chrisengland

I'm pretty sure if I do an internet search I. could find direct eye witness testimony of people who claimed to have seen a ghost or been ubducted by aleins ect and I expect some of them are by reliable honest people.
Thats my point though' most of these claims I,m assuming throughout history have been debunked which meens that when we have evidence which we would normally except for natural things like eye witness testimony we don't except it for supernatural things we ask whether they could be mistaken or lying or something else.
Now of course Christians tend to say that when its God it not so extroadianry because God is likely to exist' but even if that premise is true I could still probably argue that ghosts are likely or UFO's ect but imagine if we excepted all supernatural events without asking for more evidence I expect we would beleive in lots of things.
I meen I expect scholars beleive alot of the stuff Josephus write but they don't beleive a cow gave birth to a lamb or whatever it was he said.

One more thing this is to do with another thead I posted but because alot of people are on this one I thought I'd put it here.
Apparently scholars are evenly divided on whether Luke knew Paul or not' according to wikipedia.
Am I right that the main theories about the "we" passages is that a letter was incorperated into Acts or that it was a literacy device am I right that these are the most common theories?
Also am I right that the reason schoalrs are unsure or don't think Luke knew Paul isn't because there skeptics who don't want to admit that Luke might have met eye witnesses its because they think there are good reasons to dought that he did e.g. the discrepences the way its written.g. not saying "I" and some other reasons wich I need to look back at?

Also I can't remeber if I,ve write this or not' what is a liberal scholar are they Christian or are there liberal Christian scholars and liberal non Christian scholars.
Thankyou
chris

Antipope Innocent II

"A few ideas" such as what, exactly?

Toto

I would just point out that Benny Hinn is a outright, demonstrated fraud who has never cured anyone, but from all accounts is very sincere and believes that he is working cures, as do many of his followers. There is no reason to think that any historical Jesus who did faith healing was a fraudster.

These are common theories. Not everyone feels a need to endorse a theory on the question.

Many Christians think that Luke did not know Paul, based on the differences in their theology. The skeptics have no need to deny that Luke might have met eyewitnesses, because even if Luke knew Paul, there is no record that he was an eyewitness to Jesus or any miraculous event.

"Liberal" generally refers to Christians who take a more liberal view of their religion. There are scholars who are conservative or liberal Christians, or Jews, or secular humanists, but most of them try, or at least give lip service, to doing scholarship without regard to their religion.

Toto

THIS DIGRESSION WOULD BE OFF TOPIC IN THIS THREAD. THANK YOU.

Antipope Innocent II

About as off topic as a lot of Earl's post then. Perhaps he could start a new thread to explain this cryptic comment on his next fleeting visitation unto us.

aa5874

But, wouldn't it be reasonable for someone living in the 1st century to have the same view of Jesus as you have of Benny Hinn, today? Even if Jesus did actually heal people, someone could have honestly taught he was a fraudster and was doing the work of the Devil, the Anti-Christ, or even a socerer.

Alf

I coudln't agree more and it is one reason why I think this discussion is unecessarily obfuscated. Historians often claim that they are in favor of the HJ perspective and not in favor of the MJ perspective. However, these same historians often agree with the description I gave above and is - as you say - a world apart from the religious perspecive of GJ which is not at all supported by historians. However, by not clarifying their positions better they silently give support to religious groups on their claims that their gospel Jesus is historical. Now, the really sad thing is that even if they protest on this their protests are only aired in scientific journals and never reach the average joe who only hear that the historians are "overwhelmingly" in favor of the gospel Jesus.

If we do relabel them as HJ MJ and GJ then I guess I am somewhere around HJ and MJ. I lean towards MJ because while a historical Jesus may have existed and so if that is the only question you ask I am squarely in the HJ camp but he is so hidden behind the mythical Jesus created by the fan-club that the real true Jesus is no longer accesible to us nor am I convinced that it would be important that he was - I don't think that his opinions and viewpoints from country side palestine 2000 years ago were that significant to us in modern days and that is why the fan-club has recreated him in their idolized image into a divine walk-on-water miracle Jesus in order to give him more significance than his true person would give rise to.

Now, before someone comes and claim that he really did say a lot of good things etc keep in mind that this guy appearantly referred to non-jews as "dogs" thus showing that as most of the people around him at the time he was a bigot. That he was obsessed with doomsday prophesies etc. In modern days he would fit right in with Heaven's Gate and other similar cults. I don't think such a guy has much to say to a modern person today. Mahatma Gandhi is as such far more significant or to take an example from back in those days there were other people who spoke up against slavery etc - Jesus on the other hand appeared to not think of slavery as an issue.

Alf

Alf

Aren't there indications in the gospels that this is exactly th ecase. I believe if you went to a random pharisee (sp?) rabbi in those days he would probably say that he considered Jesus to be a fraud.

Alf

aa5874

And in fiction, the authors control the dialogue and the characters. Even 2000 years later, we know that the raising of Lazarus from the dead, as written by the author, is a fraudulent account.

Toto

IIRC there are indications in the gospels that Jesus' enemies assumed he got his powers from Satan, and there are much later stories in the Talmud that indicate that the Jews saw Jesus as having learned black magic in Egypt.

But the idea that magicians were frauds or tricksters is a modern concept.