The bible and friendships (myth, churches, gospels, quote)

[lifesprecious09]

what does the bible say about friendships, cuz it didn't appear that Jesus had many real friends. What say you?

[Rafius]

I say, show objective, verifiable evidence of his existence, then we can go on to discuss his friends.

[Thomas R.]

In the Gospel of John Jesus speaks of the Apostles as friends. John 15:13-15 says

"Greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do the things that I command you. I will not now call you servants: for the servant knows not what his lord does. But I have called you friends because all things, whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you."

I think by implication his relationship to the women in other Gospels is a kind of friendship.

Originally Posted by Rafius

I say, show objective, verifiable evidence of his existence, then we can go on to discuss his friends.

Nonsense. People can and do discuss the friends/associates of Achilles, King Arthur, Don Quixote, Sherlock Holmes, and so forth.

[TRANSPONDER]

Interesting point. And I take your comment Thos. (incidentally, take care of the ribs, mind).

The Biblical term 'friend' seems to be tweaked as does the term family and neighbour, in the Gospels. They are reflecting the idea that the only friends, neighbours or family a Christian can really have are fellow belivers. We see this time and again in the gospels where brother, sister and parents are to be treated as outsiders if not enemies is they are not belivers in the jesus- claims.

And where do we find the origins of this? In Paul, who urged his church members to distance themselves from the unbelievers. Not, true, as vehemently as did the later Christians who wrote the gospels, but with the idea of keeping pure for the imminent (he thought, wrongly) second coming.

Having said that, the Jesus of the gospels had an odd attitude towards his 'Friends'. Tirades are not uncommon. Peter he awards the keys of heaven at the same time as saying that the devil was prompting him. Strikes me as a bit unbalanced. Especially as he (supposedly) knew that his friends had been selected for one purpose - to show their 'friendship' by laying down their lives - for him.

In fact, the Gospel Jesus reminds me a bit of Napoleon. He loved his troops though he could go into a carpet- chewing rage if they did not come up to his expectations. Those being to die in thousands for him. And, if they were of no more use to him, he could abandon them to shift for themselves and die, for all he cared.

And yet, I see a shadowy portrait of a Jewish Jesus hidden under the overpainting with 'Jesus, the Christian god' by the School of Rome. A Jesus whose mission was vey much bound up with his family and followers who were always around despite the apparent gospel brush - offs. That's one reason why I think there may be a real Jesus story, but not a Christian one.

[lifesprecious09]

Originally Posted by Rafius

I say, show objective, verifiable evidence of his existence, then we can go on to discuss his friends.

[Goodpasture]

Originally Posted by Rafius

I say, show objective, verifiable evidence of his existence, then we can go on to discuss his friends.

Josephus mentions him in his history of the Jewish wars. If Jesus were something made up by someone like Constantine, there would have been no contemporary references to him.

King Arthur is largely myth.......so much so that even his era is in question. Jesus on the other hand has been pin pointed in a specific age. If he did not exist, show when and where this "myth" was created.

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by Goodpasture

Josephus mentions him in his history of the Jewish wars. If Jesus were something made up by someone like Constantine, there would have been no contemporary references to him.

There are none. The nearest is Tacitus reporting what the Christians said about him. The Josephan testament in the Jewish war (1) can be shown to be a later insertion and reference to James, 'brother of Jesus' (in the Antiquities) is now also shown to relate to a different James entirely.

King Arthur is largely myth.......so much so that even his era is in question. Jesus on the other hand has been pin pointed in a specific age. If he did not exist, show when and where this "myth" was created.

I do take your point however about the pintpointing in a particular time. Perhaps, like Arthur, a comites of the post Roman defence force, has been expanded into a mythical king, not one percent of the tales about which are true. So also a Jewish Jesus, nailed up by Pilate (as reported by Tacitus) has been expanded by Paul into a risen messiah and by the evangelists into a divine being in his lifetime and by the later churches into a god. Not one percent of which is true.

(1) I thought it was, though I am always hearing it placed in the Antiquities.

[Rafius]

Originally Posted by Goodpasture

Josephus mentions him in his history of the Jewish wars.

No he doesn't. It's a known forgery.

If Jesus were something made up by someone like Constantine, ....

Nothing to do with Constantine. Constantine was very astute politically. He saw a way of uniting Rome under one religion. He didn't actually give a fig WHAT religion, (that was for the Bishops to fight about), just as long as it was one religion.

there would have been no contemporary references to him.

There aren't any anyway. The Testimonium Flavianus, even if it is not a forgery is still not contemporaneous. Josephus wasn't even born when your man-god was alleged to have been here. Of the historians who WERE contemporaneous to the man-god, those alive at the same time and even living in the same areas as these earth-shattering 'miracles' were taking place, never once mentioned anything about them, though they recorded events in Palestine that were far less important than some dude walking on water and raising people from the dead.

King Arthur is largely myth.......so much so that even his era is in question. Jesus on the other hand has been pin pointed in a specific age.

Well so has Zeus and Mithra, Dionysus, Horus and a myriad of other 'gods'. They can all be pinpointed to a certain age. Do you accept that as proof that they existed?

If he did not exist, show when and where this "myth" was created.

Paul/Saul of Tarsus. Palestine. Mid 1st century CE.

[rifleman]

Originally Posted by Goodpasture

Josephus mentions him in his history of the Jewish wars. If Jesus were something made up by someone like Constantine, there would have been no contemporary references to him.

King Arthur is largely myth.......so much so that even his era is in question. Jesus on the other hand has been pin pointed in a specific age. If he did not exist, show when and where this "myth" was created.

Yeah. It's been made sooo much easier for Jesus, especially, given that all the authors had literally a free hand for centuries to "adjust" timelines, facts, chronologies, etc. It still does not hide some glaring inconsistencies.

I didn't even think to question his existence or the greater myth until about 10 years ago, when I happened across and read a very convincing well-developed and extensively researched chronology and historical perspective on the man(or myth). Turns out, IMHO, he was most likely a myth. A very marketable one to be sure.

There's a better & more believable chronology for "Mr. Frodo Baggins", and they haven't even had to adjust anything!
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BTW, perhaps off topic, but then again perhaps not: the bible per se, and specifically, dealt a long-term successful friendship I had a mortal blow when the other guy solemnly intoned, with almost a slight emotional choke-up in his overly sincere tone, sitting one evening around the wilderness campfire, that "There had to be something more in this life."! and then proceeded, despite my denigrating mutterations, to produce his brand-new bible and to read, in that dim light, a few biblical passages he thought germane to our friendship and life in general.

Longish story v. short: He and I soon parted company & friendships. Forever. Literally everything had some biblical significance and interpretation for this guy, and he always seemed wound tighter than a cheap watch. He even promised that if I were to attend his church with him, it would sooth, indeed likely cure, my then new arthritic condition. As if there are thus no arthritic Christians. Hah. All that time, I'd always thought he was a calm, logical and critical-thinking sort of fellow.... Well, under all of that, he apparently harbored some deep-seated psychological needs that rational thought could not sooth. So he turned to that great mindless soother, religion, for his relief.

[Thomas R.]

Find contemporary references to any spiritual figure from the lower classes in that era. It'll be difficult if not impossible. In the later Han dynasty, a century after Christ in China, various peasant religious movements arose and came to rule areas of land. The only things we know of them are from official, and therefore opposed, sources. We have almost nothing real on their founders and that's if we have anything real at all. That they existed is not doubted by any credible person I'm aware of. Many of the religious movements of peasants in Rome are not thoroughly understood or their founders semi-legendary.

Pliny the Younger mentions Christians in 112 AD. Pliny was clearly not a member and does not view them with sympathy. Christian writings I believe are confirmed to exist from as early as 60 AD. People from the era they placed Jesus would have been alive then. Possibly a few would have even been so in 112. (It was rare, but not impossible for someone to live to be 90 if they survived childhood diseases) I think it's unlikely that a religion would evolve around a fictional character, one given an actual time-line rather than a "far away and long ago", that fast. Or at least I'd like to see an example of that happening.

History, even archaeology, is not math or physics. If you need absolute certainty to believe in an ancient person than pretty much stop believing in the existence of a lot of them right now. Outside a reference from Aristophanes what makes Socrates real? Maybe he's a fictional character that Aristophanes made from a composite of people? Or Pythagoras or whatever. Even if these are bad examples the names I'm naming were a tad more upper-class. I'm sure with research I could come up with some historical common laborer whose existence you can also dismiss as not science.