aquascoot wrote on Apr 6^th, 2014 at 7:19pm:

Actually Jesus (if he existed) had an insignificant impact even within Palestine.

It is the idea of Jesus, promulgated almost entirely in the Roman world by Paul, that is significant.

You could say that Jesus was more an invention of Paul (and a very few others), than a true proselytizer of his own philosophy. Which is why the historicity of Jesus is largely irrelevant.

You could say the same for Socrates. We know of him almost entirely through Plato and Plato (as Aristotle attests) used the character of Socrates as his mouthpiece in a similar way that Paul did 350 years later with Jesus.

And, similarly again, (as with Jesus and Paul) the historicity of Socrates, because of Plato, is largely irrelevant.

Soren wrote on Apr 6^th, 2014 at 9:02pm:

Neither Jesus nor Socrates wrote anything themselves (not, at least that has survived).

What we know of Jesus comes almost entirely from four disparate surviving texts that disagree on many of the few stories of his life, including his birth, his life prior to 30 and the 3 years he apparently had a public life. His significance to the Roman world (aka 'the West') is known to us almost entirely through Paul's evangelising, who never met him, and was who severely derided (and almost killed) by those few who claimed to for misinterpreting and (according to them) effectively lying about him. However, it was Paul's imagination of Jesus that has survived.

Its true we know much more about Socrates, but, again Plato must be credited with 'rounding out' the character of Socrates for posterity.

Without Plato there would probably be no Socrates... Without Paul, there would probably be no Jesus.

Soren wrote on Apr 6^th, 2014 at 9:02pm:

There are many, many charismatics in history, who, as it turns out, were entirely fictitious... King Arthur and Robin Hood to name two. The difference between them and Jesus is that the two former characters are folklore only and are not central or crucial to religious belief.

We can relatively easily accept that Arthur and Robin Hood in all likelihood did not exist. But Jesus must exist (at least in the mind of Christians) or their entire religious edifice, they believe, will crumble.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 6^th, 2014 at 9:12pm:


We would know about Jesus without Paul, there are enough non-Pauline sources about him. Jesus's impact/effect on Paul is undeniably important.

But this is a banal point.

Had Paul written as he did about, say, Peter or Claudius or Augustus or James or Mark, Matthew, Luke, Julius Caesar or Cleopatra, we wouldn't have a world-wide religion around Peter, Claudius, Augustus etc.


The analogy with Socrates/Plato is seductive but false and again, banal.

Plato is recognised as the great philosopher because he didn't write only about Socrates. He is not a great philosopher because he wrote about Socrates.

Soren wrote on Apr 6^th, 2014 at 9:55pm:

The Jesus of Christianity is almost entirely a Pauline invention, so whatever Jesus would have been without Paul (if anything at all) would have been a middle eastern-styled prophet of a Jewish sect.

Soren wrote on Apr 6^th, 2014 at 9:55pm:

Maybe not, you can't know that.

Soren wrote on Apr 6^th, 2014 at 9:55pm:

But he did recreate Socrates through his imagination of him. That is the Socrates we know of today. The real one is almost lost to history.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 6^th, 2014 at 10:07pm:



Christianity took shape after Paul's death. Well after Paul's death.  He was influential because he was recognised as having the right take on Jesus, not because he rammed through some completely novel and incompatible version of him.

Paul could not have done what he did without Jesus. He couldn't have elevated Claudius or Augustus to the same level. We could not possibly have Augustus as the Son of God today, no matter what Paul would have written.
Making Paul the author of Christianity puts the horse literally above the cart in importance. Paul is the horse but he wouldn't have had anything to be the horse of without Jesus.

Socrates -we talk about Platonism and neo-Platonism, not Socratism. Dialectics is credited to Socrates  and others have written about him (Aristophanes, Xenophon) but it is Plato who is credited with the philosophical heft (and his pupil, Aristotle).

At most, Paul is the Cyrano de Bergerac of Christianity. But the love is still about Roxanne.

muso wrote on Apr 6^th, 2014 at 9:31pm:



Hey muso,

Are you saying, that it was Paul's efforts, that made Jesus the most widely known and identifiable individual in human history ?


Jesus = = a Jew, the most widely known individual, in human history !

Yep!         They are 'outstanding' people those Jews!      

Particularly, the one who was known as Jesus.




Acts 26:9
I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
10  Which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them.
11  And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities.
12  Whereupon as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests,
13  At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me.
14  And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
15  And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.
16  But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee;
17  Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee,
18  To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.