Hi Raphael, I was directed here by someone asking me to address your post and those of some of the commentors. I'm the author of "Deciphering the Gospels Proves Jesus Never Existed".
As the title to my book suggests, I've moved past the point of agnosticism on the issue and believe that the case against Jesus' existence is at least as strong at the case of the theory of biological evolution. I'd say that it's actually easier to prove that Jesus never existed than just about anyone else in history due to the quality of the documentation that we have.
My understanding of the Gospels and the rise of Christianity is a bit different than what you lay out here. The case I put forward in my book is essentially that early Jesus worship developed out of prophetic scriptural interpretation. The "Jesus" (Joshua) that Paul talks about is a figure revealed by Jewish scriptural diviners along the lines of what we see taking place in the DSS (Dead Sea Scrolls). Paul is talking about ecstatic revelatory experiences that put him in touch with a Jesus only known to others via scriptural divination.
The Gospel of Mark, however, was written by a well practiced Jewish scriptural diviner and master of Jewish story-telling. The writer of Mark was in possession of a collection of Paul's works , was himself perhaps a Paulinist, and was inspired to write his allegorical tale after the fall of the temple in 70 CE. "Mark's" story is an allegory, written using many of the advanced techniques of allegorical Jewish storytelling. The story of "Mark" was a commentary on the War. The Jesus character is based directly on Paul himself. The message of the story is that the Jews brought the destruction of the war upon themselves by not following PAUL'S teachings of reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles. The writer of Mark was not writing for a community of people who believed in a human Jesus. "Mark's" story was intended to be taken as allegory. The entire story of Mark is an invention from the mind of the writer. There was no prior narrative about Jesus at all.
The writer of Matthew came into contact with Mark's story and was impressed by it. This is because Mark's story is a masterpiece of complex hidden symbolism and literary puzzles. These literary puzzles were seen by many in the Roman word at this time as signs of divinity and truth. We know this because we have similar reactions to other such works from Romans at this time. I believe that the author of Matthew was engaging in knowing fraud when he wrote his piece. This was actually very common at this time. "Mark" wasn't engaging in fraud, he was writing "fiction" with no intention of it being taken literally. The writer of Matthew, however, was making stuff up with the intent that it be taken literally. He was intentionally trying to persuade people of the truth of the events. But why? I think purely for profit. There was no real church at this time. The tiny cults of Jesus worship that existed before the War had been largely destroyed and there really was no meaningful Jesus worshiping community to speak of at the time Matthew was writing. Matthew's story was written to sell it for short-term gain. There was a significant trade is such prophetic stories in Rome at this time, and Matthews story appears to have been written for this market.
The same goes for the Gospel of John. Like Matthew, "John" was simply trying to make a buck and his story is written with the intent of fooling people into believing that it was something it was not. As for Luke, I believe that "Luke" was a Roman scholar who was fooled into thinking that these accounts were real and who wrote his own version at the request of a paying patron to try and clarify the "real facts". Luke, in essence, is the first well-documented dupe.
Now, as for the question, "Why would human rulers of the age (i.e. pagan rulers like Rome and also the Jewish leadership in Palestine) want Christian salvation?"
Actually, what happened was this: 2nd-3rd century Roman scholars came into contact with the Gospel stories primarily Matthew, and believed them to be supreme evidence of real prophetic power. The reason that the Roman elites adopted Christianity was purely because of their misunderstanding of the Gospels and what they saw as irrefutable evidence of ancient prophetic truth. At this time, the Romans were absolutely obsessed with prophecy and using prophecy as the premier way to establish truth.
When they saw the relationships between the Jewish scriptures and the Gospel accounts they were convinced those relationships were evidence of fulfillment of divinely hidden ancient Jewish prophecies. All of this stems from how the author of Mark used literary references in crafting his narrative and how the Gospel writers all copied from Mark, thus copying, and in some cases intentionally expanding upon, those literary references. This was a at a time when the Sibylline Oracles were protected by the Roman Senate as the most important documents in the world. The Gospel were compared to the Sibylline Oracles and deemed to evidence of superior prophetic power. And that's why the Romans adopted Christianity.
So the whole thing really arose out of a series of confusion and misunderstanding about how the Gospels were produced really. Most of this is laid out in detail in my book, showing step by step how all this took place. I'm working on a new book now that goes farther back in time to to get better context for how the Greeks, Romans and Jews viewed prophecy and how prophetic writing were produced in these cultures and the ways that literary prophecy shaped Hellenistic culture, etc.
Hi Raphael, I was directed here by someone asking me to address your post and those of some of the commentors. I'm the author of "Deciphering the Gospels Proves Jesus Never Existed".
As the title to my book suggests, I've moved past the point of agnosticism on the issue and believe that the case against Jesus' existence is at least as strong at the case of the theory of biological evolution. I'd say that it's actually easier to prove that Jesus never existed than just about anyone else in history due to the quality of the documentation that we have.
My understanding of the Gospels and the rise of Christianity is a bit different than what you lay out here. The case I put forward in my book is essentially that early Jesus worship developed out of prophetic scriptural interpretation. The "Jesus" (Joshua) that Paul talks about is a figure revealed by Jewish scriptural diviners along the lines of what we see taking place in the DSS (Dead Sea Scrolls). Paul is talking about ecstatic revelatory experiences that put him in touch with a Jesus only known to others via scriptural divination.
The Gospel of Mark, however, was written by a well practiced Jewish scriptural diviner and master of Jewish story-telling. The writer of Mark was in possession of a collection of Paul's works , was himself perhaps a Paulinist, and was inspired to write his allegorical tale after the fall of the temple in 70 CE. "Mark's" story is an allegory, written using many of the advanced techniques of allegorical Jewish storytelling. The story of "Mark" was a commentary on the War. The Jesus character is based directly on Paul himself. The message of the story is that the Jews brought the destruction of the war upon themselves by not following PAUL'S teachings of reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles. The writer of Mark was not writing for a community of people who believed in a human Jesus. "Mark's" story was intended to be taken as allegory. The entire story of Mark is an invention from the mind of the writer. There was no prior narrative about Jesus at all.
The writer of Matthew came into contact with Mark's story and was impressed by it. This is because Mark's story is a masterpiece of complex hidden symbolism and literary puzzles. These literary puzzles were seen by many in the Roman word at this time as signs of divinity and truth. We know this because we have similar reactions to other such works from Romans at this time. I believe that the author of Matthew was engaging in knowing fraud when he wrote his piece. This was actually very common at this time. "Mark" wasn't engaging in fraud, he was writing "fiction" with no intention of it being taken literally. The writer of Matthew, however, was making stuff up with the intent that it be taken literally. He was intentionally trying to persuade people of the truth of the events. But why? I think purely for profit. There was no real church at this time. The tiny cults of Jesus worship that existed before the War had been largely destroyed and there really was no meaningful Jesus worshiping community to speak of at the time Matthew was writing. Matthew's story was written to sell it for short-term gain. There was a significant trade is such prophetic stories in Rome at this time, and Matthews story appears to have been written for this market.
The same goes for the Gospel of John. Like Matthew, "John" was simply trying to make a buck and his story is written with the intent of fooling people into believing that it was something it was not. As for Luke, I believe that "Luke" was a Roman scholar who was fooled into thinking that these accounts were real and who wrote his own version at the request of a paying patron to try and clarify the "real facts". Luke, in essence, is the first well-documented dupe.
Now, as for the question, "Why would human rulers of the age (i.e. pagan rulers like Rome and also the Jewish leadership in Palestine) want Christian salvation?"
Actually, what happened was this: 2nd-3rd century Roman scholars came into contact with the Gospel stories primarily Matthew, and believed them to be supreme evidence of real prophetic power. The reason that the Roman elites adopted Christianity was purely because of their misunderstanding of the Gospels and what they saw as irrefutable evidence of ancient prophetic truth. At this time, the Romans were absolutely obsessed with prophecy and using prophecy as the premier way to establish truth.
When they saw the relationships between the Jewish scriptures and the Gospel accounts they were convinced those relationships were evidence of fulfillment of divinely hidden ancient Jewish prophecies. All of this stems from how the author of Mark used literary references in crafting his narrative and how the Gospel writers all copied from Mark, thus copying, and in some cases intentionally expanding upon, those literary references. This was a at a time when the Sibylline Oracles were protected by the Roman Senate as the most important documents in the world. The Gospel were compared to the Sibylline Oracles and deemed to evidence of superior prophetic power. And that's why the Romans adopted Christianity.
So the whole thing really arose out of a series of confusion and misunderstanding about how the Gospels were produced really. Most of this is laid out in detail in my book, showing step by step how all this took place. I'm working on a new book now that goes farther back in time to to get better context for how the Greeks, Romans and Jews viewed prophecy and how prophetic writing were produced in these cultures and the ways that literary prophecy shaped Hellenistic culture, etc.