Doug Shaver

Your repeated protestations along these lines would carry more weight if anybody, anywhere, had ever argued, "There is no God, therefore _____ could not have been written by an eyewitness."

Can you say "straw man"?

Adam

Yes, I can say "straw man", but it's yours. It's said right here on FRDB all the time.
But whether you guys say it or not, you can't use it to argue against eyewitnesses who did not report incredible things. You need to explain why things supposedly happened or were said in Jesus's life and these documents got included in later fiction. Say what you will about the fiction being fiction, but why would the earlier documents enclosed also be fiction? If someone is going to perpetrate a fraud, wouldn't he start with factual material available to give verisimilitude and then build on it? You're proposing to go against all the scholarly criticism of the 2nd and 3rd quests for the Historical Jesus. You accept MJ on faith?

Where a work is claimed to be fictional or legendary, but its underlying documents are simple, they would likely be earlier to around the time-frame stated. For Jesus-mythers who date the final gospels to mid-2nd Century, the simple underlying documents cannot reasonably be dated as also 2nd Century. You would need to argue that they had gotten set aside in some sort of a time capsule and then "resurrected". Is anyone claiming this? And even if so, wouldn't those "time-capsule" documents give good information about what happened or was said before being set aside? That brings us back to evidence I have presented that you have no a priori reason to reject the first three or four of my proposed eyewitnesses.

Toto

Just because something is not supernatural, it is not automatically eyewitness material.

The mere possibility that stories are based on eyewitness material is not enough to make it probable that they were, much less prove that they were.
The 2nd quest was a failure. The 3rd quest left a lot of questions. If you read other threads here on the methodology of the 3rd quest, including the criterion of embarrassment, you will get more of an idea as to why you don't need faith to think that Jesus was based on a myth.

What data supports this assertion?

Why not?

And no reason to accept them.

Sheshbazzar

You have yet to produce any of these allegedly 'simple underlying' documents.
All you have got is christian produced horse-shit that you are trying to make chop-suey out of so that you can separate the straw from the shit.
Doing so doesn't make the results any more palatable.

And I'm still waiting for you to tell us just Whom is.... this James K. Edwards ? and why should we accept what .... this James K. Edwards thinks ?

Kapyong

Gday,

Fraud?
How MANY times are you going to repeat this false strawman?

This means there are ONLY two possibilities :
1. truth
2. fraud

So,
is Buddhism a fraud?
Is Hinduism a fraud?
Is Islam a fraud?


K.

Adam

The 2nd Quest failed because it set up impossibly strict requirements, compounded by our lack of enough knowledge of 1st Century Judaism and 1st Century Christianity. The 3rd Quest is no great success, either, but it easily disposes of MJ, as does my theory.
If the internal evidence shows that they are simple, the absence of legendary accretions shows that they are earlier. If the perspective of this document shows the perspective of one specific person, this even may indicate eyewitness testimony.
Same answer.
I presented evidence all along. Some of the strongest are that the position of Nicodemus changed during his recordings of Jesus and that the Passion Narrative source in gJohn shows no acquaintance with Jesus except during that one final week.

Toto

Not so fast. The 3rd quest did not easily dispose of Mythicism - it more or less ignored it. Try to find any 3rd questor who discusses mythicsim.

There is just no evidence here. You don't know if there are legendary accretions because you don't know what the original story is. And a fictional work can be written from the perspective of one person.

Adam

You're asking me to unearch a Q Document? An L? The Signs Source? The Passion Narrative? The Discourses? The Twelve-Source? Ur-Marcus?
Or you want me to type in each verse? I have always when presenting an eyewitness given the relevant verses or chapters.
You got the middle initial wrong:

James R. Edwards
Professor
Bruner-Welch Professor of Theology
300 W. Hawthorne Road
Spokane, WA 99251
Phone: (509) 777-4546
Fax: (509) 777-3274
Whitworth University
Office Location: Westminster Hall 119
E-mail: jedwards@whitworth.edu
http://www.whitworth.edu/academic/fa...rname=jedwards

He has written lots of books, commentaries, and articles, see his Faculty Page above.
His theories are daring, but not so crazy as John Dominic Crossan with his Cross Gospel derived from the Gospel of Peter.

His dating methods and conclusions are quite controversial, particularly regarding the dating of Thomas and the "Cross Gospel."[citation needed] The very early dating of these non-canonical sources has not been accepted by many biblical scholars.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dominic_Crossan

Sheshbazzar

It is your horse-shit chop suey, and your theoretical claim that these claimed individual texts once existed, thus it is your obligation to unearth them.
(and no, I don't mean 'to produce' them like all of those liars for religion before you have)
Until you unearth the actual original texts which you theorize to have once existed, all you have is an unproven theory, and in spite of all of your elaborate and contrived attempts at hair-splitting you have no evidence that the Gospels were not originally penned by their authors essentially as they now exist.
Go, and dig up the actual texts that you now theorize once existed, and you will have evidence. Without those actual ancient scrolls and/or codex's all you are now doing is a lot of farting out of the wrong end.
NO, I didn't get the middle initial wrong, as anyone can see.

If you look at your post in # 568 it will be seen that I quoted this name exactly as YOU wrote it, in your false insinuation that I don't listen.

That I noticed such a small detail as even a single incorrect letter evidences that I am paying the most meticulous attention to what it is you have written. crap that it is.
Hmmm, one wonders why, in all of the above, you forget, or omit to mention the foremost profession of this James R. Edwards.???

A prominent Ordained Presbyterian Minister, should we expect him being a totally impartial scholar free from any and all religious biases or 'persuasions'???

Ya may as well be quoting from the f'n Pope! :banghead:

Presbyterian Ministers as 'Preachers of the Gobspell' are paid to make up any shit that will scratch your itching ears.





.

Doug Shaver

Prove it. Let's see a quotation.

I'm not using it. I have never used it, and I don't know anybody who has ever used it.

Irrelevant. I have never suggested that there was anything fraudulent about the gospels. Fiction is not fraud.

Yes, I am. And therefore what?

No.

The existence of "simple underlying documents" is your speculation. They have no part in any argument I'm making.

I need no argument for a claim that I'm not making.

Your so-called evidence is nothing but a pack of presuppositions.