Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Until Da Vinci and other anatomists, not much was known about the human body. For example, at the University of Bologna, the Inquisition watched the dissections and would stop them if they thought the doctors were doing things that were heretical.

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

In my readings over the years, the term historical Jesus in most contexts has referred to whatever is left of the gospels' central figure after the legendary accretions of Christian tradition and dogma have been removed, beginning with a fundamental assumption that the stories originated as accounts of the life and teachings of a real man. In those contexts, historical Jesus is contrasted not with a mythical Jesus but with the God-man of Christian orthodoxy.

In this sense, the concept of a historical Jesus is indeed historically recent. It goes back probably only to the Enlightenment. Even at that, I don't think any serious scholarly work was done on it until the late 19th century, and in that sense we could say it is barely a hundred years old.

What mythicists are arguing is that the search for a historical Jesus is futile because, contrary to its fundamental assumption, there never was such a man.

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

That was sourced from a current BBC programme on Italy, where the pesenter showed us around the dissecting rooms at the University of Bologna and pointed out where the inquisition watched from. I can't see that as urban myth!

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle