jgoodguy

This is interesting, but where are examples of the nomina sacra in early manuscripts?

steve_bnk

If it is a non issue and pointless why the intelectual investment on your part?

And attitude..

'...HJers apparently MADE up their insignificant HJ story without any input from a credible historical source of antiquity..'

You sound like a man on a mission.

A lot of history is conjecture, projection, and interpretation. If not it would be journalism. It is an exercise in the developemnt of myth from reality.

There are no contemporary references to the Buddha figure as well.

Simple reasoning. If an HJ did exist whose life was the basis for the myth, then I'd exdect he had a father, unless of course it was a 'virgin birth'..

aa5874

I am EXPOSING HJ as POINTLESS, BASELESS and WITHOUT DETAILS from any credible historical source of antiquity.

I am EXPOSING HJ as a FIGMENT of IMAGINATION.

Mission Accomplished!!!

You can KISS HJ good-bye.

I am NOT asking for Conjectures, Projections and Interpretations right now. I am FIRST looking for DETAILS from historical sources of antiquity for HJ on which Conjectures, Projections and Interpretations can be LATER based.

Please ADHERE to the OP.

We FIRST need and ASKED for DETAILS of HJ then Later we may have Conjecture, Projection and Interpretation.

Please do NOT place the "Cart BEFORE the Horse".

All we have in gMark is the Word "PILATE" but we have DETAILS of PILATE in gMatthew and gLuke.

Examine Mr 15:1 - We have the name JESUS in gMark but we have DETAILS of his Birth in gMatthew and gLuke.

In the NT, PILATE was a Governor, and Jesus was the Child of a Ghost.

Who was HJ? What is the historical source of antiquity WITH DETAILS of HJ?

Please ADHERE to the OP. The existence or non-existence of Buddha NEEDS a SEPARATE and INDEPENDENT Inquiry and the results cannot be transferred to HJ.

Now is NOT the time for CONJECTURE.

Now, is the time to PROVIDE the DETAILS of HJ from historical sources of antiquity.

Conjecture may come LATER.

This is NOT Conjecture, In the writings of antiquity, Pilate was described as a Governor in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius.Matthew 27.2 and Luke 3.1

This is NOT Conjecture, In the writings of antiquity, Jesus Christ was described as the Child of a Holy Ghost. See Matthew 1.18 and Luke 1.26-35.

I am asking for DETAILS of HJ from historical sources.

Mt 1:18 - I need DETAILS of HJ, NOT Conjecture.

steve_bnk

First Christianity exists and the history is known fairly far back. At the time of the rise and consolidation of the Roman Catholic Church there were a number of sects or traditions.

Something gave rise to the phenomena. What ended up as the NT cannon was only part of what was in circulation, so rejcting the HJ based soley on the NT is a weak position.

We accept the NT as we have it as THE gospels because we are conditioned by exposure.

Rejecting the theist aspects there are two alternatives, a real person/prototype or an outright fabrication.

There is no objective evidence for a flesh and blood HJ, but niether is there evidence for an outright fabrication. Neither sides are provable in an objectivce sense. It cuts both ways.

aa5874

Well, once you admit that there are no credible historical sources of antiquity for HJ then you have NO basis to make any claims or inferences about HJ.

HJ is an IMAGINATION or Faith based character.

And it is simply erroneous that there is no evidence of an outright fabrication of the Jesus story when the very conception of Jesus in the NT is an OUTRIGHT FABRICATION.

In the Gospels, Jesus himself was BORN of an OUTRIGHT FABRICATION.

Examine the OUTRIGHT FABRICATION of Jesus in gMatthew.

Mt 1:18 - Also, the disappearance of Jesus AFTER he was supposedly crucified and resurrected is an OUTRIGHT FABRICATION.

Examine gLuke 24 There is actual written evidence of OUTRIGHT FABRICATION in the NT from the Conception to Ascension of Jesus..


You have NOW admitted that HJ is baseless and is only Conjecture. That is EXACTLY what I have predicted. HJ is Comjecture.

But, as I have shown, and in the OBJECTIVE sense, there is ACTUAL written evidence from antiquity where Jesus was described as the Child of a Ghost, the Word that was God and the Creator of heaven and earth, who WALKED on water, Transfigued, Resurrected and Ascended through the Clouds.

The actual written evidence of antiquity is NOT subjective, it is NOT Conjecture, it is in the OBJECTIVE Sense that Jesus was an OUTRIGHT FABRICATION from conception to Ascension.

The very PREMISE of HJ that Jesus was an ordinary man with a human father MUST show that the Gospels are effectively outright fabrications when the Gospels claim the father of Jesus was a Ghost of God.

steve_bnk

Not really baseless, given that Christianity exists something happened. What the origins are is historical analysis on all sides both for and against an HJ.

Of course those of us nonbelievers reject the supernatural claims. The secular question of an HJ does not take into account any of the supernatural in the NT.

You are conflating the supernatural claims in the NT with the question oif a posible HJ upon which the original movment began. The early Christains were essentialy Jewish. Rome considerd them initially to be Jewish heretics. The question of orgins of Chrtgianity is an historically complex one. Christians as distinct from Jews did not evolve untill well after the events.

Sheshbazzar

As mountainman states above;
To the best of my knowledge, NONE of the as yet discovered very early 'Christian' texts and writings actually contain the 'Name, 'names' or 'Titles' of the deity.
('Father' or 'Son') All are only indicated by a system of 'Nomina Sacra' symbols & letters coding.
Mountainman has diligently been seeking to locate the approximate date and texts when actual spelled out 'names' and titles finally began to displace the former practice of exclusively employing Nomina Sacra.

This is not as easy as it might seem, as most of the 'Church Father' writings we have are not the original manuscripts but are copies of copies, and being latter 'copies', spelled out 'names' may easily replace what were originally only the Nomina Sacra codes.
Thus short of actually turning up actual authentic 1st? 2nd? or 3rd? manuscripts, it is almost impossible to determine where and when the tradition of employing Nomina Sacra was finally abandoned for actually writing out the names.
And of course there is no way of determining whether these latter supplied 'names' actually accurately reflect the pronunciations or spellings that the original writers had in mind when composing the original texts.

My observations here only reflections and speculations upon the likely reasons of 'WHY?' Nomina Sacra were ever so extensively employed in the first place.

aa5874

Rejection of the supernatural DETAILS is the FUNDAMENTAL FLAW of the HJ argument.

Once you DON'T BELIEVE what the authors wrote about Jesus in the NT then you MUST FIRST FIND a source of antiquity that is CREDIBLE and can be BELIEVED.


It is the VERY Supernatural DETAILS that are the actual WRITTEN evidence from antiquity that the Gospels are Myth fables.

No-one would DARE REJECT the Supernatural DETAILS about Marcion's Phantom that was WITHOUT Birth and Flesh since it is the very Supernatural DETAILS that are used to help to DETERMINE if the Phanton was a figure of history.

And, in the NT, No-one would DARE REJECT the DETAIL that GABRIEL was called an Angel to determine the historicity of Gabriel.

You have EXPOSED the Fundamental Flaw of the HJ argument.

You DON'T BELIEVE the NT Jesus story so another story was INVENTED WITHOUT any DETAILS from credible sources of antiquity.

HJ is FAR WORSE than previously thought since it is based on REJECTION of the actual written DETAILS of Jesus and substituted by the IMAGINATION and Speculation of NON-BELIEVERS.

Again, you PROVIDE CONJECTURE and have FAILED yet again to provide DETAILS of HJ from historical sources of antiquity.

The Supernatural DETAILS of Jesus can be ACTUALLY found WRITTEN in the NT and cannot be REJECTED since it is the VERY SUPERNATURAL DETAILS that will help to determine the historicity of Jesus.


It is the actual written DETAILS of a character that is used to assess the historicity of the figure NOT the REJECTION of the evidence.

You have ALREADY admited that there is no historical source with DETAILS for HJ so the description of Jesus of the NT CANNOT be CONTRADICTED.

In the NT, Pilate was a Governor, Tiberius was an Emperor, Caiaphas was a high Priest, John was the Baptist, Gabriel was an ANGEL and Jesus Christ was the Child of a GHOST, the Creator of heaven and earth that was God.

The DETAILS of Jesus, Pilate, Tiberius and other characters in the NT are FIXED and cannot be DISCARDED by Non-Believers.

It is the authors who PROVIDE DETAILS of their characters and it is those DETAILS that help to DETERMINE the historicity of the character.

Who was HJ?

The so-calld HJ is a REJECTION of actual written DETAILS from antiquity.

radius

As indeed was my intention. Given that HJs are variations of the gospel Jesus and that details are discounted and corrected or otherwise modified to fit a HJ identikit that has something (what thing/s?) in common with the gospel Jesus, then we could discount his parentage (as is already done - but further discounting his declared stepfather) so that it fits with the matches otherwise afforded by Jesus ben Ananus.

What I'm trying to get at is the elements within the gospel narrative that a HJ has to match; how one selects those elements; and what the basis is for assuming that such elements exist in the four canonical gospels.

steve_bnk

First set the stage. Israel was a hot bed of religious fundamentalism and sedition against Rome. There was a hope of a messiah that would return the Jews to political power.

Look at the mid-east today. Arab/Islamic fundamentalism and sedition, hopes of a restoration of the past Caliphate. Anger against leadership colluding with the west/'Rome'.

As I read the NT, JC would have been going against the grain. He was preaching a return to traditional Jewish values as with his his comment on divorce. He was preaching a spiritual reality not a physical reality, not likely palatable to Jews with Rome stepping on them. In Jewish tradition he would have been scandalous. Over thirty and unmarried, and rubbing elbows with unmarried women.

He was in the face of the Jewish power elate. According to my Oxford bible commentary, in the original language his barbs would be pun like with clear meaning and recognition. He was calling them all hypocrites. The fact that he may have been crucified due to collusion between Jews and Rome would makes sense, he was poking a stick in their eye of the Jewish aristocrats.

In a modern context imagine an Islamic cleric wandering around Gaza preaching Muslims should worry more about eternal salvation and not so much about Israel.

The fact that there are no early Christian writings makes sense, There were no early Christians, they were Jews. It was Paul who went out to the gentiles relaxing the Jewish requirements. Per the NT, the Jesus character was a Jewish preacher quoting Jewish scripture, speaking in synagogues, and keeping to Jewish traditions. He did not invent a new religion.

As time passed later in the century Christians as a distinct entity distanced themselves from Jews and claimed exclusive ownership of the bible. According to the NT Jews were after Paul's head.

Politically and religiously(minus the supernatural) the NT story makes general sense, at least plausible for an HJ. The embellishments in the gospels would make sense for the first true Christians creating an identity distinct from the Jews. The Jews became the bad guys who rejected and killed the messiah.

An historical HJ would not have been singular. Consider the historical Buddha who also has no contemporary references. He would have been one of many wandering ascetics. He is the one that got passed down in history who we know only by the writings of followers after he died.