JESUS STORY UNKNOWN TO EARLY CHURCH

 

 

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NO FIRST CENTURY CHRIST

THE TELLING SILENCE OF PAUL

EXCUSES FOR PAUL’S SILENCE DEBUNKED

2 CORINTHIANS 5:16

RUDOLPH BULTMANN

COLOSSIANS 3

FATHERS TESTIMONY VALUELESS

 

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The earliest documents of the Church show that the gospels lie when they claim to have reported facts about Jesus.  None of what they say was known or of any interest to anybody in the most primitive Church.  Therefore there is no reason to believe the gospels.  People argue that the gospels are unreliable for they were written decades after the alleged events.  True.  But the fact that the gospels were written in a time when nobody cared about the Jesus story apart from the crucifixion and death and resurrection is far more serious.  So even had the gospels appeared fifteen years after Jesus it would be of no help to the defenders of traditional Christian belief.  They had nothing but invention and perhaps the reworking and plagiarism of stories about real life Jewish saints to go by.  If you read the epistle of James you get the impression that the teaching of Jesus was plagiarised from that of James and perhaps events from the life of James were used to make stories up about Jesus.

 

 

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THE TELLING SILENCE OF PAUL

 

 

All Paul, the top Christian writer and provider of the oldest Christian writings, says about Jesus is that he was born of woman, under the Law, had King David’s blood in him, was crucified and died and rose again and has been appearing since and will one day come to earth.  If Jesus had appeared and that was all there was to it these other things would have been assumed.  There is no evidence that Paul claimed evidence other than visions for these events.

 

When a person like Paul who would know about Jesus and his life and does not use this information when he needs it we must realise that the story that has come down to us in the gospel did not exist then for he did not believe it.  Paul never met Jesus and he would have if he had lived in Jesus’ day.  He would have taken part in the execution of Jesus for Paul hated what Jesus stood for.  Arguments from silence are risky.  If a man never mentions an event that may not mean the event never happened.  But if there are too many silences that make no sense and we find silence where we would expect a mention of the event we can be sure the event was a fiction. Also, silence entitles us to think that the events never happened if we so wish. 

 

If Jesus had said marriage was sacred as the gospels say, Paul would have been able to give better than his own opinion that it was okay for virgins to wed (1 Corinthians 7:25).  He despised guessing instead of looking into God’s word.  He hated boasting and he had to say that he should be listened to for he is trustworthy.  Paul would have used the words of the Lord instead of resorting to this.  He knew that Jesus had never said that marriage was holy and divorce was wrong or at least that there was no record or evidence that Jesus dealt with this topic.

 

Colossians 2:20-23 uses terribly weak arguments against the view that certain foods should not be eaten instead of quoting Jesus who rejected unscriptural taboos about eating.  It argues that since we are no longer under the world’s regulations we cannot be expected to keep unscriptural food laws.  But the conclusion does not follow from the premise which indicates that the author was really stuck and had to make do with this argument for there were no others.  There were no words of Jesus to do the trick.

 

In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul admitted that he had no clever arguments for his religion except the evidence of God’s power to change lives with the gospel.  That the converting power of the apostles’ testimony was considered evidence goes without saying.  But people becoming Christians and changing a bit here and there is not evidence for a religion or gospel being true.  Paul knew that blind faith was immoral and would not have resorted to advocating it unless there was no alternative.  Listen to what he is saying in that.  That Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is not evidence for the gospel.  They would be if there was evidence for them but there is not.  All there is testimony and this testimony is feeling that God is changing you from within and communing with your soul because of the atoning death and saving resurrection of Jesus.  

 

This is strong evidence that Paul thought his Jesus lived in the distant past or in another world or that if Jesus lived in his time not much could be learned about him for sure.  Nobody uses weak evidence if there is stronger.

 

In the context of condemning philosophy, Paul said that the elements of the gospel are absurdity to the natural or unsaved man (1 Corinthians 1,2). 

 

Does this mean that the gospel is absurd when logically tested and that he doesn’t care for he puts faith before reason?

 

Does this mean that that the gospel is absurd but not to the Christian person to whom God gives light so that they reason correctly that the gospel is true?  This would mean that the gospel is compatible with correct reason and the natural philosopher cannot see it for he doesn’t have light from God.

 

Paul means that belief of any kind in the gospel be it mere intellectual belief or faith which is belief coupled with commitment and openness to grace is folly to the natural wise man. 

 

How do we know this?  Because he doesn’t say it is only a particular kind of faith or belief that is stupid to the unsaved man. 

 

Say you take belief to mean living according to that belief and accepting the grace of God and not just intellectual belief then the natural man with mere intellectual belief that does not change his heart will not see the gospel as absurdity but his own refusal to turn to God as absurdity.  Paul then cannot be thinking of unconverted believers who know Christ is saviour but won’t turn to him.  Paul is thinking of faith as an intellectual function only.  He means only those who agree with the faith but won’t turn to it.  But obviously if this is absurd so is it when it seeks the grace of God to live out the faith.  So is faith in the fullest sense.

 

What does this mean?  It means that Christianity is anti-logic and anti-philosophy.  Luther was right when he decided that reason was the tool of the Devil and inaccurate even when logical tests said it was accurate.  The faith cannot be intellectually justified. This is a position called Fideism, the view that faith has nothing to do with evidence, which was condemned as heresy by the non-Christian organisation the Roman Catholic Church in 1870 at the Vatican Council.

 

It has been answered that Paul did not condemn reason but a selfish perverted reasoning.  But no hint of that meaning is given in his writings at all so it must be discarded despite what Reimarus who denied the view that Paul was a hater of reason concluded (page 184, Miracles in Dispute – which gives no proof for Reimarus’ interpretation).  2 Corinthians 10:3 says that the Christians do not carry worldly weapons but spiritual ones which tear down arguments and proud barriers to the love of God and make every thought captive to Christ.  Reimarus thought that Paul meant that Christians use reason to destroy the objections of their enemies (page 185, Miracles in Dispute).  But that interpretation cannot be proven.  The context of Paul’s teaching on reason disproves it.  If Paul meant arguments from reason he would have said so CLEARLY and when he based his refutations on divine power and our experience of its transforming power and not reason it shows that human reason was considered to be futile and defective.  And no wonder when Paul thought that Jesus died for sinners in their place and loads of other things that made no sense and which he could not have defended with success and without blushing.  For example, he accepted the absurdities of the God of Judaism including the view that God was right to command parents to kill their layabout drunkard sons.

 

Paul complained that the Jews were looking for signs (1 Corinthians 1:22) to determine if the wisdom of God as understood in Christianity and the cross of Christ was true.  So there were no miracles he could tell them about to please them.  He even said it was folly to look for signs.  If you consider the miracles to be signs then it was not folly because they were signs and it would be blasphemy to say they were folly.  He said Jews meaning all Jews for he would have written some Jews otherwise.  Christians would reply that he means the Jews want to see signs themselves first hand before they will consider believing.  But you can look for signs without seeing them.  For nearly everybody it is enough to check out the information and interview and cross-examine the witnesses.  He never said they just wanted to see it all themselves. 

 

The Jews accepted most prophets without miracles for the law said miracles were useless anyway except to get people’s attention.  They just observed if their predictions came true and if the prophet was a true believer and that was enough (Deuteronomy 18).  So they did not want to see the miracles themselves.  They found no evidence of prophetic ability in Jesus or in the Church which was to witness to him.  The gospels never say that the Jews pestered Jesus for proof of prophetic powers showing that they were made up.  They could have discredited him on that line and we do not read what he said about that.  Jesus did make prophecies but none that were seen fulfilled the time Paul was writing and none which might have been more than educated guesses.  What Paul is indicating as well is that Jesus did no miracles as a sign that he should get attention for his prophecies for he made none that were known to have been fulfilled.  When Jesus then did not attract attention to himself as a prophet through using miracles that means he made no prophecies either.  Paul’s Jesus was not a prophet or a miracle worker.

 

Paul said that we including himself live by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).  Paul confessed that he needed to stay alive for the sake of the Christians though he would like to die and go to Jesus (Philippians 1).  This informs us that nobody could do his job for him though he had plenty of helpers – this indicates the laziness and lack of faith in the Jerusalem apostles.  He had made his testimony concerning the resurrection of Jesus so it could still convert sinners without him.  He is suggesting that he was the only reliable witness to the resurrection.  We have his testimony that the Judean Church which founded the roots of the gospel is not to be trusted. 

 

He is also inferring that Jesus did not raise people from the dead for if he did these testimonies could back up Jesus’ own claim to have risen but Paul could not use such arguments.  The best Paul could do was use the apostles testimony and say that if Jesus did not rise the dead must be lost and that is unbearable so Jesus must have risen!

 

Paul said that Jesus was revealed as the Son of God by his resurrection (Romans 1:4) which shows that he did not manage to reveal this by his miracles (indicating that he never did any) and the resurrections he performed during his ministry (GA Wells Replies to Criticisms of his Books on Jesus).  Why does he stress Christ crucified even above Christ risen and triumphant?(1 Corinthians 1:22-23).  This implies that the resurrection was only to prove that Jesus had died to save sinners – vicariously I might add for had it been anything else it would not have been stressed so much – and it was not great proof when it could not be brought to the fore.  It was selfish of Paul to care more about Jesus dying than rising.  This stress on the cross suggests that Jesus never worked any wonders.

 

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EXCUSES FOR PAUL’S SILENCE DEBUNKED

 

Christians have to say the silliest things to get away from the uncomfortable fact that Paul never used Jesus’ life to teach the people but preferred to dictate to them what they should do.  Paul knew this was a bad approach for he was very unpopular because of it.  He could do nothing else for there was no Jesus story for them to be edified with.

 

Read Galatians 4:21-31.  Paul is trying to refute those who say we must still follow the Law of Moses like slaves.  He tells them that they must hear what the Law has to say.  He says it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by his wife as a result of God’s promise.  He says this is an allegory. The two women stand for two covenants.  One covenant is the covenant of slavery and the other is the covenant of freedom.  The point he is trying to make is that Christians are not to go back to slavery to the Law for they are free.  If they fail to keep the Law now, Jesus has kept it for them vicariously and they will still be saved in Heaven.  Jesus speaks about the Law a fair bit in the gospels and promises delivery from slavery to the Law.  When Paul couldn’t use his words to refute these people but had to resort to a fanciful interpretation of the Bible it is plain that the gospels lied.  It is also plain that Jesus as man had no relevance for Paul.  If there had been a Jesus who lived recently Paul would have examined his life and looked in his teaching for ammunition.  When Jesus the Jew said nothing about the Law it shows either that he lived an unknown life as a man or he never existed.  Christians say that Paul is not denying that the scripture is history.  But when he attaches such importance to a fanciful way of interpreting it he is saying that it is okay to worry more about spiritual interpretations than the literal.  The same would have to be true of the gospels had they existed then.  The original Christian Church had no concern for a Jesus of History at all.  This adds fuel to those who believe that Jesus was a myth not a man.  Instances like that prove that there is no excuse for Paul’s silence only that his Jesus never lived or was just an apparition he made himself see.

 

He Walked Among Us lies that the reason for Paul’s silence about Jesus was that he was so absorbed in his vision of Jesus that he had had on the way to Damascus that he felt no need or desire to draw attention to Jesus’ life apart from his death and resurrection (page 328). 

 

First, the Jewish Law said that Paul’s vision was not enough for two independent witnesses are needed and the early Church was heavily into learning from the Law. 

 

Second, Paul never said he was that absorbed in his vision and the few parts in which he mentions it all he does is touch on it and say what it means to him but he does not dwell on it or inflate its importance so it is clear that he was not totally absorbed in the vision.  The letters don’t even describe the vision or stress it at all.  What did concern Paul most was Christian living.  And if there had been a historical Jesus he knew about he could have used him and stressed his story as the model for that living.  Even when Paul contends against those believers in Corinth who denied the resurrection he only briefly mentions his vision and puts no stress on it but uses other arguments.  One of these arguments was the shocking, Jesus is risen for we are lost if he is not, which is as good an admission of helplessness as one can get.  So, his vision proved it to him and was a tiny bit of evidence for everybody else and was too minor to be stressed to them.  If Paul had been so absorbed in the vision he would have been mentally ill for it was important but there were other important things too.  He would not have been absorbed in the vision but obsessed by it and in need of help.  If Christians want to present him as sick then let them go ahead.  What Paul was absorbed in by his own admission was the cross of Christ. 

 

Third, the vision was too brief, according to Acts, to be preferable to Jesus’ life-story. 

 

Fourth, visions need to be verified by scripture and by the life of the prophet before they can be accepted.  Deuteronomy 18 says one has to be totally sure a guy is a prophet before listening to him.  The Bible and the Church teach that any vision that does not accord with what was known about the truth of God before is false or satanic.  Paul could not ask anybody to believe in Jesus over his vision.  It was a milestone in his life but it was not the be all and end all for others.  The life was not emphasised for Paul knew nothing about it or could know nothing.  Where did Paul try to prove that he was a prophet?  He could have decided to believe in Christ before his vision and then his emotions forced him to have a vision to confirm his faith and erase the guilt he felt for his new heretical faith.  Luke never tells us that Paul never had second thoughts about his hatred for Christianity up to the point of his conversion.  We can be fully sure that the reason Paul paid no attention to Jesus’ life was because nobody knew anything about this man that some people were saying was appearing to them.

 

Others would say that Paul never met Jesus and that was why he had so little interest in what happened in Jesus’ life.  But this makes no sense.  Paul was a trained Jewish theologian and would have had to investigate Jesus when he was so interested in stripping Jesus of any influence he had among the people.  Paul knew that persecution alone was not good enough and often made a group craftier and more obstinate.  Persecution without debunking is not a good idea.  He would have had to explain to critics what offended him so much about Jesus when he had to go after his followers.  Some object that Paul was a theologian not a historian.  But a theologian has to be a historian to some extent.  One does not need to be a historian to know about some dead person’s life especially one that died a few years before.  Paul actually focused more on the crucified Jesus than on the resurrected one.  He said that he lived for nothing but Jesus crucified.  So he would have been interested in the pre-resurrection Jesus had there been anything to be interested in.  Though Paul believed that we are lost if Jesus has not risen the crucifixion was more important than the resurrection for it was Jesus paying for our sins.  The resurrection was no good without the atonement.

 

The First Letter of St Paul to the Thessalonians states (4:1-2) exhorts the Thessalonians to live good lives and congratulates them on not having forgotten the instructions in this they were given by Paul and his friends on the authority of the Lord Jesus.  It would have been natural to use the records about Jesus’ teaching and his example instead of appealing to authority.  Jesus stressed the importance of Jesus being servant which means that you don’t command in Jesus’ name unless your back is really against the wall.  Paul and his friends using their authority which is dangerous for authority even in Jesus’ name is a second-hand thing and best avoided where possible would mean that there was no life of Jesus or teaching of his recorded.  That proves then that Jesus did not live in the first century and it explains that the silence of Paul on Jesus’ life really was down to there not having been a Jesus who had a verifiable earth life.

 

The Bible never bluntly states that Paul never met Jesus.  Rather people just assume this.  If Paul never met Jesus then that was all the more reason for him to familiarise himself with Jesus’ history.  If Paul had not met Jesus then Jesus did not exist for Paul would have been in Judaea a lot.  Paul may have come from Tarsus but he was prominent in the Holy Land which suggests he was out of Tarsus a long time so nobody can say that since Paul was in Tarsus all the time he never crossed paths with Jesus.

 

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EUCHARIST DOES NOT PROVE JESUS REAL

 

Paul had no interest in the earthly Jesus the one that existed before the resurrection.  In 1 Corinthians 11, he even said that he received the Eucharist story from the risen Jesus and passed it on so even the story that the earthly Jesus took bread and wine and made them emblems of his body and blood and was betrayed had to come through visions.  It is certain that Paul had no interest in the earthly Jesus apart from the bare fact that he was crucified which is virtually the same has having no interest at all for he did not look at the Jesus story and learn about it or from it.  He laid all his attention on visions.  Even if this is wrong it is still important that we cannot prove that Paul cared for the earthly Lord.  Paul said the bread was the body and the cup the blood of the Lord but that means that is what they are reminders of and does not mean that the words, “This is my blood,” were said over the cup in the Church.  You don’t need to with reminders.  When Paul said that the cup was the blood and his Jesus did not use the word blood in the consecration but said that the cup was a new covenant in his blood he clearly denied that his Jesus did that.  The blood was Paul’s interpretation of the cup which is a sign that the Eucharist had recently been invented because it would have been thought out better had it had an earlier origin. 

 

So the Jesus in Paul says the cup and we are not even told that it was wine was stated by Jesus to be the new covenant contradicting the gospels which say it was the blood of the covenant.  It is more simple to say it is the covenant than that it is the blood and legends get more complicated over time and eventually the cup was stated to be the blood of the Lord in the words of consecration. 

 

The book, St Saul, makes the point that when Paul was saying he received the Eucharist rite off the Lord that he was stressing that he knew it really did happen historically (page 218).  He was kind of saying, “I swear this is true on the Lord’s honour.”  But would Paul swear if he could verify the Eucharist happened?  It is wrong to swear unless you have to.  And if the people were not believing in him for Corinth was full of Christians who did not take Paul seriously, swearing would be no help.  So rather than swearing he would have been sending them some evidence or telling them where to get it.  If Paul felt the need to swear that is admitting that a major rite in Jesus’ life could not be historically verified and people had to just take his word for it.  Though his saying he got it from the Lord is not an oath it is clear that he is still trying to pressure people to believe in him just as he would be if he did swear.  This is a sign of desperation.  It is also, more importantly, a sign that he had only revealed the Eucharist later in his career as a missionary and prophet.  It means that the original apostles and Paul himself initially did not think of the Eucharist.  Paul had a vision or a revelation telling him about it and so he started the rite not Jesus.

 

St Saul also tells us that Jesus according to Paul did not do the Last Supper at Passover but at one of several meals he had with his disciples so there was nothing unique about the meal (page 218).  I see no evidence for this apart from the fact that the Christians in Corinth were having regular meals together at which they took bread and drink in memory of Jesus.  If St Saul is right then it follows that the gospels are lying when they plot the Last Supper during Passover time.

 

Some would object that Jesus could have done one big meal at Passover and had the Last Supper and Christians just decided to imitate the last supper at every meal they had in common.  The evidence against this is that the Christian meals often led to trouble as Paul said so there must have been a serious reason for having them.  They must have been done to imitate Jesus.  Another piece of evidence is that Paul and Jesus wanted bread and drink taken in memory of the body and blood of Jesus but it was never said that the words saying this is my body or my blood had to be said.  You took the bread and drink as memorials of Jesus but not as symbols.  They signified communion with the body and blood of Christ but they did not signify the body and blood of Christ.  This is my body could mean the same as saying a picture is your son.  The picture is not your son or a symbol of your son but the memorial of your son.  Overall, this would mean that Christians had to have regular meals of bread and drink together in memory of the body and blood of Jesus and do it often in memory of his many meals.  Paul does not even say the cup was wine and wine was on the Passover table so it seems the meal was not a Passover meal.  He would have said when he talked as if he was talking to ignorant people.  If Jesus was betrayed on the night he did what Paul says with bread and drink that means Jesus was not crucified when the gospels say he was at all for they say he died the day after the Passover meal.

 

Paul stated that many Corinthians were falling ill and dying as God took revenge on them for eating the bread of communion and drinking the cup without recognising the body and blood of the Lord.  These were taking the communion unworthily.  The view that he meant people were taking communion and not believing that it was the body and blood of the Lord is nonsense.  That interpretation is way over the top.  To eat the bread and drink the cup when they were pictures of the body and blood while not believing that Jesus really had a body and blood would also be a sin.  This is the sin Paul had in mind.  The Church had an epidemic number of people who did not believe that Jesus was a man and who had had a spiritual experience like a vision or whatever that made them willing to take on the stigma of being a Christian and associating with Paul’s Church.  Their supernatural experiences would be the only explanation.  Paul had to try and scare them with threats about divine vengeance to get them to believe.  He was desperate all right.  It is clear then that many knowledgable believers did not believe that Jesus instituted the Eucharist and did not believe in his humanity.  It was clear that for many Jesus was an angel or something but certainly not a man that lived recently for they could not deny that so soon after his death and life on earth assuming the gospels were telling even a quarter of the truth about that earthly existence.  Paul had nothing to say to them apart from dubious threats – why does everybody take communion in sin these days and live happily?  The material about unworthy communion is clear evidence that there was no real evidence for a man called Jesus living in the first century.

 

Paul doesn’t say anybody living knew Jesus personally or even who was present at the Last Supper.  Paul complained that there were factions at the supper and some were getting drunk on wine at it and were freezing out the poor who were with them.  They were obviously disrespecting the supper of the Lord and had to be reminded on what authority the supper was instituted.  But whose authority does Paul give for the supper?  His own.  He says he received the institution of the supper as a revelation from the Lord.  He could not give Jesus’ authority any other way.  The best he could do was say he was told by Jesus about the supper.  Paul had already asserted his authority before for he gave them the ritual of the Lord’s Supper.  All he does when it is sneered at is reiterate it which is a sure indication that it was all he could do.  He could not appeal to the Jerusalem apostles or traditions about Jesus to help him.  Paul invented the Eucharist or got a revelation – perhaps a dream? - telling him that it happened.    He denies the historicity of one of the chief things that Jesus did which is a strong indication that Jesus was known purely through visions and was not a man of whom a verifiable biography could be devised. 

 

The gospels say Jesus started the Lord’s Supper at his Passover meal.  When the Christians were bringing so much wine to the supper that they got drunk that shows that the Lord’s Supper was being divorced from the Passover meal which forbade too much wine to be present for it was a sad meal not a party.  Or perhaps the original story never thought of Jesus starting the Eucharist at the Passover?

 

Christians contend that when Paul wrote that he received the facts about the Lord’s Supper from the Lord he meant through tradition.  This is incorrect for the epistle was written to people whose knowledge of the faith was pretty bad and they were visionary mad and would have liked to use the excuse of there being secret tradition to believe what they wanted so he would have chosen his words carefully and wrote what he meant.  He would have preferred to stress concrete history as the source instead of using language that could give the impression the source was a vision.

 

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2 CORINTHIANS 5:16

 

“The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.  Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more, Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:14-17, King James Version).

 

When writing to the Christians of Corinth, Paul says that we who knew Christ according to the flesh know him that way no more (2 Corinthians 5:16).  Christians have always argued at this point that Paul meant only that he has a different opinion and evaluation of Jesus now since Jesus ceased to be an ordinary man and became the risen saviour (page 81, Jesus, Qumran and the Vatican).  That interpretation is impossible because Paul shows no knowledge of Jesus as a man and never met Jesus as a man.  He doesn’t teach about Jesus’s life as a man.  On the contrary he says many things that indicate that the gospel portrait of Jesus is fiction. He often contradicts the gospel view of Jesus. 

 

In 2 Corinthians 8 he says the Corinthians are to remember that Jesus was rich but for their sake he became poor to make them rich out of his poverty.  He added that this didn’t mean that to give relief to the starving and the poor they had to make things difficult for themselves but to use their surplus!  So Jesus then was clearly a totally rich man who gave it all up.  This denies the gospels which have a Jesus who was born in a stable, had poor parents, had to wander about homeless and often hungry and whose invectives against the rich were harsh in the extreme.  Paul means that Jesus was literally rich.  There is no room for the idea that he only meant that Jesus had the supernatural power to take whatever he wanted and was rich in that sense but didn’t use it.  God or the Son of God incarnate then should have the power to enjoy all the gold in the world for its theirs and their magic can get it for them.  Jesus then was only acting poor but wasn’t poor at all if he was one of these.  He was like a multi-trillionaire who doesn’t use his money but lives in a box with the homeless.  Such a man wouldn’t be poor.  In Paul’s description of Jesus as rich and then poor we see that he denied that Jesus was God or had the magical power to turn stones into bread or even bread into money.  He denied the gospel Jesus who claimed supernatural powers.  So Jesus was literally rich but gave it all away.  This isn’t in the gospels at all and he contradicts them so they are false. 

 

So Paul did deny that we should be interested in Jesus’ pre-resurrection life or indeed that the Church was interested when he made his declaration that we know Christ no more according to the flesh.  The life of Christ as a man and the life of Christians as human beings is to be forgotten.  What is to be remembered is what they are now, transformed and holy beings full of God’s life and presence.  You may ask that if Paul asked them to remember a rich Jesus who became poor for them then how can I say he had no interest in the life of Jesus?   He may have been told this by Jesus in an apparition.  A Paul whose only interest in the life of Jesus is what he is told in apparitions is no different from one that ignores the Jesus of history for he is still ignoring him.  Such a Paul makes it no less of a fact that he doesn’t want anybody worrying about the history of Jesus.  He wouldn’t even let people get married for the coming of Christ was thought to be imminent so investigating Jesus would have been discouraged as a distraction.  He only let people marry if they couldn’t do without sex (1 Corinthians 7).  Again, if one shouldn’t marry except as a last resort to avoid fornication but prepare for the return of Jesus instead this doesn’t fit the gospels.  In this view, people marry just to make sure they won’t be fornicating when the Lord comes back so its not about love or closeness and making babies and a happy home. 

 

The gospel Jesus spoke of marriage a few times and warned that it was for life and said he came to restore its true meaning which had been lost among the Jews.  Jesus said that a man must leave his parents and cleave to his wife so that they become one not two.  Jesus then didn’t agree with Paul’s cold advice on marrying to avoid fornication.  Jesus had the idea of sex and also closeness between husband and wife in mind.  Jesus saw marriage as hard and long work for the husband and wife.  Paul and Jesus mostly agreed that marriage was for life but Jesus would hold that marriage would be a preparation for the second coming for it’s a good work and not a distraction.  For if you cannot prepare for the second coming by good works you are not preparing at all.  The way Paul speaks of marriage indicates that he doesn’t regard it as a part of the purification and preparation for the second coming.   The Bible therefore denies the Catholic doctrine that marriage is a sacrament.

 

Paul by implication is showing that the Church never heard of a Jesus giving such teachings.  The teachings of Jesus about marriage made the apostles say that it was better not to marry at all when he was that strict.   The gospels even invented the more insalubrious teachings of Jesus. 

 

Back to our verse where Paul says we know nobody by the flesh any more and though we knew Jesus by the flesh we know him that way no more.  Then why did Paul say we for the Corinthians knew nothing of the earthly Jesus who never even left Palestine and who focused on ministering to Jews?

 

Who is “we”?

 

We is the people Paul had just said Jesus died for and he said that we know them according to the flesh or the ordinary secular way no more either.  Just like Jesus they have been made into new holy creatures and nothing is the same anymore.  He does not mean people who would have known Jesus or about what he was like as a man at all.  What he means is every person who was saved by Jesus in past centuries or the present or the future so Jesus could have lived twenty centuries previous.  Therefore Paul cannot mean: “We knew Jesus personally as a man but he is more than that to us now.”  So whatever we think about Paul’s statement, he is not saying Jesus lived in the first century.  Many of his converts would have been born since Jesus died.  The Corinthians did not know Jesus personally when he was on earth so Paul is not saying here that anybody did know him personally. 

 

So Paul said we used to see Jesus as an ordinary man but not any more.  You could say the same of Victor Hugo though he died long before your time.  For the early Church, the important thing was the risen Jesus.   The earthly Jesus was to be ignored.  Interest in him is refusing to keep the correct focus.

 

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RUDOLPH BULTMANN

 

 

The famous German theologian, Rudolph Bultmann took Paul’s assertion as proof that the gospels were full of mythology, not lies but just fables intended to teach a religious or spiritual moral.  He took it as evidence that Paul steered the Church in that direction and the culmination was the gospels which are absurd if taken as literally true.  Bultmann believed Paul meant that Jesus was to be ignored as a historical person and now he was to be seen in symbolic and spiritual terms as explicated by mythology.  Indeed, Paul goes further than that.  He says his followers are ignoring and have ignored that Jesus of history whether there is a history available for him or not.  They are not going to worry about him.  Surely Jesus must have lived in recent times if the Corinthians are to forget his earthly life?  Not necessarily.  Paul does not want anybody to be curious about Jesus’ earthly life and the reason for that can only be this one: that there was no point for nothing can be known for definite if anything at all can be found out about it.

 

What supports Bultmann is what Paul said that if we once knew Jesus according to the flesh we don’t anymore.  That can be interpreted as saying it is what Jesus does for us now in our souls for he is with us since his resurrection that matters and the past should be forgotten.  When Paul showed no interest in Jesus’ earthly life and when he could be interpreted that way that is the way he should be interpreted.  If Paul had meant that we don’t see Jesus as an ordinary man any more then why didn’t he write that?  That would have been clearer.  We know how many in Corinth wanted to forget that Jesus was a man so he would have been clear in case he would encourage them.  So he did mean what Bultmann said he meant.  Even if Jesus lived a mundane life, it would be good to investigate it if possible.  But Paul thinks that Jesus’ life has been lost to history because God wants the focus on the resurrected Jesus and what he is doing for people and in their hearts now.

 

Paul said that we view no man according to the flesh for they are not in it any more being new creations of God which demands a complete break and forgetfulness of the past (5:17,18).  He says Jesus is to be focused on what he is now as well and not on the past.   But each person will have a different idea of how to do this so Paul is exalting the human imagination as a tool of learning the incomprehensible truths that God stands for.  So the Christian is to create myths out of Jesus.

 

Paul’s assertion says nothing about when Jesus lived for all he is claiming is that the Jesus we know in our hearts is not an ordinary human being and to be forgotten as one.  It is the story of what Jesus does in your soul now that matters not the story of the earthly Jesus.

 

It is interesting that Paul says we are forced to love Christ by the fact that if he died for us then we died with him.  Many systems of belief at the time were sort of pantheistic with many people being believed to be the one deity and Paul often talks strongly in this pantheistic vein.  There is no evidence for saying he thought we metaphorically perished with Christ.  That makes it possible that the deity Jesus is really a collection of people who die and when the deity resurrects he comes back as one person.  And it is more than possible – it is likely.  You would expect Paul to be careful not to suggest deities that were archetypes of humans and one with them or some of them but he did not despite such semi-pantheism being a major fashion of the time. 

 

Indeed, such an interpretation as the Christians have would be impossible.  They say us dying with Christ means we stop our lives of sin when Jesus’ death takes them away by paying for them so that we metaphorically die with him.  But to say we are forced to love Christ by dying with him metaphorically makes no sense.  It is like saying you are forced to turn away from sin when you repent but that is a tautology.  You are not forced by repentance to repent.

 

It is interesting that he also says we are compelled to love Christ because he died and rose so that we might not live for ourselves but for him.  But how could you love a man just because he wants you to live for him and love him?  You can if you are that man in some sense – this is the pantheistic element again.  Paul’s Jesus was a pagan God not a historical person.  He was a divine force and an archetype that was believed to manifest as several people.  To pagans when a man died the horned God died for man was his manifestation and the man realises when he dies that he was not his own person at all but was one with the deity who was acting as if he was that person and other men.  Silly?  Yes but all religion is ridiculous.

 

Proof that there was nothing known about the earthly life of Jesus is in the fact that Paul wrote: “If there is anything worthy of praise, think on and weigh and take account of these things [fix your minds on them].  Practice what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and model your way of living on it, and the God of peace (of untroubled, undisturbed well-being) will be with you” (Philippians 4:8,9).

 

Paul would not have dared to put himself forward as a good example if there was a Jesus whose life they could have learned from for he knew to be wary of boasting and here he is really bombastic.  Why put the messenger before the Son of God himself?  Christians explain that Paul meant that they had to see how Jesus would live through him for they had never met Jesus.  But Paul was still boasting.  The Philippians had leaders who Paul could recommend as examples and who would have been better for they lived with the people and Paul didn’t.  So Paul did not leave out Jesus because they didn’t see just for they didn’t see much of Paul either to know him very well.  The correct picture we get from all this is that Paul though he tried to avoid bragging felt forced to do it here and in his pride he forgot to recommend the religious leaders of the Philippians and as for Jesus, the obvious good exemplar, nobody knew what his example was like for he was only known through apparitions.  There was no known earthly Jesus to model your virtues on.

 

Bultmann was right.

 

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COLOSSIANS 3

 

Like 2 Corinthians, Colossians 3 – a letter allegedly by Paul but recognised by scholars as a forgery - teaches the following, “You have been brought back to true life, that is life with God, with Christ.  Your new existence as a reborn person is as different as Jesus’ life is now that he has been raised from the dead, so you must look for the things of Heaven where Christ is seated at God’s right hand.  Think on these heavenly things and not things that are on earth because your life on earth is dead and you have a new heavenly life now.  The life you have now is hidden with Christ in God and in spite of that when Christ is revealed – and he is your life – you too will be revealed in all your glory with him as well.” 

 

This says that Christ somehow is the Church that is a community of people who have been resurrected spiritually.  They have been resurrected with him.  “You have been brought back to true life … with Christ.” “He is your life”.

 

Experience was what mattered not reason in this theology.  The pagan mystery religions did the same thing. You could become the god.  If experience said so it was true even if contradictions happened. 

 

Christians are to be concerned only with how Jesus has been changed and resurrected and how they have been changed and forget everything else and especially earthly things.  The early Church had no interest in a Jesus life story.

 

Let us explore this.

 

Paul’s forger says we must forget our old lives.  This seems to mean our old sins but it means more than that for why say we must forget earth things if you mean sins?  He lays into the sins later because they are not just what he means.  Evidences for Jesus, stories of his life, if they exist are to be forgotten for all that is of earth has to be left behind and only Heaven matters now for you are a citizen of Heaven and delivered from the earth.  This implies certainty of going to Heaven after you die and more importantly that living like a heavenly person who is only interested in serving God and not in anything else is the way for you now.  You don’t seek to preserve stories about Jesus if they exist you just get on with living the gospel.  If we are to forget about the earthly Jesus if there was one we can be confident that the gospels are unreliable for the church was under no obligation to care about accuracy or the stories.  If the stories were preserved then they cannot be trusted because the resurrection implied that Jesus forbade this.  Paul’s impersonator says that our life is hidden with Christ in God but will be revealed when Christ is.  We know by experience that we have been spiritually saved and resurrected but there will be no evidence for this until Christ appears.  So we can’t know from proving his miracles or his resurrection.  That means this Jesus never had a known life story.

 

Colossians gives no indication of knowing that Jesus lived and died on a cross through historical data.  The thought is that since Christians experience a resurrection from the death of sin to a new life free from vice and salvation in life that Jesus rose.  From that it was concluded that he must have died for sinners.

 

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FATHERS TESTIMONY VALUELESS

 

What documents would be next in importance to the New Testament?  Obviously, the next oldest related writings.  These are the apostolic Fathers, that is, the fathers of the Church who supposedly learned from the apostles.  Christians say that Jesus is likely to have existed when the Apostolic Fathers say he did exist.

 

The Fathers tell us so little about him that he could easily have been an invention.  It is not enough for them to say they believe or know that Jesus was a real person and not a fake.

 

Clement say that Jesus died a bloody death and rose again.  He was sent by God and sent the apostles to preach his message after their doubts had been cured by his return from the dead.  He quotes Jesus saying that it is better to be murdered than to lead a person into sin.

 

He doesn’t say if the apostles saw the resurrected Lord or even when Jesus lived.  His Jesus could have been a being who was crucified by demons in the distant past and rose sometime since then and who appeared to somebody in a dream who converted the apostles later for all we know.  His Jesus could have been a dream.

 

Ignatius said that Jesus was born of Mary (Ephesians 7), baptised (18), sinless (Magnesians 7) and was God.

 

He says that he wants “you to be unshakably convinced of the Birth, the Passion, and the Resurrection which were the true and indisputable experiences of Jesus Christ, our Hope, in the days of Pontius Pilate’s governorship” (Magnesians 11).  This is very important for it is the testimony of a Christian who was likely to have known the apostle John that Jesus Christ was born of Mary and died and rose when Pilate was Procurator.  This period is from 26-36 AD!  Was Jesus only ten years old when he was killed?  This would prove the gospels to be sheer fantasy.  If one takes the unwarranted view that Ignatius structured the sentence badly and meant that Jesus suffered and rose and was not born in Pilate’s time, then one can just as easily say that he meant that Jesus was not born and did not suffer in Pilate’s day. He only rose in it. Indeed because the resurrection was nearest to the Pilate mention it is clear that it must have been what was meant, if you wish to use that road.  The text then would deny that Jesus was born and died in the reign of Pilate.

 

Also, the evidence for the birth and death and resurrection of Jesus is said to provide unshakeable conviction.  Why?  Because they are the experiences of Jesus Christ.  Clearly this indicates that Jesus revealed these events after they happened.  They happened and are evidenced not by testimonies or gospels but are evidenced by the witness of the resurrected Jesus.  In other words, nobody heard of them until Jesus started speaking of them in visions.  This supports the hypothesis that Jesus never lived.  You will not get unshakeable conviction from evidence for it is a human thing and nobody sees everything the same way.  Evidence can lead you in the wrong direction.  The Church says that though Ignatius feels that you are certain of the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus because of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit through whom Jesus testifies to you, he did not exclude the methods of finding the truth by examining testimonies and reports of Jesus.  He does.  If you get an unshakeable conviction through turning to God what would you need anything else for? It would imply doubt.

 

In addition, Ignatius wrote, “To profess Jesus Christ while continuing to follow Jewish customs is an absurdity” (Magnesians 10).  The early Church on the contrary held that it could keep as much of the Jewish law as it wanted.  Some, including myself believe that there is no evidence that the early Church shelved the rules of the Jewish Law but they did teach that the Law was good but not a Law anymore for Christians for they don’t have to be forced to obey it though they should obey it.  Ignatius was contradicting the New Testament and the gospels in what he said.  He denied the Jesus of the gospels.

 

The Epistle to the Smyrnaeans (1) says that Christ was born of the virgin and was baptised by John and then “in the days of Pontius Pilate and Herod the Tetrarch” was crucified.  This seems to give the impression that Jesus was born and baptised before their taking office.  But Jesus according to the gospels must have been baptised when Pilate was Procurator (Luke 3:1).  He gives a quote from Jesus saying touch me for I am not a spirit that seems to have been plucked from Luke 24:39.  But Luke says more than that.  There Jesus says touch me and see that I am not a spirit for a spirit does not have flesh and bones like I have.  Had Ignatius known Luke he would have quoted it completely for it was believed that spirits could be touched after they materialise themselves so the author of Luke had to go and say they felt flesh and bones to make it seem more real.  His logic was that it was better to feel flesh and bone and not just flesh alone.  The apostles thought that Jesus was a ghost and ghosts can give the illusion of being touched.  Luke looks like an improvement on Ignatius’ assertion meaning that Luke was written by a follower of Ignatius.  The absurdity of Jesus’ declaration that being touchable meant he could not be a ghost shows that the risen Jesus could not be trusted. 

 

Smyraeans (3) tells us that Jesus was resurrected and was still like any natural man.  This can agree with Jesus being a child when he died for man meant women and children as well as men.  The Catholic creed says: “for us men and for our salvation he came down from Heaven.”

 

The first century Epistle to Diognetus simply says that Jesus was the sinless Saviour who taught his apostles the Gospel in the plainest language (11).  This contradicts the gospel of John where the apostles complain about Jesus not speaking plainly.  There is a lot of vague talk even in the synoptics, that is the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke.  And Jesus even said once that he hid his teaching in parables to keep their meaning from the people.  Diognetus is proving that John’s gospel is a hoax and the same about the other gospels.  It also denies that the Jewish regulations in the Torah were literal though Jesus observed them and took them literally which shows it knows nothing of the Jesus of the gospels and which makes his existence improbable.  It even undermines the visions of the risen Jesus to the apostles which supported the Law which may mean that it is accusing the apostles of not reporting what the risen Jesus said accurately.  And it is older than the gospels so its word comes first.

 

Barnabas from the first century mentions the miracle power, death and resurrection of but goes into no detail.  Judging by the silliness of his letter it is obvious that his standard of what a miraculous wonder would be would be rather low just like many of those who write into the appalling St. Martin’s Magazine to say what “miracles” he did for them have.

 

The apostolic Fathers provide no convincing evidence for Jesus being a historical reality.  They often contradict the Gospels which shows that either they knew nothing about them or did not recognise them as having any authority.

 

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Conclusion

 

The stories about Jesus in the gospels are fiction.  The first Christians had heard nothing of this miracle working teacher in Palestine.  All they had was their belief that he was crucified and died and seemed to appear to people after his death.

 

WORKS CONSULTED

 

A Concise History of the Catholic Church, Thomas Bokenkotter, Image Books, New York, 1979 

Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, John W Haley, Whitaker House, Pennsylvania, undated

Asking them Questions, Various, Oxford University Press, London, 1936

Belief and Make-Believe, GA Wells, Open Court, La Salle, Illinois, 1991

Concise Guide to Today’s Religions, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Scripture Press, Bucks, 1983

Did Jesus Exist? GA Wells, Pemberton, London, 1988

Did Jesus Exist?  John Redford, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1986

Documents of the Christian Church, edited by Henry Bettenson, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979   

Early Christian Writings, Maxwell Staniforth Editor, Penguin, London, 1988 

Encyclopaedia of Heresies and Heretics, Leonard George, Robson Books, London, 1995 

Encyclopaedia of Unbelief, Volume 1, Ed Gordon Stein, (Ed) Prometheus Books, New York, 1985

Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Vol 1, Josh McDowell, Alpha, Scripture Press Foundation, Bucks, 1995

Handbook to the Controversy With Rome, Volume 1, Karl Von Hase, The Religious Tract Society, London, 1906  

Hard Sayings, FF Bruce, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1983

He Walked Among Us, Josh McDowell and Bill Wilson, Alpha Cumbria, 2000

In Defence of the Faith, Dave Hunt, Harvest House, Eugene, Oregon, 1996 

Introduction to the New Testament, Roderick A F MacKenzie, SJ, Liturgical Press, Minnesota, 1965 

Jesus, AN Wilson, Flamingo, London, 1993 

Jesus and the Goddess, The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, Thorsons, London, 2001

Jesus – God the Son or Son of God? Fred Pearce Christadelphian Publishing Office, Birmingham, undated 

Jesus – One Hundred Years Before Christ, Professor Alvar Ellegard Century, London, 1999 

Jesus and the Four Gospels, John Drane, Lion, Herts, 1984 

Jesus Hypotheses, V Messori, St Paul Publications, Slough, 1977 

Jesus Lived in India by Holger Kersten, Element, Dorset, 1994  

Jesus, Qumran and the Vatican, Otto Betz and Rainer Riesner, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1994

Jesus the Evidence, Ian Wilson, Pan, London, 1985 

Jesus the Magician, Morton Smith, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1978

Jesus under Fire, Edited by Michael F Wilkins and JP Moreland, Zondervan Publishing House, Michigan, 1995 

Lectures and Replies, Thomas Carr, Archbishop of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1907 

Let’s Weigh the Evidence, Barry Burton, Chick Publications, Chino, CA, 1983

Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1969

Nag Hammadi Library, Ed James M Robinson HarperCollins New York 1990 

On the True Doctrine, Celsus, Translated by R Joseph Hoffmann, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1987 

Putting Away Childish Things, Uta Ranke-Heinemann, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1994 

Runaway World, Michael Green, IVP, London, 1974 

St Paul versus St Peter, A Tale of Two Missions, Michael Goulder, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky, 1994

St Peter and Rome, JBS, Irish Church Missions, Dublin, undated

Saint Saul, Donald Harman Akenson, Oxford University Press, New York, 2000

The Bible Fact or Fantasy, John Drane, Lion, Oxford, 1989 

The Bible Unearthed, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, Touchstone Books, New York, 2002. 

The Call to Heresy, Robert Van Weyer, Lamp Books, London, 1989 

The Case For Christ, Lee Strobel, HarperCollins and Zondervan, Michigan, 1998 

The Case for Jesus the Messiah, John Ankerberg Harvest House, Eugene, Oregon, 1989 

The Early Church, Henry Chadwick, Pelican, Middlesex, 1967 

The Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics, Leonard George, Robson Books, London, 1995 

The First Christian, Karen Armstrong, Pan, London, 1983 

The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels, Penguin, London, 1990 

The Gnostic Paul, Elaine Pagels, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1975

The History of Christianity, Lion, Herts 1982 

The History of the Church, Eusebius, Penguin, London, 1989

The House of the Messiah, Ahmed Osman, Grafton, London, 1993

The Jesus Event and Our Response, Martin R Tripole SJ, Alba House, New York, 1980 

The Jesus Hoax, Phyllis Graham, Leslie Frewin, London, 1974 

The Jesus Mysteries, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, Thorsons, London, 1999 

The MythMaker, St Paul and the Invention of Christianity, Hyam Maccoby, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1986 

The Reconstruction of Belief, Charles Gore DD, John Murray, London, 1930

The Search for the Twelve Apostles, William Steuart McBirnie, Tyndale House, 1997 

The Secret Gospel Morton Smith Aquarian Press, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1985 

The Truth of Christianity, WH Turton, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co Ltd, London, 1905 

The Unauthorised Version, Robin Lane Fox, Penguin, Middlesex, 1992 

The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, Raymond E Brown, Paulist Press, New York, 1973 

Theodore Parker’s Discourses, Theodore Parker, Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, London, 1876 

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Kittel Gerhard and Friedrich Gerhard, Eerdman’s Publishing Co, Grand Rapids, MI, 1976

Those Incredible Christians, Hugh Schonfield, Hutchinson, London, 1968 

Who Was Jesus?  A Conspiracy in Jerusalem, by Kamal Salabi, I.B. Taurus and Co Ltd., London, 1992 

Who Was Jesus?  NT Wright, SPCK, London, 1993

Why I Believe Jesus Lived, C G Colly Caldwell, Guardian of Truth, Kentucky 

 

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The WWW

 

Who is GA Wells? Rev Dr Gregory S. Neal

www.errantskeptics.org/G_A_Wells.htm

 

The Silent Jesus

www.askwhy.co.uk/awcnotes/cn4/0325SilentJesus.html#Justin

 

Apollonius the Nazarene, The Historical Apollonius versus the Historical Jesus 

www.apollonius.net/bernard1e.html

 

Why Did the Apostles Die? Dave Matson, 

 www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1997/4Why97.html 

 

The “Historical” Jesus by Acharya S

www.truthbeknown.com/historicaljc.htm

 

How Did the Apostles Die? 

www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1997/4/4front97.html

 

History’s Troubling Silence About Jesus, Lee Salisbury

www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=102

 

Steven Carr discusses the Christian and apostolic martyrs

www.bowness.demon.co.uk/martyrs.htm  

www.bowness.demon.co.uk/martyrs2.htm

 

Challenging the Verdict

A Cross-Examination of Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/CTVExcerptsOne.htm 

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/CTVExcerptsTwo.htm 

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/CTVExcerptsThree.htm#Twelve

 

The Martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, Peter Kirby

http://home.earthlink.net/~kirby/

 

The Martyrdoms: A Response, Peter Kirby

www.bowness.demon.co.uk/martyrs3.htm

 

A Sacrifice in Heaven, 

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/supp09.htm

 

The Evolution of Jesus of Nazareth

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/partthre.htm

 

The Jesus of History, a Reply to Josh McDowell by Gordon Stein

 www.infidels.org/library/modern/gordon_stein/Jesus.html

 

Josh McDowell’s Evidence for Jesus – Is It Reliable?, by Jeffrey J Lowder   www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html

 

A Reply to JP Holding’s “Shattering” of My Views on Jesus

www.infidels.org/secular_web/new/2000/march.html

 

Robert M Price, Christ a Fiction

www.infidels.org/library/modern/robert_price/fiction.html

 

Earliest Christianity G A Wells 

www.infidels.org/library/modern/g_a_wells/earliest.html

 

The Second Century Apologists

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/century.htm

 

Existence of Jesus Controversy, Rae West 

www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/littleton/gm1_jesu.htm

 

Why I Don’t Buy the Resurrection Story by Richard Carrier

www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/resurrection/index.shtml

 

Jesus Conference,

www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_sd/jconf_hall.html 

 

Jesus Conference,

www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/jconf_stuckenbruck.html 

 

The Testament of Levi Concerning the Priesthood and Arrogance

www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-08/anf08-07.htm#P378_53868. 

 

Sherlock Holmes Style Search for the Historical Jesus 

www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/bp/890/history.html  

 

The Ascension of Isaiah

www.earth-history.com/sacred-ascension-Isaiah.htm 

 

Apollonius of Tyana: The Monkey of Christ?  The Church Patriarchs, Robertino Solarion   www.apollonius.net/patriarchs.html

 

What About the Discovery of Q? Brad Bromling

www.ApologeticsPress.org  

 

Wells without Water, Psychological Buffoonry from the Master of the Christ-Myth, James Patrick Holding 

www.tektonics.org/JPH_WW.html

 

Critique: Scott Bidstrp [sic] on The Case for Christ by James Patrick Holding

www.tektonics.org/bidstrup02.html

 

GA Wells Replies to Criticism of his Books on Jesus

www.infidels.org/library/modern/g_a_wells/errant.html

 

The Ossuary Scam: A Critical Analysis of the “James” Ossuary

http://www.atrueword.com/index.php/article/articleprint/15/-1/1/

 

The Origins of Christianity and the Quest for the Historical Jesus, Acharya S

www.truthbeknown.com/origins.htm

  

BIBLE VERSION USED

 

The Amplified Bible

The King James Version    

 

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