Jesus was a communist
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A radio interview.
A very long thread discussing aspects of the book in detail
That's assuming that he ever "was" when there's no solid evidence for vthis. Quite the opposite, only forgeries.
I have the book, it looks quite interesting. Though it's talking about the early Christians, who definitely did exist and left things written down, not Jesus the person – if there ever was such a man.
The material conditions for communism did not exist, so if he existed he couldn't possibly have been a communist nor could the ealy christians. They were utopians, surprise, surprise! Nothing new there then.
ALB wrote:That's assuming that he ever "was" when there's no solid evidence for vthis. Quite the opposite, only forgeries.Absence of evidence isn't necessarily evidence of absence, as they say.
DJP wrote:Did the material conditions for communism exist in 1848?I think you could say the material conditions existed to consider that communism was a possibility in the not too distant future.
Tim Kilgallon wrote:ALB wrote:That's assuming that he ever "was" when there's no solid evidence for vthis. Quite the opposite, only forgeries.Absence of evidence isn't necessarily evidence of absence, as they say.
True, but the only evidence is stories written down years later and forgeries by christian monks. No non-christian mentions him as a historical figure, only a cult based on a person called "Jesus". Redeemer cults, of which original christianity was one, were common in the Hellenistic world.Here's a review of a book on the subject from 1911:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1911/no-80-april-1911/did-jesus-ever-liveSee also Nicholas Walter's reply here:http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/jesus-christ-myth-or-reality-1980.html
There is a long and detailed thread on Libcom that may be of interest in the debate and well worth the read.https://libcom.org/forums/theory/book-first-second-century-christian-communism-using-david-graebers-work-28042017
ALB wrote:Tim Kilgallon wrote:ALB wrote:That's assuming that he ever "was" when there's no solid evidence for vthis. Quite the opposite, only forgeries.Absence of evidence isn't necessarily evidence of absence, as they say.
True, but the only evidence is stories written down years later and forgeries by christian monks. No non-christian mentions him as a historical figure, only a cult based on a person called "Jesus". Redeemer cults, of which original christianity was one, were common in the Hellenistic world.Here's a review of a book on the subject from 1911:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1911/no-80-april-1911/did-jesus-ever-liveSee also Nicholas Walter's reply here:http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/jesus-christ-myth-or-reality-1980.html
Josephus (possibly) referenced Jesus, so it's' not completely accurate to say that it is definite that a non-Christian writer never mentioned him as a historical figure.
Tim Kilgallon wrote:Josephus (possibly) referenced Jesus, so it's' not completely accurate to say that it is definite that a non-Christian writer never mentioned him as a historical figure.No, he didn't. Except by fanatical christians, this reference is generally accepted as a forgery. Did you read Nicholas Walter's letter where he points our:
Quote:The early Christians were acutely aware of the absence of good evidence for the life and death of Jesus, so they perpetrated what were called “pious frauds” to fill the gap. In the second century Justin and Tertullian referred to official reports by Pontius Pilate, and in the fourth century Eusebius quoted letters between Paul and Seneca. Above all, some time between the early third century and the early fourth century, the famous reference to Jesus was interpolated into Josephus's history of the Jews. This forgery destroys itself, since it makes Josephus, who was a religious Jew, refer to Jesus as if he were the Messiah and a divine being. None of this material is accepted by any serious Christian scholar today.Of course in the end it doesn't matter whether or not Jesus existed. Even if he did, christianity is still a load of crap. After all, Mohammed existed as a historical figure and that doesn't stop islam being a load of crap too.
Quote:Except by fanatical christians, this reference is generally accepted as a forgery.I think you over-egg the pudding, ALB. Wiki appears to be more constrained in its claims.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_JesusWe should be aware that history interpretation constantly progresses and unless we consider there is a conspiracy among historians and theologists, the present predominant view is that some Jewish preacher called Jesus, originally a disciple of John the Baptist, did exist and had a small following which due to various complicated factors grew into a mass movement by fits and starts and incorporating other beliefs.But as you said, we have strayed from the "communist" traditions of the early Christian movement.While we sometimes highlight these traditions such as by a Party stall at the Diggers/Levellers commemorations, we do tend to decline any association with the early Church Fathers by endeavouring to link them to modern socialism and "convert" believers to socialism.I believe the book's author's purpose is to expose the Christian propertarians as the real "heretics" to be exposed.
There's that reformist Corbyn rabbiting on about income and benefit cuts, anti trade union legistlation, poverty, homelessness, war and lack of democracy when he should be here with the REAL revolutionaries deciding if Jesus was a socialist or perhaps helping to construct a REAL communist science I just don't understand why workers are turning to him. Perhaps it's because the only alternative is to be bored to death by irrelevant rubbish
i Closer to home there are ‘apparently’ no contemporary references in the written record for the existance of Hadrians wall. The earliest ones seem to date from the late 4thand early 5thcentury eg; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustan_History#The_dating_problem there are two anti Christian second century texts that assert jesus as a historical figure. The passing of peregrinus by Lucian circa 170AD which describes Christians, in a derogatory tone, as communists and true doctrine by Celsus of a similar date. Celsus describes JC as magician and con merchant of the david blaine type who learned how to do that kind of stuff whilst economic migrant or wage slave in Egypt and that his mother was unmarried fornicator who span yarn as part of her day job. He was according to Celsus the product of a laison with a roman soldier as in the Life of Brian which is where they got it from. That story was a continuing part of anti Christian Jewish material. He was also accused of supernatural ‘black’ magic or sorcery which falls into a separate catergory. Celsus even describes his physical appearance as short and having some kind of physical deformity. One of earliest dateable christain texts is as below; This passage clearly places Barnabas after the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70. But it also places Barnabas before the Bar Kochba Revoltof AD 132, after which there could have been no hope that the Romans would help to rebuild the temple. The document must come from the period between the two revolts. The place of origin remains an open question, although the Greek-speaking Eastern Mediterranean appears most probable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_of_Barnabas#Origin which includes; Thou shalt communicate [in this context share ] in all things with thy neighbour; thou shalt not call things thine own; for if ye are partakers in common of things which are incorruptible, how much more [should you be] of those things which are corruptible! he means, "to such men as know not how to procure food for themselves by labour and sweat, but seize on that of others in their iniquity, and although wearing an aspect of simplicity, are on the watch to plunder others."
Since the silly season starts this week no doubt Vin will give us his permission to carry on discussing this.The issue is not whether early christians existed. Of course they did. Nobody denies that. Lucian didn't really accept that Jesus was a historical figure. He says that this is what christians believed. The satirical story in which he mentions this, The Death of Peregrine, is a amusing read. Religious conmen were common at the time and both he and Celsus suggested that the supposed founder of christianity must have been one of them.It's a pity Celsus's book didn't survive (i.e was destroyed by the christians) but, from the juicy extraxcts, it sounds a good read too. I think the Jews of the time also said Jesus was the bastard son of a Roman soldier.Christian doctrine is generally agreed to have been elaborated by Paul (who was a historical person) but even he doesn't seem to have accepted that Jesus was a historical figure; only that he was a good idea.
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