PS: I do not think that all the scriptures are infallible, so do not bother me with that.

ME

Saviourmachine, you do appear to be making progress, and your quick narrowing down to Mark and Paul shows you have the capacity for critical thinking, a rare trait among Theists.

This is my reading of the situation, all in all it is very difficult to really find out what was going on in Paul's head, there is almost as little evidence for his existence as Jesus's. Another telling fact is that Mark is the scantiest gospel when it comes to detail. This suggests that the later gospels embellished Mark with other oral traditions. It is also very clear that the later gospels had separate theological agendas, which dictated their interpretation of Jesus's nature, such as Luke's demigod and John's Lamb sacrifice.


Your exclusion of the gospel of Matthew, Luke and John in this thread is a wise choice, Matthew is merely an embellishment of Mark, and, as has been shown, incredibly unreliable and untrustworthy, Luke I regard as being an attempt to reconcile the gospel Jesus with Paul's Jesus, which is why he also wrote acts. As from John is very clear the John's agenda was to create a further elevation of Jesus's nature, by building on the previous gospels, and turning him into a full God, it is also clear that he was part of the post-Pauline School's attempts to discredit the Gnostics by having Jesus comeback physically.

Nonetheless it is clear that Mark also bears the signs of a clear theological agenda and bias, the teachings of Jesus which Mark focuses on clearly had an anti Jewish establishment and pro Roman message, similar to Pauls. It's rather abrupt ending, clearly aggravated the people who wanted something more complete, and it is very hard to imagine how a religion could have been based purely on Mark, although it has plenty of teachings, it has no complete formulated theology, or salvation message.

In my opinion Mark was written in order to provide some background to the salvation figure that Paul so fixated on, by giving him a historical location, and specific teachings of his own, whereas Paul only merely quotes from the old Testament, Mark provides us with plenty of new parables and teachings unique to the Jesus character. They are of course immensely derivative of both Buddhist, Pagan, and Talmudic teachings, but were carefully selected to appear as a fresh addition to the teachings of the old Testament, as it's audience clearly were not Jewish, or they would have recognised the teachings from their rabbis, but were pagans whose only knowledge of Jewish culture would have been the Septuagint.

So you have Paul's teachings giving us a name, a death, a resurrection and a salvation plan, you then have Mark giving us everything up to the death, but excluding the resurrection and salvation plan, presumably because this would have been redundant, as the readers of Mark would have been already aware of the bulk of Paul's teachings. So it was a companion, complimentary to Paul and only making sense in the context of that school.

There is another possibility that it was based on the Judian Christian schools, more specifically of the school of Peter, the lost third branch of Christianity, this would explain the details of Judian life which Paul never displayed any knowledge of, it is clear however that Mark was altered to match the message of Paul, as no doctrine of Peter's would have had any anti Jewish sentiments, and was made to bolster the doctrine of the Mediterranean Christians, who at this point were vying for supremacy against Peter and the Gnostics.

Later on, after the destruction of Judea and the death of the Peter school of Christianity, the original Mark would have been lost, along with any other gospels written in Judia, this would have created a great opportunity for the Pauline school to incorporate other oral traditions from Judea with its semi-pagan doctrine, further ridding it of any pro Jewish message, and turning Jesus from a Jewish Messiah to a pagan anointed saviour. The remaining gospels continued this trend, focusing on the last remaining significant difference of opinion regarding Jesus, that of the Gnostics. The job of Matthew, Luke and John would have been to add elements that Mark left out, such as Jesus's physical resurrection and divine nature from birth, as these two points were the primary differences between the Pauline Christians and the Gnostics, it is also possible that the Gnostics used Mark as well, as it does not have anything in that contradicts their idea of Jesus. It is also possible that they used Pauls teachings as well, as again this idea of Jesus was of a disembodied spirit, rather than of a physical character who rose bodily to heaven.

In a sense you can split the new Testament into two parts, that of the proto-Christian Paul and Mark, that mainly dealt with Jesus as a historical character in the case of Mark, and a spiritual character in the case of Paul, combined together to create early Christianity, and the gospel of Matthew, Luke and John acting as the further development of the Pauline school, in direct opposition to the Gnostics. This explains the majority of theological contradictions between the two branches, as Paul and Mark would have been of use to all three branches of Christianity, particularly the Pauline school and the Gnostics, whereas the later gospels were most definitely exclusively Pauline, written to emphasise their doctrine and its differences with the Gnostics. As the Pauline school won out, we only have scanty remains of what the Gnostics had in their "bible", but what we do have clearly shows a radically different interpretation of Jesus, that derives from what the gospel of Mark left out, such as the point where Jesus became divine, and the nature of his resurrection.

So to reiterate, it is possible that Mark was based on either an historical character, or more likely a series of oral traditions circling around Judea, these oral traditions influenced Paul who created his own semi pagan branch of Christianity in the northern Mediterranean, which slowly became distanced from the original Peter school, becoming more pro Roman, and less Jewish, as well as incorporating a great many pagan elements in order to attract more local converts. Later on these Judean oral traditions were codified into Mark, an early attempts at creating a historical Jesus, but most likely was a series of teachings of various Christian leaders, which in the age old habit of antiquity, were retrofitted into someone else's mouth, in order to give them greater weight and significance.

The Pauline's school adapted Mark for their needs, further emphasising the defences between themselves and the Peter-Judian Christians, who probably had a far more authentic version, or at least more Rabbi like teachings, without the pagan influences. The Gnostics also developed in conjunction with the Peter school, allegedly from the teachings and leadership of Jesus's brother James, and would have focused on a less authoritarian and more individual salvation plan, based on inner exploration, and regular visitations and updates from a non-corporial Jesus, very similar to Paul's, and his belief in celibacy, abstinence, and sometimes even castration. It is possible that the only reason the Pauline school develops such a fixation with Jesus's divine birth, and physical resurrection was purely in order to stiff the Gnostics, otherwise they would have continued with their original Paul message of visions and dreams.

The Pauline school was by far the most power hungry of all the branches of Christianity, and its unique literal resurrection, served as a significant distinction, which was later used to justify the extermination of the Gnostics, who were by and large far less united, and lacked the proto-Catholic Peter-2-pope "rock of the church" doctrine, and thusly the organised and unified power, principally because they believed in individual liberty. Similar to a dictatorship versus a bunch of hippies, the Gnostics really didn't stand a chance, and as the Romans took care of the school of Peter, that left the Pauline school with their physical resurrection and nativity, which people today take to be the original Jesus, rather than a later addition, created by a bunch of reactionary thugs. But if you study Paul and Mark you can clearly see the origins of Christianity as a far less literal and far more Gnostic like spiritual discipline, a pro Roman combination of the Gnostics and Paul's own interpretation of Jesus, but even early on with clear antagonism towards the school of Peter.

Saviourmachine

ME

The spiritual resurrection was part of the doctrine of adoption, look it up.

Both the Gnostics and the Muslims had a similar belief so Paul may have also. Even if Paul did believe in a physical resurrection he only mentions a spiritual Jesus, and thus his words are capatable with other non literal forms of xtianity, and only by adding concepts to Paul’s writing do you get an agreement with the later physical resurrection concept.

As to your points, I will deal with them thus...


the original doctrine of Paul

We have no reason to think that the Pauline material has been extensively altered, as clearly the compilers of the Bible were not as good at pious frauding as they would have liked to have been, and the marks of theological progression, the clear signs of an inventive faith, are plain throughout the New Testament. The N.T. has clearly kept many contradictions in place, besides the really difficult (to reconcile) elements of Paul's teachings would have been removed. Again it is impossible to say when dealing with a book which has been written by people renowned for lying, and kept in the possession for hundreds of years of people renowned for lying. We can't, by all rights, trust a single word of the Bible, as it has never given us any reason to think that it is in any way trustworthy. Indeed has shown many signs of being the work of habitual deceivers, however this is beside the point, what you presumably want to know is the meaning and origin of Paul's material.

Most biblical scholars now recognise that the majority of Paul's work were written by his followers, and credited to him for the same reason that many of the gospel teachings were accredited to Jesus, so that these teachings would have a greater stamp of authority. The reason that such work as 1 Corinthians is considered genuine is primarily because it mentions events and locations which would not have been the concern of later fabricating scribes. As we have no originals of any part of the Bible, the way that the writings are dated is by a text's references to events of relevance only at a narrow time frame, and to social or cultural concerns which again would only have been on the writer's mind if he were writing at a specific time. From this we can establish that a lot of Paul's writing was written in the late 1st and early 2nd century, far too late for Paul, but nevertheless they display clear signs of his ideology.

From what we can tell of Paul’s "genuine" writings, he was clearly someone who was heavily influenced by the doctrines of the people he was prosecuting. Again we cannot take anything for granted given the notoriously unreliable nature of anything from this period. But it is clear that he was touched by the stories he heard, and eventually came to the conclusion that mankind had been saved from its "sin" by the death and resurrection of this cult leader. But apart from what Paul claimed he had been taught from Jesus himself, his knowledge of Christian oral tradition was clearly very limited, and he chose to focus only on the resurrection and salvation part of Jesus's life, not on any of the other oral traditions. Mainly because he was unsure which were genuine, and the only consistent thing about them were the end of Jesus's life, which was more a vague mythological ending than the ending of a specific person in a specific time. Surely if the specific details of the gospel of Mark were available to Paul he would have used them, as both examples in his arguments, and in his constant reiterations concerning Jesus's death, but he either clearly felt that either the details were not important or he had no knowledge of them.

I think that all Paul had available from the Christians who had converted him was the idea of a pagan influenced resurrected saviour God, which he found very compelling. But this focal point of early Christian doctrine was clearly all that mattered at this point, and the actual teachings of Jesus were either ignored or had not been compiled by various Christian leaders, who more likely than not, were the source of these teachings. So for the early followers of Paul, Christianity was principally about salvation from their "sins". A message of hope to a desperate crowd, and not a philosophy or new moral lifestyle based on Jesus's parables or example, as clearly these took longer to develop than the initial focus on salvation, promoted by the early Christians and by Paul. This is why when I criticise Christianity, I do not really consider these "ethical" teachings that integral to the faith, leaving aside their derivative nature, and their less than perfect moral message, it is not this that focuses most Christian's attention, it is the promise of salvation and freedom from their "sins" and it is this that I find most morally abhorrent and intellectually suicidal, and I find it disingenuous when Christians defend Christianity by quoting Jesus, when clearly these teachings are not really what Christianity is all about, it is a spiritual life-belt, nothing more.

the sincerity of Mark

I have no doubts as to Mark's sincerity, he/they were compilers, working together into a single linear narrative various disparate fables, in an era when everybody believed everything, where credulity and blind faith were the norm, and critical thinking and scepticism were limited to a few Greek philosophers. These compilers no doubt knew that they were not being completely honest, but again this was an era when honesty was not considered a virtue compared to a spiritual message.

Historical accuracy was not a viable concept, as archaeology and the science of historical analysis had yet to be developed, and nobody really knew anything about the past other than from fables and mythology. This was yet another fable being constructed for theological purposes by people who wanted to unite the many different and conflicting oral traditions concerning a figure that they wished to make appear historical. Whether they actually thought he was historical is not important, as they clearly wished him to be perceived as such, and it is most likely that the scribes behind Mark believed every word of what they wrote, just not quite in the order or way in which they wrote it, for example they would simply have guessed at which era he may have lived, and settled for a date which allowed them to include John the Baptist, another popular mythical figure. The later gospel writers followed the same pattern which allowed them to include such historical figures as Herod and Pilot, even though this created further chronological contradictions. They would simply have trusted the Christians who were wandering about telling all these stories, as doubt was frowned upon within such cults, and those of a sceptical disposition were mocked.

The idea that from this environment there should arise something which in this day we could consider historical is quite frankly utterly ludicrous. There is no difference between demanding that we take the gospels seriously and demanding that we take the tales of Hercules as historical fact. Their was no difference between 1st century Judea and ancient Greece, as both were populated by ignorant superstitious and largely illiterate people who's gullibility was total and who's cultures thrived on stories and legends rather than detailed historical documents. The scholars of ancient Greece were few, and even they did not fully appreciate the value of sceptical inquiry when it came to studying ancient history, and although there were a few Roman historians in Judea who followed in the path of Herodotus, none were involved in the creation or the verification of the gospels or their events.

the historical value of the events written by Mark / the sources used by Mark

None/anyone who claimed to be Christian and who had a story to tell.

the sort of Jesus described by Mark

An itinerant rabbi with parables of wisdom and magical powers similar to the later Old Testament prophet's, who died for his principles but was supposedly brought back to life. He also had a strange relationship with God, similer to father and son, far closer and more intimate than most other profits, it is also clear that he thought he was the Jewish Messiah, although clearly he failed to meet any of the criteria. Minus the salvation plan of Paul, his life and death had little relevance to the rest of the human race other than as an example of passive acceptance and stoic like martyrdom.

Mark primarily focuses on Jesus's teachings, the significance of Jesus's death and its theological details were clearly yet to be thought out, this was essentially a crude and underdeveloped version of the later gospels. The model for them, especially the teachings, but totally inadequate when it came to spreading the salvation doctrine, or the all divine nature of Jesus. He was clearly in the line of the apocalyptic Essenes and Zealots, but whose writers also wished to compare him to the martyred profits of the old Testament as well as Elijah and Moses with the miracles they had him perform. Even though Mark is briefer than the others it clearly shows a great deal of amalgamation. It is possible that originally it was written in order to persuade people that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, and that he would return to fulfil the Messianic "prophecies", which until he did meant that he was only a potential Messiah not a complete one. It is also clear that his saviour identity was still being worked on, and had yet to be derived from the various pagan sources such as Horus and Mithras.

the arguments for dating Paul’s letters earlier than Mark’s gospel

Tedious but convincing. Basically Paul's genuine writings bear the signs of a 50-60 AD origination, whereas Mark was at least partially written after the destruction of the second temple. Although Mark's Jesus was still supposed to be the Jewish Messiah, this Messiah was changing from someone who will save the Jewish nation to someone who would save mankind. A clear switch which derived from the destruction of Judea and the end of people's hopes concerning the coming of a Davidic king, who would save the kingdom from the Romans and unite everyone under Mosaic Law. Rather than admit Jesus could not be the Messiah when he was crucified they claimed that he would later returned to fore-fill the prophecies. Rather than admit that Jesus wasn't going to save Judea as the Davidic King after all, when Judea was destroyed they simply reinvented the concept of the Messiah to mean a pagan saviour figure rather than as a ruler, he was reinvented in order to continue the survival of the cult, in the same way that the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons keep changing the date for the End Times every time they're proved wrong.

The cult of Christianity's followers were so desperate, gullible and fearful that they continued to follow the leaders each time their doctrine and Jesus was reinvented, mainly because they had been made to be fearful of hell, and desperate to be saved from their "sins", mainly because they were told they should be. Sin, a concept invented by the likes of Paul, in order to make people want a product that only they, the cult of Jesus, could offer, even though it was a cure for a malady that did not exist. Check the old Testament, the concept of eternal salvation from sin is not there.

And this leads me to your Paul quote...

It is essentially a scare tactic, similar to when a drug pusher makes a person dependent on his product, and then threatens to withdraw it, so making the junkie so desperate that he is prepared to go to greater lengths to obtain more supplies. You're not meant to question that there is no such thing as sin, or hell, you are meant to be convinced that if you die believing in Jesus you'll be resurrected/saved, but if you do not believe, then oblivion or torment awaits you. The main reason I find such arguments so intellectually dishonest and obnoxious is that they are based on the assumption that the first part of their doctrine is correct, and so the second part has to be, otherwise horrible things will happen to the followers. They are tricked through the subtle inferences of Paul's words into assuming that the first part has to be true, and that they should take it for granted, and focus on obtaining what results in belief from the second part.

But what's so disingenuous about this is that there was no sign that the concept of "sin" as Paul understood it was anything to worry about prior to him. What bothers me is that I can see this, and theists can't. Soil used to use quotes from the Bible that he thought were fantastic examples of what is so great about his faith, but to me are clear examples of the controlling and manipulative nature of the most insidious cult that has ever existed.

Bottom-line, if you do not believe in the concept of resurrection from the dead, i.e. if you are at all sceptical about resurrection in general, then you do not believe in the essential doctrine of Jesus's resurrection, and you are going to hell for sins of which only belief in the resurrection is the cure. This makes you willing to buy a larger bullshit, so making a lesser one that happen to be a theological necessity eventually habitual to except, all the time dangling the reward of an afterlife in front of them, with death as the extra incentive. Sick, and fear installing stuff, typical Paul.

Speaking personally, I would teach people that death is nothing to be afraid of, that we should accept it, and concentrate on living, rather than offering people false hope when they could quite easily learn to live without fear of death, but instead Paul uses it is to exploit people. I would explain that we have no sins, and no need for a saviour, that can only be accessed through the cult's monopoly. But then that would be a very bad doctrine for anyone wishing to create a bunch of mindless dependants, the instrument of a cult hell bent on world domination.

Thanks Paul, But I think I'll stick to humanism.

Saviourmachine

ME

I kind of see what you mean, but I dissect Paul's sayings without assumption, and see what he was trying to do, not what he wanted people to think. I read between the lines so much that I forget what other people are seeing.

Saviourmachine

ME

I don’t really care about what Paul believed, but there are some problems with him believing in a bodily resurrection.

For one, he didn’t say he met Jesus physically, only spoke to a voice in the sky, if he believed in a physical resurrection then he’d have to believe in the physical assention as well, to explain why Jesus only spoke to him from heaven, and this concept did not appear till over generation later. Also the physical Jesus idea was very heavily emphasised in John, if there wasn't a threat from spiritual resurrectionists this would have been unnecessary, and this suggests even in the Pauline school after Paul’s death, they were not into the physical resurrection story. Suggesting Paul never made it clear, or stated it was a spiritual resurrection. Your reasoning is very indirect, and as there no direct evidence I’ll just go with the standard model. Besides we have no evidence Paul believed in a historical earthly life for Jesus so its difficult to say what kind of resurrection he acknowledged. Anyway you can be resurrected physically even my a spirit, and I have yet to be convinced that Paul was talking about a physical resurrection for his followers anyway.

It means nothing to me, I just need evidence for everything, but what we do have follows the vague and spiritual image Paul’s writing invoke, to a sceptic absence of proof is proof of absence. If he did preach a physical resurrection and just didn’t mention it in his writings were did the Gnostics get their spiritual idea from? Apart from Mark. Its that kind of question that gets raised by Paul being a physicalist, as it doesn’t chime with the flow of the N.T.'s theological development. I suggest that Paul’s views are irrelevant and we move on to another topic. As with most N.T. research, there’s never enough evidence.

Back then people had different ideas about death, souls, and the afterlife, its only your subjective ideas about these concepts that make you interpret the Paul quote in the way you do. Spiritual and physical had a different significance to a bunch of superstitious ancients. They may have been worried about not resurrecting from the underworld, as post-pagans their idea of it would have been Hellenistic. In the Greek legends people shifted from spiritual to physical all the time, like when Orpheus travelled to Hades to rescue his beloved. Her sprit was physical, even though her body was still on earth, the Greeks were big on metamorphosis, and this makes it virtually impossible to tell what they meant when speaking theologically. I’ll just keep an open but sceptical mind, and stick to the most reasonable hypothesis, for now.

(And then a theist with no tact and arrogance even I would envy appears, and like the hit and runners of old, manages to get under my skin strait away.)

Reformed

I would be most interested in someone divulging their sources for this topic. The only thing remotely resembling a source is Bhor's post:

The rest of this sounds simply like the ramblings of the Jesus Seminar. Christians ought to take that seriously!

Who are these "scholars"? PLEASE identify them! Again, the JS used "scholars." What about those "scholars" who make claim to the contrary? i.e. FF Bruce, Metzger

Bhor:

(Then an old school rationalist appears to lend a hand.)

CHEFRANDEN (The mighty, The Great, The Knows As Much As Me.)

Ok. Here is the list of scholars for you. Go a head and debunk their credentials in order to justify your ramblings charge.

Andries G. van Aarde
Valerie A. Abrahamsen
Karen Armstrong
Richard L. Arthur
Harold W. Attridge
Robert Bater
Joseph Bessler-Northcutt
Edward F. Beutner
Anthony Blasi
Marcus Borg
Willi Braun
James R. Butts
Marvin F. Cain
Ron Cameron
Bruce D. Chilton
Kathleen E. Corley
Wendy J. Cotter
John Dominic Crossan
Don Cupitt
Jon Daniels
Jean Jacques D'Aoust
Jon F. Dechow
Arthur J. Dewey
Joanna Dewey
John Dillenberger
Dennis C. Duling
Susan M. Elliott
Robert T. Fortna
Robert W. Funk
Lloyd Geering
James Goss
Heinz Guenther
Sakari Hakkinen
Maurice Hamington
Walter Harrelson
Stephen L. Harris
Charles W. Hedrick
James D. Hester
C. M. Kempton Hewitt
Jack Hill
Julian V. Hills
Richard Holloway
Roy W. Hoover
Michael L. Humphries
Glenna S. Jackson
Arland Jacobson
Clayton N. Jefford
Gregory C. Jenks
F. Stanley Jones
Larry Kalajainen
Perry V. Kea
William Doane Kelly
Chan-Hie Kim
Karen L. King
John S. Kloppenborg
Davidson Loehr
Sanford Lowe
John Lown
Gerd Luedemann
Dennis R. MacDonald
Brian Rice McCarthy
Lane C. McGaughy
Edward J. McMahon II
Loren Mack-Fisher
Marvin W. Meyer
Darren Middleton
J. Ramsey Michaels
L. Bruce Miller
Robert J. Miller
Robert L'H. Miller
Winsome Munro
Culver H. Nelson
Rod Parrott
Stephen J. Patterson
Richard I. Pervo
Robert M. Price
Anne Primavesi
Vernon K. Robbins
James M. Robinson
Daryl D. Schmidt
Oswald Schrag
Bernard Brandon Scott
Philip Sellew
Chris Shea
Thomas Sheehan
Lou H. Silberman
Dennis Smith
Mahlon H. Smith
John Shelby Spong
Michael G. Steinhauser
Roy SteinhoffSmith
Robert F. Stoops, Jr.
Johann Strijdom
W. Barnes Tatum
Hal Taussig
Barbara Thiering
Joseph B. Tyson
Leif E. Vaage
James Veitch
Paul Verhoeven
Wesley Hiram Wachob
William O. Walker
Donna Wallace
Robert L. Webb
Theodore J. Weeden, Sr.
James E. West
John L. White
L. Michael White
Walter Wink

(I'd just like to add John E. Remsberg)

ME