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08-23-2010, 07:10 AM | #11 | ||
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You had better check the MODERATOR's Declaration on the discussion of these claims. I am quite willing to argue the case, but others here prefer discussing other theories and conjectures. Like the HJ. These get a free run. The HJ (Historical Jesus) is above board. The FJ (Fictional Jesus) is in the basement. My notes are here. |
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08-23-2010, 07:24 AM | #12 | |
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As to the fictional/historical Jesus issue. I think you're exaggerating. My impression of this place is that anything that isn't preposterous is always above board. As far as I can tell consensus among Jesus researchers is that it is a little bit of both? Jesus can have existed even if everything in the Bible about his life is a fantasy. But more importantly there's no surviving evidence. Everything we have on Jesus has to be inferred from far removed sources. All we can really say with any certainty is that people who are certain about the life of Jesus are morons/deluded. |
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08-23-2010, 07:44 AM | #13 | |
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Literacy and the rise of northern European states were probably the main impetus to the Protestant Reformation. It's not clear exactly what Jewish heretics believed at the turn of our era. Some gnostics seemed to be rejecting the strict monotheism of Ezra. |
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08-23-2010, 07:46 AM | #14 |
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Most of the sources for Jesus and Christianity are suspect, but not all. The references in Pliny (which mention Christians but not Jesus) are not considered as suspect as Tacitus. There is a parody of Christianity in the Roman satirist Lucian, from the second century. There is a Christian house church preserved at Dura Europa that everyone except mountainman dates to the mid third century.
Most historical Jesus researchers think that there was a historical core to the founder of Christianity. A small minority are willing to consider the possibility that this core was invented after 70 CE, along with a fictionalized story dated to the first century. Everyone believes that Constantine had a major hand in shaping Christianity. But the idea that Christianity was invented out of whole cloth in the 4th century is mountainman's own unique obsession. |
08-23-2010, 07:57 AM | #15 | ||
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