Serious secular examination of early Christianity

The earliest followers would have been mostly illiterate Jews from Galilee like Jesus himself. After his death, there probably was a period of panic, disbelief and a subsequent mass alleged sightings amongst the most ardent of followers; similar to documented cult phenomenon today. Within a few decades, it would trickle up to literate, hellenized Jews until it made it to Paul himself who helped spread it wide.

The myth theory has been widely discredited consensus of specialists; only internet atheists hold on to it.

You might as well recommend Dan Brown.

He had people write for him due to some kind of an eye problem; when he wrote himself, he said it was pretty obvious as the letters were so big and poorly made. Oriental eye disease maybe. Maybe the thorn in his flesh.

It wasn't that long ago that "educated people" knew how to read and write Hebrew and Greek.

Related question: why did kings start adopting Christianity?

Was it just a case of "if you cannot beat them, join them"?

You'd suspect if that was the case, guys like Hillel or Chanina Ben Dosa wouldn't have risen to the prominence they would attain, since you effectively just described them as well, minus the getting killed and posthumous deification parts.

Paul consented to the stoning of Stephen.

You don't get to vote on something like that if you are not a member of the Sanhedrin.

It was for Constantine, who paganized the church and blended it with his own pagan beliefs.

If he turns out to be a real guy, that's cool. As long as people don't prance around claiming that he's the son of a god, born out of a virgin

It is quite likely that Paul had been a member of the Sanhedrin. Acts 26:10 said that he cast his vote (usually a colored stone) to condemn Xian Jews to death by stoning. This formal vote by Paul in Jerusalem where Paul was living, would have been reserved to the Sanhedrin that met regularly in that city. Also, remember that Paul said in Acts 22:3 that he was educated at the feet of Gamaliel, (who was a member of the Sanhedrin and a grandson of Hillel the Elder [who helped develop the Mishnah and Talmud]). Because Paul had such high credentials, in Acts 23:12 ff., he faced opposition of at least 40 men in Jerusalem who had dedicated themselves to fast until they had killed him. These 40 were all willing to risk execution by the Roman authorities, since they now guarded Paul. Paul's conversion was viewed by these Jews as a betrayal of the highest order, what one would expect if at some point Paul had been a member of the Sanhedrin.

You can't lie about Jesus; it doesn't make any sense.

He is the Truth.

>Related question: why did kings start adopting Christianity?
Usually because the Christian clergy comprised of an educated class that could be extremely helpful. In an age of rampant illiteracy, having people who can read and write messages and send them around, while simultaenously not having independent powerbases and armies (most of the time) is damn helpful.

Paul isn't even mentioned in Acts 7, when Stephen gets stoned. There's no mention of him consenting or voting for anything.

You know his name was Saul then, yes?

Acts 7
Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; 58 and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

The rampant illiteracy was intentional on the part of the clergy who were debased and wanted to rule over the laity.

You could use Predator/Prey Models to model the spread of a religion.

There is probably some constant that determines whether a religion will spread unbounded or eventually die out and Christianity was one of many cults, and it just happened be the one to make it past that constant.

We could as easily be discussing some other cult and you'd be telling me, "but why didn't Christianity also spread out like that!"

No you can't. It's the opposite. The more Christians who were killed, the more Christians there were. Exactly the opposite.

>Acts
First off, Acts is absurdly unreliable, given how it makes nonsense claims like how the Sadducee high priest lets a Pharisee (an active Pharissee, mind you) act in his name to illegally round people up in Syria.

And even if it did, there were inferior courts to the Sanhedrin, many of which had the power to enact capital punishment, in fact, Jewish sources of the time would talk about how the Sanhedrin would disband courts which abused the privilege.

>In Acts 22:3 that he was educated at the feet of Gamaliel, (who was a member of the Sanhedrin and a grandson of Hillel the Elder [who helped develop the Mishnah and Talmud]).
That doesn't make him a member himself, you idiot. Were all of Chief Justice Roberts's clerks SCOTUS justices?

>it doesn't make any sense.
If Jesus existed, and was not just another iteration of sons of gods born of virgins around December 25 who peformed miracles and was resurrected three days later,mere coincidence, I'm sure

No vote, no consent, nothing to indicate he was anything more than just a guy there. And since when do you get "Young men" on the Sanhedrin?

I was more contesting the notion that the opposition to him was because he was from the lower classes, or that he as necessarily posting radical stuff. Remember, our only sources of what Jesus was actually preaching come from gospels written decades after the fact by non-eyewitnesses who show a sharply limited understanding of Judean religion and politics. Trying to tease together an actual ethos from that is extraordinarily difficult.

For instance, it is pretty easy to posit he was preaching more or less mainstream Pharisee doctrines, and ran afoul of Sadducees when he marched into their stronghold of Jerusalem, and then you had the death and subsequent deification.

>I was more contesting the notion that the opposition to him was because he was from the lower classes,
>For instance, it is pretty easy to posit he was preaching more or less mainstream Pharisee doctrines, and ran afoul of Sadducees when he marched into their stronghold of Jerusalem, and then you had the death and subsequent deification.

Ok, that's plausible. Or he might just have been a sort of leftist of sorts. Fighting injustice and calling out the upper classes on their misbehavior and their mistreatment of the poor, which they didn't like and so he got killed? I mean, that's in the Bible right?

I'm not Jewish so I don't know how much social justice there is in the Torah/Talmud, but in the Hebrew Bible God doesn't seem particularly concerned with those issues.

Josephus and Philo disagree with you, as usual, and as I've pointed out many times. Both were occupied territories, and the Romans let the Jewish religious leaders lead their own religion without a single fuck given.

Jesus was born in the second week of September, at Rosh Hashanah.

You'll never be half the Jew Paul was. You'll never be half the Jew who tied Paul's sandals. Deal with it.

Paul cast his vote against the Christians, showing that he belonged to some sort of decision making group. Acts 26:10-11

>I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them.

Stephen was seized and brought before the council. Paul was implicated with Stephen’s death sentence, possibly indicating he was part of the council. Acts 22:20

>And when the blood of Your witness Stephen was poured out, I myself also was standing by and consenting to his execution, and holding the garments of those killing him.

Paul was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, who was a member of the council. It would not be surprising if Gamaliel’s star pupil followed in the footsteps of his master. Does Galatians 1:13-14 give a hint that Paul was a member of the Sanhedrin council?

>For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.

>Josephus and Philo disagree with you
Which is of course why you've been perennially unable to offer any bit of text from either of them, and instead just name drop.

> and the Romans let the Jewish religious leaders lead their own religion without a single fuck given.
Not outside of the little pocket kingdoms, they didn't. Which is of course why we see Sanhedrin rulings in Judea and not outside of it, like in say, Rome itself.

>Ignoring the other 2/3 of the post because thinking of a rebuttal is hard when you have no facts and a low IQ.

>Paul cast his vote against the Christians, showing that he belonged to some sort of decision making group. Acts 26:10-11
Already addressed, and the logic in such a "view" bashed, even if you do view Acts as reliable, which secular historians generally don't.

>Paul was implicated with Stephen’s death sentence, possibly indicating he was part of the council. Acts 22:20
Approving the actions of a lynch mob means he's a Sanhedrin member? Holy shit! Next thing you'll say is that Benjamin Tillman was a Supreme Court Justice! After all, he approved of lynching and was famous!

>Paul was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, who was a member of the council.
First off, that's almost certainly a lie, given how little he actually knows of Judaica as evident in his epistles. Secondly, "Student of Sanhedrin member" does not equal Sanhedrin member. This should be obvious to anyone with a lick of sense, given that there were 70 Sanhedrin members total and a prominent Rabbi like Gamaliel would have many more students than that; guys like Akiva had hundreds of students, and were also Sanhedrin members.

>star pupil
Anyone who conflates sin and paschal offerings, or purity laws with sin, isn't a star pupil.

>Does Galatians 1:13-14 give a hint that Paul was a member of the Sanhedrin council?
No, it indicates that (in his own mind at least) he was very observant. Do you not into logic? Or even basic reading comprehension?

I've given it to you several times. Many, many, many times. It doesn't matter. You continue your slanderous attacks on Paul, and continue to deny that Jesus is the messiah.

I'll look for it again, and give it to you again, and again, it will not make a dent in that rock sitting on your neck.

Julius Caesar formally acknowledged the sovereignty of the high priest in all matters of Jewish religion in a decree of 47 B.C. (Josephus, Ant. 14. 192-195)

And the decrees of the Roman senate that Josephus records appear to indicate that the treaties of friendship between Rome and the Jewish people were renewed in the time of John Hyrcanus (cf. Antiq. XIII, 259-66 [ix.2]; XIV, 145-48 [viii.5]). While the Sadducean high priests of Jerusalem no longer exercised the civil authority of their predecessors, they were, it seems, recognized by Rome as the titular rulers of their people in most internal matters; and evidently they retained the right of extradition in strictly religious situations. Therefore Saul, seeking the return of Jewish Christians, “went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem” (cf. 22:5; 26:12).

Briefly explained, Saul's authority did not come from the full Sanhedrin, but from the High Priest, himself, as head of the Jews's religion (Judaism). The Sanhedrin would be involved after Saul brought any prisoners back to Jerusalem. The High Priest's authority in Jewish religious matters extended beyond Roman administrative boundaries and was not affected by the regular limitations of Roman civil law. More details are given below:

[Act 9:1-2 KJV] "1 And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, 2 And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem."

The early followers of Christ had yet to bear the title "Christians," which came later (Acts 11:26). At the time of Saul's journey to Damascus they were referred to as "the way" or "this way" (Acts 9:2). Following the stoning of Stephen, they were treated as an aberrant and dangerous sect of Judaism (Acts 8:1-4) but not a separate religion.

Saul’s letters of authority to arrest any followers of "this way" in the Damascene synagogues and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial and punishment were granted within the sphere of Judaism, which was outside of regular Roman laws or courts and extended beyond the province of Judea into synagogues anywhere in the empire.

The High Priest exercised his authority under the general Roman policy of toleration toward the Jews. Judaism had been tolerated in Rome by diplomatic treaty with Graeco-Judaean (Hasmonean) rulers during the later days of the Roman Republic (161 B.C.) when Judea sought protection and aid in its struggle against the Seleucid rulers (I Maccabees 8:17-20; and Josephus, Antiquities, 13. 9:2). Rome’s toleration continued in the days of Julius Caesar “because their ancestral laws predated Rome. Jews had legal privileges as a collegia (defined by Roman law as religious & legal entities), giving them the right to assemble, have common meals and property, govern and tax themselves, and enforce their own discipline.” (yashanet.com/studies/romstudy/rom1.htm) Toleration by Rome toward Jews was reiterated in the Edict of Augustus in 1 B.C., which protected practice of their “own customs in accordance with their ancestral law” in the Temple and the synagogues ( Edict of Augustus, Josephus, Antiquities 16.162–5). In particular, there was a very Jew-tolerant attitude by the Romans in the latter years of Tiberias (the setting of Acts Chapter 9) in reaction to the fall of Sejanus, the Jew-hating Praetorian Prefect: "Therefore, all people in every country, even if they were not naturally well inclined towards the Jewish nation, took great care not to violate or attack any of the Jewish customs of laws" (Philo, De Legatione ad Gaium, xxiv).

>Hey look, once again it doesn't matter.

...

Jesus wasn't born anywhere around the 25th of December.

Also, this link will do you some good if you think Jesus is related to false gods.

strangenotions.com/horus-manure/

Any historian who doubts the historical veracity of Luke or Luke's Book of the Acts of the Apostles isn't worth the powder and shot to blow him away. Luke is 100% precise and accurate on every single person, place, and event he writes about. 100%. No other historian comes anywhere near that.

Paul (then Saul) voted. VOTED. See, only people with VOTING RIGHTS can VOTE. i.e. the SANHEDRIN.

Prove it's a lie. Give me a 2000 year old list of Gamaliel's students that does not name Saul of Tarsus on it.

You're the idiot who cannot see that Jesus is the Passover offering for the entire world. Not Paul. Paul got it instantly.

Yes, yes it does. To people who are not insane Jews.

Sir William Ramsay's study led him to conclude that "Luke's history is unsurpassed in respect to its trustworthiness" (Ramsay, ibid. p. 81) and Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements trustworthy . . . this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians" (Sir William Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discoveries on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1953, p. 222).

I may fairly claim to have entered on this investigation without prejudice in favour of the conclusions which I shall now seek to justify to the reader. On the contrary, I began with a mind unfavourable to it, for the ingenuity and apparent completeness of the Tübingen theory had at one time quite convinced me. It did not then lie in my line of life to investigate the subject minutely, but more recently I found myself brought into contact with the Book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvelous truth. In fact, beginning with a fixed idea that the work was essentially a second century composition, and never relying on its evidence as trustworthy for first century conditions, I gradually came to find it a useful ally in some obscure and difficult investigations (Sir William Ramsay, St. Paul The Traveler and Roman Citizen. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1962, p. 36).

>So perhaps the first day you have 15,000 Christians.
Devil trips. stop spreading lies.

>(cf. Antiq. XIII, 259-66 [ix.2]; XIV, 145-48 [viii.5]
Are you deliberately lying, or are you just unfathomably stupid?
penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/ant-13.html
penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/ant-14.html

You'll note that neither XIII-9-2 nor XIV-8-5 mention anything about extradition and in fact, are pretty vague mentions of treaties of friendship and affirmation of already existing privileges to internally govern. Internal governance doesn't mean crossing over into the next province and round people up.

>Therefore Saul, seeking the return of Jewish Christians, “went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus,
Which is hardly part of the internal affairs of the Jewish nation, nor is it something a good pharisee that he claims to be would do.

>The High Priest's authority in Jewish religious matters extended beyond Roman administrative boundaries and was not affected by the regular limitations of Roman civil law.
Except this is the part that is a lie and you're absolutely not bringing up anything that supports your ridiculous fantasy otherwise.

They didn't record women and children. 3000 men joined. There's as many women as men, and Christianity is geared more towards women, especially then. And men and women usually have 2 or more kids.

So no, the number is not out of line with the data given. 3000 men does not mean 3000 people.

Jewish internal governance allowing the Jews to rule Judaism....

WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT THE HIGH PRIEST AND SAUL ARE DOING.

Holy shit you're just a fucking lost cause.

I give you Josephus.
I give you Philo.
I give you the Roman Empire.
I give you the Sanhedrin.

You offer nothing but your bias.

>penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/ant-13.html

For he told her, they had great authority among the Jews, both to do hurt to such as they hated, and to bring advantages to those to whom they were friendly disposed.

Can you read?

They didn't record anyone, thats why you don't have a single source.

>reddit spacing

>penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/ant-14.html

3. “The decrees of Caius Cesar, consul: containing what hath been granted and determined; are as follows: that Hyrcanus and his children bear rule over the nation of the Jews; and have the profits of the places to them bequeathed; and that he, as himself the High Priest and Ethnarch of the Jews, defend those that are injured. And that ambassadors be sent to Hyrcanus, the son of Alexander, the High Priest of the Jews, that may discourse with him about a league of friendship and mutual assistance; and that a table of brass, containing the premisses, be openly proposed in the capitol, and at Sidon, and Tyre, and Askelon, and in the temple; engraven in Roman and Greek letters: that this decree may also be communicated to the questors and pretors of the several cities, and to the friends of the Jews: and that the ambassadors may have presents made them, and that these decrees be sent every where.”

Holy shit, you can't read. All this time I thought you were literate.

And yet I have a recorded source that says Saul of Tarsus was a student of Gamaliel.

You, as usual, have nothing.

If your faith is absolute why are you arguing

My faith only gets me into heaven.

...

Cool, then please post your source for 15'000 Christians on the first day.
>protip, you can't

I already gave you my reasoning.
3000 men

Exodus 32:28 So the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And about three thousand men of the people fell that day.

3,000 died when the Old Covenant came into effect.

Acts 2:41 Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.

3,000 came to life when the New Covenant took effect. 3,000 men.

3,000 men
3,000 women
6,000 children
12,000 people

But Christianity is more geared to women, and they had more than 2 children apiece, hence the 15,000 estimate.

Does your autism allow for estimates? Is that okay?

>Any historian who doubts the historical veracity of Luke or Luke's Book of the Acts of the Apostles isn't worth the powder and shot to blow him away. Luke is 100% precise and accurate on every single person, place, and event he writes about. 100%. No other historian comes anywhere near that.
That's why he contradicts the epistles themselves about details in Paul's life. thebibleisnotholy.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/historical-introduction-early-christian-writings.pdf

>Paul (then Saul) voted. VOTED. See, only people with VOTING RIGHTS can VOTE. i.e. the SANHEDRIN.
Except non-Sanhedrin courts also had the right to apply capital punishment, and this presupposed Acts is accurate.

>Prove it's a lie.
1 Corinthians 5:7 and Romans 8:3. Paul conflates the concepts of a sin offering with a paschal offering. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of even the most basic of Jewish theology. It is inconceivable that a student of Gamaliel could make such an obvious mistake.

>nineteenth century chemist's views on what is or isn't accurate are the best tools out there.

>Jewish internal governance allowing the Jews to go anywhere they want and arrest anyone they want because they say they're a heretic.
No, that is not what Josephus is talking about at all.
One of these days, you're going to learn how to differnetiate between what is actually said in a work and your bizarre interpretations fo it.

This passage is talking about how a Queen is giving up some of her privileges to the Pharisees, not how the (Sadducee) High Priest can extradite.

I never really believed the actual existence of the Gish Gallop until I met you, you know that?

Nothing in the bible contradicts anything else in the bible. Nothing. So no, your "source" is absurd. Bart Ehrman is the most delusional liberal bible "scholar" to ever walk the planet earth. He's an atheist making money selling atheists books that have absolutely no truth in them whatsoever.

Thats not a source, that some pretty weird collection of random bible quotes you pulled out your arse and don't prove anything.

so you keep changing the subject instead of posting actual sources. typical for religious weirdos.

Again, it's YOU who does not understand that Jesus is the Lamb of God.

None of that mentions extradition, which is the fucking point.

Breaking it down bullet point by bullet point.

>Caesar decrees that Hycanus and family become the rulers of the Jews
>They draw the revenues of the Jewish kingdom
>He would be a high priest and ethnarch.
>Ambassadors are sent far and wide to spread the word

Nothing about how he has the power to extradite people from Syria.

>Nothing in the bible contradicts anything else in the bible.

If you don't know that the bible doesn't count women and children in group numbers, that's your ignorance. Fix it.

One of Christianity's early core cities was Alexandria, a Greek colony with a 25% Jewish minority.

The High Priest bears rule over the nation of the Jews....wherever they are.....

You're so full of shit dude.

Pick one, and I'll debunk it. They've all been debunked for at least a decade. Most of them are really embarrassing misunderstandings.

>Gish Gallop

This is EXACTLY what you do.

>Nothing in the bible contradicts anything else in the bible.
Luke 3:23-37, Matthew 1:1-17, and 1 Chronicles 3:9-24 are all contradictory to each other.

Then why is he male? Lambs as sin offerings are supposed to be female. Leviticus 4:32.

Remember when you said Josephus and Philo never wrote about the authority of the High Priest?

Yeah, you were wrong.

Dead wrong.

Show yourself that's enough.

It doesn't matter in how many numbers they count them. Not a single source records people converting to Christianity on pentecostal 32.
And hence your entire posting is just bullshit.
>yes, you still didn't post a source yet.

Prove it.

Female lambs have testicles?

(Leviticus 22:24) - "Also anything with its testicles bruised or crushed or torn or cut, you shall not offer to the Lord, or sacrifice in your land."

>The High Priest bears rule over the nation of the Jews....wherever they are...
It doesn't say that, it says they rule over the nation of the jews, and have the profits of the PLACES to them bequeathed. It is very geographically grounded.

You're the one who keeps bringing up new and bizarre arguments with every post. It's everything I can do to formulate a reply before the thread moves on, there's so much error to correct.

>ITT circular reasoning by christcucks frantically trying to justify their antiquated beliefs in the 21st century.

The bible does, as quoted above.

The error is all yours, Jew. I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times.

YHWH has blinded you and you cannot understand Moses and the prophets.

>Remember when you said Josephus and Philo never wrote about the authority of the High Priest?
No, because I never said that. I said that they never claimed the High Priest had authority of extradition.

>Prove it.
Luke and Matthew give different geneologies for Jesus, both stemming from Joseph. Matthew gives and even bigger point of ridiculous, being unable to count, as his 14-14-14 generational spread doesn't even work in his own list without double-counting, and contradicts the Chronicles account as to how many generations there are between David and the Babylonian exile.

>Female lambs have testicles?
No, lambs as sin offerings are to be "females without blemish". If Jesus is this lamb-sin offering, why is Jesus a male?

>(Leviticus 22:24) - "Also anything with its testicles bruised or crushed or torn or cut, you shall not offer to the Lord, or sacrifice in your land."
This is not relevant. See the point about the gish gallop.

The bible does not record any conversions in 32 AD and you haven't quoted or sourced anything above.
Otherwise lease state book/chapter/verseand wuit the non-answers

Exodus 12:5
5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.

Gee, a male.

A substitutional sacrifice so you don't die. Why does that sound so familiar.....

And yet it's cited above, from both of them.

Of course there are two different genealogies; one is of Mary and one is of Joseph. They're cousins, not the same person.

The bible does, as quoted above. If you don't know when these events took place, ask.

Also from the Rambam Maimonides:

“Whoever does not believe in him (Messiah), or does not await his coming, denies not only the other prophets but also the Torah and Moses, our teacher, for the Torah attests to his coming.” Source: Hilchos Melachim from the Mishneh Torah of the Rambam, 11:1.

>5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
We're talking about sin offerings, not Paschal offerings; ironic since one of my initial complaints about Paul is his conflation of the two.

No, it is not cited above, what is cited above is an affirmation of traditional ruling prerogatives, which you haven't even begun to establish included going to Syria to arrest people.

First off, neither mention Mary. Secondly, why does Matthew give 14 (sort of) generations between David and exile, but the Chronicler gives more than that? That's a contradiction.

Do you honestly think that the Rambam was talking about Jesus when he talks about the Messiah? mesora.org/Christianity-Messiah.htm You know he called Christians things like stumbling blocks and idiots, right?

Is there any document talking about those supposed contradictions?

The death of Jesus.

I recommend you this issue academia.edu/10232441/_Jesus_and_the_Anti-Roman_Resistance._A_Reassessment_of_the_Arguments_Journal_for_the_Study_of_the_Historical_Jesus_12_2014_1-105:

>Although the hypothesis according to which Jesus the Galilean was involved in anti-Roman, rebellious thinking and activity has been advanced since the eigh-teenth century, it is now held only by a minority of New Testament scholars. The aim of the present article is to carefully survey the arguments supporting that hypothesis, and at the same time putting them forward in a novel way. I contend that the cumulative effect of these arguments is compelling, and that only a recon-struction of Jesus in which the aspect of anti-Roman resistance is consistently contemplated deserves credibility. The essay argues that there is in the Gospels a great amount of material which points precisely in the direction of a seditious Jesus, that this material configures a recurrent pattern, and that this pattern enjoys the highest probability of historicity. Furthermore, I evaluate different interpreta-tions which try to make sense of the pattern, with the aim of deciding which of them is historically the most plausible. The essay then argues that the hypothesis advanced here has the greatest explanatory power, that the proposed alternatives are unconvincing and often far-fetched, and that every objection levelled against the hypothesis can be reasonably countered. Finally, I point out the disastrous implications for scholarship of the dismissal of the seditious material and of the correlative rejection of the hypothesis.

>they were jews
>PERHAPS they were merchants

you have a lot to learn. And btw, those "early" christians werent christians, the bible had already been rewritten to serve their purpose.

This is too much to handle for theologyfags

I'll endevor to read this whole thing.

I thought people knew this stuff for ages. I haven't read this particular essay, but I've seen books on the subject that go from 30ish years back to almost the present.

The one minor thing that I might quibble with is that I always got the stronger impression that Jesus's main beef was with the "collaborationist" Sadducee and Herodian local power structures and not Rome directly, but ultimately that's a very fine hair to split.

>The myth theory has been widely discredited consensus of specialists
Only in your mind, stop spreading blatant lies. Jesus case is a "maybe" in regards of history researchers.

God killing the Egyptian livestock. Exodus 9:6 starts talking about God killing all Egyptian cattle, donkeys, etc. Then in Exodus 9:19 God is commanding Moses to warn the Pharaoh of the coming hail storm. He warms Pharaoh to bring his livestock inside...

Why would he warn him when the animals are already dead?

The people treating the bible as an unquestionable source here are sad

That's why they're called "believers".

strawpoll.me/13615893

>christians
>a minority