[irrelig]We’ve caught those wily NT rascals at it again — this time plagiarizing not from pagan sources but their own Old Testament! In this episode we discuss various portions of the Gospels that were obviously cribbed from OT sources like Psalms or Isaiah. Now why would God be plagiarizing himself?
All this and an extended Skunk Dick section awaits.
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30 Responses to “71: More New Testament Plagiarism”
It’s about Shiva-damned time!
Just to let Chuck and Leighton know, I have written some feedback on this episode, but it was far too boring for even me to endure. I’m going to re-write it when I have a free moment. So, suck it up bitches. I’ll give you what you need when I get around to it.
Jesus-fucking-christ! finally!
Moggie, Leighton and I have come up with some ideas about where you can stick that feedback.
Where the fuck’s our next podcast? Rabblerabblerabble
Another great one guys.
Leighton–has anyone ever told you that you have nearly the same voice as radio personality and general nutbag Whitley Streiber??
Keep it up fellas!
Whitley Streiber!? Oh Leighton, that’s gotta hurt, except you probably don’t know who he is or why you should take offense. That was low Mike. Do you beat up on retarded children in your neighborhood as well?
@ Mike
I don’t hear it, but I haven’t listened to Streiber in years
I would reccomend a great documentary called 8: The Mormon Proposition. The first half deals with how the Mormon Church has worked behind the scenes to stifle gay marrige and the second half deals with how the church deals with its own church members who happen to be born gay or lesbian. It was an inciteful documentary about the bigotry in the Moron Church and how it makes peolpe take their own lives because they’re taught that that they’re less than human. I hope everyone sees it.
About time. This kinda of shit didn’t happen when Pahkdi ran things and I for one will gyrate with rapturous joy when the producers of this podcast are once again crushed under the heel of our glorious child-like orphaned Thai elder gods.
Pahkdi Fhtagn!
¡Por fin, putos!
…and the peasants rejoice!
Guys, you do have a brain. Or at least one of you does. Never thought of the story of Isaac being just like Jesus in the New Testament. Very neat way to get fulfilled prophesies. Oh, and I did donate 1.99. You can share the beer till you learn to do WEEKLY podcasts. Suck it up.
It seems to me like it would be remarkable if Jesus didn’t actually exist. Religions are generally started by a charismatic leader, and I’m not aware of any cases where any religion has just invented a fictional character to worship. Certainly they may have invented gods to worship, but all the cases I know of in which a religion claims a historical founder, there’s no question that the founder actually existed.
It doesn’t seem strange to me that the early Christians borrowed from other scriptures and made stuff up wholesale in order to tell stories about Jesus. The religion was mostly spread by Paul, and he didn’t have any real knowledge about Jesus’ life, nor did he seem very interested in telling stories about Jesus. All he cared about was that Jesus died and supposedly came back to life. The rest of the details were probably just left to his new converts to puzzle out.
The fact a crucified leader is not something that somebody from the first century would naturally want to believe in would have made it even more imperative for them to spice the story with details from earlier scriptures.
It seems to me that Jesus probably did exist…. but we probably can’t accept most of what is written about him as factual.
I can understand and accept, to a point, what you’re saying, Dumbass, but questions rise in my head such as who was the historical figure who Isis, Ra, or Sekmet represented? What about Dionysus? You trying to tell me there was some charismatic drunkard out there who impressed people so much they decided to make a god out of him? In a polytheistic world, what is the addition of another god? Although the Judaic tradition likes to claim monotheism they have polytheistic ties and henotheistic themes.
Seems to me you already have an established religion, Judaism, and from there it becomes changed slightly with the addition of a new god. Perhaps some preacher was telling the story to teach a group of people something, a parable if you will, and from there it was spread around by word of mouth until Jesus became a reality. You bring up Paul and he’s the perfect example of someone hearing something they like and spreading it as quickly as they can. Tada, you have a god.
I would have agreed with you concerning a crucifixion being a strong case for the actual existence of a historical figure, but as I stated, unless Charley cut it out, this research has led me to believe the crucifixion did not occur. There are far too many plagiarisms surrounding it for me to accept the face of it. Til I see some actual evidence of its occurrence I’m filing it away under the same superstition coming from my dad; growing up he told me the reason we don’t have unicorns in the world is because when Noah was filling up the ark they were too proud to listen and join the other animals. Seems to me Jesus can fit into that file quite nicely.
Oh, and who is Whitley Streiber?
Well, the comparison to Isis or Ra is kind of apples and oranges. To my knowledge, neither of them were considered to be historical founders of a religion. They were considered to be gods from the start, and not human.
And regarding Paul, I should point out that he didn’t invent Christianity. At the time of Paul’s conversion there were already a group of Jews who followed the teachings of Jesus and held him up as the founder of their sect. It’s hard to know their exact teachings, but the evidence seems to show that they probably believed that Jesus was a mortal man.
So certainly I think it’s true that he probably existed, and that by the time of Paul he had died. I think it’s certainly the case that the crucifixion didn’t happen in the way described by the Bible…. but it still seems unlikely that they made it up out of whole cloth. They heavily bolstered the story with details from other scriptures in order to give it more legitimacy…. they pretty much had to in order for people to take it seriously. But to make something like that up completely…. very unlikely.
If you’re looking for more solid evidence, that’s a tough proposition when you’re looking at historical sources this far back. Most historical evidence for people and events from thousands of years ago is extremely thin. We accept as fact the existence of historical figures who have much less written about them than Jesus.
There’s a large element of uncertainty when you’re studying the distant past like this. You’ve got to try and figure out what *probably* happened. You look for the most likely explanation that fits the data. It means that you’ve got a greater chance of getting details wrong, but that’s the trade off.
To me, the most likely explanation is that Jesus was a real preacher who had a small following, but pissed off some official for some reason and was executed. After his death the legends about him grew out of control and when they were eventually written down they included all sorts of stuff just thrown in there.
This explanation fits the pattern of how religions form and spread. It fits with the data of what we know about early Christianity. For Jesus to have been a completely fabricated figure doesn’t seem to fit that pattern very well.
Why should anyone think Christianity is any different than any other religion? It seems to me that recent modern religions (LDS, Scientology, etc.) are a perfect case study for understanding the evolution of the older ones.
Take account of the adaptations necessary for the survival of LDS or Scientology that have already occurred. Factor that by 2,000 years. Account for lost or revised historical records. And what remains is a kernal or the original.
So did Jesus exist? I image that is probably true. (Just as Joseph Smith or L. Ron Hubbard did exist.) Was he the Lord and Savior? Let’s say that he said he was. The evidence suggests that to affirm Jesus’ status as the Savior, early followers were willing to make-up, alter, and destroy historical evidence to maintain this truth. To this day, people (regardless of their motives or intentions) have been willing to engage in extreme degrees of illogical thought, speech and action to preserve the belief that Jesus is the Lord and Savior.
Now consider what we know about Mormonism and Scientology and the actions of those vested in preserving the belief that Smith was a prophet or that Thetans exist. Are their actions unlike those of the early Christians?
The only truth that is evident in all of this is that some people are willing to pervert the truth in order to preserve it. And if that’s the case, the truth they claim is false.
A much closer analogy for Jesus in the pagan world would be the greek heros like Hercules. Achillies or even Helen of Troy. They were fathered by gods (usually Zeus) had stories told of them and dies spectacular deaths. They did have cults where they wer worshipped & had rite performed to them.
As to how a totally fabricated Jesus was created one can imagine a tiny Essene like sect that instead of wanting to take control of the temple wants to break free of it. For that they would need god’s authority. What better way to claim that authority then claiming that the son of god founded the sect ? He would have to be dead in order to anwer questions like – where is he now , show us some new miricle. Blaming his death on the the temple leadership then becomes a way of deliberatly distancing the sect from the temple.
The fictional Jesus could be compounded out of old testiment , greek heros , mystery cults, osiris & any other story floating around the middle east.
The alterinative to a fictional Jesus , Leighton seems to be demonstrating is a ‘Diest ‘Jesus , one that founded cristianity but left no other trace at all.
Leighton, this episode convinced me that your dad is legally insane. How many times does he read the Bible per day?
I was raised to not believe in Jesus, but I never bothered to research the “evidence.” Thanks for doing the research for me. And Jesus, when are you going to do an episode on Judaism?
Abby: I had similar thoughts. What I am really interested in hearing is a podcast detailing the more day-to-day stuff of the typical modern practicioner of Judaism. Of course there are many different sects of Judaism from which to choose (Conservative, Orthodox, Hasidic, Reform). What did you have in mind?
Well, after you posted your episode I had a good night shift, the cookies were baked to perfection and I got to see “Inception” which is something I believed to be impossible: better than “The Dark Knight”.
Now do you understand why I am so stressed when you skip a week?
Awesome podcast guys! I’d love to use some of that info in my arguments with Christians. You guys gonna start posting links for us? Or do I actually have to listen to the podcast twice and take notes? (Cause I clearly have better things to do)
Come to think of it, do you guys EVER provide sources for your info? It’d be nice to be able use the info you give us and have a better source than “two guys on the internet who swear a lot”.
Food for the RICH you idiots.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal
I am in agreement with Arouet’s complaints. You guys need to post your references!
Sources for this episode:
Leighton: http://www.wikipedia.com
Chuck: “Incredible Shrinking Son of Man,” by Bob Price
I love listening to Bob Price, I’ve heard of that one.. I just got the Evolution of God (I’m about half a chapter in). Will have to put the Price book on my list to read after. Thanks!
Long time listener first time poster. Thought this was a great episode. I was wondering if you could post the source to the apposiles 1950ish talk on the blacks inter marrying. Thanks chris
Sure thing. Here’s a full copy of Mark E Peterson’s racist 1954 BYU speech:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7769535/Mark-E-Petersons-Racist-BYU-Talk
My wife and I listened to this one on our way up camping. Laughed our asses off! Towards the end one of you mention a Book of Mormon authorship lecture. That wouldn’t be Craig Criddle’s at the Exmormon Foundation, would it? I would love to hear your take on his findings…
Fantastic episode, Guys! You’ve taken the loose ends and instances of “where have I heard that before?” and presented them in an intriguing, little package.