Jeffrey Gibson

Let's get this straight once and for all. The New Testament makes no such claim, especially if you are speaking about Jesus' conception. Nor does any author of any of the books that now comprise the New Testament make such a claim, including the author of Luke.

I'm sure I'm not the only one here who would be grateful if you'd stop claiming otherwise, let alone showing your ignorace again and again about what "the NT claims".

Jeffrey Gibson

aa5874

Please read KJV Matthew 1.18.

Next, please post the claims of the NT regarding the conception and birth of Jesus in English.

Jeffrey Gibson

As has been noted elsewhere on this forum -- and as you would know if you read any Greek -- the Greek expression that stands behind the English expression used there does NOT exclude human agency in conception. And in this case, it seems to presuppose it. If you have any actual evidence to the contrary, I'd be grateful if you'd produce it (being aware, of course, that bare assertion on your part is not evidence).

Besides that Matthew is one book in the NT. It is NOT the NT.

Gladly, if you'll tell us where exactly it is in Romans, 1 & 2 Peter, GJohn, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Corinthians, GMark, Revelations, etc, the explicit claim that you say the whole of the NT explicitly makes -- i.e., that vis s vis his conception, Jesus had no earthly father -- can actually be found.

After all, when you assert, as you did, that "The NT claimed Jesus had no earthly father", you claim to know where in the NT this is done.

Or are you saying that apart from Mt. 1:18, the NT is silent on the matter?

Jeffrey

jjramsey

The problem is that faith-based inventiveness is much better at explaining Jesus' "Mary Sue" aspects than it is at explaining internal tensions or theologically incorrect baggage like Nazareth being Jesus' hometown. It also isn't a very good explanation for why Josephus and Paul report interactions with those in the real world by apparent brothers of this supposedly mythical Jesus. The HJ position has an advantage of explaining the aspects where faith-based inventiveness is a convoluted explanation, while retaining faith-based inventiveness as an explanation where it is more viable.

Amaleq13

And was employed regardless of one's position. That means assuming it does not suggest either side is "most likely".

As opposed to the voluminous evidence supporting belief in a non-historical entity? Quit pretending the MJ position is superior in this respect. It isn't. There is certainly no greater evidence that the earliest Christians believed in an entity wholly extracted from Hebrew Scripture.

When did the MJ become something "known to exist"?

aa5874

The so-called interactions of some-one called the brother of a mythical figure has no bearing on the mythical figure itself.

For example, in Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3, the mythical figure who, it is claimed, had a brother called James in AJ 20.9.1 , ROSE from the dead after three days.

It should be obvious that James has no effect whatsoever on the mythical figure ability to resurrect.

In Galations 1.19, again James is claimed to be the Lord's brother, and the Lord, as reported by the author of the Epistle, also ROSE from the dead.

The same applies with the James the brother of the Lord, as written in the Epistles. The Lord's ability to resurrect or ascend to heaven is not curtailed at all by the claim of having a human brother.

James is irrelevant to the historicity of Jesus, especially when all we know of James is one line in Galations 1.19. That is all we know of James from the NT.

jjramsey

I think gstafleu means that FBI, rather than the MJ, is known to exist.

aa5874

There is NO need for MJ to re-construct anything.
The criteria for the MJ has been met. There is SILENCE about a human only Jesus.

The criteria for the HJ has NOT been met, for the last 2000 years. And all re-construction techniques have failed to produce a real human Jesus.

The SILENCE is deafening.

The MJ salivates on SILENCE.

gstafleu

That would be correct if both HJ and MJ only used FBI in their explanations (presumably in a slightly different fashion, each from the other). But the thing is, HJ throws in an extra element: the HJ. And for that element there is scarce evidence. So HJ and MJ remain on equal footing until the moment that HJ introduces its HJ: that is when MJ pulls ahead. It pulls ahead not so much because of something it did, as because of something it did not do: include an extra, an unnecessary (in order to explain the data) element for which there is scant evidence.
MJ isn't the thing "known to exist," FBI is.

Gerard Stafleu

Jeffrey Gibson

So you keep telling us. But I wonder if you'd consider the possibility that the particular NT texts that you think attest to NT authors viewing Jesus as non human do not say what you think they say?

After all, you are Greekless. You've shown time and again that you have not the slightest grounding in first century Jewish thought and that you have never ever chacked what you say against what is noted in critical commentaries on the texts you make claims about. And, as you yourself have admitted more than once, you continuously misread/misunderstand the NT texts you've appealed to to support your claims.

What reason does anyone here have to think that when you make claims like the one above, you have any idea what you are talking about, let alone any competency to understand what "the NT" does and and does not say?

Are you absolutely certain -- yes or no -- that your understanding of what the texts you appeal to (in their KJV form, no less) is indeed what the authors of those texts were saying?

Jeffrey