mountainman

The attribution by Bale to Pope Leo X may be fake, but the quote seems to have appeared in the 16th century, even if Bale invented it.


The statement is that Jesus is fabulous. Jesus is fictional. This implies Jesus is non historical. A book was published in he 16th century in which the mention of Jesus does not assume he was historical. This evidence contradicts Ehrman's statement in the OP.



You do not want to deal with the unbelief of Arius, as stated by Constantine and Eusebius. You nievely insist that you KNOW what Arius believed, even though his political record has been subject to imperial censorship. You appear content to seek refuge indogma, and intolerant in the discussion of alternatives in landscape where most features are UNKNOWN.

Frodo Baggins, a non historical hobbit-like person, was born in MiddleEarth.

Arius also states that "Jesus was made out of nothing existing".

What does this mean?

How can the historical Jesus be "made out of nothing existing" ?

Toto

In any other context, you would point out that there is no mention of Jesus here.

Bale was a Protestant satirist who thought that the Pope was the Whore of Babylon. If he put some apparently outrageous idea into the mouth of a fictional Pope, that is not evidence that anyone ever said or thought that.

I think that Roger Pearse tracked this down - I don't have the time now to locate it.


No - it says that a corrupt Pope said that there were fables about "Christ."


If we don't know what Arius believed because of imperial censorship, you have no basis for claiming anything about what Arius believed. So stop posting on this OVERDONE TOPIC.

I would be happy to entertain a discussion about what Arius believed, but you do not discuss. You merely repeat your claims as if they were advertising slogans to be drummed into people's minds.

There is a plain meaning - Jesus was created. If he was created, he existed.

How do you parse this to get the idea that Jesus did not exist? Why would you think that this question of whether Jesus "existed" even made sense to a neo-Platonist who had a different idea of existence from modern materialists?

The theological debate of the time was over the substance of Jesus (godly or a different substance.) This was a comment on that debate.

Please do not repeat the question without contributing to the discussion. You have reached the end of the rope here.

mountainman

"What profit has not that fable of Christ brought us!"
Pope Leo X (As attributed by John Bale, Bishop of Ossory, in The Pageant of Popes, p. 179, 1574)


The publication is evidence of a source mentioning Jesus (and/or Christ) in which the author does not assume Jesus existed. The implication of the author's statement - satirist or otherwise - is that the story of Jesus is a fable that has brough the church profit, and that Jesus is a fabulous Harry Potter type of character.

Whatever was in the author's (Bale's) mind was not your Ehrman HJ.
In order to make that statement, Bale did not assume an HJ.

Toto

I do not want to drag this out if you are the only one interested.

You have invented your own framework and vocabulary for discussing this issue, and you seem to be talking to yourself.

No one at that time believed in "Ehrman's Historical Jesus" - they believed in a supernatural Jesus who had manifested himself on earth in the flesh.

mountainman

This applies just as readily, perhaps moreso, to a fictional creation.


Were Bob Marley, Abraham Lincoln or Bill Gates made out of nothing existing?
Were Bilbo Baggins, Superman or Harry Potter made out of nothing existing?

Historical figures are not made out of nothing existing, whereas fictional characters are.


It is very reasonable to assume that the pagan Platonists and other literate philosophers had not studied the bible and NT before Constantine shoved it under the noses at Nicaea. Why would they not question something that was alien to their history and culture at Nicaea, when the new god Jesus was raised to the purple status?

There is every reason to think that they were questioning the authenticity of the claims represented in the Constantine Bible at Nicaea, and that they questioned the historical existence of the new god.


This claim is made by the heresiological organisation that anathematized Arius and the Arians, and is therefore -- like the rest of their literature against the heretics of the Nicaean controversy -- highly charged with pseudo-historical polemic. We have no reason to think Nicaea was about a theological debate, especially considering Constantine's 20th year of long service in the army was also being celebrated. The Nicaean council was politically related to a massive civil war in the Roman Empire, and at the council the victors brought the losers before them, and made arrangments for the future rule.

The Evidence of Belief in the new god Jesus

A nauseous tidal wave of literature attests to people thinking Jesus was historical after Nicaean council. We can expect nothing else from the imperially appointed authors, and their imperially preserved literature.


The Evidence of UnBelief in the new god Jesus

I have cited literature from 4th century sources which attests the unbelief of the heretics in matters relating to Jesus. Moreover the greatest unbelief is attributed to Arius, who also attracted the wrath and censorship of the Emperor Constantine, and his militant minions.


What actually happened at Nicaea, and what did Arius really write about Jesus?

These questions cannot be answered with the evidence available to us today. The range of possibilities cannot exclide the possibility that Arius refused to accept Jesus as anything other than a figment, an invention and a fable which has been created out of nothing.

We are I think agreed that the sources are in such a state, after burning and executions and massive censorships for centuries over the evidence, the answers to these questions above cannot be satisfactorily resolved.

The mainstream acceptance of the heresiological dogma that survives (from a century after the Nicaean conflict) is indirectly questioned by books such as Freeman's AD 381 (that focuses on the Council of Constantinople in 381). Here the thesis is that the emperor made some calls which were simply political (eg: the Nicaean trinity is to become law) and then, much later, such laws were presented as a rising from the meetings of "bishops".

mountainman

I have put forward the Bale reference as a counter-example to Ehrman's claim that nobody before the 18th century made the assumption that Jesus did not exist.

So are you saying that although Bale seems to have written about a fabulous Jesus who had manifested as a great profit for the papacy, his conception and assumptions about Jesus were based on a supernatural Jesus, and not an historical Jesus, therefore his statement does not conflict with Ehrman's claims.

aa5874

These statements from Ehrman show exactly why I do not aacept him as reasonable or cannot accept that he has a good knowledge of Scholarship.

Ehrman very well knows that there is an ON-GOING QUEST for the historical Jesus and he very well knows WHEN the Quest to GO FIND a human Jesus was started.

The Quest for an Historical Jesus for over 250 years is EVIDENCE that EHRMAN is providing erroneous information.

If Ehrman is indeed a Scholar he also KNOWS of those who INITIATED the QUEST to GO LOOK for a human Jesus.

Ehrman knows that Jesus of the NT is the non-historical Jesus, the Jesus of Faith.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_f...storical_Jesus
Something is wrong with Ehrman's statement but how come Ehrman can be so wrong??

How is it possible for Ehrman to write a book and state that Jesus was considered historical when his PEERS are right now LOOKING for an historical Jesus??

Something is radically wrong with Ehrman.

This reminds me of Irenaeus who supposedly used the information in the Four Gospels, Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings and claimed Jesus was crucified about 50 years old.

This is so terrifying to me.

Ehrman must know when PEOPLE started LOOKING for an historical Jesus--he claims he is a Historian.

There was NEVER a Quest for the Non-historical Jesus--the Divine Jesus, the Jesus of Faith simply because the non-historical Jesus has been Documented and is in the EXISTING Codices.

mountainman

Ehrman appears to think his recent book has solved the QUEST.

Diogenes the Cynic

He doesn't say that at all.

aa5874

So, Ehrman's Historical Jesus is not the Historical Jesus of Scholarship. It is Supernatural Jesus in the Flesh--??? Ehrman's Jesus is a Contradiction or a Myth

When the angel Gabriel was in Galilee and spoke to Mary did the angel exist in the Flesh??? See LUKE 1

People of antiquity believe angels existed.

And when Satan was with the Jesus on the pinnacle of the Temple was the Devil in the Flesh???--Luke 4

surely people of antiquity believe the Devil exist.

Does Ehrman consider that the angel Gabriel and Satan are figures of history because people of antiquity believed they existed???

The fact is that Ehrman must understand that the ON-GOING QUEST for an Historical Jesus has been documented.

And the very fact that there is a QUEST for an Historical Jesus MUST mean the NON-historical Jesus, Myth Jesus, is already found.

Ehrman must go look for an historical Jesus, a human Jesus. Aplogetic writers claimed Jesus existed as the SEED of the Spirit.

This is On the Flesh of Christ