Splarnst

What could be different in the next years from the past 2,000 or so?

sweetpea7

Every Christian I have ever met, because Christianity is not evidence based. It is faith based.

Horatio Parker

When a believer allows that non-believers can conceivably be saved, they have made the concession that doctrine is symbolic. And when that realization is reached, it follows that historical events in Palestine 2000 years ago are secondary. Myths endure because they are true, but their truth is not historical.

maryhelena

So you would like a little bit of crystal ball gazing....

The assumed historical gospel JC is purely an idea that has been developed from the gospel storyline. Like all ideas it is subject to being devalued, discarded: The earth is not flat and the earth is not the centre of the galaxy. Ideas can stay around for a long time - can’t remember who said - “it’s an idea whose time has come” but the saying has a lot of merit. So, ahistoricists should not be faint-hearted while they await the grand downfall of the historicists assumed gospel JC....

Within 10 years? I’d bet on that!

One reason would be that the ahistoricist/mythicist position is not going away. To use the analogy of the fall of Jerusalem and it’s temple in 70 c.e. - the ahistoricists armies are approaching.......

The Christian temple is the body of JC - thus not a physical but a spiritual temple, an idea. A parallel with the Jerusalem temple would indicate that this Christian spiritual temple can be destroyed - and re-built again. The Christian temple that we now have is based upon an assumed historical JC - ie this present Christian temple has a major fault in its foundation - it is inherently unable to sustain a major attack. And interestingly, the gospel storyline has the temple curtain being torn in two once the body of the gospel JC is dead. Thus, intellectually, metaphorical, by ahistoricists nailing the assumed historical JC to his Calvary cross, the Christian spiritual temple will eventually fall. The idea is destroyed. After 70 ce the Jews picked up the pieces and moved on....Christians will have to do the same. But, since the Christian temple is ‘spiritual’ anyway, an intellectual construct - Christians should be able to re-build their temple so that it is immune to problems related to historical realities.

Seriously, though, it’s most likely going to take more than the ahistoricists armies to bring down the pseudo-spiritual Christian temple that is now standing. Arguments can only be part of the onslaught. The major defence for the historicists is Josephus. Sure the ahistoricists/mythicists are able to provide arguments re the TF etc - but arguments are not enough. The Josephan defence is perhaps a bit like the Berlin Wall - which fell in one night - oh, and so, supposedly, did that wall in Babylon. So, somewhere along the line - a major shock to current thinking will have to raise it’s head - archaeological find most probably. I can’t see it just being another idea to knock down an idea - it’s evidence that’s needed because of the deep emotional entrenchment of the assumed historical gospel JC idea.

My money would be on a crack appearing in that Josephan Wall.......and when it does appear - the ahistoricists/mythicists had better have all their ducks in a row if they want to have something of value to offer in regard to laying down a road forward.....

10 years? Who knows really - did not the gospel JC say no one knows the day or the hour of his return.....................but “when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies you will know that her destruction is near”............those pesky ahistoricist armies are on the march....relentlessly....

Now, that’s enough crystal ball gazing for one day.....

aspronot

Your last two sentence I can understand. However, how does the acceptance that non-believers can be saved lead a believer to the conclusion that doctrine is symbolic? :huh:

yalla

Settled?
No.
More contentious?
Yes.
Why do I reckon that is a fair bet?
Cos the cracks in the various HJ rationales are widening, the rock solid [?] assumption is under increasing pressure and I reckon that the debate [albeit within the rarified atmosphere of those who are involved] will become more fierce as orthodoxy becomes weaker.
At the moment the MJ [whatever that is taken to mean] heretics are only a minor irritant in the hides of the HJ orthodox, able to be pretty well airily dismissed as a fringe.

I think that that there will change similar to the paradigm change from 'Biblical Archeology' when such had a shovel in one hand and a bible in t'other, as belief in Exodus and the Coquest of Canaan was near absolute to denial of such being just about the conventional wisdom now.

And with the reaching of the initial stages of a paradigm shift regarding an HJ much controversy will erupt.

Doug Shaver

No, it's going to take a lot longer than that. The alleged fact of Jesus' historical existence is too embedded in Western thinking, even when that thinking is purely secular.

There is such a thing as intellectual inertia, and historicism has at least 1,800 years of inertia behind it.

Sheshbazzar

Highly unlikely, barring a major and uncontested find of genuine Christological documents dating prior to 33 AD.
(which I am convinced once existed) -That certainly would dump Christianities applecart for good.

Barring that, the Christians that join churches and recite the traditional mantras will go on indefinitely.
Philosophically, even internally accepting that Jesus was mythical will have little impact upon their words which are recited to maintain 'Christian 'traditions' and promote popular 'Christian lifestyle', 'identity' and the advocacy of attendant 'Christian political causes.
Really not all that much different than atheistic Jews who socially continue to participate in Synagogue services and advocate continuance of 'Jewish' identity through continued observance of distinctive 'Jewish" Holy Days and kosher practices, and involvement in 'Jewish' causes.
Even if the Christian conviction of Jesus as ever being a real living person, falls by the wayside, and it becomes commonly but quietly accepted that he was a myth, Christians will continue to be 'Christians' as a religious/social/cultural/and political force to be reckoned with.
Many Jew's have long abandoned the idea that Moses', Joshua, or David were anything like the characters described in the Bible, or even if they ever existed at all, but that transition in thought has not stopped them from being Jewish, and taking great pride in the preservation of their unique cultural heritage and identity. Christians and 'Christian nations' will go through the same.

Horatio Parker

If a person can reach salvation or enlightenment through Xtianity, Islam, or Buddhism etc, IOW it there are multiple doctrinal paths to the same goal, then doctrine is a tool, and it's components representative of something larger, something beyond intelligibility.

In Platonic terms, doctrine en toto expresses the Form of the Good or the Logos, also called the Thought in the Mind of God. Religious doctrine is the Form of the Good expressed in myth ie symbolic stories or archetypes as opposed to the dialectic in Plato. God, or ultimate reality, beyond the Form of the Good, in Plato called the Good itself, is beyond words. .

It seems to me that many practicing Xtians more or less believe this although they don't dwell on it or articulate it. Jettisoning irrational things from a religion leads to dangerous places and it's understandable, to me anyway, that people deriving comfort from their beliefs are reluctant to examine them too closely.

aa5874

You may be merely repeating propaganda that "MJ is fringe".

HJers cannot defend their "argument" when it has been EXPOSED that they have NO credible historical sources for what they BELIEVE.

It has been EXPOSED The HJ Scholars have ONLY ASSUMED there was an HJ. That is all to HJ.

HJ is done.

We know that there is EVIDENCE of mythology in the NT Canon and the Church writings for MYTH Jesus.