Jeffrey Gibson

So the answer is no. You did not read the books, let alone follow Fichte's methods of first perusing a book in its entirety before you come to conclusions of what its arguing, despite your claim that this is what you do. Thought as much.

Except that if you'd actually read the books you'd know that that's not what their purpose is.

Jeffrey

No Robots

I used the tools I had available to get a general idea of the content. Blurbs and reader reviews online were not available to Fichte.

Oh? How so?

Jeffrey Gibson

Greast. Except I asked you if you'd read the books not the blurbs. Even you must agree that reading a blurb or a review is not the same as reading the whole of a book.

Of course blurbs and reviews were available to him. Not online of course, but in journals and in publisher's announcements.

But more importantly, are you really saying that despite Fichte's claim that one must read the whole of a book whose purpose one is trying to ascertain before one can actually say with any authority that one gets what the purpose is, that he'd think your way of doing things is sufficient to these ends, let alone that anyone who does so could really claim to be following his methods?


If you'd read the books, not the blurbs (let alone amazon reviews!) you'd know.

Jeffrey

aa5874

Please read the chronology in Mark 14 and 15.


I have already quoted Mark 14.64. And you have not answered the question. Was not Jesus brought before Pilate to secure the death penalty after he made the BLASPHEMOUS statement?

Would not Jesus have been executed, based on Mark 14.64, by the chief priest or sanhedrin if they had the power to execute Jesus after he made the blasphemous statement.

There is no information anywhere that show that a person who called himself King of the Jews could be charged with a crime.

mountainman

Dear Jeffrey,

There are a number of sources to the system of five dogmatic phrases which were purported to have originated during the council of Nicaea via Arius of Alexandria. We should look at these five phrases as a set. Nevertheless, here are the sources that I am using for the "words of Arius" at the "council" of Nicaea:

(1) The "History" of RUFINIUS
(2) The "History" of Socrates Scholasticus

These are the two chief sources for these five dogmatic phrases of Arius which were picked up and echoed down the centuries of what is today described as the Arian controversy.


My position is that there were no pre-fourth century christians, except as those that make their appearance in the literature of Eusebius and Constantine, and that these characters are fictional, the inventions of the fourth century.

Authoritative accounts? Let me admit that I am rather impervious to any claim that sacred history poses problems which are not those of profane history. My position is that, since we have no clear and unambiguous evidence to establish the existence of the new testament canon prior to the fourth century, or christian churches, or christian bishops or other "christian correspondents and apologists", we would be wise to test out the possibility that Arius was referring to a fictional historical jesus, and his words are to be interpretted in a political sense, not a theological (or if you prefer "Christological") sense.



I have supplied the sources above.

"He was made out of nothing existing" (Rufinius) and "He was made from that which did not exist" (S.Scholasticus). The context was resistance to the imposition of a new state monotheistic religion by the eastern greek academics. The new state monotheism, just like Ardashir's Zorastrianism 100 years earlier in the Persian empire, was supported by an official canon of literature. We are dealing with a natural resistance to the promotion of the NT canon as the "official state religious canon of literature" in the eastern Roman empire, which was traditionally Hellenistic, c.324/325 CE. If Constantine fabricated it (and I think he may have done so) then these words of Arius at the Council of Nicaea may represent the first recorded instance of academic commentary upon the new testament canon in ancient history. To compound the issue, Constantine destroyed the ancient temples and prohibited the services of the temples. Do you think the greek academics took all this lying down?

This resistance appears to have been focussed on these words of Arius. And on the person of Arius, while he lived. The resistance is about unbelief. These words suggest to me that Arius was suggesting that the new god Jesus was fictional. That is, Jesus was a literary fabrication who had no historical reality before this critical moment in the fourth century. The archaeological record seems to be saying the same thing.

Best wishes,


Pete

aa5874

In order for Jesus believers to worship and pray to Jesus, he must be a God, not a King. Jesus believers do not worship or pray to Kings or Emperors, they only worship and pray to God.

The very first verse of gMark, the author introduces Jesus as a God, and later in gMark 3.11 And in gMark 15.39 Jesus must be a God, not a King, to be worshipped and prayed to by Jesus believers.

Tertullian in Ad Nationes Gods are myths. Jesus of the NT was impossible as a God during the reign of Tiberius, or he had ZERO probability of being a God, born of a virgin, conceived of the Holy Ghost, transfigured, resurrected and ascended through the clouds witnessed by some Mary, disciples and thousands of followers.

Didymus

Not so. You don't need to be certain how this or any other story began before you make an educated guess about the accuracy of it. The origin of the story is the core question. If you knew with certainty how the Jesus story began, you would know whether or not Jesus was a historical figure. So there'd be no need for to "propose a theory" about the probability of his historicity.

If we have absolute, bulletproof knowledge about something, theories are unnecessary. They are always proposed in the face of uncertainty, and that's as it should be.

The uncertain credibility of Jesus sources is what removes the question of Jesus historicity from the realm of certainty. (Keep in mind that the Jesus in question is not a god-man who rose from the dead, but a human being who fits the description set forth in the OP. And that the gospel writers did include in their writings some historical facts confirmed by multiple sources external to Christianity.) In the absence of certitude, we can only deal with the gospels, and to a much lesser degree Paul, in terms of probabilities - or, if you prefer, improbabilities.

Since we are in the realm of probabilities rather than certainties, it's perfectly reasonable to assign a "credibility value" to the primary sources of the Jesus story, the gospel writers. For example, I think the likelihood that the gospels are mainly fictitious is greater than 95%, so I voted "Less than 20%" on the poll.

Ddms

mountainman

Dear ddms,

I voted the same. However I would like to point out that you like everyone else in this forum appears to do, avoid (including) the certitude of the historical existence of the non canonical (apochyrphal) texts. In addition to the contents of the canon (including the Gospels AND Paul, etc) we must in all responsibility --- to be complete! --- include these new testament related apochryphal texts. Only in this manner will we enable the complete set of evidence to paint a picture of itself.

How do the non canonical texts throw light on th existence of the historical jesus (or the OP's probability thereof)? This question is yet to be addresed cohesively and with consensus as far as I am aware. Mainstream presents a series of unknown authors in an unknown century responsible for both the canon and its complimentary set - the apochrypha (of the NT). The C14 is specific.

Best wishes,


Pete

Sheshbazzar

It is interesting, that for all the claims of impartiality in examining the New Testament evidence, there seems to be a great tendency for scholars to allow the opinions and selections of orthodox Xianity determine which ancient books we give our attention to.
Seems diversionary, they don't want to deal with the complications that are introduced by including the examination of these texts, and pronounce them "apocrypical", and because they have said so, and have pronounced this magic word, everyone ought to just ignore these works as irrelevant to our understanding of what was happened back then, kind of like the thundering voice in the Wizard of Oz, saying "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain".
I have at various times over the years, read this one and that one, but soon got disgusted with all the over-the-top miracles, and hokey sounding stories. But your posts have got me thinking, What if?

What if these -were- originally penned not just to serve as simple romantic entertainment stories, but were works of deliberate counter-propaganda intended to be so over-the-top that their very ridiculousness would mock, parody and undermine the orthodox canon's tales, and the credibility of the authorities of the X-ian church?
That they were deliberately intended to arouse the public's incredulity and skepticism, and thereby "take the wind out of the sails" of christianity?

I dunno, but it does seem like a plausible explanation. Pagan priests being driven to "underground" publishing, would have soon lerarned to avoid the publishing anything that obviously opposed the church, or that would immediately upon its reading bring down ire and punishment, but a more subtle form of warfare, would be to fabricate multitudes of quasi-christian texts which could easily be mingled with the accepted texts, and accepted by ignorant and uncritical priests and their congregations.
And, if Constantine became aware that such a plot and ploy was in progress, he would have had to hide that fact from the ears of population, or his position and authority would be known to be publicly mocked, an absolutely intolerable public humiliation.
This would explain that rage, and the venom that is displayed by Constantine in the "Dear Arius" letter, far better than just a simple doctrinal difference of how god junior was related to god senior.
The "Time when he was not" phrase being a insider dig against the fabricated nature of all the X-ian texts that were Constantine's darlings.

The way that letter denounces, reproaches, and taunts Arius, but never once touches upon the specific subject that is the -(supposed)- "bone of contention" between them, appears suspicious.
ie. Constantine knows that Arius knows what he is getting at, but Constantine can't risk actually writing down what his complaint really is, so we get "come to me Arius...." (so that I can rip your frigging heart out and pound you to a pulp)
An interesting possibility at the least, one that would help to explain a lot of things.

mountainman

Dear Shesh,

Thanks for this post. Needless to say I am in agreement with the exploration of this angle. Some issues that this possibility may throw light upon are:

1) Tracking these heretic works from Eusebius' comments onward.
2) The Nag Hammadi Codices - especially "The Acts of Peter and the 12",
3) The genre of the apocrypha is thus some form of sedition against the canon - there was not supposed to be any further or any additional tractates about Jesus or any of the other apostles, etc. The canon was supposed to be the canon. But along came Arius of Alexandria, with his blashemy.
4) Censorship: Major censorship is expected in this instance, and it is evident in Cyril of Alexandria the next century. The preservation of the history went through a number of hands. The late fourth and early fifth century custodians of the new state monotheistic religion found themselves with an authenticity problem and the supreme power by which to solve it. They destroyed all the evidence which reflected badly on their own inauthenticity. At the top of the list was the real nature of the Arian controversy. It was about political fiction and not nuances of theology. Secondly the treatise of he emperor Julian was burnt.

Some thoughts,
best wishes,


Pete