tat tvam asi wrote:The apostles if they knew their testimony to the life of Christ and his resurrection was fabricated by them, would be extremely unlikely to be willing to suffer and die for a fabrication.
There is little evidence that they gained materially for their testimony but rather endured conflict and hostility from opponents.
I think the fulfilled prophecies are also good evidence for the truth of Christianity.
Where is the concrete evidence that these story line apostles were actually executed? Was any of it recorded by contemporary sources? Who can we say for certain died for their belief in the life of Christ and his resurrection as an immediate apostle?
Can you provide the burden of proof for these claims based on tradition that require a lot of assumption?
Robert Tulip wrote:There will never be evidence for Jesus and the twelve, except in the sky, with the sun and the twelve lunar months of the year. Jesus and the twelve symbolise the sun and the moon as allegorical parable.
Hi Tat. The essential difference between mythicists/astrotheologists and orthodox Christians is highlighted by Robert's bold assertion here.
The mythicist seeks to remove Jesus and the apostles from historic and human reality and place them in the realm of mythology. They were allegedly fictitious creations by gnostics,who made up stories as allegories of the sun and it's position in relation to constellations as depicted by astrology and the signs and houses of the zodiac.
But first I accept that the accounts of Peter and Paul's execution by Nero derive from tradition as does John's banishment to the Isle of Patmos.
Polycarp who was a disciple of John is cited for this in relation to John and the writer of Revelation who many scholars think was John,describes himself thus in Revelation 1:9.
Paul describes his hardships in 2 Corinthians 11 and Acts provides a narrative account of his journeys and conflicts as a missionary and his founding of churches.
We also know he wrote some of his letters while under house arrest in Rome,and while some letters are disputed by scholars Philippians is not,and this was one of those letters written while under house arrest in Rome.
http://www.compellingtruth.org/prison-epistles.html
This places Paul in Rome which scholars do not dispute,and we have Tacitus' account of the persecution and execution of Christians by Nero.
Acts also describes the flogging of Peter and John by the Sanhedrin. Of course you don't accept the historicity of Acts but nonetheless Paul clearly founded the church in Corinth as his letters attest and this is not disputed by scholars either.
One wonders how the mythicists explain this if Paul was not in fact a traveling missionary,and did not found many of these churches. Who did and how?
So the evidence for these apostles suffering for their testimony is there.
Next how do you make sense of Paul's going to Jerusalem and meeting with Peter and John about the gospel as described in Galatians, if they are signs of the zodiac and not real apostles and church leaders?
It is unequivocally asserted by Robert that Jesus and the twelve apostles will only be found in the sky as symbols of the sun and zodiac. So how does he make sense of Paul speaking of Peter and Barnabas and the right to marry in 1 Corinthians.
I've yet to get a clear answer to this.
This is certainly not the view of scholars including critical agnostics like Ehrman.
And if Peter and the apostles are historically non existent symbols of the zodiac I want to know what sign each one is, and how they are that particular sign?
DB Roy wrote:Carrier presents a pretty solid case. He is quite knowledgeable of the material. B.A. (History), M.A. (Ancient history), M.Phil. (Ancient history), Ph.D. (Ancient history) from UCB Berkeley and Columbia University would indicate he might know a thing or two about the subject matter. Maybe not as much as a laid off prison librarian with a Master's in Library Science from an unnamed college somewhere but Mr. Carrier's credentials are still nonetheless pretty impressive. He may be forced to speculate but he bases it on what he knows about that period and about the religions of that period.
Carrier does not make a solid case and follows Doherty's absurd non human Jesus and sub lunar crucifixion thesis. He badly twists Josephus' account of the execution of James the brother of Jesus called messiah.
Here's the extract from Josephus so you can judge for yourself.
https://clas-pages.uncc.edu/james-tabor ... hus-james/
And here Tim O' Neill shows why Carrier's thesis on the Josephus passage is not accepted by scholars but has sunk into deserved oblivion.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-cri ... n-Josephus
And here's a challenge for all you astro-theologists. It's considered by mythicists a first principle for interpretation of the gospels that Jesus spoke in parables to distinguish "elite initiates" from "ignorant masses"
The latter day 'elite initiates' know then the true hidden astrotheological meaning of these parables.
So here's the challenge for all you astrotheologists. Taking the passage from Mark 4 verses 1 to 20 please produce the true verse by verse astrotheological interpretation of this parable and the passage from verse 1 and to verse 20.
http://www.biblehub.com/niv/mark/4.htm
