J-D

I think you've missed the point Toto was making. It's particularly odd that you challenge Toto to produce confirmation that Alexander the Great was the son of a god, when it's plain that Toto does not believe that Alexander the Great was the son of god.

The point, once again, is a logical one, and once again logical points appear to give you difficulty.

The logical question is this:

'If a person is said to have been the son of a god, does it necessarily follow that the person never existed?'

or perhaps, given your preferred form of words:

'If a person is said to have been the son of a god, does it necessarily follow that the historicity of the person is baseless?'

How do you answer that question?

Ted Hoffman

HJ scholars will argue that the virgin birth story was a creation of early Christians. So they will omit it from their reconstruction of a HJ.

J-D

Where's the contradiction? It can't be proved that I have three heads, because it's not true that I have three heads. It can't be proved that Alexander was the son of a God, because he wasn't the son of a God.

Steven Avery

Hi J-D,

Well, you don't really say anything and you don't seem to be aware of the nature of various Communist Party alliances post-WWII. Papers are written about this phenomenon.

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi...8.1998.00061.x
Strange Bedfellows: Explaining Political Cooperation between Communist Successor Parties and Nationalists in Eastern Europe - John T. Ishiyama

Abstract.In postcommunist politics many of the 'new national right' political formations in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have joined forces with the communist successor parties. Such a combination is, on the surface, a baffling mixture; how is it possible that two fundamentally different ideological approaches (nationalism and internationalist socialism) can coexist and actively cooperate to form such a potent political force? What are the conditions under which such political cooperation emerges?

It is rather obvious that the Herodians and the Pharisees could easily get together to come up with a tactical attempt to derail the Jesus movement. Putting aside other differences for a common cause where neither one is even making any concessions.

On a topic like this there comes a point where discussion becomes redundant, since you are simply taking an untenable position, the impossibility and incredulity of what is a rather simple and intuitively-easy-to-comprehend tactical alliance.

Since I have little expectation of moving you to any introspection about your position I would prefer not to simply redundify.

Shalom,
Steven

J-D

It's possible that the word 'son' is being used metaphorically in that passage, in the same way that the word 'sisters' is being used metaphorically in the sentence 'the Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady are sisters under the skin'. Thus this passage is not evidence that Mark endorses the same sort of story of the conception of Jesus as given by Matthew and Luke.

J-D

No, Toto did not accept that the gospels are holy scripture. Toto simply recorded some specific statements which are made in Mark. Do you deny the fact that those statements are made in Mark? Nor did Toto say that those statements must be true because they are recorded in Mark. The question I think Toto would like you to answer, and which I know I would like you to answer, is this: do you think that the statement that Jesus preached to his disciples in Galilee must necessarily be false and, if so, why?

aa5874

If a person omits all the known fictitious elements of the Jesus the Christ and, without corroboration, assume all other elements are true, then it is possible to re-construct an HJ.

For example, if a person disregards the virgin birth, and assume that Mary and Joseph did have a child named Jesus, then they have instantly made Jesus a real person, just on an assumption.

The reality is that Joseph, Mary or Jesus cannot be assumed to be real persons because the virgin birth is fictitious. The NT made 2 attempts at the genealogy of Joseph, it was a disaster. In effect, both Joseph and Mary are now questionable characters. See Matthew 1:1-16 and Luke 3:23-38.

The NT made 2 attempts to describe events surrounding the birth of Jesus the Christ, again disaster. See Matthew ch 1-2 and Luke ch 1-3. All the major characters, Joseph, Mary and Jesus are all questionable, they cannot be assumed to be real persons, in order to prove that they were historical.

If one examines extant contemporary writings of historians, it would be recognized that no mention is made of Jesus the Christ, Mary, Joseph, his followers or his teachings in the 1st century.

And what is even more disturbing, there were deliberate attempts, although fraudulently, to manipulate and distort history by some, with the intent of placing Jesus in the 1st century, through interpolations and forgeries.

If one takes into account the incredibilty of the NT, the complete 'silence' of historians and the deliberate attempts to distort history, it cannot be assumed that Mary, Joseph or Jesus ever lived.

I have no credible information on Jesus in the 1st century, I regard his historicity as baseless. Apparently Jesus was historicised by contemporary believers not contemporary historians. His life is surrounded by fictitious events and deliberate distortions of history.

aa5874

J-D, I have already pointed out to you that it is not the initial logics, it is the investigation that ultimately determines the possibilities.

For example, if a person is determined to have been murdered, initially,there are billions of logical possisibilities, however after investigation, there may be only one.

Now, I have done my investigation, I cannot find any contemporary extra-biblical information about Jesus, except interpolations and forgeries, I therefore have to depend on the NT. I have found the NT to be wholly fictitious. My conclusion is that Jesus is mythological, fictitious or non-existent.

Before my investigation I thought Jesus could have been a real person, but definitely all evidence points to nothing.

Doug Shaver

What do you mean by that? Have you proved that nothing in it could possibly be true?

J-D

Exactly.