radagast

If someone states they have a pound of salt in their kitchen, I take their word for it.

If someone states they have a pound of gold in their kitchen, I would consider it possible, but want strong evidence of such, to accept it as true.

If someone states they have a pound of Einsteinium in their kitchen I'd be both highly skeptical and wish to have rock solid evidence.

The existence of Confucious and Jesus isn't really the crux of the issue. If there were an itinerant preacher, by the name of Jesus of Nazareth, who later had thing built up about what he said and did, such that we now have Christianity, it would not be something requiring evidence. If it were only his teachings that were being judged, without the mystical, the supernatural involved, I doubt this thread would exist. Just as it normally would exist about Confucious.

The thing atheists have a hard time about with historical Jesus is the aspects that are of a supernatural nature. His existence doesn't bolster the supernatural claims.

Regards,
Glenn

yummyfur

Wouldn't it be better for you to cite

Lionel M. Jensen. Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese Traditions and Universal Civilization. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. 1997.

instead of Charlotte Allen, her ideas about Jeuits in this area come from his work, I wouldn't classify a freelance writer, and writing teacher as a scholar in this field, which are Charlotte Allen's qualifications. Jensen is a professor, of East Asian Languages and Literature and a professor of History at Notre Dame.

Duke Leto

Since you seem so completely unequal to understanding my argument I'll itemize it for you:

a) The Analects are a Historical Document.
b) They were written by someone or some group.
c) All we know about the person we call Confucious is what he is supposed to have said in the Analects. (Subsequent mythologizing is irrelevant.)
d) Even if there was no person named Confucious who wrote or dictated the Analects, there was someone or some group of people who did.
e) For the purposes of historical discussion, this person or persons IS Confucious.

(Interestingly Toto, wikipedia reports that there is Chinese family that claim descent from our alleged sage.)

Analogously, I freely acknowledge that there was a person or school that composed the Q document. I seriously doubt that this person was named Jesus of Nazereth or that he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

Documentation is an important requirement and Jesus has two pieces of Documentation... Jack and Shit.

The fact the stories told about him are ridiculous and self-contradicting, and that the people who told them were social parasites and emotional terrorists when they were not, like Robertson and Falwell, out and out crooks is merely a secondary consideration.

Toto

Yes, and there were people in the Roman Empire who claimed descent from Jesus' brother, and there are even people who claim that Jesus survived the cross, married Mary Magdalene, and sired some royalty in Europe.

And I imagine in a few hundred years, there may be people who claim to be descended from Luke Skywalker. . . but that's not reliable evidence.

Tharleena

Thank you Duke Leto for the wikilink

I wasn't surprised at the fact that people in western countries can doubt about jesus christ's existence, as what I had done before. But i honestly was surprised at your doubting about confucius. My roomate told me that she came from the same town where confucius once lived, where there was the tomb of Confucius and the temple that was built after/ or in his name or honour--not sure which expression was more accurate.

He was said to be borned in Lu, a little kingdom's name at that time, and moved to Qi, in order to find a decent job (if I may say so.) But, unfortunately, the Lord of Qi did not show high respect for him. He returned to his native where he taught and assumed the position of educator about his thoughts on almost everything, political, ethical, or whatever. He was said to have 3,000 students/or disciples, but mainly 72 was recorded, according to the historical document.---I might be wrong here though.

Lun Yu was said to be his thoughts and content of his conversations with his disciples which was recorded by his students. Compared with Jesus christ, confusius was more real. Hope this can help a bit though.

Duke Leto

Well, true, but the idea that there was a Master Kong who originated that particular school of thought who was a bureaucrat turned ethicist is not inherently impossible or particularly ridiculous. And there certainly are a hell of lot more Kongs than Merovingians still kicking around.

I'm suspending judgement until I get a chance to look over your source for this Jesuit thing and looking the scholarship over myself. Which isn't likely to happen because I don't really give a damn.

What makes it hard for me to accept the hypothesis is that the Chinese would adjust their belief systems to accommodate a misundersanding on the part of Jesuit missionaries.

Vivisector

Despite the motivation of the OP, I think it's a fairly cleverly-packaged question that deserves some thought. I don't find any issues of "fair play" to be personally compelling. I think the larger issue is, do the methods and criteria of JM proponents apply equally well to other figures from antiquity?

I can understand that, for many - especially in the US - Jesus is the obviously logical choice for critical historical investigation. Here, in particular, it is the system of behaviors surrounding an understanding of Jesus that threatens me and likeminded persons - not those arising from Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, or any other -ism. I can also understand that many - again, especially in the US - simply don't have the same degree of intellectual curiosity regarding, for example, Confucius that they do with regard to Jesus. Not that it's worth anything, but I have more curiosity about Jesus than Confucius, too.

But I don't think either of the above is the real point. Regardless of why they chose to investigate Jesus, and regardless of a relative lack of interest in other persons of the distant past, JM proponents have very specific reasons for their conclusions. These reasons are the result of methodical investigations; the results judged as failing certain criteria, the JM proponents conclude against the existence of HJ. And the real point is just that: JM proponents have a method.

As a principle, I'm all in favor of objective methods and criteria. I'm temperamentally inclined that way, and I think it's what differentiates many of us on this forum from others. However, I think methods and criteria should be clearly stated to be considered objective, and I think they should be tested (as possible) to be considered valid. This is my greatest source of reluctance to embrace the JM conclusions; namely, that it's difficult for me to see clarity in methods and criteria, and I haven't seen them satisfactorily tested.

Assuming that one could infer and articulate a method based on the body of JM scholarship, then we should be able to apply it to similar individuals. If the method is valid, it should work just as well for those other individuals. If the method doesn't work as well for those other, similar individuals, then it would seem fair to question the validity of the method (assuming its correct application and sufficient similarity of those other individuals).

I don't know if Confucius is sufficiently similar to Jesus to apply JM methods to the question of his existence. But it seems there should be someone who would constitute a legitimate similarity. In fact, it seems that there has to be someone to serve as a test case to justify confidence in the JM methodology. If I were in the JM school of thought, then regardless of my interest in Confucius or anyone else, I'd like to know that my methods with respect to Jesus were valid.

Anat

I must say tombs and temples do not impress me as evidence for the identity and historicity of the person who is supposed to have been buried there, or in whose honor the temple was constructed, without at least evidence that the construction time matches the time when the individual is supposed to have died and an original inscription, demonstrated to be from the right time. I have serious doubts that the patriarchs and matriarchs are buried in the site identified today as cave of Machpela, or that the biblical Rachel is buried in what is known as Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem. The same goes for Joseph (Shechem), Jethro (Nabi-Shueib, Hittin), Moses (Nabi-Musa, Jordan) and quite a few others. (I have no idea what the state of evidence is for Confucius' tomb, just that the mere existence of a tomb identified with a certain person isn't sufficient evidence in itself.)

lenrek

This is a very interesting thread. But do anyone of you guys know how China history was recorded?

Compare with other civilization, China always have a minister of the court that his duty is to record day to day event that occurred to his country. Thus, there a very comprehensive historic record of each dynasty. I would suggest read the following link from Wikipedia,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sima_Qian

Remember to look at the section regarding the "Contribution to Journalism".

Hope this help...

woodstock memories

And yet Confucius was supposed to have lived before 'China' became a single political entity, and it would be hundreds of years before it even approached the boundaries of what we today would consider 'China'.

There were merely several competing states that shared a similar culture.

The existence or non-existence of Confucius is an interesting problem, but as has been said before, it has little effect on the validity of the concepts attributed to him.

The same cannot be said to be true of Jesus, or the Buddha for that matter.