tanya

Thank you J-D.

Here are two hypothetical characters in a plot:

one: a real, living human being: HJ,
two: a genuinely fictional character, capable of superhuman activities: MJ.

MJ, as you correctly pointed out, J-D, includes both "fictional", and mythical traits.

J-D

I don't think that clears up the point. Which 'plot' are you talking about? Are you talking about the story told in the canonical gospels? Some of the statements in the canonical Gospels using the name Jesus cannot be literally accurate reports of events that actually took place; other of the statements in the canonical Gospels using the name Jesus might or might not be literally accurate reports of events that actually took place. It is not possible that there was a real living human being to whom all those things happened; it is possible that there was a real living human being to whom some of those things happened.

Chili

Yes but Jesus was not human or he would have been a sinner like us, and so if he was not human what was he? In fact the cross he carried was the sum total of his sin nature to make him not human as such.

J-D

A man in the wilderness asked me
How many strawberries grow in the sea
And I answered him as I thought good
As many red herrings swim in the wood

Chili

I hear what you are saying but do not see the connection. I think it is fair to say that he was born a man-child and in the Gospels was fully man in becoming and so be one with God in the end, but that does not make him human as Jesus by birth.

aa5874

There is really no need for all this verbal gymnastics.

The HJ/MJ argument is rather simple.

HJers are arguing that there most likely was a man that was IDENTIFIED as Jesus about whom a CULT was formed under the name of Christ as mentioned in the Gospels.

MJers are arguing that there most likely was NO real person about whom a cult was formed under the name of Christ in the NT.

The "historical Jesus" is a REJECTION of the Jesus of Faith.

The NT supports the MYTH Jesus argument.

Jesus was described as a Phantom in the NT.

If the NT is TRUE, then Jesus was a PHANTOM.

If Jesus was NOT a Phantom then the NT is FALSE and cannot be trusted.

Myth Fables cannot be trusted to be historically accurate.

There are NO credible historical sources for an "historical Jesus".

One cannot argue about the history of HJ without any history or does not know what might or might not be history.

The HJ argument has SELF-DESTRUCT as soon as it was ADMITTED the Canonical Gospels contain statements about Jesus which CANNOT be historically accurate.

The Gospels CANNOT be trusted.

HJers claim their HJ was from Nazareth NOT Bethlehem.

Immediately HJers have DISCREDITED their source for HJ of Nazareth.

HJ has SELF DESTUCT.

Chili

First of all, the word Christian is a misnomer because a Christian is a solitary individual and does not go to church since there are no temples in the New Jerusalem and thus no temples in heaven and therefore heaven on earth. So if there was a Christian cult it indeed was a cult and void of supernatural input. This can be reduced from the word "Christian' itself, and so if you see a so called Christian go to church you already know he is lying and needs to say no more.

The Mjers are wrong in denying the story itself since the transition from human to man also known as metamorphosis is real and here the name Jesus was given to some guy who likely made it as most or many do not.This then is what Galilee is all about which was and always will be a busy place because menopause is a natural stage in human life (from MENO = I remain as in I become eternal).

From my point of view you abuse the word phantom since I would relate that to fantasy (phantasm) while the Gospel story bears withness to truth and so is iconic, and for sure all four of them do (those mythmakers were not stupid).

Beth-le-hem means house of bread and that is where Jesus is supposed to be born because Mary knows what she is doing and got him dragging his ass behind the donkey on which she was enthroned and we have an icon on that, which is no fantasy, remember?

Mary was from Nazareth and hence the account in Beth-le-hem (read confession right down to his state of mind at birth to so spill his guts because Joseph was pregnant with dispair = involutional melancholia of Luke).

And so it all makes perfect sense to me.

Edited to add that the word Phantom comes from phantasm elaborated on in Plato's Sophists 264D to the end, wherein the distinction is made between fantasy and iconic.
Iconic here are [divine] images that can produce or have an efficient cause in the formal cause that throught the material cause can deliver and arrive in the final cause, while phantasms remain a figment of the imgination without an efficient cause to arrive in the final cause, and hereso then I object to your use of the word phantasm because the efficient cause in the Gosples is real.

J-D

The NT nowhere uses the description 'phantom'.Even if the NT did describe a phantom, that would only mean that those parts of the NT which describe a phantom cannot be literally accurate reports of events that actually took place, but would not demonstrate that the whole of the NT is false.You have not explained what you mean, in this context, by the terms 'identified as Jesus', 'cult', 'as mentioned in the Gospels', 'in the NT', 'Jesus of Faith', 'Myth Jesus argument', 'Myth Fable', 'credible historical sources', 'self-destruct', and 'discredited'.

mountainman

The distinction between the two can be expediently exemplified by the concept of and the relative measure of historicy. In scenario one the character has a historicity somewhere between 1 and 100, whereas in scenario two the character has a historicity of precisely zero.

Associated the the relative measure of historicity is the ability to produce ancient historical evidence by which positive historicity greater than zero may be asserted. Much evidence has been claimed in support of the HJ postulate, but these claims in every case are very wanting.

I have not yet seen the discussion of such evidence in any one case to arrive at a consensus that does not leave doubt that the evidence itself is inconclusive in ascribing an element (no matter how small) of positive historicity.

Chili

Sure and the above is all very true but as I have elaborated on the difference between phantasm and iconic the Gospels will stand nonetheless and are food for thought in the mind of the believer and so all we can say in the end is that the preacher is wrong.