Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Febble · 04-12-2007, 11:25 AM

Sorry I missed this post, thanks.

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Originally Posted by spin

You'll note that myth is not a word that I use to deal with this subject. And you'll notice that the sources of traditions can be so very different from the way a tradition appears in a later era.

Yes, I appreciate this.

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Another probable source in the Jesus tradition is that of personified wisdom. Wisdom was there at creation, She was the breath on the mouth of god as he spoke the world into existence. She was the word of god and nothing was created except through her. She came down to this world and walked among the people. Those who listened to her received what she taught. They received wisdom, though many rejected her teaching. In the Greek diaspora Wisdom jumped sex, becoming the logos. You can see how the wisdom tradition developed here. We are fortunate to have good sources to follow it. When it was absorbed into the Jesus tradition. We have a master who walked the world preaching the wisdom of god. Is there any myth in the evolution of the logos tradition? I don't see this as a creation of a story in line with the myths that I know. This is evolving contemplative "revelation".

Yes. Could you tell me some of the sources of the wisdom tradition? I'm particularly interested in John's Gospel.

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Traditions are built on what came before and that usually doesn't allow one to distinguish "real" source from any other source.

No.

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But traditions can clearly be built on non-real sources. My favorite non-real person is the eponymous founder of the Ebionite christian "heresy", one Ebion. Tertullian argued against Ebion's ideas. Epiphanius even knew where he was born. Nevertheless, there was no Ebion. He didn't exist, though I don't consider him a myth, for he was not mythical in conception. The name Ebionite comes from a Hebrew word meaning "poor", )BYWN, not from a founder of the movement.

And the legend of St Veronica, presumably.

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Once a tradition exists it gathers accretions, by hook or by crook. (It is thought that the Arthurian tradition is based in reality, but there are many accretions which certainly don't go back to an Arthurian reality.)

Yes.

Thanks for all this.

Cheers

Lizzie

aa5874 · 04-12-2007, 11:29 AM

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Originally Posted by Febble

No, really, this is not logical. By this "logic" if you read a newspaper account of a real event that got the birthdate of one of the participants wrong, you would conclude that the entire report was false.

Can you show me that the account of the birth of Jesus in the NT was recorded in error? And if it is an error, what is the true account?

The birth of Jesus is very specific in Luke 1, and Matthew 1confirmed the fundamental core of the birth. Jesus is the offspring of the Holy unknown Ghost and an unknown Mary. The unknown author of Luke claimed that the unknown character Mary confirmed or stated that she had no sexual contact with any man.

Luke 1:26-35, And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.

And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: Blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary; for thou has found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt [b] conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Then said Mary unto the angel How shall this be , seeing I know not a man?

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

The above passages describes the birth of Jesus, according to Luke.

From where did the HJer fabricate his Jesus? Could it be Suetonius, Josephus, Philo, Tacitus, Pliny the Elder, Irenaeus, or from his own imagination?

Febble · 04-12-2007, 11:49 AM

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Originally Posted by aa5874

Can you show me that the account of the birth of Jesus in the NT was recorded in error? And if it is an error, what is the true account?

Well, I don't think the birth stories are a matter of historical record, and in the absence of a historical record, I simply think we have no way of knowing the true account. You seem to have missed my point. My point is that just because someone added some colorful details to a biography doesn't allow you to conclude that there wasn't a real person to whose biography those colorful details were added, whether it concerned their birth, death, or any station in between.

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The birth of Jesus is very specific in Luke 1, and Matthew 1confirmed the fundamental core of the birth. Jesus is the offspring of the Holy unknown Ghost and an unknown Mary. The unknown author of Luke claimed that the unknown character Mary confirmed or stated that she had no sexual contact with any man.

Luke 1:26-35, And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.

And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: Blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary; for thou has found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt [b] conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Then said Mary unto the angel How shall this be , seeing I know not a man?

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

The above passages describes the birth of Jesus, according to Luke.

From where did the HJer fabricate his Jesus? Could it be Suetonius, Josephus, Philo, Tacitus, Pliny the Elder, Irenaeus, or from his own imagination?

I don't know, but if you are writing the life of someone you believe was a prophesied messiah, it would make sense to quote relevant prophesies, and to fit your biography to match. Nowadays it's called PR, or spin.

It's your logic I'm querying, not your facts. I simply don't follow your logic.

aa5874 · 04-12-2007, 12:51 PM

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Originally Posted by Febble

It's your logic I'm querying, not your facts. I simply don't follow your logic.

You have already told me my logic is bad. My question is how did the HJer formulate his Jesus, since the NT is the primary source of information and it specifically claims Jesus is the offspring of the unknonw Holy Ghost and the unknonw Mary?

Febble · 04-12-2007, 12:53 PM

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Originally Posted by aa5874

You have already told me my logic is bad. My question is how did the HJer formulate his Jesus, since the the NT is the primary source of information and it specifically claims Jesus is the offspring of the unknonw Holy Ghost and the unknonw Mary?

OK, I'm not understanding your question. Who is "the HJer"?

Zeichman · 04-12-2007, 01:33 PM

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Originally Posted by Toto

There is some confusion here. Johnny Skeptic was quoting Richard Carrier. I have added quote tags to indicate where Carrier is speaking. Check the original link.

Yes, there was. Now I feel like a jerk.

Thanks for the clarification. And I apologize. Had I known it was a part of a longer quote, regardless to whom it was attributed, I wouldn't have said that.

Toto · 04-12-2007, 02:22 PM

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Originally Posted by aa5874

You have already told me my logic is bad. My question is how did the HJer formulate his Jesus, since the NT is the primary source of information and it specifically claims Jesus is the offspring of the unknonw Holy Ghost and the unknonw Mary?

HJer = one who thinks a historical Jesus existed.

The creation of the historical Jesus (as opposed to Christ Jesus, the Jesus of faith) was an exercise of the Enlightenment, carried on to this day. The scholars and historians who set out to discover the Historical Jesus generally started with the New Testament, but removed all of the supernatural aspects. This left them with a wandering wisdom teacher, who did some faith healing based on psychosomatic principles, and who was crucified by Pontius Pilate. They decided that he must have had a charismatic personality, because there was no other explanation of how he inspired disciples to create a new religion.

If you want to know more about how the idea of a historical Jesus developed, there is a book by Charlotte Allen called The Human Christ, which traces the history of the quest for a historical Christ. Allen is a conservative Catholic "public intellectual" and apologist, and she rejects this quest for a human Jesus as misguided, since her Jesus is a Jesus of faith and revelation.

Now, it is not hard to find problems with the Jesus you can find using the above method. But you cannot dismiss it just because the gospels contain some supernatural events, or even lots of supernatural events. Almost all of the historical documents of this period contain at least some supernatural events, but we accept that they reflect some underlying facts.

If you don't want to accept any part of the gospels as true because some of the narrative is not true, that's your right, but just say so and STOP POSTING. You have nothing more to say, certainly nothing of interest here to anyone on any side of the issue.

You haven't gotten many HJer's to reply to you because your tone has been harsh and abusive, and your logical errors have been so bad that there was no need to say anything.

aa5874 · 04-12-2007, 02:23 PM

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Originally Posted by Febble

OK, I'm not understanding your question. Who is "the HJer"?

A person who holds the view that Jesus was a historical figure, i.e a real human being.

jgibson000 · 04-12-2007, 02:25 PM

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Originally Posted by No Robots

No. the Gospels are a previously inexistent ammé haaretz literature.

Three questions:

1. Could you please provide us with concrete examples of this genre of literature that were produced subsequent to the Gospels.

2,. Have you read Richard Burridge's book What are the Gospels (or via: amazon.co.uk) or Clyde Weber Votaw's essay, "The Gospels and Contemporary Biographies in the Greco-Roman World (or via: amazon.co.uk)"?

3. Have you read any of the Rabbinic Midrash (Melkiltha, Sire, Sifra, Pesiktha, Debarim Rabbah, Bereshith Rabba, etc.)? If so which one(s)?

JG

Malachi151 · 04-12-2007, 02:30 PM

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The creation of the historical Jesus (as opposed to Christ Jesus, the Jesus of faith) was an exercise of the Enlightenment, carried on to this day.

I hear people say this, but I disagree. I think that historical Jesus was created in the 2nd century.

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If, then, the sojourn of the Lord in flesh has never taken place, the Redeemer paid not the fine to death on our behalf, nor through Himself destroyed death's reign. For if what was reigned over by death was not that which was assumed by the Lord, death would not have ceased working his own ends, nor would the sufferings of the God-bearing flesh have been made our gain; He would not have killed sin in the flesh: we who had died in Adam should not have been made alive in Christ; the fallen to pieces would not have been framed again; the shattered would not have been set up again; that which by the serpent's trick had been estranged from God would never have been made once more His own. All these boons are undone by those that assert that it was with a heavenly body that the Lord came among us. And if the God-bearing flesh was not ordained to be assumed of the lump of Adam, what need was there of the Holy Virgin?
...
Just as the death which is in the flesh, transmitted to us through Adam, was swallowed up by the Godhead, so was the sin taken away by the righteousness which is in Christ Jesus, so that in the resurrection we receive back the flesh neither liable to death nor subject to sin.
- To the Sozopolitans; Basil of Caesarea, 4th century

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If any one says that the body of Christ is uncreated, and refuses to acknowledge that He, being the uncreated Word of God, took the flesh of created humanity and appeared incarnate, even as it is written, let him be anathema.
- Twelve Topics on the Faith; Gregory Thaumaturgus, 3rd century

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They who are so anxious to shake that belief in the resurrection which was firmly settled before the appearance of our modern Sadducees, as even to deny that the expectation thereof has any relation whatever to the flesh, have great cause for besetting the flesh of Christ also with doubtful questions, as if it either had no existence at all, or possessed a nature altogether different from human flesh. For they cannot but be apprehensive that, if it be once determined that Christ's flesh was human, a presumption would immediately arise in opposition to them, that that flesh must by all means rise again, which has already risen in Christ. Therefore we shall have to guard our belief in the resurrection from the same armory, whence they get their weapons of destruction. Let us examine our Lord's bodily substance, for about His spiritual nature all are agreed. It is His flesh that is in question. Its verity and quality are the points in dispute. Did it ever exist? whence was it derived? and of what kind was it? If we succeed in demonstrating it, we shall lay down a law for our own resurrection. Marcion, in order that he might deny the flesh of Christ, denied also His nativity, or else he denied His flesh in order that he might deny His nativity; because, of course, he was afraid that His nativity and His flesh bore mutual testimony to each other's reality, since there is no nativity without flesh, and no flesh without nativity.
- On the Flesh of Christ; Tertullian, 3rd century

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And inasmuch as the apostle [John] has not pronounced against the very substance of flesh and blood, that it cannot inherit the kingdom of God, the same apostle has everywhere adopted the term "flesh and blood" with regard to the Lord Jesus Christ, partly indeed to establish His human nature (for He did Himself speak of Himself as the Son of man), and partly that He might confirm the salvation of our flesh. For if the flesh were not in a position to be saved, the Word of God would in no wise have become flesh. And if the blood of the righteous were not to be inquired after, the Lord would certainly not have had blood [in His composition]. But inasmuch as blood cries out from the beginning [of the world], God said to Cain, when he had slain his brother, "The voice of your brother's blood cries to Me." And as their blood will be inquired after, He said to those with Noah, "For your blood of your souls will I require, [even] from the hand of all beasts;" and again, "Whosoever will shed man's blood, it shall be shed for his blood." In like manner, too, did the Lord say to those who should afterwards shed His blood, "All righteous blood shall be required which is shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, whom you slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation." He thus points out the recapitulation that should take place in his own person of the effusion of blood from the beginning, of all the righteous men and of the prophets, and that by means of Himself there should be a requisition of their blood. Now this [blood] could not be required unless it also had the capability of being saved; nor would the Lord have summed up these things in Himself, unless He had Himself been made flesh and blood after the way of the original formation [of man], saving in his own person at the end that which had in the beginning perished in Adam.
- Against Heresies; Irenaeus, 2nd century

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And the first power after God the Father and Lord of all is the Word, who is also the Son; and of Him we will, in what follows, relate how He took flesh and became man. For as man did not make the blood of the vine, but God, so it was hereby intimated that the blood should not be of human seed, but of divine power, as we have said above.
- First Apology; Justin Martyr, 2nd century

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2 John 1:
7 Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. 8 Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. 9 Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him. 11 Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work.

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The following is the text of the letter of the Emperor Justinian, Victorious, Pious, Happy, Renowned, Triumphant, always Augustus, to John, Patriarch, and most Holy Archbishop of the fair City of Rome:

(1) Therefore, We present to Your Holiness the fact that certain infidels and persons who do not belong to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of God have, like Jews and apostates, dared to dispute matters which are properly accepted, glorified, and preached by all priests in accordance with your doctrines, denying that Our Lord Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God, and that Our Lord was born of the Holy Spirit and of the Holy, Glorious, and always Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, and became a man and was crucified, and that he is one of the persons of the Holy Trinity, who are all of one substance, and who should be adored and exalted along with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and that he is consubstantial with the Father according to divinity, and consubstantial with ourselves according to humanity, and susceptible of the sufferings of the flesh, but not susceptible of the same as a deity. For these persons refusing to acknowledge Our Lord Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God, and Our Lord as one of the Holy Trinity, and of the same substance with the other persons composing it, appear to follow the evil doctrine of Nestor, who asserts that there is one Son of God according to grace, whom he styles the Word of God, and another Son whom he calls Christ.

(2) All the priests of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and the most Reverend Abbots of the Holy Monasteries, acknowledging Your Holiness, and solicitous for the prosperity and unity of the Holy Churches of God, which they receive from the Apostolic See of Your Holiness, making no changes in the ecclesiastical condition which has existed up to this time, and still exists; with one voice, confess, glorify, and preach that Our Lord Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son and the Word of God, and that Our Lord, born of His Father before all centuries and times, Who descended from Heaven in the last days, was born of the Holy Spirit and the Holy and Glorious Virgin Mary, the Mother of God; became a man and was crucified; is of the same substance as the Holy Trinity to be adored and glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit; for we do not acknowledge any other God, Word or Christ, but one alone, and the same of like substance with the Father, in accordance with divinity, and of like substance with us in accordance with humanity, Who could suffer in the flesh, but could not suffer as a deity; and Whom, Himself perfect in divinity as well as humanity, we receive and confess as being what the Greeks call [...]. And, as the only begotten Son and Word of God was born of His Father before centuries and times existed, and as He, in later times, descended from Heaven, was born of the Holy Spirit and the Holy ever Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, Our Lord Jesus Christ having become a man, is properly and truly God. Hence we say that the Holy and Glorious Virgin Mary is properly and truly the Mother of God, not for the reason that God obtained speech and origin from her, but because in the last days He descended from Heaven, and, incarnated through Her, became a man, and was born; whom we confess and believe (as has already been stated), to be of the same substance with the Father according to deity, and of the same substance with ourselves according to humanity, whose miracles and sufferings voluntarily sustained by Him while in the flesh we acknowledge.

(3) Moreover, we recognize four Sacred Councils, that is to say, the one composed of three hundred and eighteen Holy Fathers who assembled in the City of Nicea; and that of the hundred and fifty Holy Fathers who met in this Imperial City; and that of the Holy Fathers who first congregated at Ephesus; and that of the Holy Fathers who met at Chalcedony, as your Apostolic See teaches and proclaims. Hence, all priests who follow the doctrine of your Apostolic See believe, confess, and preach these things.

(4) Wherefore We have hastened to bring to the notice of Your Holiness, through the most blessed Bishops Hypatius and Demetrius (so it may not be concealed from Your Holiness), that these tenets are denied by some few wicked and judaizing monks, who have adopted the perfidious doctrines of Nestor.

(5) Therefore We request your paternal affection, that you, by your letters, inform Us and the Most Holy Bishop of this Fair City, and your brother the Patriarch, who himself has written by the same messengers to Your Holiness, eager in all things to follow the Apostolic See of Your Blessedness, in order that you may make it clear to Us that Your Holiness acknowledges all the matters which have been set forth above, and condemns the perfidy of those who, in the manner of Jews, have dared to deny the true Faith. For in this way the love of all persons for you, and the authority of your See will increase, and the unity of the Holy Church will be preserved unimpaired, when all the most blessed bishops learn through you and from those who have been dispatched by you, the true doctrines of Your Holiness. Moreover, We beg Your Blessedness to pray for Us, and to obtain the beneficence of God in Our behalf.
- The Code of Justinian; 529-534 CE

That all sounds like a defense of a historical Jesus to me.

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