# Did Paul hijack Christianity? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 25, 2010, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342 "2010-02-25T01:48:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/361 "2010-03-25T15:19:56Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > **Alan Smithee** , I thank you for returning rational debate to the thread. I don’t know why **Diogenes** has effectively bowed out, saying he’s agnostic but defending the historicist position anyway. He’s posed valid arguments – even if they’re the same old ones he put out years ago without showing any movement – but then backs away and doesn’t address my rebuttals. I find that frustrating. Sure, his heart doesn’t seem to be in it, but then why pose the pro-historicist arguments at all? I’m rather confused. I haven’t defended either side. I’ve just presented information as to what the sides are. I’ve done the same for both sides. I’ve “defended” the mythicist side as much as the historicist one. > [@](#): > > Had James been a biological sibling of Jesus, he would have been described very differently than just as another _adelphos_, like more than 500 other people. Not just Paul, but all the others _would_ have used a different term than just _adelphos_. **Diogenes** knows Koine Greek and I don’t, but surely there’s a Koine Greek term or phrase that’s more precise than _adelphos_ that would be used to unambiguously identify a biological sibling. There is not. _Adelphos_ is the word. > [@](#): > > That’s the word used throuoght the NT to describe blood siblings. Yet it wasn’t used, and that’s not only clear from the language, that’s clear from the behavior: Look how important bloodlines and blood relatives were to the Jews of the age, authoritarians as they were, and also look at how important bloodlines are in terms of the leaders of religious sects when the original leader dies or is otherwise removed from the scene, such as we see in Islam and in Mormonism. The blood relative doesn’t necessarily end up the _sole_ leader, but the blood relative is an extremely important and noted personage in the remaining movement. > > No, had James been a blood sibling of Jesus, he would have been celebrated as such and would have been seized upon as an authority by dint of his bloodline or someone else would have capitalized on being the friend or special associated of the blood relative. Sociobiology is powerful indeed in such situations, as religious history has shown over and over again. > > Recall that Paul was an avid persecutor of the “Son of God” faith, and like all zealous anti-zealots, the blood relations of any alleged “founder” of such a faith would be subject to special attention and control. But Paul never indicated any such special attention. Instead, he refers to both James -and- Cephas as “adelphos”, showing no special interest in James as he _would_ have done if James were a biological sibling of Jesus. Over and over again, a biological sibling would **absolutely** have been repeatedly called upon to interpret his biological brother’s words and ideas, just as we see every time there is a biological relationship to call upon. > > While the Jerusalem Church headed by James as “the” _adelphos_ of “the Lord” (never _adelphos_ of Jesus!) was important, it was by no means the central authority of the new church, which instead was Paul. That’s simply not credible if James has been a biological sibling of Jesus! James was the head of the Jerusalem Church, which is just what would be expected. Paul was at odds with that church, as well as with its leadership, and believed himslf to have received directict revelation from Jesus which would, in Paul’s mind, sueprceded anything that James said. In general, people would have been expected to defer to the authority of kinship after the death of Jesus, that’s true (and the other disciples making James the head of the movement would support that), but you can’t always extropolate the specific from the general. Paul was a highly idiosyncratic personality who broke from normal Jewish and Palestinian cultural expectations in multiple ways. Declaring that Mosaic law was no longer binding, for instance, was far more out of step with Palestinian Jewish culture than rejecting the authority of a prophet’s brother. The Jerusalem movement had its Christianity, and Paul has his own Christianity. After the sacking of Jerusalem in 70 CE, Paul’s Christianity became “orthodox” (though Pauline Christianity still had to duke it out with Gnostics for a while). > [@](#): > > James’ group in Jerusalem had the following name: “Adelphon en Kurio”, Brothers In the Lord. Never are they called “Brothers in Jesus”. This is compelling evidence that no historical or other Jesus was known of or referenced, else they would have either named themselves so or they would have written or asked James or Paul about this Jesus, but that never happened. Clearly, this was a church that worshiped a spiritual Lord rather than any historical figure. If “Adelphon en Kurio” referred to biological siblings, they would _all_ have to be biological siblings of some unnamed “Lord”! You cant’ arbitrarily claim _adelphos_ means “biological sibling of Jesus” in _some_ instances and “members of a like-minded community who believed in a spiritual Lord” in others. There are churches now where people call each other “brothers in Christ.” This is a figurative use which is perfcetly well undertood by English speakers as being both distinct from a claim of literal sibling kinship with each other and from a claim of brotherhood with Christ, and the same was true in _Koine_. _Adelphos_ is actually very cognate with the English word “bother” in its range of both literal and figurative meaning. “Brothers IN” and “Brother OF” are quite different things. You cannot eliminate the hypothesis that Paul meant “brother of” literally just by declaring it to be a special title for the leader. There is no other instance I’m aware of in the New Testament, or in Christian literature or in Christian liturgical history of a Church leader being called the “bother OF the Lord.” Please understand that I’m not trying to present this as proof of historicity, but as a hypothesis which is not disproven simply because other hypotheses exist. ---
**Author:** ![bbonden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecb155/32.png) [@bbonden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bbonden)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/362 "2010-03-25T21:32:30Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > Yes, starting at least 40 to 100 years prior to give enough time for Mark to include accreted myth on top of his recasting of Homeric myth, which destroys your own arguments. > > - > - It is a certainty that any history written after the fact will include some accreted myth, captured bias and flat-out errors. No historian or biographer – not even the great Robert Caro – is immune. The historiographical question is whether the accreted myth is built on top of a historical foundation. With the gospels, it seems very, very probable that it was. Why? 1. The Jerusalem sect and Paul had to have the same view of the corporeality of Jesus. You agree on whether your Messiah lived and breathed before you talk about foreskins. 2. That shared view was almost certainly as to a corporeal Jesus. Paul learned by direct revelation. He had no obvious need to tie himself to the Jerusalem sect; if they disagreed with him on a point that was fundamental to his revelation, he could proceed on his own (whether his revelation was genuine or not) – unless, of course, the Jerusalem sect had an indisputable claim to the authority of the source of the revelation. Direct, personal knowledge of a historical figure is just such an indisputable claim – and perhaps the only one. So it seems very likely that the Jerusalem sect and Paul agreed on Jesus’s corporeality (a view entirely consistent with, if not confirmed by, Paul’s writings about the Last Supper and crucifixion). 3. Mark could have been written for the benefit of a congregation outside the influence of the Jerusalem sect or the Pauline churches. But it seems improbable that such a sect existed circa 70 CE, much less that it would both consider itself Christian and have its own repository of accreted myth distinct from the larger movement. 4. It certainly would not make sense for a splinter group with its own repository of accreted myth to create a central text that was eminently falsifiable by a larger group from which it splintered. Nor is it likely that, rather than being falsified, the splinter group’s text was preserved and emulated. So the logical conclusion – absent some suggestion of corruption of the text itself – is that the Markan text reflects a broader shared view among the congregations. (Spiritualist or agnostic texts are not as falsifiable – and so not as unlikely to be out of the mainstream.) In other words, the facts – and myths – captured in Mark were consistent with broadly existing views at the time it was written. 5. The traditional authorship of Luke/Acts puts the Markan text further within the dominant view, as opposed to a splinter. The known historicity of Paul and Peter and James are linked directly to Jesus, by an author whose identity (and bias) seems likely to be preserved and understood. Events that would be known by the text’s first readers are presented for scrutiny. To be sure, it is possible that the author of Luke/Acts used the more falsifiable recent events to bootstrap credibility for the benefit of a corporeal myth first created in Mark. But the more widely known the oral or written tradition that preceded Mark, the more likely that elements of it would have been falsified and that the falsification would have toppled the whole work. Were there myths accreted to a historical Jesus between 30 CE and the memorialization of Mark? That’s almost beyond dispute. Do we know whether the historical Jesus was really just a simple fisherman who claimed his own revelation (as hypothesized by **DtC** in post 348) or a full-blown preacher/prophet? No – though I would argue that the survival of the movement after the crucifixion suggests a robust ministry, rather than a weak one. But the question of where and how to separate the accreted myths from the historical figure is a different question, I think, than the historicity of the figure in the first instance. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/363 "2010-03-25T22:14:59Z")
> [@bbonden](#): > > It is a certainty that any history written after the fact will include some accreted myth, captured bias and flat-out errors. No historian or biographer – not even the great Robert Caro – is immune. The historiographical question is whether the accreted myth is built on top of a historical foundation. > > With the gospels, it seems very, very probable that it was. Why? > > 1. The Jerusalem sect and Paul had to have the same view of the corporeality of Jesus. You agree on whether your Messiah lived and breathed before you talk about foreskins. > > 2. That shared view was almost certainly as to a corporeal Jesus. Paul learned by direct revelation. He had no obvious need to tie himself to the Jerusalem sect; if they disagreed with him on a point that was fundamental to his revelation, he could proceed on his own (whether his revelation was genuine or not) – unless, of course, the Jerusalem sect had an indisputable claim to the authority of the source of the revelation. Direct, personal knowledge of a historical figure is just such an indisputable claim – and perhaps the only one. So it seems very likely that the Jerusalem sect and Paul agreed on Jesus’s corporeality (a view entirely consistent with, if not confirmed by, Paul’s writings about the Last Supper and crucifixion). Why do you assume that the Jerusalem cult had a corporeal view of Jesus? we actually don’t know their view of Jesus. If it was spiritual, then they would not have been out of accord with paul. > [@](#): > > 1. Mark could have been written for the benefit of a congregation outside the influence of the Jerusalem sect or the Pauline churches. But it seems improbable that such a sect existed circa 70 CE, much less that it would both consider itself Christian and have its own repository of accreted myth distinct from the larger movement. Mark is an essentially Pauline, and arguably anti-apostolic work. Christologies were already wildly variable, though, and docetic Christologies existed at the time of Mark’s Gospel, so there is nothing which can be assertained about the Jerusalem cult’s Christology from the communities which existed at the time of Mark. They were already contradictory. > [@](#): > > 1. It certainly would not make sense for a splinter group with its own repository of accreted myth to create a central text that was eminently falsifiable by a larger group from which it splintered. How do you think a historicized Jesus would have been falsifiable? Why do yoiu think any community who believed in one would have cared if someone denied it? > [@](#): > > Nor is it likely that, rather than being falsified, the splinter group’s text was preserved and emulated. Splinter texts were preserved and copied all the time. Are yoiu familiar with the Gnostic Gospels or with Marcion? > [@](#): > > So the logical conclusion – absent some suggestion of corruption of the text itself – is that the Markan text reflects a broader shared view among the congregations. Then how do you explain all the other contradictory groups and texts? > [@](#): > > (Spiritualist or agnostic texts are not as falsifiable – and so not as unlikely to be out of the mainstream.) In other words, the facts – and myths – captured in Mark were consistent with broadly existing views at the time it was written. Actually, spiritual and docetic views of what was in reality, a historical person, would be easier to falsify than the other way around. It’s easier to prove somebody did existe than that they didn’t exist. [quote] 5. The traditional authorship of Luke/Acts puts the Markan text further within the dominant view, as opposed to a splinter.[/qyuote] The traditional authorship of Luke (like with all the other canonical Gospels) is spurious. > [@](#): > > The known historicity of Paul and Peter and James are linked directly to Jesus, by an author whose identity (and bias) seems likely to be preserved and understood. No one knows who the author was. > [@](#): > > Events that would be known by the text’s first readers are presented for scrutiny. No they aren’t. The author of Luke-Acts was writing in 90-100 CE, 60-70 years after the alleged crucifixion. he was also writing in a different country, in a different language to a different audience. No one was going to contradict him, and even if they did, no one would have cared. Luke also used prior written sources, Mark and Q, so he clearly had no access to anyone who had any direct knowledge of anything. > [@](#): > > To be sure, it is possible that the author of Luke/Acts used the more falsifiable recent events to bootstrap credibility for the benefit of a corporeal myth first created in Mark. But the more widely known the oral or written tradition that preceded Mark, the more likely that elements of it would have been falsified and that the falsification would have toppled the whole work. It has yet to be demonstarted that any of the narrative elements in Mark ever existed in oral tradition prior to Mark. > [@](#): > > Were there myths accreted to a historical Jesus between 30 CE and the memorialization of Mark? That’s almost beyond dispute. Do we know whether the historical Jesus was really just a simple fisherman who claimed his own revelation (as hypothesized by **DtC** in post 348) or a full-blown preacher/prophet? No – though I would argue that the survival of the movement after the crucifixion suggests a robust ministry, rather than a weak one. That isn’t what I said. The “fisherman” I was referring to was Peter. My hypothesis involved Jesus starting as a vision of Peter’s, not as Jesus being a fisherman. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/364 "2010-03-26T02:16:17Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > It depends on what you mean by “historical.” Everybody (at least by the latter half of the first century) thought that Jesus had interacted with people on earth. Some thought he did it as a spirit, and some as a person. Which version came first is not known. Was he a spirit figure later personified, or a human figure later spiritualized. Both are live hypotheses. I am having difficulty formulating my question. I could imagine a sect that accepted what became the New Testament believing that Jesus was nonetheless a God or Spirit, with qualifications. What I think I’m asking though is whether there is solid evidence that a Doherty-style Christian sect even existed, one that believed that “Jesus’ incarnation, death and resurrection [took]… place in heaven”, to quote Carrier’s outline. Or has such a sect merely been imputed? More generally, I had supposed that the differences between these Christologies didn’t amount to all that much and that, barring a few holdouts, they could be papered over with some sort of ecclesiastical compromise such as the Holy Trinity. Of course the range of Christologies may have narrowed a lot between 40 and 325CE. Or the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/365 "2010-03-26T03:58:27Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > I am having difficulty formulating my question. I could imagine a sect that accepted what became the New Testament believing that Jesus was nonetheless a God or Spirit, with qualifications. What I think I’m asking though is whether there is solid evidence that a Doherty-style Christian sect even existed, one that believed that “Jesus’ incarnation, death and resurrection [took]… place in heaven”, to quote Carrier’s outline. Or has such a sect merely been imputed? No solid evidence, no. If there was, there wouldn’t be a debate. > [@](#): > > More generally, I had supposed that the differences between these Christologies didn’t amount to all that much and that, barring a few holdouts, they could be papered over with some sort of ecclesiastical compromise such as the Holy Trinity. Of course the range of Christologies may have narrowed a lot between 40 and 325CE. Or the opposite. They were pretty wildly disparate both in terms of Christology and theology. There were sects saying Jesus was purely spirit, some saying he was purely human and not divine, and some saying he was both human and god. There was a major 2nd century sect (the Marcionites) that believed in two Gods, there were other heresies that believed in 30 gods and 365 gods. It was basically a mess. What appears to be one of the earliest and closest to the original movement, at least in terms of geography, was the Ebionites. There were an Aramaic speaking, Palestinian Jewish Jesus movement that believed in an adoptionist view of Jesus as a purely human figure, imbued by the Holy Spirit at his baptism to die for the sins of humanity. Basically they believed he was a human who showed perfect obedience to the law, and was therefore “adopted” by God to be the universal sacrifice for all man’s sins (gee, thanks, God). They denied the virgin birth and denied that Jesus was God, but they believed he was a real guy. I know **Ambushed** will probably disagree strongly, but that strikes me as the kind of belief that would plausibly represent a Jewish movement centered around a genuine, historical person. The first Gospel, Mark, also appears to reflect an adoptionist view. ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/366 "2010-03-27T06:16:24Z")
Sorry to have stepped out of the debate for a while, but I was on vacation. Since I returned, I’ve reviewed the thread and reread the Epistles. It was an interesting exercise, because I had more distance from the Gospel version this time than on prior occasions. Reading Paul as a contemporary would have, i.e., without the gloss of the Gospels, I was struck by a couple things. First, the Epistles are not attempts to win converts. They are instructions to folks already converted. The dialogue Doherty and others wish they contained about who Christ was, his nature, where the crucifiction happened, etc. all appear to have occurred “offline,” presumably verbally at the time of conversion. Let’s bear in mind that, by his report, Paul’s ministry lasted something like fifteen to twenty years. In this context, seven accredited epistles is a scant data set. Second, in addition to the perhaps (even probably) interpolated reference to the Last Supper, Paul includes a number of references consistent with a corporeal Christ. For example, Romans 1:3 refers to his human nature and 8:3 speaks of his coming in the likeness of a sinful man; 1 Cor. 15:21 has the resurrection coming through a man; Gal. 4:4 has him born of a woman; Col. 1:22 has Christ’s physical body and 2:9 his bodily form. And there are others. Now, maybe all of these are interpolations too, but at some point that begins to look like assuming the conclusion. Third, returning to the OP, and as **Dio** has remarked, Paul’s big contribution to Christianity seems to have been the notion that Gentiles are not subject to Mosaic law, in particular, any requirement of circumcision. Although, curiously, Paul was nearly obsessed with sexual sin. Otherwise, Paul is pretty mainstream. He also gives primacy to the Golden Rule (Gal. 5:14), abjures judging others (Rom. 2:1), preaches turning the other cheek (id. 12:14-19) and has Christ at the right hand of God (Eph. 1:20). Whether Paul led or followed on these issues is more than I can say. FWIW, I have no particular hunt on historicity. As an atheist, I don’t really care either way. To me, it’s an interesting history problem. Ultimately, with too little data, I plunk for the historical view on grounds of parsimony and plausibility. It goes without saying, I hope, that just because I think there really was someone who claimed to be the Son of God doesn’t mean he was. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/367 "2010-03-27T12:45:02Z")
> [@PBear42](#): > > Sorry to have stepped out of the debate for a while, but I was on vacation. Since I returned, I’ve reviewed the thread and reread the Epistles. It was an interesting exercise, because I had more distance from the Gospel version this time than on prior occasions. Reading Paul as a contemporary would have, i.e., without the gloss of the Gospels, I was struck by a couple things. > > First, the Epistles are not attempts to win converts. They are instructions to folks already converted. The dialogue Doherty and others wish they contained about who Christ was, his nature, where the crucifiction happened, etc. all appear to have occurred “offline,” presumably verbally at the time of conversion. Let’s bear in mind that, by his report, Paul’s ministry lasted something like fifteen to twenty years. In this context, seven accredited epistles is a scant data set. > > Second, in addition to the perhaps (even probably) interpolated reference to the Last Supper, Paul includes a number of references consistent with a corporeal Christ. For example, Romans 1:3 refers to his human nature and 8:3 speaks of his coming in the likeness of a sinful man; 1 Cor. 15:21 has the resurrection coming through a man; Gal. 4:4 has him born of a woman; Col. 1:22 has Christ’s physical body and 2:9 his bodily form. And there are others. Now, maybe all of these are interpolations too, but at some point that begins to look like assuming the conclusion. > > Third, returning to the OP, and as **Dio** has remarked, Paul’s big contribution to Christianity seems to have been the notion that Gentiles are not subject to Mosaic law, in particular, any requirement of circumcision. Although, curiously, Paul was nearly obsessed with sexual sin. Otherwise, Paul is pretty mainstream. He also gives primacy to the Golden Rule (Gal. 5:14), abjures judging others (Rom. 2:1), preaches turning the other cheek (id. 12:14-19) and has Christ at the right hand of God (Eph. 1:20). Whether Paul led or followed on these issues is more than I can say. > > FWIW, I have no particular hunt on historicity. As an atheist, I don’t really care either way. To me, it’s an interesting history problem. Ultimately, with too little data, I plunk for the historical view on grounds of parsimony and plausibility. It goes without saying, I hope, that just because I think there really was someone who claimed to be the Son of God doesn’t mean he was. I noticed those same passages in reading Paul this time. If the argument is that all of those passages are references to some other spiritual realm in which Christ did all those things that appear human, I’d have to see more than a theory. It’s possible, but is there any evidence to make it more than an interesting theory? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/368 "2010-03-27T21:50:59Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > I noticed those same passages in reading Paul this time. If the argument is that all of those passages are references to some other spiritual realm in which Christ did all those things that appear human, I’d have to see more than a theory. It’s possible, but is there any evidence to make it more than an interesting theory? I dunno, but I’ve read the first 4 pages of the Carrier article. He points to the example of Ishtar, who was, “killed by a demon in Hell: “The sick woman was turned into a corpse. The corpse was hung from a nail. After three days and three nights had passed,” her vizier petitions the gods in heaven to resurrect her. Her Father gives her the “food of life” and the “water of life” and resurrects her, then she ascends from the land of the dead, sending another God (her lover) to die in her place…” So Dougherty claims that there’s _precedence_ at least for a crucifixion and bodily resurrection in another realm. ## Taken on its own, I wouldn’t characterize this as compelling evidence. But then I haven’t even gotten halfway through the article. If I understand **Dio** correctly though, he doesn’t know of any sects that explicitly claimed that Jesus existed in a spirit realm – though there are sects that say Jesus was a spirit himself. (Correct me if I’m wrong here Dio: I’m fuzzy on all of this.) I might also add that there a fair number of odd and counter-intuitive passages in the Gospels themselves. Plus there are a few zingers in the epistles that weren’t later ascribed to Jesus. So if Jesus was merely a mythical agglomeration of sayings, I think we can conclude that the process followed a quixotic trajectory. It would be odd for Mark not to throw in the paean to love in 1 Corinthians 13, if he was simply pulling together a Greatest Hits of Wisdom collection. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/369 "2010-03-28T04:32:14Z")
_sigh_ Miss/Mrs/Ms/Mr. **Rat** , how many times and how many ways are you going to so blatantly distort, mischaracterize, misstate, and misrepresent my and other mythicists’ arguments as you have done so many times now, including the following? **Sage Rat** starts with the False Choice / False Dilemma fallacy, just as **Measure for Measure** , **Cosmodan** , **ITR Champion** , and many others have fallaciously done. It’s either a gullible or a deliberately manipulative tactic to re-frame the debate into one in which only the historicists’ credulous and superficial assumptions sound “reasonable”. Here’s **Sage Rat’s** version: > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > … There is the possibility that Jesus existed and hence there is stuff written about him in a way that portrays him as a physical person. There is also the possibility that he was originally written about as a spiritual being but later people missed that point and added information which slowly evolved him into a physical person. Both of these do fully explain the reality we see. But it really does come down to which seems more likely. Is it more likely that people would ascribe mystical powers to a real person, or is it more likely that people would add physical foibles to a fictional character. Historically, which has happened more often? Do I really need to point out the blatant fallacy there? After so much irrational, non-critical thinking empty rhetoric from so many for so long, it’s clear that I actually **do** have to spoon feed some reason to the readers and debaters… **Sage Rat** fallaciously argues that no other explanation could possibly be offered than those two extremely shallow and foolish alternatives, destroying all possibility of rational debate. I’ve already explained to **Sage Rat** in another thread and to all in this thread what my mythicist position entails, but it’s clear I have to do so yet again (I’ll highlight it in hopes it won’t be so fallaciously ignored quite so readily): Some historical figure existed – my suspicion is that it started circa 100 BCE with one or more biological high priest(s) of the then-current Qumranian community known by the title “Teacher of Righteousness” – with totally unknown personal name(s), who, as Wikipedia puts it: > [@](#): > > … claimed to have the proper understanding of the Torah, being the one through whom God would reveal to the community “the hidden things in which Israel had gone astray” (CD 3:12-15). He also claimed to be an inspired interpreter of the prophets, as the one “to whom God made known all the mysteries of the words of his servants the prophets” (1QpHab 7:5). At that time and location, it was extremely common to attribute the sayings and teachings and writings of others to an honorary figure, such as happened many times in the case of the non-Pauline epistle writers who wrote under the pseudonym of Paul and other clearly non-historical figures such as Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, none of whom ever lived with those names. The teachings and sayings of this or those revered human figure or figures from 150 years prior to Paul’s first epistle started the well-known psychological path of mythical accretion and invention whereby the sayings and teachings of various Cynic and Stoic and Gnostic and who-knows what other wise men and women or itinerant teachers and preachers were eventually honorably attributed to a single honorary person named Yeshua/Jesus who never actually lived **any number of decades before 1 BCE, let alone any number of decades before Paul wrote his first epistle!** By that time, the association with all those people with a historical Qumranian high priest with the title “The Teacher of Righteousness” was totally lost and so Paul **NEVER, EVER REFERENCED ANY HISTORICAL JESUS!** Not only didn’t Paul ever mention or known of any allegedly historical Jesus, **no one in any of Paul’s many churches did either!** If any one of Paul’s flock had questions of a historical founder, we **would** have seen Paul attempt to answer them in his epistles over and over again, **but no one ever asks about any historical founder until the author of Mark creates his blatantly obvious religious fiction circa 72 CE!** And there is NO references to or apologetic defenses of any allegedly historical “Jesus” until centuries later in apologetic works and NONE AT ALL IN ANY CONTEMPORARY SOURCE OR EVEN ANY CREDIBLY GENUINE NON-APOLOGETIC WORK OF HISTORY. **ALL OF THAT IS TOTALLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE EXISTENCE OF A HISTORICAL JESUS!** Bottom line: **Sage Rat** and all the other historicists employ the fallacy of the false dilemma to defend their profoundly irrational arguments. They blindly dismiss the one argument that makes actual logical sense so that their ludicrously silly, fallacious, and irrational ones simply _appear_ to make sense. They don’t. Nothing at all in any historicist argument rings true. As **Sage Rat** observes: It’s not the individual pieces of evidence nor their individual strength that matters, it’s the strength of the _overall_ argument. And this strength of the overall historicist argument is utterly non-existent. THIS POST WAS ACCIDENTALLY POSTED PREMATURELY! I will try to get a mod to fix it as I intended it. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/370 "2010-03-29T00:25:52Z")
What’s going on with this thread? I got an email that **ambushed** posted a response, but it doesn’t show up. And I briefly saw a post from him _complaining_ that his posts won’t show up, but then it disappeared. Will this show up? Has anyone notified a mod? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/371 "2010-03-29T03:39:02Z")
Ok, I finished the Carrier article, though I skipped the Appendix. Carrier sides with the mythicist school, but “by a small margin”. I find his argument weak at parts and remain in the historicist camp. 1. What I need is a set of profiles of competing Christian sects of the first and second centuries. To me there’s a pretty big gap between: “Jesus was crucified on Earth” vs. “Jesus was crucified in (say) Kandor”, a land not of heaven but not of earth either. That gap is far larger than the debates over whether Jesus was God (heresy!), a man (heresy!) or both (absolute truth!). That latter stuff is scholastics; if Paul indeed believed that Jesus was crucified by Devils or Romulans rather than Roman soldiers stationed outside of Jerusalem, I would think that there would be some (heretical) sect advocating that. And critiques of heretical sects tend to survive, even when the original argument is lost. 2. I would also want more examples of this process of mythical transmogrification, how legends become historical figures. The story of Osiris was an interesting start. The cases of John Frum, King Arthur, Robin Hood and the like might have characteristics that could be compared to the first century evidence. Also noteworthy would be counter-examples such as Johnny Appleseed and Davy Crockett, living men who actually did gain some legendary status. 3. I found Carriers’ section on the Argument from Silence to be weak. He did mention the key counter-argument though: that Jesus was at best a popular rabbi in rural Judea, who never established a following in Jerusalem in his lifetime. From there, Carrier argues that this creates great problems for believers: why would God choose such a nobody as Man’s Savior? Well, that’s part of the point isn’t it? We’re all nobodies: human status is fleeting and not especially significant in the afterlife. As Jesus said in Matthew 13: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.” The mustard plant is smelly as well: the paradox (and humor) was that Jesus could find divinity in _that_. From minuscule, barely perceptible seeds there grows something… well it’s a lot bigger but let’s not get carried away with its magnificence, ya? 4. Carrier/Doherty also wondered why Paul referred to glossolalia, visions and scripture, but not historical facts or evidence. I was puzzled on multiple levels: firstly Paul recommended that the congregations ease up on the drama in 1 Corinthians. Secondly, Peter and the boys in Jerusalem had a lock on historical facts and evidence, didn’t they? I am less than shocked that this entrepreneur of tents and trinity [1] would de-emphasize facts about Jesus, since that would tend to undermine his authority on Christianity, relative to his doctrinal competitors. Rather Paul would emphasize _spiritual_ matters, where Peter, James et al would have no special claim to authority or even expertise – and his Gentile audience wouldn’t feel left out. (Just go easy on the glossolalia- not that there’s anything _wrong_ with that! Corinthians 12 ) It was a short review though, and Doherty may have addressed many of these concerns in his book. [1] No! The trinity comes later! ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/372 "2010-03-29T08:13:25Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > **ambushed** , one of the signs of a crank is that they continually calim that things are obvious that are obvious to no one else. **Alan Smithee** , one of the signs of the weak-minded and the gullible is that they can’t grasp basic logic nor can they see that their arguments are pitifully weak and have been refuted several times already. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/373 "2010-03-29T10:58:32Z")
A post of mine that would have followed post 368 got accidentally posted prematurely while it still contained errors. On the face of it, that response was in reply to one of **Sage Rat’s** posts (but it was also meant for the larger audience of better thinkers), but since it contained errors and was not in its final form, I asked a mod to fix it. To my surprise, **tomndebb** told me that mods are no longer allowed to repair posts (at least under certain unclear circumstances). This is certainly news to me. I’ll have to ask in ATMB when I get a chance… **tomndebb** was apparently limited by the new rules to deleting my original post and sending me part (or all?) of the original post, but I’m not sure I have enough to recreate the now-deleted post, so I’ve worked from what I had to produce this. Note it should have gone in at post 369. * * * **Sage Rat** , you are distorting, mischaracterizing, and misrepresenting my and other mythicists’ arguments. You’ve deployed the False Choice / False Dilemma fallacy, just as **Measure for Measure** , **Cosmodan** , **ITR Champion** , the extremely insulting and condescending **Alan Smithee** and a few others have just as fallaciously done. My guess is this misrepresentation is either (1): A byproduct of not comprehending the thread sufficiently well; (2): a high degree of gullibility; or (3): a deliberately manipulative tactic to re-frame the debate into one in which **only** the historicists’ credulous and superficial assumptions sound “reasonable”. Here’s **Sage Rat’s** version, which has the virtues of courtesy and better (if still unfortunately fallacious) reasoning: > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > … There is the possibility that Jesus existed and hence there is stuff written about him in a way that portrays him as a physical person. There is also the possibility that he was originally written about as a spiritual being but later people missed that point and added information which slowly evolved him into a physical person. Both of these do fully explain the reality we see. But it really does come down to which seems more likely. Is it more likely that people would ascribe mystical powers to a real person, or is it more likely that people would add physical foibles to a fictional character. Historically, which has happened more often? I would have preferred not to have to point out the blatant fallacy there, but it’s clear that I actually **do** have to slowly and repeatedly walk through reason for some of the readers, some better-effort debaters such as **Sage Rat** , but definitely for all the half-effort debaters like **Measure for Measure** , **Cosmodan** , and the angriest and snidest of them all, **Alan Smithee** … **Sage Rat** (and others) fallaciously argue that no other explanation could be offered than those only two rather intellectually shallow and wrong-headed alternatives, seriously damaging the possibility of a more rational debate. I’ve already explained to **Sage Rat** in another thread and to all in this thread what my mythicist position entails, but it’s clear I have to do so yet again (I’ll highlight it in hopes it won’t be so fallaciously ignored quite so readily): I contend that _some_ historical figure existed (who does not match Jesus in any way) – this is my suspicion (not an assertion, but a premise) – who lived roughly circa 100 BCE in the form of one or more biological high priest(s) of the then-current Qumranian community known by the title “Teacher of Righteousness”, with totally unknown personal name(s), who, as Wikipedia puts it: > [@](#): > > … claimed to have the proper understanding of the Torah, being the one through whom God would reveal to the community “the hidden things in which Israel had gone astray” (CD 3:12-15). He also claimed to be an inspired interpreter of the prophets, as the one “to whom God made known all the mysteries of the words of his servants the prophets”. At that time and location, it was fairly common to attribute the sayings and teachings and deeds and writings of others to an honorary or even mythical figure (especially given that there was no reliable history – most of which would have had to have been orally transmitted – to distinguish a historical figure from a mythical one). Such inaccurate attribution happened many times, such as in the case of the non-Pauline epistle writers whose works are found under the pseudonym of Paul and other clearly non-historical figures such as Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, none of whom ever lived with those names (regardless of the cheap and sloppy fiction of Acts, which doesn’t even get Saul/Paul’s conversion process right!) . The teachings and sayings of this or those revered human figure or figures (Teacher(s) of Righteousness) from 150 years prior to Paul’s first epistle started the well-known psychological path of mythical accretion and invention whereby the sayings and teachings of various Cynic and Stoic and Gnostic and who-knows what other wise men and women and itinerant teachers and preachers were eventually honorably or even inadvertently attributed to a single pseudo-historical figure attached to the name Yeshua/Jesus who never actually lived, all of which took place **four or any number of decades more prior to 1 BCE, let alone any number of decades before Paul wrote his first epistle!** As has already been documented by myself in this thread, the process of mythical fictionalization can start immediately, even while a later-mythologized person is still alive. No time need elapse at all, but there was 150 years of fiction, pseudonymous attribution and mythical accretion to work with anyway, far more than **Sage Rat** continues to fallaciously claim. By that time, the association with all those people with a historical Qumranian high priest with the title “The Teacher of Righteousness” was totally lost and for this and other reasons Paul **NEVER, EVER REFERENCED ANY HISTORICAL FOUNDER!** He specifically wrote that he learned **nothing** from any human being about Jesus his Christ, which is completely impossible had James or anyone else known such a person. Not only didn’t Paul ever mention or known of any allegedly historical Jesus, **no one in any of Paul’s many churches did either!** Think about that! The absence of evidence **IS** evidence of absence when evidence which **must** exist if the alleged person existed **simply does not exist!** Such evidence includes credible contemporary historical references to a historical Jesus -AND- credible contemporary historical references to Jesus’ relatives in: Paul’s writings – **but we don’t see such!** Paul’s Church’s members asking Paul about the founder – **but we don’t see such!** Josephus in _Jewish War_ – **but we don’t see such!** Josephus in _Jewish Antiquities_ – **but all we have there are obvious, blatant forgeries! (blatant and obvious to rational and informed people, anyway)** Seneca in any of his essays – **but we don’t see such!** Mentions by Paul of a biological founder or biological relative (for which he’d use a very different word than merely “adelphos” or “servant”) – **but we don’t see such!** Those absences **PROVE** to any rational mind that there simply **WAS NO BIOLOGICAL FOUNDER!** Jesus was very, very clearly a product of mythical accretions on top of the mythical accretions of what was most probably The Teacher(s) of Righteousness and any number of itinerant or local philosophers and preachers, the Q sayings, Homeric fiction, and pious fiction. No more, or else we’d see the credible historical references I listed above. So when **Sage Rat** writes “So we do have **two** hypotheses that explain the evidence we have examined”, he’s fallaciously stacking the deck. We have plenty more than just two – **Sage Rat** didn’t include my premise either! **Sage Rat** goes on about Celcus, the too-late writer who might well have challenged the historical existence of any founder, BUT IF HE DID IT WOULD HAVE BEEN DESTROYED BY LATER CHRISTIANS! He likely would have had no way to test the historical existence of a Christian founder anyway, but **Sage Rat** – better in reasoning but still like nearly all of the weak and credulous half-ass gullible mockers like **Measure for Measure** and **Alan Smithee** and others who keep putting out sophomorically ignorant and credulous pseudo-arguments – totally ignores everything I’ve already documented about Celcus and how his work (like Porphry’s and others’) was butchered by the Christians and then by the hack Origen. **Sage Rat** ignores everything I’ve written about Origen and Celcus because he knows his arguments can’t stand if he were to acknowledge what I’ve already written earlier. **NONE** of the clear, credible, contemporary historical evidence which **must** exist had Jesus been a historical figure \*\*ACTUALLY exists. Therefore, Jesus was not a historical figure. Q.E.D.\*\* - - ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/374 "2010-03-29T10:58:36Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > What’s going on with this thread? I got an email that **ambushed** posted a response, but it doesn’t show up. And I briefly saw a post from him _complaining_ that his posts won’t show up, but then it disappeared. Will this show up? Has anyone notified a mod? He posted something by accident when he was trying to hit ‘preview.’ The post was removed so he could finish it and post it again. > [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > **ambushed** , one of the signs of a crank is that they continually calim that things are obvious that are obvious to no one else. You may be right, but you are NOT obviously right. > [@ambushed](#): > > **Alan Smithee** , one of the signs of the weak-minded and the gullible is that they can’t grasp basic logic nor can they see that their arguments are pitifully weak and have been refuted several times already. Leave the personal comments out of this, please. Don’t imply other posters are cranks or weak-minded. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/375 "2010-03-29T11:44:51Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > …for this and other reasons Paul **NEVER, EVER REFERENCED ANY HISTORICAL FOUNDER!** He specifically wrote that he learned **nothing** from any human being about Jesus his Christ, which is completely impossible had James or anyone else known such a person. Not only didn’t Paul ever mention or known of any allegedly historical Jesus, **no one in any of Paul’s many churches did either!** > > Think about that! The absence of evidence **IS** evidence of absence when evidence which **must** exist if the alleged person existed **simply does not exist!** But for Paul there is the explanation that he is setting up his _own_ church with _his_ own views. He doesn’t _want_ any input from any other branches. Least of all a branch that would have a closer connection to a real/physical/historical Jesus. Exactly because that would mean they had more authority because of that proximity. So it would make sense to distance himself from them and put emphasis on the “fact” that Jesus told him personally what it is all about. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/376 "2010-03-29T12:30:15Z")
I’ll give you a break on this because your post was made at the same time as mine, **ambushed** , but leave the personal sniping out of your posts. > [@ambushed](#): > > On the face of it, that response was in reply to one of **Sage Rat’s** posts (but it was also meant for the larger audience of better thinkers) > […] > just as **Measure for Measure** , **Cosmodan** , **ITR Champion** , the extremely insulting and condescending **Alan Smithee** and a few others have just as fallaciously done. My guess is this misrepresentation is either (1): A byproduct of not comprehending the thread sufficiently well; (2): a high degree of gullibility; or (3): a deliberately manipulative tactic to re-frame the debate into one in which **only** the historicists’ credulous and superficial assumptions sound “reasonable”. > […] > all the half-effort debaters like **Measure for Measure** , **Cosmodan** , and the angriest and snidest of them all, **Alan Smithee** … And so on. If you want to address people like this, do it in the Pit, not in here. We’ve discussed this before. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/377 "2010-03-29T20:14:36Z")
Seconding that naming other posters doesn’t help, **ambushed**. And I’m as close as anyone is getting to being on your side, dude. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/378 "2010-03-30T06:47:33Z")
Briefly: If Jesus was a locally popular rural Rabbi living in 4-30CE, we wouldn’t expect that there would be many contemporaneous accounts of him. As for Paul, what we have are a few letters reflecting his attempts to keep his troops in line. They are not textbooks or treatises. For that, the closest facsimile would probably be the Gospel of Thomas – which is essentially a collection of Jesus sayings. The biographies would come later. Theissen and Merz seem to believe that Mark should be the starting point for understanding the historical Jesus. For myself, I prefer to start with Paul, notwithstanding that his letters had a narrower motivation than might be convenient for a contemporary reader. One thing we learn is that not all wisdom sayings were automatically ascribed to Jesus: Paul’s hymn to love is perhaps the best example of this. Paul also writes of contemporaries such as Apollos who apparently led their own churches. I see from wikipedia that like many minor religious leaders, there weren’t other contemporaneous descriptions of Apollos, which should surprise exactly nobody. Admittedly, Jerome would write of Apollos a couple of hundred years later. Notwithstanding this spotty documentation, I would opine that Apollos indeed existed on earth. Also noteworthy was the centrality of crucifixion and the cross: > [@Paul in 1 Corinthians 1](#): > > For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. > For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. The part about Christ giving Paul a holy mission makes Jesus appear as a spirit. But the elevation of the cross seems pretty concrete to me: it’s an odd symbol to latch on to if one believes that Christ died in a place not of earth. In a modern context, a gas chamber or electric chair wouldn’t be something you would emphasize unless you somehow felt that you had to. Following post #370, I think Carrier is correct to say that Mythicism can’t be dismissed out of hand: I would characterize it as an interesting theory in need of much stronger evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/379 "2010-03-30T07:00:41Z")
I confess some disappointment that the mods missed some of ambushed’s best material: > [@ambushed](#): > > …better in reasoning but still like nearly all of the weak and credulous half-ass gullible mockers like **Measure for Measure** and ------ and others who keep putting out sophomorically ignorant and credulous pseudo-arguments – totally ignores everything I’ve already documented about Celcus and how his work (like Porphry’s and others’) was butchered by the Christians and then by the hack Origen. > … > Q.E.D. I gotta admit, this is a high quality pitting. It’s not appropriate in GD: but this is good stuff! ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/380 "2010-04-08T13:20:25Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > Please, please, please tell me you can see the irony in this line! That is the entire response – completely out of context and in all it’s intellectual infantility – from **Alan Smithee** to the following: > [@ambushed](#): > > **Alan Smithee** , I thank you for returning rational debate to the thread. I don’t know why **Diogenes** has effectively bowed out, saying he’s agnostic but defending the historicist position anyway. He’s posed valid arguments – even if they’re the same old ones he put out years ago without showing any movement – but then backs away and doesn’t address my rebuttals. I find that frustrating. Sure, his heart doesn’t seem to be in it, but then why pose the pro-historicist arguments at all? I’m rather confused. > > In any case, you, **Alan** , make intelligent points that tackle useful, well-considered, and fair-minded portions of the debate. This has happened too rarely in this thread, and I’m delighted by the return of credible debate here. Thank you. > > \*\*As to your later insult accusing me of allegedly only holding people who agree with me honest debaters, that, of course, is an obvious lie. Only begbert2 has agreed with me and we’ve never even interacted! Everyone else has taken the opposing position. I don’t agree with Diogenes, but he’s certainly an honest debater. I don’t agree with Skammer, but he was an honest debater. Captain Amazing made valuable contributions. I don’t agree with Sage Rat now or the last time we debated this, but he’s an honest debater, too. PBear42 doesn’t seem to agree with me, but he’s an honest debater who’s made valuable contributions. And there have been posters such as raindog and Czarcasm and others I’ve probably forgotten who’ve made valuable contributions as well even though it doesn’t appear they agree with me. > > What about them, infantile one?\*\* > > And it’s not a matter of an analysis by _ **poster** _, either; it’s an analysis by _ **individual argument or non-argument** _. **Measure for Measure** and **Cosmodan** and **ITR champion** have come up with legitimate and credible arguments, but clearly not all of their responses can be so categorized, as many of them have been fallacious, non-credible pseudo-arguments, insults, mockery, or the credulous repetition of their heedless cultural assumptions based on no evidence whatsoever. **Pleonast** was doing well until he fallaciously argued that a one-phrase _summary_ in my very first post here was magically a positive existential argument, and other gullible and irresponsible evaders jumped on that mind-reading bandwagon as well. I’ve had to deal with that sophomoric foot-stamping almost since the beginning, but sophomoric foot-stamping it remains. As I wrote to **Skammer** (as I stated above, he’s another credible and intellectually honest debater): > > But I still have hope that any of the lax debaters can return to making credible arguments. They clearly have the intellectual capability, but whether they have the _desire_ to try to make credible arguments seems increasingly doubtful. Contempt for me doesn’t justify all that empty, non-credible rhetoric. > > I repeat: I cannot control whether debate opponents provide rational arguments or whether they just rattle off empty rhetoric with no credible argument attached. The exasperation you’ve seen from me is for all the posts or comments which lack a cogent, well-informed, logical argument. > Back to your arguments: > > The evidence is in the arguments I’ve presented there and elsewhere in several places upthread. Had James been a biological sibling of Jesus, he would have been described very differently than just as another _adelphos_, like more than 500 other people. Not just Paul, but all the others _would_ have used a different term than just _adelphos_. **Diogenes** knows Koine Greek and I don’t, but surely there’s a Koine Greek term or phrase that’s more precise than _adelphos_ that would be used to unambiguously identify a biological sibling. Yet it wasn’t used, and that’s not only clear from the language, that’s clear from the behavior: Look how important bloodlines and blood relatives were to the Jews of the age, authoritarians as they were, and also look at how important bloodlines are in terms of the leaders of religious sects when the original leader dies or is otherwise removed from the scene, such as we see in Islam and in Mormonism. The blood relative doesn’t necessarily end up the _sole_ leader, but the blood relative is an extremely important and noted personage in the remaining movement. > > No, had James been a blood sibling of Jesus, he would have been celebrated as such and would have been seized upon as an authority by dint of his bloodline or someone else would have capitalized on being the friend or special associated of the blood relative. Sociobiology is powerful indeed in such situations, as religious history has shown over and over again. > > Recall that Paul was an avid persecutor of the “Son of God” faith, and like all zealous anti-zealots, the blood relations of any alleged “founder” of such a faith would be subject to special attention and control. But Paul never indicated any such special attention. Instead, he refers to both James -and- Cephas as “adelphos”, showing no special interest in James as he _would_ have done if James were a biological sibling of Jesus. Over and over again, a biological sibling would **absolutely** have been repeatedly called upon to interpret his biological brother’s words and ideas, just as we see every time there is a biological relationship to call upon. > > While the Jerusalem Church headed by James as “the” _adelphos_ of “the Lord” (never _adelphos_ of Jesus!) was important, it was by no means the central authority of the new church, which instead was Paul. That’s simply not credible if James has been a biological sibling of Jesus! > > That’s _not_ “speculation”; it’s reason and logic and knowledge of human psychology. > > James’ group in Jerusalem had the following name: “Adelphon en Kurio”, Brothers In the Lord. Never are they called “Brothers in Jesus”. This is compelling evidence that no historical or other Jesus was known of or referenced, else they would have either named themselves so or they would have written or asked James or Paul about this Jesus, but that never happened. Clearly, this was a church that worshiped a spiritual Lord rather than any historical figure. If “Adelphon en Kurio” referred to biological siblings, they would _all_ have to be biological siblings of some unnamed “Lord”! You cant’ arbitrarily claim _adelphos_ means “biological sibling of Jesus” in _some_ instances and “members of a like-minded community who believed in a spiritual Lord” in others. > > Arguing that a tiny difference in one passage can only mean a reference to a biological sibling is quite absurd and fallacious given that this is never followed up upon. Had James been a biological sibling, much more would have followed, including the kind of special treatment I’ve already described. It’s far too little a thing to base a historical argument upon given all the changes made by copyists that Ehrman brings out in _Misquoting Jesus_. Your assertion that this single solitary word is magically “a strong piece of evidence in favor of historicity” simply isn’t credible, given what we know of how unreliable the copyists are. > > You write: > The shoe’s on the other foot, actually. The word “the” is far too little a thing for such a sweeping and profound interpretation given all the powerful and compelling arguments _against_ the reading of a biological sibling into that. > > Later, you write: > You’ve inverted the argument. The argument is that Jesus existed as a historical person _because_ the Twelve are asserted to be biological followers of such a biological person. But since there’s no evidence or even the tiniest hint that the Twelve were biological followers of a biological Jesus before the Gospels finally came around, one can’t argue that Jesus was historical merely because the Gospels assert the Twelve were biological. > > As for Paul’s bizarre reference to being as one aborted (which you’ve cited the NRSV as saying “one untimely born”), see upthread for a discussion of that between **Dio** and myself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342.md?page=20)