Freethought & Rationalism Archive

aa5874 · 09-27-2009, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by storytime

How easy would it be to create a story around David Koresh and his followers? The government was on his shoulder, he was innocent practicing his religion, people hated him and wanted him dead. Koresh could have been arrested prior to government interference.

Koresh walked among his townspeople and none sought to harm him. Koresh was interviewed months before he was accused of being anti-government.

Koresh was not his real given name ( I can't remember what it was at birth). But Koresh sought to re-invent himself and become a biblical prophet. Men will write about Koresh, just like they wrote about Jesus. Miracles will be imagined, and "truth" against the government.

Is there any outside evidence for a man called "David Koresh"? No, he was an invention.

People's children died in the fire at Waco Texas. You think they will ever forget David Koresh or invent him?

Kapyong · 09-27-2009, 02:40 PM

Gday,

Quote:

Originally Posted by TimBowe

Reasoning for yourself, lolololololol.

Man, do you guy's understand that an overwhelming majority of historians and scholars support the Historical Jesus!!!!!!!!!!! You guys are acting like I'm the radical, just because I'm saying that a man called Jesus existed!!!!!!!!

That "overwhelming majority of historians" turns out to be nearly all faithful Christian believers whose job, income, credibility and reputation depends on toeing the party line that Jesus existed.

It's the most biased sample you could find.

How many Indian faithful believer scholars believe Krishna existed?
How many Scientologist faithful believer 'scholars' believe Xenu existed?
How many Theosophical faithful believer 'scholars' believe the Masters exist?

Perhaps if you added a few more exclamation points, you might convice people.

K.

dog-on · 09-27-2009, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TimBowe

Listen, I don't care either way, it's just that the Christ Myth Theory is essentially without supporters in academic circles.

I suppose that holding such a position, Mythicist, would not be beneficial to the overall Jesus industry.

I am not surprised that individuals whose livelyhoods depend on this industry are careful regarding their conclusions.

On the otherhand, if pressed, I doubt any of the non-apologist individuals you have so far mentioned wouldn't end up telling you that historicity is simply the starting premise they use in their research, as is obviously the case when you read any of these hacks...

TimBowe · 09-27-2009, 03:00 PM

Actually, a great number are secular historians who do not believe in the Resurrection.
Few more exclamation points, hey great idea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

dog-on · 09-27-2009, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TimBowe

Actually, a great number are secular historians who do not believe in the Resurrection.
Few more exclamation points, hey great idea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Really?

I think you need to re-examine your list...

TimBowe · 09-27-2009, 03:10 PM

Yea, you are correct that the majority of New Testament scholars are believers in the New Testament. The majority of historians do not agree, does that make those conclusions wrong? No. It simply means that there conclusions are not persuasive to most historians.

The reality is that the majority of critical scholars studying the historical Jesus disagree with your view that Jesus never existed.

Cesc · 09-27-2009, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TimBowe

The Gospels were written 35 to 65 years after Jesus' death, not by eyewitnesses. The Gospels were written by Greek-speaking Christians living 30, 40, 50, 60 years later. The accounts they narrate are based on oral traditions. What's more plausible than a resurrection, that Jesus' family stole the body. Is that implausible, or is more plausible that the early Christians had visionary experiences. People have visions all the time, I'm not saying that's what happened. But it's more plausible then the claim that God raised Jesus from the dead. That is not a plausible explanation. But it has to be stressed that we are dealing with ancient texts of a specific time that were not written by eyewitnesses. The only person to claim to be a witnesses to a resurrection appearance was Paul, and that "eyewitness" didn't know Jesus during his lifetime. What is the origin of the belief in the resurrection? One could say that the origin is simple deceit. That the disciples stole the body and claimed that he rose. But I would say that when studied closely it is indeed a vision that lies at the heart of the Christian religion. That vision described in greek by Paul as "he was seen" follows as Paul himself asserted reapeatedly "I have seen the Lord." So paul is the main source of the thesis that a vision is the origin of the belief in the resurrection. When people talk about visions they rarely ever allude to something we experience every night when we dream. That's our subconscious way of dealing with reality. A vision of that sort was at the heart of the Christian religion, and that vision with enthusiasm was contagious and led to many more visions.

I'd rather look at the symbolic meaning of Jesus' resurrection. I wonder why the tale of Jesus' resurrection is so debated historicity-wise while all the other tales of resurrection in NT are not. Jesus resurrecting Lazarus in the manner of Elijah and Elisha. What is the symbology in the Elijah/Elisha stories and in the NT story? Signs of the Kingdom? Fertility symbology? Etc.
And is that resurrection tale's symbology the same as the symbology in Jesus' own resurrection? These are the interesting questions, if you ask me.

TimBowe · 09-27-2009, 03:48 PM

Quote:

The historian Michael Grant states that, "To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars.' In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary."

- Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels (Scribner, 1995).

Quote:

Michael James McClymond, Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth (or via: amazon.co.uk), Eerdrmans (2004), page 24: most scholars regard the argument for Jesus' non-existence as unworthy of any response".

lol

Quote:

Van Voorst is quite right in saying that “mainstream scholarship today finds it unimportant” [p.6, n.9]. Most of their comment (such as those quoted by Michael Grant) are limited to expressions of contempt." - Earl Doherty, "Responses to Critiques of the Mythicist Case: Four: Alleged Scholarly Refutations of Jesus Mythicism", available http://home.ca.inter.net/~oblio/CritiquesRefut3.htm, accessed 05 January 2008.

Sheshbazzar · 09-27-2009, 03:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TimBowe

I am 21 years old, I attend NYU film school. I am an militant atheist, I read Nietzsche alot. But I still listen to what the MAJORITY of Historians say!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I am now 60 years old, have had over 40 years of experience in Biblical studies, can read the Hebrew, and am educated and experienced enough to form my own well informed opinions as to the validity and value of what this 'majority' of Historians and Biblical scholars have to say.

I am not impressed, they all are limited to their analysis of the contents of the same few documents, almost all have come from from very similar Christian environments, most being pretty much so many trained parrots, parroting their trite little versions of the same Christian influenced drivel that has been repeated ad-nauseam for centuries.
They would never have achieved their lofty academic status except that they were careful to check all the "right" boxes and give all the "right" and institutionally "approved" answers and 'kiss the ring' in the pursuit of their academic degrees. The old guard ever pulling the strings to protect their own rumps from any upstarts who would dare question their views, status, and authority.

TimBowe · 09-27-2009, 03:53 PM

Early Historical Documents on Jesus Christ

Quote:

Pagan sources
The non-Christian sources for the historical truth of the Gospels are both few and polluted by hatred and prejudice. A number of reasons have been advanced for this condition of the pagan sources:

•The field of the Gospel history was remote Galilee;
•the Jews were noted as a superstitious race, if we believe Horace (Credat Judoeus Apella, I, Sat., v, 100);
•the God of the Jews was unknown and unintelligible to most pagans of that period;
•the Jews in whose midst Christianity had taken its origin were dispersed among, and hated by, all the pagan nations;
•the Christian religion itself was often confounded with one of the many sects that had sprung up in Judaism, and which could not excite the interest of the pagan spectator.
It is at least certain that neither Jews nor Gentiles suspected in the least the paramount importance of the religion, the rise of which they witnessed among them. These considerations will account for the rarity and the asperity with which Christian events are mentioned by pagan authors. But though Gentile writers do not give us any information about Christ and the early stages of Christianity which we do not possess in the Gospels, and though their statements are made with unconcealed hatred and contempt, still they unwittingly prove the historical value of the facts related by the Evangelists.

We need not delay over a writing entitled the "Acts of Pilate", which must have existed in the second century (Justin, "Apol"., I, 35), and must have been used in the pagan schools to warn boys against the belief of Christians (Eusebius, Church History I.9; Church History IX.5); nor need we inquire into the question whether there existed any authentic census tables of Quirinius.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08375a.htm

Quote:

Tacitus
We possess at least the testimony of Tacitus (A.D. 54-119) for the statements that the Founder of the Christian religion, a deadly superstition in the eyes of the Romans, had been put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate under the reign of Tiberius; that His religion, though suppressed for a time, broke forth again not only throughout Judea where it had originated, but even in Rome, the conflux of all the streams of wickedness and shamelessness; furthermore, that Nero had diverted from himself the suspicion of the burning of Rome by charging the Christians with the crime; that these latter were not guilty of arson, though they deserved their fate on account of their universal misanthropy. Tacitus, moreover, describes some of the horrible torments to which Nero subjected the Christians (Ann., XV, xliv). The Roman writer confounds the Christians with the Jews, considering them as a especially abject Jewish sect; how little he investigated the historical truth of even the Jewish records may be inferred from the credulity with which he accepted the absurd legends and calumnies about the origin of he Hebrew people (Hist., V, iii, iv).

Suetonius
Another Roman writer who shows his acquaintance with Christ and the Christians is Suetonius (A.D. 75-160). It has been noted that Suetonius considered Christ (Chrestus) as a Roman insurgent who stirred up seditions under the reign of Claudius (A.D. 41-54): "Judaeos, impulsore Chresto, assidue tumultuantes (Claudius) Roma expulit" (Clau., xxv). In his life of Nero he regards that emperor as a public benefactor on account of his severe treatment of the Christians: "Multa sub eo et animadversa severe, et coercita, nec minus instituta . . . . afflicti Christiani, genus hominum superstitious novae et maleficae" (Nero, xvi). The Roman writer does not understand that the Jewish troubles arose from the Jewish antagonism to the Messianic character of Jesus Christ and to the rights of the Christian Church.

Pliny the Younger
Of greater importance is the letter of Pliny the Younger to the Emperor Trajan (about A.D. 61-115), in which the Governor of Bithynia consults his imperial majesty as to how to deal with the Christians living within his jurisdiction. On the one hand, their lives were confessedly innocent; no crime could be proved against them excepting their Christian belief, which appeared to the Roman as an extravagant and perverse superstition. On the other hand, the Christians could not be shaken in their allegiance to Christ, Whom they celebrated as their God in their early morning meetings (Ep., X, 97, 98). Christianity here appears no longer as a religion of criminals, as it does in the texts of Tacitus and Suetonius; Pliny acknowledges the high moral principles of the Christians, admires their constancy in the Faith (pervicacia et inflexibilis obstinatio), which he appears to trace back to their worship of Christ (carmenque Christo, quasi Deo, dicere).

Other pagan writers
The remaining pagan witnesses are of less importance: In the second century Lucian sneered at Christ and the Christians, as he scoffed at the pagan gods. He alludes to Christ's death on the Cross, to His miracles, to the mutual love prevailing among the Christians ("Philopseudes", nn. 13, 16; "De Morte Pereg"). There are also alleged allusions to Christ in Numenius (Origen, Against Celsus IV.51), to His parables in Galerius, to the earthquake at the Crucifixion in Phlegon (Origen, Against Celsus II.14). Before the end of the second century, the logos alethes of Celsus, as quoted by Origen (Contra Celsus, passim), testifies that at that time the facts related in the Gospels were generally accepted as historically true. However scanty the pagan sources of the life of Christ may be, they bear at least testimony to His existence, to His miracles, His parables, His claim to Divine worship, His death on the Cross, and to the more striking characteristics of His religion.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08375a.htm

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09-27-2009, 03:00 PM	#44
TimBowe Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Oak Lawn, IL Posts: 1,620	Actually, a great number are secular historians who do not believe in the Resurrection. Few more exclamation points, hey great idea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

09-27-2009, 03:10 PM	#46
TimBowe Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Oak Lawn, IL Posts: 1,620	Yea, you are correct that the majority of New Testament scholars are believers in the New Testament. The majority of historians do not agree, does that make those conclusions wrong? No. It simply means that there conclusions are not persuasive to most historians. The reality is that the majority of critical scholars studying the historical Jesus disagree with your view that Jesus never existed.

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