Of course, this garbage once not forced down children's developing minds will due and mankind will be infinitely better, too many sheep are being brainwashed by this garbage
“Religions are divisive and quarrelsome. They are a form of one-upmanship because they depend upon separating the “saved” from the “damned,” the true believers from the heretics, the in-group from the out-group… All belief is fervent hope, and thus a cover-up for doubt and uncertainty.” ~ Alan Watts
Given how effective the internet has been in promoting falsity, and how easily people accept false claims, we cannot rule out the possibility that the gospels themselves are, in essence, fake, and created to promote particular agendas.
@@travis1240 It became apparent to me when I left the Church that the Bible is a group of books of Parables. And Revelations was an apocalyptic treatise on the fall of Rome. Unfortunately, neither preachers nor politicians cars for the truth.
It must be frustrating to be an accomplished scholar sharing the results of hard-won knowledge after countless hours of study, only to have the comment area full of feedback about your appearance.
She knows what she's doing. This story wouldn't have half the views if her picture wasn't shown. Get their attention with a hot chick and hope they stay for the video.
She's so bloody charming! Looking forward to getting her book...eventually! (It's a long list, but in terms of Christianity, hers is right at the top.)
This is a new channel to me, I’m guessing the RUclips algorithm served this video to me as a fan of Mythvision? Prof Walsh was a guest there, so thanks be to El Algorithm for providentially making me find this treasure
@@axlegrind4212 The reason that it has Gnostic tones is because it was written around a time reap with gnostic gospels so it had to provide much more details than the Synoptic Gospels. So if anything the Gospel of John is most heavily vetted of the Gospels.
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them. "This is the disciple[whom Jesus loved/ Lazarus] which testifieth of these things, AND WROTE THESE THINGS: and we[Apostles] know that his testimony is true." John 11:5 Now Jesus LOVED Martha, and her sister, and LAZARUS John 11:3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him{Jesus], saying, Lord, behold, HE[Lazarus] WHOM THOU LOVEST is sick.. John11:36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he[Jesus] LOVED him[Lazarus]!
Thanks for this interview! The information is compelling and well presented. NT origins has always confused me and this video has given me a much to consider and clarifying Q theory & Roman influence.
This is the second video that I've viewed in which Professor Walsh talks about the production of the gospels, and like the first, she has very little to tell us other than that the authors were literate and had access to money needed to purchase papyrus and ink. She says nothing about who the authors were in terms of ethnic group, what motivated them to write the gospels, and from where they got their stories.
It's unlikely that the human known as Yeshua bet Yosef (Joshua son of Joseph -- the name "Jesus" is a complete invention: his name was Joshua) was completely invented. The simplest answer is that he was likely an apocalyptic and cultic "latter day" Jewish preacher who was killed, likely on a cross. Apocalyptic "latter day" preachers were growing in common back then. The oppression of the state of Palestine and Roman conquest were vital ingredients in making this happen in that era. That is: Jesus was a product of the times and circumstances. Call it "the Roman Hippy movement" After he died, the next two generations of early Jewish/Christians emerged as panegyrics of Jesus's works and they added significant miracles to him rather rapidly. This shouldn't be such a surprise: this is precisely how religions are formed. It happened in Islam. It happened in Judaism. It has happened in every other "wondrous, miraculous" event in human history. A giant fish story. After his death, his followers had to be stunned that the "God" and/or messiah was suddenly gone (though not all early Christians believed him to be God or the Son of God, but that argument for another time). As such, they were forced to reconcile their beliefs with their desire to keep their faith going (some were mourning, some saw the possibility of their "movement coming to an end"; some likely craved more power, but most probably just loved what had started and desperately wanted it to continue). This happened in an era of mysticism -- a time where people lacked any "media" to corroborate reports; no scientific method; a strong inclination to believe in sea monsters, imps, Minotaurs and other mythological creatures to explain the un-explainable. Frankly, given all possible wonders that could have been attributed to him, Jesus's "miracles" are pretty meh. Christians love to fall back on the sui generis nature of Jesus's message and miracles as demonstrating that, "There's simply no way this could be made up!" "It's just too good to have been invented!" "Romans and Palestinians in that era were more sophisticated than that to just buy into any old tale!" Which is the kind of rhetoric people -- already in agreement with a thing -- echo back to each other in knitting circles. One need ONLY look at all the other religions invented throughout human history -- from the grotesque to the sublime -- to realize that there really is no limit to the power of the human imagination. And while the story of Jesus is original (Duh! What else did you expect? Nothing is ever exactly the same as anything else), nothing attributed to him was really that original or unique or surprising. The locals (to Palestine) were people who believed in partings of seas, pillars of clouds, lightning bolt throwing gods, half-human-half-goat creatures . . . but sure, they'd never buy that a man could raise the dead or turn water into wine. As Hitchens said, "Given that people saw ghosts, demons and people coming back from the dead in this era, this in no way points to the divinity of Christ because it seems to have been pretty commonplace back then." (tongue-in-cheek intended) Religion has a long history of driving people to hysterics and just as well, they -- like the followers of Islam and Mormonism -- saw fit to attribute many amazing things to their messiah/prophet. "An illiterate man magically writing the Quran", "A commoner taking gold plates from one of God's angels." None of the miracles attributed to Jesus can be corroborated (by any account) outside of the Bible, which itself is its own circular evidence: Christians say the Bible is right because the Bible says that God said its right. Kind of silly. We have no way of knowing who added what, but scientifically we know of no instance of any supernatural event that withstood scientific inspection. We do, however, have a very rigorously observed model within human psychology and sociology how religions and miracles come into common belief. Human desire for belief in something bigger than themselves is extremely powerful. Likewise our ability to warp our own memories and observations is equally powerful (that is: we can actually see things we desperately want to see). My boss's mother died a year ago. As her mother withered away from cancer, she said to her children, "When you see yellow butterflies, you'll know I've made it to heaven." Within a week they all saw yellow butterflies. My boss -- a passionate Catholic -- was very emotional at having seen the butterflies. She didn't just see "one or two" she saw them everywhere. We all know what happened: (a) Yellow butterflies (and moths) are pretty common in Ohio in the fall. (b) Even vaguely yellow-ish looking butterflies/moths now were lumped into it. (c) Even non-butterflies and moths were incidentally converted to being butterflies (small pieces of paper, leaves, -- at a distance). Her brain was sensitized to the "yellow butterflies" and that's what she saw. Promptly after Christ's death, the inner circle heaped miracles upon him. Desperate to replace this irreplaceable thing in their hearts, desperate to get others to share their euphoria over their beliefs -- they and their close associates "remembered great things done by Christ". The message grew. Within two generations, the story grew to accommodate the core beliefs: Jesus was born of a virgin. He didn't really die on the cross, he came back to life and preached to them for a period of time and ascended into heaven. He walked on water. He turned water into wine. He fed the masses with loaves and fishes. And why not? This is exactly what you'd expect from a growing faith dependent upon the magic of their messiah. By the time people started writing their "visions" of what happened, the core story solidified and more than two generations had passed without much of anything having been written but having been passed around by word of mouth! Additional information still took a full century to be created, but the story of Christ the Son of God was set. Nevertheless, we have records of many divergent "letters" written by early Christians. Later on, during the sundry synods, in particular the Synod of Hippo, the convening authorities began to coalesce around a specific set of doctrines. Ostensibly with the "guidance of the Holy Spirit" (but more likely out of political drive to create a uniform practice that suited their leaders' beliefs).
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them. "This is the disciple[whom Jesus loved/ Lazarus] which testifieth of these things, AND WROTE THESE THINGS: and we[Apostles] know that his testimony is true." John 11:5 Now Jesus LOVED Martha, and her sister, and LAZARUS John 11:3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him{Jesus], saying, Lord, behold, HE[Lazarus] WHOM THOU LOVEST is sick.. John11:36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he[Jesus] LOVED him[Lazarus]!
Anybody can say anything on the internet.T.he consensus of scholarship even modern scholarsjip is thatthereare r gospels Nonody has ever gound what you call the original gospel.
@@ptk8451 Original Gospel's are found but the Vatican hides them away. Nevertheless I have taken the 4 Gospels and have reconstructed them back together again as one and have published it. Modern scholarship are Satanic lies.
One thing to consider…Herod Agrippa’s role in the Proclaimation of the initial Evangelion. Even in the Commodan-era NT, it is still possible to see Herod Agrippa’s relatives, especially the female ones, in key roles. It should especially be noted that Caesarea Phillippi was a Herodian palace area. In that period, zealots would have been unwelcome, and I’m sure it was heavily-guarded. The only anointed that would be talked about there would be…the owner of that palace. Perhaps we should consider that first drafts of an initial Evangelion were made IN that palace between 66 and 70 c.e. One thing though, about the initial product in the immediate post-70 c.e. momemt…was there a liturgical component, and was it kept more by the Samaritans? Then we should be looking at Mimar Marqeh amd examining when it was REALLY written…fourth century or late-first. “Paul” in relation to this…Book Four of the Mimar. Discussion by “Marqe” (Mark/Mark Julius Herod Agrippa of “Tamym PO’OLO”…”perfect work.” Just listening to the discussion on the video about the second century nature of the “gospels.” I would suggest they were written after 147 HEGESSIPUS. I’ve lost the ability to think of a genuine “Josephan” history set any more, because 147 c.e. Hegessipus raises too many questions of whethe much of the “Josephan” corpus was forged BY Hegessipus. I would contend it was Justus of Tiberias’ histories that were genuine…and much of Josephus could be forged (147 c.e.) by simply plagiarising Justus’ works…and changing some key details.
@@solomonlee4503 nice to see someone recognising the possibility of plagiarism. For “four gospels,” first we might have to look at the LONG work preceding them as the key plagiarism (and alteration) of an initial Euangelon. In Syriac regions, the long work is known around 160s/170 c.e., but the “four” only start turning up around 200 c.e. earliest. I’ve never liked the LONG work as a “harmony,” it is more likely the PRECURSOR to “four.” The long work is very noticeably just after Hessipus and Justin. The mid-2nd century as the first time any of it is really heard of “publically” in the broader empire, outside Iudea and Alexandria. I find Lucian’s Passing of Peregrinus Proteus may be more accurate about what is happening mid-2nd century…that a forger/huckster with aliases is operating, one essentially whose TOTAL career Irenaeus could later turn into “early church fathers.” That still leaves us to ponder the initial Euangelon BEFORE such a figure started prolific writing. What the Samaritans and those at Alexandria went by BEFORE mid-2nd century, back to 70 c.e.
I have not read Professor Walsh's book, but it does sound very intriguing and original. As she outlines her theory in this video however there is an objection that might be raised to it. Her view of education and material status is out of step with recent scholarship in Classical studies. Her supposition that philosophy was restricted to a very narrow group of people (or a similar such phrase) is out of date. There has been a lot of research recently paid in classical studies to highlighting how philosophical themes had a wider audience than previous generations of scholars anticipated. For example, James E. G. Zetzel "Philosophy Is in the Streets" notes how a lower type of philosophical documents were prevalent in Roman society, but hardly any are now extant. There were epitomized texts that distributed philosophical ideas to barely literature people, Erlend MacGillivray "Philosophical Epitomes and the Critique of Epicurean Popularizers.” Journal of Ancient History 3.1: 22-55, Johan Thom “Popular Philosophy in the Hellenistic-Roman World.” Early Christianity 3.3: 279-95, and Horster, Marietta and Christiane Reitz. 2011. Condensing Texts, Condensed Texts. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Also a significant monograph that would undercut most of Professor Walsh's book is Professor Brian J. Wright's "Communal Reading in the Time of Jesus: A Window into Early Christian Reading Practices", as would the work of Jaclyn Maxwell. A good case study on how lower-class reception of Stoic philosophy manifested itself in Pauline communities with semi-literature people is Tim Brookin's "Corinthian Wisdom, Stoic Philosophy, and the Ancient Economy". Actually his thesis would, like Wright's, undercut Walsh's understanding of social class and reception of philosophy and Christianity. Also her point regarding elite Romans who did not write out codices of philosophy is, as she outlines it in the video anyway, wrong. Epictetus' "Discourses" were based upon Arrian of Nicomedia's own lecture records. She maybe addresses this in her book, but if she does not it would be a significant problem for one of the plank's of her arguments.
I think there’s a massive overcorrection going on with her arguments. She talks about the authors being infantalized but she’s exalting them and infantalizing everyone who couldn’t write in the process. These guys weren’t an island unto themselves, they were absolutely interacting with already existing ideas about who Jesus was. Her model seems to assume they created him from scratch out of popular literature.
Wonderful exchange. I appreciate that what we've learned in formative years as Christians was myth rather than history. I say that as a person who eventually earned a degree with a major in American history. I find it fascinating to learn about this historical period. I've not heard about Roman literature in relationship to the gospels. Thanks for this video. I expect I'll return again. There is much to learn. Professor Walsh is refreshing.
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them. "This is the disciple[whom Jesus loved/ Lazarus] which testifieth of these things, AND WROTE THESE THINGS: and we[Apostles] know that his testimony is true." John 11:5 Now Jesus LOVED Martha, and her sister, and LAZARUS John 11:3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him{Jesus], saying, Lord, behold, HE[Lazarus] WHOM THOU LOVEST is sick.. John11:36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he[Jesus] LOVED him[Lazarus]!
@@termination9353 I find all this pretty sketchy. I am surprised that you don't as well. It is based on theory that Lazarus is the "disciple whom Jesus loved." Now, there are some scholars that make that connection, but I am puzzled, if John is not the disciple whom Jesus loved, where is John? He is not named anywhere in the gospel. Why? In all the other gospels he is one of the inner circle of Peter, James, and JOHN. In John 21 this disciple whom Jesus loved appears to be one of the inner circle. In no other gospel is Lazarus mentioned as one of then twelve. In, fact he is not mentioned at all. It would seem that John the Apostle fits far better the description. And "we know that his testimony is true." You ascribe this to the other Apostles. Yet it sounds more like the author of the book who is speaking. Virtually everyone believes the other Apostles were all dead by the time the Gospel of John was written. In any event, you have to do too many logical cartwheels to arrive at the conclusion you have.
@@doncamp1150 "where is John? He is not named anywhere in the gospel." Luke 9:54 54 When the disciples James and JOHN saw this, they asked, "LORD, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" "It is based on theory that Lazarus is the "disciple whom Jesus loved." What part of the Gospel testimony OUTRIGHT TELLING YOU "John 11:5 Now Jesus LOVED.....LAZARUS" do you not understand? " In no other gospel is Lazarus mentioned as one of then twelve." The Twelve were named Apostles not disciples. Jesus had many disciples but only 12 Apostles. Whom Jesus loved is always referred to as a disciple not as an Apostle. Lazarus WAS a disciple. It never says the beloved of Jesus was of the 12 Apostles. In fact it says that disciple is EXCLUDED from being one of the 12. "And "we know that his testimony is true." You ascribe this to the other Apostles. Yet it sounds more like the author of the book who is speaking." - Follow the whole sentence. The 'author' is the singular 'he' that the plural 'we' is is telling you 'his/author/Lazarus' is accurate/true. 'We' is plural for the Apostle witnesses and 'he' is singular for the scribe who is writing down and arranging the Apostles' deposition testimony of Jesus' ministry. "you have to do too many logical cartwheels to arrive at the conclusion you have." - Other way around. It is you who has to perform conceptual cartwheels to deny that the Gospel testimony doesn't say that Lazarus is the disciple whom Jesus loved and that Lazarus is the one who wrote a SINGLE 'Gospel' in consultation with the Apostles who Jesus chose specifically with the task of witnessing and reporting on his Gospel New Covenant ministry.
Is it possible that the aristocracy wasn’t Christian because they made the entire thing up in order to suppress Jewish revolt and control the direction with a messiah?
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them. "This is the disciple[whom Jesus loved/ Lazarus] which testifieth of these things, AND WROTE THESE THINGS: and we[Apostles] know that his testimony is true." John 11:5 Now Jesus LOVED Martha, and her sister, and LAZARUS John 11:3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him{Jesus], saying, Lord, behold, HE[Lazarus] WHOM THOU LOVEST is sick.. John11:36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he[Jesus] LOVED him[Lazarus]!
Holy cow, she's smart! If only intelligence (and skepticism about ancient fables) was more widely and equitably distributed, our current political circumstance might be different.
Yes, it's refreshing to have smart people look at religious scriptures from the angle of reality, i.e. organised people of some political power and resources took some favored myths and committed them to paper, for political reasons.
@@jaromsmiss Probably lot more people (especially Jews) would be here. Anti-semitism started with the lie in the Gospels that Pilate/the Romans were blameless for Jesus's crucifixion. In fact, Pilate was ultimately recalled by Rome for the cruelty he was inflicting on Palestine. But when you say "no religion", I'm not sure what you're suggesting. Morality and ethics existed before there was Christianity. Ancient Greece was incredibly advanced in many ways, which Alexander and his successors spread throughout the ancient world, and Rome in turn spread around Europe. Professor Walsh refers to stoicism a number of times. Emperor Marcus Aurelius wasn't Christian. It's an interesting counterfactual, but it's impossible to say how things would be different.
Koine Greek is a very simplified evolution compared to classical Greek. The simplification was due to the expansion of Alexander's empire and the use of Greek by many different nations ruled by the Diadochi. Among the said nations were the Hebrews. The hellenisation of the Hebrews is well documented both by Hebrews and Greeks. We knows that the Torah was translated into Greek allegedly by 70 hebrew scholars. We also know that there were traditionalist Hebrews who fought against the hellenisation of their nation, such as the Maccabees. There is nothing absurd in the idea that educated Hebrews spoke and wrote koine greek and were influenced by classical education after living under Greek influence for 320 years. That's also why some of the apostles have greek names : Andreas, Phillipos, Mattheos and even latin names such as Marcus.
Yup. It was likely far more common to have educated Hebrews familiar with koine and classical education as well as the Hebrew Bible than it would be for even classical Greek or Roman scholars to know the holy books of a minority religion like the Jews. The Septuagint was created because even among educated Jews there were more who read Greek than Hebrew.
Ironic to consider people who discuss God while I discuss things with God people who blame the world's problems on religion while God solves all my problems people who doubt the miraculous while I rely on miracles people who believe so many "scientific" myths but refuse to believe in the greatest of all truth anyone who have read the Bible and could not see the Divine hand in it , were not paying attention I cannot fathom why any "elites" would fake a religion that would end up wiping them out that would be like saying the Jews coerced Hitler into perpetrating the holocaust , I am sure there will be some nutcases out there who believe that , but that speaks of ignorance on their part honestly I cannot comprehend the level of stupid you must be to think the Bible was invented by any human intelligence when it is clearly designed to divert our attention to heaven and not anything earthly
Professor Walsh has encouraged me to delve deeper,as the Greco-Roman Elite had the best educators and that can make us rethink that the Gosples are not confusing fairytales. Eventually the credit shall go to the writers of the Greco-Roman Elite who have written the Gosples for the Leaders of the Holy Roman Empire and the theocracy of the Medieval era.
@@scambammer6102 They're more of a mix of silly fairy tales rewritten into propaganda to serve the empire. The mythology they are based on predates writing and comes from oral stories from many different groups of people and many different mythologies in the region that predated it, it was then massaged and edited and rewritten and turned into something entirely different from what it originally was by a select group of writers that served the roman empire.
@@scambammer6102 Clearly they were, Jesus just means saviour in Greek, Titus called all rebellious leaders Jesus, satire, Titus crucified Jesus along with 2 million Zionists, they wouldn't stop sacrificing to their God Yahweh, Solomon's temple built by Hiram Abiff, Satan,why all the Gospels contradict each other, different Jesus's Titus slaughtered, Titus was Dionysus God of wine fertility and the underworld, read Isaiah 63 and you'll see Titus's satire from his previous visit.
The Holy Roman Empire is called that for a reason. It is the second Roman Empire, created from the ashes of the first by it's first families. This has been known for a long time. The guests work adds on to that very interestingly, and quite believably.
I think the Judeo-Hellenic elites who had observed multiple unsuccessful Jewish rebellions against the Roman State produced the Christian doctrine and creed, with it's elements of Platonism and pacifism. But I'm looking forward to hearing a new perspective!
that is silly. Have you read the Gospels??? Jesus did NOT come to bring peace, he came to deliver a sword. The stuff about avoiding conflict was just to get the Gospel spread to the end of the earth.
That creed there, “I believe…..”?? One has to believe, because one cannot ask for proof. I will tell you while that creed was being born there were other creeds in other groups in other part of the world to keep a community together and any one asking too many questions was an enemy to the group. Even today. Things to do with believes are weired. We call mad people mad because the believe unusual things. Read, The nose by Nikolai Gogol you will see what believes can do to someone. I believe in you will.
@@voidremoved If what you are saying is true, why did Jesus rebuke Peter for cutting off a soldiers ear with a sword and then go peacefully into crucifixion? Doesn’t seem like you know what you’re talking about or even the most basics of the whole text.
JESUS THE AUTHOR According to Dr. Barbara Theiring, University of Sydney Australia, Jesus dictated or directed the writing of the biblical Gospels, Acts and Book of Revelation. He also invented the pesher language of double-meanings to hide the actual history of the Herodian World Mission in Jerusalem which transformed into the Jesus Chritianity Mission in Rome. Dr. Barbara Theiring discovered the pesher technique in the Dead Sea Scrolls and published her 20 years of scientific, evidence-based research in scholarly articles and best-selling books. The first thing a genuine scholar should do is review the relevant literature before establishing a research question and research methodology. Professor Robyn Faith Walsh's book, The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture, Jan 28, 2021, was published almost 40 years after the first scholarly article in a scholarly journal on the topic by Barbara Theiring and 29 years after Theiring's New York Times best-selling book, Jesus the Man: Decoding the Real Story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, 1992.
Like a lot of claims purporting to be able to dismantle Christianity, it is important to treat these claims as interesting, but needing more scrutiny and further study.
Many of the New Testament authors were highly educated & some were well versed in Greek philosophy & rhetoric. They also seemed to oppose outright rebellions against the Roman authorities. However, the Roman authorities & the common people viewed Christianity as a threat. The Sacrament of Communion was mistaken for cannibalism & the Christians refused to make sacrificial offerings to the emperors.
Not really. Rome was genius. They wanted a peaceful empire. Flavian theory can help understanding and the mountain of evidence put forth by Atwell and Valliant.
Additionally, you must appreciate (like Hinduism) the Romans did not consider it heretical to worship multiple gods or divinities. Steeped in this culture, Romans would not find it unreasonable to worship a Jewish or Christian god and simultaneously continue to worship a roman deity. Early roman artistic representations of Jesus place him in the motif of wearing a toga and being clean shaven. The idea lending itself to the elite classes making acceptable and romanizing Jesus. This oversight acceptance might also extended to our present version (texts) of early Christianity as having been made acceptable and adjusted to the Roman sensibilities of the upper classes.
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them. "This is the disciple[whom Jesus loved/ Lazarus] which testifieth of these things, AND WROTE THESE THINGS: and we[Apostles] know that his testimony is true." John 11:5 Now Jesus LOVED Martha, and her sister, and LAZARUS John 11:3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him{Jesus], saying, Lord, behold, HE[Lazarus] WHOM THOU LOVEST is sick.. John11:36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he[Jesus] LOVED him[Lazarus]!
Recently, I discovered that the milieu of First Centaury BC Judaism was more complex than the simple stratum of Temple, Talmud & renegade Priests. The stratum of Christianity Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians (Roman, Exiles & slaves, Hellenists from Persia to Alexandria, Thessaloniki to Syracuse). Both groups integrated within Roman Civilization which had controlled the Mediterranean shores N,E,S,W with reach out to the North Sea and the Caspian, Red sea and the Indian Ocean, with the Greco-Roman culture formalized educational system even if just limited to tutoring but there were structural schools for the middle class and upper class, even specialists of a kind who even helped Cicero overcome a speech embedment. One must take a position that the structure of the gospels would have been influenced by how a narrative would be developed. There would have been a general impact of the general societal milieu of all parts and would use language complexity layered with influences that formed the mind at the time; Jew, Christian, Gnostic, Stoics, etc. Not much has been put forward of the religious movement Away from polytheism and that aspect of socio-religious development. There is also the possibility that Jesus spoke numerous languages with being the son of a skilled carpenter who was home base was within 2 days walk to the Capital of the Roman Empire for the region - Caesarea. This information opens a new level of possibilities for the narrative of the Gospels.
It's quite possible that Jesus would have known not only Aramaic but also Hebrew & koine Greek, which would have been used for business transactions since he was also a "tekton" (a skilled craftsman who possibly worked with stone, although English translations of the New Testament use the word "carpenter". Paul, of course, had a highly educated background.
So if New Testament Gospels are written by Greco-Roman Elites what about the other non-canonized Gospels. Do the all fit into the same genre? Also are Gospels from the voice of a woman like the Gospel of Mary Magdalene actually written by men? Is this in the book?
It's interesting that the Walsh here seems to be arguing for something fairly close to a conventional viewpoint at least among scholars. That the early Christian writers were educated in Roman or at least Hellenistic ideas, not simple illiterate Jewish peasants. She flirts with the idea that some of them could have been Roman elites with only an interest in Christianity, but mostly wants to focus on the education and influences from Hellenistic styles of writing and the like. The interviewer though keeps asking her more conspiracy style questions - hinting at Roman authorship ala the Flavian theory and other suggestions that she keeps side-stepping.
This was a really good convo. I love some of the other ones where you and your guest get into lots of hypotheticals etc, but i felt like this was a good middle ground.
absolutely! This was my immediate thought when I read the title. What a load of ------ so many have swallowed and have regurtitated throughout time immemorial.
Great talk! It seems to me the gospels have many features used in modern marketing today. Who ever wrote them must have been aware of competition form other Roman cults. I think most people today just assume that the Osiris cult was "Egyptian" or the cult of Mithras was "Persian" where in actual fact these cults and many others like them offering individual salvation were in fact Roman.
I wonder why modern historians considering the dating the gospels ignore the evidence in the church fathers who quote from the gospels and in the case of Papias and Polycarp had personal acquaintance with either an Apostle or those who had known Apostles? Don't we work back from events we can date to what caused that event? If we find quotes or what appear to be quotes from Matthew in the Didache, for example, aren't we warranted to conclude that the gospel predated the Didache?
Most scholars start from the assumption that there is no base in real events, by the "naturalist" assumptions so that when they add their own fiction to what they believe is the fiction of others then it seems no big deal and the question "where is your proof" is not raised by the reporters. But on your subject. Since the written gospel was predated by oral gospel then it would have been immediately available to be cited. Acts describe mission work and I do not assume that Paul or the apostles were silent in their missions, creating a number of concregation along their path. So that anything they had preached would be availabe in the high context environment, to be used, misused and quoted. The origin is evident, it is with people who had credentials to enter and speak in a diapora synagogue, who had knowledge of local circumstances in palestine, judea, samaria and who wrote in varying language styles of normal people of the day, which shines through, even through the secretary work of the amanuensis.
@@TheSapphireLeo In the context of historical researhc "falsification" and "verification" have specific meaning. You are allowed to create theories that fit with fact that are available. The validity of your understanding of events is determined by the falsification "what would prove this theory untrue" and verification "what would prove this theory true" processes. Sometimes it is just a question on going to other sources, sometimes it depends on new tech, like C14 or DNA providing falsification, because when there are more than one valid theory it is harder to come up with a fact to prove one is the truth, than to come up with a fact to prove a theory is in need of modification or just wrong.
They don't ignore it. But they note how different the alleged quotations are from the canonical forms, and they don't uncritically accept the idea that Papias (of whom we have nothing but a reference in Eusebius) and Polycarp knew disciples.
@@robinharwood5044 Atomizing may be good. It depends on your ability to hold enough atoms to form a context. In that case you are a master of your subject.
She talks about the word for 'church' in Greek was in use before Paul used it for his Christian community. So the question is, who was called Christ in Ancient Greek before it was applied to Jesus as the anointed one?
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Professor Robyn Faith Walsh is super good at what she does. And Jacob looks just like he is in love. 💙
Professor Faith, you have certainly written a book that will cause controversy, but I am tuning out after ten minutes because you are smiling and making light of things like you were on The Late Show with Stephan Coalbear. The subject is too contoversial to be having so many smiley faces. You're a very attrative woman and have a beautiful smile, but you must act like a professor and stay serious in this kind of interview. It's only one person's opinion----
Such a remarkable woman extremely beautiful and incredibly smart. And she speaks on a subject I’m so interested in. I don’t know all the scholarly facts that support the idea that the Roman elite wrote the gospels, my intuition tells me their is some truth here. Well done professor Walsh I just wish your book was not so pricey.
No, they didn't. Defining the canon came much later, but Oriental Orthodox churches have a different canon. Christianity is all about avoiding, infiltrating and taming Rome and Romans. Read the early church fathers and St. Augustine. There's far less "mystery" to early Christian history than contemporary book peddlers would lead us to imagine.
JESUS THE AUTHOR According to Dr. Barbara Theiring, University of Sydney Australia, Jesus dictated or directed the writing of the biblical Gospels, Acts and Book of Revelation. He also invented the pesher language of double-meanings to hide the actual history of the Herodian World Mission in Jerusalem which transformed into the Jesus Chritianity Mission in Rome. Dr. Barbara Theiring discovered the pesher technique in the Dead Sea Scrolls and published her 20 years of scientific, evidence-based research in scholarly articles and best-selling books. The first thing a genuine scholar should do is review the relevant literature before establishing a research question and research methodology. Professor Robyn Faith Walsh's book, The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture, Jan 28, 2021, was published almost 40 years after the first scholarly article in a scholarly journal on the topic by Barbara Theiring and 29 years after Theiring's New York Times best-selling book, Jesus the Man: Decoding the Real Story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, 1992.
There's a line of thought that the Romans, specifically Titus Flavius, created the Jesus narrative as a competing ideology to Judaism to weaken Jewish rebeliousness. The message, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," certainly wouldn't have been a Jewish sentiment at the time. The fact that Joesephus was a Jewish slave saved by Romans to serve Roman's propaganda interests belies his supposed credibility. And his writings about Jesus of Nazerus is scarcely a paragraph, when his writing of other prominent people would be very detailed and go on for pages. Almost as if the entry were added by someone else to lend credibility as to his existence.
That the four Gospels were Roman instead of Aramaic isn't a surprise. The Christian/Nicean church was avidly adopted by the Roman administration to protect the urban peace and ensure the state revenue. Recall "render unto Caesar...". What the Romans adopted was what was near at hand ie. Latin. Paul's instructions may have been written in Syria but it can be argued that they were intended for Roman cities.
Roman Empire used Greek/Hellene in the Eastern Provinces where Alexander the Great had conquered previously. All the cities in Syria were "Roman cities" but they were allowed to speak Greek/Hellene as the government and "high culture"/school languages. Latin was probably barely even noticeable in the easter provinces of the Roman Empire that later came to be called the Byzantine (Roman) Empire when the Western Roman (Latin) empire was conquered by Northerners and split from the eastern parts.
Was it .The jews almost started a riot saying crucify Him OFcourse Pzted hzd Jesus crucified to stop the riot. BUT IN THAT case you forget the persecution by Nero.It does not make sense that the Romans persecuted the adherents of the re ligion thry started. AGAIN Caeszr was a god for the Romans .Why would they invent a religion which refused to accept CaesR as god
Bravo, Jacob! You really do your homework! Epaphroditus? Orestes the treasurer? Household of Caesar? Way to play 'stump the expert'😅 Remind me to never get interviewed by you.
Marcion was a Greco Roman elite, or at the very least a wealthy merchant. Other elites who later competed, or at least wanted to add to Marcion, must have copied and created the four gospels we have today.
"If you think Plato is great, wait til you hear about Moses!" lol You bring up a good point, professor, many of those elite Greeks started dabbling in the Septuagint
What we see in the gospels is a good deal more than dabbling in the Septuagint. It is a deep understanding of the Old Testament , the types and motifs and prophecy and rabbinical methods of exegesis.
I wonder about this provenance thing, too. I somewhat feel that the Samaritan settlements in Greece played a larger role in the Septuagint and Gospels than they are given credit for. After 4 centuries away from Judea and working with Greco Roman sentiments, explains the confused geographies and other things like the quotes of the Hebrew bible not matching, the burial place of the patriarchs being the Samaritan lineage, and the poor Greek language style. Just speculation on my part, though.
Question from Steve Campbell, author of Historical Accuracy: At about 33:09 to 35:18 Walsh says Kloppenborg says we don't have any evidence until the second century of Romans at the senatorial level being Christians. What about Clemens and Flavia Domitilla?
Prof. Robyn Walsh (U. of Miami) says: My understanding is that the sources for these figures- particularly Flavia Domitilla- are fraught and because of his late date it is hard to rely on the testimony of Eusebius. Kloppenborg uses inscriptional evidence and combs through other extant rosters for various assemblies in the ancient Mediterranean to come to his conclusion. = = = Maybe Kloppenborg is saying whatever Eusebius wrote about Domitilla and Clemens is suspect, but there is no denying they and the catacombs existed. = = = Domitilla perhaps espoused Judaism, though *Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. 3. 18) believed that she favoured *Christianity Oxford Classical Dictionary Flavia Domitilla by Brian Campbell
All authors are driven by their passion for the subject matter and how their thoughts processes operate and to who they have in mind as their audience. So, i am off to write about these two human beings that are not getting along and are using the same controvasial book above to point each other to the right direction while completely ignoring the passagaes that directly addresses them. Always the case. I hope I get a chance to feature it here when it done.
stoics espoused universalism (of men) and by extension of man as creation's summit, these ideas have been a bugbear of the West ever since... thnxx!!! and what a show, good job.
You think God would have pressed his son harder to finish school so he could have written this stuff down for himself. We could still dispute the wisdom of his words, or if he really was the Son of God, etc. But at least we could be a lot more confident of what he actually said and taught. Let's face it, the most of the people in ancient history that we have the most confidence in were because they actually wrote their own letters and such ( like Paul, Marcus Aurelius, Caesar, etc). Just another reason to doubt the whole thing.
Let's be careful about putting too much trust in a young researchers understandings and discard generations of scholars and theologians who studied these things over their entire lives
@@pdworld3421 One thing I would call out is that the vast majority of those scholars are Christian to begin with. Thus, they come with strong cognitive bias towards the Bible being true, and/or are paid by a Christian school. Just look at how the Jewish/Islamic scholars evaluate the New Testament. Many of these young scholars are looking at it from a purely historical standpoint, which is a big reason much of these new discoveries or views are being heard.
@@pdworld3421 No, I'm actually pointing out that one of the biggest issues with the New Testament is that we really don't know if Jesus actually said/taught any of this. The vast majority of the teachings and theology of Jesus comes from Paul - who NEVER even met Jesus in person - just in a vision/revelation. And he barely talks about the historical Jesus. For all I know, Paul is just making up most of this according to his own theology.
I always thought it obvious that not only the gospels but the letters of Paul were of Roman provenance. I liken the publication and dissemination of this literature to what could be done now in a place like North Korea. I don't believe such things could have been promulgated without the highest governmental authority and assistance. Rome ruled with an iron fist and was very restrictive when it came to speech and literary publication. Most people think it was just like the U.S. now, where you right a book, get it published, etc. no matter how insulting, divisive, etc. it is. Not so in ancient Rome.
That makes the most sense to me. Given the late time frame the gospels were written after Jesus allegedly lived and died, and the fact that they were written in Greek, and, as y’all said, only educated people would have been able to do so.
You mean like educated Jews, right? There was such a thing and at that time, Greek was a far more common language for even Jews to read than anything else.
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them. "This is the disciple[whom Jesus loved/ Lazarus] which testifieth of these things, AND WROTE THESE THINGS: and we[Apostles] know that his testimony is true." John 11:5 Now Jesus LOVED Martha, and her sister, and LAZARUS John 11:3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him{Jesus], saying, Lord, behold, HE[Lazarus] WHOM THOU LOVEST is sick.. John11:36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he[Jesus] LOVED him[Lazarus]!
@@termination9353 You've posted this a couple of times. Is there any source that expands on this idea - particularly the originally one book, broken up by the Romans aspect? I just like to keep track.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 If you wish to expand on this idea then please ask me. All the answers are in the Gospel testimony and outside sources aren't necessary. A little imagination and the processes of elimination is all that is necessary.
U know the Roman Catholic church dynasty has went thru 111 priests , a ancient prophet said once the 112th priest is dead , that is a signature for the end days 7bowls of wrath begin
Paul's letters and writings form the timeline and they support the beliefs of the Christian movement. they form a symbiotic axis with normal internal growing tensions playing a role .
Thanx for effort and info ! Since Titus Flavius’ Typology of NT txts is allready proven to some extend , I feel like those important facts are a little bit neglected/evaded in this discussion.but all roads will lead to it eventually , not to Rome , but to the truth.
Too bad she does not mention Christianity seems to start out as a mystery religion (cult) which were quite popular in Rome's empire. The Gnostic's Secret Gospel of Mark clearly shows the personal transformation of the followers and this will be the seed for spreading, developing, sponsorship and the literature from the elites. This personal interpretations of their transformation will provide the causes for the many Gospels, both Gnostic and Orthodox.
I agree the idea of "synoptic" gospels needs to be dispensed with. It does not hold up to literary analysis. Authors "stealing from one another" is an inelegant way of putting it, but Mark's gospel is clearly used as a structural template for Matthew and Luke, who then create their own narrative forms from it. They are not "seeing with one eye" at all. If anything, to put it in a more modern context, Matthew and Luke are fan fiction. Mark is the O.G.
Tax collectors were literate. And it would explain why the new testament is always telling you to invite the taxman into your home without warning you to bury the good silverware first.
like most guys who watched this.....I think i'll need to watch it again lol......and perhaps one more time to take the subject matter in lol. I was too focused on how beautiful she is and witty.
I must’ve misunderstood something - I don’t see how in the world the Gospel writers copied Jocephus. Jocephus barely mentioned Jesus, in fact, he wrote much more about Jesus’s brother, James. That hypothesis is so far-fetched, I can’t take any of this seriously.
There's a growing group of scholars who think the gospel of Luke/Acts was written in the 2nd century. According to Dr's Dennis MacDonald and Marc Goodacre see themes of Josephus repeated throughout Luke. A few like Dr David Litwa put all the gospels later. It's not that Josephus talked about Jesus but that themes are followed. For more information I would look into their works.
Dr Steve Mason who is well read in the writings of Josephus, has come to the conclusion that Luke references both Antiquites as well as War of the Jews.
JESUS THE AUTHOR According to Dr. Barbara Theiring, University of Sydney Australia, Jesus dictated or directed the writing of the biblical Gospels, Acts and Book of Revelation. He also invented the pesher language of double-meanings to hide the actual history of the Herodian World Mission in Jerusalem which transformed into the Jesus Chritianity Mission in Rome. Dr. Barbara Theiring discovered the pesher technique in the Dead Sea Scrolls and published her 20 years of scientific, evidence-based research in scholarly articles and best-selling books. The first thing a genuine scholar should do is review the relevant literature before establishing a research question and research methodology. Professor Robyn Faith Walsh's book, The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture, Jan 28, 2021, was published almost 40 years after the first scholarly article in a scholarly journal on the topic by Barbara Theiring and 29 years after Theiring's New York Times best-selling book, Jesus the Man: Decoding the Real Story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, 1992.
It must be frustrating to be an accomplished scholar interviewer sharing the results of people's hard won knowledge after countless hours of study, only to have the comment area full of feedback about how you look like Nicholas Cage.
Every bible scholar knows that the Jordan is not a river. It means a rocky escarpment- one of many in western Arabia- Tihamah’s , Hijaz, Asir and Yemen.THM also in Gen.1:2 a rocky escarpment not the ‘deep.’
Paul showed secular history was worshiped by flesh, the great flesh was milk and least in themselves. Paul taught milk to dust inherited by classic theology. Then meat explained who Christ was in man not temples or churches built by flesh.
"How is it," asks Justin Martyr, in evident dismay, "how is it that the talismans of Apollonius (the telesmata ) have power in certain members of creation, for they prevent, as we see, the fury of the waves, and the violence of the winds, and the attacks of wild beasts; and whilst our Lord's miracles are preserved by tradition alone, those of Apollonius are most numerous, and actually manifested in present facts, so as to lead astray all beholders?"
When you live in a world of conjecture and hypothetical probabilities then there's little you can't create to support whatever notion will and can sell a book.
Really, why would anyone think there is such a thing as a "sacred book" ? Not one single thing in all of nature points to that. Do the stars form a cross over Israel on Christmas eve? etc. etc.
This is a very sophisticated research she has done. But I sense it is also the same problem I see always when American scholars present this. That problem is their background and upbringing and the typical dominant American Anglo-Saxon protestant religious tradition, that has been stuck in their 16th century Reformatory bias. Basic to this problem is the literal interpretation of the bible, The contrast to nowadays Biblical scholars in Europe is very obvious. They already have agreed to some theories that gave a total new and sometimes very revolutionary view on the origins of Christianity and the Gospels or the authenticity of Paul's letters. I see, also in the comments, it is for many people a very confronting idea that the Gospels are no historical records but a religious interpretation. But to say that the NT and also the Biblical tradition is written by Greco-Roman Elite is indeed a very weird idea for which is no proof. The influence of the Hellenistic proselytes into the NT writings is so very obvious and clear. esp. in the letters of Paul and the Gospels, but the context of the texts are based in Judaism of the 1th and 2th century.
Please don't forget to subscribe!
Of course, this garbage once not forced down children's developing minds will due and mankind will be infinitely better, too many sheep are being brainwashed by this garbage
@@Stupidityindex
Why he called them, be sheep are timid and naive, he easily could lie and manipulate them.
Somehow I just keep forgetting.
“Religions are divisive and quarrelsome. They are a form of one-upmanship because they depend upon separating the “saved” from the “damned,” the true believers from the heretics, the in-group from the out-group… All belief is fervent hope, and thus a cover-up for doubt and uncertainty.”
~ Alan Watts
That's a great opinion 😂
@@jasonbishop5345 word
They are all simply Country Clubs for those who need to feel superior to others. 💙
Given how effective the internet has been in promoting falsity, and how easily people accept false claims, we cannot rule out the possibility that the gospels themselves are, in essence, fake, and created to promote particular agendas.
the original misinformation
They were.
They are clearly written as fiction with an agenda. Biographies are not written that way.
@@travis1240 It became apparent to me when I left the Church that the Bible is a group of books of Parables. And Revelations was an apocalyptic treatise on the fall of Rome. Unfortunately, neither preachers nor politicians cars for the truth.
@@clemlysergy3335 original? The Egyptians beat them by 3000 years, and they weren't even the originals.
Robyn Faith Walsh is the " cup bearer " for Christianity. She provides scrupulous honesty with tireless research.
Very interesting topic, thanks for coming to the show to share your studies, I learned a lot
It must be frustrating to be an accomplished scholar sharing the results of hard-won knowledge after countless hours of study, only to have the comment area full of feedback about your appearance.
They're so cringey.
as opposed to this comment? self-reflection is a rare quality.
@@scambammer6102 boom.
I'm sure Jacob is used to it...
She knows what she's doing. This story wouldn't have half the views if her picture wasn't shown. Get their attention with a hot chick and hope they stay for the video.
If you scroll through the entire comment section you will find out that a ton of people are experts in this area.
Flying high again - I find that’s nearly always the case.
She's so bloody charming! Looking forward to getting her book...eventually! (It's a long list, but in terms of Christianity, hers is right at the top.)
This is a new channel to me, I’m guessing the RUclips algorithm served this video to me as a fan of Mythvision? Prof Walsh was a guest there, so thanks be to El Algorithm for providentially making me find this treasure
Maybe that's how I got here too. Thanx for the info. Now I can look for Prof Walsh on Mythvision.
What I like about Jacob is that he really let the guest talk. Mythvision and Gnostic are a bit chatty :-) I still like them don't get me wrong.
All hail the great algorithm!
By the way, I love your questions to your guests. I like how you stay on topic in your videos and don't veer off like other people tend to do.
Matthew for the Jews, Mark for the Romans, Luke for the Greeks, and John for everyone else.
Word.
the book of john has a gnostic tone to it.
@@axlegrind4212 John for the Egyptians, then? Although the Kemetics of Egypt had already been conquered by Greece which was then conquered by Rome.
@@axlegrind4212 The reason that it has Gnostic tones is because it was written around a time reap with gnostic gospels so it had to provide much more details than the Synoptic Gospels. So if anything the Gospel of John is most heavily vetted of the Gospels.
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them.
"This is the disciple[whom Jesus loved/ Lazarus] which testifieth of these things, AND WROTE THESE THINGS: and we[Apostles] know that his testimony is true."
John 11:5
Now Jesus LOVED Martha, and her sister, and LAZARUS
John 11:3
Therefore his sisters sent unto him{Jesus], saying, Lord, behold, HE[Lazarus] WHOM THOU LOVEST is sick..
John11:36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he[Jesus] LOVED him[Lazarus]!
@@termination9353
Source?
Thanks for this interview! The information is compelling and well presented. NT origins has always confused me and this video has given me a much to consider and clarifying Q theory & Roman influence.
What is the Q theory they are referencing?
@@sanguinesurfer en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source
This is the second video that I've viewed in which Professor Walsh talks about the production of the gospels, and like the first, she has very little to tell us other than that the authors were literate and had access to money needed to purchase papyrus and ink. She says nothing about who the authors were in terms of ethnic group, what motivated them to write the gospels, and from where they got their stories.
It's unlikely that the human known as Yeshua bet Yosef (Joshua son of Joseph -- the name "Jesus" is a complete invention: his name was Joshua) was completely invented. The simplest answer is that he was likely an apocalyptic and cultic "latter day" Jewish preacher who was killed, likely on a cross. Apocalyptic "latter day" preachers were growing in common back then. The oppression of the state of Palestine and Roman conquest were vital ingredients in making this happen in that era. That is: Jesus was a product of the times and circumstances. Call it "the Roman Hippy movement" After he died, the next two generations of early Jewish/Christians emerged as panegyrics of Jesus's works and they added significant miracles to him rather rapidly.
This shouldn't be such a surprise: this is precisely how religions are formed. It happened in Islam. It happened in Judaism. It has happened in every other "wondrous, miraculous" event in human history. A giant fish story. After his death, his followers had to be stunned that the "God" and/or messiah was suddenly gone (though not all early Christians believed him to be God or the Son of God, but that argument for another time). As such, they were forced to reconcile their beliefs with their desire to keep their faith going (some were mourning, some saw the possibility of their "movement coming to an end"; some likely craved more power, but most probably just loved what had started and desperately wanted it to continue). This happened in an era of mysticism -- a time where people lacked any "media" to corroborate reports; no scientific method; a strong inclination to believe in sea monsters, imps, Minotaurs and other mythological creatures to explain the un-explainable. Frankly, given all possible wonders that could have been attributed to him, Jesus's "miracles" are pretty meh.
Christians love to fall back on the sui generis nature of Jesus's message and miracles as demonstrating that, "There's simply no way this could be made up!" "It's just too good to have been invented!" "Romans and Palestinians in that era were more sophisticated than that to just buy into any old tale!" Which is the kind of rhetoric people -- already in agreement with a thing -- echo back to each other in knitting circles. One need ONLY look at all the other religions invented throughout human history -- from the grotesque to the sublime -- to realize that there really is no limit to the power of the human imagination. And while the story of Jesus is original (Duh! What else did you expect? Nothing is ever exactly the same as anything else), nothing attributed to him was really that original or unique or surprising. The locals (to Palestine) were people who believed in partings of seas, pillars of clouds, lightning bolt throwing gods, half-human-half-goat creatures . . . but sure, they'd never buy that a man could raise the dead or turn water into wine. As Hitchens said, "Given that people saw ghosts, demons and people coming back from the dead in this era, this in no way points to the divinity of Christ because it seems to have been pretty commonplace back then." (tongue-in-cheek intended)
Religion has a long history of driving people to hysterics and just as well, they -- like the followers of Islam and Mormonism -- saw fit to attribute many amazing things to their messiah/prophet. "An illiterate man magically writing the Quran", "A commoner taking gold plates from one of God's angels." None of the miracles attributed to Jesus can be corroborated (by any account) outside of the Bible, which itself is its own circular evidence: Christians say the Bible is right because the Bible says that God said its right. Kind of silly. We have no way of knowing who added what, but scientifically we know of no instance of any supernatural event that withstood scientific inspection.
We do, however, have a very rigorously observed model within human psychology and sociology how religions and miracles come into common belief. Human desire for belief in something bigger than themselves is extremely powerful. Likewise our ability to warp our own memories and observations is equally powerful (that is: we can actually see things we desperately want to see). My boss's mother died a year ago. As her mother withered away from cancer, she said to her children, "When you see yellow butterflies, you'll know I've made it to heaven." Within a week they all saw yellow butterflies. My boss -- a passionate Catholic -- was very emotional at having seen the butterflies. She didn't just see "one or two" she saw them everywhere. We all know what happened: (a) Yellow butterflies (and moths) are pretty common in Ohio in the fall. (b) Even vaguely yellow-ish looking butterflies/moths now were lumped into it. (c) Even non-butterflies and moths were incidentally converted to being butterflies (small pieces of paper, leaves, -- at a distance). Her brain was sensitized to the "yellow butterflies" and that's what she saw.
Promptly after Christ's death, the inner circle heaped miracles upon him. Desperate to replace this irreplaceable thing in their hearts, desperate to get others to share their euphoria over their beliefs -- they and their close associates "remembered great things done by Christ". The message grew. Within two generations, the story grew to accommodate the core beliefs: Jesus was born of a virgin. He didn't really die on the cross, he came back to life and preached to them for a period of time and ascended into heaven. He walked on water. He turned water into wine. He fed the masses with loaves and fishes. And why not? This is exactly what you'd expect from a growing faith dependent upon the magic of their messiah.
By the time people started writing their "visions" of what happened, the core story solidified and more than two generations had passed without much of anything having been written but having been passed around by word of mouth! Additional information still took a full century to be created, but the story of Christ the Son of God was set. Nevertheless, we have records of many divergent "letters" written by early Christians. Later on, during the sundry synods, in particular the Synod of Hippo, the convening authorities began to coalesce around a specific set of doctrines. Ostensibly with the "guidance of the Holy Spirit" (but more likely out of political drive to create a uniform practice that suited their leaders' beliefs).
I have answered that argument
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them.
"This is the disciple[whom Jesus loved/ Lazarus] which testifieth of these things, AND WROTE THESE THINGS: and we[Apostles] know that his testimony is true."
John 11:5
Now Jesus LOVED Martha, and her sister, and LAZARUS
John 11:3
Therefore his sisters sent unto him{Jesus], saying, Lord, behold, HE[Lazarus] WHOM THOU LOVEST is sick..
John11:36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he[Jesus] LOVED him[Lazarus]!
Anybody can say anything on the internet.T.he consensus of scholarship even modern scholarsjip is thatthereare r gospels Nonody has ever gound what you call the original gospel.
@@ptk8451 Original Gospel's are found but the Vatican hides them away. Nevertheless I have taken the 4 Gospels and have reconstructed them back together again as one and have published it.
Modern scholarship are Satanic lies.
One thing to consider…Herod Agrippa’s role in the Proclaimation of the initial Evangelion. Even in the Commodan-era NT, it is still possible to see Herod Agrippa’s relatives, especially the female ones, in key roles.
It should especially be noted that Caesarea Phillippi was a Herodian palace area. In that period, zealots would have been unwelcome, and I’m sure it was heavily-guarded. The only anointed that would be talked about there would be…the owner of that palace.
Perhaps we should consider that first drafts of an initial Evangelion were made IN that palace between 66 and 70 c.e.
One thing though, about the initial product in the immediate post-70 c.e. momemt…was there a liturgical component, and was it kept more by the Samaritans?
Then we should be looking at Mimar Marqeh amd examining when it was REALLY written…fourth century or late-first.
“Paul” in relation to this…Book Four of the Mimar. Discussion by “Marqe” (Mark/Mark Julius Herod Agrippa of “Tamym PO’OLO”…”perfect work.”
Just listening to the discussion on the video about the second century nature of the “gospels.” I would suggest they were written after 147 HEGESSIPUS. I’ve lost the ability to think of a genuine “Josephan” history set any more, because 147 c.e. Hegessipus raises too many questions of whethe much of the “Josephan” corpus was forged BY Hegessipus. I would contend it was Justus of Tiberias’ histories that were genuine…and much of Josephus could be forged (147 c.e.) by simply plagiarising Justus’ works…and changing some key details.
Roman Provemamce…Herod Agrippa would have very much written an initial Evangelion in with Flavian blessing.
Strongly agree with you, plagiarism, just like the r differents account of jesus ministry.
@@solomonlee4503 nice to see someone recognising the possibility of plagiarism.
For “four gospels,” first we might have to look at the LONG work preceding them as the key plagiarism (and alteration) of an initial Euangelon. In Syriac regions, the long work is known around 160s/170 c.e., but the “four” only start turning up around 200 c.e. earliest.
I’ve never liked the LONG work as a “harmony,” it is more likely the PRECURSOR to “four.”
The long work is very noticeably just after Hessipus and Justin. The mid-2nd century as the first time any of it is really heard of “publically” in the broader empire, outside Iudea and Alexandria.
I find Lucian’s Passing of Peregrinus Proteus may be more accurate about what is happening mid-2nd century…that a forger/huckster with aliases is operating, one essentially whose TOTAL career Irenaeus could later turn into “early church fathers.”
That still leaves us to ponder the initial Euangelon BEFORE such a figure started prolific writing.
What the Samaritans and those at Alexandria went by BEFORE mid-2nd century, back to 70 c.e.
"Socrates on Judaism, Christianity, & Islam" is an excellent read as well!
I have not read Professor Walsh's book, but it does sound very intriguing and original. As she outlines her theory in this video however there is an objection that might be raised to it. Her view of education and material status is out of step with recent scholarship in Classical studies.
Her supposition that philosophy was restricted to a very narrow group of people (or a similar such phrase) is out of date. There has been a lot of research recently paid in classical studies to highlighting how philosophical themes had a wider audience than previous generations of scholars anticipated. For example, James E. G. Zetzel "Philosophy Is in the Streets" notes how a lower type of philosophical documents were prevalent in Roman society, but hardly any are now extant. There were epitomized texts that distributed philosophical ideas to barely literature people, Erlend MacGillivray "Philosophical Epitomes and the Critique of Epicurean Popularizers.” Journal of Ancient History 3.1: 22-55, Johan Thom “Popular Philosophy in the Hellenistic-Roman World.” Early Christianity 3.3: 279-95, and Horster, Marietta and Christiane Reitz. 2011. Condensing Texts, Condensed Texts. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Also a significant monograph that would undercut most of Professor Walsh's book is Professor Brian J. Wright's "Communal Reading in the Time of Jesus: A Window into Early Christian Reading Practices", as would the work of Jaclyn Maxwell. A good case study on how lower-class reception of Stoic philosophy manifested itself in Pauline communities with semi-literature people is Tim Brookin's "Corinthian Wisdom, Stoic Philosophy, and the Ancient Economy". Actually his thesis would, like Wright's, undercut Walsh's understanding of social class and reception of philosophy and Christianity.
Also her point regarding elite Romans who did not write out codices of philosophy is, as she outlines it in the video anyway, wrong. Epictetus' "Discourses" were based upon Arrian of Nicomedia's own lecture records. She maybe addresses this in her book, but if she does not it would be a significant problem for one of the plank's of her arguments.
Thank you. None of what I heard was groundbreaking
I think there’s a massive overcorrection going on with her arguments. She talks about the authors being infantalized but she’s exalting them and infantalizing everyone who couldn’t write in the process. These guys weren’t an island unto themselves, they were absolutely interacting with already existing ideas about who Jesus was. Her model seems to assume they created him from scratch out of popular literature.
Wonderful exchange. I appreciate that what we've learned in formative years as Christians was myth rather than history. I say that as a person who eventually earned a degree with a major in American history. I find it fascinating to learn about this historical period. I've not heard about Roman literature in relationship to the gospels. Thanks for this video. I expect I'll return again. There is much to learn. Professor Walsh is refreshing.
What do you think about the American mythology of Washington and Lincoln?
Did you actually learn anything at all from this video?
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them.
"This is the disciple[whom Jesus loved/ Lazarus] which testifieth of these things, AND WROTE THESE THINGS: and we[Apostles] know that his testimony is true."
John 11:5
Now Jesus LOVED Martha, and her sister, and LAZARUS
John 11:3
Therefore his sisters sent unto him{Jesus], saying, Lord, behold, HE[Lazarus] WHOM THOU LOVEST is sick..
John11:36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he[Jesus] LOVED him[Lazarus]!
@@termination9353 I find all this pretty sketchy. I am surprised that you don't as well. It is based on theory that Lazarus is the "disciple whom Jesus loved." Now, there are some scholars that make that connection, but I am puzzled, if John is not the disciple whom Jesus loved, where is John? He is not named anywhere in the gospel. Why? In all the other gospels he is one of the inner circle of Peter, James, and JOHN.
In John 21 this disciple whom Jesus loved appears to be one of the inner circle. In no other gospel is Lazarus mentioned as one of then twelve. In, fact he is not mentioned at all. It would seem that John the Apostle fits far better the description.
And "we know that his testimony is true." You ascribe this to the other Apostles. Yet it sounds more like the author of the book who is speaking. Virtually everyone believes the other Apostles were all dead by the time the Gospel of John was written.
In any event, you have to do too many logical cartwheels to arrive at the conclusion you have.
@@doncamp1150 "where is John? He is not named anywhere in the gospel."
Luke 9:54 54 When the disciples James and JOHN saw this, they asked, "LORD, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?"
"It is based on theory that Lazarus is the "disciple whom Jesus loved."
What part of the Gospel testimony OUTRIGHT TELLING YOU "John 11:5
Now Jesus LOVED.....LAZARUS" do you not understand?
" In no other gospel is Lazarus mentioned as one of then twelve."
The Twelve were named Apostles not disciples. Jesus had many disciples but only 12 Apostles. Whom Jesus loved is always referred to as a disciple not as an Apostle. Lazarus WAS a disciple. It never says the beloved of Jesus was of the 12 Apostles. In fact it says that disciple is EXCLUDED from being one of the 12.
"And "we know that his testimony is true." You ascribe this to the other Apostles. Yet it sounds more like the author of the book who is speaking."
- Follow the whole sentence. The 'author' is the singular 'he' that the plural 'we' is is telling you 'his/author/Lazarus' is accurate/true. 'We' is plural for the Apostle witnesses and 'he' is singular for the scribe who is writing down and arranging the Apostles' deposition testimony of Jesus' ministry.
"you have to do too many logical cartwheels to arrive at the conclusion you have."
- Other way around. It is you who has to perform conceptual cartwheels to deny that the Gospel testimony doesn't say that Lazarus is the disciple whom Jesus loved and that Lazarus is the one who wrote a SINGLE 'Gospel' in consultation with the Apostles who Jesus chose specifically with the task of witnessing and reporting on his Gospel New Covenant ministry.
Very interesting. Lots to contemplate. I have lots of questions to ask. Thanks for interviewing Dr. Walsh.
Is it possible that the aristocracy wasn’t Christian because they made the entire thing up in order to suppress Jewish revolt and control the direction with a messiah?
She’s sharp. I don’t disagree with one thing she said.
"Did The Greco-Roman Elite Class Write The Gospels?" No.
General cultures have great influence on individuals' perceptions, thinking, and actions.
What we call religion today was actually just politics back then
#THIS! FINALLY!
Kalof3L - What we call religion today is actually just politics today, too.
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them.
"This is the disciple[whom Jesus loved/ Lazarus] which testifieth of these things, AND WROTE THESE THINGS: and we[Apostles] know that his testimony is true."
John 11:5
Now Jesus LOVED Martha, and her sister, and LAZARUS
John 11:3
Therefore his sisters sent unto him{Jesus], saying, Lord, behold, HE[Lazarus] WHOM THOU LOVEST is sick..
John11:36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he[Jesus] LOVED him[Lazarus]!
It doesn’t need to frustrating. She seems she can easily brush it off and not worry about it. Good talk too.
Holy cow, she's smart! If only intelligence (and skepticism about ancient fables) was more widely and equitably distributed, our current political circumstance might be different.
She's a spectacular woman and obviously pays great attention to appearance.
Yes, it's refreshing to have smart people look at religious scriptures from the angle of reality, i.e. organised people of some political power and resources took some favored myths and committed them to paper, for political reasons.
you think that with no religion we would have advanced to where we are today?
@@jaromsmiss :i'm certain that bs and lies wielded as authority retarted humanity greatly. also caused lots of death and misery.
@@jaromsmiss Probably lot more people (especially Jews) would be here. Anti-semitism started with the lie in the Gospels that Pilate/the Romans were blameless for Jesus's crucifixion. In fact, Pilate was ultimately recalled by Rome for the cruelty he was inflicting on Palestine.
But when you say "no religion", I'm not sure what you're suggesting. Morality and ethics existed before there was Christianity. Ancient Greece was incredibly advanced in many ways, which Alexander and his successors spread throughout the ancient world, and Rome in turn spread around Europe. Professor Walsh refers to stoicism a number of times. Emperor Marcus Aurelius wasn't Christian. It's an interesting counterfactual, but it's impossible to say how things would be different.
Jacob, this was an excellent interview with Robyn. I learned a lot.
I just came across your channel today. I'll certainly be subscribing.
Koine Greek is a very simplified evolution compared to classical Greek. The simplification was due to the expansion of Alexander's empire and the use of Greek by many different nations ruled by the Diadochi. Among the said nations were the Hebrews. The hellenisation of the Hebrews is well documented both by Hebrews and Greeks. We knows that the Torah was translated into Greek allegedly by 70 hebrew scholars. We also know that there were traditionalist Hebrews who fought against the hellenisation of their nation, such as the Maccabees. There is nothing absurd in the idea that educated Hebrews spoke and wrote koine greek and were influenced by classical education after living under Greek influence for 320 years.
That's also why some of the apostles have greek names : Andreas, Phillipos, Mattheos and even latin names such as Marcus.
Yup. It was likely far more common to have educated Hebrews familiar with koine and classical education as well as the Hebrew Bible than it would be for even classical Greek or Roman scholars to know the holy books of a minority religion like the Jews.
The Septuagint was created because even among educated Jews there were more who read Greek than Hebrew.
Ironic to consider people who discuss God while I discuss things with God
people who blame the world's problems on religion while God solves all my problems
people who doubt the miraculous while I rely on miracles
people who believe so many "scientific" myths but refuse to believe in the greatest of all truth
anyone who have read the Bible and could not see the Divine hand in it , were not paying attention
I cannot fathom why any "elites" would fake a religion that would end up wiping them out
that would be like saying the Jews coerced Hitler into perpetrating the holocaust , I am sure there will be some nutcases out there who believe that , but that speaks of ignorance on their part
honestly I cannot comprehend the level of stupid you must be to think the Bible was invented by any human intelligence when it is clearly designed to divert our attention to heaven and not anything earthly
The most gorgeous and intelligent historian on the planet. Great topic too.
Professor Walsh has encouraged me to delve deeper,as the Greco-Roman Elite had the best educators and that can make us rethink that the Gosples are not confusing fairytales. Eventually the credit shall go to the writers of the Greco-Roman Elite who have written the Gosples for the Leaders of the Holy Roman Empire and the theocracy of the Medieval era.
the gospels are confusing fairytales, whoever wrote them. and why would you think they were all written by the same people? clearly they weren't
@@scambammer6102 They're more of a mix of silly fairy tales rewritten into propaganda to serve the empire.
The mythology they are based on predates writing and comes from oral stories from many different groups of people and many different mythologies in the region that predated it, it was then massaged and edited and rewritten and turned into something entirely different from what it originally was by a select group of writers that served the roman empire.
@@jimbob3030 oh look it's the roman empire conspiracy theory, speak of silly
@@scambammer6102 Clearly they were, Jesus just means saviour in Greek, Titus called all rebellious leaders Jesus, satire, Titus crucified Jesus along with 2 million Zionists, they wouldn't stop sacrificing to their God Yahweh, Solomon's temple built by Hiram Abiff, Satan,why all the Gospels contradict each other, different Jesus's Titus slaughtered, Titus was Dionysus God of wine fertility and the underworld, read Isaiah 63 and you'll see Titus's satire from his previous visit.
Makes good sense from a variety of angles.
The Holy Roman Empire is called that for a reason. It is the second Roman Empire, created from the ashes of the first by it's first families. This has been known for a long time.
The guests work adds on to that very interestingly, and quite believably.
Religion was invented by the powerful to justify their unjustified power.
I think the Judeo-Hellenic elites who had observed multiple unsuccessful Jewish rebellions against the Roman State produced the Christian doctrine and creed, with it's elements of Platonism and pacifism. But I'm looking forward to hearing a new perspective!
that is silly. Have you read the Gospels??? Jesus did NOT come to bring peace, he came to deliver a sword. The stuff about avoiding conflict was just to get the Gospel spread to the end of the earth.
ruclips.net/video/Cjw6x-qShkE/видео.html
That creed there, “I believe…..”?? One has to believe, because one cannot ask for proof. I will tell you while that creed was being born there were other creeds in other groups in other part of the world to keep a community together and any one asking too many questions was an enemy to the group. Even today. Things to do with believes are weired. We call mad people mad because the believe unusual things. Read, The nose by Nikolai Gogol you will see what believes can do to someone. I believe in you will.
@@voidremoved If what you are saying is true, why did Jesus rebuke Peter for cutting off a soldiers ear with a sword and then go peacefully into crucifixion?
Doesn’t seem like you know what you’re talking about or even the most basics of the whole text.
JESUS THE AUTHOR
According to Dr. Barbara Theiring, University of Sydney Australia, Jesus dictated or directed the writing of the biblical Gospels, Acts and Book of Revelation. He also invented the pesher language of double-meanings to hide the actual history of the Herodian World Mission in Jerusalem which transformed into the Jesus Chritianity Mission in Rome.
Dr. Barbara Theiring discovered the pesher technique in the Dead Sea Scrolls and published her 20 years of scientific, evidence-based research in scholarly articles and best-selling books.
The first thing a genuine scholar should do is review the relevant literature before establishing a research question and research methodology.
Professor Robyn Faith Walsh's book, The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture, Jan 28, 2021, was published almost 40 years after the first scholarly article in a scholarly journal on the topic by Barbara Theiring and 29 years after Theiring's New York Times best-selling book, Jesus the Man: Decoding the Real Story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, 1992.
Like a lot of claims purporting to be able to dismantle Christianity, it is important to treat these claims as interesting, but needing more scrutiny and further study.
I have a hard time buying the theory that the Gospels were written as pro Roman propaganda..sounds very conspiratorial to me
Many of the New Testament authors were highly educated & some were well versed in Greek philosophy & rhetoric. They also seemed to oppose outright rebellions against the Roman authorities. However, the Roman authorities & the common people viewed Christianity as a threat. The Sacrament of Communion was mistaken for cannibalism & the Christians refused to make sacrificial offerings to the emperors.
Not really. Rome was genius. They wanted a peaceful empire. Flavian theory can help understanding and the mountain of evidence put forth by Atwell and Valliant.
I've always considered the assumption to the headline to be yes. How many people even knew how to read, much less write.
Additionally, you must appreciate (like Hinduism) the Romans did not consider it heretical to worship multiple gods or divinities. Steeped in this culture, Romans would not find it unreasonable to worship a Jewish or Christian god and simultaneously continue to worship a roman deity.
Early roman artistic representations of Jesus place him in the motif of wearing a toga and being clean shaven. The idea lending itself to the elite classes making acceptable and romanizing Jesus.
This oversight acceptance might also extended to our present version (texts) of early Christianity as having been made acceptable and adjusted to the Roman sensibilities of the upper classes.
@@jimbell3242 Well no modern Xions don't kill Pagans
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them.
"This is the disciple[whom Jesus loved/ Lazarus] which testifieth of these things, AND WROTE THESE THINGS: and we[Apostles] know that his testimony is true."
John 11:5
Now Jesus LOVED Martha, and her sister, and LAZARUS
John 11:3
Therefore his sisters sent unto him{Jesus], saying, Lord, behold, HE[Lazarus] WHOM THOU LOVEST is sick..
John11:36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he[Jesus] LOVED him[Lazarus]!
Love the many dimensions of this interview as I smoke an after dinner cigar.
Recently, I discovered that the milieu of First Centaury BC Judaism was more complex than the simple stratum of Temple, Talmud & renegade Priests. The stratum of Christianity Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians (Roman, Exiles & slaves, Hellenists from Persia to Alexandria, Thessaloniki to Syracuse). Both groups integrated within Roman Civilization which had controlled the Mediterranean shores N,E,S,W with reach out to the North Sea and the Caspian, Red sea and the Indian Ocean, with the Greco-Roman culture formalized educational system even if just limited to tutoring but there were structural schools for the middle class and upper class, even specialists of a kind who even helped Cicero overcome a speech embedment. One must take a position that the structure of the gospels would have been influenced by how a narrative would be developed. There would have been a general impact of the general societal milieu of all parts and would use language complexity layered with influences that formed the mind at the time; Jew, Christian, Gnostic, Stoics, etc. Not much has been put forward of the religious movement Away from polytheism and that aspect of socio-religious development. There is also the possibility that Jesus spoke numerous languages with being the son of a skilled carpenter who was home base was within 2 days walk to the Capital of the Roman Empire for the region - Caesarea. This information opens a new level of possibilities for the narrative of the Gospels.
It's quite possible that Jesus would have known not only Aramaic but also Hebrew & koine Greek, which would have been used for business transactions since he was also a "tekton" (a skilled craftsman who possibly worked with stone, although English translations of the New Testament use the word "carpenter". Paul, of course, had a highly educated background.
Not against her, and I am open to everything. Nonetheless, she is speculating with her thoughts
So if New Testament Gospels are written by Greco-Roman Elites what about the other non-canonized Gospels. Do the all fit into the same genre? Also are Gospels from the voice of a woman like the Gospel of Mary Magdalene actually written by men? Is this in the book?
To think that the actual work of writing text was often done by slaves. Puts a new spin on "the Word of God."
It's interesting that the Walsh here seems to be arguing for something fairly close to a conventional viewpoint at least among scholars. That the early Christian writers were educated in Roman or at least Hellenistic ideas, not simple illiterate Jewish peasants. She flirts with the idea that some of them could have been Roman elites with only an interest in Christianity, but mostly wants to focus on the education and influences from Hellenistic styles of writing and the like.
The interviewer though keeps asking her more conspiracy style questions - hinting at Roman authorship ala the Flavian theory and other suggestions that she keeps side-stepping.
You need to have her on again. I think y'all just scratched the surface. Good interview though.
This was a really good convo. I love some of the other ones where you and your guest get into lots of hypotheticals etc, but i felt like this was a good middle ground.
absolutely! This was my immediate thought when I read the title. What a load of ------ so many have swallowed and have regurtitated throughout time immemorial.
Great talk! It seems to me the gospels have many features used in modern marketing today. Who ever wrote them must have been aware of competition form other Roman cults. I think most people today just assume that the Osiris cult was "Egyptian" or the cult of Mithras was "Persian" where in actual fact these cults and many others like them offering individual salvation were in fact Roman.
Let's not forget Serapis and the Greeks.
No, that is a lie. Rome is 100% evil and never had any spiritual good to offer.
That is a very convenient argument for you.zOsiris znd isis were Egyptian
@@ptk8451 that cult spread through the Mediterranean for thousands of years before Jesus was allegedly born
They are as far as the north pole from the south a.And where is your evidence for these thousands of years
I wonder why modern historians considering the dating the gospels ignore the evidence in the church fathers who quote from the gospels and in the case of Papias and Polycarp had personal acquaintance with either an Apostle or those who had known Apostles? Don't we work back from events we can date to what caused that event?
If we find quotes or what appear to be quotes from Matthew in the Didache, for example, aren't we warranted to conclude that the gospel predated the Didache?
Depends if they are deliberately also continuing to falsifying evidence?
Most scholars start from the assumption that there is no base in real events, by the "naturalist" assumptions so that when they add their own fiction to what they believe is the fiction of others then it seems no big deal and the question "where is your proof" is not raised by the reporters.
But on your subject. Since the written gospel was predated by oral gospel then it would have been immediately available to be cited. Acts describe mission work and I do not assume that Paul or the apostles were silent in their missions, creating a number of concregation along their path. So that anything they had preached would be availabe in the high context environment, to be used, misused and quoted. The origin is evident, it is with people who had credentials to enter and speak in a diapora synagogue, who had knowledge of local circumstances in palestine, judea, samaria and who wrote in varying language styles of normal people of the day, which shines through, even through the secretary work of the amanuensis.
@@TheSapphireLeo In the context of historical researhc "falsification" and "verification" have specific meaning. You are allowed to create theories that fit with fact that are available. The validity of your understanding of events is determined by the falsification "what would prove this theory untrue" and verification "what would prove this theory true" processes. Sometimes it is just a question on going to other sources, sometimes it depends on new tech, like C14 or DNA providing falsification, because when there are more than one valid theory it is harder to come up with a fact to prove one is the truth, than to come up with a fact to prove a theory is in need of modification or just wrong.
They don't ignore it. But they note how different the alleged quotations are from the canonical forms, and they don't uncritically accept the idea that Papias (of whom we have nothing but a reference in Eusebius) and Polycarp knew disciples.
@@robinharwood5044 Atomizing may be good. It depends on your ability to hold enough atoms to form a context. In that case you are a master of your subject.
Infuriatingly, everything Dr.Walsh is saying here makes perfect sense.
@Sinful Bastard Child - Yor prallaly ritE
She talks about the word for 'church' in Greek was in use before Paul used it for his Christian community. So the question is, who was called Christ in Ancient Greek before it was applied to Jesus as the anointed one?
Professor Robyn Faith Walsh is super good at what she does. And Jacob looks just like he is in love. 💙
What about converted Christian women who were wives or daughters in the Elite Roman Class have written any or more Gospels?
Thank you all very much for this dialogue regarding the origins of early Christianity.
She will cause your brain to rot.. she's good at making stuff up.. she doesn't have any evidence of anything. how gullible can you get..
Professor Faith, you have certainly written a book that will cause controversy, but I am tuning out after ten minutes because you are smiling and making light of things like you were on The Late Show with Stephan Coalbear. The subject is too contoversial to be having so many smiley faces. You're a very attrative woman and have a beautiful smile, but you must act like a professor and stay serious in this kind of interview. It's only one person's opinion----
Such a remarkable woman extremely beautiful and incredibly smart. And she speaks on a subject I’m so interested in. I don’t know all the scholarly facts that support the idea that the Roman elite wrote the gospels, my intuition tells me their is some truth here. Well done professor Walsh I just wish your book was not so pricey.
How does this guy NOT have his questions ready?
I was well prepared, so I don't know what you're talking about.
Jacob was clearly prepared.
No, they didn't. Defining the canon came much later, but Oriental Orthodox churches have a different canon. Christianity is all about avoiding, infiltrating and taming Rome and Romans. Read the early church fathers and St. Augustine. There's far less "mystery" to early Christian history than contemporary book peddlers would lead us to imagine.
JESUS THE AUTHOR
According to Dr. Barbara Theiring, University of Sydney Australia, Jesus dictated or directed the writing of the biblical Gospels, Acts and Book of Revelation. He also invented the pesher language of double-meanings to hide the actual history of the Herodian World Mission in Jerusalem which transformed into the Jesus Chritianity Mission in Rome.
Dr. Barbara Theiring discovered the pesher technique in the Dead Sea Scrolls and published her 20 years of scientific, evidence-based research in scholarly articles and best-selling books.
The first thing a genuine scholar should do is review the relevant literature before establishing a research question and research methodology.
Professor Robyn Faith Walsh's book, The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture, Jan 28, 2021, was published almost 40 years after the first scholarly article in a scholarly journal on the topic by Barbara Theiring and 29 years after Theiring's New York Times best-selling book, Jesus the Man: Decoding the Real Story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, 1992.
There's a line of thought that the Romans, specifically Titus Flavius, created the Jesus narrative as a competing ideology to Judaism to weaken Jewish rebeliousness. The message, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," certainly wouldn't have been a Jewish sentiment at the time. The fact that Joesephus was a Jewish slave saved by Romans to serve Roman's propaganda interests belies his supposed credibility. And his writings about Jesus of Nazerus is scarcely a paragraph, when his writing of other prominent people would be very detailed and go on for pages. Almost as if the entry were added by someone else to lend credibility as to his existence.
Great guest! Thanks Jacob - keep up the awesome work! (But, please, open your top button once in a while? 😅)
That the four Gospels were Roman instead of Aramaic isn't a surprise.
The Christian/Nicean church was avidly adopted by the Roman administration to protect the urban peace and ensure the state revenue. Recall "render unto Caesar...".
What the Romans adopted was what was near at hand ie. Latin. Paul's instructions may have been written in Syria but it can be argued that they were intended for Roman cities.
Roman Empire used Greek/Hellene in the Eastern Provinces where Alexander the Great had conquered previously. All the cities in Syria were "Roman cities" but they were allowed to speak Greek/Hellene as the government and "high culture"/school languages. Latin was probably barely even noticeable in the easter provinces of the Roman Empire that later came to be called the Byzantine (Roman) Empire when the Western Roman (Latin) empire was conquered by Northerners and split from the eastern parts.
Was it .The jews almost started a riot saying crucify Him
OFcourse Pzted hzd Jesus crucified to stop the riot. BUT IN THAT case you forget the persecution by Nero.It does not make sense that the Romans persecuted the adherents of the re ligion thry started. AGAIN Caeszr was a god for the Romans .Why would they invent a religion which refused to accept CaesR as god
Bravo, Jacob! You really do your homework!
Epaphroditus? Orestes the treasurer?
Household of Caesar?
Way to play 'stump the expert'😅
Remind me to never get interviewed by you.
Marcion was a Greco Roman elite, or at the very least a wealthy merchant. Other elites who later competed, or at least wanted to add to Marcion, must have copied and created the four gospels we have today.
"If you think Plato is great, wait til you hear about Moses!" lol
You bring up a good point, professor, many of those elite Greeks started dabbling in the Septuagint
No they didn't. They concentrated on cocksucking.
What we see in the gospels is a good deal more than dabbling in the Septuagint. It is a deep understanding of the Old Testament , the types and motifs and prophecy and rabbinical methods of exegesis.
Great interview. Thanks Jacob. You have the beat show on this stuff.
I wonder about this provenance thing, too. I somewhat feel that the Samaritan settlements in Greece played a larger role in the Septuagint and Gospels than they are given credit for. After 4 centuries away from Judea and working with Greco Roman sentiments, explains the confused geographies and other things like the quotes of the Hebrew bible not matching, the burial place of the patriarchs being the Samaritan lineage, and the poor Greek language style. Just speculation on my part, though.
Question from Steve Campbell, author of Historical Accuracy:
At about 33:09 to 35:18 Walsh says Kloppenborg says we don't have any evidence until the second century of Romans at the senatorial level being Christians.
What about Clemens and Flavia Domitilla?
Prof. Robyn Walsh (U. of Miami) says:
My understanding is that the sources for these figures- particularly Flavia Domitilla- are fraught and because of his late date it is hard to rely on the testimony of Eusebius.
Kloppenborg uses inscriptional evidence and combs through other extant rosters for various assemblies in the ancient Mediterranean to come to his conclusion.
= = =
Maybe Kloppenborg is saying whatever Eusebius wrote about Domitilla and Clemens is suspect,
but there is no denying they and the catacombs existed.
= = =
Domitilla perhaps espoused Judaism, though *Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. 3. 18) believed that she favoured *Christianity
Oxford Classical Dictionary
Flavia Domitilla
by Brian Campbell
Jacob Berman reminds me of Nicholas Cage.
One of the authors was likely Plutarch.
All authors are driven by their passion for the subject matter and how their thoughts processes operate and to who they have in mind as their audience. So, i am off to write about these two human beings that are not getting along and are using the same controvasial book above to point each other to the right direction while completely ignoring the passagaes that directly addresses them. Always the case. I hope I get a chance to feature it here when it done.
stoics espoused universalism (of men) and by extension of man as creation's summit, these ideas have been a bugbear of the West ever since... thnxx!!! and what a show, good job.
If I am wrong then please let me know. Thanks
You think God would have pressed his son harder to finish school so he could have written this stuff down for himself. We could still dispute the wisdom of his words, or if he really was the Son of God, etc. But at least we could be a lot more confident of what he actually said and taught. Let's face it, the most of the people in ancient history that we have the most confidence in were because they actually wrote their own letters and such ( like Paul, Marcus Aurelius, Caesar, etc). Just another reason to doubt the whole thing.
What you're actually doing is saying that you know better than God.
Let's be careful about putting too much trust in a young researchers understandings and discard generations of scholars and theologians who studied these things over their entire lives
That was to leob
@@pdworld3421 One thing I would call out is that the vast majority of those scholars are Christian to begin with. Thus, they come with strong cognitive bias towards the Bible being true, and/or are paid by a Christian school. Just look at how the Jewish/Islamic scholars evaluate the New Testament. Many of these young scholars are looking at it from a purely historical standpoint, which is a big reason much of these new discoveries or views are being heard.
@@pdworld3421 No, I'm actually pointing out that one of the biggest issues with the New Testament is that we really don't know if Jesus actually said/taught any of this. The vast majority of the teachings and theology of Jesus comes from Paul - who NEVER even met Jesus in person - just in a vision/revelation. And he barely talks about the historical Jesus. For all I know, Paul is just making up most of this according to his own theology.
I always thought it obvious that not only the gospels but the letters of Paul were of Roman provenance. I liken the publication and dissemination of this literature to what could be done now in a place like North Korea. I don't believe such things could have been promulgated without the highest governmental authority and assistance. Rome ruled with an iron fist and was very restrictive when it came to speech and literary publication. Most people think it was just like the U.S. now, where you right a book, get it published, etc. no matter how insulting, divisive, etc. it is. Not so in ancient Rome.
Douglas Vogt of the Diehold Foundation is very good on this, similar to old biker below
That makes the most sense to me. Given the late time frame the gospels were written after Jesus allegedly lived and died, and the fact that they were written in Greek, and, as y’all said, only educated people would have been able to do so.
You mean like educated Jews, right? There was such a thing and at that time, Greek was a far more common language for even Jews to read than anything else.
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them.
"This is the disciple[whom Jesus loved/ Lazarus] which testifieth of these things, AND WROTE THESE THINGS: and we[Apostles] know that his testimony is true."
John 11:5
Now Jesus LOVED Martha, and her sister, and LAZARUS
John 11:3
Therefore his sisters sent unto him{Jesus], saying, Lord, behold, HE[Lazarus] WHOM THOU LOVEST is sick..
John11:36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he[Jesus] LOVED him[Lazarus]!
@@termination9353 You've posted this a couple of times. Is there any source that expands on this idea - particularly the originally one book, broken up by the Romans aspect?
I just like to keep track.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 If you wish to expand on this idea then please ask me. All the answers are in the Gospel testimony and outside sources aren't necessary. A little imagination and the processes of elimination is all that is necessary.
Also read, The Anxiety of Influence.
I went to Amazon to buy the book...but $60 for the Kindle Edition is too steep. I'll wait for the trade paperback...🦀🐞🐙
save your money..
Good advice, Trumpo. I'll start today...
U know the Roman Catholic church dynasty has went thru 111 priests , a ancient prophet said once the 112th priest is dead , that is a signature for the end days 7bowls of wrath begin
Paul's letters and writings form the timeline and they support the beliefs of the Christian movement. they form a symbiotic axis with normal internal growing tensions playing a role .
Thanx for effort and info ! Since Titus Flavius’ Typology of NT txts is allready proven to some extend , I feel like those important facts are a little bit neglected/evaded in this discussion.but all roads will lead to it eventually , not to Rome , but to the truth.
Too bad she does not mention Christianity seems to start out as a mystery religion (cult) which were quite popular in Rome's empire. The Gnostic's Secret Gospel of Mark clearly shows the personal transformation of the followers and this will be the seed for spreading, developing, sponsorship and the literature from the elites. This personal interpretations of their transformation will provide the causes for the many Gospels, both Gnostic and Orthodox.
It’s not an argument it’s a fact it’s called the council of Nicaea
I agree the idea of "synoptic" gospels needs to be dispensed with. It does not hold up to literary analysis. Authors "stealing from one another" is an inelegant way of putting it, but Mark's gospel is clearly used as a structural template for Matthew and Luke, who then create their own narrative forms from it. They are not "seeing with one eye" at all. If anything, to put it in a more modern context, Matthew and Luke are fan fiction. Mark is the O.G.
Do you think Theophilus, the person Luke is addressing in his letter, could be Philo of Alexandria?
I don't and she doesn't either.
Tax collectors were literate. And it would explain why the new testament is always telling you to invite the taxman into your home without warning you to bury the good silverware first.
like most guys who watched this.....I think i'll need to watch it again lol......and perhaps one more time to take the subject matter in lol. I was too focused on how beautiful she is and witty.
I believe that the Romans/RCC rewrote the New Testament. Altered. The Old Testament has been altered as well, although not as significantly.
When? Rewriting would have had to be pretty early to fit with the early manuscripts, fragments and quotations we have.
I must’ve misunderstood something - I don’t see how in the world the Gospel writers copied Jocephus. Jocephus barely mentioned Jesus, in fact, he wrote much more about Jesus’s brother, James. That hypothesis is so far-fetched, I can’t take any of this seriously.
There's a growing group of scholars who think the gospel of Luke/Acts was written in the 2nd century. According to Dr's Dennis MacDonald and Marc Goodacre see themes of Josephus repeated throughout Luke. A few like Dr David Litwa put all the gospels later. It's not that Josephus talked about Jesus but that themes are followed. For more information I would look into their works.
Dr Steve Mason who is well read in the writings of Josephus, has come to the conclusion that Luke references both Antiquites as well as War of the Jews.
JESUS THE AUTHOR
According to Dr. Barbara Theiring, University of Sydney Australia, Jesus dictated or directed the writing of the biblical Gospels, Acts and Book of Revelation. He also invented the pesher language of double-meanings to hide the actual history of the Herodian World Mission in Jerusalem which transformed into the Jesus Chritianity Mission in Rome.
Dr. Barbara Theiring discovered the pesher technique in the Dead Sea Scrolls and published her 20 years of scientific, evidence-based research in scholarly articles and best-selling books.
The first thing a genuine scholar should do is review the relevant literature before establishing a research question and research methodology.
Professor Robyn Faith Walsh's book, The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture, Jan 28, 2021, was published almost 40 years after the first scholarly article in a scholarly journal on the topic by Barbara Theiring and 29 years after Theiring's New York Times best-selling book, Jesus the Man: Decoding the Real Story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, 1992.
@@jivanvasant Barbara Theiring is known for her fringe views and is not taken seriously by main stream academia.
It must be frustrating to be an accomplished scholar interviewer sharing the results of people's hard won knowledge after countless hours of study, only to have the comment area full of feedback about how you look like Nicholas Cage.
Every bible scholar knows that the Jordan is not a river. It means a rocky escarpment- one of many in western Arabia- Tihamah’s , Hijaz, Asir and Yemen.THM also in Gen.1:2 a rocky escarpment not the ‘deep.’
Robin seems to not be familiar with Justin Martyr, and at the time they were meeting in the Catacombs.?
Paul showed secular history was worshiped by flesh, the great flesh was milk and least in themselves. Paul taught milk to dust inherited by classic theology. Then meat explained who Christ was in man not temples or churches built by flesh.
"Hades" is part of Greek culture but also part of Christianity. I mean it's like saying that the Greek myths actually happened 🫤
Is Paul, Apollonius of Tyanna? Was Apollonius sharing his knowledge of Krishna, Christos, Christ?
"How is it," asks Justin Martyr, in evident dismay, "how is it that the talismans of Apollonius (the telesmata ) have power in certain members of creation, for they prevent, as we see, the fury of the waves, and the violence of the winds, and the attacks of wild beasts; and whilst our Lord's miracles are preserved by tradition alone, those of Apollonius are most numerous, and actually manifested in present facts, so as to lead astray all beholders?"
The motive?
Beauty AND brains!
Jacob is a real looker!
When you live in a world of conjecture and hypothetical probabilities then there's little you can't create to support whatever notion will and can sell a book.
Really, why would anyone think there is such a thing as a "sacred book" ? Not one single thing in all of nature points to that. Do the stars form a cross over Israel on Christmas eve? etc. etc.
So,,, were the gospels writen 10 years apart from each other?
This is a very sophisticated research she has done. But I sense it is also the same problem I see always when American scholars present this. That problem is their background and upbringing and the typical dominant American Anglo-Saxon protestant religious tradition, that has been stuck in their 16th century Reformatory bias. Basic to this problem is the literal interpretation of the bible, The contrast to nowadays Biblical scholars in Europe is very obvious. They already have agreed to some theories that gave a total new and sometimes very revolutionary view on the origins of Christianity and the Gospels or the authenticity of Paul's letters. I see, also in the comments, it is for many people a very confronting idea that the Gospels are no historical records but a religious interpretation.
But to say that the NT and also the Biblical tradition is written by Greco-Roman Elite is indeed a very weird idea for which is no proof. The influence of the Hellenistic proselytes into the NT writings is so very obvious and clear. esp. in the letters of Paul and the Gospels, but the context of the texts are based in Judaism of the 1th and 2th century.
Wouldn't have likely been dictated to scribes?
I always thought they were written a little later than Jesus, looks like I have to research this much more.