Atheos

Which by strange coincidence happens to be the same amount of evidence for any other suggested scenario with regard to this (possibly fictitious) tale.

sotto voce

Huh, coincidence. The only alternative before the wonderful internet was made available to the world's intelligentsia was that Mary had been made pregnant in the normal way. It had to wait for the cream of the cream before there was suggestion that deity had sexual relations.

Which rather gives their game away, doesn't it.

It just takes a while to sink in.

Adam

I guess I was wrong about the domino that could not be allowed to fall. Several others (Vork, Toto, and implicitly Shesh) have rejected sources underlying the gospels. Even those who accept that there are contemporary sources don't want to deal with them. This does make sense from an atheist perspective, because getting underneath the extant gospels gets us closer to Jesus and having to deal with him. Rejecting sources give safe refuge.

Epistemology? "We can know ancient texts, but not the underlying fragments from which they were spliced. Without knowing the fragments, we have no evidence from which to infer authorship or veracity." This goes against the results of textual criticism and source criticism, but I guess it is a legitimate position. How about, "We can apply analysis to ancient texts for evidence of sources, but the sources do not give us any additional information. If there is evidence, it is not sufficient evidence to derive authorship or the perspective from which the author wrote." This is more in line with scholarly procedure. This is a hard agnosticism, not only that we don't know but that we can't know. In others words, we can know something, that we can't know--but this is self-contradictory. We're back to the conundrum I have pointed out here several times, that people here are claiming we have knowledge that there cannot be knowledge, evidence that there is no evidence.

Is this showing that current academic scholarship is self-contradictory? For fifty years I have resisted this "Know-nothing" orthodoxy, and I think our state of knowledge at present has undermined the consensus on "We know that we cannot know the authors or whether they were eyewitnesses." That remains the prevailing view, but it seems to be an improper inference from methodological Naturalism.

As a result of my refusal to accept methodological Naturalism as a premiss, I have been free to explore for the seven eyewitnesses I have named. Even though atheists have an epistemological basis against accepting supernatural claims, they also have grounds for rejecting non-supernatural claims by accepting the self-contradictory premisses of current Bible scholarship. "We can know that we cannot know" cannot stand, but it is a stand that atheists can use to reject not just supernaturalism in sources but also non-supernaturalism. Reject sources or reject that we can learn from them. (The same self-contradiction that Fundamentalists use.) A true skeptic would deny, however, that we can be so certain about that.

Toto

You continue to insult us by implying that we only reject your analysis because we don't want to "deal" with Jesus.

Then textual criticism and source criticism are wrong.How many times do I need to point out that you are merely shifting the burden of proof?

NoWhat is improper? You have no way to distinguish eyewitness testimony from realistic fiction.

steve_bnk

The theist dominoes never fall. They glue the first one to the table amd then marvel on how it can never can be pushed over.

Sheshbazzar

Which only indicates that you are unaware of my actual position with regards to the origins of the Gospels.
I most absolutely do believe that there were sources underlying the Gospels, and the themes appearing therein were not solely originated out of whole cloth by the Gospel writers.
It is my view that these Gospel writings were a natural extension and development of earlier midrashim and 'sayings' documents composed before 'Christianity', and later reworked by the church, as I have presented in many threads in this Forum.

I only reject your highly speculative and unprovinanced theory and insistence that these underlying sources ever consisted of writings produced by the mythical Apostles or other NT -characters- (Nicodemus) appearing within the Gospel tales, or that these tales present any real life situations or dialog.
They are literary propaganda productions, not accurate historical accounts, no matter what you may choose to cut out of them.





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Atheos

The only thing I've maintained all along is that the current evidence available does not fall decisively in either direction. You seem to be finally admitting that, which I believe is a great step in a positive direction.

If evidence surfaces that tilts things in one direction or another I'm all ears. Personally, if there's a historical Jesus I'm just fine with that, as I'm fine with a historical Joseph Smith, a historical Mohammad and a historical Buddha. The actual historical existence of any such personage has nothing to do with whether or not any claims ascribed to them are of any merit, especially extraordinary ones. I'm not afraid to deal with an actual Jesus. There's an ocean of difference between being an actual human being and being the human projection of the individual who created the universe.

You don't seem to like the fact that there is not enough evidence to determine authorship or reliable eyewitness testimony of a historical Jesus. Fine. You've expended a tremendous amount of effort in your analysis of what's available and that's also fine. I hate to be the bearer of bad news though. All the effort in the world won't turn lead into gold or extract blood from turnips. All the effort you can muster isn't going to turn conjecture into evidence.

It's not that we can't know. It's not that we don't want to know.

It's just that we don't know.

sotto voce

Maybe that's happenstance. But maybe it's deliberate.

The problem we have is that the things that we know are not worth knowing. We know how to make all sorts of useful things, but we can't take them with us. If we are going. And the hint from the gospels is that we are going. This is not the end, by them.

So we make a choice to respond to them, or not, according to our disposition. That's all there is to it. Personal choice.

steve_bnk

If you beleive in an eternal reward, why worry about material things and death at all?

Adam

(I'm assuming, Atheos, that your #187 is directed at me even though I had not posted immediately above.)
One would therefore think it all the more likely that people here would assess my theses to see whether it moves the balance.
I'm admitting that you guys may have an epistemological basis for rejecting sources and/or any knowledge from sources. I am not admitting that any of you have any basis for declaring my results wrong. Doubt or uncertainty is one thing, but it's quite different (and illegitimate) to claim certainty that I am wrong or that I have no evidence.And there you go! "If" evidence surfaces? You're joining Doug Shaver and Toto that I don't even present "evidence"? (Maybe I'm misunderstanding your degree of closedness here.)
An actual Jesus? Then you don't yourself (like all the others here) reject considering whether there are source documents that have so little supernaturalism in them that they seem to be records of a real person--namely my Gospel According to the Atheists (Proto-Luke plus the Passion Narrative in John and the discourses in John).
And what is your epistemological basis for any of this (your last nine sentences)? If we CAN know (dropping the epistemological position that we can't), why is it that we don't know
and YOU KNOW THAT WE DON'T? And that my "conjectures" aren't worth studying to see if they're even evidence?

You're more open-minded than Toto, yes, but your position wavers and loses its epistemological grounding. You likewise fall into self-contradiction.