rizdek

So IF there were no competing myths, no Greek or Roman myths and if Marcion said that there really was a phantom that claimed to be the Son of God, had no birth and came directly from heaven to Capernaum, and corroborated all the events of the Gospels, you'd be inclined to vote A?

AthenaAwakened

I gotta ask, exactly what in my post made you think that I thought Jesus was real boy?

Chili

The definition of "real ' puts you in trouble here because he was a real boy in the Gospels and no longer a human being = therefore without sin as reborn at least in Luke and in John where the non-human infancy is identified and elevated as different from our human condition that later was crucified by itself.

mountainman

Hi aa5874,

We should be allowing people their own opinion. A 43,856 PIECE MAN is a not necessarily a MYTH until the 43,856 mythical or historical people represented in the pieces have been separately examined and a decision is made - or not made in the case of the Core aganostics - that all of them are not the Jesus of the NT, or that one of them is, or that one of them maybe is.

If its the case that someone's opinion is that one of these 43,856,5874 people is the HJ, or that one of them maybe is the HJ, then although the HJ might have a very small historical core and a great deal of unrelated historical baggage and fabricated myth mixed up into a scribal soup, an historical core nevertheless exists in this event (the way they may look at it).

AthenaAwakened

I'll be sure to use scare quotes next time

(tough room. and I thought the Apollo was bad. Sheesh)

aa5874

Well, then my opinion is ALLOWABLE. In an OPEN forum all opinions are allowable. It is my opinion that a 43,856 composite is a MYTH. No real human character, or figure of history, is an amalgamation of even two real characters.

The historical Jesus must be ONE human character and can be identified as one person who lived at some specific period and did certain things.

The problem for HJ is that there may be OVER 43,856 opinions and ZERO credible evidence from antiquity.

On the other hand, there may be OVER 43,856 pages of documents from antiquity COMPILED to show that Jesus was NOT of the seed of man, but a product of some kind of Ghost and a Virgin.

What is "scribal soup"? It is just TOTAL propaganda that SCRIBES were responsible for the DOCTRINAL changes in Christianity.

It was the CULT leader who determined the DOCTRINE of the Cult. Examine all the so-called Heresies that the Church Identified and it will be CLEARLY seen that ALL have the NAME of the Cult leader or the NAME of the Specific Doctrine or Belief.

Why are there NO scribal errors for Heresies? Was the doctrine of Marcion, Basilides, Carpocrates, Cerinthus, the Ebionites, Monoimus, Marcus, Saturnilus, Menander, Simon Magus, Valentinus and others developed through Scribal error?

A scribe is just a human photo-copying "machine". A SCRIBE must copy EXACTLY what he was told to copy. A scribe cannot make changes to text that is NOT his property or own authorship. Scribes were PAID to copy documents and were well-trained in hand-writings skills.

It is most likely that virtually ALL changes to the Doctrine and history of Jesus was done by the authorities of the Church or Cult leaders.

The variations of the NICENE CREEDS have NO SCRIBAL errors so why would the NT Canon of the Church have errors by Scribes?

All changes in the NT Canon and the NICENE Creeds MUST be authorised by the Church.

dogsgod

.


I have to agree with the following statement:


The core of the Jesus story is the Son of man, who has been hidden from the beginning of time, who will be revealed when the end of the ages is near, and who will serve as the judge of men and angels when the earth is destroyed and the New Jerusalem of heaven comes as the place of inhabitance for the righteous men of all nations where death will be abolished and the righteous live with the Son of man for ever and ever. That is who Christ is and that is who Jesus is, and that figure is a purely mythical character that existed long before the emergence of the specific story of Jesus, whose story is not fundamentally different from a dozen or so other stories from the same time and place, other than the specific name of the savior and the method of his death. http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...h_followup.htm


and this:



Some proponents [of the Christ myth theory] argue that events or sayings associated with the figure of Jesus in the New Testament may have been drawn from one or more individuals who actually existed, but that none of them was in any sense the founder of Christianity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_myth_theory



So, how would I vote? I see a mythical core with some elements of history but that view wasn't an option to vote for.



.

mountainman

Hi dogsgod,

The two options to choose from would be:

(2) Jesus has some sort of historical core

A second opinion might be that Jesus is a mixture of both history and myth in various ratios. Some people might like to think of the ratio as 90% history and 10% myth, or as 50% history and 50% myth, or as 90% myth and 10% history. This option is reserved for those who think that there is some hisorical core to the figure of Jesus, no matter how small and covered over with myth this small fragment might be.

(3) Jesus is myth all the way down.

Finally a third opinion might be that there is no historical core whatsoever in the figure of Jesus, and that Jesus is therefore 100% myth all the way down, with 0% history.

If your assessment is that the core is mythical, with no history in it, but with elements of history (and/or more myth) surrounding the core then its option 3.

If your assessment is that part of the mythical core may contain bits of history, then you should examine the historical bits in the core to determine if they or the mythical bits can be moved outside the core. If your model still ends up with any history inside the core, no matter how diminished, then you'd probably run with option 2.

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Hi aa5874,

Stuff that isn't history or myth, but is used in the mix. For example persuasion in rhetoric.


Edward Gibbon refers to that as the suspicious evidence of Church history". Certainly, those whose opinions follow option (3) must also try and explain the sequence of historical events by which something which was 100% myth has been accepted for centuries as 100% history. That is, the question of the story of how did the myth become accepted as the official historical story.

etc
etc

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

What is at the nucleus of the Jesus atom?

History or myth?





Introductory Questions

What is at the nucleus of the Jesus atom?

Is it mainly empty space?

Are there positive and negative christ and antichrist forces?

Have these +/- forces been observed and/or explained?

What's the difference between apologetics and electrostatics?

Are the 27 new testament books protonic?

Are the works of the church fathers really "neutral" like neutron-glue?

Are the nebulous books of the gnostics like an electron-cloud?

How can forensic science help in this question?

Did the Jesus Bomb get tested on a Bikini Island in antiquity ?

By what technology did the ancients harness such great power in the early church?


Advanced Questions

What is the quantum state of the core of the Jesus atom?

Is it a mixture and resonance of history and myth or one or neither?

Can Jesus be simultaneously mythical and historical?

What properties attributed to Jesus do not apply to Schrödinger's cat ?

Did Jesus enter the space-time continuum of planet Earth as a historical figure or a mythical figure?

What does the analysis of the ancient historical evidence from the first century of the common era suggest?

Albert Einstein said he liked to think that the moon was there even when he was not looking at it.

Does the same apply equally to the historical and/or mythical jesus?