JonA

No. I never mentioned anything about a 'total lack of evidence'. It is anticipated that a critter such as the historical Jesus would not have been the topic of any contemporaneous historical records. It's not ruled out.

Again, I never mentioned anything about a 'total lack of evidence'; obviously an hypothesis that predicts a total lack of evidence for itself is useless.

The HJ hypothesis, however, is not such an hypothesis.

Jon

Toto

I quote you: I still say the HJ hypothesis does not predict silence, but is compatible with silence, as long as Jesus is a nobody. Obviously if you found a contemporary record of Jesus it would not disprove the HJ hypothesis.

aa5874

How could HJ predict silence when HJers are claiming that Josephus and Tacitus mentioned HJ where he is called the CHRIST?

It is clear that HJers have NO idea who their historical Jesus was and cannot locate him.

Once HJers claim their HJ was Jesus the Christ in "Antiquities of the Jews" then HJ was Jesus Christ who was RAISED from the dead since Christian writers ASSOCIATED the character called Jesus the Christ in "Antiquities of the Jews" as the same character who was BORN of the Holy Ghost and a Virgin.

jgoodguy

Jesus does not have to be a 'nobody'. All that is certain is that there is a silence about him. There are a number of Jesuses possible where the historical record could have been destroyed or suppressed resulting in the silence. The one assertion that is true in all cases, is that a theoretical HJ does not have to have had an affect on Gentile Christianity. In which case the difference between such a Jesus and a entirely mythical one cannot be easily detected.

aa5874

Well, there is really no need to make the Jesus story complicated at all.

The stories are there and can be read like any other story.

It was the MYTH attributes of Jesus that makes the story of any THEOLOGICAL value.

Jesus MUST be a Resurrected MYTH based on "Paul" so there MUST be Silence from Non-Christian writers.

The Pauline Jesus Christ just cannot be historical at all unless it assumed that the Pauline Jesus was a KNOWN LIE.

The premise of the HJ argument means that the Jesus stories as presented in the NT were PUBLICLY KNOWN to be FALSE even by POTENTIAL Converts.

The HJ premise means that PEOPLE in Galilee PERSONALLY knew Jesus was NOT the "End of the LAW, did NOT resurrect and could NOT Remit Sins.

It MUST be OBVIOUS that the Jesus stories as presented in the NT MUST MEAN that there was NO Non-Christian evidence to CONTRADICT the MYTH.

In effect, based on the Jesus stories we would either have Non-Christians writers or Christian writers of Jesus.

Christians Writers claiming Jesus was TRULY the Child of a Ghost, the Creator and TRULY God Incarnate WITHOUT a human father cannot MUTUALLY exist with non-Christians writers who PERSONALLY knew Jesus was just an ordinary man with a human father who could NOT REMIT the Sins of Mankind and was NOT God Incarnate..

The Jesus stories of themselves suggests that there we will NOT FIND any non-Christians writings that could CONTRADICT their FABULOUS myth fable.