Iskander

It is the only explanation for the existence of Christianity.

Toto

This is not an interesting question. The appearance of a character in texts can be explained by the writer's imagination, or the writer repeating rumors, or by the writer researching a historical character, or some combination. Most literary characters are some combination.

The interesting question is the question of Christian origins. Did Christianity start with a mythical ideal or was it inspired, directly or indirectly, by an actual person, whose name might or might not have been Jesus?

aa5874

Well, you have CONTRADICTED yourself.

The question is indeed interesting.

You have effectively ASKED the same question that you claimed in NOT interesting.

Please, if HJ is the more likely explanation then it should be OBVIOUS your QUESTION is answered.

This is so basic.

Now, tell me if HJ was the most likely explanation what is the most likely origin of Christianity?

You have NO interest in answering your OWN question if HJ was the most likely explanation?

aa5874

Enough of your BS.

You cannot provide a SINGLE source of antiquity that mentioned an HJ of Nazareth.

HJ of NAZARETH is a PRESUMPTION not a probability.

In order to estabilish probabilities you MUST FIRST provide credible DATA for HJ of Nazareth.

You have NO DATA at all from antiquity for HJ of Nazareth.

The DATA in the BIBLE is for a Child of a Ghost that was BORN in Bethlehem.

archibald

And the difference between my non-interesting question and your interesting question is substantially.......what, exactly? :]

What is this, thread title nitpicker's discount week? I would sorta have already assumed the guy, if he existed, was not necessarily called Jesus by his mum and Dad originally.

archibald

Hi dog-on,

Fair enough.

Now, do you think that all possible explanations have equal likelihood?

Hang on, steve has said something which seems to be the way I am thinking

If I were to expand on that, I might say, what methods or 'rules' of rational thinking may we generally employ in situations where we have more than one competing hypothesis? How do we distinguish between hypotheses, in rational skepticism?

I'm going to offer 3 possibilities. They are not 'proofs' of course, but what they are, are objective tests.

1. The Occam's Razor test.

Definition:

'Occam's razor......translating to law of parsimony, law of economy or law of succinctness, is a principle that generally recommends, when faced with competing hypotheses that are equal in other respects, selecting the one that makes the fewest new assumptions.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

This test also covers 'ad hoc hypotheses', which are when an increasing number of unevidenced events are cited to support an initial hypothesis.


2. The David Hume Test. '"A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence" (aka 'more unusual explanations require more unusually good evidence').

3. The Duck Test. 'If it walks more like a duck and quacks more like a duck, then it's more likely to be a duck' (aka inductive reasoning).

It's my contention, apart from anything else, that HJ passes these tests better than MJ.

This of course, is just an attempt at an objective, rational assessment of likelihood, and does not mean, by any means, that a less likely explanaton is the wrong one.

Toto

The interesting question is how religions get started. Do they require a charismatic individual who gives his life or makes some dramatic effect on people? Or do they take some drug induced trance on the part of a religious entrepreneur?

You seem to have framed the question as whether there might be a human being behind a particular set of stories. Of course, there always might be. Writers have a limited amount of imagination, and they tend to base their stories on real people or events. There seems to be general agreement among all scholars except fundamentalists that the gospel stories are largely mythical; the disagreement is over whether there is a historical core somewhere, and what the historical core might look like.

But even if you could show that there was a real person who inspired the gospel stories, was that person the founder or inspiration for Christianity? Or did Christianity start with a mythical savior, who was later historicized?

Iskander

Christianity started with the man we call Jesus.

J-D

That shows a disturbing lack of imagination, which in turn suggests the likelihood that you'll need to work harder to make any sense of the subject. Seriously.

Imagine you just met somebody at a party and you've been talking for a while, and then you mention that you're interested in figuring out whether HJ is the more likely overall explanation.

How do you imagine they're going to get a clue what you're talking about?That's far too vague to be worth discussing.

One minor issue is that you haven't specified the texts you're talking about. For example, is the Quran included? There is a Jesus character in the Quran. There are Jesus characters in books written recently. Those books are still 'extant'.

That aside, even in relation to one specified text your question would be too vague. It could mean 'What were the motives/intentions of the person or persons principally responsible for composing the text, particularly in relation to the way the character of Jesus is presented?' It could mean 'From what sources did the author or authors derive the material referring to the character of Jesus?' It could mean 'How much of the presentation of the character of Jesus represents the work of the original author or authors and how much, if at all, has it been affected by subsequent modification of the text?' It could mean 'Why does the text give a description of Jesus's crucifixion?' It could mean 'Why does the text give accounts of Jesus telling parables?' It could mean 'Why does the text describe Jesus choosing disciples?' It could mean 'Why do the texts agree on some specific points in what they say about Jesus?' It could mean 'Why do the texts disagree on some specific points in what they say about Jesus?' It could mean 'Why do the texts use the name "Jesus"?' It could mean 'Why are different versions of the text extant?'

I could go on like this for a while and maybe still not hit on the question you actually want to ask.

Toto

The historical Jesus hypothesis flunks this test. It requires assuming a human being behind the myth. It further assumes that this human was so charismatic that he inspired followers, but so insignificant that he didn't leave an impression on the society of the time; and that his followers turned him into a myth in a short time while quickly forgetting any real information about him.

This is a good argument for Jesus agnosticism.

Is the duck a human religious leader or a mythical religious founder? Either one would work.