The History Of Religions and their Gods!

"Skilled Carpenters and a Ship of Fools"

This is the fourth segment of Dennis MacDonald's book, "The Homeric Epic and the gosple of Mark

In this episode, we discuss the six criteria used by MacDonald to identify memesis in ancient literature, the art of memesis that either transvalues or emulates Homeric models in the gosples and other Christian literature.

Did Jewish, Latin and Greek writers of the first century use characters, plots and landscapes from Homeric Epics to transvalue the antiquated ethics and theology of Homer? It appears that they most certainly did, according to Dennis MacDonald. This episode talks about how to find myth markers in pros, why they used it and how the ancient wold learned it.

Not only did the author for Mark borrow heavily from the Septuagint and the Jewish Roman War by Josephus to hand craft stories for his Jesus, but he also borrowed from Homer's Bibles, the Odyssey and the Illiad to make comparisons between the ancient Greek heroes Odysseus and Hector to his Jesus and to demonstrate that Homer's ideas were old and outdated, thus, Jesus was the update merging two culturally classic works into one; the Greek Septuagint and the Odyssey. The source material in this series is Denis MacDonald's Homer in Mark

The season finale for 2022! We wrap up the year with Christian Apologetics making the claim that in Paul's 7 authentic letters he refers to a historical Jesus, having a mother and a father, a brother named James, was killed by the Jews and that there were 500 eye witnesses to his resurrection. Based on the book by Richard Carrier, "On the Historicity of Jesus"

In this episode with cover more of the arguments for the historical Jesus claim in Paul's letters: Being born of a woman, Being born of the seed of David in the lilliness of men, Pontius Pilate sending Jesus to the cross and Paul blaming the Jews for Jesus being killed.

In this episode we continue to examine the arguments that Paul speaks of a historical Jesus in his letters. But when closely examined, it appears that he does not. In Part 1 (Was Paul's Jesus a Space Alien) we discussed his silence about anything earthbound about Jesus and countered to Apologetic excuse that he only dealt with church issues and doctrine. In this episode, we tackle the argument about Jesus was born in the flesh by the seed or sperm of King David. The source for this episode is from Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Jesus" and more!

In this episode I attempt to tackle the arguments for a historical Jesus in the Pauline letters. As it stands, Paul's 7 authentic letters are completely devoid of any mentioning of an earthbound Jesus whatsoever. However, there are a few Christian arguments that make the claim that Paul never mentions Jesus's life is because it was already common knowledge and that there was no need to tell his congregations anything about him. But to me, this seems odd and out of place. We will also determine if Paul wrote prior the the gosples which puts the order of the New Testament books in conflict. The sourse material for this episode is provided by Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Jesus".

In this episode I breakdown the events that led up to the destruction of the holy city and its temple while making some comparisons to New Testament stories that might be about the war and the people involved

In this episode we will review the epistle of Hebrews that appears to be written as late a 68 during the Jewish-Roman War. How did these early Chrostians understand Jesus and in what capacity? Was he a divine human killed by the Romans at the fault of the Jewish elite or was he thought of as a celestial being who has no beginning and has no end that must die and rise in heaven in order to defeat Satan? (Credit given to Richard Carrier and his book, On the Historicity of Jesus - for further reading)