Mountain Man

"Seem to relate" is the key phrase. First, who is this Paul? Was he an eye witness to the events he talks about? Or is he just relating what was told to him? No doubt the author believes, but that's not reliable evidence for a historical jesus.

TedM

You're free to decide what bar to use. Others have even a higher bar than you, some lower. take care,

ted

Amaleq13

If you do not see that the first part of this phrase contradicts the second, I am at a loss as to how to explain it.

A word that doesn't prove or disprove anything is, by definition, without significance.

TedM

Not in the context of what I'm talking about. This is starting to irritate me. I've tried to make clear that I'm NOT saying that 'apo' by itself is significant, or the 'right' word to prove a HJ. I AM saying that it would be significant if the OTHER word were used, as it would have been the 'wrong' word to use if a HJ were intended. I feel like you are playing nitpicking games, since you obviously are ignoring what I wrote in my last post.

I wrote: "I do think that even though the word doesn't prove or disprove anything, as Holding's scholars suggest, there still is significance to be found by what word was used."

Would you have preferred that I wrote "I do think that even though the word doesn't prove or disprove anything, as Holding's scholars suggest, there would have been significance to be found had 'apo' NOT been used"?

If THAT would satisfy you, please accept my apologies for not being clearer until now. And please, let's drop it since there was nothing wrong with what I wrote in the first place, and Holding's quote doesn't contradict it.

ted

Mountain Man

I don't decide on any "bar," logic and reality make the decision. If some want to ignore logic and believe, then that's their problem. But I see you couldn't answer my questions? Why not?

You're from Missouri; show me.

TedM

Everyone has a bar, Mountain Man. What EXACTLY is yours? What would be 'enough' to convince you that a man named Jesus lived 2000 years ago, had disciples, was crucified, and later believed to have been resurrected--leading to the inspiration of Christianity as seen in the epistles of Paul and the gospels? A generic "contemporary eyewitness account" reply isn't good enough. Tell me exactly how you will be convinced that the evidence is contemporary, and that of an eyewitness.

ted

Doug Shaver

Sure, but no one's bar ought to be fixed. Evidence in hand ought to set the bar for evidence not yet acquired.

Suppose there is a newspaper story about a woman who claims to have had an affair with a former U.S. president. Assuming that the accused ex-president denies the claim, I will not just take her word for it, and I will not take the reporter's word for it that he has verified what she told him. I'll want to read about some corroborating details. But how much corroboration, and how strong it has to be, will depend among things on whether it was Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter whom the woman claims to have had the affair with.
Not presuming to speak for Mountain Man, I'd really like to take my own shot at that.
Fair enough, but let me lay some groundwork. A certain body of evidence already exists, and what we're discussing hypothetically is just something that would be added to it. Presumably it would be a document of some kind.

The existing evidence, in my judgment, strongly supports the hypothesis that there was no historical Jesus. If one document is going to change my mind, I don't think it unreasonable to insist on an unusually stringent standard of proof of its authenticity. In any investigation, a given piece of evidence cannot be evaluated independently of all other evidence relevant to whatever is to be proved.

For starters, then, I would not be satisifed with a copy, from the second century or later, of an alleged first-century document. I would want authoritative assurance that I was looking at a document that was itself actually written at about the same time as the events reported therein were happening.

The level of detail coincident with the gospel stories would have to suffice to rule out the document's being about someone else who just happened to be named Jesus. Ideally, it would be a report (eyewitness or with named sources) of the crucifixion and include references to his ministry and some specific teachings, one or more disciples' names, a connection with John the Baptist, and comments about the Sanhedrin's involvement in his arrest and prosecution.

Alternatively, or better yet as a supplement to the above, I would like to see a firsthand report of the disciples' activities in Jerusalem shortly after the crucifixion. In this document, the author, writing sometime between 30 and 40 CE, would attest to Christianity's recent origin in that city, would confirm that Christians at that time were claiming to be followers of a Galilean preacher who had risen from the dead after being crucified by Pontius Pilate, and would indicate his own awareness of that preacher's existence before the crucifixion.