aa5874

Well, if you don't know the difference between circular reasoning and logics then you are in a real sorry state.

If you made a claim, wrote a story, that was questioned then your claim, your story, cannot be the proof.

It is EXTERNAL sources, some other person or persons , that should corroborate what you claim.

Horatio Parker

So? If HJ was obscure how does that preclude later authors from attributing miracles to him?

How do you know? How are sins of mankind forgiven?

Jane H

A series of good points. However if I might attempt a couple of observations:


Actual claims about actual people coming back to life were very, very rare before Christ made it the must-have fashion in the Ancient World. On the whole, people were perfectly well aware that when you're dead, you stay dead.

It's absolutely key to appreciate that the claim of the Early Church wasn't “Jesus came back from the dead, therefore Jesus is God”. (As you may have pointed out to Xians before, that's a non-sequitur anyway).

The claim was that Jesus return from the dead pointed to the validity of a whole raft of interconnected ideas (the return from exile, forgiveness for humanity, completion of Torah). The return from the dead was the means by which this worldview was validated, not the end in itself. This is a different type of claim to the ones listed.

The types of beliefs they abandoned from their old worldview of C1 Judaism, and the types they accepted as reality in their new worldview of a New Convenant, point very strongly indeed to their genuine beliefs in those claims, and need to be included in any analysis of the reasons for those claims. Which worldview do we accept and why?

And although we're sure humans don't come back from the dead, on experiential and theoretical grounds, how does that data apply to the claim “If you kill the human manifestation of God, he doesn't come back from the dead”? We have no data or theories to work with on that. My instinct would be that it's not the case.

I'm intrigued- which?

aa5874

So, if the Jesus stories were just Myth Fables what would preclude stories about the Child of a Holy Ghost born of a Virgin that did miracles?

And, don't EVER forget that an "Early Paul" destroys ALL claims of later embellishments.

Well, I am human and I can't forgive the sins of mankind.

I consider that Pyhthagoras, Alexander and Julius Caesar were human.

Jesus was some kind of Creator and God.

According to numerous myth fables, past and present, Gods can forgive the sins of mankind.

We have FOUR versions of Myth fables in the NT about a character called Jesus whom "Paul" claimed can provide Salvation because he resurrected on the THIRD day..

Horatio Parker

Nothing that I can see. It seems quite clear to me that the IC etc were all fables, designed to underscore the importance of the character of Jesus. Note I say "character" not "person".
I know you believe in a late Paul. I'm not educated enough on the issues to engage in that, but FWIW I follow the CW that Paul preceded Mark.

So, if I follow you, no one can. Ok.

Can you forgive yourself? I mean if we define "sin" in the sense of a mistake or a regret.

Horatio Parker

If by that you mean that tying a specific time and place to the death and rising of a God was new, I agree. Otherwise no.


I think the first part of this statement makes assumptions about the makeup of the early church, but never mind.

Myth is the dramatic representation of an abstract idea. The passion and resurrection is rich with symbolism, that, when contemplated, frequently are of benefit to those who consider it, even if they don't regard it as literal or historical truth.

When bringing up an idea such as a worldview, are we talking history, physics, biochemistry etc or are we speaking theology? Because in a theological or spiritual sense, there's nothing inherently false about the Jesus stories; one responds or one doesn't. It represents, for those open to the experience, insight into their current life.

But to confuse these issues with history is a waste of energy IMO. Not to mention the emphasis on historicity tends to distance God from those who desire to experience Him. A myth is timeless.

I wonder if you're being coy here. Of course there are theories to work with. They're just not scientific theories(and neither should they be).

From Iamblichus:

"AT that time also, when he was journeying from Sybaris to Crotona, he met near the shore with some fishermen, who were then drawing their nets heavily laden with fishes from the deep and told them he knew the exact number of the fish they had caught. But the fishermen promising they would perform whatever he should order them to do, if the event corresponded
with his prediction, he ordered them, after they had accurately numbered the fish, to return them alive to the sea: and what is yet more wonderful, not one of the fish died while he stood on the shore, though they had been detained from the water a considerable time. Having therefore paid the fishermen the price of their fish, he departed for Crotona."

Jane H

A very different reply to what I was expecting! You raise issues that follow interesting lines of enquiry.

It is the crucial distinction between legend and eyewitness account.

Why do we need a dichotomy between science and theology?

Let's be clear that the post-enlightenment concept of “miracle” as God interfering with the normal Laws of Nature isn't how the Bible presents things, and although most Christians work with it, I prefer the biblical concept of 'signs/sēmeia' that explain to us how the Laws of Nature function. Much as a scientist, finding an unexpected research result, would examine the question of whether it points the way to an improved scientific model; a 'sign' throws open the question of how that model could include God.

Therefore my concept of worldview would be vaguely “How someone sees things”, without restriction on “things”.

For many Xians, “how I know he lives- he lives within my heart” will do. For many, including myself, my worldview is formed from examining the data- including history. Further, if there is no historical basis to the claim that Jesus was resurrected, then as Paul explains, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile”; the whole worldview is false.


This is an interesting one.

Firstly I think the differences are too great to allow plagiarism (predicting numbers of already successful catch vs catching anything at all; fish returned alive vs heading for Tesco's etc)

But I also follow Bauckham's ch 14/15 (or via: amazon.co.uk) analysis of what's going on from John. The accounts of signs/semeia (John 20:30) have finished, and faith in the person of Jesus is established (20:28). The account of the fish catch is all about the coming mission of the church, and is not a sign/sémeion as such; the 'miracle' is not for apologetic purposes. The 'fishers of men', getting nothing without Jesus, now get a rich haul of fish/people.

Chaucer

Careful, you can get into real trouble here for saying something like that.

Heretic!

Chaucer

Horatio Parker

I'm not so sure there was much difference in the ancient world. A modern idea projected onto the past; an anachronism.

Because intangibles such as truth or beauty can not be measured or even detected by an objective measure in the way that something such as temperature can. The behavior of these intangibles, assuming they exist at all, cannot be predicted nor results duplicated independently.

The dichotomy is not needed or desired. It simply is.

Jung states it this way: in order to understand anything, we need to examine it separately, in order to gain the completest understanding. But we experience the world as a whole. One archetype is perfection, which is exclusive, and the other is wholeness, which is imperfect.

If a miracle is a psychic reality, then of course it is real, but only in a psychic sense. Our understanding of psychology, philosophy etc may change as a result, but the physical world will not so change.

I can't understand how these efforts to make scripture into objectivity, legend into science, mythos into logos, advances anyone's spiritual life. If someone finds a scroll from the first century saying, "yeah we made it all up" then it's all over?

Sounds like faith on a precipice, faith under the sword of Damocles.

No, thanks. And, in so saying, I am attempting to place myself as close to God, as I understand God, as possible.

From Plato's Republic:

Well, but can you imagine that God will be willing to lie, whether in word or deed, or to put forth a phantom of himself?

I cannot say, he replied.
Do you not know, I said, that the true lie, if such an expression may be allowed, is hated of gods and men?

What do you mean? he said.
I mean that no one is willingly deceived in that which is the truest and highest part of himself, or about the truest and highest matters; there, above all, he is most afraid of a lie having possession of him.

Still, he said, I do not comprehend you.
The reason is, I replied, that you attribute some profound meaning to my words; but I am only saying that deception, or being deceived or uninformed about the highest realities in the highest part of themselves, which is the soul, and in that part of them to have and to hold the lie, is what mankind least like; --that, I say, is what they utterly detest.

< http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.3.ii.html >

So, rather than say eg that since I love Jesus, scripture must therefore be correct in all particulars, instead I say that since scripture is at best shaky under the best scholarship, I must examine what my love for Jesus means.

Keith&Co.

But if we don't know when a text is written, we don't know their perspective.
If it claims to be eyewitness, but it's 100 years after, that would be important to know, don't you think?
Exactly how would you assess accuracy on things that there are no other reports for? You just guess it's accurate because of the content? how does that work in any sort of objective way?
I mean, i saw graffitti the other day where someone apparently claimed to have a limp dick and signed his name.
I think it would make a huge difference in assessing accuracy if i knew who wrote it. If HandleMan wrote it, it's remarkable example of confidence. If HandleMan is not the author, despite the signature, the accuracy becomes suspect.


No. You would have to actually SHOW some reason to believe it's eyewitness testimony for it to be historically valuable as eyewitness testimony.



I doubt that.
Moses is posthumously described as being the most humble of men 'to this day.' That doesn't really make sense if it was a contemporary writing it. 'To this day' implies a great passage of time.
You just can't know who wrote that part.
And you just can't show which parts were added after Moses stopped writing it.
And, really, you can't show that any part of it was written by Moses.

So, as history, the account is not trustworthy.

You have the evidence for this?
A lot of assertions. Where's the evidence?
I can fix Gollem's descent into Moria in the history of The One Ring. Big whoop.


Yes.
But that doesn't help your claims.

OOooh, argument by respect for authority.
That makes it all good!