Vorkosigan

Crossan was there more than a decade ago, with this thesis. Thanks, Toto.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

A hardcover price of only 120.000! A steal! And no Kindle option. If only the NT world wasn't two decades behind, say, Project Gutenberg....

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Of course, one wonders whether this will simply embolden the fundies -- the only way to Jesus now is through faith! See? Didn't we tell you this quest would end in disarray?!

Adam

But there's The Gospel according to the Atheists that I've uncovered in the process of my thread "Gospel Eyewitnesses". See particularly my posts #526 and 534.

If the Third Quest has been deemed a failure, the fourth quest seems well in progress, as I've been continuing to detail in my thread. See especially my Post #568 about Jay M. Harrington's The Lucan Passion Narrative...., Kim Paffenroth's The Story of Jesus According to L, and James R. Edward's The Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition. My Significance of John thread is the underpinning for my OP in Gospel Eyewitnesses about the first eyewitness in gJohn, but these three writers bring evidence for an eyewitness writer (or two) in the Gospel of Luke. And most of this can be accepted as documenting the historical Jesus without being overwhelmed with supernaturalism.

Adam

But the paperback is only $34.95.

stephan huller

I would be extraordinarily happy if I could wipe the memory of that God-awful thread from my memory. One of the low points in this forum the way you didn't listen to anything anyone said and kept a thread that should have died at post #50 all the way into the extremities.

Adam

And here's how Morna Hooker concludes the Foreword:

I suggest that it is time to throw away the tools altogether, and
to opt for plain common sense.

HERESY!
http://megasociety.org/noesis/181.htm#Common

Steven Carr

http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2012/01...piot-tomb.html is an interesting article about how any evidence about any Jesus that may be found has to be considered dubious if it ‘”contradicts dramatically nearly 2000 years of Christian tradition’.

In other words, any historical Jesus that there may be evidence for, would be considered doubtful evidence, unless it fitted in with nearly 2000 years of Christian tradition.

How then can research on the ‘real’ historical Jesus be done? If such research found that the ‘real’ historical Jesus had no brother called James, but had a brother called Thomas, it would automatically be rejected, because nearly 2000 years of Christian tradition claimed that Jesus had a brother called James and no brother called Thomas.

Interestingly, Islamic scholars have totally different critieria that they employ when they examine the Hadith to determine what was said by the historical Muhammad and his companions.

Isn't it surprising that one religion has one set of criteria to determine what was said by the historical Muhammad and another religion uses a different set of criteria to determine what was said by the historical Jesus?

It is almost as though the methods used by historians were rejected by students of religious history who then developed criteria suitable for their religion.

sotto voce

One can overestimate the influence of scholarship on the recognition of Jesus as a contemporary spiritual factor. At grass roots level, Jesus is historical because a friend or relative is changed personally, for the better, through accepting the perception of Jesus as found in the NT. Because personal changes are found to be real, the Jesus who inspired those changes must be real, in the view of those who experience these changes. Moreover, so far, conservative biblical scholarship has remained impervious to the changes of recent years, and may well continue to be impervious.

AdamWho

Feelings and anecdotal accounts are not evidence for anything except that people have feelings and experiences.

The "people have feelings therefor god exists" argument is just stupid.

Seriously, if you are here to promote your religion, you are doing a lousy job.