<!--QuoteBegin-dhu+Nov 22 2007, 08:43 AM-->QUOTE(dhu @ Nov 22 2007, 08:43 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->A fake of history of Israel was substituted for the real Canaanite/Phoenician/Carthaginian history. The very fact that we are writing tome after tome on this fake anti-tradition with a problematic insistence on history-centrism (RM) and antiquity (Bala.) at its core, instead of upon the Phoenicians, is the most telling clue. Welcome to the post Atwill era.[right][snapback]75506[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I feel you've said something very important, if only I could understand. Dhu, please explain - be verbose, be <i>very</i> verbose. Show all the inbetween steps, even the most basic 1+1 = 2, if you will.
<b>Meanwhile,</b> my searching the web on "apocryphal" or something (no luck on that yet), led me to <b>this brilliant stuff</b>. I believe someone here - Acharya? - posted this link earlier, but it looked way too confusing for me to read then.
Going by this page (and two others I've now glanced over), this is an amazingly well-researched site on the origins of christianism, the gospels/NT/bible and jesus. It is incredibly confusing in its organisation; but what I have understood thus far of the structure is:
- the author(s) excerpt from various books, excerpts go on until some other book is mentioned in a heading.
- radical emphasis with bold, caps, even underline.
- a horizontal line every so often to indicate a page/page number. (Why?)
- author(s) own insertions in both [] and () kinds of brackets.
It's all dizzying with such cosmetics, but I've no right to complain, <b>when just one page that I found now contains jewels like this one:</b>
(I want to highlight everything! Just read the following and then that page too.)
http://www.christianism.com/html/add36b.html
Reference they've given for the stuff I'm pasting below:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->from: The Fabrication of the Christ Myth, Harold Leidner [born 1916], Survey Books, Tampa, Florida, 2000. [received, and first seen, 4/1/2002]. [Must See!]. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"16
<b>The Development of the Passion Narrative" [219]</b>
'The passion narrative, comprising the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus, is the central drama of the gospels. <b>In addition to the gospel accounts, many other versions of the Passion were composed during the turbulent second century. </b>These narratives are now labeled "apocryphal" and "non-canonical" because they lost out. We would like to see where Justin fits into this welter of rival crucifixion stories.
In hindsight, we can say that THE FOUR GOSPELS EMERGED AS THE WINNERS BECAUSE THEY APPEARED TO BE THE MOST PLAUSIBLE AND HISTORICAL. Especially in the passion narrative the gospel accounts gave a much better version of the events than the "apocryphal" accounts. A particular error of these rejected accounts, which disqualified them, was their emphatic statements that the Jews alone carried out the execution of Jesus. For a crucifixion to take place in a Roman-occupied province, under the iron control of Roman troops, the execution would have to carried out by Roman troops. Indeed, crucifixions were the very symbol of Roman authority. Therefore any account that had the Jews carrying out the crucifixion of Jesus would have to [be] rejected as fictional.
Here we find, almost without exception, that the apocryphal texts name the Jews as the executioners, and the canonical accounts name Pilate and the Romans. WHAT, PERCHANCE, IF THE APOCRYPHAL TEXTS CAME FIRST, AND THE GOSPELS THEN TACKED ON THE ROMAN PRESENCE TO MEET THE OBJECTIONS OF THE CRITICS?' [219].
'....A LARGE NUMBER OF EPISODES IN THE GOSPEL PASSION NARRATIVE APPEAR TO DERIVE FROM PHILO. NO FEWER that [THAN] TWENTY-FOUR CAN BE FOUND. We must ask why Crossan [Who killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus] stopped short at three and did not go much further into the content of Philo's book ["Concerning Flaccus"], since he rejected Mark's version outright. We can guess that Crossan prudently refrained from venturing further into this dangerous territory, since it would question the very existence of the passion narrative. His colleagues have also stayed clear.
Bultmann quotes approvingly a statement that the gospels are little more than the crucifixion story:
"Since the main emphasis lay upon the conclusion, the Passion and the Easter story, it has quite correctly been said, 'With some exaggeration one might describe the gospels as Passion Narratives with extended introductions.'
(M. Kähler)."25
If the ["crucifixion"] story drops out, then the gospels are dismantled.' [226].
'A comparison between Philo and the gospel will show that Philo's original stands up better:
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Read the rest of that section at the page. I want to paste something that follows a little later on:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->With these 24 points available, why did Crossan stop at 3? And if 24 points of duplication can be found in a single document, covering every major element of the passion narrative, are we not entitled to name this as the source of that narrative? Philo has provided enough material to label the gospel account of the passion as fictional in its entirety. And as Bultmann and Raymond Brown have pointed out, the passion amounts to the gospel itself, hence the whole structure must go.' [234-237].
[See: Addition 34, 1576-1579 (Philo in the New Testament)].
"It is clear that Philo has composed ["Concerning Flaccus"] a unified, well-planned drama that moves in a straight line from the opening scene of high promise to the unmarked grave on the lonely isle. And each episode in the story finds a parallel in the gospel Passion. Crossan, as noted, had limited himself to three episodes in the account to find gospel parallels. We can now state that the entire book was used by the gospel writers to construct their passion narratives." [278]. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->A bit further down:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->22
Josephus [c. 37 - c. 100 C.E.] and the Testimonium
"The passage [Josephus, Antiquities 18:63-64] concerning Jesus Christ which was inserted into the text of Josephus between the time of Origen and that of Eusebius may furnish an example of no vulgar forgery."
Gibbon, Decline and Fall
What Gibbon meant by the above statement is that we are dealing with a FORGERY that was carefully and astutely drawn, and that it made Josephus a witness to the basic elements of the Christian case, all in a brief text.' [297].
'By the sharpest of ironies, it was the opponents who invented the human Jesus. The tactic used by Celsus and his aide was the same as that used by the opponents in the Age of Enlightenment, sixteen centuries later. In both eras they were erecting a human figure and a human biography to counter the portrait of Jesus as a divinity.
Albert Schweitzer [1875 - 1965], in his landmark study, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, indicated plainly that the historical Jesus was never established or confirmed by standard conventional evidence, but instead was but forward as a radical hypothesis by the skeptics and rationalists of the eighteenth century. In the opening chapter of his book he makes this important statement:
"The historical investigation of the life of Jesus did not take its rise from a purely historical interest; it turned to the Jesus of history as an ally in the struggle against the tyranny of dogma."6
That is, if Jesus could be presented as a purely human, historical person, free of supernatural elements, and if it could be argued that a later Church had invented all its dogmas, mysteries and miracles and had foisted these on the human Jesus, then that would strip this Church of all legitimacy and authority. Had the skeptics "turned to" the Jesus of history or had they created him? In both cases, in the early period and in the eighteenth century, the gospels were the only source for the counter-histories.' [314].
<b>'Origen [c. 185 - c. 254] argues solely on the basis of proof-texts [see 1977] from Scripture to prove all events in the career of Jesus. He offers no other evidence.</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->A bit further on:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>This is the sum total of his argument, and is the Christian situation as of his period, about AD 230. He has no history or tradition.
The victory of Christianity came a century later, when Constantine [Emperor 306 (312) - 337 (c. 280 - 337)] chose this ["Christianity"] as the official religion of the empire.</b> This led to the suppression of rival sects and religions. The Jews survived, but were gradually stripped of all rights under Roman law, and reduced to pariah status. The long epic of Hellenic universalist Judaism came to an end and was replaced by the sealed-off ghetto.
<b>What this means is that Christianity in the early period never succeeded in proving its case on the basis of historical evidence, but only through the crushing force of Roman authority, censorship and suppression.</b> Fifteen centuries would pass from the time of Origen to the reopening of challenges to the gospel story. We may inquire whether the scholar-apologists of the modern period have made a better case.' [318].
'A survey of New Testament scholarship in the modern era will reveal remarkably little in the way of results. A good summary of the first one hundred fifty years of this research is provided by Albert Schweitzer [1875 - 1965] in his classic, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. He begins in the 1760s and brings the quest down to his own date, the early 1900s. He covers the work of some 250 scholars, no two of whom agree, and in the closing chapter writes:
<b>"There is nothing more NEGATIVE than the result of the critical study of the life of Jesus... He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in an historical garb"1</b>
In this closing chapter Schweitzer also reveals that this "critical study" was a bogus enterprise. <b>New Testament scholarship</b> pretends to be engaged in objective research, however the <b>field is dominated by members of the Christian establishment, engaged in apologetics and damage control.</b> The scholars discussed by Schweitzer were theologians, almost without exception. They were ordained clergymen, or at least graduate students of theology, and the enormous body of research carried out by them during the nineteenth century is labeled by him as "...the science [sic] of historical theology"2
<b>At that period the scholars in the field had not yet arrogated to themselves the title of historians. Instead they labeled themselves as critical theologians or historical theologians.' [321].
'all the scholars in the field, from the earliest period to Schweitzer's day, from radical to conservative, were engaged in missionary activity rather than historical research. And this continues to the present. Almost every writer in the field today is on the faculty of a theological department or institution. Any scholar-theologian who takes this missionary approach cannot pretend to be engaged in historical research of an objective nature. He will certainly find ways to interpret the data to fit his goal, and will find ways to reject documents that threaten the goal.</b>
<b>Schweitzer also indicated that the quest had a dubious origin. It began by smuggling in the premise that "Jesus of Nazareth" existed, and then used this literary creation to attack the church establishment.</b> In the opening stage, that of the eighteenth century Age of Enlightenment, Jesus was presented by the rationalists, skeptics and philosophes of that era as free from all supernatural and miraculous elements. The writers "turned to the Jesus of history as an ally in the struggle against the tyranny of dogma"--without the small formality of proving that this Jesus had actually lived. The quest proved to be a game of catch-up, to locate the personage they had posited in the first place.' [322].<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Comment: (a classic topic) what part did Christianism ("Christianity") play, in the destruction of the Roman Empire? What part in the destruction of Hellenic Judaism?
'As we bring our inquiry to a close several conclusions may be stated:
1. THE GOSPEL STORY IS FICTIONAL IN ITS ENTIRETY. THERE NEVER WAS A JESUS OF NAZARETH AND THERE NEVER WAS A CRUCIFIXION STORY.
2. In particular the passion narrative must be condemned as a deliberate fraud, meant to attack and defame the Jews.
3. CHRISTIANITY HAS FABRICATED ITS ORIGINS, ITS LEGITIMACY AND ITS HISTORICAL TRUTH BY THE CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF THE JUDAIC SCRIPTURES [see Addition 34, 1504-1518], AND THE CLAIM TO BE THE TRUE ISRAEL. THIS IS A CONQUEST AND OCCUPATION WHICH THE JEWS HAVE NEVER RECOGNIZED.
4. An alternative explanation can be provided for Christian origins and early Christianity--one that does not require the "historical Jesus."
5. NEW TESTAMENT SCHOLARSHIP IS A BOGUS ENTERPRISE. It creates scenarios and takes over material from the social sciences [see 1974] to give the impression that Christianity has an authentic historical origin. The POSE of objective research is used to prop up the gospel story but no hard evidence can be found to support that story.' [358].<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Wow. A clear explanation of the nonsense that is christoterrorism.
So many people have written of the nonsense and have died and yet the lies are still kept in force. Infuriating. This christianism thing is one big lie made up of a zillion small ones. (Side-effect is that it brings islam crumbling down too, 'cause that shed was built interlinked with the barn that's christianism. No wonder salamis like to keep jesus afloat while trying to sink christianism....)
About the highlighting: I see I went a bit mad myself (as usual) <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b>Meanwhile,</b> my searching the web on "apocryphal" or something (no luck on that yet), led me to <b>this brilliant stuff</b>. I believe someone here - Acharya? - posted this link earlier, but it looked way too confusing for me to read then.
Going by this page (and two others I've now glanced over), this is an amazingly well-researched site on the origins of christianism, the gospels/NT/bible and jesus. It is incredibly confusing in its organisation; but what I have understood thus far of the structure is:
- the author(s) excerpt from various books, excerpts go on until some other book is mentioned in a heading.
- radical emphasis with bold, caps, even underline.
- a horizontal line every so often to indicate a page/page number. (Why?)
- author(s) own insertions in both [] and () kinds of brackets.
It's all dizzying with such cosmetics, but I've no right to complain, <b>when just one page that I found now contains jewels like this one:</b>
(I want to highlight everything! Just read the following and then that page too.)
http://www.christianism.com/html/add36b.html
Reference they've given for the stuff I'm pasting below:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->from: The Fabrication of the Christ Myth, Harold Leidner [born 1916], Survey Books, Tampa, Florida, 2000. [received, and first seen, 4/1/2002]. [Must See!]. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"16
<b>The Development of the Passion Narrative" [219]</b>
'The passion narrative, comprising the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus, is the central drama of the gospels. <b>In addition to the gospel accounts, many other versions of the Passion were composed during the turbulent second century. </b>These narratives are now labeled "apocryphal" and "non-canonical" because they lost out. We would like to see where Justin fits into this welter of rival crucifixion stories.
In hindsight, we can say that THE FOUR GOSPELS EMERGED AS THE WINNERS BECAUSE THEY APPEARED TO BE THE MOST PLAUSIBLE AND HISTORICAL. Especially in the passion narrative the gospel accounts gave a much better version of the events than the "apocryphal" accounts. A particular error of these rejected accounts, which disqualified them, was their emphatic statements that the Jews alone carried out the execution of Jesus. For a crucifixion to take place in a Roman-occupied province, under the iron control of Roman troops, the execution would have to carried out by Roman troops. Indeed, crucifixions were the very symbol of Roman authority. Therefore any account that had the Jews carrying out the crucifixion of Jesus would have to [be] rejected as fictional.
Here we find, almost without exception, that the apocryphal texts name the Jews as the executioners, and the canonical accounts name Pilate and the Romans. WHAT, PERCHANCE, IF THE APOCRYPHAL TEXTS CAME FIRST, AND THE GOSPELS THEN TACKED ON THE ROMAN PRESENCE TO MEET THE OBJECTIONS OF THE CRITICS?' [219].
'....A LARGE NUMBER OF EPISODES IN THE GOSPEL PASSION NARRATIVE APPEAR TO DERIVE FROM PHILO. NO FEWER that [THAN] TWENTY-FOUR CAN BE FOUND. We must ask why Crossan [Who killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus] stopped short at three and did not go much further into the content of Philo's book ["Concerning Flaccus"], since he rejected Mark's version outright. We can guess that Crossan prudently refrained from venturing further into this dangerous territory, since it would question the very existence of the passion narrative. His colleagues have also stayed clear.
Bultmann quotes approvingly a statement that the gospels are little more than the crucifixion story:
"Since the main emphasis lay upon the conclusion, the Passion and the Easter story, it has quite correctly been said, 'With some exaggeration one might describe the gospels as Passion Narratives with extended introductions.'
(M. Kähler)."25
If the ["crucifixion"] story drops out, then the gospels are dismantled.' [226].
'A comparison between Philo and the gospel will show that Philo's original stands up better:
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Read the rest of that section at the page. I want to paste something that follows a little later on:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->With these 24 points available, why did Crossan stop at 3? And if 24 points of duplication can be found in a single document, covering every major element of the passion narrative, are we not entitled to name this as the source of that narrative? Philo has provided enough material to label the gospel account of the passion as fictional in its entirety. And as Bultmann and Raymond Brown have pointed out, the passion amounts to the gospel itself, hence the whole structure must go.' [234-237].
[See: Addition 34, 1576-1579 (Philo in the New Testament)].
"It is clear that Philo has composed ["Concerning Flaccus"] a unified, well-planned drama that moves in a straight line from the opening scene of high promise to the unmarked grave on the lonely isle. And each episode in the story finds a parallel in the gospel Passion. Crossan, as noted, had limited himself to three episodes in the account to find gospel parallels. We can now state that the entire book was used by the gospel writers to construct their passion narratives." [278]. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->A bit further down:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->22
Josephus [c. 37 - c. 100 C.E.] and the Testimonium
"The passage [Josephus, Antiquities 18:63-64] concerning Jesus Christ which was inserted into the text of Josephus between the time of Origen and that of Eusebius may furnish an example of no vulgar forgery."
Gibbon, Decline and Fall
What Gibbon meant by the above statement is that we are dealing with a FORGERY that was carefully and astutely drawn, and that it made Josephus a witness to the basic elements of the Christian case, all in a brief text.' [297].
'By the sharpest of ironies, it was the opponents who invented the human Jesus. The tactic used by Celsus and his aide was the same as that used by the opponents in the Age of Enlightenment, sixteen centuries later. In both eras they were erecting a human figure and a human biography to counter the portrait of Jesus as a divinity.
Albert Schweitzer [1875 - 1965], in his landmark study, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, indicated plainly that the historical Jesus was never established or confirmed by standard conventional evidence, but instead was but forward as a radical hypothesis by the skeptics and rationalists of the eighteenth century. In the opening chapter of his book he makes this important statement:
"The historical investigation of the life of Jesus did not take its rise from a purely historical interest; it turned to the Jesus of history as an ally in the struggle against the tyranny of dogma."6
That is, if Jesus could be presented as a purely human, historical person, free of supernatural elements, and if it could be argued that a later Church had invented all its dogmas, mysteries and miracles and had foisted these on the human Jesus, then that would strip this Church of all legitimacy and authority. Had the skeptics "turned to" the Jesus of history or had they created him? In both cases, in the early period and in the eighteenth century, the gospels were the only source for the counter-histories.' [314].
<b>'Origen [c. 185 - c. 254] argues solely on the basis of proof-texts [see 1977] from Scripture to prove all events in the career of Jesus. He offers no other evidence.</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->A bit further on:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>This is the sum total of his argument, and is the Christian situation as of his period, about AD 230. He has no history or tradition.
The victory of Christianity came a century later, when Constantine [Emperor 306 (312) - 337 (c. 280 - 337)] chose this ["Christianity"] as the official religion of the empire.</b> This led to the suppression of rival sects and religions. The Jews survived, but were gradually stripped of all rights under Roman law, and reduced to pariah status. The long epic of Hellenic universalist Judaism came to an end and was replaced by the sealed-off ghetto.
<b>What this means is that Christianity in the early period never succeeded in proving its case on the basis of historical evidence, but only through the crushing force of Roman authority, censorship and suppression.</b> Fifteen centuries would pass from the time of Origen to the reopening of challenges to the gospel story. We may inquire whether the scholar-apologists of the modern period have made a better case.' [318].
'A survey of New Testament scholarship in the modern era will reveal remarkably little in the way of results. A good summary of the first one hundred fifty years of this research is provided by Albert Schweitzer [1875 - 1965] in his classic, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. He begins in the 1760s and brings the quest down to his own date, the early 1900s. He covers the work of some 250 scholars, no two of whom agree, and in the closing chapter writes:
<b>"There is nothing more NEGATIVE than the result of the critical study of the life of Jesus... He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in an historical garb"1</b>
In this closing chapter Schweitzer also reveals that this "critical study" was a bogus enterprise. <b>New Testament scholarship</b> pretends to be engaged in objective research, however the <b>field is dominated by members of the Christian establishment, engaged in apologetics and damage control.</b> The scholars discussed by Schweitzer were theologians, almost without exception. They were ordained clergymen, or at least graduate students of theology, and the enormous body of research carried out by them during the nineteenth century is labeled by him as "...the science [sic] of historical theology"2
<b>At that period the scholars in the field had not yet arrogated to themselves the title of historians. Instead they labeled themselves as critical theologians or historical theologians.' [321].
'all the scholars in the field, from the earliest period to Schweitzer's day, from radical to conservative, were engaged in missionary activity rather than historical research. And this continues to the present. Almost every writer in the field today is on the faculty of a theological department or institution. Any scholar-theologian who takes this missionary approach cannot pretend to be engaged in historical research of an objective nature. He will certainly find ways to interpret the data to fit his goal, and will find ways to reject documents that threaten the goal.</b>
<b>Schweitzer also indicated that the quest had a dubious origin. It began by smuggling in the premise that "Jesus of Nazareth" existed, and then used this literary creation to attack the church establishment.</b> In the opening stage, that of the eighteenth century Age of Enlightenment, Jesus was presented by the rationalists, skeptics and philosophes of that era as free from all supernatural and miraculous elements. The writers "turned to the Jesus of history as an ally in the struggle against the tyranny of dogma"--without the small formality of proving that this Jesus had actually lived. The quest proved to be a game of catch-up, to locate the personage they had posited in the first place.' [322].<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Comment: (a classic topic) what part did Christianism ("Christianity") play, in the destruction of the Roman Empire? What part in the destruction of Hellenic Judaism?
'As we bring our inquiry to a close several conclusions may be stated:
1. THE GOSPEL STORY IS FICTIONAL IN ITS ENTIRETY. THERE NEVER WAS A JESUS OF NAZARETH AND THERE NEVER WAS A CRUCIFIXION STORY.
2. In particular the passion narrative must be condemned as a deliberate fraud, meant to attack and defame the Jews.
3. CHRISTIANITY HAS FABRICATED ITS ORIGINS, ITS LEGITIMACY AND ITS HISTORICAL TRUTH BY THE CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF THE JUDAIC SCRIPTURES [see Addition 34, 1504-1518], AND THE CLAIM TO BE THE TRUE ISRAEL. THIS IS A CONQUEST AND OCCUPATION WHICH THE JEWS HAVE NEVER RECOGNIZED.
4. An alternative explanation can be provided for Christian origins and early Christianity--one that does not require the "historical Jesus."
5. NEW TESTAMENT SCHOLARSHIP IS A BOGUS ENTERPRISE. It creates scenarios and takes over material from the social sciences [see 1974] to give the impression that Christianity has an authentic historical origin. The POSE of objective research is used to prop up the gospel story but no hard evidence can be found to support that story.' [358].<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Wow. A clear explanation of the nonsense that is christoterrorism.
So many people have written of the nonsense and have died and yet the lies are still kept in force. Infuriating. This christianism thing is one big lie made up of a zillion small ones. (Side-effect is that it brings islam crumbling down too, 'cause that shed was built interlinked with the barn that's christianism. No wonder salamis like to keep jesus afloat while trying to sink christianism....)
About the highlighting: I see I went a bit mad myself (as usual) <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->