Chris Weimer

The claim is that a man named Jesus existed and was later thought to be a god. There's serious parallel with this in ancient history, such as Antinous, but we do not require "extraordinary evidence" for Antinous, do we?

Now, the claim that Jesus was the son of a god is indeed an extraordinary claim, and would need extraordinary evidence, of which there are none.

Chris Weimer

This doesn't make any sense. You think that just because some people have emotional attachment to Jesus, that automatically disqualifies him as real?

Remember the boy wonder who rode on the backs of dolphins to the free land? Yeah, he's real too.

This is funny.

I'm a contemporary of your cousin, but I didn't meet him either. Therefore, your cousin does not exist.

I take it you don't remember the movies all that much, do you?

Because the Gospel of Thomas is definitely pro-church propaganda, right?

He thought he saw him. Most likely, Paul was delusional and had an hallucination and equated the vision with the leader of the people he was crucifying.

Non-sense. Crypto-zoology deals with legendary animals, not historical figures or mythology.

Not being born at all? This argument is actually contra-Doherty, which I assume you also are unfamiliar with.

You do the same with every ancient person ever written about. You have to assume the individual. It says he existed. If you have evidence contrary, I'd love to hear it.

How so?

The myth can't contain truth?

It could've been on purpose. Sacred numbers are abundant in real life all the time, having been chosen that way on purpose. In a forum I participate in, ten of us, including me, were chosen to revise the rules. Am I making this up because "ten" is a magic number?

Sources, please?

Says you?

No evidence, I see.

What would you like to see? A photograph? Can you prove The Egyptian was a real figure in Josephus?

Do likewise with The Egyptian. You're employing a double standard.

I'm getting tired of this same line of rhetoric.

Ah, now we see the true motives! You don't care whether its an MJ or an HJ. There goes that little "honesty" you mentioned earlier.

As an historian, who existed and what they did is important enough to care about for all people. I care equally about Jesus as I do about Socrates, Lao Tzu, and The Egyptian. I smell a prejudice in you though that wants Jesus to disappear.

Biff the unclean

No, I think you are having trouble understanding what I’m writing. No one is being disqualified from being historic because of emotional attachment. A person either is, or is not historic and affection for that character is an invalid standard by which to judge if they are.

Why is something so simple as intellectual honesty giving you such a hard time? If you have no way to gather information about my cousin then you cannot have any knowledge of my cousin. If you have no knowledge to base a claim that my cousin is historic then you cannot honestly make that claim.
If you hear a story about my cousin that is identical to that of Apollo then you can honestly make a claim to the Mythic Biff’s cousin. The MBC is the character in the story. The HBC is not just a character and is independent of that character. Such as the Mythic George Washington cut down the cherry tree but the Historic George Washington was our first president. You don’t have to have one in order to have the other, but you can have both (as, indeed, we do)

Sure it was, for one of the early competing churches. It didn’t make the final cut during Rome’s restructuring of Christianity

If we ignore Euripides.

There’s your problem in a nut shell. That is why what you are doing is the same as crypto-zoology advocates are. You are taking a legendary creature (in this case Jesus) and assuming it exists.
So you don’t have an Historic Jesus, all you have is an Assumed Jesus

There are no rules that say it must

What are you asking for? Evidence that Roman crucifixions were Roman crucifixions? Would you like a “how-to” book on the subject?

Any evidence will do. No matter how sarcastic it pleases you to behave repeating a story is not evidence that the story is historic.
I have no idea. Did I ever claim he was?

You are coming across as having a reading comprehension problem. Nowhere in this thread have I employed a double standard.

Tough

What disappear, I keep asking for him????!!!! What prejudice??!!!!
You claim all these wonderful scholars say there is a Historic Jesus. Fine. I ask for this Historic Jesus that they all claim and you pull a bait and switch and hand me Assumed Jesus. So I call “bullshit.” All this hostility and whining of yours isn’t masking that Assumed Jesus is merely a Jesus of belief, your belief not Christians. While what you have been falsely claiming is a Jesus of historic fact.

Pull the other one, kid, it’s got bells on it.

aa5874

This is strange, you introduce an Egyptian and want some-one else to prove your Egyptian is real? This is unheard of, unbelievable. Prove your Egyptian is real first. If you accept your Egyptian as real without evidence, then sould I likewise accept Jesus Christ as historic?

As have been pointed out already, the NT contains what appears to be mythical and fictional events surrounding the character Jesus Christ, there are no original documents of the NT, the authors are questionable, no comtemporary historian has written a book about him. Marcion has described Jesus Christ as mythical as early as the 2nd century, with great sucess, and had rejected Matthew, Mark, John and parts of Luke as corrupted works, even his birth and ressurection were rejected.

In light of these information, it is prudent for me to regard Jesus Christ as fiction, until overwhelming evidence can show otherwise.

jgibson000

Would you be kind enough, please, to provide me with the primary source from Marcion in which this description of Jesus by Marcion is found?

And I'm still waiting for you to produce your evidence for Muhammed having himself written manuscripts and doctrines that are the basis of Islam.

Jeffrey Gibson

jjramsey

Isn't the entry in Josephus enough for you?

aa5874

This a link I visitedhttp://www.earlychristianwritings.com/marcion.html

I cannot recall claiming Muhammed wrote anything specifically, I recall making a general statement about religion.

I am still waiting for evidence to support the historicity of Jesus Christ from professional historians, I have not seen anything, over 650 posts and nothing but semantics and irrelevant assumptions.

Despite all the admitted myth and fiction in the NT, regarding Jesus Christ, some people still claim, without verification, they know which parts are true.

jgibson000

If you'll review what I wrote, I did not ask you to produce a link. I asked you to provide primary evidence from Marcion himself -- an actual quote of something that comes from his pen -- in which he does what you claimed he did, namely, "described Jesus Christ as mythical".


Then your memory is faulty.

You spefically claimed in message 3615356 that all historical founders of religion wrote manuscripts and doctrine for their followers:

.

(which, BTW, is hardly a general statement about "religion").

So given that Muhammed was a great religious founder, you did indeed claim that Muhammed himself wrote documents of doctrine.

Now may we have your evidence for this please?

Is that what you've seen? Could this be because you have a notion of evidence that no professional historian would accept or recognize as valid?

In any case, to return to my request:

Please provide me with (1) the primary source -- that is, something from from Marcion himself -- in which he describes Jesus as mythical and (2) your evidence for Muhammed having himself written manuscripts and doctrines that are the basis of Islam.

Jeffrey Gibson

aa5874

jgibson, apparently you only ask questions. I have given you information that I have. You cannot provide any evidence to support the historicity of Jesus Christ.

Mohammed is reported to have been illiterate, was Jesus Christ also illiterate, was that the reason he did not write a single word for his followers or his disciples. Was that the reason he had to use Saul/Paul to spread his doctrine?

By the way, where are the original NT documents? Do you have something from Jesus Christ himself? Do you have any evidence of Jesus Christ historicity. I will consider Jesus Christ to be fiction, until I get irrefutable evidence to support his historicity. The NT does not appear to be credible.

jgibson000

How my alleged inablity to do something is relevant when the issue is whether you can support your claims is beyond me.

And in any case, in asking the questions I've been asking, I'm only doing what you've been doing all along when you ask people to support their claims with evidence.

Why is it wrong for me to do what you've set the example for? Are you claiming that you are exempt from what you think others are obliged to do when they make claims?

So you admit that your claim (and, significantly, one of the major premises of your "argument" for the non historicity Jesus) that "All the great religious founders have written documents, with great detail, for their followers" is false.

Very interesting.

Jeffrey Gibson