Sheshbazzar

There are no such things as eyewitness sources or accounts of Jebus. Adam has employed 'cut & paste' in a utterly failed attempt to identify or create 'eyewitnesses' to the Jebus tale, according to the workings of his own imaginations.

No one here can disprove Adam's imaginative claims because they are nothing more than figments composed out of his personal imaginations and unsupported guesses.
The argument Adam wishes to extract here is not forthcoming simply because his theory is vacuous and is without substance or merit.

Other than pointing out that the textual evidence needed to support his theory is non-existent, no sane person can further engage any further rebuttal of facts that are not in evidence, within a tale that is unpersuasive of representing reality.
For example, Adam's thesis requires that we accept that Nicodemus was a sneaking back-stabbing spy employed by the Sanhedrin to gather dirt on Jebus (never minding for the moment that the actual texts nowhere give any indication of any such thing) and per Adam, Nicodemus observes a series of miracles that gradually change his mind, and his clandestine writings, and transform Nicodemus the sneaky back-stabbing spy into Nicodemus the disciple and 'eyewitness' for Jebus.

What is wrong with this theory? Number one, is that it requires anyone swallowing it to accept that Jebus was actually capable of performing such miracles as would convert Nicodemus as a result of observing them.

This is simply not an appropriate site to be peddling a Theory based upon an uncritical acceptance of miracles as being a primary pillar of said theory.

Adam

Yes, I am aware that members at FRDB presuppose that miracles cannot happen, that their epistemology is based on Rationalism and not Empiricism. It's not the Freethought and Empiricism Discussion Board.

That's why I made a special effort to accomodate you guys with "my" Gospel According to the Atheists. You'll find it layed out at posts #526, 534, 555, and 561 at my thread
Gospel Eyewitnesses

Notice my claim in the final paragraph in #534 that I have refuted MJ. Yet no one here has contested me and MJers go on as if I had never posted here. Of course most of them have me on ignore so they don't have to encounter such heresy.

Toto

People have contested you. You just don't accept their arguments. Your proof has not impressed anyone. We're at an impasse.

Adam

You're quite mistaken, Toto.
After I posted my Gospel According to the Atheists posts as above, only Shesh and hardly any others had anything substantive to say. spin did make an appearance in posts #612 and 618, but only to rehash prior matters in the thread. I said that when I responded to spin in my Gospel Eyewitnesses #616

See also some further posts #564 and 568 that added to my Gospel According to the Atheists theory: #564, 568

All you all standing pat on Shesh's responses?

Sheshbazzar

No sane person can further engage any further rebuttal of facts that are not in evidence, within a tale that is unpersuasive of representing any reality.

What can you expect people here to reply to you when you make up unevidenced and unsupported crap on the fly Adam?
You are only dodging dealing with what I pointed out; That your 'theory' regarding Nicodemus as a 'eyewitness' was fashioned upon your acceptance miracles, and the thesis that Nicodemus's observance of these miracles was what converted him, and changed the tenor of his (alleged) writings. Along with your revealed lack of comprehension of the material you were reading, and erroneously reading into the text.

Your so called 'accomodation' is rendered virtually worthless when your very thesis is built upon, and requires anyone accepting it, accepting that the Jebus miracles happened.

You have NOT refuted MJ in spite of your many self-issued proclamations of such here. The real miracle is that your arm isn't broken from patting yourself on the back so often.
Unfortunately for you, accomplishment and success in debate, does not lie within the power of a debater to confer upon themselves.
I have yet to hear the voices of independent judges proclaiming your thesis or 'Theory' of any significance, much less being a single-handed triumph over the entire MJ contingent.

For all of your huge amount of posting you have as yet failed miserably at providing any proof that anyone your speculations have named ever wrote even a single sentence of the Gospels.
You came up with a lot of 'could have's' and 'possiblies' but that is only your speculations, and have no value at all in establishing as being fact, any of these unproven speculations that you have proposed in post after post.

Your arguments are thus flawed and are faulty, and unworthy of requiring the members here to contest.
What would be the point in disputing the imaginations of a person so religiously unbalanced they cannot even understand the proper employment of logic or rational reason?

If you want to believe whatever horse-shit theory you can concoct in your head, no one can stop you.
But no one here needs to feel the least bit of guilt for not joining mucking about in your contrived horse shit with you.





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Adam

My first inclination was to just regard #95 as just another Shesh post that's of no substance, and proceed to post more passages from my second layer of gospel writings. However, no one else has come forth to challenge "my" Gospel According to the Atheists, so I gave it another read. Surprise! There's some good stuff here, in spite of it coming from Shesh. I should have been alerted by the near-absence of profanity and relative lack of insults. One does not have to descend to that if one has something worth saying.

As for "facts in evidence", I of course am the one who does have that, as has been seen in my posts #1 and #87 in this thread and in my

Early Aramaic Gospels thread.
Not that the texts are necessarily factual, even if by eyewitnesses, but they are evidence which must be dealt with.

Regarding Nicodemus, texts attributable to him do not necessarily include miracles. Shesh himself made a big fuss about John 12:28 with its voice from heaven, but the text itself says that other bystanders interpreted it as thunder. The conversion of Nicodemus does not have to be disregarded as a made-up miracle story. It's a fact of history that one has to deal with. Referring back to the source-critical text of John by Howard Teeple, John 12:27-30 is set aside as a later editorial insertion (E). I don't take that way out myself, but the contrast in tone between early and late chapters still remains. My argument still holds that this was written while Jesus was still alive, whether or not you accept or reject the possibility of miracles. That was the whole point of my accommodation in Gospel According to the Atheists. That's why I claim that I have destroyed MJ, and that no one here is up to refuting me seems to prove my case.

Your "entire MJ contingent" is mysteriously silent. That there are so few of them is probably due to a case so weak that none have attempted to refute my Gospel According to the Atheists.

Is your prejudice against miracles your only proof that I "cannot even understand the proper employment of logic or rational reason?" That's not relevant to whether one can save MJ by refuting "my" Gospel According to the Atheists.

Toto

This is a logical fallacy. You can't show that a text was written at a particular time merely by a change in style, much less that it was written while a certain hypothetical person was alive.

There is nothing to refute. You have not proven anything.

Sheshbazzar

Adam, You have presented a elaborate argument based upon your own personal suppositions and persuasions. Others here do not share nor accept those same suppositions and persuasions with you, and do not all accept nor endorse your conclusions.

Most will not even deign to engage you, because to do so would require playing a theological game devised by you, inclusive of following rules (arguments) devised by you, on a 'playing field' whose lines have been selectively set by you, to your own advantage.
What then would be the point in anyone even entering such an engagement, wherein you have already declared yourself as the winner in advance?

You cannot 'win' here because no one with the least lick of common sense is ever going to be going out on your field to play your game with you.
You will continue to remain alone out there on that playing field you have devised, like a self selected quarterback with a ball but no one pass it to, and no other players on your field.

Sure, it being thus, you can run to the end zone, jump up and down, pound yourself on the back, and repeatedly declare yourself to be the winner as often as you wish.
There will be no one else ever in possession of your ball, and no cheering will ever be heard from your empty bleachers.
Play your vain and empty game until you drop, and no one will be impressed.
Whether you are ever able to comprehend it, You will never be able to win, because of being unwilling to ever lose.

Adam

Yes, Shesh,
I always realized that few atheists would be quick to agree that I have located seven undeniable written eyewitnesses to Jesus. I came here to find out whether such a hostile audience would have some special knowledge that would refute me or know where to find the outside support that would. Zilch. (I did always realize that conspiracy theories like Joe Atwill's had the potential to present a strong alternate explanation, but these are laughed at here and have no scholarly backing and do nothing to explain the source documents.)

I found out to my surprise that this is such an extreme website that MJ is dominant here.
Naturally, if all my eyewitnesses testified to events impossible by that preconception, I would have nothing more to offer to them than to any other atheist--no document will be acceptable that could be true only if there were a God to make it possible. However, MJ is different--there are source documents within the gospels that without bringing in miracles do show that Jesus existed (without requiring that he be God). Upon thinking about it I realized that three or four of my eyewitnesses could be tied to an objective document that would not violate sacrosanct physical laws. Thus those eyewitnesses could not be summarily dismissed. Or so I thought. To me, you guys are like ostriches with their heads in the sand. You won't deal with what you don't like. I refer you again to my posts #92 and 94.

My thread Gospel Eyewitnesses ran over 500 posts when you guys thought you had some Fundamentalist that you could easily refute. But after the posts #526, 534, 561, 564 etc. that wiped out MJ, no one wanted to engage any more, except the foolhardy Shesh.

Sheshbazzar

000000000000000'Few'? you have perhaps discovered by now that NO atheist here, and few if any theists here are supportive of your fully deniable imagined 'eyewitnesses'. If they are, they have all of them, been awful damned quiet about it.
As has been repeatedly pointed out to you since your initial posts to this Forum, your 'theory' is a product of your personal speculations and imaginations and in spite of all of your editing and cutting and pasting, is still totally lacking in any positive support from the texts, even your extreme mutilations of these texts have not sufficed to make them support your theory.
Your theory is flawed by lacking in any positive textual evidence. No one here is interested in attempting to formulate arguments against what only exists within the warped perspectives of your peculiar religious imaginations, as with regards to contributing anything to actual Biblical Criticism & History, it would accomplish nothing and be useless to do so.
What an utterly ignorant dumb-ass statement.
Perhaps I should roll around on the floor a bit in hysterical laughter.
If you were not so wrapped up in yourself, you might be aware that multiple surveys of those who regularly participate in this Forum consistently indicate that a HJ is the view favored by a large majority, while those holding the MJ view constitute a very small minority.
Except that you are way off base with such a blatantly erroneous perception.
Ah, so there are source documents for a 'MJ'= Mythical Jebus? Interesting that you would finally admit to it.

You do know the difference between a MJ and a HJ ?

Oh well.
The MAJORITY here, whom have refused to get involved, or to argue either against or in favor of your theory, are HJers.
These many HJers here have stated repeatedly that they believe that THERE WAS a real flesh and blood, breathing, living 1st century Jew identified as 'Jesus of Nazareth'.
They believe in the existence of a 'Historical Jesus', but quite evidently they do NOT believe, or care to support, nor to in any way be involved or associated with your faulty scholarship.
Although you are unwilling to confront it, it is an evident fact, that you and your theory are a public embarrassment to the HJ position and its contingent of defenders here.
That is why, even though they actually comprise the considerable MAJORITY, none has even attempted to examine nor defend your propositions.
Their thunderous silence is speaking far louder than any possible words.

I'm sure you are an all conquering hero in your own eyes. When you finish slapping yourself on the back, perhaps you'll throw yourself a victory parade. You have demonstated great ability to imagine. You can also imagine your cheering crowds.

The only thing the foolhardy Sheshbazzar has done here from the beginning has been to attempt to dissuade you from continuing making a foolish public ass out of yourself.

I have failed.




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