Freethought & Rationalism Archive

denarius · 03-26-2012, 08:43 PM

Quote:

Evidence #2-The story of Jesus could not have been made up by the Jews. The Jews were expecting a messiah who was a military leader that would destroy God's enemies or a priest, but they did not expect someone who would be crucified because the OT says that anyone who hangs on a tree is cursed by God. The crucifixion is the reason that most Jews could not be converted. No Jew expected a messiah that would be cursed by God. Therefore, Jesus had to have been a real person who was crucified. He couldn't have been made up.

Again, not evidence, but a conclusion. There has been some discussion of this claim in another thread, and it has been found wanting. I would be highly dubious that anything had to have happened because it could not have been made up - look at the varieties of stories that people have made up.

Actually, it is not evidence and it is not a conclusion. It is an argument.

denarius · 03-26-2012, 09:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Evidence #4- Paul personally knew Peter and Jesus brother, James. The fact that Jesus had brothers and sisters indicates he was a real person and not made up.

You are assuming that gods and fictional characters do not have brothers and sisters? This argument is also the subject of a few other threads here.

No. Only that Paul had knowledge about Jesus from a first hand source. Ehrman's argument is that the brother of Jesus would know if Jesus existed or not.

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On the other hand, when you examine the Mythicists' evidence what do you find? Nothing, nada, nil. Just a bunch of arguments from silence, no evidence at all.

Not actually true. I don't think you've read any of the literature.

I have read the literature on the Internet and the mythicist positions as given in Ehrman's book.

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Not only is there no evidence that Jesus is nonhistorical, but Mythicists don't offer a single theory or present a united front about how the Jesus myth could have been invented. In that sense, their tactics are the same as creationist tactics attempting to discredit evolution: just try to poke as many holes as possible into the established views and to hell with any evidence.

...

The difference is that creationists are unable to poke any holes in the evidence for evolution, while mythicists can point to many legitimate problems with the case for historicity.

The historicist camp has more in common with creationism than mythicism, but certain Christian apologists think that they can bask in the glory of scientific consensus. If you look at what the consensus about Jesus is based on, the case starts to fall apart.

But stick around. Try to develop your argument. Just don't expect a productive dialogue with aa5874.

The creationists attempt to poke holes in the theory of natural selection whether successfully or not. That is where the God of the Gaps comes from.

For a long time I thought there might be something to the claim that the church invented Jesus for its own purposes. But after reading Ehrman I no longer think so. Would you care to summarize the more important 'problems' with historicity for me?

Doug Shaver · 03-26-2012, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by denarius

For a long time I thought there might be something to the claim that the church invented Jesus for its own purposes.

That doesn't sound like mythicism. That sounds like fraud.

aa5874 · 03-26-2012, 11:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by denarius

...You are right that the Aramaic argument does not destroy mythicism and I didn't say it did. It is just one piece of evidence against Jesus being invented by the Greeks.

Ehrman presented a STRAWMAN argument and still a logical fallacy. If Jesus was invented it really does NOT matter if people some people think he was invented by the Greeks and some believe he was invented by the Jews.

Matthew 1.18-20 MUST be an invention in any region where it is claimed the mother of Jesus was with child of the Holy Ghost.

Mark 6.48-49 Must be an Invention in any region where it claimed Jesus Walked on water.

Mark 9.2 Must be an Invention in any region where it is claimed Jesus transfigured.

John 1 Must be an Invention in any region where it is claimed Jesus was God the Creator.

Ehrman must realize that once he uses the NT as evidence for an historical Jesus then EVERY SINGLE statement made about Jesus in the NT can be used as evidence AGAINST his position.

This is BC&H.

Toto · 03-27-2012, 12:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by denarius

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Evidence #4- Paul personally knew Peter and Jesus brother, James. The fact that Jesus had brothers and sisters indicates he was a real person and not made up.

You are assuming that gods and fictional characters do not have brothers and sisters? This argument is also the subject of a few other threads here.

No. Only that Paul had knowledge about Jesus from a first hand source. Ehrman's argument is that the brother of Jesus would know if Jesus existed or not.

.
That's a strange argument. We have no evidence that James identified himself as the brother of Jesus.

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I have read the literature on the Internet and the mythicist positions as given in Ehrman's book.

"Literature on the internet"? I don't think you should rely on Ehrman's account of mythicism.

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The difference is that creationists are unable to poke any holes in the evidence for evolution, while mythicists can point to many legitimate problems with the case for historicity.

The historicist camp has more in common with creationism than mythicism, but certain Christian apologists think that they can bask in the glory of scientific consensus. If you look at what the consensus about Jesus is based on, the case starts to fall apart.

But stick around. Try to develop your argument. Just don't expect a productive dialogue with aa5874.

The creationists attempt to poke holes in the theory of natural selection whether successfully or not. That is where the God of the Gaps comes from.

Are you under the misimpression that creationists have been successful in poking any holes in the theory of natural selection?

And no, that is not where the God of the Gaps comes from.

Quote:

For a long time I thought there might be something to the claim that the church invented Jesus for its own purposes. But after reading Ehrman I no longer think so. Would you care to summarize the more important 'problems' with historicity for me?

Problems with historicity: Too numerous to discuss fully now, but to start with - there is no reliable evidence for Jesus in non Christian sources. There is no reliable evidence for Christianity in the first century. The first waves of scholars decided that they could use the gospels to extract a portrait of the underlying character of Jesus, but scholarship on the gospels has traced all of the story elements to other literary sources, most notably the Jewish Septuagint. There could be a historical figure behind the legends of Jesus, but there is no reliable method to find him, or to extract reliable history from the legendary material in the gospels.

Look up the Jesus Project in the archives.

stephan huller · 03-27-2012, 12:06 AM

James = Jacob who is the brother of an angel = "To see your face/person is like seeing the face/person of God" (Genesis 33:10)

When are people ever going to realize that having knowledge of the Pentateuch might be useful to understand the gospel?

Do you want to know what Jewish tradition says Jacob saw at the top of the ladder? His heavenly twin.

Do you know who Moses's twin in heaven is? Metatron.

FSWP. When are they going to realize what Romans 8:29 is about? M-Y-T-H

Steven Carr · 03-27-2012, 12:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by denarius

Evidence #1- Some of the stories about Jesus originated in the Aramaic language. This destroys the Mythicist argument that all of the stories were made up by the Greeks. At least some of them came from Palestine. On p. 88-89, Ehrman discusses Mark 2:27-28 which doesn't make sense in English or Greek but makes perfect sense when translated into Aramaic.

And the Hitler Diaries are in German. That must make them true.

After all, Hitler spoke German.

Are you claiming the unknown author of Mark could not speak Aramaic, and so was unable to invent stories that contain Aramaic touches?

Or that not one person in Jerusalem could invent an Aramaic story?

Quote:

Originally Posted by denarius

Evidence #2-The story of Jesus could not have been made up by the Jews. The Jews were expecting a messiah who was a military leader that would destroy God's enemies or a priest, but they did not expect someone who would be crucified because the OT says that anyone who hangs on a tree is cursed by God. The crucifixion is the reason that most Jews could not be converted.

That is evidence that Jesus never existed.

Because if Jesus had really existed, the main two reasons that Jews could not be converted would have been 1)Everything he had said and 2)Everything he had done.

Just as people reject Hitler today because of what he said and what he did, not because they expected the Saviour of the Nation to usher in a 1000-year Reich, rather than killing himself in a bunker. The manner of his death is not what leads people to reject Hitler.

If there had been a real historical Jesus for the Jews to reject, then they rejected him before he was crucified, in which case the crucifixion would not have been a stumbling block - they would still reject Jesus after the crucifixion for exactly the same reasosn they rejected him before crucifixion.

If Jesus had been invented from scripture, then Jews would have accepted Christian claims that the Messiah had been prophesied in scripture and then balked as soon as Christians claimed the Messiah had to be crucified.

An invented crucified Messiah would be rejected because of claims that the Messiah had to be crucified, but a real person who was rejected and then crucified, would be rejected because of who he had been.

Christians invented the concept of a crucified Messiah. That is a fact. Why did they think the Messiah was crucified, if you are halfway right, and Jesus did not tick any Messiah-boxes?

And Christians weren't preaching a dead Messiah.

As far as they were concerned, they were preaching a military Messiah who was going to come and overthrow the Romans and usher in the Kingdom of God.

To them , there was no contradiction between a crucified Messiah and a conquering Messiah.

So why do you claim there was a contradiction between a crucified Messiah and a conquering Messiah?

dog-on · 03-27-2012, 03:24 AM

In chapter 1, Ehrman lays out what he titles 'The Basic Mythicist Position'.

For the positive evidence, he describes some paralels between JC and other accounts of gods:

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Added to these negative arguments is one very important positive one, that the stories about Jesus—many of them incredible, all of them based on late and unreliable witnesses—are paralleled time and again in the myths about pagan gods and other divine men discussed in the ancient world. And so mythicists typically appeal to accounts of other gods or demigods, such as Heracles, Osiris, Mithras, Attis, Adonis, and Dionysus, who were said to have been born on December 25 to a virgin mother, to have done miraculous deeds for the sake of others, to have died (often for the sake of others), and to have been raised from the dead and later departed to live in the divine realm.

Ehrman, Bart D. (2012-03-20). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (Kindle Locations 495-500). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

I am surprised that he didn't mention the most positive argument, in my opinion, that almost the entirety of the Jesus story seems to have been sourced from Hebrew Scripture.

Anyway, I will continue reading and, hopefully, he will address this at some later point.

Other than that, I have no major issues so far. On to chapter 2.

Steven Carr · 03-27-2012, 03:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

I am surprised that he didn't mention the most positive argument, in my opinion, that almost the entirety of the Jesus story seems to have been sourced from Hebrew Scripture.

You'll find that that doesn't matter, because some of the Gospels use Aramaic words.

dog-on · 03-27-2012, 03:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

I am surprised that he didn't mention the most positive argument, in my opinion, that almost the entirety of the Jesus story seems to have been sourced from Hebrew Scripture.

You'll find that that doesn't matter, because some of the Gospels use Aramaic words.

:notworthy:

Pretty funny.

Actually, in chapter 2, when discussing sources for the gospels, Ehrman states:

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we do not know what sources Mark had for his.

Ehrman, Bart D. (2012-03-20). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (Kindle Location 727). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

I am not sure I understand how he can say this, or perhaps I am misuderstanding his intent.

I suppose we'll have to see.

Edit: If Mark's source was Hebrew Scripture, specifically HS translated into Greek (LXX) by, well, Jews, wouldn't that go a long way towards explaining Aramaic words and phrases in his gospel?

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03-27-2012, 12:06 AM	#26
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	James = Jacob who is the brother of an angel = "To see your face/person is like seeing the face/person of God" (Genesis 33:10) When are people ever going to realize that having knowledge of the Pentateuch might be useful to understand the gospel? Do you want to know what Jewish tradition says Jacob saw at the top of the ladder? His heavenly twin. Do you know who Moses's twin in heaven is? Metatron. FSWP. When are they going to realize what Romans 8:29 is about? M-Y-T-H

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