aa5874

Jgibson000, Can you show me that Jesus Christ was Human?

jgibson000

Why I or anyone should even bother to try, given how much of a continual <edit> you've been when it comes to refusing to act according to the manner you demand that others adopt when you ask questions, is beyond me.

But -- to use your words: "history shows it".

JG

Amaleq13

Sure it does. It makes it quite clear that you will not obtain a substantive response to any of your questions.

Amaleq13

The answer to your question is obviously "No" and it is not due to any failure on the part of Jeffrey but, IMO, due to the unreasonable nature of the requirements you've repeatedly stated on several different threads and the absence of any credible, consistent, or scholarly standards.

Before you ask me to be specific, representatives from both MJ and HJ factions have repeatedly tried to point out to you why your requirements are unreasonable, why your conclusion is logically flawed, and why your inadequate knowledge base of the relevant literature but you have shown no interest and/or no understanding of what has been said. :wave:

aa5874

At least you're honest.

Ted Hoffman

There is something there about Psychological Phenomena and the psychological origins of myth. Freudian psychology made more sense than Jungian psychology in my view but a lot has happened and the DSM IV does not have neurosis or psychoneurosis as a psychological problem.
As I noted in my review of Otto Rank, In Freudian psychology, gods symbolize parents. In Jungian psychology, parents symbolize gods. And gods symbolize father and mother archetypes, which are components of the personality of the hero. Unlike Rank and Freud though, Joseph Campbell sees the relationship with gods as representative of the relationship between the subconscious and the ego – different sides of the personality.
One theory is that archetypes, which comprise the father and mother, are unconscious not because they are repressed but are dormant and have simply not been awakened or made conscious.
Segal notes in In Quest of The Hero that, "For Jung and Campbell, myth originates and functions not, as for Freud and Rank, to satisfy neurotic urges that cannot be manifested openly but to express normal sides of the personality that have just not had a chance at realization...While identifying himself with the hero of a myth, Campbell’s mythmaker vicariously lives out in his mind an adventure that even when directly fulfilled, would still take place in his mind. For parts of his mind are really what he is really encountering."

One of the things I would like to do one day, given time and resources, is to plough through the following books and hammer out the issues: Mark S. Smith’s The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts, Walter Burkert’s Ancient Mystery Cults alongside The Myth of the Birth of The Hero (1909), by Otto Rank, An outline of The Hero: A Study in Tradition (1956), by Lord Raglan and Drama and The Hero Pattern and the Life of Jesus (1976), by Alan Dundes and works by by anthropologists, psychologists, folklorists and comparative religion scholars like James Frazer (The Golden Bough), Joseph Campbell (The Hero with a Thousand Faces).

Time. :banghead: Time :banghead: Grrrr :banghead:

Alf

My personal view is that Jesus - as described in the NT and as believed by many christians has never actually existed. There might have been a guy running around Palestine at the beginning of current era gathering some people around him and teaching some ethics and speaking of near impending doom. The guy may even have been crucified.

The guy may also have been believed to perform miracles. People were very superstitious in those days and it would be easy to convince some people of miracles.

If a rumor started going that the guy was still around after he had been crucified, I am sure that many of the fervent followers would be willing to believe that and cling to it. Of course, whoever said he was still around after crucifiction would also have to explain why he is not around any more so an ascension was quickly added.

So yeah, while there may have been this kind of beginning I would say Jesus as told about in NT is largely a myth. My reasons for doing that is as follows:

1. We can be fairly sure that he did not actually do any miracles. No serious historian can claim that he actually performed any miracle.

2. We can be fairly sure that the virgin birth etc is fiction.

3. We do not and cannot know that he actually said all that the gospels say he said.

If you have some wise man saying X and this was largely considered to be a wise saying and someone came and said "Jesus said Y" and they said "maybe, but Joe over here said X" then quickly it would become that "Jesus said X" too. He was their hero and anything good was of course done by Jesus first, right?

Removing miracles, virgin birth, resurrection and ascencion we are essentially left with his teaching but because of 3 we cannot even be sure if any specific teaching is authentic or simply attributed to him later by other people.

So what is left of the "historic Jesus"? Not much, we can guesstimate that some percentage of the teaching was authentic but how high that percentage would be is anyone's guess. The only thing we know for sure is that it isn't 100 percent.

In this sense I find that there is no grounds for claiming that there was a historic Jesus. There might have been a guy who sort of resemble the gospel description but he is not at all what the gospels say he was and I would guess most christians wouldn't like him much if they actually met him.

They have in short created an idolized image of the person which is so far removed from the actual person it is supposed to portray that it is meaningless to talk about the historic person any more since all we have left is this idolized image that doesn't fit any historic individual.

Alf

knotted paragon

hey Alf,

It looks like your situation is more a matter of which label you feel comfortable with.

When most scholars say HJ, I think they mean something very close to this: What figure did the legends grow up around? What explains the existence of a certain text with the least amount of explanation required? Chris was trying to explain to you that all those later parts of christian mythology are just that: layers added later.

But I think you have a good point and it's what many people feel matters: It's a matter of degree and how much you are willing to assume based on the materials available to you. But remember, you need to zero in on what the earliest audience may have been thinking, as well as whether the author himself might have had some specific person in mind. That most christians wouldn't like him much is both true, and completely beside the point - because they are christians now.

...brian...

aa5874

The name 'Jesus' means the 'Saviour' or 'Jehovah is Salvation.' Is it not conceievable that there were many persons claiming to be 'Jesus' the 'Saviour' 2000 yrs ago and a lot of them were found to be frauds and were stoned to death or crucified?

Even, today we hear of many 'faith healers' who claim, fraudulently, to have miraculous powers of healing, some have even attempted to raise the dead, now 2000 yrs ago would not these 'faith healers' be stoned to death or crucified under Pontius Pilate. And is it not conceivable that some-one could have spread a rumor or fabricated in writing, many years later, that one of those crucified was actually Jesus Christ, and wouldn't that be a believable story?

If a story is found to be fictious, coincidental similarities to known persons or events does not make the story true!

aa5874

Your statement does not include the fact that Augustus and Julius Caesar were also classified as Human.

All Gods are mythical.
Augustus and Julius Caesar were classified as Gods and Human.
Augustus and Julius Caesar are mythical as Gods and historic as Human.

Jesus Christ is mythical as a God and fictitious as Human.