/lit/ - Literature

It's hard to explain the sudden rise of Christianity in Israel if Jesus didn't exist. Also, if you believed that your cult leader was God, you wouldn't make up a story about him getting crucified, so the execution is probably true. I know that this isn't exactly compelling evidence, but that's excellent documentation for a fairly unknown person from 2000 years ago.

we have extremely little documentation of most anything all considered. And back in those days they didn't have language experts of all languages and centuries of critique and analysis to fall on.

>>21573894
if the Bible was fake the only assumption we could make as to who would fake it would be Jewish people or the Catholic Church. And things would be more clear and explicit on how Christian's should be subservient to one or the other. Not only subservient but slaves to the above. There would be zero wriggle room when it came to these organizations and protestantism wouldn't just be controversial but actively fighting against the Bible. Jesus has negative things to say about Jews so it can't really be them either for that reason alone.
If it were fake they why not include a book of Jesus so it would nip the criticism in the bud and make everything extremely explicit.
If it were fake why did several men who all claimed to have seen Jesus and his miracles in the flesh not only keep their stories aligned but all be killed and punished in gruesome ways.

People are easily cowed now, wouldn't they have been even easier back then?

>>21573908
But Anon we don't know this, we virtually have no idea about this particular thing aside from what the Bible says. Yes we know about the characters and atmosphere in the background but really have nothing on the supposed protagonists. And must we be too brash to assume any part of this was real, considering how the Bible exaggerates things and even lies if you were to take it literally?

>>21573908
I mean just how trustworthy is Flavius Josephus' account for example which is one of the hearsay sources?

>>21573908
>if the Bible was fake the only assumption we could make as to who would fake it would be Jewish people or the Catholic Church.
Only the most hardcore Biblical minimalists think literally everything in the Bible is fake. There's 3rd party evidence for some of the battles recorded in the Old Testament, after all.
>If it were fake they why not include a book of Jesus so it would nip the criticism in the bud and make everything extremely explicit.
Everybody would have to agree with it, which is unlikely. There's actually quite a few texts that were used by early Christians that never made it into the Bible.
>If it were fake why did several men who all claimed to have seen Jesus and his miracles in the flesh not only keep their stories aligned but all be killed and punished in gruesome ways.
The only source for this is the Bible.

>>21573929
I don't know. I'm not a bible scholar. I just kind of listed the skepticisms to my skepticisms on the top of my head. .

You might as well cast the same doubt all basically all history
maybe the entire world materialized in 1800

ITT: Trad larpers who reject vaccines but regard their dead Jew on a stick as real. Kek

>>21573933
The Josephus sections are obvious insertions.

>>21573936
seethe and dilate tranny

>>21573887
Historians don't care to fight them. Historians care that around 150 a strange set of mystery cults which used 2nd temple Jewish mythos in strange ways and had no financial barrier to entry became a political threat to Rome.

Historians don't need Jesus to exist so they pat Theologians on the head. Theologians need Jesus to have been a singular human who lived [and was God.] Historians don't care if Peter was leading an pseudo-Essene cult of Pharisees open to Samaratans and Righteous Gentiles which was infected by a Sadducee secret policeman who went and initiated non-righteous Gentiles. Historians only care when the social impact of Jesus worship becomes socially significant, which is years later and it doesn't matter if the fictive character was based on 1 man, or 3, or none.

>>21573948
Bam. This Anon owns.

>>21573948
That's another thing, there's a theory postulated by a rabbi I was watching that Peter was also sort of working in the same fashion as Paul except he was working for the Jews not the Romans in order to subvert Christianity and get foreigners accept it so it wouldn't seem as palatable to the Jews.

This means, if Jesus was really real he had alot of enemies, including those in his ranks.

>>21573948
And it makes you sort of wonder about the Gnostic Judas narrative.

>>21573887
Its mostly atheist scholars in the 19th-century who cemented that Jesus exist. Its not religious bias you moron.

>>21573908
A lot of these seem weak. 1500 years of institutional drift should be enough to lose alignment with the Bible. The stories don't align perfectly and can have been influenced by earlier sources or each other. AFAIK it's commonly believed different parts were written by different people at different times to serve different political purposes. People from real-life cults with fake miracles get killed too.
The Bible wasn't made up in one go to create a church ex nihilo, sure. But you can have a cult that turns into a broader religion, spreads, gets pushed into all sorts of directions, has people pop up here and there to say that yes, they really knew Jesus in the flesh and/or found the diary of someone who did and incidentally it supports their viewpoints about whatever issues captivated late first century Christendom, and eventually you have dozens of these floating around and people try to make sense of them and editorialize them until they end up with a small subset that's all the right ones and none of the wrong ones for sure, just trust us. Oh, Ethiopia has nine more books than we do? Don't worry about it.
Not saying this is exactly or even approximately what happened, I've barely read any biblical scholarship, but it's a more realistic shape. People constantly forge things for small selfish individual reasons, it doesn't take a grand conspiracy.

>>21573990
Well *if* we interpret the Jesus cult_s_ as a set of no-pay mystery cults open to all nations, then we can start seeing the Greek influence in the gospels and NT, and then start observing Gnosticism as a dualistic inheritor of Greek philosophy. One problem is that Nicean-clean-up-brigade paint all non-Niceans as "gnostic" at times, whereas there are clear differences between various theologies worshipping Jesus painted as gnostic. So the social history of the early Church sees problems, like faithless bishops conducting mass potentially invalidating the remission of sins. The Church deals with these on an adhoc basis, accumulating bureaucratic and theological happenstance until The State in Rome requires them to sort their shit out, because it is about to be the state religion, and thus, the shit needs to be sorted out.

I don't think Nicean christianity is overdetermined by the needs of the Roman state, but the monistic tendency as opposed to the conspiracy theory dualism, is far more desirable for stable state rule. Imagine if people were running around claiming demi-urges existed and that the apparent head of creation was evil. Sounds like a claim regarding the Emperor doesn't it?

>>21573969
Please note that we let the Theologians and "christian historians" enjoy their shallow pool. As long as they don't piss in the laps pool, we let them not drown.

>>21574000
Also, any serious social historian of church narratives needs to examine why the infancy gospels exist and what purpose they'd play to believers, why they'd be created, who would read them, who would believe them, what would the beliefs mean.

>>21573887
People are inherently unoriginal, if you see great writers etc coming up with novel concepts it most likely has a base in their physical reality.
Therefore Jesus must exist. Also there's evidence for plenty of crazy preachers from that time that got BTFO by Wome.

>>21573887
It seems more likely that Jesus was a real, popular Rabbi in Galilee and that people had a strong reaction to his execution than the hypothesis that he was totally fictional.

I'm sure much of what is written about Jesus in the Bible is fictional but his actual existence as a Rabbi who was crucified for sedition is consistent and historically sound.

>>21574082
So if I own the best duck in the world that can fly supersonically and dive 2000 metres; but, it can't fly supersonically and dive 2000 metres; then, is it really the best duck?

Your statement that were was a Pharisee teacher who was killed (Rabbis come later, much later, son), and that there's no way to connect the divine aramaic narratives to your purported dude—what then is the purpose of the dude or the narratives?

Billy is the best sickest cunt in the world, except he's not that great, and he's not really a sick cunt, and he's called Steve.

>>21573994
I know it isn't but I would like to know they reached their conclusion nonetheless, secular or not.

>>21574035
>>21574082
Ok so if he WAS real, how much originally was said by the historical Jesus? I'm assuming Mark was one of these accounts for the historical Jesus from what I've read of the research. But are there others?

I have heard the Gospel of Thomas was one of them too.

>>21573948
>Theologians need Jesus to have been a singular human who lived [and was God.]
super weird that the atheist ones believe he existed as well
almost completely invalidates your schizo post or something

>>21573887
It has nothing to do with the veracity of the document or the plausibility of the story, and it has everything to do with groups of sectarian fanatics engaging in political agitation. Christianity is a political tool, not a legitimate religion.

>>21574096
>how much originally was said by the historical Jesus?
Very little. Much of the language and rhetoric Jesus used clearly came from greek, gentile authors.

>>21574101
Cheers cunt. Being a theologian does not require belief in God. It is a relationship to texts.

Thanks for playing, next time shit yourself in private.

>>21574105
So what is even left?

>>21574109
A mystery cult with no membership fee invented by Saul; and, the texts justifying that mystery cult; and, the contradictions in the texts justifying that mystery cult. What's interesting is how fixated the Gospel Jesus is on the righteous, being Jews, Samaritans and righteous-Gentiles (ie: Noahide law Gentiles) who want to come to love with the father. This is radically different to the Sauline message of physical resurrection via a divine secret mystery meal. The contradiction shows something of pre- council of Jerusalem christianity. Also Jesus is really reluctant to be identified as the son of man or son of god or especial son of god. Which is counter to the Sauline mystery cult. So likely a survival.

You look at what isn't borrowed from Greek culture, and you get a lot of late pre-exile prophets and second temple purifying, except the purification is in love for god, not sending tax to the temple.

>>21574109
We know Jesus was a religious/political leader, we know he was executed. We can infer he had some devoted followers who believed he rose from the dead. Almost anything else about him is speculative.

does anyone know where I can find Wycliffe's Bible in its entirety completely unedited and untranslated

>>21574132
You don't like Terence P. Noble's translation?

>>21574133
i just wanted to find the original middle english for my own purposes. the search engines i use aren't really turning anything up for me it's a lot of commentaries modern english and abridged or incomplete versions

>>21574137
Did you even try wiki's links? http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/biblical_studies/wycliffe/Mat.txt
1 Therfor whanne Jhesus was borun in Bethleem of Juda, in the daies of king Eroude, lo! astromyenes camen fro the eest to Jerusalem,
2 and seiden, Where is he, that is borun king of Jewis? for we han seyn his sterre in the eest, and we comen to worschipe him.
3 But king Eroude herde, and was trublid, and al Jerusalem with hym.
4 And he gaderide to gidre alle the prynces of prestis, and scribis of the puple, and enqueride of hem, where Crist shulde be borun.
5 And thei seiden to hym, In Bethleem of Juda; for so it is writun bi a profete,
6 And thou, Bethleem, the lond of Juda, art not the leest among the prynces of Juda; for of thee a duyk schal go out, that schal gouerne my puple of Israel.
7 Thanne Eroude clepide pryueli the astromyens, and lernyde bisili of hem the tyme of the sterre that apperide to hem.
8 And he sente hem in to Bethleem, and seide, Go ye, and axe ye bisili of the child, and whanne yee han foundun, telle ye it to me, that Y also come, and worschipe hym.
9 And whanne thei hadden herd the kyng, thei wenten forth. And lo! the sterre, that thei siyen in the eest, wente bifore hem, til it cam, and stood aboue, where the child was.
10 And thei siyen the sterre, and ioyeden with a ful greet ioye.
11 And thei entriden in to the hous, and founden the child with Marie, his modir; and thei felden doun, and worschipiden him. And whanne thei hadden openyd her tresouris, thei offryden to hym yiftis, gold, encense, and myrre.