The Gospels had myth added to them later

[zz912]

The story of Apollonius of Tyana is worth looking into–

truthbeknown.com/apollonius.html gives parallels in table form

also on Wikipedia, etc.–do a search on Apollonius

There are a ton of parallels to the life of Christ and/or Paul. So the question is: was his story based on that of Jesus and/or Paul, or vice versa? Or were they independent? Who wrote it? Why? Why did it die out–Christianity triumphed and it was suppressed?

I don’t think personally this invalidates the Gospels, but it does show that these sorts of ideas were “in the air” at the time. Again, watch “Life of Brian.”

I don’t think you can just ignore Apollonius or similar figures. You have to somehow account for them. I suspect maybe 1 in 1000 or fewer Christians is even aware of Apollonius.

Because he wasn’t really that influential. His influence is overstated based on a wish by opponents of Christianity who want to undermine the faith by inflating him above what he actually was.

And it’s funny how a work known to have been written in the 200’s was somehow the actual source upon which Jesus was drawn from, when the NT writings are all from the first century.

 

[ericc]

I believe the claim was that miraculous events were inserted into the Gospels – not the “canonical texts”.

And the evidence to lead you to such a belief?

In any case, I’m not seeing how two ambiguous references to “mighty works” performed by Paul in his letters – without a single reference to any of the many miracles performed by Jesus in the Gospels in those same letters – in any way demonstrates that the Gospel stories weren’t embellished. It may be that there was a tradition of Jesus’s miracle stories predating the Gospels, but it doesn’t appear to be found in the earliest extant Christian texts.

The appearance of Jesus to 500 brothers and to Paul himself is the greatest miracle seeing that Paul never met Jesus previously. Prior to that, Paul experienced first hand the power of Jesus on the road to Damascus. In ancient times, being an eye witness is so important to established fact. But Paul wasn’t an eye witness during the ministry of Jesus . Therefore he wouldn’t be able to cite eyewitnessing those miraculous events. However you will notice that Paul does cite his Damascus experience and the reappearance of Jesus. And Acts does cite several miracles performed by Paul. He blinded Elymas Acts 13:8-11. Acts 14:3, Paul did more wonders. Acts 14:10 cured a cripple. Acts 16:18 drove out a spirit, Acts 19:6 Paul laid his hands on believers and the HS came on to them and they spoke in tongues and prohesied, Acts 19:11-12 more miracles. Since Luke wrote both the Gospel and Acts, then you would also have to extend the accusation that all these miracles in Acts were invented as well as the ones in the Gospel of Luke. It would be unreasonable to say that the Luke invented the miracles in the Gospel and yet not the ones in Acts. Paul the servant can not be greater than his Master.

Furthermore there is no need for Paul to repeat boasting his miracles in his letters to the Churches he ministered since he spent extended time with them. 3 years in Ephesus alone and he did miracles there.

 

[annem]

mamlukman

Paul says almost nothing about Jesus. … To Paul it wasn’t important–if it were important, he would have put more of that type of information in his epistles.

When was the last time you wrote your friend, someone you’ve spent months, or years, with, and told him the story of your life? Why would you? Why wouldn’t they already know it?

Also, you seem to believe the truth about Jesus was past on by random memories, a little incident recalled here, a sentence there, and then finally the gospels sprouted out of this mishmash, perhaps some of it just made up. I think all the last 50-80 years of biblical scholarship into Second Temple Judaism, not to mention the Dead Sea scrolls, soundly refutes such an idea.

Paul was a Second Temple Jew who was steeped, drenched in the rules for passing on tradition. The words he used - ‘paradosis’ and ’ paradidonai’ - are technical terms, which any Jew would recognize instantly as meaning Paul was receiving and delivering real, binding, oral tradition. Just as Luke and John and Mark claimed to be passing on ‘paradidoniai’.

The ancient Romans and Greeks, and most especially the Jews, knew exactly how to pass on oral tradition. How to memorize vast amounts of knowledge, not to mention they frequently kept notes. We have lots of proof the ancients knew how to repeat oral traditions with breathtaking exactitude.

And we what we don’t hear about the gospels is also important. We don’t hear a single peep from anywhere, from anyone, complaining of a distortion in the gospels, even though the early Christians could hardly send a letter without complaining about immoral reception of the Eucharist, those holding to the early laws of Judaism, or rebukes for sinful behavior.

Look, there were people still alive who had lived through the events in Jerusalem, people who had heard from the apostles the truth of the life of Christ. And none of these people piped up if the gospels were chock full of lies???

My experience as a Catholic would argue this is an utter impossibility.

God bless Annem