Doug Shaver

I know the feeling. I was attracted for a while to the thesis that Q never existed. The first time I got into a debate about it, I got my ass kicked.

And then there was the time I tried to argue for reinstating literacy tests for voters.

aa5874

It is quite amazing how the Canon of the Church with the Pauline writings can be so twisted to become virtually unrecognizable.

The NT Canon is about God Incarnate, that is God in the FLESH and "Paul" did write of God's OWN Son that was God Incarnate.

Examine the mention of "God Incarnate" in Galatians 4.4 In the NT CANON, Jesus could NOT have been DESCRIBED as a man. A mere man has NO theological value in the NT CANON.


The doctrine of the CHURCH MUST BE EXPECTED to be COMPATIBLE with its CANON.

An "historical Jesus" cannot be ARGUED from the NT CANON. It is virtually IMPOSSIBLE unless those who compiled the Canon were COMPLETE IDIOTS and did NOT know the doctrine of the Church.

aa5874

Getting your ass kicked cannot make "Q" EXIST. One does not need IMAGINARY evidence to develop a theory unless they want to get their ass kicked.

Why are people, and even Scholars, claiming IMAGINARY evidence is out there somewhere that SUPPORTS "their theories"?

Has it never dawned on them that "IMAGINARY evidence" is ALWAYS in favor of the one who IMAGINES the very "evidence"?

I have NOT come across anyone who ASSERTS that there is IMAGINARY evidence out there somewhere which will definitely debunk them.

A theory NEEDS actual DATA not hypothetical imaginary sources unless you want to get your ass kicked.

We have the NT Canon and the Church writings and they are ABSOLUTELY clear about what was BELIEVED about Jesus.

There is ZERO doubt that Jesus was described as God Incarnate in Galatians 4.4, the Child of the Holy Ghost and a Virgin, the WORD that was God and the Creator.

It is CLEAR that there is PRIMA FACIE evidence of MYTH JESUS in the NT CANON.

There is NO NEED for "Q".

gurugeorge

Yes, that's it - but I think the main point is the point about it not being clear, from the "Paul" writings, that the Jesus he's talking about, was someone known personally to the other people he's talking about, the Jerusalem crowd, the Cephas, the James, the "Pillars".

If there were that link, then I think the that would be pretty decent internal evidence that would make the HJ quite a bit more plausible; then you'd have a continuity of conception about what the Jesus entity was, from its earliest manifestation to its later - i.e. that this entity gave teachings, walked about with the earliest known advocates, etc.

It's the fact that that link of personal discipleship is made in the later gospels, that gives the HJ case its prima facie plausibility. But the "silence" of that sort of connection in the "Paul" writings, is what gives one second thoughts.

Or to put it another way, if our only evidence for Christianity was the gospels, then HJ would be more viable. It's the "silence" wrt personal discipleship in the "Paul" writings, the lack of any humanly-handed-down teachings from the cult deity, and the "Paul" writings being supposedly earlier, that gums up the works.

aa5874

The Gospels has NO PRIMA FACIE evidence that Jesus was a man. "Mere Existence" is NOT the criteria for the HJ argument.

MERE existence is the argument of Fundamentalists and some Christians. HJers are arguing Jesus was just a man who hardly did anything found in the NT Gospels.

People BELIEVED myths existed in antiquity.

In the Gospels, the ANGEL GABRIEL "EYEBALLED" MARY so can we ALSO claim there was an "historical" Gabriel.

Jesus as the Son of God, born of the Holy Ghost and a Virgin, is NOT the HJ argument. HJers have fundamentally REJECTED the Jesus of the NT as myth and embellished but have no actual credible evidence to support their man Jesus.

HJers MUST provide a credible source of antiquity for their MAN. Only actual credible evidence from antiquity can provide any EXPLANATORY power.

gurugeorge

To us moderns, an entity that walks and talks with his disciples, and gives them teachings, is a more plausible candidate for being a myth that has a man at the root of it, than one that doesn't.

To see what I mean, suppose the Christ myth we had was all grand supernatural stuff about floating around in the clouds, superheroics, etc., with nothing Clark Kentish about it at all, nothing even vaguely human - then the notion of a historical man behind the myth wouldn't make much sense would it?

It's because there are these human-seeming bits in the myth, that the HJ idea has some plausibility.

It just so happens that it's unsupported by external evidence (evidence, outside the cult texts, of a historically verified man called Jesus, who had disciples, or whatever). It also doesn't fit very well with the slightly later early Christian history (Walter Bauer), which suggests that the orthodox elements revolving around the cult figure giving teachings while on earth (apostolic succession) are later (which also fits with the gospels being later).