Vinnie

Wel, its not technically a FAQ but it functions in much the same way. Short answers for bad arguments:

http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/jesusfaq.html

1. Argument: Josephus Doesn't mention Jesus and this counts as positive silence against the historicity of Jesus.
2. Argument: There are no contemporary references to Jesus. This is problematic for the historicity of Jesus.
3. Argument: Only Contemporary-Primary Evidence for the Historicity of Jesus will work. The rest is just hearsay.
4. Argument: Paul invented Christianity.
5. Argument: The Existence of Jesus is an Extraordinary Claim
6. Argument: Jesus of the Gospels and Paul seem so Different!
7. Argument: The Crucifixion might not have been embarrassing to Christians.
8. Argument: HJ methodology Assumes What it is Trying To Prove.
9. Argument: Paul Did Not Believe Jesus Was A Recently Crucified Man.
10. Argument: Christians Created Jesus out of the Old Testament
11. Argument:: The Infancy Narratives Are Way Creative
12. Argument: Paul Doesn't Mentions Any HJ Details
13. Argument: We need Extra-Biblical Sources.
14. Argument: Argument: Tomb Veneration: Why Didn't Paul or Others Mention it.

Vinnie

Layman

Hope you don't mind me infringing on your copyright here.

To add some specificity to your Rebuttal, note also that Josephus makes no mention of Paul, whom we have primary and secondary sources for. And Paul actually got outside of Palestine, causing riots and trouble across the Roman Empire, ending up under arrest in Rome itself!

Spot on about Paul and John the Baptist. And how about Peter? Or James? Or Priscilla and Aquilla? How about Barnabas? Apollos?

This argument cannot be taken seriously and your rebuttal is spot on. I would add that Paul himself tells us that the cross was an impediment to evangalism. (To the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness).

What else is there to say?

Nice summation Vinnie. Thanks.

Vinnie

Some (e.g. Crossan) dispute how important Paul was overall for Xianity in the 1d century) but yes we have a bunch of communities Paul addressed (some which he founded), his role in the Gentile mission is there, Luke must have thought highly of him given his role in Acts and all the epistles that cropped up later in his name. So yes, Paul must have at least been a popular individual.

I'll add a quick update with this.

I agree that I should make this more explicit but I did refer to Paul's comments as I note the skandalon. Thats a reference to the Pauline corpus on this. I took the term from Brown (Death Messiah v 1 p. 380 = 1 Cor 23 a skandalon to the Jews)

Gal 5:11 and 1 Cor 1:23 and "maybe" Rom 9:32-33.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Did the quick update

Vinnie

rlogan

Just got through that Vinnie and Layman. (Went to the link) Deserves more than a terse thought. But here's my comments anyway:

First, there is a lot of B.S. in the Bible in general, in the gospels specifically, and with internal inconsistencies to boot. With issues like half of "Paul's writings" as generally agreed-upon forgeries, it makes me a bit shy on the remaining half dozen or so. Interpolations and redactions are not doubted in principle - only in scope and quantity. This must be taken in the context of a long history of Church deception and outright forgery. Damn, you guys - Jesus was not Born on December 25th and the Sabbath is not the "Sun" day. Moses didn't write the Pentateuch.

Now, that isn't on your list. But it provides a back-drop for me, the recovering pissed-off ex fundie gospel singer. I'm going to give it a name: the premise of deception

The second premise I have is the late fixation of canon, and exclusion of other Christian source material. The Bible is a political document too. This is more than a lack of contemporary attestation. This was outright destruction of alternative source material not deemed politically correct. We've talked about Thomas, but there were many more.

The third premise is the infiltration of pagan material. There is just too much to deny and it sullies the uniqueness of the Jesus story as history.

A bible chock full of deception, forgery, and alterations, is of very late construction to the exclusion of non-politically correct material and includes pagan marketing gimmicks.

That's why we have to look for outside source material, and when we find the too, Josephus has been forged - well one becomes somewhat skeptical.

Goodnight.

Jayhawker Soule

And, therefore, everyone and everything mentioned in the Bible should be presumed myth or malevolent lie? Brilliant.

Skepticism is analytic. What we seem to have here is biased and superficial generalizations propping up and equally biased and superficial presupposition.

Vorkosigan

You know, Sapone, until you lied like this, I had respected you. Never did I claim that the Cruciufixion was not embarrassing to any Christians; just the opposite, in fact. I only claimed that you did not know what Mark thought about it. The discussion was about embarrassment and the Gospel of Mark, and your absurd attempt to claim that you knew what was in the mind of the writer of Mark. To twist my words like this is an outrageous lie that shows an underlying anxiousness and insecurity.

Again you twist my words. I was addressing the problem of Meier's criteria and only Meier's criteria. Note my comment the use of such criteria Only that. And you should not put up the quote from me, but read Eric Eve's paper on this problem, which was posted to XTALK a while back. Meanwhile your response verges on sheer mendacity:

The gospels are not independent of each other, for starters....as you well know. This response is absurd. I would expect this from a fundy nut, but not from you.

Finally, your response is not a rebuttal of my point but in fact confirms it. I argued that Meier's criteria are worthless because they require a set of metacriteria in order to know whether we are dealing with history. You then trundle out....a set of metacriteria. Not only have you attempted to claim I made a point which I did not, but you then proved the point I actually made while attempted to refute it. I must admit, you show real talent there.

At this juncture I don't see much point in further "dialogue" with you on this FAQ, since apparently your goal is to deliberately misconstrue what the other side is saying while grabbing such quotes as seem useful to you.

Vorkosigan

Vinnie

So you agree the crucifixion of Jesus would have been an embarrassment to earliest Christians yet you are still a Jesus agnostic? Interesting. Very interesting!

I shall update the paper immediately so as to make sure your views are reflected as accurately as possible. At any rate, for what point did you claim that I do not know what Mark thought of the "crucifixion". Do you believe Mark invented this datum? Since your comment is virtually meaningless what point does it serve?

Absurd? Finding a theological grain and then finding material which runs against it is absurd? How absurd of you to think this!

I twisted nothing. I noted your specififc formulation and it is evident you are critiquing Meier by the very statement I quoted from you: "By themselves Meier's criteria are worthless."

I've read that and several others. As you know I have my own methogological merging of Crossan and Meier's methodoologies. I have a slightly different source-stratification as well!

Neither you nor anyone else on this forum has ever come close according to my memory of demonstrating that John was dependent upon Mark. You all believe it but arguments are not forthcoming. I would say its a convenience for those here. Myself I am on the fence on this one. I am getting ready to post something to X-Talk on it to help find a view I can accept on this.

Further the synoptic Gospels which are dependent upon Mark all have earlier sources as well. We have L, M, infancy sources, parable sources, miracle sources, possibly a PN and so on. You are the one that is absurd here. I was speaking of the broad spread of Christian literature which all points to a recently crucified man (not every single datum but collectively they all do), not the canonical Gospels. This, of course includes them but irt includes all the evidence sources within all Christian works of the first century and those works themselves (e.g. Thomas, Q, et al.).

You stated, as I have stated before--what is tautological. Reconstruction in this specific field is all about source and method. The sources needs to be stratified and complexed for independent pericopes as Crossan does. Source questions come first, then method. It is then that we evaluate the sources. Thats why your analogy ultimately fails. It fails to take into account the question of sources. Darkover is nothing like the large corpus of Christian writings from the first century. This is something you need to concede. Not something you need to keep reiterating over and over no matter how many times it is clearly refuted.

Vinnie

Nomad

Ad hominem.

As Vinnie specifically qualified his point with the example of Mark, it is clear that he is speaking about the crucifixion of Jesus not being embarrassing to Mark.

Ad hominem, and ironic. How in the world do you know what is going on in the mind of Vinnie?

Eric Eve's article is called Meier, Miracles, and Multiple Attestation, and confines itself specifically to only one of Meier's criteria, namely, multiple attestation. It is indisputable that this is a problematic criteria, especially when it comes to the miracles of Jesus, but I do not believe that Eric argues that multiple attestation is completely useless. It can, for example, help us to know that a belief probably predates the texts in which we see them. In itself, however, it cannot be said to establish the historicity of the claim, only whether or not the earliest Christians believed them to be true. I detail my own thoughts on this specific criteria in a thread called Possibilities and historical inquiry.

Again I would like to clarify here is that Eric did not challenge all of Meier's criteria in this essay, as Michael's post might imply. It tackles only one of them.
And yet more ad hominem. Please stop this.

It is possible, through a careful study of NT texts to determine that specific pieces of data found within the Gospels predates, and is therefore, independent, of them. On a scale of probability it is almost certain that Matthew and Luke knew Mark. It is probable that Luke knew Matthew (and certain that he knew either Matthew or Q, if you believe in Q). Luke may also have known John, or at least an early version of John. As for what John knew about the Synoptics, that is difficult to establish, and I continue to believe that his Gospel represents an independent set of sources, just as does Paul. Regardless, it is pointless to assert that the Gospels are all dependent upon one another, as this is an hypothesis that must be established, not asserted.

Nomad

Vinnie

Vork, I DIDN'T even mention your name in this one in the paper. There is absolutely nothing to change. It does not misrepresent you and my response addresses two objections that could be separated. It shows that the claim that we don't know if Mark ound it embarrassing is a) irrelevant and b) it would have been an embarrassment to early Christians given the historical realities present at the time.

What is your specific copmplaint here? Here is the text:

Vinnie