tomndebb, I’m interested in any examples of inconsistencies between the Gospel narrative and the typical ways in which narratives of known-fictional persons evolve (not to argue, just curious). If you can also point me to a reference, I’d be much obliged.
There is no reason to believe that the people Paul preached to had any knowledge about the life or teachings of Jesus. Geographic and cultural distance would suggest that they didn’t, just as most gentiles today in, say, Nebraska, have little or no knowledge of Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
But the silence extends beyond individual pronouncements to Jesus’ ministry as a whole, and it is nowhere more startling than in Romans 10. Paul is anxious to show that the Jews have no excuse for failing to believe in Christ and gaining salvation, for they have heard the good news about him from appointed messengers like Paul himself. And he contrasts the unresponsive Jews with the gentiles who welcomed it. But surely Paul has left out the glaringly obvious. For the Jews—or at least some of them—had supposedly rejected that message from the very lips of Jesus himself, whereas the gentiles had believed second-hand. In verse 18 Paul asks dramatically: “But can it be they never heard it (i.e., the message)?” How could he fail to highlight his countrymen’s spurning of Jesus’ very own person? Yet all he refers to are apostles like himself who have “preached to the ends of the earth.”
Then in Romans 11, Paul goes on to compound this silence by describing the extent of Israel’s rejection, wherein he quotes Elijah’s words from 1 Kings about the Jews’ alleged habit (a largely unfounded myth) of killing their own prophets. Yet Paul fails to add to this record the culminating atrocity of the killing of the Son of God himself.
There are several times when Paul should be expected to cite Jesus as an authority or refer to some aspect of his ministry but does not. For instance, Paul several times mentions that Jesus “was born of woman,” but never says the woman was a virgin. Why not? Because Paul’s converts already knew that? If that’s the case then why did Paul have to tell them Jesus was born of a woman?
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is admonishing the flock for not believing that the dead can be resurrected (meaning regular dead people, not Jesus). Paul tells them to have faith in Christ and makes the tautological observation that if the dead can’t rise, then Christ couldn’t have risen. What Paul doesn’t do is take the obvious opportunity to point out all the people that Jesus himself had supposedly raised from the dead. Didn’t Paul’s converts know about Lazarus? The daughter of Jairus? The unnamed “dead man who was his mother’s only son” in Luke 7? What about all the saints who Matthew says climbed out of their graves and swarmed Jerusalem? If Paul’s audience did know about these thngs, why didn’t he tell them? If they did know about them then why did they think dead people couldn’t be brought to life.
Another interesting aspect of 1 Corinthians 15 is that Paul actually calls his audience “idiots” for thinking that resurrections were supposed to be physical, claiming instead that people would be raised with new “celestial” bodies. Did Lazarus have a celestial body? Why did Jesus have holes in celestial hands? Why did his celestial body eat fish?
As for times when Paul should be expected to refer to Jesus’ own words and teachings, I’ll quote from Earl Doherty:
I that the defense to Paul’s silence is that he was simply not telling people what they already knew is overly dismissive and simplistic to the point of being evasive.
To the mods: This is not my material. It’s a quote from Earl Doherty. I accidentally posted it while I was working on the longer post directly below it. Could I prevail on someone to please either delete this or attribute it in some way? I do not want to give the impression that I was posting this material as my own. Thank you
(To anyone else, we can’t report our own posts so could someone please report this for me? Thanks)
Reported.
Thank you! 
You’re flat-out misrepresenting the analogy. The comparison was between the spread of early Christianity and early Islam – if you’re going to cite the rapid growth of the former as evidence of something, similar consideration needs to be given to the rapid growth of the latter.
Point taken. If I was mistaken, I was mistaken.
Once again though (and this time, say it with feeling), evidence is not proof, nor does it purport to be. Could the rapid spread of Islam be evidence of the veracity of some of its claims? I’d say that depends on the claims in question, and the circumstances at the time. At the very least, it’s something that an honest investigator should consider, instead of dismissing it at the very onset.
I’m honestly not familiar with the history of early Islam, so I don’t know how closely this might parallel the example of first century Christianity. As I said, in the case of Christianity, their entire case was predicated on a singular, unusual event–the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. I’m not aware of any comparable claim that can be made regarding Islam, but if there is, then I’d say that it IS one piece of evidence that should be evaluated.
Contrary to what some insinuate, this does NOT mean that one who accepts Christianity should likewise accept Islam. This does not (as I keep reminding you) constitute proof, or even a compelling case. Similarly, if evidence exists for Joseph Smith’s claims (and I contend that the case of Joseph Smith is tenuously analogous at best), then this does NOT mean that one who embraces the Resurrection should likewise accept Mormonism. Beliefs should be contingent on the totality of the evidence, not just one or two pieces thereof.
I don’t understand why you think the growth of a religion is evidence of anything.
Diogenes, can you clarify? I read part I of your cite, and I’m missing the point. For example:
“That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures”…and…“Paul believes in a Son of God, not that anyone was the Son of God.” What, exactly, is Doherty’s point? Who does he suppose Paul refers to as having died and arisen? Paul believes in a “Son of God,” but not that anyone was this person…huh? And this same person that Paul doesn’t assert existed, by the way, actually did die and rise from the dead–according to Paul. Again, huh? Sorry if I’m missing something obvious.
I want to preface this by saying that I didn’t post the cite as an attempt to advocate Doherty’s theory, I was posting it because I thought Doherty offered some compelling examples of instances where Paul is silent when he should not be expected to be silent. I am not convonced that Doherty’s cnclusions are the only ones which can be drawn, though.
Doherty’s theory is complicated. He thinks that Paul believed (through a combination of personal revelation and scripture) in a metaphysical Christ figure who had “died” and been resurrected in a “lower sphere” of Heaven rather than a Jesus who had physically lived on earth in recent history. Doherty argues that Paul was speaking of a spiritual being, not an earthly one. He supports his theory with a lot of complicated arguments involving elements of Hellenistic mythology, Platonic philosophy, OT exegesis and linguistic analysis (he parses a lot of Greek). He also points out that Paul always supports his own points either by pointing at Hebrew scripture or his own revelation rather than by citing Jesus himself.
I know Doherty’s thesis sounds off the wall at first blush. I first approached his book The Jesus Puzzle with the expectation that it would be one more wacko theory but ended up think that Doherty’s case is extremely well-argued and provocative. I wasn’t exactly converted to the mythicist side of the fence but I was no longer so certain of historicity. His arguments are not as easy to dismiss as you might expect. They can be countered but you have to work at it and you have to a little base knowledge of Greek, Greco-Roman mythology and the Hebrew Bible.
I have no knowledge of a systematic study of the phenomenon. I have simply noticed that when a mystical or divine source is invented, their message tends to be funneled through a single interlocutor who provides all the information regarding them. As I noted earlier, “Seth” only “spoke” through Jane Roberts until Ms. Roberts’s death. When L. Ron Hubbard decided to foist Thetans off upon the general public, he was, throughout his life, the sole source of information regarding the Thetans. Similarly, Madame Blavatsky was the only person through whom the various spirits channeled their information. (In fact, she threw a couple of friends out of the Theosophist Society because they expressed the notion that they could determine some truths based on her writings because she was threatened by the idea that anyone besides herself could have received the wisdom being imparted.)
For that matter, one of the criticisms of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is that only Joseph Smith had any communication with the (heretofore unknown) angel Moroni.
In contrast, we have several seperate accounts of the beginnings of Christianity, all refering to Jesus as the inspiratation, but with no single human source for several traditions that are out of phase, (and, in some instances, are contradictory). This is not to say that someone, Paul perhaps, could not have created the “person” of Jesus, but if Paul did, the belief got away from him pretty quickly with separate “biographies,” lists of sayings (e.g., the Gospel of Thomas), and divergent teachings arising quite swiftly among the people who were coalescing into Christianity. (And why did they need to coalesce? If there was a single author, they should have been able to return to the source for correction and discernment pretty easily. Paul lived for thirty years after the period when Jesus should have died; why was Paul having to argue with people like Kephas/Peter regarding the direction of the new religion if it had sprung from the mind of Paul, to begin with?
Not just growth, but explosive growth during a time when people were being put to death for such beliefs. I never said that growth alone was evidence of anything. If one see’s that the church grew explosively at a time when people were being executed for those beliefs, then it’s only fair to ask, “Why? Why were these people willing to risk their necks when such actions invited near-certain death?” All other things being equal, this makes it more likely that some dramatic event occurred – or at the very least, that they believed they had strong reason for such a claim.
Now, this is the point at which some of you jump in and say “You still haven’t proven that a resurrection occurred! What if the disciples were mistaken, or what if there was some other cause?” As I keep having to remind you people though, we are talking about evidence, not absolute proof. As I said, it’s only fair to ask why the early church experienced such explosive growth at that time. No serious investigator would dismiss this piece of evidence offhand by saying “Maybe the disciples were all mentally ill!” or “Maybe they were all delusional fanatics!” – as though such “explanations” were immediately sufficient, not warranting further investigation or support.
Does the same explanation apply to the incredibly swift growth of the Mormon Church, or the Church of Scientology?
It wasn’t that explosive and there’s no evidence that many of them were being put to death for their beliefs early on (certainly not the direct followers of Jesus), Dying for beliefs means nothing anyway. How many Jews were tortured and murdered for their beliefs during the Inquisition. What does that prove? None of the Christians who were persecuted in the 1st two centuries by the Romans were witness of anything. They just believed what they were told. So what? They weren’t even really persecuted for their beliefs per se, but as scapegoats for a fire (under Nero) and later for not worshipping at state temples (which was seen as basically treasonous). No one would have cared what they believed or who they worshipped as lomg as they still sacrificed at state temples. It was about money, not doctrine. We also have no reason to believe that the victims had any opportunity to save themselves by recanting.
It wasn’t growing “explosively,” and people dying for their beliefs means nothing. It doesn’t prove they KNOW anything.
Why were people willing to practice Judaism during the Inquisition? Why were people willing to practice Christian heresies when it could get them burned at the stake?
Since they were not witnesses to the event, all you have is that they believed whatever they were told. This would be a perfectly ordinary human phenomenon.
You also haven’t shown any evidence for it.
Mistaken about what? You have no idea what the disciples believed.
Cause for waht?
You haven’t offered any evidence.
You keep using this word “explosive” as though you have some factual justification for doing so. You don’t. The growth of Christianity in the first three centuries was nothing extraordinary, and again…it is evidence of nothing. .
No serious investigator would call this evidence and no serious investigator would say that there is any good evidence that the disciples believed in a physical resurrection.
It’s worth noting that people being put to death for professing out-there beliefs and making trouble was not a particularly unique phenomenon. Islam and Mormanism are interesting examples, but more directly relevant are the various other movements that happened around the same time as Christ, many of which were put down violently, and martyrdom. Trying to read modern psychology into ancient times is highly misleading. The time of Christ was filled with errant prophets and claims and supersitions about all sorts of events, and the Roman state was very repressive against all of them. They just didn’t have as many followers and weren’t as appealing as Christianity eventually proved to be. So again, we are left not even with evidence: we are left with jumping to a conclusion based on a faulty judgement about what people will and will not do or believe.
This was all long before modern ideas about what dreams were. Long before any scientific understanding of the mind or of phenomena. It’s simply silly to try and place ancient belief systems and worldviews into a world of modern skepticism where they do not belong.
Until I develop some knowledge of Greek, I’ll have to take your word for it. It certainly defies simple logic and a straightforward reading of Paul’s words, whatever credibility one assigns to Paul’s beliefs.
I already addressed those points in my earlier posts. With regard to Islam, for example, I said,
"I’m honestly not familiar with the history of early Islam, so I don’t know how closely this might parallel the example of first century Christianity. As I said, in the case of Christianity, their entire case was predicated on a singular, unusual event–the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. I’m not aware of any comparable claim that can be made regarding Islam, but if there is, then I’d say that it IS one piece of evidence that should be evaluated. "
The birth of Mormonism was not contingent on any singular, unusual miraculous event that was allegedly witnessed by multiple individuals. It was contingent on the angel Moroni’s alleged appearance to Joseph Smith, but this was not something that was verifiable or witnessed by other individuals. Similarly, the birth of Scientology was not dependent on any specific, allegedly miraculous event.
Moreover, neither Mormonism nor Scientology came about during a time when people were being imprisoned and executed for espousing such beliefs. Mormonism would like us to believe that Joseph Smith was imprisoned simply for teaching LDS doctrine, but this is sheer nonsense. Even if we grant a measure of religious bias against him, he was still guilty of promoting polygamy and of destroying a publisher’s printing press. Their situations are by no means comparable to those of the early Christian church.
As I mentioned earlier, I’m still badly ill and I’m still forced to deal with a huge backlog of work. However, I just had to respond to this particular point, as it is one which I’ve addressed previously (and, in all likelihood, will have to continue emphasizing).
That has less to do with the religion in question and more to do with the surrounding society though. If we lived in a rigid intolerant christian theocracy, you can bet that the beginnings of mormonism and scientology would have seen people put to death for their beliefs. Moreover, using your logic, because people where put to death for their beliefs it would have gained credibility - thereby making it more attractive - thereby gaining momentum - thereby leading to further executions - thereby gaining credibility. Its circular logic and as I said, it says more about the surrounding society than it does about the credibility of the individual religion.