MCalavera

Judging from your posts, I'm guessing that someone is me, right?

Look, before you educate me on this subject, go and first educate the experts then as they seem to need some education from great teachers like you and tanya.:redface:

mountainman

If you dig irony you should read Edward Gibbon's Chapters 15 and 16 of his "Decline and Fall" and then move on to Momigliano. Momigliano appears to be describing a series of "miraculous events" occurring in the 4th century. Were these in fact miraculous events after all? Or how ironic is the author?

MCalavera

Not sure what you're on about there, so I'll just chuckle and pretend i got your joke.

archibald

Tempting though it might be to flatter myself and think that DC Hindley would interject to defend little old me, I am not quite sure that it was even necessary, since my immediate response to your first post was 'Fair point. That could make decent sense (to me).'.

Regarding my adding that I thought that he was the messiah in Mark, I see that you are right, the Greek is Christ.

The reason I would still say 'fair point, etc.' is because, to me, even if it had said messiah, your point would still be good, since (as I understand it) earthly masiachs (in older Jewish texts) were annointed too. In my understanding (which may or may not be correct) the messiah that was to come, as described in later Jewish texts, was to come from heaven and be annointed by God, so I still ponder why he would need to get baptized for his sins (a) by a human, and because (b) what sins could he have had?

However, it might be worth pointing out that for myself I had already accepted (on this thread if I am not mistaken) that Mark could have included a baptism in his account, and not found it contradictory. Maybe Mark's Jesus wasn't sinless. He cetainly wasn't 'perfect', given that his healing powers were slightly unreliable too.

So if you want to move on to further points, please don't tarry on my account, because I'm not really disagreeing with you (except that I thought the word 'messiah' was in the Greek Mark, which was incorrect on my part).

I do not know if annointed one = messiah, but I had read that the former was a translation of the original Hebrew, and that essentially, the terms were interchangeable for early Christians. As I say, whether I am right or wrong in thinking that, your point sticks for either term, IMO.

MCalavera

Feel free to confirm the meaning of the word Mashiakh with someone knowledgeable in Hebrew and whom you can trust to give you a reliable answer.

Just one small tip: Don't be too diplomatic in your responses when debating or your opponents may just use it against you.

judge

I think Archibalds diplomacy has worked well. He has come up against some prize idiots, but he doesn't most the time, let it get to him.
Anyone following can then make up their own minds, without having to start sneering and snarling and carrying on.

archibald

Thanks, Judge. Though for myself, I wouldn't claim I haven't, unfortunately, sometimes fallen into the same trap as many others (widespread on internet forums in general, I sometimes think) of getting caught up in more acrimony than is either necessary or useful.

As Toto put it yesterday, the best, most rational, general answer is arguably 'maybe HJ, maybe MJ' and it is probably a pity that some/more of us can't find basic agreement on that more often.

I say 'all' but obviously there are those saner members who sensibly, only pop in now and again, and for whom this is already their position.

dog-on

The most rational position is agnosticism regarding the historicity of Jesus Christ, as that is about as far as we can get with the surviving evidence.

I think that the arguments are simply focused on the question of probability. Something to push the needle towards one position over the other.

judge

I would disagree. If we take this view then too many other historical figures also fall under this "agnosticism".
The problem is IMHO "pretend" rationalists, with chips on their shoulders, who would rather abandon rationalism than their anti xtian biases. They have problems with religion, and in an emotional reaction (rather than a rational response), they come up with the most lame alternatives to an historical jesus.
So he existed...so what?

dog-on

bs...