The LINT Papers part 1 (disciples, hell, mythology, prophet)
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So decades ago, I stopped celebrating LENT and Easter, and over the years, have come up with some compelling arguments as to how the mythology around the Jesus story came about. I have posted some of these points on the Atheist and Agnostic forums over the years, but I decided to go ahead, as we are in the Lenten Season, to put together a more concise narrative
I use the term LINT because Lint is something we discard, or in our case, recycle.....Lent is a season where people are asked to give up something, in my case I gave up on celebrating Lent...
I would repost this on the A&A forum, but again, the regulars there would ask me to come up with something newer, as though a more concise narrative is not enough. Don't worry, I get the same thing on the Football forum each season as I recycle the same old L A Chargers jokes....
To look at the Jesus myth, I am ultimately going to show how the resurrection never happened, never did and never could. But to do that, I first have to show the 4 gospels as allegory and myth, rewritten to be symbolic of the Elijah/Moses stories of the Old Testament. And before I do that, I have to show the influence of Paul on the 4 gospels, and the influence of the Hellenistic Greek myths on the Hellenistic Jews of the Roman Times, and Finally, well, to discredit Paul, which I have done already. It is with that that I throw Paul out with the Lint......so to speak
Paul is the central Flaw in the entire Myth. now we know Paul to be a historic figure, scholars are in agreement of the validity of Paul's existence, although scholars do also admit that of the likely "Disciples" of Jesus, some may have been fictitious.
Paul is an interesting character. He was influenced by some of the Greek mythos (resurrection, such as Asclepius , Memnon, Achilles ) as well as a belief in Oracles, such as the Oracle at Delphi which was common at the time. For those unfamiliar, the Oracle at Delphi was n ancient Greek Shrine located in Pytho, sacred to the temple of Apollo. The high priestess would enter the Oracle, inhale the noxious gasses, suffer hallucinations, come out and tell everyone of her vision which resulted from the hallucinations, and then the people, the philosophers would accept whatever they were told as Devine intervention from the mind of Apollo....
That was the routine, although the Ancient Greeks new little about Chemistry and the presence of hallucinogenic gasses. Medical knowledge was not that far advanced. So the Hellenistic Jews, like Paul, who spoke Greek and carried the same superstitions for altered states, lacked the medical knowledge to classify and understand any type of aberrant mental behavior. Psychiatry would not develop until 1808 and up until then, hallucinations, vivid dreams, visions were frequently attributed to Devine intervention. The people of the time, superstitious as they were and ignorant of underlying medical causes of such, would often report a vivid dream as being "A sign from God or the gods."
SO we turn to Paul who wrote before the Gospels were penned, travelled throughout the area, and oddly, never met Jesus. So he claimed. I find it odd that if Jesus had been real, and had had "multitudes" of followers, and had been so influential for the three years that Paul was in his late 20's, certainly he would have heard of him or at least crossed paths with him. Interesting, that the supposed "Messiah" who was so well known according to 4 gospels, never fell onto Paul's Radar, and never became of an influence until Paul was noted to be present and approving of Stephen's stoning. But that is another topic. And here is where the psychology becomes more complex. A Psychiatry article published in 2012 talks about Paul's mood disorder, which bordered on psychotic, and ascribed Paul's hallucinations (visions of Jesus) as a result. I have however, long said, that is were more likely an Axis 3 diagnosis of Temporal Lobe Seizures which contributed to the visions. This has been mentioned by multiple neuroscientists.
But my point is, Whatever Paul hallucinated was just an hallucination. Dead people don't come talking to living people. Yes, people have dreams of dead people, I dream of my dead Grandfather frequently, but what I have are only dreams. Sure it makes for good horror stories, and it sells tabloids, but when we take the context of Paul being called by a dead Jesus, things like that do not happen. Especially if Jesus never was real in the beginning! But even if he was, he was dead, he never met Paul and while it makes for good fiction, it remains only fiction.
Looking on at Axis 4 and 5 (within the current DSM-V guidelines) We see that on Axis 4 that Saul/Paul had trouble fitting in . He is documented to be egotistical, which is a masking for his own self hatred and self inferiority, and he was described by some as a "rebel- Rouser" provoking the Pharisees and Sadducees to fight each other, irritating Romans and sowing discord wherever he went, according to ACTS. So we can see in an Axis 4 diagnosis, Paul had a very difficult time fitting in to society and the world. Which allows us to clearly give him a score of 3- to 40 on Axis5. 30: Behavior is considerably influenced by delusions or hallucinations or serious impairment in communication or judgment or inability to function in almost all areas
And that person, that "nutcase" is revered as a Saint today. All because of something he said and did under the scope of Mental illness.
When we were doing on of our required internships at the state Hospital we were working for the semester in the chronic psych ward. The Chronic ward was a long term care facility for repeat offenders, those who would never likely be able to function on their own, and were deemed safe enough for the most part to live in a congregate setting. The diagnoses were varied.
We had one elderly case who was Diagnosed with Psychogenic Fugue, which is now referred as a dissociative disorder but this was long ago, when a prior version of the DSM was in use. The patient was known to one day destroy all the artwork he made (he welded angel figures) and declared that they were blasphemous and graven images. He followed with poor self care, violent outbursts and threats to others, which landed him in the institution. He basically had a dissociative personality flip one day, for unknown reasons.
He would spend the day in the common room, walking around in circles, stopping to lift his eyes and right hand up at the ceiling, never talking or stopping. I had him in for a counseling session, he was not talkative and spoke very little, other to tell me of how evil and sinful the world is and how he must pray all day long, even to the point of self neglect. After the session, after he left, I told another intern "Well, read the Bible There's your Paul explained right there" We were corrected by a Senior Resident who told us that Paul was actually more of a complex case than this patient was. And he was right. Paul was a deeply disturbed, mentally ill person on so many levels. The other apostles did not even like him ! they did not even agree with what he said that Jesus said to him, and these were men who had supposedly lived with Jesus for three years, so they should have known what Jesus' taught......But along comes Paul, the bully, the abuser, the instigator, and the crazy man who people feared. And there was no treatment modality...no meds, no therapy, no help...no seizure meds, no mood stabilizers, no half way house......Just a lunatic spouting off that Jesus had talked to him and people better listen or else. and that Or Else scared a lot of desperate people, especially those who knew of the pleasure Saul took at the Stoning of Stephen.
So To look at the influence on the Gospels, much of it was forced by a man who was not in control of his senses. A man who lacked the mental capability to make the decisions he tried to make. A man who failed in society because of his inability to separate his illness, his hallucinations from reality. Keep that in mind next time you hear someone read something out of the Bible, written by Paul, and then ad "The word of our Lord"
More like "The word of a nutcase who we should not even waste time on"
In the next Lint Paper, I will talk some about Paul's influence on the 4 gospels, which are not history, are not eyewitness accounts, are the products of Hellenistic Jews who wrote in Greek, a language neither Jesus nor his followers taught, and are allegorical retelling of Old Testament Stories of Elijah and Moses, not literal or historical or even accurate accounts of Jesus' life and teaching. Rather they are symbolic allegorical stories written for a specific first century audience. Tune in next time to the Cat Channel for more Paul Bashing and Enlightening stories.
So decades ago, I stopped celebrating LENT and Easter, and over the years, have come up with some compelling arguments as to how the mythology around the Jesus story came about. I have posted some of these points on the Atheist and Agnostic forums over the years, but I decided to go ahead, as we are in the Lenten Season, to put together a more concise narrative
I use the term LINT because Lint is something we discard, or in our case, recycle.....Lent is a season where people are asked to give up something, in my case I gave up on celebrating Lent...
I would repost this on the A&A forum, but again, the regulars there would ask me to come up with something newer, as though a more concise narrative is not enough. Don't worry, I get the same thing on the Football forum each season as I recycle the same old L A Chargers jokes....
To look at the Jesus myth, I am ultimately going to show how the resurrection never happened, never did and never could. But to do that, I first have to show the 4 gospels as allegory and myth, rewritten to be symbolic of the Elijah/Moses stories of the Old Testament. And before I do that, I have to show the influence of Paul on the 4 gospels, and the influence of the Hellenistic Greek myths on the Hellenistic Jews of the Roman Times, and Finally, well, to discredit Paul, which I have done already. It is with that that I throw Paul out with the Lint......so to speak
Paul is the central Flaw in the entire Myth. now we know Paul to be a historic figure, scholars are in agreement of the validity of Paul's existence, although scholars do also admit that of the likely "Disciples" of Jesus, some may have been fictitious.
Paul is an interesting character. He was influenced by some of the Greek mythos (resurrection, such as Asclepius , Memnon, Achilles ) as well as a belief in Oracles, such as the Oracle at Delphi which was common at the time. For those unfamiliar, the Oracle at Delphi was n ancient Greek Shrine located in Pytho, sacred to the temple of Apollo. The high priestess would enter the Oracle, inhale the noxious gasses, suffer hallucinations, come out and tell everyone of her vision which resulted from the hallucinations, and then the people, the philosophers would accept whatever they were told as Devine intervention from the mind of Apollo....
That was the routine, although the Ancient Greeks new little about Chemistry and the presence of hallucinogenic gasses. Medical knowledge was not that far advanced. So the Hellenistic Jews, like Paul, who spoke Greek and carried the same superstitions for altered states, lacked the medical knowledge to classify and understand any type of aberrant mental behavior. Psychiatry would not develop until 1808 and up until then, hallucinations, vivid dreams, visions were frequently attributed to Devine intervention. The people of the time, superstitious as they were and ignorant of underlying medical causes of such, would often report a vivid dream as being "A sign from God or the gods."
SO we turn to Paul who wrote before the Gospels were penned, travelled throughout the area, and oddly, never met Jesus. So he claimed. I find it odd that if Jesus had been real, and had had "multitudes" of followers, and had been so influential for the three years that Paul was in his late 20's, certainly he would have heard of him or at least crossed paths with him. Interesting, that the supposed "Messiah" who was so well known according to 4 gospels, never fell onto Paul's Radar, and never became of an influence until Paul was noted to be present and approving of Stephen's stoning. But that is another topic. And here is where the psychology becomes more complex. A Psychiatry article published in 2012 talks about Paul's mood disorder, which bordered on psychotic, and ascribed Paul's hallucinations (visions of Jesus) as a result. I have however, long said, that is were more likely an Axis 3 diagnosis of Temporal Lobe Seizures which contributed to the visions. This has been mentioned by multiple neuroscientists.
But my point is, Whatever Paul hallucinated was just an hallucination. Dead people don't come talking to living people. Yes, people have dreams of dead people, I dream of my dead Grandfather frequently, but what I have are only dreams. Sure it makes for good horror stories, and it sells tabloids, but when we take the context of Paul being called by a dead Jesus, things like that do not happen. Especially if Jesus never was real in the beginning! But even if he was, he was dead, he never met Paul and while it makes for good fiction, it remains only fiction.
Looking on at Axis 4 and 5 (within the current DSM-V guidelines) We see that on Axis 4 that Saul/Paul had trouble fitting in . He is documented to be egotistical, which is a masking for his own self hatred and self inferiority, and he was described by some as a "rebel- Rouser" provoking the Pharisees and Sadducees to fight each other, irritating Romans and sowing discord wherever he went, according to ACTS. So we can see in an Axis 4 diagnosis, Paul had a very difficult time fitting in to society and the world. Which allows us to clearly give him a score of 3- to 40 on Axis5. 30: Behavior is considerably influenced by delusions or hallucinations or serious impairment in communication or judgment or inability to function in almost all areas
And that person, that "nutcase" is revered as a Saint today. All because of something he said and did under the scope of Mental illness.
When we were doing on of our required internships at the state Hospital we were working for the semester in the chronic psych ward. The Chronic ward was a long term care facility for repeat offenders, those who would never likely be able to function on their own, and were deemed safe enough for the most part to live in a congregate setting. The diagnoses were varied.
We had one elderly case who was Diagnosed with Psychogenic Fugue, which is now referred as a dissociative disorder but this was long ago, when a prior version of the DSM was in use. The patient was known to one day destroy all the artwork he made (he welded angel figures) and declared that they were blasphemous and graven images. He followed with poor self care, violent outbursts and threats to others, which landed him in the institution. He basically had a dissociative personality flip one day, for unknown reasons.
He would spend the day in the common room, walking around in circles, stopping to lift his eyes and right hand up at the ceiling, never talking or stopping. I had him in for a counseling session, he was not talkative and spoke very little, other to tell me of how evil and sinful the world is and how he must pray all day long, even to the point of self neglect. After the session, after he left, I told another intern "Well, read the Bible There's your Paul explained right there" We were corrected by a Senior Resident who told us that Paul was actually more of a complex case than this patient was. And he was right. Paul was a deeply disturbed, mentally ill person on so many levels. The other apostles did not even like him ! they did not even agree with what he said that Jesus said to him, and these were men who had supposedly lived with Jesus for three years, so they should have known what Jesus' taught......But along comes Paul, the bully, the abuser, the instigator, and the crazy man who people feared. And there was no treatment modality...no meds, no therapy, no help...no seizure meds, no mood stabilizers, no half way house......Just a lunatic spouting off that Jesus had talked to him and people better listen or else. and that Or Else scared a lot of desperate people, especially those who knew of the pleasure Saul took at the Stoning of Stephen.
So To look at the influence on the Gospels, much of it was forced by a man who was not in control of his senses. A man who lacked the mental capability to make the decisions he tried to make. A man who failed in society because of his inability to separate his illness, his hallucinations from reality. Keep that in mind next time you hear someone read something out of the Bible, written by Paul, and then ad "The word of our Lord"
More like "The word of a nutcase who we should not even waste time on"
In the next Lint Paper, I will talk some about Paul's influence on the 4 gospels, which are not history, are not eyewitness accounts, are the products of Hellenistic Jews who wrote in Greek, a language neither Jesus nor his followers taught, and are an allegorical retelling of Old Testament Stories of Elijah and Moses, not literal or historical or even accurate accounts of Jesus' life and teaching. Rather they are symbolic allegorical stories written for a specific first-century audience. Tune in next time to the Cat Channel for more Paul Bashing and Enlightening stories.
Sadly, I am all too familiar with the sad rationale underpinning this tirade having been one of the creators of the kind of quantitative instruments used by clinical psychologists and psychiatrists to glean clues into these states of mind. Even at the time I was contributing to this practice, I felt the tools would be misunderstood and were too dangerous to put in the hands of the average practitioner, let alone be used in the courts of this land to determine sanity or danger to society. I had no idea how prophetic my concerns were. Mea culpa.
Mental illness should be limited to those cases where a specific brain dysfunction or condition can be discovered. All the other diagnostic tools are simply not reliable enough to be given the credibility they are given. Their ability to predict to the individual is limited to those cases that are extreme enough into the tails of the distribution to be reliably detected which are few and far between. The ability to diagnose the mental state of an ancient ancestor from thousands of years ago is virtually nill - think non-existent and invalid population referents - KingCat, You should know better.
Last edited by MysticPhD; 02-20-2021 at 04:08 PM..
The witness I have seen was that I did receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit where God Spirit will find a dwelling on the believers spiritual space for all time ...... See God promises Jesus that after the killing He will come back and after that God would have an outpouring of His spirit to all who will seek God under His terms ...... So I am a witness of the outpouring of the Spirit, so this proves the resurrection and the cross of Jesus Christ .... So if they need to have a lentil fast leading up to Easter resurrection holiday than it alright by me
A nice post and pretty much spot on. I would only argue that (whatever freak - out that Paul had) his idea of taking Judaism and making it suitable for Gentiles was already in his head and he only needed a vision to validate it.
The sneering of Mystic and the faith -declarations of hijc are what we'd expect and need not concern us.
Now Mystic, Come on. you know that I cannot sit by and not point out that something I believe to be a sham is in fact a sham and I can show how it is a sham.
A nice post and pretty much spot on. I would only argue that (whatever freak - out that Paul had) his idea of taking Judaism and making it suitable for Gentiles was already in his head and he only needed a vision to validate it.
The sneering of Mystic and the faith -declarations of hijc are what we'd expect and need not concern us.
Your ignorance of the relevant science speaks from out of your nether regions yet again, Arq. KingCat knows his diagnosis has no validity using modern population referents but his atheism, like yours, seems to control everything. As Arach says, you think out of your specific negative belief about God and view everything through that prism, period. Objectivity will never find a home in your mind.
You carry on just as you do here, Mystic. You do more harm to yourself than you do to me.
You, my friend, are the only one concerned about harming theists here, Arq. I suspect it helps you sleep at night to demean them and their belief in God.
Paul is the central Flaw in the entire Myth. now we know Paul to be a historic figure, scholars are in agreement of the validity of Paul's existence, although scholars do also admit that of the likely "Disciples" of Jesus, some may have been fictitious.
.. I find it odd that if Jesus had been real, and had had "multitudes" of followers, and had been so influential for the three years that Paul was in his late 20's, certainly he would have heard of him or at least crossed paths with him. Interesting, that the supposed "Messiah" who was so well known according to 4 gospels, never fell onto Paul's Radar, and never became of an influence until Paul was noted to be present and approving of Stephen's stoning.
...
Pardon clips, but I wanted to focus on two points.
The question of whether the Gospel figures are real or mythical is a good one. Some have argued that Paul is an invention. Some claim that his letters were written by Marcion. I don't buy it. I don't think that Marcion would have used Judaism a a scriptural basis for the argument. And I also see a progression of Paul views reflecting circumstances. I am sure that Romans is his first work:- an exposition of his views and the later letters built on that. Originally he thought that Jesus was for the Gentiles and the law for the Jews. But later he argued that Jesus freed Jews from the law, too.
Initially (Romans) he argued that Jesusfaith would make converts sinless, but he soon found out that it only made them lawless. Instead of admitting had his promises and beliefs had failed, he begged them to play nice. This is a real person battling to keep his mission going as it falls apart, more so when (I suspect after talking to Peter and James) Jews came to undermine what he was teaching.
You couldn't make this guy up, as they say, and I think anyone who did would have done a more integrated job of it.
If he was real, so were the disciples, and if they were real, so was Jesus.
But evidently not the one that Paul was teaching. Not only did he have to write a paper explaining why God had empowered Jesus to redeem non -Jews without the Law, it seems clear that he was at odds with the Jews and these included the disciples. His initial fawning on them (while claiming himself a belated equivalent) turns into sneering at the 'super apostles'.
Paul says almost nothing about Jesus or his mission. Just that he was crucified. The belief that Jesus resurrected surely came from the disciples, and let the Believers make hay with that The one real gospel endorsement is repeating Jesus' words at the 'Last supper' on the night Jesus was 'handed over to the powers of darkness'. Which sounds like it supports the last supper and betrayal scenario. But the scene seems oddly ritualistic and I have my doubts about whether this (alone of all these supposed sayings of Jesus) was the only one he thought worth repeating.
But about the stoning of Stephen...when it comes to Acts, I have little or no doubts. It is a fake. A fraud. It was certainly written by Luke as a continuation of the gospel, which was altered from the original story to fit Paul's letters: the angel's message is what Jesus said in Galilee, not that he was going to Galilee. Because Luke wants Jesus to teach the disciples everything they need to know in Jerusalem, because Luke knows from Paul's letters that Jerusalem is where they stayed.
Indeed Acts is a biography of Paul using his letters to construct a tale of how the apostles passed over the mission to Paul. And Luke plays fast and loose with it, making the escape from Damascus Paul fleeing a Jewish plot rather than fleeing the Nabatean army (1). The talk with James and Peter is turned into a full -blown hearing before the apostles of the orthodoxy and the ones that weren't, with Peter acting as Paul's lawyer. Because a trial is nearly what it is portrayed as being. I have little doubt that Paul's account of a vision is turned by Luke into the road to Damascus event, universally accepted as a reliable event with all sorts of wrangles about what blinded Paul and what he heard, which to me is as missappiied as Mr A. N. Astronomer trying to explain the Bethlehem star when they are both made up stories. Trust me; I'm an atheist.
What's more is that it isn't just Paul's skimpy autobiographical references that Luke uses - he uses Josephus as well. Notably the speech of Gamaliel (linking the 'Census' aid the nativity with the revolt of Judas the Galilean and the Roman take -over 6 AD.) and the death of Herod Agrippa, only with the symbolic owl replaced by an angel. I suspect that odd killing of John is just Luke having the 'cup' that the sons of Zebedee swore they would drink, served up in Acts for one of them at least. Perhaps because Luke fears that the death of James might be the one in Josephus, so he skips over that.
Just as he skips over the resurrected Jesus appearing to Simon. Perhaps that's the reason for the walk to Emmaeus so Luke doesn't have to describe the appearance. He knows from Paul that Jesus appeared first to Simon. And he assumed that this was on the Sunday night. But it's not in the gospels, so he'll have to add it. But he doesn't dare describe it, as it might contradict an account he hasn't seen yet. No, I don't credit the stoning of Stephen or much of anything in Acts as being reliable.
(1) Paul's claim they were after him is ludicrous. I think that he - like a lot of others I suppose, fled the oncoming battle. Faith is one's resurrection is one thing, dying in a sacking of a city is another.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 02-20-2021 at 06:00 PM..
Pardon clips, but I wanted to focus on two points.
The question of whether the Gospel figures are real or mythical is a good one. Some have argued that Paul is an invention. Some claim that his letters were written by Marcion. I don't buy it. I don't think that Marcion would have used Judaism a a scriptural basis for the argument. And I also see a progression of Paul views reflecting circumstances. I am sure that Romans is his first work:- an exposition of his views and the later letters built on that. Originally he thought that Jesus was for the Gentiles and the law for the Jews. But later he argued that Jesus freed Jews from the law, too.
Initially (Romans) he argued that Jesusfaith would make converts sinless, but he soon found out that it only made them lawless. Instead of admitting had his promises and beliefs had failed, he begged them to play nice. This is a real person battling to keep his mission going as it falls apart, more so when (I suspect after talking to Peter and James) Jews came to undermine what he was teaching.
You couldn't make this guy up, as they say, and I think anyone who did would have done a more integrated job of it.
If he was real, so were the disciples, and if they were real, so was Jesus.
But evidently not the one that Paul was teaching. Not only did he have to write a paper explaining why God had empowered Jesus to redeem non -Jews without the Law, it seems clear that he was at odds with the Jews and these included the disciples. His initial fawning on them (while claiming himself a belated equivalent) turns into sneering at the 'super apostles'.
Paul says almost nothing about Jesus or his mission. Just that he was crucified. The belief that Jesus resurrected surely came from the disciples, and let the Believers make hay with that The one real gospel endorsement is repeating Jesus' words at the 'Last supper' on the night Jesus was 'handed over to the powers of darkness'. Which sounds like it supports the last supper and betrayal scenario. But the scene seems oddly ritualistic and I have my doubts about whether this (alone of all these supposed sayings of Jesus) was the only one he thought worth repeating.
But about the stoning of Stephen...when it comes to Acts, I have little or no doubts. It is a fake. A fraud. It was certainly written by Luke as a continuation of the gospel, which was altered from the original story to fit Paul's letters: the angel's message is what Jesus said in Galilee, not that he was going to Galilee. Because Luke wants Jesus to teach the disciples everything they need to know in Jerusalem, because Luke knows from Paul's letters that Jerusalem is where they stayed.
Indeed Acts is a biography of Paul using his letters to construct a tale of how the apostles passed over the mission to Paul. And Luke plays fast and loose with it, making the escape from Damascus Paul fleeing a Jewish plot rather than fleeing the Nabatean army (1). The talk with James and Peter is turned into a full -blown hearing before the apostles of the orthodoxy and the ones that weren't, with Peter acting as Paul's lawyer. Because a trial is nearly what it is portrayed as being. I have little doubt that Paul's account of a vision is turned by Luke into the road to Damascus event, universally accepted as a reliable event with all sorts of wrangles about what blinded Paul and what he heard, which to me is as missappiied as Mr A. N. Astronomer trying to explain the Bethlehem star when they are both made up stories. Trust me; I'm an atheist.
What's more is that it isn't just Paul's skimpy autobiographical references that Luke uses - he uses Josephus as well. Notably the speech of Gamaliel (linking the 'Census' aid the nativity with the revolt of Judas the Galilean and the Roman take -over 6 AD.) and the death of Herod Agrippa, only with the symbolic owl replaced by an angel. I suspect that odd killing of John is just Luke having the 'cup' that the sons of Zebedee swore they would drink, served up in Acts for one of them at least. Perhaps because Luke fears that the death of James might be the one in Josephus, so he skips over that.
Just as he skips over the resurrected Jesus appearing to Simon. Perhaps that's the reason for the walk to Emmaeus so Luke doesn't have to describe the appearance. He knows from Paul that Jesus appeared first to Simon. And he assumed that this was on the Sunday night. But it's not in the gospels, so he'll have to add it. But he doesn't dare describe it, as it might contradict an account he hasn't seen yet. No, I don't credit the stoning of Stephen or much of anything in Acts as being reliable.
(1) Paul's claim they were after him is ludicrous. I think that he - like a lot of others I suppose, fled the oncoming battle. Faith is one's resurrection is one thing, dying in a sacking of a city is another.
wow ... just wow.
atheist theology fighting theist theology. Its quite embarrassing.
Trans ... it aint a good question. The bible is a set of stories. End of story. You sound like you are convincing yourself.
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You carry on just as you do here, Mystic. You do more harm to yourself than you do to me.
The one real gospel endorsement is repeating Jesus' words at the 'Last supper' on the night Jesus was 'handed over to the powers of darkness'. Which sounds like it supports the last supper and betrayal scenario. But the scene seems oddly ritualistic and I have my doubts about whether this (alone of all these supposed sayings of Jesus) was the only one he thought worth repeating.
