Mod Edit: STOP SPAMMING THIS QUOTE ALL OVER MY FORUM!  THIS IS YOUR FIRST WARNING.  SECOND WARNING RESULTS IN A TIME OUT FOR TWO DAYS.  I HAVE REFUTED YOUR QUOTE IN THIS FORUM.

For Julius Ceasar there is also a contemporary wall of the senate in Rome's museum with the list of all consuls that shows Julius and Augustus...

My refutation of Joe Atwill:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/on_caesars_messiah_the_truth_is_worse_then_fiction

Interesting and while I am close to thinking that Jesus what probably just a man and definitely not a son of a God by a Virgin mom I don't think he's just made up totall.

OT (off topic not Old Testament), Rook is kinda cute wooooo lol. 

Well, I'm not an expert, and I think the mythist case is probably correct, but, I acknowledge that to say that Paul NEVER speaks of Jesus as being a physical man is a bit of an exagerration or misleading.  There are a few cases where it at least sounds like he's talking about a man, like "born of woman".  How can Jesus be "born of woman" if he wasn't even a man?

The mythist case is that these few cases are metaphorical.  After all, if Paul was speaking of a man, would it be necessary to point out that he was "born of woman"?  Wouldn't that be obvious? Have you ever heard of anybody else pointing out somebody was "born of woman"? So, what might Paul mean here?   Well, I don't fully understand it myself.  But, I understand it has something to do with the idea of the time that there were multiple levels of the spiritual realm, with entities more closer to human in the lower levels, while more spiritual in the upper levels.  And Christ was (allegedly) a being of an intermediate level to act as an itermediary between humans and God.

Now, I'll accept that sounds "ad hoc", at least to someone that has always understood Jesus to be a human.  And, I'm not 100% convinced that it is correct, I don't know.  But, there are some points in the mythist's favor.  For example, Christians generally interpret the passages where Paul seems to speak of Christ as purely spiritual are either themselves metaphorical, which might also be termed "ad hoc".  For example, when Paul speaks of Jesus as being a "newly revealed mystery", what would he mean by that if he thought Jesus was a human that lived and died?  Did Jesus reveal himself?

Apples to oranges.  The Gospels are not contemporaneous, as everyone, all Christians, agree that the Gospels were written after his death (if he lived at all...)  So, that is by definition not contemporaneous.  But, Paul was obviously contemporaneous with early Christians -- he was an early Christian!  So, what Paul believed seems to be reasonably likely to be consistent with early Christianity.  But, what exactly did Paul believe?

Well, even if you insist that the Paul means a real human being, well, he still coorborates very little of the Gospel stories.  He never mentions the virgin birth, Mary, Joseph.  Never quotes or mentions a parable.  Nothing about being born in a manger.  Though he says that people have seen Jesus after the Resurrection, he never says it was a PHYSICAL appearance.  His own conversion is supposed to be only a vision, and he never says anybody had anything more than he did.

Interestingly, he does a few times mention the "apostles," as in followers of Christ.  But, does not mention "disciples" as in direct students of his.

Well, if indeed it is Paul speaking of Jesus as a literal human, and it is genuine (not an interpolation) I would tend to agree. As I said, I'm not an expert on the subject. And I'm not "dogmatic" on either, meaning I'm not completely convinced of the mythist case.

I believe it is based on "prepoderance of evidence". Meaning that I don't think one can be certain. But, I believe that the idea is that if he was speaking of a real human, there would be more references to things he did.

Okay, fair enough.

Again, I'm not an expert. Richard Carrier, however, who is a Roman history expert, says that the idea of multiple spiritual planes was a common belief of the time. I don't know his sources. You might could look up his commentary on Earl Doherty's _The Jesus Puzzle_, as he agrees with at least this part of Doherty's argument.

Well, you didn't answer my question: "when Paul speaks of Jesus as being a "newly revealed mystery", what would he mean by that if he thought Jesus was a human that lived and died? Didn't Jesus reveal himself?"

Secondly, whether or not Paul believed that Jesus had been a man, it is still a true statement that he never indicates any physical appearances of Jesus after the Resurrection.

We don't have any clear indication of what factions existed in the first century. The oldest Christian artificat comes from the year 125, a few verses of John. Do you know what the second oldest Chrsitian-related artifact is? Dated from 150 is a significant portion of a non-connonical Gospel that is very different from the connonical ones. The idea that all the "heretical" Gospels are "very late" is false. (At least according to Bart Ehrman, my source on this.)

This would seem reasonable -- if you assume the Gospels were ORIGINALLY intended as being true. There is some evidence that the Gospels, at least the earliest one or two, were intended to be an allegorical story, that over time got misinterpreted into being real.

Well, first, consider how often Christian preachers TODAY reiterate parts of the Gospel stories that everybody knows. Using the scripture to support the position of the preachers sermon is quite common, even natural and expected. It would be just as natural and expected of Paul, particularly when he is talking on subjects that Jesus (allegedly) spoke on. Wouldn't you expect Paul to say, "well, remember what Jesus said, ..."?

Second, WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE RECEIVERS OF HIS LETTERS ALREADY BELIEVED AND KNEW! He was writing BEFORE the Gospels were already written! So we have NO IDEA what (if any) of the Gospel themes were already believed. You might say that even if we don't, Paul would know what they knew.  But how?  How could he think he knew what everyone had been exposed to, given that the Gospels hadn't even been written yet?

And, even after they were written, different groups used differet Gospels, so the idea of their being "one Christian belief" in the beginning is without merit.  And surely Paul would know that and therefore would have extra need to utilize the teachings of Jesus that he knew and believed to be genuine.  So the idea that "Paul didn't feel the need to reiterate what everybody already knew" is just without merit.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but, I thought he ONLY used "apostle" and NOT "disciple".

All of your objections are met here: http://rookthehistorian.blogspot.com/2007/05/revised-look-at-resurrection-and-its.html

Enjoy. 

Nazareth was in Rome, no?

You are reading into Paul what it says in the Gospels, which *could* be true, but, isn't directly supported by what is is specifically said by Paul. Paul never says they were physical appearances. And if they were different from the appearance to himself, you'd think he'd point that out. Also, while the Gospels do record some physical appearances, I don't remember them specifically mentioning some appearance to "500".

Actually, the earliest Gospel, Mark, originally ended with NO APPEARANCES. But, at some later date, someone added to Mark some appearances. This in itself should be sufficient proof to conclude the physical appearances were legendary additions. This also proves that people were willing to alter the stories. Some people try to claim that people wouldn't lie because they'd be afraid to be killed. Well, changes to the text prove this false.

Well, there are a lot of reasons why its not a valid comparision. For one, there may well be specific items in the existent copies that have had alterations, and we don't know it. And that is why historians try to use multiple independant sources to verify each SPECIFIC fact. They don't treat works as monolyths, that are assmed completely factual if some facts check out. You might want to read my article on historical methods:

http://www.caseagainstfaith.com/articles/historicalmethods.htm

Another reason why it isn't a valid comparision is the differences in how secular works are preserved verses religious works. That may sound like a bias against religious works, but it is simply fact that religious works are produced and distributed by different motivations and methods. See Bart Ehrman's _Misquoting Jesus_. He says that for one, the very earliest Christians didn't see the gospels as "GOSPEL", or scripture. Meaning that from their perspective, the gospels were intended as teaching tools and if they thought a change here or there could improve things, they didn't see any reason not to. Then there were different factions that were altering the texts on purpose to strengthen their case.

But in the case of Ceasar's writings, once the man was dead, there weren't people fighting over what exactly he said or meant on page 202, and burning copies that said something else. That means there is less reason to suspect corruption. But, each fact should still be verified if at all possible. Any fact in Ceasar's writings not verified elsewhere would be deemed of lower reliablility than the facts that are verified elsewhere.

In regards to the Qum'ran cave 7 and to "Irenæus, in his work "Against Heresies", I'll have to do some more reading and get back to you later.

Again, we don't know that. We have very little information on what happened in the first century. But we do know that at least in later years, factions fought and killed each other, burned "heretical" works, etc. The side that won is of course going to say the others were minor, and all that rot. If the Sunnis had quickly wiped out the Shiites, or vise-versa, the winners would say the loosers were some minor heretics that were dealt with early. And would claim that Sunni-ism or Shiitism was "consistent all along".

Actually, that's not true. You might read Bart Ehrman's _Lost Christianities_. (And, of course, _Misquoting Jesus_)

Again, I don't think we can offer "proof", only offer it as "best explanation.

Of course you were, unless you are willing to admit you have no idea how accurate the Gospels are.

No, I'm saying that isn't a reliable method of maintaining accuracy. The following article by Carrier discusses the problems with oral tradition, and such problems were known even at the time:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/resurrection/rubicon.html

It doesn't "prove" it is inaccurate, but, historical reliablity depends on eyewitness accounts if at all possible, physical evidence even better. Again refer to my historical methods paper, and again to Carrier's article linked above.

Well, first off, "modern rules of scholarship" weren't invented for the hell of it, they were invented because of problems that arise when you don't follow them. Secondly, as it turns out, real historians of the time, while not being up to "modern standards", were far better than you have been lead to believe by Christian propaganda trying to get you to buy into the Gospels as being "reliable". Again, refer to Carrier's paper, where he compares real historians of the time, and the Gospels.

Here's another paper by Carrier that discusses historical methods in more detail:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/improbable/disproof.html

In other words, he had an agenda.

Well, indeed, many Christians argue for inerrancy, and that the Gospels were written "by the hand of God". If you allow for human error, what do you know isn't an error?

In other words, I'm correct, Paul never indicates that "the Twelve" were direct students of Jesus. Now, the fact that they are given a label of "the Twelve" would indicate that they have some special signficance. But, not specifically that they were direct students.

I figured it was about time for you to bail. If you were to actually read the articles I linked to, you'd find that you haven't the slightest idea about historical methods, and to maintain your position you need to remain ignorant than to actually learn a little about it. Yeah, that may be an ad hominem, but, I'm a bit annoyed that I went to the trouble to find good articles for you, and you'll just blow them off. Not that I'm surprised, it happens all the time. Its just still annoying. Thank you for wasting my time. Theists really piss me the fuck off.

Right. Once they do that, they concede that they have no credibility. They are here to foster their own dogma.

I've actually read into both sides more deeply than most theists, and I have to concede that in doing so I've come to entertain the testimonium as a possible partial fraud (rather than total fraud), andin that case, an actual second hand reference to a human (not gospel) jesus (well, third hand reference). I'd say this is the one difficulty to the mythicist position (although its far more damaging to the christian case, as it reveals christianity to just be one big mistake!)

Oh, and I found this entertaining:

By applying ancient historiographical standards created by the ancients themselves to other ancient works, we're applying modern rules of scholarship?

I don't even think he's spending a second to look at your argument....  He treats your case like something that must be rushed through in order to get to his own responses....

Why not? It happens on a somewhat regular basis (though not regular enough) that a theist who is certain they could never deconvert hangs out in an atheist forum, and to their surprise, is then deconverted. Go check out Mr. C, for example, on AtheistForums.

And, atheists do, from time to time, convert to theism. Though I'm reasonably certain that if there was a theistic argument that  would make sense to me, I'd have heard it by now. But I don't absolutely rule it out. True, I mostly rule it out, but not absolutely.

In that case, instead of saying nothing, you should have conceeded your previous error on your eroneous claim about my applying "modern standards".

Well, that's good, because they are clearly inadequate to convince non-believers. But, theists tend to claim that they are somehow miraculous and SHOULD convince non-believers. That, and, well, if they aren't supposed to convince non-believers, and they clearly are not not viable for doing so, then what exactly IS supposed to convine non-believers?

Believe it or not, I had a couple of other possible articles in mind, and re-read them to determine which I thought was best reference for the topic at hand. So, no, I didn't walk to the library, but I did spend about 2 hours reading and writing my response. Though I concede it wasn't a total loss of time, I did enjoy rereading them. Still, I wouldn't have done so if I wasn't trying to fnd the best sources I knew of for the topic at hand.

 Hey, Rook, that quote in your response to The Saint was a quote of him quoting me.  Were you addressing me in that part of your response?  Its okay if you're saying I'm mistaken on my point, you know better than I.  But, I was just trying to clarify what point you were making.

Rook's response seemed to discount bias. But I will agree with you, slightly. I believe everybody is biased, and that includes me and Rook. But it also includes you and your Christian sources! If you are going to dismiss Rook's arguments out of hand for possible bias, then you should dismiss your Christian sources, including, well, Paul and the Gospel authors! Rather, the better approach would be to consider our bias, but still evaluate the arguments themselves rather than just nay-say them.

You are straw-manning my argument! I'm not saying Paul didn't have a clue about Christian belief. I'm saying there was not "ONE" Christian belief! There were different factions, and different groups with different Gospels (if they had any at all) and different interpretations of those teachings. Given that the faith was new, Paul could not reasonably have thought that his audience all heard the same teachings he did. And even if he did think so, that he wouldn't use them to support his particular understanding of them! See Rook's response for good examples of places that Paul likely would have used Jesus' teachings if he knew of them!

Though I'm not sufficiently versed in interpreting Paul, as I've said, I'm not capable of producing the kinds of arguments Rook provided. But, his arguments are sufficient to me to conclude that the references are indeed "vague".

Now, it is of course your right to disagree, but you haven't given a counter argument, all you've done is nay-say.

But as to "what sort of argument" would convince me of your position, well, go back to Carrier's articles. He gave an example of what if we had a written statement from Pontius Pilate about Jesus' trial and crucifixion? Of course its not your fault we don't have that. But, it is still a true statement that we don't but if we did that would be good evidence of a historical Jesus.

Alternatively, you could perhaps give good counter-arguments to Rook's arguments, instead of just nay-saying them. Show me you are better at interpreting Paul than Rook is. (Ha! But theoretically...) So that's the kinds of arguments that you could theoretically produce to convince me of your position.

 Rook, I'll debate you in this thread. You've avoided me in other threads. You can run but you can't hide. Jesus did exist, and you don't know what you're talking about.

 Sure, but I will first ask you the same question I asked Rook in chat, to which he never answered. what would you consider evidence?

 I'm sorry to say that Paul was not aware that an atheistic audience 1950 years later would require for him to specify that they were appearances of Christ in the flesh, where as his "last of all me" was a heavenly vision akin to John's in Revelation. To point out the ridiculousness of this argument, how could anyone know that Christ showed himself to 500 people at one time? Was everyone gathered at some point so they can magically receive this vision? Or was it an "objective heavenly vision" the kind Paul had which he says the others around him did not see (Acts 9:7), nor understand what was said to Paul (Acts 22:9), so how was it known that Christ showed himself to 500 people at one time? This points to an event that happened in front of everyone that was known to have happened so. Furthermore, Paul goes on to persuade the Greeks that this resurrection is possible, who believed in a resurrection of the spirit the kind you and fellow mythicists purport Paul is proclaiming, so why would he be trying to convince them of something they already believed in?

The addition to Mark is 16:9-16:20, and there is a Resurrection account from 16:1-16:8. Mark is after Matthew and Luke, as internal evidence in the book of Acts points to a date around 62 AD, whereas Luke was written slightly before then, and Luke is dependent on Matthew, which would make Matthew in the 50's at latest, but that is a different topic. The addition itself was not as dangerous as starting a new religion, though Irenaeus would certainly disagree as he says that the forgerer, if it was the person he suspected that did it, "would have a lot of trouble with the Lord."

 Comparing the accuracy and abundance of a Roman despot with that of an ancient Mediterranean then unknown person is really not a valid comparison, though I guess the person who originated the argument is at fault.

We do have Paul's writings, 7 or 8 (if you count Colossians) epistles written from 50-60. There is only one verse that expressly says the phrase "Jesus is God" unambiguously (Philippians 2:6), but I've heard that it is an interpolation, although it's in the Vulgate (405 AD), so the only arguments that are really in doubt is the Virgin Birth, the Empty Tomb, etc. Paul omits the later for the same reason that none of the gospels herald it as ultimate proof of Christ's Resurrection: the rumor was started that His body was stolen, so how does an empty tomb prove anything when all someone had to say was, "It was stolen." Paul's lack of mention of an empty tomb as evidence is irrelevant, though he does mention it (1 Corinthians 15:4) which has led at least one somebody to try and pull off the earliest creed as a later interpolations.

 I think somebody has been watching "Kingdom of Heaven" a little too many times. Factions did not fight and "kill each other, burned 'heretical' works." The way factions fought each other was through forgeries. After all if the Apostles supported your doctrine, the other sides would either have to concede or be heretics for sure against the real Christ. Forgery started around 80 and continued well into the 4th century (Gospel of Philip, etc) and probably beyond as far as I know. There was no burning of books. They were simply ignored, as all other literature at the time. The burning came later, the two main examples being the Spanish burning of the Mayan codices (for which de Landa later apologized), and Hitler's burning of books. The heretics were well known who they were. It was people who had no record of their beliefs existing at the time that it was supposed to for it to be valid. As early as 130 (Papias or Pappias as it was commonly spelled) there was access to Apostolic tradition, so to not know who didn't have origins prior to 85-90 AD (ahem Ebionites, etc), is like claiming in 1930 it was not known who fought in the Civil War (disregarding documents). Witnesses born in the 40's who knew what was going on in the 60's and beyond certainly would enlighten folks like Ignatius and Polycarp. But even more certain is the lack of dispute with any of these folks between Paul. The only sect of Christianity that existed in the 1st century (late 1st century) was the Ebionites who were basically Jewish Christians. There is only one letter directed primarily at Jews (Hebrews), which isn't even Pauline as tradition maintains. The Jewish problems Paul encounters in Acts and throughout his epistles are only in regards to his proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah, something which the Ebionites admitted. There were false teachers, as early as the 50's who did not teach anything radically different from Christianity, but that "the resurrection had already happened," or problems such as no physical resurrection as Paul deals with in 1 Corinthians 15, meaning that Christianity was one and the same for all Christians up until the period of c.80 AD when the sects started to emerge.

The "number of gospels" is a misleading concept. The word gospel means "good news." It doesn't mean "an account of Christ's life." The earliest gospel that we know of directly is the one in 1 Corinthians 15:2-4. But, to put it bluntly canonical and non-canonical alike, there were about 22 gospels, though most are mid 2nd century and beyond. Although of the non-canonical ones there are none that are authentic (i.e. Gospel of Judas was not written by Judas Iscariot), there are some that contain very primitive material (Gospel of Thomas, Oxyrhychus 840 and 1240 fragments), which are sayings of Christ, not narrative, do not in any way contradict Mark-John because most authenticate the sayings in them! And these gospels are further proof that there was a historical Jesus.

Carrier himself says that the strictest of all the historians, Thucydides, admits that he had to go on guesswork as to what was actually said from that testimony in the link. Regardless of that, it's one thing to be an eyewitness, and another to interview ones. Luke seems to be the only one that falls in the latter category, although he says that he made sure the credible was separated. I guess the argument for oral tradition stems from the previous post which in my opinion is a reference to JP Holding's views on the Synoptic Problem. Needless to say, there are better conservative solutions to the Synoptic Problem than the gospels being entirely oral tradition, the Matthean priority with its numerous problems being sadly one of them.

The 7Q5 fragment that is allegedly Mark from 50 AD along with all the others has been relatively debunked. Firstly, the only completely distinguishable word in that particular fragment is kai which means "and" plus the study showed that there wasn't enough room for the phrase "moored the boat" or something. Hershel Shanks in his "Mystery and Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls" has specific references to the articles (the book is a great read as well, and a good introduction to the DSS).

 The reason that he probably doesn't want to respond is that there's no point refuting the same points over and over again.