus the fact that some early Christians living a century or more after the supposed lifetime of Jesus believed him to have been a real historical man proves nothing at all. The ancient Greeks believed that Heracles, Dionysus, Odysseus and Achilles had all been real historical men, it doesn't mean that they actually were!

Score tied 21-21.

Gawen 21 - Bruce 0 

All I can see from the letters of Paul is that the basics of a Jesus myth were in existence, based on figures such as Socrates, Prometheus, Heracles, Odysseus, Dionysus etc (the Greek suffering hero figure), which combined the Greek ideas of saviour and Son of God with the Jewish idea of the Messiah. Paul moulded the basics to his own agenda, and may well have created some of them himself.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

Well, we obviously have different takes on these issues, and for me to continue to argue for my position is 1) going to take more time and energy than I have; 2) is going to be useless; and 3) will probably lead to nastiness, if my previous experience on other atheist fora is any indication.  I'll vacate the field for this particular game.  I've stated my position, and since this is an atheist forum, I'll let your responses be the last word. 

[Gawen]

{snip}
Score:
Bruce 0 (for wishful thinking and shoehorned evidence...)
Me 1 (for showing him just that)

Was that bit really necessary 

Well...I think it is...*shruggin with a grin*. If you deem it questionable....delete it.

[Gawen]

Well, we obviously have different takes on these issues, and for me to continue to argue for my position is 1) going to take more time and energy than I have; 2) is going to be useless; and 3) will probably lead to nastiness, if my previous experience on other atheist fora is any indication.  I'll vacate the field for this particular game.  I've stated my position, and since this is an atheist forum, I'll let your responses be the last word.  

I'm.....ahhhh...what's a good word? Disappointed? First of all, you have all the time in the world to respond. No time limit here. Secondly, the uselessness, I wager, is that you cannot see and/or will not allow yourself to see our side of the argument/s while most of us can definitely see your argument/s.

Speaking only for myself, while my replies may be somewhat...stern....there is no nastiness, nor do I mean for there to be any.

[Norfolk And Chance]

Well, we obviously have different takes on these issues, and for me to continue to argue for my position is 1) going to take more time and energy than I have; 2) is going to be useless; and 3) will probably lead to nastiness, if my previous experience on other atheist fora is any indication.  I'll vacate the field for this particular game. I've stated my position, and since this is an atheist forum, I'll let your responses be the last word. 

Can I just ask, (seeing as though you've backed out of the original conversation I don't think I'll be derailing this thread) why you seek out atheist forums? Is it to have your own faith put under question, so you can (unconvincingly) answer those questions, thus strengthening your faith? Do you find atheists interesting? Or maybe you hope that by attempting to answer any questions you might make some of us see why people have faith or better still, maybe convert someone?

There's nothing sinister in my questions, I just am curious to the motives of theists coming on atheist forums and I suppose if they didn't there would be nothing to discuss.

You point out that other atheist forums have got nasty, how does this place compare? I'm not really knowledgable about other places as this is the first atheist forum I have joined, my experience of religious debate comes from CT sites that I'm a member of.

I read a couple of christian forums out of curiosity and was quite frankly disgusted at the subjects on there and the "advice" handed out to solve "problems" (such as being gay). I know if I had joined up, I would have just steamed in and trolled the joint before probably getting banned within 5 minutes.

[Too Few Lions]

Well, we obviously have different takes on these issues, and for me to continue to argue for my position is 1) going to take more time and energy than I have; 2) is going to be useless; and 3) will probably lead to nastiness, if my previous experience on other atheist fora is any indication.  I'll vacate the field for this particular game.  I've stated my position, and since this is an atheist forum, I'll let your responses be the last word. 

Bruce, obviously you and us are going to have different views on this subject, but I hope there wouldn't be any nastiness (I don't think there has been so far). I think it's a little unfair and disingenuous to suggest there would be. You've chosen to believe pretty much all of what Paul claims to be true in his letters, we're more skeptical, but both sides are entitled to their opinions (and that includes you!) I do wonder if you feel a special attachment to Paul because of the religious experience you had and the one he claimed to have had.

[Gawen]

I am wondering, though, if we are to take his last reply literally or metaphorically....


*huge grin*

[Too Few Lions]

I am wondering, though, if we are to take his last reply literally or metaphorically....

[Tank]

{snip}
Score:
Bruce 0 (for wishful thinking and shoehorned evidence...)
Me 1 (for showing him just that)

Was that bit really necessary 

Well...I think it is...*shruggin with a grin*. If you deem it questionable....delete it.

You're not the one who'll have to put the flame war out if it ignites 

[Whitney]

Do you know what I think about this topic...it doesn't matter.  Neither one makes the Bible make more sense and both can lead to philosophically troubled religious views.

[Crow]

Do you know what I think about this topic...it doesn't matter.  Neither one makes the Bible make more sense and both can lead to philosophically troubled religious views.

Well said.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

Bruce, obviously you and us are going to have different views on this subject, but I hope there wouldn't be any nastiness (I don't think there has been so far). I think it's a little unfair and disingenuous to suggest there would be. You've chosen to believe pretty much all of what Paul claims to be true in his letters, we're more skeptical, but both sides are entitled to their opinions (and that includes you!) I do wonder if you feel a special attachment to Paul because of the religious experience you had and the one he claimed to have had.

"Fibbing", as you call it, is another word for lying. When you say I'm fibbing, you are accusing me of lying.  You are impugning my character.  So we start down the road to nastiness.  I've been on several atheist fora, and it always ends that way.  I thought "Happy Atheist" would be different, and maybe it will be. Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions.

These sorts of discussions do take a lot of time, especially when we are dealing with so many points. It can be overwhelming.  But this is more an issue of time management.  I've decided to take my 21 points and defend them one at a time, one per day.  That's 3 weeks of grist for the mill.  I'll post once about each one, totally shoot my wad on that subject, and then let everyone have at it.  I'll have the defense of my first point in about 30 minutes or so.