Kata Markon

[JFAlward AT aol.com]

In a message dated 3/11/02 8:59:38 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
eugor3 AT hotmail.com writes:

<< In the same fashion we must not dismiss the betrayal by Judas as pure 
 fiction simply because it is not mentioned in the Pauline letters.
  >>
In a message dated 3/11/02 8:59:38 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
eugor3 AT hotmail.com writes:

<< In the same fashion we must not dismiss the betrayal by Judas as pure 
fiction simply because it is not mentioned in the Pauline letters. >>

I think we can go much farther than merely dismissing the kiss; I think we 
have good reason to dismiss most, if not all,  of the elements of the gospel 
stories as fictional.  G.A. Wells, in his book The Historical Evidence for 
Jesus [pp. 22-23], explains it well:

"The...Pauline letters...are so completely silent concerning the events that 
were later recorded in the gospels as to suggest that these events were not 
known to Paul, who, however, could not have been ignorant of them if they had 
really occurred. 

"These letters have no allusion to the parents of Jesus, let alone to the 
virgin birth. They never refer to a place of birth (for example, by calling 
him 'of Nazareth'). They give no indication of the time or place of his 
earthly existence. They do not refer to his trial before a Roman official, 
nor to Jerusalem as the place of execution. They mention neither John the 
Baptist, nor Judas, nor Peter's denial of his master. (They do, of course, 
mention Peter, but do not imply that he, any more than Paul himself, had 
known Jesus while he had been alive.) 

"These letters also fail to mention any miracles Jesus is supposed to have 
worked, a particularly striking omission, since, according to the gospels, he 
worked so many... 

"Another striking feature of Paul's letters is that one could never gather 
from them that Jesus had been an ethical teacher... on only one occasion does 
he appeal to the authority of Jesus to support an ethical teaching which the 
gospels also represent Jesus as having delivered."

Joseph F. Alward
"A Skeptical View of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html