Michael Bird is Getting High on Christology

Over at Euangelion, Michael Bird is Getting High on NT Christology. Bird moves beyond the standard Christological works (eg. Hurtado, Bacukham vs Casey, Dunn) to James McGrath's The Only True God.  Personally, I am probably over in Bauckham's camp (sorry, James) but that said, I still don't have my hands on The Only True God (par the chapter on Revelation which I have only glanced at) to have my cherished assumptions questioned.

On this note, I am heading off to uni to pay library fines and find out more about the joint PhD agreement with Edinburgh. Maybe I can spend some time with Hurtado over the next few years?

Review: The Christ Conspiracy, Acharya S

See also: Conspiracy as History? An easy to follow pictorial destruction of Acharya S' historical dishonesty.

I love a good conspiracy theory and I don't think I am alone in that. When they premiered that documentary questioning the moon landing a number of years ago everyone was watching and talking about it, myself included. But no matter how interesting a conspiracy theory is, there is a reason why it is a conspiracy. The theory simply lacks the evidence that mainstream theories do. With this in mind, this is the hermeneutic with which one should approach Acharya's book. It is a book about a conspiracy theory and it should not be confused with rigorous or even accurate historical inquiry.

Before tackling this book, a note should be made about the author. Acharya S, also known as D.M. Murdock, is a new-aged conspiracy styled author over at her long running website www.truthbeknown.com. While she often refers to herself as a highly educated scholars, this is only a self-perception with little real value. She seems to grasp at straws to increase her credentials in the most amusing ways. She tells us of her undergraduate Bachelor of Arts, which is intrinsically superior because it is from the "17th oldest college in the United States" which appears "in the "highly selective" category in guides to the top universities and colleges." She recounts her time in Greece where she had an exam that took "several hours to complete." She has been under the impression that counting footnotes is a sign of scholarship, conveniently missing out the fact that her footnotes are generally references to 19th century works such as those by poet Gerald Massey who argued the Book of Revelation was written over 4000 years ago. But without going ad hominem, lets see what Acharya has to say.

Preface

As an indicator for the rest of the book, the preface tells us that we should expect conspiracy and not history. It is written by conspiracy theorist Kenn Thomas author of some interesting works such as Mind Control, Oswald & JFK (1997), NASA, Nazis & JFK: The Torbitt Documents; the Kennedy Assassination (1996) and Maury Island UFO: The Crisman Conspiracy (1999). Thomas pans from Acharya's apparent "impressive set of academic credentials" to her website discussing "conspiracy and UFO/alien realities"

Thomas introduces Acharya's thesis:

The thesis of her work, that Christianity was created artificially out of older religions to consolidate Roman state control over those religions, as well as various mystery schools and secret societies, is a wellspring of awareness for students of conspiracy. Acharya S also makes a clear case for the existence of an ancient global civilization. (4)

Chapter 1: Introduction

The chapter begins negatively branding religion as the cause of "extreme racism, sexism and even speciesism."(3). I assume Acharya envisions that the world would be some sort of utopia without religion. Her arguments do not appear to be sound at all. She quotes Hitler as being a Catholic, and maintains Stalin was an Eastern Orthodox. What is the result? All Christians are militant madmen. While historians hold that Jesus and movement was in no way a militant revolution, Acharya views Jesus' preaching as "exhorting his followers to violence" (7)  while Paul was a terrorist terrorising the pagans. Note that here for Jesus to exhort violence he must have existed as a historical figure, something Acharya attempts to take apart later in the book.

The chapter moves on to the issue of martyrdom and the early Christian persecutions. However, Acharya gives it her conspiracy twist - it is now "the myth of martyrdom" (8). She takes on the historicity of the persecutions against Christians by challenging a single reference by Tacitus. Although in honesty, the challenge is actually an assertion that it is "a forgery" fitting it into her conspiracy theory theme as "one of many made by the conspirators in the works of ancient authors." She makes no argument against authenticity. She then ends the sections claiming Christians weren't persecuted, and it was the Christians who started persecuting non-Christians.

Interestingly enough, there is nothing about Pliny's letter to Trajan (Letters 10.96); no mention of the Deciun persecution or the numerous edicts under the Great Persecution. Having read the book, in hindsight I suggest two equally plausible solutions. First of all, it may be that Acharya simply did not know about them. The engagement with ancient sources is almost non-existent and the best source she could come up with here was G.A. Well's Jesus Did Not Exist. The second case would be that she simply did not include it as it would destroy her conspiracy theory regarding Christian origins. I am not a mind reader so I leave it to the reader to make their own decision.


She also calls the spread of Christianity a myth. I will not bother dealing with it here but those interested should look up the work by Rodney Stark.

Chapter 2: The Quest for Jesus Christ

In this chapter she turns her attention to the person of Jesus, noting him as Christianity's "legendary founder" (13). After a few legitimate comments about many people finding the historical Jesus they want, she moves onto the question of Jesus' historicity. Obviously enough, she truly misrepresents the argument:

Indeed, the majority of people are taught in most schools and churches that Jesus Christ was an actual historical figure and that the only controversy regarding him is that some people accept him as the Son of God and the Messiah, while others do not. However, whereas this is the raging debate most evident today, it is not the most important. Shocking as it may seem to the general populace, the most enduring and profound controversy in this subject is whether or not a person named Jesus Christ ever really existed. (emphasis hers, p.14)

The most enduring debate about the person of Jesus is whether or not he really existed? Among whom? Her select sources from the 1800's? Here references to German language scholar G.A. Wells? Mark Allan Powell summarises the position of Jesus' historicity rather well:

A hundred and fifty years ago a fairly well respected scholar named Bruno Bauer maintained that the historical person Jesus never existed. Anyone who says that today--in the academic world at least--gets grouped with the skinheads who say there was no Holocaust and the scientific holdouts who want to believe the world is flat. ( Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee. p. 168)

 She furthers her misrepresentations of the debate. Now, the "popular bookstores" are the ones responsible for misrepresenting the debate. She raises Wells as an example. Ironically enough, Wells works are popular press in popular bookstores. The facts of the matter are that historians do not argue that Jesus did not exist.

In proving the popularity of the argument she uses some dubious logic. Regarding a written response to Wells, she states "It should be noted that no such book would be needed if the existence of Jesus Christ as a historical figure were a proven fact accepted by all." Anything can categorically be argued by such dubious means.

She then proceeds to separate the school of thought on Jesus' historicity into interesting categories. Those who believe Jesus existed are "the believers and the evemerists." The believers are those who "take the Judeo-Christian bible as the literal “Word of God,” accepting “on faith” that everything contained within it is historical fact infallibly written by scribes “inspired by God”" (15) that authenticate Jesus. The second group, the Evemerists, are non-Christians who falsely believe that Jesus existed for no reason other than "mental programming." She goes on that such an "opinion [is] usually based on the fact that it is commonly held, not because its proponents have studied the matter or seen clear evidence to that effect." (16).

We then come to the final group, the enlightened mythicists. For some reason or another, this groups conclusions need not be backed up, as they are so overwhelmingly obvious. As if there is no debate surrounding her claim, Acharya remarks, "not only is there no proof of his existence but virtually all evidence points to him being a mythological character." (19). This statement is rather paradoxical. There is no evidence of Jesus' existence, yet there is evidence and that points to him not existing.

She then goes on to paint the picture of historical Jesus scholarship. She doesn't agree with the scholarly norm that finds overwhelming evidence for Jesus but argues that "the mythicists’ arguments have been too intelligent and knifelike to do away with." In fact, the works of these guys are "fearfully suppressed because they are somewhat irrefutable." (19). Other than asserting the Christ myth position as being correct and unchallengable, she moves onto the next chapter.

Chapter 3: The Holy Forgery Mill

This chapter begins with nothing much other than a few pages other than demonising the history of Christianity. She then goes to some very convincing authorities such as Joseph Wheless, a 19th-early 20th century lawyer who states, "The gospels are all priestly forgeries over a century after their pretended dates." She backs this up with Barbara Walker (The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets)  who contends that the "discovery that the Gospels were forged, centuries later than the events they described, is still not widely known even though the Catholic Encyclopedia admits." (22). I would love to see the Catholic Encylopaedia admit that the gospels were forged centuries after Jesus. Evidently, instead of turning to even an introductory text on the dating of the gospels, Acharya S prefers non-historians/biblical scholars to support her conspiracy theory.

In the fashion of the Da Vinci Code, she contends that it was after the Council of Nicaea that the "autographs" were destroyed; they were again "revised" and "retouched" in "506 CE under Emperor Anastasius." She cites a 19th century work on this point, obviously unaware of a few important details. (1) We have numerous text types by the 6th century; (2) it would have been impossible for a 6th century Emperor to modify all these independent pre-6th century manuscripts and, (3) the existence of Codex Sinaiticus among other important 4th/5th century codices.

These great discoveries that the gospels were forged centuries after Christ, is followed by a  number of quotes by people I have never heard of before. Following her usual pattern, I have assumed they are 19th century public domain sources available online and composed by non-scholars. While failing to demonstrate anything but her uncritical eye and unschooled understanding, she concluded the chapter stating, "We have established the atmosphere of the foundation of Christianity: conspiracy, forgery and fraud, the result of which are its sacred texts, falsely alleged to be infallible accounts by eyewitnesses to the most extraordinary events in human “history.”"

Chapter 4: Biblical Sources

In this chapter she begins with the contention that their was no sort of Christian canon at all for 1000 years. Here she is apparently unaware of the reception of the proto-orthodox documents by orthodoxy. We have works which were consistently accepted as authoritative such as the four gospels (Irenaeus, the Muratorian fragment, early codices cf. Gamble, Hengel and Stanton); etc. No closed canon is not equal to no uniformity on accepted texts. She continues under the Da Vinci Code impression - that is, the Christian documents were forcefully chosen at a council "from some 200 admitted forgeries called Gospels" (here citing Wheless, p.26).


She turns to the Pauline epsitles claiming they "never discuss a historical background of Jesus...any person in the gospel account of the Passion" and "never quotes from Jesus’s purported sermons and speeches..." (27).  Anyone with an understanding of the Pauline epistles knows that Acharya is more than stretching the truth here. Paul places Jesus in recent past, and quotes his words and events a few times. For example, Paul recounts the narrative of the last supper including the words of Jeuss in 1 Cor 11:23-26 (compare to Matthew 26; Mark 14; Luke 22.) Paul is aware of Jesus' teachings on divorce in 1 Cor 7:10-11 ("not I, but the Lord") as reflected in Matthew 5.

Similarly, any argument exploiting Paul's relative silence demonstrates a complete ignorance of the genre of the Pauline epistles. Marcus Borg summarises this rather well:

"But Paul’s letters tell us very little about the life and message of Jesus. This does not mean that Jesus’s historical life was unimportant to Paul, as some scholars have suggested. Rather, Jesus mattered greatly to Paul. Paul spoke of Jesus as Lord and as God’s Son, as did early Christians generally. He wrote about life “in Christ,” “Christ crucified,” and “imitating Christ.” But narrating the story of Jesus was not the purpose of his letters. Rather, as the literary genre of “letters” indicates, Paul was writing to Christian communities about issues that had arisen in their life together." (Marcus Borg, Jesus p.32)

Ironically enough, after arguing that the Pauline epistles are not evidence of Jesus' existence, she goes on to claim (through extensive quoting of the unknown Wheless) that "there are none of them by Paul...They are all, without distinction, pseudographia. (sic)" (27). That she believes all the Pauline epistles to be "pseudographia" or as those who know what they are talking about would say, "pseudepigrapha", really questions the extremes which she goes to to argue a conspiracy. Once again, after demonstrating nothing but her ignorance of the issues she concludes, "It is clear that the epistles do not demonstrate a historical Jesus and are not as early as they are pretended to be, written or edited by a number of hands over several decades during the second century, such that the “historical” Jesus apparently was not even known at that late point." (28)

She turns her attention towards the gospels, opening with something completely ridiculous. She claims they "were forged at the end of the 2nd century, all four of them probably between 170-180." She appears to be completely unaware that we have quotations of the gospels as well as physical manuscript evidence from before that time. For exaple, P52 is a fragment of the Gospel of John generally dated to the first half (or even quarter?) of the second century. While arguing that the canonical gospels were late 2nd century (a date no scholar I know of affirms) she goes on to claim that the four were chosen by Irenaeus in the 2nd century, not because they were previously accepted, but because  it is "Masonic, and these texts represent the four books of magic of the Egyptian Ritual." (29)

She dates the Gospel of Luke to 170 (30), Mark to 175, John 178 (while arguing an outdated Gnostic John hypothesis) (31) and Matthew to 180 (32). Following the delusion of her late second century date, she argues that the Gospels were based on Marcion's gospel, which dates to around the 150s, "[The Gospel of the Lord] predated the canonical gospels by decades." (29) As there is no evidence to support this (well, we do have evidence against it such as manuscripts above) such a position is rejected by all scholars I know of. It is generally held that Marcion's gospel was a version of the Gospel of Luke without a birth narrative as well as references to the Hebrew scriptures. This mutilation of the text was for theological reasons, namely, Marcion rejected the Israelite God and to have Jesus (or Paul) in that tradition was theologically detestable. While she discusses Marcion's gospel (which only survives through literary fragments), she claims that it demonstrates "the conspiracy" of Jesus' non-existence. (29) To Acharya, not containing the birth narrative necessitates Jesus was a Gnostic redeemer who came down from heaven. A logic which is flawed to the core and, ironically enough, doesn't apply to Mark.

She attempts to dabble in textual criticism and bases her argument, again, on Wheless who is neither a historian or biblical scholar. Quoting Wheless, she contends that "Of the 150,000 variant readings which Griesbach found in the manuscripts of the New Testament, probably 149,500 were additions and interpolations." (33) Other than the fact her source is a hundred or so years outdated regarding the number of variants, the claim that 99.7 of them are malicious interpolations is simply false. The vast majority of textual variants are unintentional scribal mistakes, or changes in word order. The conspiracy of mass textual corruption is simply fanciful fiction. (See Daniel Wallace's review of Misquoting Jesus for more information on textual criticism.)

Despite having already argued (well, asserted as no argument was presented) that Jesus didn't exist, it is still odd that she entertains Jesus existing just to attack him. For example, in chapter 1 she claimed Jesus was exhorting people to violence. Now, we find that Jesus was mythical. We find this out while Acharya attempts to dabble in theology. She doesn't appear to recognise the consistent theological theme of Jesus ministry which Paul summarises as "to the Jew first and also to the Greek." (Romans 1:16).

Having achieved nothing in this chapter, she moves on to the  Non-Biblical Sources.

Chapter 5: Non-Biblical Sources

She begins, noting her achievement of arbitrarily assigning a late second century date to the gospels that "We have seen that the gospel accounts are utterly unreliable as history and cannot serve as evidence that Jesus Christ ever existed." (38)  In this chapter, Acharya asserts that we have no non-Christian evidence for Jesus. She begins with Josephus, who she claims "they have been dismissed by scholars and Christian apologists alike as forgeries, as have been those referring to John the Baptist and James, “brother of Jesus.”" (39) However, most Josephan and historical Jesus scholars agree that Josephus made mention of both Jesus and John the Baptist. Regarding the longer reference of Jesus, most scholars agree on embellishment, while none that I know of dispute the second reference. From The Missing Jesus (Bruce Chilton, Craig A. Evans and Jacob Neusner):

"In the part of this embellished text that virtually all regard as authentic Josephus describes Jesus as a teacher and wonderworker who was accused by the leading men (i.e., ruling priests) before the Roman governor." (p.21)

Evidently, Acharya's claim that everyone agrees they are forgeries is very far from true scholarly opinion summarising it as "virtually all". A similarly dishonest assertion is made for Tacitus and other non-Christian sources. Evidently, to support her conspiracy she needs to employ utter deception and msirerpesentation. This is continued in chapter 6.

Chapter 6: Further Evidence of a Fraud

She opens by summarising her baseless assertions, "There is basically no textual evidence of the existence of Jesus Christ, other than forged biblical books and epistles." (42). However, in reality we have seen that there is evidence - Christain and non-Christian. Similarly, her claims disputing the authenticity of such appear to be nothing but fanciful deception. However, let us entertain her thesis.

She tries to argue that Christians saw Christianity as nothing new - but, like her conspiracy, simply a rehash of pagan religions which they copied. In this case, she attempts to raise primary evidence for the argument - something very rare in the book. She quotes Eusebius in chapter 4 of his church history as stating that Christianity and its core principles were "built on the natural concepts of those whom God loved in the distant past . . ." (42) However, as an honest reading of Eusebius demonstrates, he was referring to God's knowledge from creation in the Jewish tradition. For example, he names the continuous tradition in which he identifies, stating that "the Hebrews are not a youthful people, but are respected by all men for their antiquity and are known to all." Indeed, a far cry from Acharya's misrepresentation - and one which anyone acquainted with early Christian apologetics would know (e.g. Origen in Contra Celsum.).

She goes onto the topic of Gnosticism, claiming that "the fact is that Gnosticism was proto-Christianity."(45) In fact, she also pinpoints a date - Gnosticism "eventually changed into orthodox Christianity around 220" (46). A position thoroughly at odds with our evidence of Christianity which arose from a Jewish mileu, based on torah, etc. She now argues that everyone was a Gnostic. Irenaeus, who she earlier demonised for being orthodox, is now a Gnostic. (45). Regarding Augustine, "after the Council of Nicea, when he was “converted,” i.e., promised a prominent place in the newly formed Catholic Church, such that he then excoriated his former sect." (45) A pity such fanciful claims are unreferenced. Or even plausible. Augustine was born a good 25 years after the Council of Nicaea, so I do not know why he would have converted because of it. Similarly, why promise a "prominent place" to a heretic for converting? In essence, an absurd and unreferences claim at the logical and chronological level. A final note is that she is of the opinion that Augustine converted from Mandaenism, when in fact he was a Manichaeism.

The rest of this chapter is mostly massive block quote, followed by massive block quote of non-scholars such as Gerald Massey and Kersey Graves.

Okay, I am going to call it quits here for now.

It would be rude to keep this to myself...

From the pen of Acharya S:

The Book of Revelation is Egyptian and Zoroastrian

One can find certain allegorical place names such as "Jerusalem" and "Israel" in the New Testament Book of Revelation. Gerald Massey has stated that Revelation, rather than having been written by any apostle called John during the 1st century AD/CE, represents a very ancient text that dates to the beginning of this era of history, i.e. possibly as early as 4,000 years ago. Massey also asserts that Revelation relates the Mithraic legend of Zarathustra/Zoroaster. Dr. Hilton Hotema says of this mysterious book, which has baffled mankind for centuries: "It is expressed in terms of creative phenomena; its hero is not Jesus but the Sun of the Universe, its heroine is the Moon; and all its other characters are Planets, Stars and Constellations; while its stage-setting comprises the Sky, the Earth, the Rivers and the Sea."

The word Israel itself, far from being a Jewish appellation, may come from the combination of three different reigning deities: Isis, the Earth Mother Goddess revered throughout the ancient world; Ra, the Egyptian sun god; and El, the Semitic deity passed down in form as Saturn. [Here]

This weeks 'what I couldn't care less about' is...

Levi Johnston. The fact that I know that name actually pains me. For a few days I have been around the TV while Entertainment Tonight has been on. All it has been is "Levi Johnston...", "What does Sarah Palin think about Levi Johnston...", "Is Levi Johnston invited to thanksgiving?", "Levi Johnston's playgirl shoot up next...", "Oprah asking the hard questions - Sarah Palin and Levi Johnston".

Does anyone actually care? If you do care, what is wrong with you?

I hate Endnotes

Nick has reminded me that I hate endnotes with a passion.  However, this hatred aside, I do believe that endnotes are the standard for publishers trying to bring more scholarly works to the mainstream. Whether this is useful  - I don't know. I am sure publishers would have done some sort of research into the issue. (I lie, Nick, the publishers union has my family hostage and are forcing me to write this.)

That aside, one of the worst cases of endnotes for me was reading Martin Hengel's Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ. The book is 1/3 endnotes -  rather interesting endnotes. Endnotes that had me constantly flipping through. It really did annoy me - I just want to stay on one page, not jump ahead, read the next 10 footnotes to avoid turning back, going back to the main text, forgetting the footnotes I previously attempted to remember, etc. You get the point, not nice!

Another odd case of endnotes was with Ben Witherington's The Gospel Code. There were no numbers or markers that there was going to be a reference, you would just turn to the endnote section hoping to see an exert of the sentence with a note after it. It was really odd and confusing!

Quote of the Day - Ehrman on Q

I know, I may not be fashionable doing such but I seem to share such scepticism towards Q:

Let me repeat: Q is a source that we don't have. To reconstruct what we think was in it is hypothetical enough. But at least in doing so we have some hard evidence...But to go further and insist that we know what was not in the source, for example, a Passion narrative, what its multiple editions were like, and which of these multiple editions was the earliest, and so on, really goes far beyond what we can know - however appealing such "knowledge" might be." (Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium. 113.)

If I were to have ever written a monograph on Christology, I am sure it would have come out a lot like Simon J. Gathercole's The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew Mark and Luke in many respects. That said, I am grateful yet a bit annoyed (but probably not as annoyed as James Dunn). Maybe no one will notice a work that looks a lot like his?

I think I may owe a bit of an explanatory note as to the fact that my posts haven't touched on anything serious for at least a month. Simply put, I have been busy with other academic things. Namely, things I find not as interesting as biblical studies  - like ancient Egyptian religion, Christian interaction with the neoplatonists and the Hellenistic Period. One must never lose touch with good old historical method!

By December I will hope to send something interesting out. Probably starting with something boring such as the importance of understanding physical manuscripts as early Christian artifacts with the power to help us understand Christian diversity! Or identifying Christian scribal traditions in cosmopolitan ancient Egypt! I don't know, I am sure most people won't find it interesting but having contact with faculty from the Documentary Research Centre really has ruined me.

Library Book Annotations

Have you ever stopped to read some of the notes that are written in library books? As in annotation notes. Sometimes they are helpful, however, other times there are people who have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. This really makes me wonder what is going through their head as they read the book!

Anyway, this isn't the best example but it did spark this post today. The text of the book states:

What has emerged from this plethora of research? In the main, the scholars make a point of asserting Jesus' Jewishness, as reflected in such titles as Jesus the Jew (Vermes), Jesus and Judaism (Sanders), Jesus' Jewishness (Charlesworth) and A Marginal Jew (Meir), to take a few examples. A minority of scholars, however, emphasise Jesus' Hellenistic environment above Judaic. Here Jesus emerges as a teacher in the Cynic tradition (Downing, Mack, Crossan).. (Paul W. Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History. 16).

Now, imagine that text furiously underlined with large brackets. Next to those brackers is a note stating "not much solid evidence of him speaking Greek". The fact that this section was singled out probably indicates it is going to be a footnote in an essay somewhere. "As Barnett demonstrates in noting the minority of scholars placing Jesus within the Hellenistic cynic tradition, the evidence is not conclusive as to whether Jesus spoke Greek. The recent scholarship emphasisng Jesus' Jewishness would weigh against such a possibility." (Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History. 16.)

Ari is the Second Comin: A Creepy Youtube Message

I just checked an email from Youtube relaying a message I received. It didn't say much but:

Subject: Ari Emanuel, Second Coming
Body: Please visit www.Ari-Jesus-Second-Coming.com Thank You.

Now, the account doesn't mention my name anywhere so it seems to be a rather random message. But boy, am I creeped out. How often do you come across something mentioning 'Ari'?!? WHAT IS AN ARI ANYWAY? But it gets worse!

So, I am reading this weird website. Honestly, I am so confused right now. Can someone please explain what on earth this is on about?

The second coming is a Scandinavian, Dutch, German. He is intensely beautiful, he is the most beautiful!, he is the highest, he is an apex [this does sound like me]. He is the real angel that is sent by God to bring Christians home and help sanctify the world and he can and will do this. We are supposed to love the second coming and let him in our heart and let him in our person and this is how we can start to see Gods plan and can actually feel Gods love for us. We are supposed to let Ari the second coming in our body and this is the way God shows his love, It is very, very beautiful! It's perfect, it’s wonderful!
    Ari (the second coming) and Jesus are very close. But unfortunately and I do regret to inform you that at this point in time there is someone called an "ultimate blasphemer," it's a false Christ. It's a person that comes out of the body of the second coming and then pretends to be the messiah...an. We as Christians are supposed to love Jesus and the second coming Ari only, no one else!And this is God's true plan.

  I don't know exactly what to say about Ari, I think he is similar to Jesus, he is a giver, he is very respectful, he is honest, he is a hard worker. Ari is not trying to get over on people. He helps people even when it puts him out. Ari thinks that he is rich in other way's He thinks that he can simply go back into a fairy land where he loves himself and were people love him and he see's great joy. This is what makes him rich. Not really money. He's not trying to get over on people, that's the last thing this person would do.
    Ari is usually trying to help people.

JESUS AND ARI ARE THE ONLY WAY! Jesus and Ari are the bridge to God! The ultimate blasphemer destroys that bridge.

 Wait what?

Ari is the Messiah and this third person is not the Messiah, God did not make this third person the leader! 

Okay, now this is just blasphemy:

Ari is an apex, he is the highest! He is a extraordinarily beautiful person, he lives in ecstasy. Ari has an exquisite heart, it is very, very beautiful, It's hard to describe, It's the best! Ari is Jesus, and Ari is actually the Lord from heaven. Ari frees already saved Christians, that is what his purpose is. It is very, very nice. It is completely beautiful! Ari gives us freedom, Ari gives us something unbridled. Ari gives us something bold and glorious and beautiful!! It is very, very beautiful! I can't really describe how beautiful it is. You’re letting God into your body.

Prove Jesus Didn't Exist and win $1000!

I know, you're probably all thinking "Shutup with the Christ myth nonsense already, Ari!" but I couldn't resist. This was only just brought to my attention:

"The Mythicists’ Forum, a consortium of New Testament scholars, together with American Atheists, Inc.,
are pleased to announce the 2010 Mythicist Prize.

THE PRIZE:
The sum of $1,000 (U.S.) will be awarded to the author of a submitted essay which, in the opinion of the judges, sheds light on the origins of Christianity and, at the same time, supports the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist."

As far as I can work out, The Mythicists' Forum is a Yahoo group with four members. Maybe if we stretch the terms a bit we may very well have ourselves a "consortium of New Testament scholars" but I am not too hopeful. Anyway, the whole project of proving Jesus didn't exist for a cash prize reminds me a bit of Richard Carrier's request for ~$20,000 to write a book proving the already decided upon conclusion that Jesus didn't exist. It seems rather, well, self serving.

Thanks Chuck!

A few days ago I noticed a card sitting on the bench indicating there was a package waiting at the post office.. I assumed it was for someone else so I didn't worry about it. However, today my brother followed it up and there were two packages for me!

What was in there? Two books for me!

• The Churches the Apostles Left Behind- Raymond E. Brown
• Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus - ed. Michael Wilkins and J.P. Moreland

 These books were courtesy of Chuck over at A 'Goula Blogger. Thankyou so much for these books! I thought having a wishlist was only a place to dream.

Archaic Mark: A Story of A Modern Forgery

Over at the Evangelical Textual Criticism Blog Tommy Wasserman has written a great overview of the discussions regarding the so-called Archaic Mark manuscript. It really is worth the read, especially for those whose interest in forgeries has been tickled by the recent coverage of Secret Mark over at BAR.

The DaVinci Brick

Who has too much time on their hands tonight? I do!

The Brick Testament Code: Last Supper

James McGrath at Exploring our Matrix has unknowingly (God forbid he is part of the cover up as well!) linked to the truth about Jesus of Nazareth. For years, the Church has been hiding the facts of the matter! They have been tarnishing the image of Mary Magdalene (despite making her a saint, aye?) to hide her forbidden relationship with Jesus. You call it crazy? Well, here is more historical proof of the matter. Over at The Brick Testament we find the keepers of the secret leaving hints in their work!

Yeah, you tell me that's a man. We know better.

Quote of the Day - McKnight on Jesus and his Death

"We have established that Jesus thought he would die prematurely, in the providence of God, and would probably die at the hands of those who rejected his mission as a potential source of rebellion. It only makes sense that one who thought he would die, who on other grounds considered himself a prophet, also tried to make sense of that death. We can assume that Jesus did not think of his death as a sad tragedy or as a total accident of history. After all, Jesus could have escaped Jerusalem during the night; he could have avoided all public confrontation; and he could have worked harder to maintain his innocence." (Scot McKnight, Jesus and His Death :Historiography, the Historical Jesus, and Atonement Theory p.177)

I know, an odd quote to have for a few reasons. Firstly, I have posted it at the end of an older post. Secondly, it is a conclusion without a context!  But we  can pretend that is the point, right? To make you read the book and understand the cumulative argument!

From the 5th - 10th of November, Koorong is having a 20% off sale. What does that mean? I am going to needlessly buy more books at a slightly discounted price! But as I am generally tight, I must have a game plan on how to approach this!

Firstly, I have earlier noted some of the books I wanted to obtain within the new future. Sadly, the first two aren't stocked by Koorong! (On a related note, James McGrath just announced that a chapter 5 'Monotheism and Worship in the Book of Revelation' from his recent book The Only True God is now available online at the Butler University Digital Commons.)

So, my preference for this weeks book shopping:

•  Messiah: Jesus - The Evidence Of History  - Paul Barnett ($19.95 less 20%!)
• Jesus and The Rise Of Early Christianity - Barnett ($39.95) Scrap that, it's cheaper at fishpond!
  

Bargain Books:

• Paul And First-Century Letter Writing  Richards E Randolph.($7.95). I borrowed this book recently, got flooded by other work and never got past a few pages. Now I can hold onto it forever *evil laughs*
• He Came Down from Heaven - Douglas McCready  ($9.95). Christology is always fun!
  
• Jesus, Man or Myth? - Peter Carsten Thiede is only $2.95! It costs $2.95. Not much else needs to be said.

So, the plan is for easy reading. Well, that's probably because the 'academic' section isn't much more than easy reading. However, in reality I am probably going to leave with one of these books at best and impulse buy something which a 20% discount would actually make a difference for.

Oh look, I accidentally posted my Wishlist here.

Jesus did NOT Exist.

Following on from my last post regarding ridiculous 'internet scholar' arguments, I am going to attempt to coherently structure a Christ Myth (Jesus-non-existence) argument based only on arguments I have engaged in the past few days. Here it is:

"The fact of Jesus' non-existence is one which dominates the discussion of historical Jesus studies. Without a doubt, most reputable scholars such as Early Doherty, Acharya S and Professor G.A. Wells know this to be true. Those who disagree, such as John Dominic Crossan, James Dunn, Geza Vermes and Ed Sanders are simply unschooled conservative apologists of the Christian faith.

The arguments for this a clear. First of all, there is no early evidence for the existence of Jesus. Our earliest sources, Paul, whose works were composed by Marcion in the 140s make reference only to a spirit. This spirit did not exist in a time or place. It was not until the end of the second century that the gospels were invented to provide a myth to the person. Although some apologists state that Josephus made reference to Jesus, they are wrong because everyone knows that the mentions of Jesus in Josephs were 100% made up.

A great example of this is to examine the death of Jesus in the gospels. Most scholars such as Burton Mack have noted that until Mark there is no explicit mention of the crucifixion. Similarly, in the gospels Jesus' final words are different. Finally, Arrian is among many historians who did not mention Jesus' death or even if he existed. Similarly, in the various versions of the Lord's Prayer they are differrent. This proves that Jesus did not even say it. As even Christian scholars agree, there is no reason to believe Jesus was crucified at all let alone that he lived.

If we move to comparative mythology the case is made even stronger. As the scholar Acharya S notes in her books, the words Sun and son are very similar. Jesus was no more then the "sun of god"; a solar deity appropriated from Egyptian religion. Even Christians today mistake sun and son in their bibles. Jesus is therefore a myth just like the Egyptian sun god and did not exist.

The final argument to be presented is the stories of the apocrypha. The Gnostic gospels, which preceded the New Testament gospels contain stories that cannot always be harmonised with each other. This is just like the myth Hercules. Just because there are some similarities among different myths doesn't mean he existed, just like Jesus."

*waits for someone to cite this argument as legitimate "proof" of Jesus' non-existence"