# Did Paul hijack Christianity?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342
**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:** 8
### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2010, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/141 "2010-03-09T06:59:23Z")
I find the notion that Jesus did not exist preposterous. But I think I could be persuaded that it is merely improbable. So help me out.
There were those who alleged that Jesus was the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier. But there are no ancient accounts that say that Xtians made the whole thing up.
There are plenty of cases where followers have exaggerated the virtues of their leader: Dear Leader in N Korea has his sycophants and [Parson Weems](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parson_Weems) fabricated a number of stories about George Washington. But I am unaware of a person being invented out of whole cloth within a couple of decades of his purported death. Ludicrous.[1] Now I can believe that Abraham and even Moses are legends, as accounts of them date centuries after their lifetimes. And I might even buy it if there was reason to believe that Paul dreamed the whole thing up. But he didn’t: his tracts are full of a very human frustration with other believers in Jesus who wouldn’t see things in Paul’s particular way.
[1] …but I would be delighted to be proven wrong on this.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/142 "2010-03-09T17:02:23Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#):
>
> I find the notion that Jesus did not exist preposterous. But I think I could be persuaded that it is merely improbable. So help me out.
>
> There were those who alleged that Jesus was the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier. But there are no ancient accounts that say that Xtians made the whole thing up.
There are no ancient accounts saying Hercules was made up either.
There are no contemporary records of Jesus at all, and nothing much about about him from non-Christians until generations after he allegedly lived. The “Pantera” story is centuries later and was a Jewish a defense to Christian attacks. Why would you expect them to say he never existed if they had no idea themselves? How could you expect anyone to KNOW whether or not some obscure preacher had ever lived in a now destroyed city a hundred or two hundred years before you were born? How would you go about proving he didn’t?
I think what you’re missing here is that for the first 50 years or so after the alleged crucifixion, Christianity was an extremely obscure and little known movement. Even in Jerusalem (before it was destroyed in 70 CE), the vast majority of people would have never heard of him, much less had any basis to claim he never existed.
> [@](#):
>
> There are plenty of cases where followers have exaggerated the virtues of their leader: Dear Leader in N Korea has his sycophants and [Parson Weems](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parson_Weems) fabricated a number of stories about George Washington. But I am unaware of a person being invented out of whole cloth within a couple of decades of his purported death. Ludicrous.[1] Now I can believe that Abraham and even Moses are legends, as accounts of them date centuries after their lifetimes. And I might even buy it if there was reason to believe that Paul dreamed the whole thing up. But he didn’t: his tracts are full of a very human frustration with other believers in Jesus who wouldn’t see things in Paul’s particular way.
> [1] …but I would be delighted to be proven wrong on this.
You’re assuming that Jesus was always seen as historical even by Paul. I’m not advocating for the position, but mythicists argue that Paul saw Jesus as an otherworldly figure who “died and rose” on a spiritual plane, not on earth. Jesus isn’t clearly historicized in Christian literature until Mark. The date of the crucifixion doesn’t mean anything if it never happened, by the way, and that dating originates with Mark.
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### Author:  [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/143 "2010-03-09T22:44:54Z")
Diogenes, I agree with what you’re saying – which makes it hard to take absolute statements like “Jesus didn’t really exist” seriously. The best you can say is that _maybe_ he didn’t exist, and if you’re feeling particularly cocky you can say he _probably_ didn’t exist. But he was the leader of a small Jewish sect in the outskirts of the Empire and his followers were concentrated in a city that was destroyed within a generation – we wouldn’t expect to have much record of his life. It’s frankly surprising that we have as much as we do, from several different sources, even they are second and third hand accounts written up to a hundred years later.
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/144 "2010-03-10T03:31:52Z")
Nice work **DtC**. Permit me to continue.
I like the point about Hercules, but he didn’t really have organized detractors, did he? And Christians did during the first century, though the point is well taken that they weren’t prominant enough to merit a determined attack. (The detractors that I’m thinking of include one proto-skeptic and one graffiti writer.)
I take it as given that Christianity was an obscure cult/Jewish sect before the fall of the Temple. I also believe that Jesus of Nazarath did not merit notice during his lifetime, which would explain the lack of contemporaneous accounts. My problem I guess lies with burden of proof: I find it unlikely that Paul and those who came before him would follow somebody nonexistant. After all, prophets were a dime a dozen: why make one up out of whole cloth? And if you did, wouldn’t you invent somebody from the distant past? Paul may have never met Jesus of Nazarath [1], but he knew plenty of people who lived during the time that Jesus lived.
Again, I’d like an example of a mythical human who ostensibly lived within 20 years of the original account. In another thread, somebody proposed [Philip Nolan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Country), “The Man Without A Country”. But even in that case, the story was penned in 1863 and Nolan allegedly died in 1817, if I have skimmed [the story](http://www.bartleby.com/310/6/1.html) properly. That’s 46 years. And nobody worshiped Philip Nolan. (The story also contains lots of excuses as to _why_ nobody had heard of the story of his life. There’s _nothing_ like that in Christian writings-- and the gospels are full of Ex Tempore rhetoric.) More generally, I find it implausible that a religion would spring up around somebody who allegedly died a few years ago, but in fact never existed. I find it entirely plausible that a cult could spring up around a rural faith healer who either escaped the wrath of the Roman State or simply suffered from it.
[1]…though even this claim isn’t clear to me: there’s the _possibility_ that JC successfully survived a Roman execution.
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/145 "2010-03-10T03:32:37Z")
> [@PBear42](#):
>
> **ambushed** , I’ve read all three of Doherty, Mack and Price. The first, of course, is famously mythicist. The latter two, though, I would describe as agnostic on historicity. In particular, I recall Price’s position to be that Jesus may have been a historical person, but the story has been so layered with legends that it’s impossible to say what the facts of the matter are. OTOH, my reading on the subject is something like eight years stale at this point, so maybe they’ve gone further since. Could you please cite (and, if you have the time, quote) where Mack and Price have cleaved to the mythicist position? FWIW, I don’t think this is a hijack of the OP. On the contrary, IMHO, it’s perfectly germaine.
Both Mack and Price have moved from their previously more agnostic positions to the mythicist position, although they’re both understandably reluctant to openly state in short declarative sentences that they’ve pushed their beads all the way to the end (in Sagan’s metaphor). Mack noted his move into the mythicist position in his [_The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy_](http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Myth-Origins-Logic-Legacy/dp/0826415431/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268189699&sr=8-3), where he demonstrates that there’s no reliable Jesus “history” _ **anywhere** _. So while there’s no short straightforward statement of “I am now a mythicist”, it clearly follows from his own research and arguments. To say so explicitly would be redundant and an insult to his readers’ intelligence.
Price has steadily moved from his previous historicist position on through considerable skepticism in his [_Incredible Shrinking Son of Man_](http://www.amazon.com/Incredible-Shrinking-Son-Man-Tradition/dp/1591021219/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1268190318&sr=8-1-fkmr1) of 2003 and now finally to essentially full historical skepticism with his 2007 book, [_Jesus Is Dead_](http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Dead-Robert-M-Price/dp/1578840007/ref=pd_sim_b_2).
But the standard bearer is now Doherty’s new book, [_Jesus: Neither God Nor Man_](http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/whatsnew.html), which considerably expands and tightens his earlier _The Jesus Puzzle_. I just received it and haven’t finished it yet, but this new book – at 800 pages – is even more rigorous and thorough than the high levels of both he’d already achieved with _Puzzle_. For example, I’ve already learned of my earlier error in my understanding of Justin’s debate “partner” Trypho, who I’d believed was either a particular Jewish critic of Christianity, a composite representative of several, or perhaps just a somewhat fictional critic like Galileo’s Simplicio. But Doherty set me straight on that point: Trypho was, in fact, just a fictional strawman/foil whose words in that dialogue were completely fabricated by Justin in order to solicit the responses Justin wanted to put forward. As such, I made a fool of myself just a few months ago here when I put Trypho forward as a more or less historical figure.
**PBear42** , I’d try to meet your request to quote Price and Mack directly, but I’ve been burned badly here at SDMB by quoting just 0.5% of a single chapter and having it then be 98% deleted by a mod. I’m not going to waste all that work again, as I’m sure you’ll understand.
-
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/146 "2010-03-10T03:47:23Z")
I missed something: the crucifixion date is derived from Mark, which was written in perhaps in 70 CE, about 40 years after the purported death of Jesus. Paul’s conversion was in about 33. According to the mythicists (if I understand this correctly), sometime between Paul’s death in Rome in 63? and 70, it was decided that JC would die in about 30. That’s a very odd date to pick, it’s simply not that distant.
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/147 "2010-03-10T04:32:47Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#):
>
> > [@ambushed](#):
> >
> > Why?
> >
> > Read Paul’s account of his visit to Cephas and the other “apostles” (who definitely weren’t “the twelve” who allegedly accompanied Jesus) in Jerusalem. Read it carefully and wonder with me…
> >
> > Let’s say you’re living in 50 CE, a scant couple of decades after Jesus died so horribly in Jerusalem, and the ruckus he is said to have made. Even if you exclude the miracles such as the solar eclipse and all the earthquakes and all that, what he did to the money changers in THE Temple would not be soon forgotten. All in all, the place where God died would be pretty close to the top of the Tourist Trap of All Time.
> >
> > So why doesn’t Paul write – in prosaic _or_ rapturous words – of visiting Gethsemane? Of reading Jesus’ trial transcript? Of trying to track down witnesses? Of visiting _any_ ostensibly sacred spot or personage?
> >
> > **But he doesn’t! Not a word!**
>
> I find this incredibly unconvincing for two reasons.
> 1 It’s a mistake to assume Paul as an individual would make those things a priority and then draw any conclusion from that.
> 2 we can be fairly sure we only have a portion of Paul’s writings selected by other men for their own agenda.
Really? That’s all? That’s your response? I find your attempted _rebuttal_ **mind-bogglingly unconvincing!**
You would have us believe that Paul – a writer almost as verbose as myself – wouldn’t write down even a single sentence about personally visiting **God’s** place of death? **God’s** place of resurrection? Nothing about Gethsamane, where **God** struggled with his fate? Not a single sentence about Calvary, center of earthquakes and a three-hour eclipse when **God** died? Nothing at all about visiting the **Tomb of God** or the **Mother of God**?
_This_ is your rebuttal?
Seriously?
Even though Paul wastes all sorts of paper and ink on such things as petty internal squabbles and lengthy erudition about why Christians shouldn’t insist on clipping foreskins?
Seriously?
If you read all of the genuine Pauline epistles, you have to come away with the overriding desperation of Paul to assert his authority in his vehement theological struggles with the Jerusalem “Pillars” as well as the membership of his own churches, desperation that would be completely vanquished and resolved by even **one** reference to the historical Jesus. Yet Paul **never** even _hints_ that he _can_ do so, let alone actually does it! It would have solved pretty much all of his problems if he could have done so, yet he never does.
The alternative – that Paul didn’t _know_ of any historical Jesus and so didn’t even _know_ to try to visit **God’s** place of resurrection – makes several million times more logical sense.
As for your point (2), I’ve never, ever read _anything_ suggesting that we do not have every one of Paul’s writings. Where does your belief come from? What evidence is brought forth of currently non-existing writings of Paul? I’d like to read more.
The reality in all other cases is quite the reverse: Anything that even _hinted_ at a possible historical reference to Jesus was retained and often exaggerated endlessly by the Church! Look how desperately the Church sought to retain the obvious Christian interpolation (i.e., pious fakery) in Josephus, and look how desperately orthodoxy and the Church sought to convert Tacitus’ and other Gentile historicans’ obvious regurgitation of Christian beliefs into an ostensible “historical” reference. The notion that some historical reference was destroyed or censored is completely beyond belief!
> [@cosmosdan](#):
>
> > [@ambushed](#):
> >
> > I submit that it’s absolutely _ **impossible** _ that Paul believed that Jesus was a historical person who lived and died in Jerusalem. I submit that it’s absolutely _ **impossible** _ that Paul believed that Peter/Cephas and the other “apostles” in Jerusalem (recall that Paul insisted quite adamantly that _he_ was an apostle, too!) were among the twelve who traveled with Jesus, else he would never have _dared_ argue with them as vehemently as he did. Who would dare question Jesus’ right-hand men?
>
> A weak argument. Paul claims to have met Jesus spiritually on the road to Damascus. It makes sense that he might consider his experience and his calling, every bit as authoritative as those who walked with Jesus before the crucifixion.
It _might_ be a “weak argument” if, as you did, you look at it standing alone by itself, but that’s a thoroughly bogus way of treating it. It _should_ be considered in the totality of the whole set of arguments combined with **all** the obvious lack of historical evidence. And Paul clearly does **not** posit his apostleship based on your weak argument of his conversion experience! Here’s the key to Paul’s insistence on his apostlehood, and it _rejects_ the idea that the other apostles knew a historical Jesus either:
> [@Galatians 1:11-12](#):
>
> For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me **is not according to man**.
>
> For I **neither received it from man, nor was I taught it** , but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
Here, Paul’s telling us that none of the other apostles “filled him in” on _anything!_ They didn’t know anything about a historical Jesus _either_.
Now, I admit that that’s not 100% unambiguous, but that is clearly the most logical and probable interpretation. We know he was the very first to write _anything_ about an intermediate Son salvific figure of a purely spiritual Christ, but we also now see that he insisted that he’d heard not a word of any of it from any other human being but _ **only** _ from the same spiritual Christ.
> [@cosmosdan](#):
>
> We simply don’t know if Jesus really lived or not. You’re welcome to your opinion but that’s all it is.
Nonsense! Opinion is a gut personal feeling based on no or inadequate evidence. As such _Christianity_ and historicism are mere opinion. But mythicism is simply a name for skepticism of Jesus’ historicity, and that’s _not_ opinion. It might not be correct, but existential skepticism is the one position that never holds the burden of proof! As I wrote earlier, all you have to do to refute it is to provide solid, credible historical evidence that we skeptics cannot throw reasonable doubt upon.
Where’s yours?
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/148 "2010-03-10T04:58:09Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#):
>
> Nice work **DtC**. Permit me to continue.
>
> I like the point about Hercules, but he didn’t really have organized detractors, did he? And Christians did during the first century, though the point is well taken that they weren’t prominant enough to merit a determined attack. (The detractors that I’m thinking of include one proto-skeptic and one graffiti writer.)
>
> I take it as given that Christianity was an obscure cult/Jewish sect before the fall of the Temple. I also believe that Jesus of Nazarath did not merit notice during his lifetime, which would explain the lack of contemporaneous accounts. My problem I guess lies with burden of proof: I find it unlikely that Paul and those who came before him would follow somebody nonexistant. After all, prophets were a dime a dozen: why make one up out of whole cloth? And if you did, wouldn’t you invent somebody from the distant past? Paul may have never met Jesus of Nazarath [1], but he knew plenty of people who lived during the time that Jesus lived.
Maybe, maybe not. You’re assuming that Paul thought of Jesus as a historical person himself, and that the people he called the “Pillars” in Jerusalem (Peter, James and John). If Paul and the people in the Jerusalem cult thought of Jesus as cosmic figure, not a historical por earthly one, then this point goes out the window.
> [@](#):
>
> Again, I’d like an example of a mythical human who ostensibly lived within 20 years of the original account.
It’s 40 years (Jesus wasn’t clearly historicized until Mark), and the fact that this historicization occured outside of its alleged georgraphical location makes it even more remote.
This is not a valid objection in any case because all religious movements have unique components to them. It’s no proof of validity.
> [@](#):
>
> In another thread, somebody proposed [Philip Nolan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Country), “The Man Without A Country”. But even in that case, the story was penned in 1863 and Nolan allegedly died in 1817, if I have skimmed [the story](http://www.bartleby.com/310/6/1.html) properly. That’s 46 years. And nobody worshiped Philip Nolan. (The story also contains lots of excuses as to _why_ nobody had heard of the story of his life. There’s _nothing_ like that in Christian writings-- and the gospels are full of Ex Tempore rhetoric.) More generally, I find it implausible that a religion would spring up around somebody who allegedly died a few years ago, but in fact never existed.
Why would Christian writings contain responses to objections that no one would have been expected to make. The ahistoricity of the founder is simply not anything critics would have found important. It’s also possible (not that I’m advocating for it) that the original movement arose from visonary experiences of one or more people of what they orginally perceived as a non-earthly figure (like Mohammed and Joseph Smith talking to angels), who wa later historized as a literal and earthly figure a generation later by people who were personally removed from the original claimants not only temporally, but geographically, culturally and lingusitically.
> [@](#):
>
> I find it entirely plausible that a cult could spring up around a rural faith healer who either escaped the wrath of the Roman State or simply suffered from it.
So do I (well not the escaping part). I think it’s not only plausible, but more _probable_ that Jesus represents the accretion of legend and myth around a real historical figure, however, we still can’t say his historicity is beyond all question.
One point that should be raised with regard to the HJ vs. MJ question is what are the minimum requirements for a historical person to be fairly considered “THE Jesus.” If he said all of the things attributed to him, and was crucified, but did not perform miracles or rise from the dead, is he still Jesus? what if he only said _some_ of things attributed to him? What if his name wasn’t Jesus? What if the chracter of the Gospels is a composite of more than one historical personage?
I think that it’s more likely than not that there was some kind of a real Jesus, but I think the odds are that he was not anything like the Jesus Christ of religion and myth. I often use the comparison of the historical St. Nicholaus and Santa Claus. There was probably a Yeshua from Galilee, but he wasn’t really Santa Claus.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/149 "2010-03-10T05:09:34Z")
**Ambushed** , Paul’s lack of mention of any empty tomb could very well simply reflect the lack of that tradition being invented yet. I’m sure you’re aware of the thesis that original disposition of Jesus’ remains were simply unknown (as they would have either been left on the cross or buried in a communal, unmarked criminals’ grave), and that the empty tomb was a fiction created by Mark. The empty grave is not mentioned by Paul, Q or Thomas, but neither is a bodily resurrection. This does not have to indicate total lack of historicity for Jesus, but only for the empty tomb.
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### Author:  [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/150 "2010-03-10T07:12:09Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#):
>
> Again, I’d like an example of a mythical human who ostensibly lived within 20 years of the original account.
[John Frum](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/10021366.html) supposedly lived during the 1930s, around the same time that the cult that worshiped him sprang into existence.
> [@](#):
>
> South Pacific villagers worship a mysterious American they call John Frum - believing he’ll one day shower their remote island with riches
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### Author:  [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/151 "2010-03-10T15:35:05Z")
> [@ambushed](#):
>
> You would have us believe that Paul – a writer almost as verbose as myself – wouldn’t write down even a single sentence about personally visiting **God’s** place of death? **God’s** place of resurrection? Nothing about Gethsamane, where **God** struggled with his fate? Not a single sentence about Calvary, center of earthquakes and a three-hour eclipse when **God** died? Nothing at all about visiting the **Tomb of God** or the **Mother of God**?
Argument from incredulity works about as well for you as it does for Intelligent Design advocates.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/152 "2010-03-10T16:00:15Z")
It’s actually not an argument from incredulity because if those things had happened historically, you would expect Paul to mention them. It actually is a decent argument against the empty tomb (and the supernatural embellishments associated in the synpotics with the crucifixion, it goes without saying, are fictional accretions), and it indicates that those elements of the Jesus mythos post-date Paul, but they don’t actually indicate that Jesus didn’t exist at all, only that particular components of the familiar story in the Gospels hadn’t been accreted yet.
Hypothetically, if Jesus’s followers fled back to Galilee after he was arrested, and if Jesus was crucified, then either left on the cross or dumped in a communal grave, then there would have been a historical crucifixion of a historical Jesus, but no tomb, or story of a tomb while Paul was active. The final disposition of Jesus’ remains would have been unknown. Paul does not say anything about Jesus literally crawling out of a tomb, only that he “appeared” to people. Paul says that Jesus died, then “appeared” to Cephas (Peter), then James and John, then “the twelve” (which shows a lack of awareness of the Judas story), then “the five hundred” (an enigmatic reference mentioned only by Paul, and not mentioned at all by the Gospels) then to Paul himself. Paul draws no distinction between the nature of the appearance to the original apostles or to himself, and never says that Jesus was physically resurrected or appeared in a physical body (in fact, paul actually denies that physical resurrections are possible). This leaves alive the hypothesis that Jesus could have been real, that one or more people had visionary experiences of him after his death, came to believe he would return in glory as the “Son of Man,” and that this was the paradigm followed by the Jerusalem cult and was adopted by Paul, with the literalization of a physical resurrection and empty tomb story being added by Mark (or Mark’s community) a generation later. This is pretty much the hypothesis where I’ve come to lean myself.
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/153 "2010-03-10T19:20:59Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> > [@ambushed](#):
> >
> > The mythicist position is trivially easy to refute: Just produce one – even just one – solid piece of evidence for a historical Jesus and that’s it. But no one has succeeded. People who scoff at the mythicist position simply are not aware of its strength and the extreme weakness of the historicist position. If Jesus had been a historical person, there would be clear evidence. When you look, the evidence which **must** be present if Jesus had been a historical figure simply isn’t there. The absence of evidence in these situations _ **is** _ evidence of absence.
>
> How’s this for evidence. I’ve got four biographies of Jesus all written within living memory of his lifetime, the earliest written within 35-40 years of his lifetime. In addition, I’ve got a large collection a letters written about his life and deeds on earth, some of those letters written within 10-15 years of his lifetime and containing creeds written within 2-8 years of his lifetime. So here’s a simple question: can you name _any_ person from the ancient world for whom we have such a huge collection of different writings from different writers all dedicated to that one person and written within their lifetime? Historians would kill to have that type of historical record for nearly anybody else from ancient times. Or let’s put it this way. Do you believe that Siddhartha Gautama (aka the Buddha) existed? Nothing was written about him within 200 years of his death, perhaps not within 300 years. Do you believe that Socrates existed? How many different accounts by different authors do we have of his life? How about Anaximander? Even if we take a figure like Themistocles who’s at the center of well-documented historical events, we’re still working with much less source material than what we have for Jesus. Clearly if we used the same standards for Jesus that we use for other ancient historical figures, the life story of Jesus would be one of the firmest life stories we have from the ancient world. The mythicist position depends on making up a completely arbitrary approach for Jesus that has nothing in common with the techniques that real ancient historians use.
Noise and nonsense. A minor but still glaring problem is that you’ve committed the fallacy of assuming what is to be proved. You can’t just write of the Mark’s Gospel that “the earliest written within 35-40 years of his lifetime” without first establishing that Jesus even _had_ a lifetime. That’s why scholars give absolute dates rather than the kind of unwise dating you’ve chosen.
Second, there were many more than just four canonical Gospels, with three of them being synoptic. The early Church rejected those that didn’t fit with their prejudices because the many others were radically different and often portrayed their redeeming intermediary Son as a purely mystical or mythical or supernatural entity who never walked on earth, just like Paul’s gospel does (if read carefully). If the Church bigots had permitted all of them to be retained in the New Testament, the notion of a purely spiritual Jesus/Christ would be quite unremarkable.
Third, none of the gospels are anything even _approaching_ “biographies”! How absurd! They are deliberately modified, goal-driven faith stories, not biographies. Historians working with psychologists and sociologists and the like have established that the wild inconsistencies of even the three synoptic Gospels _ **cannot** _ be explained away as normal variations in the relating of events. The enormous variability between even just those three closest Gospels can **only** be explained as variations on first having read Mark and some set of Q levels and then crafting their reassembly in terms of what was most important for the later two authors personally and for their own Christian sects. The faith story that they were written by men named “Mark”, “Matthew”, “Luke”, and “John” is all hogwash. **No one** knows which individuals wrote the New Testament, expect that we know it wasn’t the “Mark”, “Matthew”, “Luke”, and “John” of New Testament fables.
You ask: “So here’s a simple question: can you name _any_ person from the ancient world for whom we have such a huge collection of different writings from different writers all dedicated to that one person and written within their lifetime?”
Well, nothing about Jesus was **ever** written in his lifetime, even in the orthodox view! What are you talking about? The very earliest writings are by Paul, who didn’t start writing anything until at least 15 years after Jesus’ alleged death!
For the rest of your question, we have such a teeny, tiny little bit relating to Christianity in ancient times that choosing just a few answers to your questions among millions of better choices is rather daunting! How about Siddhartha Gautama (possibly fictional), Confucius (though he is more and more looking like an entirely mythical person such as Jesus surely is), Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great, Xerxes, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Epicurus, Zeno, Julius Ceaser, Pompey the Great, Augustus, Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, the various Herods, Claudius, Titus… Can I stop now?
While below in the quote box is the sum total of all historical knowledge of Jesus:
> [@](#):
>
> _(this space unavoidably left blank)_
You remark: “The mythicist position depends on making up a completely arbitrary approach for Jesus that has nothing in common with the techniques that real ancient historians use.”
You’ve got that entirely backwards! What exists is mere personal Christian believers desperately trying to defend their own dubious beliefs under the guise of pseudo-history. The Church deliberately put the epistles at the end of the NT in order to get people to read the fiction first and produce effective Gospel-colored glasses to wear when reading Paul. If one would read Paul all alone without any knowledge of the Gospel fictions, one would see that Jesus was a purely spiritual being who never lived on earth. What you espouse is but rotten, preempted pseudo-scholarship which seeks to defend the idea of a historical Jesus **at all costs** , including intellectual dishonesty and even plain lies.
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> > [@ambushed](#):
> >
> > What your and a great many others’ pro-historicist arguments depend on is the English translations of the New Testament. Not _one_ of the original documents have survived (even the oldest have been transcribed from earlier ones), which is not infrequently a much more serious problem than most people imagine (see, for just one example, a layman’s level book on the subject: [_Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why_](http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books))
>
> Once again, are you willing to apply this argument to all ancient history, or only to Jesus? You complain that we don’t have the original manuscripts of the New Testament? Well we don’t have the original manuscripts of any ancient book. Are you willing to therefore throw out all ancient history?
That’s a remarkably specious argument. We can’t criticize one quasi-historical story without criticizing **ALL** history?? _Seriously?_ Sheesh!
We have many original documents for other historical figures, even a stone carving by Alexander the Great himself. But what he have in the case of Christianity is the deliberate **destruction of** or **fraudulent insertions into** documents which would have made it clear that Jesus was not historical! We know that happened because still-existing documents refer to vitally important documents to the mythicist position which no longer exist, and we know for certain that most or all of this destruction was at the hands of the Church.
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> [What we do have for the New Testament](http://www.4mormon.org/mormon-view-bible.php) is far _more manuscripts_ dating from _far closer to the event_ than for any other ancient work.
>
> We have fragments of the New Testament from the early 2nd century and complete books from around 200. By contrast, when you look at well-known ancient authors like Plato, Aristotle, and Herodotus, you’re dealing with manuscripts from at least a thousand years after when they were written. So if we applied your standard, there simply wouldn’t be any ancient history at all.
So, you think an anti-Mormon fundamentalist apologetics site is a scholarly and reliable source of information? Or are you just pulling my leg?
Your views absolutely do **not** reflect the current scholarly consensus. It is noise and nonsense. You also completely misunderstand my arguments! You cherry-picked the few segments of that post that you could throw crap at and hope it would stick. My arguments have **nothing** to do with the date of existing documents, they have to do with the fact that **none** of them provide the tiniest bit of credible evidence for a historical Jesus. And also that nothing was written down **at all** until about 52 CE and show no knowledge of a historical Jesus and that the Gospels are not “biographies” and show no credible knowledge of a historical Jesus (due to what I’ve written previously). And also that **not one** of the historians **certain** to have known of a historical Jesus, such as Josephus and others, related even the tiniest scrap of evidence of such a person.
Again: Show us solid, credible evidence for a historical Jesus and I’ll admit my error and openly give you credit. Just be warned, not the best historians and/or apologists have been able to come up with one either!
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> (By the way, I have read _Misquoting Jesus_ and it doesn’t support your position at all. Dr. Ehrman simply writes under the assumption that the gospels are a largely accurate record of the life of Jesus while focusing on a few words and short passages that might have been altered.)
You read both myself and Erhman poorly, it would seem. His book related all the many apologetic changes to Christian texts in order to either delete damning evidence or create new fraudulent entries where the Church dearly wished they would be found, such as the blatant fraud of the Christian interpolations in Josephus over the centuries. That’s all I said he wrote and that is entirely correct.
---
### Author:  [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/154 "2010-03-10T19:41:32Z")
> [@ambushed](#):
>
> Second, there were many more than just four canonical Gospels, with three of them being synoptic.
It’s hard to take you seriously when you don’t even know what “canonical” means. Plus, referring to those who codified the canon as “Church bigots” does not create the impression of you being an objective scholar of church history.
So far, you’ve provided \*\*no evidence \*\*that Jesus didn’t exist. You have managed to prove that:
– Paul didn’t talk about Jesus’ physical resurrection
– You’ve suggested an alternate interpretation to the title of “James, the Lord’s brother” (although I noted while reading that passage yesterday that Paul did not refer to the other apostles as “the Lord’s brothers”).
– You seem to have some kind of chip on your shoulder regarding the church
Yet you’ve made the huge logical leap that because the sources for all the writings we have about Jesus were written a few decades after his death, that he must be a completely mythical figure. I hope you’re wearing good running shoes.
The bottom line is that there is no proof that Jesus existed. There is also no proof that he didn’t. Yet the preponderance of evidence suggests that _somebody_ name Jesus lived around that time and inspired some people to keep talking about him after he was gone.
---
### Author:  [@akennett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/akennett)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/155 "2010-03-10T20:09:23Z")
> [@ambushed](#):
>
> We have many original documents for other historical figures, even a stone carving by Alexander the Great himself.
Sure we have many original documents for a handful of historical figures. How many original documents do we have, though, that specifically name individual end-times rabbis from the Levant in the first few decades of the first century? That, and not mentions of Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar is what is more relevant.
---
### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/156 "2010-03-10T20:11:54Z")
Zero. What’s your point. We have zero autograph manuscripts about Jesus, therefore Jesus existed?
---
### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/157 "2010-03-10T20:11:55Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> … In any case, I only mentioned that to address **ambushed** ’s attempt to revive the ‘OMG we don’t have the original manuscripts!!!’ line.
I made no such attempt. I know full well that the lack of original manuscripts or autographs doesn’t magically make the claims invalid! I’m not quite the idiot you paint me as being.
My point of raising _Misquoting Jesus_ was **not** to present him as a mythicist **or** to argue that the lack of original documents was a salient point in this debate, but rather to emphasize that we can’t trust the extant documents as having never been fraudulently modified for apologetic reasons. Thus, if we see something in them that looks like a historical reference for Jesus, it might well be just another of the many fraudulent changes made by the Church or other Christians to cover up the fact that there were no such references in the originals.
One especially clear case of this are the totally fraudulent Christian interpolations in Josephus.
-
-
---
### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/158 "2010-03-10T20:14:59Z")
yes, Ehrman’s point (and the salient “skeptical” position in general) is not that the lack or autographs for the books of the NT is evidence against Jesus, only evidence that we don’t know what they originally said.
---
### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2010, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/159 "2010-03-10T20:26:22Z")
I always felt that Paul was a misogynistic homophobe and his teachings reflect that. A modern-day example of Pauline Christianity would be the Roman Catholic Church. Is this a hijack? Well when I hear Fundamentalist Christians focus on the sin of “the gays” and exclude every other sin in the Old Testament, then yes it is a hijack. My favorite was when a woman said that I really didn’t go to Church because my pastor was a woman and Paul said “I let no woman speak for me.” (Romans) The conversation ended pretty quickly when I pointed out that according to Paul in Corinthians, she was a common street-walking whore because she wasn’t wearing a hat outdoors.
---
### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2010, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/160 "2010-03-11T00:07:36Z")
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> I find a lot of your reasoning suspect and speculative.
It’s a very difficult bit of forensics, but I’m okay with that. If it were easy to defend, I wouldn’t have to echo so many scholar’s vast works and arguments.
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> > [@ambushed](#):
> >
> > If Jesus had been a historical person, there would be clear evidence. When you look, the evidence which **must** be present if Jesus had been a historical figure simply isn’t there. The absence of evidence in these situations _ **is** _ evidence of absence.
>
> Like what? Presumably there were millions of people who lived in Palestine in Jesus’ time for whom we have no evidence. What is this magic evidence that “must” be present if Jesus had been an actual historical figure?
The two non-Christian writers who almost certainly **had** to have known of a historical Jesus – Josephus and Seneca – failed to even _mention_ him! (Pay no attention to the blatant Christian insertions in Josephus -or- Constantine’s forgery that fraudulently made Seneca look like a Christian).
Josephus lists 21 men named Yeshua/Jesus in one of his works (I can’t recall which one), but one of them is highly atypical and quite revealing: “Jesus the Christ”. That one stands out as not fitting the same pattern Josephus used with the others, such as not including a “bar” (father) reference as well as missing other standard Josephus treatments. It’s clearly one of those apologetic Christian forgeries that I referred to when I mentioned _Misquoting Jesus_. But the forgers would have been better off not changing the text, because now that “Josephus” allegedly “mentions” Jesus as “The Messiah”, the fact that he didn’t write about such a world-changing figure beyond just mentioning the name speaks volumes. The main thing it speaks of is that Josephus never knew of or wrote about any historical figure named Yeshua bar Joseph -or- any Jesus the Christ figure!
Yet, if he had lived, Josephus _ **would** _ have written of him.
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> > [@ambushed](#):
> >
> > It is not up to skeptics to “disprove” Jesus’ historicity, it is up to the historicists to prove Jesus _was_ a historical person. And not only does nothing come close, as I said above there **must** be historical evidence if he _did_ live which simply isn’t there.
>
> To demonstrate that Jesus did actually exist, historicists must provide evidence. Without evidence, the best that can be said is that maybe he did or didn’t.
Agreed.
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> If you’re going to assert that he definitely did not exist, you’ve assumed a burden of evidence to support your claim.
Nonsense. I have no burden of proof because I am _ **not** _ asserting that Jesus absolutely never lived. I cannot prove an existential negative. I can’t prove that flying elephants never existed, either. All I’m saying is that the default position – the null hypothesis – is that, like flying elephants, we should not assume the existence of something or someone for which there is no credible positive evidence. Your belief in a historical Jesus is an opinion / assumption based on no credible evidence at all. As such, you historicists bear the full burden of proof.
What I’m doing in this thread is revealing all the fatal flaws in the positive historical evidence that has been brought out. That’s all a skeptic such as myself can do and has to do.
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> > [@ambushed](#):
> >
> > What your and a great many others’ pro-historicist arguments depend on is the English translations of the New Testament…
> >
> > In any case, if you look at the closest we have to the original documents and compare them with the various English translations, one can easily see that some extremely important distinctions, such as those between shades of meaning within the array of the terms’ synonyms, have been, as they say, “lost in translation”. But we’ll just stick with the issue before us for now.
> >
> > In the earliest copies we have of Paul’s writings, he frequently uses the Greek word _“adelphos”_. This is translated into English as “brother”, but, alas, that’s one of those things lost in translation, for _“adelphos”_ was the very same word Paul (and a great many other members of the early Christian community) used every time to refer to _any_ member of a Christian group. So, while Paul in Galatians refers to James as the Lord’s _“adelphos”_, only in English translation can Paul’s personal usage of this 1’st century Greek term be conflated with a biological sibling.
> >
> > Another vital element to proper understanding of Paul’s usage of the term _“adelphos”_ is that Paul was arguably the most brilliant philosophical, theological, and literary synthesizer of the era. Few greater such geniuses ever lived. It is quite impossible to believe that Christianity would still exist if it were not for Paul’s extraordinary philo-theo-literary skills and talents.
> >
> > One of Paul’s many goals was (in the ahistoricist view) to synthesize the Qumanian Jesus legends in with the best of the mind-bogglingly diverse philosophical and religious beliefs of the astonishingly cosmopolitan Jewish, Greek, Roman and other communities merged together in many of the cities in Paul’s world. One of these, the so-called “Mystery Cults” (the Gnostic’s and so on) of the day, had already adopted the term _“adelphos”_ to refer to initiates of those gnostic and other mystery cults. So Paul brought that meaning of the word into his writings, too.
> >
> > In 1 Corinthians 1:1, Sosthenes is called _adelphos_, and in Colossians 1:1, so is Timothy. And in Corinthians 15:6, 500 _adelphos_ receive a spiritual vision of the Christ. Are they biological siblings of Jesus? Of course not.
> >
> > So when we encounter the English phrase “James, the brother of the Lord” in Galatians 1:19 and recognize that Paul once again used the term _“adelphos”_, it is foolish to contend that Paul meant that James was Jesus’ biological sibling.
>
> It’s not foolish. You’ve demonstrated that there are other possible interpretations of this verse, and frankly any Bible student knows this.
No, that’s **not** what I’ve done. I’ve demonstrated that it is **ridiculous** to think that Paul’s reference to James as “the brother of the lord” meant that James was a biological sibling of Jesus. The evidence is completely _against_ the idea that James was a biological sibling of Jesus.
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> Even if Paul did not mean biological brother (and we don’t know either way), it is not an argument against historicity.
Non sequitur alert! I didn’t offer that as an “argument against historicity”; I offered that to rebut an earlier claim that the reference to James as Jesus’ biological sibling demonstrated that someone in the early days knew a historical Jesus. You can’t refute the entire historicist position with one or even just a few arguments! The debate must go as follows: A historicist provides evidence that he or she thinks is solid, credible evidence of Jesus’ historical existence and I have to challenge or invalidate it. If I or the scholars I’ve read can’t do that, I lose and the historicist position survives until that claim can be examined. I’m one of the few posters here who have openly admitted changing my mind as a result of debates here, and so I promise you I will do so again if some historicist brings a challenge I cannot answer.
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> > [@ambushed](#):
> >
> > Some will object: “Paul _does_ put special emphasis on James and his relationship to the Lord. How do you explain _that?_”
> >
> > Like this: James was the head of a Christian community in Jerusalem which focused exclusively on the spiritual Christ, as opposed to Jesus the man. That fact _alone_ should give us great pause in considering James to be the biological sibling of Jesus! In any case, this group called themselves the “_Adelphos_ of (or “in”) the Lord”. The leader of this group, whomever he or she was at any specific time (early Christians saw no problem with women leaders, to their great credit), was given the official title that was translated into English as “_ **The** _ brother of the Lord”. It was an honorary title, not a description of a biological sibling relationship to Jesus the man.
>
> What is your reasoning for this claim? We don’t have much information about the early Jerusalem church, why do you say they focused exclusively on the spiritual Christ? How do you know?
First, I never said that the entirety of the staggeringly confused and fractious early Christian churches focused only on a purely spiritual Christ (I tend to think that’s true, but I personally lack the evidence to establish that). No, what I wrote is that there was a single, specific Christian community that was led by James wherein everyone in that community were called “adelphos” of/in The Lord. But the leader – James – was referred to as "THE “adelphos” of/in The Lord as a formal title for the leader of that group. As such, that term didn’t refer to James as a literal biological sibling of Jesus.
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> > [@ambushed](#):
> >
> > n any case, this group called themselves the “Adelphos of (or “in”) the Lord”. The leader of this group, whomever he or she was at any specific time (early Christians saw no problem with women leaders, to their great credit), was given the official title that was translated into English as “The brother of the Lord”. It was an honorary title, not a description of a biological sibling relationship to Jesus the man.
> >
> > That last is also made clear by the references to “the Lord” rather than to “Jesus”.
>
> So what? For the sake of argument, let me stipulate that James was not the biological brother of Jesus (which you haven’t proven).
Again, it’s not up to **me** to prove he _wasn’t_ Jesus’ biological sibling, it is up to _ **you** _ to prove he was!
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> That doesn’t men Jesus was a myth.
_sigh_ Please try to understand the nature of this debate. As I described above, you’re improperly and fallaciously trying to shift the burden of proof to myself rather than have 100% of it born by the historicists instead, as it must be.
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> You still have a Jewish sect in Jerusalem worshiping a person who supposedly existed within their living memory.
So? Huh? The key word there is “supposedly”. I don’t know what point you were trying to make with that.
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> > [@ambushed](#):
> >
> > But what of the writings of others beside Paul? What are we to make of their references to James?
> >
> > Let’s look at epistle named for him. While no knowledgeable biblical scholar still believes that this is a genuine Pauline (or even Jamesian (sorry, can’t remember the proper English term)) epistle, it is instructive to look at the opening line, which reads in English: “James, a Servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ…” If James was thought by the author to be in fact the biological brother of Jesus the man, why is he referred to there as the Lord Jesus Christ’s “servant” and not even his brother or _adelphos_ at all?
> >
> > And then let’s look at the epistle of Jude. That opens by describing Jude as “a servant of Jesus Christ, and a brother of James”. While the Gospel of Mark, chapter 6, identifies Jude as the “brother” of Jesus (implying that both Jude and James are the biological siblings of Jesus), had they been thought to be so in Paul’s day 20 years or so before Mark was written, _ **why not describe them as such?** _. There were great differences in the beliefs and teachings of Christ, the Lord, among the early Christian communities (as Paul’s genuine epistles abundantly documents), and there would be no better way to bring more order to all the massive disorder than for a true biological sibling of Jesus the man to be clearly identified as a primary authority.
>
> You’re putting to much stock in the Brother of Jesus thing. As far as there being “no better way to bring more order to all the massive disorder than for a true biological sibling of Jesus the man to be clearly identified as a primary authority” – you’re imposing your own cultural framework on the early movement. Judaism had no tradition of a “primary authority” to speak on spiritual matters; it makes perfect sense for one not to have existed at the time.
Oh, gosh, no it doesn’t! The Jews thought bloodlines and family trees were **extremely** important! What are you talking about? For just one example, who qualified for the priesthood was considered to have enormous importance, and since the priesthood was purely inherited from family members, had a member of Jesus’ biological family have come forward, he or she would have had enormous power to unite the highly fractious and angry bunch of wildly different beliefs and tenets and theologies all over the place! Those communities would have killed to have a member of Jesus’ family leading them. The Jews, of that age at least, were highly authoritarian and would have loved nothing more than an authority figure based on birth. But they could find _ **no one like that at all!** _
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> > [@ambushed](#):
> >
> > No such figure is _ever_ identified by _anyone_ in the early Christian world. Even if such a person was reluctant to exert any authority or even receive praise, he or she would have been identified anyway, since someone else would claim authority by proxy by dint of his friendship with Jesus or with one or more of Jesus’ biological siblings.
> >
> > Never happened.
> >
> > This is one of the many things we _ **would** _ see if Jesus were ever a historical, biological figure. The fact that we _ **don’t** _ speaks volumes!
>
> No, not necessarily. You’re not thinking like a first century Jew.
What does _that_ mean? I can’t reply to something I don’t understand.
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> What are the other things?
I’m not going to try to list many in this already very long post, but here’s a few:
Paul and/or all the others would have written about visiting Gethsamane and Calvary after Jesus’ alleged death and recording the words of first-hand witnesses, the majority of whom would have still been alive. Someone would have quoted Pilate’s trial transcript and Herod’s exact orders and noted that at least 3 out of the 4 Gospels which would eventually become canonical were bogus or at least overflowing with errors. The various apostles would not have had to fight at all, let alone so bitterly, if there were any historical record to base decisions upon. Those historical records would still be with us today. This debate wouldn’t be taking place. Etc., etc. etc., etc.
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> > [@ambushed](#):
> >
> > Paul refers to Cephas as an “apostle” (though only once), as do the canonical Gospels. But the Gospel’s “apostles” are a group of twelve men, and that Cephas/Peter was one of them. How does Paul refer to the “apostle” Cephas?
> >
> > He refers in 1 Corinthians 15:5-7 to a group who had a vision of The Christ (not Jesus the man), and writes that “… he was seen by Cephas, and afterward by the Twelve … then he was seen by James and afterward by all the apostles”.
> >
> > This tells us that although the vision was reportedly seen by Cephas, he was _ **not** _ one of “the Twelve”, and further that there were more “apostles” than just “the Twelve”. Bottom line, Cephas was not one of a group of twelve apostles but was instead just one of a large group of many apostles. Thus, to paraphrase Douglas Adams, “Cephas was just this guy, you know?” There’s no credible reason at all to think that Cephas ever knew Jesus the man. So the fact that Cephas is, _ **at least 30 years later** _, referred to in the Gospel of Matthew as the “rock” upon which Christ will build “His Church”, it’s abundantly clear that either this Cephas is fictional (as is Jesus) or Matthew’s Cephas and **astorian** ’s Peter are not the same guy.
> >
> > This is further revealed by all the bitter disputes between Paul and Cephus and many of the rest of the “apostles”, including “the Twelve”, the title given to a more “special” group of the many “apostles” (note that Paul insists that _he_ was an apostle, too, though he never knew Jesus either). Both the title “apostle” and the title “the Twelve” are, again, honorary titles rather than descriptive ones (think of them in light of the special group of twelve Mormon “apostles”, for example). Because if “the Twelve” were actually the direct followers of a biological Jesus (as a literal reading of the Gospels would have it), who would dare argue with such holy personages and criticize them as forcefully as Paul so often did?
> >
> > Suffice to say that if any of the apostles or “the Twelve” were the direct followers of a biological man, we’d have strong evidence of their biological/biographical existence, too. And we don’t.
> >
> > Conclusion: References to James or to Peter/Cephas provide no evidentiary support for the existence of a historical, biological Jesus.
>
> Not at all! Referring to Cephas and then the twelve does not imply that Cephas is not one of the twelve. Compare “Yesterday I spent time with my brother, and then my whole family.” Or “today I got caught passing a note to Susie, so I had to read it to the class.” This is in no way evidence that Cephas was not a member of The Twelve.
Oh, come now! An English grammar lesson that may well not fit the grammar of Koine Greek or even Aramaic is rather trite for a counter-argument, don’t you think?
**Dio** , would you be so kind as to apply your strong knowledge of Koine Greek to shed light on the most likely interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15:5-7?
When the Gospels speak of “the Twelve”, they are called “disciples”. But Paul and the other early epistle writers refer to “apostles”, **not** disciples. The two are often confused in common English usage. The term “apostle” means “messenger”. Everyone who went out into the world to preach Christ’s teachings were called apostles, so there were a hell of a lot more than 12 of them.
The point I’m making is that there’s no indication anywhere in the Pauline or other pre-Gospel epistles that suggest that the members comprising the group known as “The Twelve” were the 12 disciples mentioned in the Gospels. It’s quite possible, as respected Christian scholar Rudolf Bultmann among others strongly holds, that the 12 disciples were entirely fictional and that rather than Paul referencing “The Twelve” as the alleged group of 12 disciples from the Gospels, the Gospel writers got the idea of creating a fictional body of 12 from Paul’s reference to some non-disciple group of twelve! It’s the old puzzle of cause and effect, but in this case, Paul’s reference to some unknown body of 12 people came first. By a long shot.
I have to stop now because this post has maxed out the character count… Continued in Part 2.
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