Toto

Don't hold back on us. What evidence? Mark? The Protevangelium of James? Isn't all of that evidence much later than Paul?

bacht

I don't see how proving the existence of siblings for Jesus really helps the HJ case. You're still left with explaining how a nobody was really the Son of God (or became the channel for God's spirit).

The word "evidence" gets used very casually in NT studies. The only evidence for any of these people is the Christian corpus. Josephus can't be used, too problematic. What Jewish or Roman writer mentions Peter, James, John or Jesus himself before the 3rd C? All the later references seem to derive from the epistles and gospels, which could boil down to Paul and Mark.

Isn't it similar to characters from the Iliad? How can we prove that Achilles or Agamemnon really lived in the early Iron Age? Schliemann gave us some physical artifacts to play with, which is better than the NT situation. Otherwise it's just stories, passed on by anonymous sources.

Chili

Significant here is that as brother in the lord do we not worship Jesus. So then if I hold that James was a brother of the Lord in being 'a different way' as presented in Matthew and Mark, it will be 'the great commision' disciples that preach the gospel around the world even today who are not brothers in the Lord but obviously are worshipers of Matthew's Jesus (that I call James) who so deny their own kinship with the Lord and hence are waiting for the Lord to come again to give them a second chance. IOW they have been misled by the snake and will be killed by the same.

Juststeve

bacht:

Maybe we need to reset the terms of debate, at least between you and I. I don't need to explain how a nobody was really the Son of God (or became the channel for God's spirit), because I don't claim that to be the case. As an atheist I don't believe in God so it should be obvious that I don't believe anyone is "really the Son of God" or the "channel for God's spirit". All I have been defending is the proposition that there was in history a man Jesus about who extraordinary claims were later made. If you want to limit your claim to the proposition that no son of God existed in history, then we have no disagreement.

Now with regard to evidence you are right that the only evidence is the evidence we have. That comes from Christian writings, Josephus, Tacitus and some uncertain references in the Talmud. If all of the evidence is the product of conspiracy and falsification, and that only a few fringe authors and their followers on the internet have tumbled to this fact, then you are right. If expertise counts for anything as represented by the vast majority of scholars working in the field of historical Jesus studies are correct, then you are wrong.

No its not much like characters in the Iliad. In the case of Jesus we have the Gospel of Mark written within 40 years of Jesus’ death which describe him in part as a real live living person. We don’t have that for Homer. That this person is embellished with some fantastic claims ought not convince of that the mundane claims are false as well. It is only the Mjer’s insistence that anything in the Christian corpus is not really evidence that supports their fringe views.

Steve

spamandham

Were these claims the result of conspiracy and falsification?

Ordinary mythmaking is enough to explain how James could be construed as a blood brother of Jesus over time.

It isn't valid to project the writings of later writers onto an earlier writer. If we agree that Paul is the earliest extant Christian writer, then we should interpret later writings in light of Paul, rather than trying to interpret Paul in light of later writers.

bacht

Well, we don't know for sure when Mark was written but it was probably between 70 and 140 ce, so yes the comparison with Homer doesn't work on that level. But there is physical evidence of warfare at Troy, and physical evidence of a powerful kingdom in Mycenae, which bring support to the general outlines of the Iliad. There's no physical evidence for early Christians.

Isn't it true that the literary evidence used for HJ comes from the "defence"? What about the brief for the "prosecution"? I really don't see how anyone can say that we can get a balanced view just from the Christian corpus. We already know that much of the narrative in the OT is not supported by external sources or archeology. Why should we the assume the NT is strictly historical (by the standards of the time)?

Mark's story is about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The plain meaning of his text is based on supernaturalism: healings, miracles, demons, and resurrection. To discover the "real" Jesus we have to disregard the author's overt statements and imagine someone different from the book's description. In this sense the HJ crowd is doing the same as the MJ crowd.

I don't know how to judge mainstream biblical scholars. They are very smart people with sophisticated tools at their disposal, yet they seem to ignore so much. As Spam pointed out, the mythicist approach has great explanatory power when compared to the contortions traditionalists have to go through to make everything fit.

dog-on

I actually thought Mark's story was about the fact that claimed apostolic authority was a bunch of crap.

Oh, well...

aa5874

Your claims are FALSE. And, you keep on repeating the FALSE claims even though they have been debunked many many times.

Josephus "Antiquities of the Jews" 18.3.3 and 20.9.1 are considered forgeries and presented Jesus as a SUPERNATURAL being. Jesus was RAISED from the dead in the "Antiquities of the Jews" 18.3.3.

Josephus was NOT an eyewitness to Jesus and he ACTUALLY FOUGHT against the Romans believing that the Messiah would ARRIVE for the FIRST time around 70 CE.

Again, Tacitus' Annals 15 does NOT even mention the name "Jesus" and appears to be another forgery. But, in any event, Tacitus did NOT write that at any time that Jews worshiped a MAN, Jesus, as a God and called him the Creator of heaven and earth before the Fall of the Temple.

Now, "uncertain" evidence in the Talmud ONLY helps Speculation.

Your assumption is most illogical. You KNOW that Experts disagree on the historicity of Jesus and that many so-called HJers BELIEVE Jesus was RAISED from the dead.

It is the written statements, the evidence, from antiquity that MUST be used not "vast majority of scholars" that you cannot even prove to be the case.

The "vast majority of scholars" have NOT even shown, except by FAITH, that Jesus did exist and was worshiped as God and called the Creator of heaven and earth BEFORE the Fall of the Temple.

Even apologetic sources claimed that the supposed James the apostle and bishop of Jerusalem could NOT have been a brother of Jesus since, according to these APOLOGETIC sources, James was the son of the SISTER of Mary and that his father was CLEOPHAS or ALPHAEUS. See the fragments of Papias and the writings of Jerome.

Not, even APOLOGETIC sources agree that the so-called Jesus ever had a brother called James.

But, the unknown author of gMark did NOT even claim he was writing history.

Nowhere, not in any single place, does the UNKNOWN author of gMark state categorically that he wrote history.

In fact, it is reasonably certain that the unknown author of gMark wrote FICTION.

1. The Baptism story of the Holy Ghost entering Jesus like a dove is fiction.

2. The Temptation by the Devil in the wilderness is fiction.

3. The healing of INCURABLE diseases by Jesus is fiction.

4. The cursing of the fig tree is fiction.

5. The walking on the sea is fiction.

6. The feeding of the thousands is fiction.

7. The calming of the storm by talking to the wind is fiction.

8. The raising of the dead by Jesus is fiction.

9. The transfiguration of Jesus is fiction.

10. The resurrection of Jesus is fiction.


Unless you can find where the UNKNOWN author of gMark claimed he wrote history then you are simply wasting time with your belief that gMark is history.

You simply cannot show that gMark is history or that gMark used any eyewitness accounts.


Well, explain how Homer's Achilles actually died.


You do NOT understand the written evidence of antiquity.

MJers use the the written evidence SUPPLIED by the NT Canon, Church writings, external non-apologetic sources and non-Canonical writings to show that Christians themselves claimed that Jesus was of a Spiritual nature and no external source can account for a Messiah called Jesus BEFORE the Fall of the Temple.

You REJECT the evidence, You Reject the written statements from antiquity as FICTION and Embellishments and IMAGINE that Jesus was just a man.

You CANNOT categorize your ONLY sources for your Jesus as FICTION and embellishments and then simultaneously use the very fiction sources as credible evidence.

You have NO credible sources from antiquity that Jesus was just a man and had a brother called James.

Even, the Church claimed that the supposed James was NOT a son of the so-called mother of their Lord Jesus Christ.

This is Jerome in "De Viris Illustribus" 2 The argument that some James was a brother of the NT Jesus is EXTREMELY weak.

bacht

Sure, but the Catholic editors had the last laugh

Doug Shaver

That "other evidence" consists of one or two documents, produced several generations later, in which the writers asserted such a kinship between Jesus and James. What reason do we have to suppose that those writers were working from reliable sources?