Captain's Log, Stardate 30802.11 -- We have arrived at the Geezesmith Sector in our quest to explore strange, new worlds and seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. I hope we'll be done by 6, because there's a new episode of Iron Chef tonight.

Stardate 30802.15 -- Our first stop in the Geezesmith Sector is the planet Ellegard. We found beings who believed that the Jesus preached by Paul and certain NT writers actually lived in the first century BC and was known as the Teacher of Righteousness, alluded to in the Dead Sea Scrolls. According to these beings, the Gospels and Acts are second-century fabrications.

Stardate 30802.17 -- the next community on this planet. We found a being who refers to attempts to get back to the Aramaic of the Gospels, "Nothing very substantial has come of these efforts." These beings have it easy. They also offer such ideas as a spiritual resurrection [28] and make much of the alleged silence of the epistles on the life of Jesus, which I recall the beings on the planet Doherty also believed in. In fact, I think 80% of the arguments used here are from the planet Doherty. There's the one about the "brother of the Lord" in Paul meaning "brethren" in a corporate sense. I will be asking Mr. Spot to see if there is any evidence of cross-cultural panspermia.

Stardate 30802.21 -- We have travelled for several miles across this planet and haven't found any new arguments yet. The beings here date other documents like 1 Clement and Shepherd of Hermas very early, before 70 AD. The arguments are based on less than a half-dozen common vocabulary words. They're really treading thin ice with the scholarship here.

Stardate 30802.22 -- Found a tree with one of the beings sitting in it babbling something about the Essenes living all over the Roman Empire. When asked for evidence he pointed to a line in the Roman satirist Horace who refers to Roman Jews observing the "thirthieth sabbath" and said that the Essenes used a calendar with numbered Sabbaths. Mr. Spot pressed the being, who admitted that yes, it wasn't much to go on, and there was no evidence other Jews didn't number Sabbaths, but the being then flew out of the tree yelling something about not "shutting our eyes to the possibilities which are simply excluded by our preconceived ideas." He then proceded to bet the rest of his life on the assertion. These people need some help.

Stardate 30802.31 -- not much happening. We ran across an argument that Paul was a Gnostic. It went down its hole before Lt. Yoohoohoo could turn on her tricorder.

Stardate 30802.35 -- Mr. Spot is feeling a little masochistic. He asked one of the natives how Christianity could be am offshoot of Essenism, since the movements had so many important differences. "Because they evolved, stupid! There were probably a wide variety of Essene movements all over the Roman Empire. The Thereputae in Egypt were also connected. Can't you look beyond preconceived ideas?? Don't you realize how likely it is the texts have been tampered with in ways we don't have any evidence for?" I don't think I have ever seen Mr. Spot turn so many shades of green.

Stardate 30802.37 -- Ensign Chuckoff beamed down with a copy of Tacitus' Annals and we decided to ask one of the wisest natives about the fact that it places Jesus under Pilate, not 100 years earlier. "He was just repeating hearsay," the elder growled. "Don't you know that Ancient People Are Stupid? We're the real geniuses!" Then he threw us out of his house. Outside one of the other natives was spouting the Cynic sage thesis. Ensign Chuckoff beamed back up to take a nap.

Stardate 30802.49 -- Apparently the person responsible for putting Jesus in the first century was Ignatius. We are told he made it up on the spot because he thought that was about the time Paul had a vision of Christ.