How Christianity (Probably) Began... No Resurrection Required
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- Is a resurrected Jesus actually necessary to explain the existence of Christianity? When presenting the case that Jesus rose from the dead, the Christian will often point to a set of historical facts which generally boil down to… Jesus was crucified, people claimed he rose from the dead, and now the church exists.
Now would an actual resurrection of Jesus explain these facts? I suppose. But a supernatural explanation can be used to explain anything. The better question is... is there a non-miraculous explanation for the existence and history of Christianity? Please indulge me for a minute and allow me to lay out one possible scenario…
Thank you to ...
Cam Spiers
Bible History Skeptics / channel
Pinecreek / @pinecreekdoug
Shannon Q / @shannonq
Support Paulogia at
/ paulogia
www.paypal.me/p...
www.buymeacoff...
teespring.com/...
Follow Paulogia at
/ paulogia0
/ paulogia0
/ discord
So, Paul, since you've had a deconversion experience... maybe you should change your name to Saul.
Saulogia
Lol funny
Better Call Paul _Saul_
@@Paulogia asaulogetics: Advocacy of the mundane as a means to extract historicity from legend. An Occams razor for legend, if you will. (comment mostly for the algo)
@@phrozenwun Paul is just the "English from the Greco-Roman" way to say Saul (English from the Hebrew). And James is just the "English from the Greco-Roman" way to say Jacob (English from the Hebrew way to say Hacob). Jesus is just the "English from the Greco-Roman" way to say Joshua (English form the Hebrew way to say Hosea).
I love a good origin story!
I had a "secret origins" thumbnail planned, but it was a little too comic insider for mass appeal.
Too bad the abrahmaic faiths have one of the most boring origin stories for the universe and earth.
@Jesus Christ Jesus why don't you just stop being mysterious and tell us how it really happened. I have good money on Mary being a tramp
Bitten by a radioactive basilisk lizard.
Jeez!
The reality of our origins is so much more incredible!
Hope you're doing OK!
"Is there some aspect of the existence of Christianity that you think my scenario fails to address?"
Bunnies delivering multicolored (and sometimes chocolate) eggs on Easter.
Gotta give the kids something to do while the parents celebrate fertility.
The concept of the Easter Bunny and coloured eggs predates Christianity by centuries. Devout Christians *hate* the concept of the Easter Bunny, because it's got bugger all to do with what they want the time to be about.
It's a part of a pagan festival of fertility named after the goddess Eastre. It was a celebration of the upcoming springtime and the planting of crops, thus (hopefully) signalling plenty of food for all in the coming months.
Eastre was the pagan goddess of fertility, and it's from her we get the term "estrogen", the female hormone. The legend said that, in order to amuse the children, she turned a hen into a rabbit which then laid coloured eggs (or a rabbit into a hen, I forget which way around, but I think it was hen to rabbit).
The references to fertility are everywhere with original Eastre traditions: The fertile soil in the springtime; eggs; rabbits (we know why _they're_ linked to fertility!) and even down to the name itself. It had absolutely *zero* to do with some guy rising from the dead... that was just shoehorned in by later Christians in the same way they hijacked the Yule festival at the winter solstice (which had also existed for centuries before them) and renamed it "Christmas".
@Michael Tilley Indeed. Yule was a convenient time for "Christmas" and Eastre was for some reason convenient for them to place their "Easter" resurrection story. The Easter one perplexes me, because it's always on a different date and I can't fathom why the Christians would want the supposed date of their leader's rise from the dead to be different every year. It would have made more sense to steal the Beltane festival, which is always on 1st May. So they hijacked a moving festival for an event that shouldn't be flexible while leaving a fixed festival alone. Makes no sense. I suppose with Eastre being all about fertility, they thought it would fit well with a rebirth but it would still make more sense to have it fixed.
They couldn't even leave Samhain alone. It was always about commemorating the end of summer and the coming of darkness, hence the macabre nature of it. They hijacked the day after in order to worship dead saints and called it "All Saints Day" ("All Hallow's Day"), so Samhain became "All Hallow's Eve" (or "Hallowe'en"). All the celebration involving evil spirits probably put the shits up them so they had to do _something_ about it. Assholes.
@@weescotspaul The Jewish passover moves every year too, and Easter is always the week after that no?
@@gabemerritt3139 Easter tends to occur during Passover, but not exclusively. Sometimes it's at the beginning, sometimes it's towards the end, occasionally it's weeks apart. Passover takes place on a fixed date in the Hebrew calendar, during the month of Nisan. The calendar is lunisolar so Passover _usually_ begins at the first full moon after the vernal equinox (which is 20th March in the Gregorian calendar in the northern hemisphere). I say usually, because it _can_ sometimes start at the second full moon.
Easter is also scheduled according to a lunisolar calendar, and occurs on the first Sunday _after_ the first full moon after March 21st, so will (more often than not) be on the Sunday that takes place during Passover week, but not always. 2016 is an example of this, when Passover started some 3 and a half weeks after Easter.
Why the Christians kept Easter scheduled according to a lunisolar calendar and didn't fix it in the Julian or, later, Gregorian calendar is a mystery to me.
SJ Thomason: "No Paul, don't you see? It has to be magic! It just has to be!"
I can hear it now.
tag her and others on this? twitter.com/paulogia0/status/1089940095975608320
@@Paulogia
On Saturday night, Pontius Pilate ordered to remove the body of Jesus from the tomb and bury it elsewhere, during the week a number of people(the women?) discovered that Jesus' tomb was empty,and because they did not know what happened on Saturday night.
Why did Pontius not prove to them that it was their mistake? It would not have helped, the body had already rotted, and because of the blows Jesus had received, people would not believe that it was Jesus.
Secondly, who said Pilate didn't do it and people just didn't believe him?
Since believers did not even try to do anything against the Romans, Pilate simply gave them up and let them believe in the nonsense(for him) of Jesus' resurrection.
It makes much more sense to me in the first place than the story of Jesus' resurrection and secondly to the fact that Pilate heard of the empty tomb and did not send soldiers to search for who stole the body, probably in light of Matthew's preposterous story of the Roman soldiers guarding the tomb.
Regarding the creed(1 Cor 15), the study today tends to see the subject of 500+ people who saw Jesus after the resurrection or as a later addition of later Christian scribe,or Paul's addition that wasn't part of the original creed.
@ Amichai Elimelech - I am using a translation since your original Hebrew causes writing to be from right to left.
Your speculating on what isn't said in the Bible. The body rotted after one night? As for the blows, he was supposedly recognized by those that had known him when he appeared before them afterwards.
Are you trying to make a guess that P. Pilate hid the body? I have heard that proposition, and that Pilate did so so Jesus would not become a martyr with people worshiping around his tomb. Sorta like A. Lincoln was buried elsewhere so his body would not be desecrated by Southern sympathizers.
Anyway, the narrative adds to much complication and speculation. It could just as well have been the he was supposed to be buried in the tomb provided by Joseph of Arimathea but the soldiers did not care and went ahead and buried Jesus like any other crucified body
@@Paulogia I would, but I got blocked from Twitter a little over a year ago after seeing if I could tweet as often as DJT in a day. It took much worse than spammer FOR DJT to get banned, though.
It’s a common misconception to believe that Saul changed his name to Paul following his conversion experience. Saul was actually his Hebrew name and Paul was his Roman or Latin name. I forgot where it’s located (maybe in Acts), but he’s still called Saul for some time after his conversion. Obviously to “market” the religion to gentiles, it would have been more effective for him to use his non-Jewish name when evangelizing, hence the later use of the name Paul.
I still can't shake the impression that Paul was the name he took when he went under-cover in the Cult of the Way to turn it away from the Jews by changing it into a Gentile religion. Lets face it: until Paul, you have to become a Jew to join, including circumcision, dietary laws, everything.
Truth Seeker But didn’t religion write, preserve, edit, and canonize the Bible? For instance, what is known today as Christianity existed before the New Testament. The Christian Church, which indeed was formed in 50 AD wrote the gospels beginning in 70. In the second century they decided to throw out the ones they disagree with (or simply weren’t popular), resulting in the four canonical gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. Although I agree that today’s Christianity has deeply strayed from the first century (pre-50 AD) movement of “The Way”... you have to acknowledge the role it played in the Bible’s composition and preservation.
But everyone knew him as Nancy.
@Truth Seeker The question that *Paulogia* asked is whether his scenario could account for the Religion that we see today; what facts don't fit? what is inconsistent? Could it have happened like that and if not, why not?
@Truth Seeker No, not reading all that because it's more of the same and off topic. You can't refute that the scenario above is perfectly plausible and so you go off on a tangent, I'm not interested in your ramblings.
.
Good video. One correction: It’s a commonly repeated misunderstanding of the text to suggest that “Saul changed his name to Paul” after his vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus. As a first-century Jew who was also a Roman citizen, Paul would have had both names from childhood (cf. the Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich Greek-English Lexicon under the entry for Παῦλος). The author of Luke-Acts first introduces him to us as Σαῦλος/Σαούλ (Saulos/Saoul), which are Greek spellings of the Hebrew/Aramaic name שָׁאוּל (Sha’ul, “Saul”). But the author of Luke-Acts doesn’t start calling him Παῦλος (Paulos, “Paul”) in his narrative until four chapters after the account of his baptism in Acts 9 (see Acts 13).
The occasion for the literary switch is not Paul’s newfound faith in Jesus but rather an episode where Saul and Barnabas are trying to prevent a “false prophet” from turning a Roman proconsul with the name Σέργιος Παῦλος (Sergios Paulos, “Sergius Paulus”) from the faith. Luke takes this opportunity to say that “Saul” was “also” called Παῦλος (Paulos)...that is, that he shared a name with the proconsul, and he refers to him as such throughout the rest of the text. But “Paul” is simply the name by which the Gentile world knew him. It was the name he went by when interacting with the mostly Gentile congregations to whom he was writing letters.
So it’s a misconstrual of the text to say that “Saul” was his Jewish name and “Paul” was his Christian name. “Paul” wasn’t a “Christian name” at his time...there was no such thing then. It was his Greco-Roman name. He had both names from childhood, and we have no reason to believe that he ever abandoned his Jewish name while retaining his Greco-Roman one.
Thank you for this!
In the months after my fiance died there were several times I heard her voice. I would not consider that reason to believe she still haunts the house she died in. More likely these were just echoes of memories of someone I assumed would be with me the rest of my life.
The mind can be brutal. In the presence of a few people who had immediately passed, while quietly observing the body, I and others perceived the natural breathing motion from their chest independently from one another; it was an illusion that our minds created in trying to made predictions. I'm very sorry to hear of your terrible tragedy. :(
@@Chaosism Thank you. I can easily see in a funeral home where they avoid direct lighting random shadows moving across the body could easily give the illusion the person was breathing, especially to people morning and hoping for some sign that there was a mistake.
@Humble Guy Thanks, it's been five years but at time random things can still trigger emotional responses.
No words can express the sorrow that you feel, but you have my sympathy and condolences, even after all this time.
@Nathan El I feel like if God appeared before me, I would wonder if I was dreaming, or if I was schizophrenic and was hallucinating. I feel like it would take multiple events for a reality like god to sink in, if that was the case. But it doesn't mean that our brains are shut off, it's just that if we saw what looked to be god, then it would be more likely that the appearance of god was a dream or hallucination.
Anyways, I'm really sorry Purple. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose someone so close to you.
Whenever skeptics suggest alternative hypotheses, Christians always demand proof that the alternative is true. Forgetting they have no proof or their own. But I don’t usually spend too much time considering alternatives because indeed there is no proof of any alternatives. But nearly any hypothesis is better than the Christian hypothesis.
When asked how they know the Bible is truly the word of God, most Christians will point to the Bible itself as evidence. That's why this lack of proof doesn't bother really bother them. They are stuck on an endless loop of 'evidence that verifies itself.'
But, they do have proof. Their called the Gospels. Nonbelievers just dismiss it because it goes against their personal views.
Frank Coronado The Gospels arent proof of anything and we dismiss them like any other mythical writings.
@@CaseAgainstFaith1 You dismiss it because it goes against your preconceived notions. But, any historical account of the life of Jesus Christ would mention his miracles. The reason is that's why you would document his life in the first place. Nobody was going around writing about 1st century Judean carpenters.
Frank Coronado First of all, you won’t win any converts pretending you can read minds. You can’t. You don’t know me, don’t pretend you do. FYI, I am 57 years old and didn’t conclude i was an atheist until I was 40. Before then, I attended church often. I wanted to believe. I just eventually concluded that I cant believe because there is no good reason to believe. You should also read other religions and mythologies. Many religions have founders of purported humble beginnings. Your savior is no different than a thousand others.
Pretty much a minimalistic non-mythicism approach is what I imagine might have happened, too. Thanks for demonstrating it clearly Paulogia...!
You can have an actual person behind a myth and it's still a myth. The Jesus we know of today is clearly a mythical godman.
Evidence?
I think that this is the most sensible edit to Christianity since the Jefferson Bible.
high praise? ha. thanks.
Dude, the bible is the book I read that made me an atheist. Yours is the most reasonable explanation I have heard and I love listening to apologetics. Don't sell your self short. And randomly: Aloha from Hawaii my Canadian friend :D
Having been raised Catholic (it didn't work on me), I find it hilarious whenever you mention James, the brother of Jesus (as you do in this video). As you probably know, there is an extensive, extra-biblical theology built around Mary. The cult of Mary is so intense that not only was Jesus a virgin birth, Mary was also the result of a virgin birth, and remained a virgin throughout her life. The hoops Catholics jump through to explain this away this plain wording about Jesus having a brother makes them look foolish to other Christians, I imagine.
According to the book by the same name, Jesus' brother was Jude.
@@reubenmanzo2054 You talk like it is impossible for Mary to have had a long and prolific childbearing life. Jesus could have had several brothers and sisters. Just because the Bible doesn't specifically state something happening does not mean it didn't happen. The Bible is not a historically accurate document. That is why Christians are called to exercise so much faith. Faith is belief in the unprovable and the unlikely.
@@davidson46100 Where did you get that impression? I said nothing of the sort. I said the Bible itself testifies that Jesus had (at least) one brother.
as far as I'm aware it is not Catholic dogma that Mary was conceived by a virgin. Are you maybe referring to the immaculate conception? the dogma that Mary was conceived without being affected by original sin (but not by miraculous virgin conception)
@@DirkDjentlyI think OP is referring to a sect within Catholicism that believes these things about Mary. Not that it’s official Catholic doctrine.
This hypothesis takes care of, or at least gives a good alternative to, the Christians' favourite argument "but why are there so many consistent scriptures?".
Very well constructed, Paul, thanks for this.
The better question, why AREN'T there so many consistent scriptures?
@@TheKyrix82 You'll never hear a Christian ask that.
Paul needs a 101 class
@Skeptic Psychologist Well said!!!
@Skeptic Psychologist thanks for a great comment!
Not to mention memory is a fragile thing. I remember telling someone of an event 15 mins after it happened. Then saw a video of that event and although the major points were there, quite a few of my details that I was certain on (color of shirt worn for example) were not only wrong, I said I KNEW it wasn't a white shirt, it was black or dark blue. Video showed it was a white shirt.
Yeah, pretty easy for these stories to get out of hand.
My theory (for what it's worth) is that you can only remember something if you happened to notice it in the first place. A lot of what we "remember" is actually our imaginations filling in the gaps. (Because how often do you pay attention to the color of someone's shirt? Or their eye color? Or their shoes? I think, for most of us, the answer is "not often".)
Another possible explanation for the empty tomb is given in John. 19:39 And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.
19:40 Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.
A hundred pounds of myrrh would be an extremely tempting target for grave robbers. Remember that myrrh was so valuable that it was supposed to be brought by the Magi as a gift to Jesus' birth. Faced with a corpse wrapped with this valuable substance, they would not hang around in a tomb to recover the myrrh. They would take the myrrh, body and all, to a safe place where they could work at their leisure to make sure that they got all of it. And voila! An empty tomb!
interesting idea
Pity the tomb was guarded by Roman soldiers.
@@Boatman607 John 20:1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. I don't see a mention of Roman soldiers. If there were any guards, wouldn't they have noticed the stone being rolled away? Only Matthew speaks of guards and describes an opening of the tomb that is consistent with guards on duty. Mark, Luke and John do not and they describe events that would be nonsensical if there were guards. Matthew describes a very different story than the others. My conjecture is only inconsistent with Matthew. It is completely consistent with Mark, Luke and John. Your objection is also only consistent with Matthew.
John was the latest of the Gospels that took... well, it's hard to say it took the most liberties with Matthew's zombie apocalypse. There's not really much explanation there that wouldn't have been in Mark.
This is a calm, reasonable, logical hypothesis that certainly fits the actual historical evidence and psychology. When I was in high school I read about other religions and found them just as (un-)persuasive as the various Christian ones. Actually some of the early Christian and Gnostic "heresies" were more believable. My own hypothesis, which sent me away from the Catholic Church, was that Saul of Tarsus usurped the original Christianity and made up his own version [a.k.a. The Imperial Greco-Roman Church].
As my knowledge and understanding have increased it seems possible that he actually believed what he wrote, but, since almost half of the Epistles are forgeries and the "authentic" ones also have interpolations and elisions, we can't be sure what he actually believed. There is the same problem with the Gospels. They were written anonymously, have been meddled with extensively by different people, and are full of obvious contradictions, distortions and and implausibilities. I found Ehrman's "Forged" very enlightening, but have since moved on to Carrier's more plausible mythicism.
Thanks for another well done Paulogetic ☺ keep up the good work.
I also find Carrier's work compelling, but what stops me from going full mythicist(as opposed to my belief that it is likely that some real person was totally mythicized and became unrecognizable in the Bible) is Hitchens point that if there was no heretical teacher of the law that Jesus of Christianity was somewhat based on, then why do the Gospels twist prophecies and birthplace etc..to fit? If it was purely myth, then why not just perfectly tailor the story to the Messiah legends? It just gives me pause that there might have been a guy, just heavily mythicized in the Gospels. Cheers :)
@@munstrumridcully That is also a reasonable hypothesis. That Paul's Jesus was mythical, doesn't mean that there wasn't a real Jesus. As a matter of fact, the Bible Jesus seems very likely to have been a compilation of stories about three or more different Jesuses that were amalgamated into one mythical Jesus Christ. Considering that that is how the Gospels were obviously created, then edited and reedited, it is logical that the same process went into the creation of the Jesus character.
@@JMM33RanMA yeah, the amalgamation idea is also what many historians think inspired King Arthur. Makes sense.
What makes me think that there was "some" Jesus is also the fact that he died from crucifixion... That was something that did not help to convert the Jews (think of a Messiah that supposedly come to free people from the Romans... that dies miserably from their hands), nor the gentiles that were fully part of the Roman society (imagine if, today, a guy who has spent 15 years in prison tried to convince people that he is "Christ").
That is why both Paul and the Gospels struggle with that. They could not deny that Jesus was crucified, there must have been records and witnesses among the diaspora. Paul simply doesn't talk about that. Gospels, written later, are more focused on gentiles. They assure that it was because of the "evil" Jews for political reasons, and not the "good" Romans. Resurrection is just the final excuse: nobody killed him, after all...
A purpose built "Jesus" would not have been crucified, a shameful torture in that time.
@@chefchaudard3580 A purpose built [insert dead and rising god's name here] would not have been crucified, a shameful torture in that time. This apologetic has been sufficiently debunked because persecution and death [with or without a resurrection] has failed to dissuade believers. Need I mention that the persecution and death of Joe Smith doesn't seem to have hurt the Mormon recruitment.
As far as converting "the Jews," is concerned, most of them did and do not convert. Those that did became Ebionites, who were too Jewish and were later persecuted out of existence. Of course the non-Jewish Christians had their own beliefs [Adoptionism, Arianism, Docetism, etc.] that did not rely on Jesus having had a human body that really died, or that the Divine Being left the human body, etc.
Analysis of the records of growth [not church fables] suggest that virtually all growth was non-Jewish, especially when the religion gained popularity and after it became the official religion, at which point people who refused to accept the beliefs [Jesus' divinity, the trinity, etc.] were persecuted.
I always enjoy coming to this site. The calm delivery reputing the Religious fairy tales with sound logic is refreshing. Keep up the good work.
Appreciated! Please spread the word...
It's a possible theory. The fact that the earliest account we have - Paul didn't mention Jesus' earthly life but only vaguely about his last supper crucifixion and resurrection, and there are no reliable historical records of Jesus' life from the first century apart from a story written by an unknown writer and copied by other unknown writers, it is reasonable to say that there is a good chance he didn't exist at all, or at least most of what was written was fiction.
Good theory but Jesus ministry, crucifixion, and reported resurrection was recorded outside of the Bible as well.
@@arthurmorgan149 Jesus life and death was not recorded outside the bible in the first century, unless you are referring to the Josephus paragraph which is widely agreed to be a forgery.
@@AustinOKeeffe Josephus writing on Jesus isn’t a forgery. There are no writings of Josephus without that passage, and it’s quoted as such by ancient writers.
@@AustinOKeeffe I am atheist myself but historical Jesus definitely existed lol. Just because he existed doesn’t mean he was divine. The people that I don’t think existed were Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Noah. Muhammad also existed, but again, that doesn’t mean he was divine in any way.
@@farmercraig6080 regardless, Josephus was not in a position to attest to the veracity. The best that we can do with his testimony is say that some group of people in his day believed Jesus to be a real person. Josephus is not actually affirming any stories about Jesus in any way.
I was raised catholic until I moved out at 18. Wasted some time identifying myself as agnostic. But did my research and came to the resolution that all creation stories that involve “gods” are bunk and the belief in them is akin to flat-earth theory. I love your material, thank you for your hard work and I hope to see more.
When I was a child, I truly appreciated Christianity. This one religion accounted for Christmas and Easter, two opportunities to get stuff that I hadn't earned. Is there a theme here?
That's the reason I believe that Jesus was a real person.
Writings about a apocalyptic preacher and faith healer named yesua getting crucified by the Romans in the first century.
That's like telling a story about a college fratboy named John preforming bar tricks getting arrested for a DUI, then starting all known drinking games of the modern day.
Paul had PTSD?! I'm thinking temporal lobe epilepsy (known to cause hyper-religiosity in some instances) is more likely...
Yes, Rob; it's actually Gecshwind's syndrome, commonly, though not always, found in TLE: hyper-religiosity, hyper-graphia, hyposexuality, and hyper-emotionality
I keep speculating--for amusement only, likely--that Paul, a Greek resident of Tarsus who like many others of the period had become attracted to Judaism, cooked up the whole thing as a kind of Hebraic Socrates. His letters are the oldest part of the New Testament, and the conflict between Paul and the leaders in Jerusalem could be a mumbled admission that the people of that city had no idea what he was talking about.
Yeah, I know, the evidence is almost, but not quite entirely lacking. But the idea might make a good comic opera.
Small detail that doesn’t affect your argument: there is no evidence that Nazareth existed during Jesus’ lifetime, and circumstantial evidence that it _could not_ have existed at that time.
The non existence of Nazareth is not clear. Here is a Guardian article that describes an archeological project that claims to have discovered evidence of habitation is an area that is considered to be where Nazareth might have been: www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/21/nazareth-dwelling-discovery-jesus However the whole thing is not without issues. One big one is that a similar word, Nazarene (in English), was use to describe people of an early Jewish sect, so maybe an early Jesus writer just conflated two concepts, Nazarene and Nazareth? What is definitely true is that Nazareth is not known to have existed as a place name in first century Palestine.
One thing you didn't address was the context of Judaism. Apologists will hammer the point that jesus's crucifixion placed him under the curse of God according to Deuteronomy (he was hanged on a tree). Also, the elevation of Jesus to co-equal deity with a father would be heretical to the Unitarian Jews. Your explanation makes more sense to the Greco-Roman world than for Jerusalem.
As Cool Hard Logic's cartoon Cleetus often says: "Seems legit!"
Actually, I agree completely. It's an extremely logical progression based on known human activity. Come to think of it, it's the most logical progression I've ever heard. Nice one, Paul!
Barth Erhman's book "How Jesus Became God" basically talks all about this subject. How scripture evolved the Jesus story and why it probably happened in each step. It's a interesting read for sure and helps put a lot of the chronology of the Jesus story in an easy to comprehend order.
Anyone who bases their belief in a deity they cannot prove exists and assumes a man was dead for 3 days before returning to life need to critically evaluate their world view.
2 days.
@@ratamacue0320 hahahaaaaaaaaa does that change anything? In the ancient middle east? If youre dead for 8 minutes your fucked even with modern science. 2 or 3 days means nothing Jesus would be stone cold and stinky.
@@ratamacue0320 Actually a lot of Christians think it was 3 days, even though Friday evening to Sunday morning is only about 36 hours.
@@CommieApe it just reflects the silliness of the whole thing that most Christians can't even -count- tell their own story correctly.
I believe in logic and facts great job Paulogia..
I'm even more of an insufferable skeptic than you; I only _provisionally_ accept logic and evidence as far as it maps to, and helps predict and somewhat control, experience :)
great thing about logic and facts is, you do not have to believe in them, they are true and work ever single time.
You, like me, believe in logic and facts and wailing out a bitchen guitar solo judging by your avatar. Rock on my man. 🎶🔬🔭🎸🎹 Lol.
[ *Mike 3:69* ]
| |
| | Ə_ə
Logic is just more metaphysics.
Paulogia:
Fantastic job summing up minimal historicity! I love this type of video!
Could you please do the same for the mythesist position?
My favourite scholarly sources are of course Carrier, Price, and Fitzgerald. Some great TH-cam channels include Fishers of Evidence and NotoriUK, plus Murdock.
It boils down to this:
- Around 200-300 BCE, the Hebrew Torah got translated into Greek. A vastly wider audience became exposed to these stories and started incorporating Jewish lore into their writings.
- 150 BCE - 70 CE: tons of Judean prophets spoke out against Roman occupation of Judaea including several who were named Jesus or later given the title. Some even had 5 or 12 disciples, performed miracles, and were crucified. Jesus could have been a composite character of these (if these stories were even referenced!).
- Throughout this time, Judaen people were desperately awaiting a saviour (a 'Jesus') who would save them from the Romans.
- 70 CE: The Temple is destroyed and the Jews are decimated. Their culture is in ruins, they are humiliated and scattered, they feel that their God has forsaken them (huge cognitive dissonance), and they have lost the temple which was their only means of communicating with their god, and for atonement from sin (the temple was where god literally lived) -- huge ontological insecurity -- they were in dire straights!
- The Torah says that if the messiah came but the Jews ignored him, then 70 years after his birth, Judaea would be destroyed...
- and... wouldn't ya know it, after the devastating temple fall (70 CE), stories start to emerge that a saviour had been born but was disregarded, 70 years prior! Prophecy fulfilled! (In reverse)
- Mark is believed to be the first gospel, and was written after 70 CE (it described the temple fall). It was written in high Greek, by highly educated people, as a very stripped down fable, and narratively structured as allegorical parabels, which would only have been read by priests, interpreting it as they saw fit. The name of Mark was assigned centuries later.
- Mark's Jesus character died for the sins of all the Hebrew people, so they were off the hook now for temple sacrifice, because this one counted for all time. Phew! Cognitive dissonance and ontological insecurity resolved. Happy people!
- Matthew and Luke were copies of Mark, likely from other churches making changes to fit desired practices and appeal to specific audiences (Jewish and Roman/Gentile, respectively). The four gospel books were never intended to be brought together, which is why their many contradictions and obvious copying are apparent now.
- Jesus' story perfectly follows many other popular dying and rising saviour gods of the time, mashed together with Old Testament stories copied word for word; Daniel, Isaiah, Moses, etc. And all written as parables. The whole thing could have been written based on other stories, with no research into any real past persons.
- Paul only spoke of a heavenly Jesus, based on revelation. Paul was basically a Sethian Gnostic. People were worshipping a heavenly Jesus (non-corporeal) in 1st C CE.
-There's no proof of when paul was written. The only date stamp in Paul's authentic letters (2 Corinthians) is a reference to Aretas, the King of Damascus, who ruled in 100 BCE. Huge continuity error!
- Early Christians were adoptionists (hence "anointed one" or "Christ", born a man but chosen and possessed at baptism), docitists (J was just a ghost), Sethians (Yahweh was sort of the Devil), and gnostics. There are still traces of each of these views in the gospels.
- Paul's story perfectly matches Apollonius ("Pol") of Tyana and Orpheus of Thrace. Paul could be a composite character.
- Nazareth didn't exist. "Nazorean" was a mistranslation: it's also a branch of Essene Judaism with extremely pious missionary workers who had long hair and went around anointing people.
- there are no author names, no references, no original copies, no sources, no corroborations with anything in secular history (the few mentions, a century later, are of 'Christians', and the rest are proven interpolations), no eye witness accounts, and the stories have tons of private conversations which a historical author would have no way of knowing! The earliest extant copy of the NT is from the 4th Century! Everything prior is just scraps from 3rd C.
- The scholarly community widely accepts that Acts was fiction, unsupported by any secular history.
The entire Jesus story didn't need an actual Jesus. It's made from OT stories, random characters from Flavious, plus Persian and Greek mythology. And it came along at the perfect time to fill a desperate market need... handy!
- someone likely Euhemerized the heaven-bound Hebew character of Jesus (fan fiction where a deity is written as having been human), which was also the style at the time.
Even though we can't be sure which is true, I'm leaning to the mythesist position as being most likely.
But we should all be a-yeshuan (unconvinced of the existence of a historical Yeshua ben Yosepha).
Thanks!
P. B Amygdala , 👍👍
I'm in the scholarly community, and we most definitely see Acts as historical. I will be completing my Master of Theology this year. The rest of your argument is rather creative but holds no weight. Cite your sources.
This has gone straight to the top of my "Answer to 'THOSE' kind of questions" list. Thank you for this elegant, eloquent explanation, Paul!
I think it would be interesting to see a video (with the cool drawings) that presents the alternative view promoted by Richard Carrier, that Jesus never existed at all, and that Christianity began with Paul, with the Gospels being basically retconning a life for Jesus - religious fan fiction.
Another scenario goes like this: the early followers of Jesus believed he lived after death in a spiritual form. In the course of retelling and Hellenization, the creed "He is risen!" changed from a spiritual afterlife to a physical resurrection. The amazing 'Road to Damascus' story never appears in Paul's own epistles. That's the later work from the anonymous author of Acts. Some scholars have surmised Paul had certain personal issues, to which he alludes in his epistles. Bishop Spong wrote in his books that he thought it might be the urges of forbidden homosexuality -- thus explaining Paul's desire for celibacy. On hearing whatever version of the Jesus story he had contact, and mixed with his own The End Is Nigh beliefs, he found an answer to his personal demons and became a zealous follower of Christ. That Ah Ha! Moment, along with the colorful language of "once being blind and now can see" turned into the flash of light and vision on the road to Damascus. His version of Christianity was a departure from that taught in Jerusalem. But -- between the Roman decimation of Jerusalem (most likely killing off most of the original followers), Paul's prolific travels outside of Palestine, and the later suppression of alternate gospels as Orthodoxy was forming -- Paul's version won the day.
I know. Less fun and less mental issues and actual visions.
I'd put that together with general "psychotic break" moment for Paul... we don't need to know his exact motivations to posit he had one, and the story stays the same.
True.
Nice work. I read Wilson's book on Paul and he doesn't mention Paul's conversion was not from Paul himself.
That scenerio has no basis in reality
@@paradisecityX0 -- OK. Why, exactly? What is potentially unrealistic about it?
1:01 - "Around 30 AD the Middle East was littered with apocalyptic preachers..." I've heard this for years and years and years. It even made it into "The Comic Book History of the Universe". But I haven't seen anyone other than Richard Carrier actually name more than one or two of them, and the list actually seems quite small. And of the two most commonly sited cults - Isis and Mithras - he points out that we know virtually nothing about Mithras except that he probably isn't a resurrection god, and we don't know if he was apocalyptic. I would love to know where this idea came from, and see the list of known apocalyptic preachers!
The best ancient historian regarding this time in Israel is Josephus. He was a Jewish intellectual living in Judea during the rebellion, captured by the Romans and lived out his days writing a history about the Jews from about 100 BC to the fall of Masada in 74 AD.
I have read Josephus’ works and he talks at length about many failed messiahs. I don’t have an exact count, but Josephus mentioned at least half a dozen messiahs who were executed or killed in battle by the Romans. There could easily be dozens more because Josephus only lists the ones which were a serious threat to Rome.
I recommend reading his book, “The Jewish War”. It gives a clear picture of the mayhem happening at the time.
We don’t know whether Paul “saw” Jesus on the road to Damascus. He doesn’t describe how he “encountered” Jesus. The description is in acts, which was likely written by someone who didn’t have contact to Paul or someone who knew Paul personally, but was writing down myths and hearsay. It could be that Paul simply dreamed of Jesus.
You just blew my lid off.
This is going to my stash of vids next to Hitchens.
I don't think Paul hallucinated anything, I think he just had some vivid dreams.
.... or an acid trip
Paul may have had Temporal Lobe Personality and related seizures.
It would explain the visions, the grandiosity, fixation with religious/spiritual issues, and hypergraphia.
I first heard that theory proposed (with some confidence) in a video lecture from Dr Robert Sapolsky.
Rewatching this I'd like to comment on post-bereavement hallucinations. After my mother died last year, I had three "visits" from her while I was sleeping. Insanely realistic despite touches of non-realism. In the first hallucination, she was driving to the hospital in an older family car with me in the passenger's seat. She had almost never driven a car during my entire life, and physically couldn't during most of it, but there she was, driving to a hospital appointment. And parking right on the curb at the intersection, next to the bus stop, forcing me, a blind man, to drive the car somewhere better to park.
In the second one, she was sitting at our kitchen table, trying to reassure me that she was doing alright, looking far younger and more energetic than she had been in decades.
In the third, same as the second, but she sounded sadder and looked like she did near the end of her life.
Grief is a hell of a thing, and having seen my brain trying to simultaneously comfort and torture me like that, it's plain to see why people would believe in ghosts, or why they might believe their dead cult leader is still around. I have the benefit of modern knowledge and no tendency for magical thinking. I call them "visions" of my mother, but only tongue-in-cheek. My mother is dead. Her ashes are in a box behind me, on a shelf, waiting for a chance to be dispersed as she wished for me to do. I understand that those dreams are a coping mechanism generated by my brain, and not a magical invisible spirit of my mother telling me platitudes and _driving a car and almost parking on top of some goddamn pedestrians._
But if you're an ignorant pre-industrial bronze age peasant, scratching at dirt for a living and terrified of points of light in the sky, or a "spiritual" descendent of such primitives living in the modern age without understanding how people can fit inside a tiny box called a TV in your living room, then those hallucinations might drive you to, for lack of a better term, Faith.
Which makes it understandable, but still dumb. A coping mechanism is not a reality-detection device.
Or to be fair, if it _WERE_ a reality-detection device and not merely a coping mechanism, then Grandma would be able to tell you the combination to the old safe, instead of telling you she's doing well and you shouldn't be sad. You're dead, Grandma, and I'll feel sad if I damn well please, now tell me the combination to the goddamn safe so we can get the family photos and your last will!
It's a "null hypothesis" for all apologist. Great work!
Wow I'm usually not here this soon. Interesting video and a logical theory of how the religion of Christianity started.
There is no need to postulate a psychotic break with reality in the case of Paul. It is clear that he was a practitioner of what is called Merkhavah mysticism in which he undertook constant intellectual exercises (fasting, repetitive chants and prayers, etc.) with the goal of seeing's god's throne and must have regularly have had mystical visions in an altered state of consciousness. For someone in that situation it is not unusual to have a spontaneous vision.
One of the things that that tradition taught that he would see, and which he probably did see, was the great angel who stands by the throne. His 'breakthrough' was to recognize this being (more typically called Metatron, or the recording angel, or by various names) as Jesus.
You can read more about this in the Talmud in the story of the four who entered Paradise (b. Hagigah 14b) and in the Merkavah texts, recently translated for the first time:
James Davila, Hekhalot Literature in Translation (there is a PDF of this on-line somewhere if you search hard enough, or there used to be)
discussion from an anthropological perspective:
Davila, Descenders to the Chariot.
And for Paul and Merkavah Mysticism:
Alan F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven
_____, Paul the Convert
"and probably did" -- you must be using some definition of the word "probable" with which I am previously unfamiliar.
@@greymalkinfishing Are you suggesting that there is no no such thing as mystical experience? There is a large body of peer-reviewed scientific literature by psychologists that suggests that there is (as well as the testimony of innumerable mystics). It doesn't mean that there is anything supernatural involved (as an atheist I certainly don't think that there is), but it is a real and well-studied form of altered consciousness. (sorry for the double posting to Mephisto [I didn't realize the computer was signed to the wrong account]).
@@HConstantine I was bothered by the "[met an angel] which he probably did" and referenced the Talmud. You appeared to believe in particular angels, but we're fine with Jesus not being divine; it seemed a contradiction.
@@greymalkinfishing I'm using emic terms--the language that practitioners of this form of mysticism themselves used.
Yeah, that sounds like what I had in mind. I probably heard that somewhere and forgot the details. Thanks.
Either way it's more likely. Even if he had an actual hallucination, they're not really all that rare. Anyone can have them and they can be brought on by all kinds of things.
This is one of my favorite TH-cam series on religion and atheism. th-cam.com/play/PL9D9336926EF60BB0.html I highly recommned the whole series but part 6 is about hallucinations and how many people have them.
Here's my take on the resurrection. There were two preachers named something similar to "Jesus." One of them was executed, and the other wasn't. Rumors started spreading that the living guy was the same guy who was executed.
For a modern parallel, look at the Mandela effect. When the horrors of Apartheid reached America there were several stories of injustice and brutality being reported. The story of Nelson Mandela's imprisonment was mixed together in people's minds with other stories, like the brutal death of Stephen Biko. So people thought Mandela was the person killed, Later when he was alive, they created the Mandela effect to explain it.
Douglas Phillips your story is ad hoc and doesn’t explain the empty tomb or the list of eye witnesses provided in 1 Cor 15.
Watch Testify
A 2007 indie film called The Man from Earth has the perfect story and execution.
They talked briefly on Christianity and what they bring up, misinformation that built up over generations is powerful
I really liked that film. Great mention!
The portion where no-one met anyone who had anything to do with it started making stuff up, seems to me to be the start of the Jesus myth.
I think largely it is based on inaccurate representations of common hero myths of the time coming together to form a localized mythological person. I don't think Jesus himself ever existed.
Very strong case for the no resurrection/supernatural account. Well done!
I think a more simple and probable explanation was that Paul established his religion the same way Joseph Smith did, he took something that was already there, and made up a bunch of stuff about it, in order to place himself at the center, and make lots of money. Rather or not Jesus existed is irrelevant. Though as AronRa likes to point out, the problem isn't that Jesus may not have existed, it's that there were way too many Jesus's, or at least people claiming to be Jesus, running around.
Something to consider: It is often alleged that the author of MARK got his information from the disciple Peter in Rome. The original MARK, the first gospel written, ends with an empty tomb with no claims of a risen Jesus. One has to ask then whether Peter preached a risen Jesus, or not . . . or was it a case of the author not believing such a claim. OR . . . was it a case of the author just writing a story. There are elements of the story in MARK that nobody could have been a witness to . . . and so point to the story being at least partly fiction.
Absolutely genius! This needs to spread.
Thanks, Jim!
Here is another explanation I heard while traveling through the UK. BBC radio had several biblical scholars on and their premise was that there was no resurrection to begin with. As Christianity gained dominance, often by force through the region, they were soundly defeated by the Pics in the region we call Britain. Christianity’s next attack was to set up small churches and try to replace the Pic clan’s demi gods with Christianity’s growing number of saints like George, etc. This worked well except when it came to fighting under the flag of Jesus because the turn the other cheek stories did not resonate with the warriors, so they came up with the rising from the dead story and that worked well and so it stuck.
I found that eminently plausible.
Sorry, but that theory is insane. It would mean that every single document gospel and epistle that speaks about the resurrection, as well as all early Christian commentaries and quotations of these texts, are forgeries written literal centuries after the fact. And all the old manuscripts we have of these texts would have to be later forgeries that can somehow fool modern dating methods. And then there's the idea that a theological detail invented solely in a backwater region like Britain would supplant the theology of all the preexisting churches in the Mediterranean, Africa and Middle East, without leaving any evidence whatsoever of this theological struggle.
Tall tales only grow taller! Back then it was bound to become an institution because power loved the idea of owning that tale. So it became "history" and a tool to control the masses. King James knew this would raise him above all because he made Christ accessible to everyone! It's a beautifully executed power play to thwart the Catholic power.
Paul, I believe the story you laid is the one that happened if at all!? Always a beginning hidden somewhere!
I really like the artwork you used in this video. Did you do that yourself, or do you have artist friends who contribute? I couldn't draw if my life depended on it, but I admire people who can.
Your are a treasure here on TH-cam, thank you!
thank you, CIL!
You may have missed this one...."For the message of the cross is foolishness to them that are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." And again, "Christ the power God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. But God has chosen the foolish
things of the world to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame those things which are mighty." ( 1 Corinthians 1:18, 23,24, 25, 27)
Everything after the crucifixion on your theory sounds like it would take a lot of luck. All the pieces would have had to a phone into place.
"And was crucified on a cross" As opposed to a doughnut. Is that even possible? Can God make a doughnut so big that his Son can't nibble his way free of it once nailed to it?
Hey, I've encountered dunkin donuts so stale that God himself could not nibble, break or tear his way free from those lumps of concrete! ;) ( *JK* , for clarity to avoid Poe's Law, lol )
Do you have Dough nails?
Donutfixion? I want the hole story!
The fact that Paul does not seem to know of any of the events written in the Gospels suggests that all the stories were made up later and that Jesus began as a celestial being no different than Lucifer. In fact, Jesus may have been the "anti-Lucifer," an angel that submitted instead of rebelling and thereby actually achieving what Lucifer tried to but could not accomplish: becoming one with "God."
I enjoyed this video, you show how something - like a religion - could be started without any supernatural events. The best to see if something is possible that is based on the supernatural, see if it can be started without any supernatural events, if yes than it is possible that it was started this way, not that is was definitely started, only that it was possible. Thank you for a great video again Paul, keep them coming
i recommend the books On The Historicity Of Jesus by Richard Carrier and Jesus Mything In Action by David Fitzgerald. We do not even need a Jesus at all, neither Jesus nor Mohammed ever existed. For the nonhistoricity of Mohammed see the book What The Modern Martyr Should Know by Norbert Pressburg.
I am a Richard Carrier fan, but I still think it is more likely than not that the Jesus stories were based on one (or more) real people. Regarding Mohammed, my understanding is that there is no dispute within mainstream scholarship that he certainly existed, and was a single person. Obviously, the stories told about these people are wildly exaggerated or simply fabrications.
You are, generally, a terribly bad student, not only of history but of knowledge generally. There has never been any doubt about the existence of Muhammed and the fact that there's no serious historical evidence about Jesus does not mean Muhammed did not exist; if you don't know, then find out...or maybe shut up!
@@nurudeenoladipo Your name coincides very well with your comment, mainly because both are arrogant
What I have always understood is that anyone crucified the body was left on the cross until it rotted off as a warning to others. Also during one of the many 2nd century plagues the Christians cared for a lot of the sick without getting sick themselves. People seemed to have thought they were protected by their God.
Really? Can you give the citation for your second point?
Back then, more than half of everyone born died before the age of 5 from common contagious diseases (that's the reason why the average life expectancy before modern times was about 35, even though few peopled died in their 30's). The ones who survived childhood likely survived all the common diseases, so were either immune, or super-tough, or both. Not getting sick was typical for any adult.
A while back I started wondering if the *_origins¹_* of religion/god concept (in each isolated incident in which some form of it arose) could have possibly originated via someone with schizophrenia &/or certain variations of epilepsy.
I was going to explain all the reasons why, etc but tbh, I'm too sleepy and not motivated enough to do so right now.
¹ As in the _very first_ religion/god concept in a region. _Not_ the origins of all subsequent religions.
Nicely done!
Great video with a perfectly rational explanation. Who knows how many there are, but this is a keeper, and I've saved it. Thanks for sharing. Subscribed!
you look buffed ,, are u working out???????
I used to hear this argument and rejected it because....? Well, other than that I was raised in the Christian tradition and was therefore biased, I believed the "Why would the apostles go to their death for something that wasn't true?" argument. Today, I certainly believe that people would and do go to their deaths for things that are false. After so many decades of thinking about this, it appears that the obvious--or perhaps simplest--is, alas, the best explanation.
[6:00] "Disciples died for their belief? There are no historical or even biblical records that say any of the 12 disciples did."
Acts 12:2 "He [King Herod Agrippa] had James the brother of John beheaded ..."
The James in question is the brother of John the Apostle, and was himself one of the apostles, and referred to by Paul (along with Peter and John) as one of the pillars of the church.
Speaking of Peter and Paul, Clement of Rome wrote in the first century:
1Clem 5:1-6
"But, to pass from the examples of ancient days, let us come to those champions who lived nearest to our time. Let us set before us the noble examples which belong to our generation. By reason of jealousy and envy the greatest and most righteous pillars of the Church were persecuted, and contended even unto death. Let us set before our eyes the good Apostles. There was Peter who by reason of unrighteous jealousy endured not one not one but many labors, and thus having borne his testimony went to his appointed place of glory. By reason of jealousy and strife Paul by his example pointed out the prize of patient endurance. After that he had been seven times in bonds, had been driven into exile, had been stoned, had preached in the East and in the West, he won the noble renown which was the reward of his faith, having taught righteousness unto the whole world and having reached the farthest bounds of the West; and when he had borne his testimony before the rulers, so he departed from the world and went unto the holy place, having been found a notable pattern of patient endurance."
The epilogue of the Gospel of John probably alludes to the recent death of John the brother of James.
The Acts quote describes murder, not martyrdom.
The Clement quote seems to be from after the time, and so it seems likely that it would be influenced by spreading rumours rather than observed events.
@@amaryllis0, the Acts quote, more fully, states, "It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also." [NIV] As this is stated explicitly to be a persecution, and to be done to curry favour with "the Jews", it is not just a murder that is described, but a matyrdom.
1 Clement was most likely written in the late 1st century AD by Clement, reputedly the third Bishop of Rome (after Peter and Cletus). Given that, he is likely to have known both Peter and Paul and to have been in Rome at the time of their matyrdoms. At the worst, he would have known people who both new Peter and Paul and were in Rome at the time of their deaths.
Both points are irrelevant, however. Paulogia's claim was the complete absence of biblical or historical evidence that any of the 12 disciples died for their belief. In fact Acts says of James the brother of John that he died for his belief. Hence he is wrong about the biblical evidence. And 1 Clement says that Peter died for his belief, and hence their are historical records saying at least one of the twelve died for their belief. He is therefore simply wrong, and employing an conventionalist strategy to evade the evidence does not make it go away.
Tom Curtis I think Cyan Griffin’s point about the Acts quote is that it describes beheading due to Christian belief, but it does not imply that they had the ability to recant their beliefs and avoid beheading. Paulogia does have other videos specifically about the evidence of apostles’ martyrdom
@@qqqmyes4509, if that his Cyan Griffin's point, he splitting hairs on textual interpretation in the grand style of a young earth creationist.
@paulogia This is a small section from some old notes I recently found for my opinion on Paul/Saul. I wrote it a while back but it still seems reasonable to me.
Of course, Paul is an interestingly weak argument when you realise a simple problem at the start of his narrative, his seizures.(Damascus road experience) he falls, flashing lights, etc //Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. 4 And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” 5 And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” 7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. 8 Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. //
This to me sounds a lot like the description of someone having a seizure. faulty wiring in the brain, seizures are well known for causing drastic personality changes.
have a look at a recent description of a sufferer.
www.epilepsy.com/.../seizures-caused-brain-damage...
// Then the grand mals came out of the blue.
I have NEVER experience anything more horrible. My entire body hurt for days, and my eyes ached so bad. I felt like I was in a fog for a day or two.//
No I don't trust people with sezures as having visions.
And a little extra related to our lack of sources.
When apologists say it's the most attested, they often say they have hundreds of copies of supporting documents, yes, COPIES, of supporting documents, so scraps that were copied out to be used at different locations.
An argument from silence may apply to a document only if the author was expected to have the information, was intending to give a complete account of the situation, and the item was important enough and interesting enough to deserve to be mentioned at the time
The argument from silence isn't a fallacy when referring to EVERY historian in an area that Paul claims should know about, including stupidly big events. like earthquakes hordes of people rising from the dead and the sky darkening early.
The argument about these people being unreliable is because we don't actually have their writing, not their original ones, all the works are listed written with a title, "as I was given by X* and we do actually have notes about additions to these stories, (like in mark) it was common place for the texts to have side notes be added into the body of the next copy of the text.
Most christian scholors know about these and dismiss them as "unimportant"
coldcasechristianity.com/.../investigating-bart.../
Though unfortunately one must admit then that the scribes were content to edit and add onto the texts.
www.religioustolerance.org/chr_bibl.htm
Aside from possibly establishing Patton Oswalt's "sky cake" theory as a pre-existing human cultural phenomena going back to the cave dweller era, this was a great presentation on how the church began.
One of my lecturers at university defined language to us as any dialect supported by an army. I expanded on that to say any religion is just a cult that gets adopted by a dominant army. When Rome adopted the Christ cult as its official religion, a true world power came into being. Before then it was simply one of hundreds of cults and sects scrabbling around the known world for followers.
Proverbs 12:15
The way of the [ arrogant ] fool [ who rejects God's wisdom ] is right in his own eyes, But the wise and prudent man is he who listens to counsel.
Great use of Occam's Razor Paul. :)
Except he made numerous errors throughout the video. He says Peter Died before Paul’s conversion... Peter was alive when Paul wrote Galatians (gal 2:7-8). He said there was no one who could verify the events by the time Christianity was more popular, Paul lists many witnesses in 1 Cor 15 who he says are still alive. And that’s just scratching the surface of his blunders.
This is great, and seems much more aligned with how ideas spread, grow and evolve. I wonder about Paul though. I think the story of "I once persecuted them and then I saw the light and converted" is so common and alluring as a story I can't help but think Paul took some creative license and allowed the story to grow in his head, like a big fish story. He easily could have tried to talk to the christians he was tasked to persecute and found their theology attractive. On the road to Damascus, perhaps due to heat exhaustion, dehydration, extreme fatigue, etc. and after pondering this new theology, he could have been crushed by the guilt of the damage he had caused to the followers that he had already decided to join, that he had some sort of extreme emotional experience. The bible makes no mention of his companions sharing his vision. Whatever strong, emotional and impactful experience he had, it grew in his head and with retellings until he may have actually been convinced that he really was visited by his new chosen deity. He used his conversations with other christians to form his initial theology, then developed it on his own due to his own preferences. That's why when he met with Peter, they did not agree on their theology. Paul, more fanatical and authoritarian in nature, just chose to aggressively spread his preferred theology and since he chose to write his letters in order to push his theology, those eventually were adopted into the cannon. This explanation is much more in line with how people tend to behave and how stories tend to grow than the "Paul was magically visited by a spirit" tall tale.
Paul could have also had a stroke, Paul :)
Heh. Sure. The point is Paul had a personal experience that didn't involve a resurrected Jesus.
Yeah; I just wanted to let everyone know :) Didn't mean to steal your thunder! LOL
Or temporal lobe epilepsy?
philsa-yes, or TLE. I have a channel that talks about religion; might want to check it out :)
@@LisaForTruth Paul’s meeting with Jesus seems legit. As the people with him saw the light and heard the voice of Jesus. Then they witnesses Paul going from seeing to blindness.
Paul wasn’t faking it.
It seems to me that the claimed authors of the various gospels would NOT have had names closely related to cultures in the far west, such as the islands of Great Britain. Peter, Simon, James, Paul, etc etc. are all Anglo-Saxon names and those in the Middle East 2000 yrs ago would not have been given Anglo-Saxon names at birth.
It’s pretty clear, along the way, the Bible was “anglicized”. So what would’ve been the given names of Jesus’s disciples ??
Addendum to my last post: That's assuming there actually was a preacher named "Jesus", of course....
Hey, Paul. I know you might not see this but I'll say it, anyway. There's actually no evidence in the Bible that Paul changed his name from Saul. Acts 13:9 actually says that he was known as Paul, not that he changed his name. The name change seems to be a later Christian tradition. I think the author of Acts used Paul's Hebrew name to introduce him, then transitioned to his Greek name in Acts 13. Maybe the author wanted to keep his reader in the dark about who this Saul person was. The reader would probably know his Greek name. I once read that there's an old tradition of having a "Jewish" (Hebrew) and "gentile" name. As a Roman Jew, it makes sense that Paul would.
I could be wrong, but this makes the most sense to me.
Hey Paulogia, Braxton hunter did a really interesting response to this video. I think it would be really cool if you did a response to his response video! Here is the link to his video in case you haven't seen it yet th-cam.com/video/KhFyhPgx3Uk/w-d-xo.html
Great explonation. This wins by Occam's Razor
Good idea. A couple of potential problems
1. Positing a supernatural answer is not an explanation in the full sense, because you would still have to explain how the supernatural works (which implies evidence that it exists and how you determined how it works)
2. The only evidence that Peter existed is from the New Testament, and each book mentioning him is of extremely questionable historical accuracy in that it posits supernatural beings and processes and often has the structure of fiction, e.g. chiasms
3. The only evidence that Paul persecuted Christians is his say-so and Paul was all about promoting his gospel
Ah yes, but without the key you cant start the car and key requires a key maker and.... :D
* gasp *
Or you could just jury rig it to start.
A more likely hypothesis for Saul's conversion is temporal lobe epilepsy. That would also account for his later visions as accounted in his letters, "for I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it." I.e., Paul hallucinated the divine revelations that are the basis for his claims.
It would be in bad taste to leave this comment in response to anyone who has lost a loved one, so I will leave it here by itself. Perhaps you or a loved one has experienced hallucinations due to grief. How many of you have come to believe your dearly departed are really resurrected?
I'm surprised you concede that Paul even did have a conversion experience. It's much easier to claim, IMO, that his conversion experience was fabricated and/or exaggerated, and that he was either a narcissist trying to become leader of a new cult, or had a deluded belief in other believers' experiences and not his own.
Problems with your explanation. First, you claim only Peter started the movement, Paul says all the Disciples were supporting it. Your story doesn’t line up with our records. You said Peter died before Paul’s conversion. But Peter was alive when Paul wrote Galatians (Gal 2:7-8). That means he in fact was alive when Christianity gained attention, which is contrary to your explanation. You said no witnesses were alive to confirm Jesus’ life and resurrection, but Paul gives a list of witnesses in 1 Cor 15 which he said are still alive. Other problems, not only would the gospel writers have to be educated in Koine Greek, but they would have to be familiar with the circumstances, area, and political climate. The author of Matthew would have to have an intimate knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, so not your run of the mill Christian. Also keep in mind, the Author of Matthew uses unique monetary terms that aren’t used in the other gospels, which indicate professional knowledge of currency (like if he was a tax collector). You also can’t put the gospels in the same league as those Gnostics... their authenticity was universally denied by all early church fathers. Oh and another problem... if Jesus was just put in a ditch like you say, then why would the Talmud claim the disciples stole the body to explain the empty tomb? If what you say is true, the truth would be a better explanation than this lie would it not?
Well said.
There's no more evidence of the truth of Saul's vack story than there is of the "revelations" allegedly made to Joseph Smith, the lifelong con artist who started the Cult of Latter- Day Morons. It's more likely that Saul made the whole thing up, building on the pre-existing popularity of Judaic monotheism in combination with stories already in circulation due to existing Judaic messianic cults, which were numerous during the Roman occupation. Saul's Jesus allegedly told him that Gentiles would not have to adopt Judaic kosher laws or submit to circumcision, which had been obstacles for Gentiles converting to Judaism.
@@austinsaxmansteve Paul accounted Jesus on the Road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-8, Acts 22:6-11) now what gives this event credibility (as it is argued that Paul had a seizer or hallucinated) is that the men traveling with him heard the voice to, though didn’t understand it (Jesus was most likely talking in Aramaic), and they saw the light but didn’t see anyone, and then they lead him by the hand into Damascus, this verifies he went from seeing to blindness. Paul was then taken to Judas’ house, another witness. This was also witnessed by a well-known Jew living in Damascus, Ananias. So Paul’s account with Jesus wasn’t a single man’s testimony, he had eyewitnesses to verify his account. Joseph smith's was a one man testimony. Paul's wasnt.
@@farmercraig6080 all that we have is Saul's word that any of it happened. There are no witnesses named and no corroborating testimonies. There's no corroborating evidence of his having been a Pharisee or persecuting Christians, either.
@@austinsaxmansteve Paul's account is mentioned in Acts a book not written by him.
The christian would argue that if you cant prove that God didn't start your car this morning then its a 50/50 argument as to whether he did or not.
Sadly, you have a valid point. They do that with creationism too, expecting that classrooms should give credence because it is one of the possibilities and should have equal time to evolution.
A major problem with the Jesus character in the Hebrew Bible is the no show on the promise to come again in glory to gather up those faithful to his promises.
Over one hundred official public predictions have been made by the faithful since the First Century. Not one has been fulfilled.
I think that tells a story in itself.
I've wondered for a long time how much of today's Christianity sprang from Paul's own psychological issues, rather than anything Jesus ever said or did...
FIRST
you would. :)
Curses!!
👋😉
Congratulations, but I wouldn't state that the you are playing on an even field here.
This is like the time a couple of friends used to take part in their local pub quiz in Oxford. The landlord's wife won almost every week. I call foul! :D
The Romans left the bodies to rot on the crosses and be eaten by scavengers. The withdrawal of burial rites was a major component of the punishment. It instilled fear into other potential offenders.
Burial in a common grave is certainly vastly more likely than being buried in a handy, rock cut tomb- conveniently offered up by a member of the same body of Jewish Officials who condemned Jesus to death in the first place. The bias towards having the first visitation be with women might is interesting, and probably speaks to a separate tradition about female followers having visions of the resurrection before the apostles. Of course, our earliest gospel has no resurrection visions- just that of a young "man" in the tomb, announcing the resurrection instead. And Paul's letters assume some sort of visitations from Jesus- not the least too himself. So all that is needed is the ~idea~ by some of the followers of Jesus that he came back, that their stories were believed at least by some, and time. And not that much time, after all. Good video, Paul. Thanks.
To add to the story about the women finding the body, it's also important to remember that in Roman culture women were treated pretty well with quite a bit of respect. And Rome was in control of the Near East at that time.
@@__Andrew . Having women finding the tomb empty is also another way of limiting the influence of the original apostles, which appears to have been an agenda item, both for Paul (see Galatians in particular) and for the pro-Pauline author of Mark. Also, no reason why some of Jesus's surviving followers weren't women, and that they didn't possess influence. Up to an including having their own "experiences" of Jesus, risen. Indeed, at least a couple of them probably had money: i.e. would have had to have means to follow Jesus around in the first place, without staying home and raising a family, e.t.c. Apologists generally also make far too much of the inadmissibility of women's testimony in courts of the time- but it is convenient for their arguments, naturally enough.
3:32 _"after several decades, a variety of Greek speaking people, who had never met Jesus or even Peter, took it upon themselves to begin to write down some of the stories that had circulated"_
Key to your point is Gospellers:
* all coming after several decades
* all coming without having seen either Jesus nor Peter
* all being concerned with stories circulating, none with eyewitness testimony.
With such a scenario, why would any Christians who were still around from the time of the Crucifixion have accepted it, or if none were, why would anyone have accepted things they knew were written with no bigger authority than their own hearsay?
Crucial to your point is, original followers of Jesus being totally gone, leaving a void, and actually another group filling in the gap.
It may work for Pentecostal sects, but we are dealing with a "movement" (better called Church) that actually required attendance on Sundays. And got it. No trace of any break, other than local, when having to flee.
Not really. People buy into dumb things all the time, look at Scientology. You might also want to look into cargo cults, too. There's no void necessary here, just the passage of time and the spreading out of Christians, which are both incontrovertible facts.
One problem with the narrative of no resurrection required for Christianity, the entire foundation was predicated on the stance that Jesus as the Messiah( Son of God, God made flesh) died as a perfect, sinless human as payment for the first sin of mankind which resulted in all humans after being stained with sin and raised from death to, si no resurrection no disciples ready and willing to die for their belief.
What disciples were putting themselves in harm's way? How do you know? Why is an actual resurrection required over merely a sincerely believed one?
Hear that? That's the sound of SJ blowing a fuse. I think she needs a reboot.
If there's anyone you think would disagree with the video, maybe tag them on this? twitter.com/paulogia0/status/1089940095975608320
I'd love to hear you react to Breaking the Habit. It's a TH-cam channel created by a Franciscan friar in his 20s. I don't see many atheists respond to Catholics, and the amount of young priests making channels and gaining thousands of subscribers is shocking and scary
It could also have something to do with the fact that Jesus's resurrection was added to the story later, and wasn't part of the original text.
Sounds reasonable. :)
"giant anthropomorphic cross"?? reference please . . . haven't heard that one before
Actually, the Paul-Saul thing is a common misconception. Even according to the Bible Paul never changed his name to Saul. He was a Roman Jew, meaning he had a Jewish name (Saul) and inherited his father's Roman family name (which in English Bibles is Anglicized & shortened to Paul)
And what would be the reason someone would change their name from Saul to Paul. Trying to hide from authorities, perhaps? Doesn’t make much sense. And why an Anglo-Saxon name ?? Weren’t ancient Hebrews sufficiently proud of their heritage they would see fit to change names ??
I’m reading a book called Scripting Jesus that my Catholic mother gave me years ago and it pretty much argues that the Gospels were stories that started adding up more details as time went on and are basically “scripts” for the different communities that used them thus the contradictions, your hypothesis may be mundane but it’s still pretty fascinating to me nonetheless.
I’ve been listening to ex-Mormon podcasts as part of my deconstruction in the last couple of years and something similar seemed to have happened with Joseph Smith and his claim of gold plates, there’s a simple story of him having a vision of Jesus and God and more stuff was added by him and his followers as time went on or so it’s my understanding. Joseph Smith and some of his followers died for the religion (particularly the ones that went to Utah) so did they die for a lie? Even Qanon can claim to have martyrs if we count the woman who got shot at the capitol on January 6th but I can already imagine the preachers saying those examples are from obvious false prophets or something so it doesn’t count.
A consideration you don't make is that earliest Christianity spread because its was poor oppressed people coming together to help themselves.
How was Saul/Paul persecuting Christians? Was Christianity illegal? Was he a detective/police/inquisitor for the Temple priests? What about persecution of members of all of the other sects of Judaism and followers of the other apocalyptic preachers?
The conversion of Paul does not make sense as a mundane explanation, and it's based on the highly mythical Book of Acts. But it makes sense as a story invented based on another story - the appearrance of the god Dyonisus to Pentheus on the greek play "Bacchae".