Johann_Kaspar

It cannot be denied too.

Wrong. You would have first to prove that the HJ of the slavonic version of the War is not complete xian interpolation. And it is not so easy as the TF. It is even so difficult that the xians themselves don't care of this text, or simply are discarding it. Isn't it strange? Every skeptical mind should ask: why? It could come to the conclusion that their JC is a fabricated piece of shit (JC as "prince of peace").

You can rest with anything as long as there is no proof.

For Massé Yeshua was the son of Juda of Gamala. He has some good points...

Amedeo

You are looking for evidence in extra-scriptural sources. Why? What is NECESSARILY non-testimonial in the scriptutes?Obviously we have the idea that someone could have invented a fictional character. But there is also the possibily that a fictional books is like a "historical novel", as it includes real historical characters. Again, the Iliad will never be taken as a biographical account of the heroes in it, or as quoting what those people said to one another, but many characters may be hitorically real and many episodes may be true or, at any rate, verisimilitudinal. So, the non-corroboration in external sources does not seriously refute the history of some messianic character in Israel some 2000 years ago. Besides, there were real followers of the Christ who spread the Jesus salvation message and biography, and I don't think that people can be real missionaries and risk-taking people of a fictitious character. (If one claims that there was a real man whose real life was as told in the Gospels -- this is another story, and I don't believe for a moment that there was a real Achilles who was vulnerable only at the heel, and that he was so because things happened as some myths tell us.)

Furthermore, we have this problem with sources. For example, some Venetians told the story that in the early 15th century, two Vivaldi brothers undertook a voyage across the great Ocean, in the attempt to reach eastern Asia by travelling west, but they never returned. I have no corroborating testimony or evidence that this really happened, but I suppose it did.

Now, let us imagine the Vivaldi brothers writing someone a letter and tellim him what they were about to undertake, that preparations had been made, etc. etc., and that as a matter of fact, the Vivaldis were never seen or heard again by Europeans. Let us imagine that there is no other writing about this planned voyage. Should I doubt the authenticity of the letter, in the sense that there were Vivaldis who wrote that letter or told the story which we can read in a printed book? The lack of corroborating evidence does not refute the existence of the story-telling Vivaldis, even if the Vivaldid were telling lies, that in fact there were not planning any voyage.

Now, if we read the Gospels [the biographies of Jesus], we can pretty much select all the passages that have to do with JESUS THE CHRIST (The Messiah) because we are frequently informed that this or that happened, that he did or said this or that, IN ORDER THAT the Scriptures might be fulfilled.

So, now read the story of Jesus the Christ. We have no idea whether things happened or were done as they are asserted, but we certain know that there is a story teller [reported in the four Gospels]. The Evangelists are NOT the story tellers; they may be only re-tellers. So, who was the original narrator of the episodes of Jesus the Christ? We assume that spectators were and that eventually somebody collected all the anecdotes of Jesus' life. But, as I explained in another post, the original narrator must have been Jesus himself. Only he could report what he said when he was alone in the Garden of getsemani. Only he could report the conversations between himself and the devil when he was tempted and taken here and there on the top of things. And only he could be the narrator of performed miracles, for certainly he complained to his brothers that they -- the listeners -- did not believe him. And these are his brother's revealing words: If you do the THINGS THAT YOU SAY YOU DO, do them in Jerusalem in front of everybody, and they will believe you. (To which Jesus made no reply.)

So, it seems to me that he himself (or a rabbi like him) said that he was born of a maiden in Bethlehem, BECAUSE
, according to the Scriptures, the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem form a maiden. So, the biographer, whether Jesus or somebody else, presents the explanation why the birth-giving Mary was in Bethlehen. The Roman census was the providential occasion that required Mary to be there, and so on and so forth.

On the other hand, the Gospels have also a biography, albeit brief, of Jesus the King. This is a different story, which may have been told by anybody: Jesus was a born king, as the genealogies attest. Somehow, three foreign kings knew that a new king was born in Judea and, upon request, they told King Herod (who eventually died in 4 B.C., as we have calculated). The original story teller did not have our calendar and simply claimed that Jesus was born under Herod, and that Herod massacred all the new-born in the hope of getting rid of this new king, who would have replaced him.

It is quite possible that there was a Nazarene who claimed to be the legitimate king of Judea, but his early biography was told or written long after his birth. He also claimed to be the expected messiah. So we have Jesus the King-Messiah who was born of Joseph in the bloodline of David, when Herod was ruling. He was also born of God, as Joseph was told in a dream, when the census was given. The stated parenthoods, dates of birth, and even place of birth are not eye-witness records; they were obviously contrived to describe the king-personality and the messiah-personality.

What was the real Jesus? I think he was a man from Nazareth who became a pretender to the throne and eventually was crucified precisely as the "king of the Judeans", and at the same time he preached his messiah auto-biography, which people did not buy.

But some of his followers decided, after his death, to recruit Gentiles into Judaism, so that the number of people who believed in him would grow. This means that the Jesus-royalists would grow and possibly displace the Herods.

The Acts tell us that the induction of the Gentiles [preferably the Gentiles in the Roman military force] would be done for a limited period of time ONLY. The Apostles were not after keeping on converting Gentiles to Judaism... as some Greek eventually thought.

Anyway the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. shattered the dream of the royalists. The Roman military support of the Herods had gone, and masses of Judeans fled from Judea. The kingdom had been shattered, and the Judeans of the Jesus sect had no king to replace. (The outside Gentiles who had been converted proceeded to organize their own church, that is, People of God or, in this case, of Christ.The people of Christ had no longer anything to do with the People of God, which now was largely in exile.)

Ironically, the Galileans like Jesus were Israel (God's People), and the crucified king invoked his God, EL (not Yahweh, the God of the Judeans), but it was the Israelitic Jesus that claimed the kingdom of Judea, and such a "foreigner" was not to be looked upon favorably by the Judeans. It was already bad enough for the Herods not to be Judeans, and that's why scores of Judean rebels wanted them out of their kingdom.

The REAL life of Jesus seems to me to have been greatly inconsequential and non-spectacular. No wonder there are no biographers of him except himself and some of his followers. (If no Christian church were formed by the Greeks, probably today there would be no memory or biographies of Jesus around, and for the Europeans, the Bible would be in their collection of mythological books of the pasts, with fewer readers than the Iliad, the Odyssey or the Aeneid.)

aa5874

Your statement so far is reasonable.


Without supporting evidence, your statement should read; "The Evangelists ARE the storytellers; they may be only re-tellers".

It is evident that whoever wrote the NT are the story-tellers of the events there-in, and it may be that they were all re-telling stories that they heard.

If Jesus the Christ was the narrator, why didn't he know when he was born, or clearly indicate the date? Why didn't Jesus the Christ, the narrator, did not get his genealogy correct in Matthew and Luke.

I think you mean that whatever you believe in seems to be true. Things only seem to be true, when there is corroboration, not besause they are written in a book that you believe in.

If I showed you 2 different genealogies which claim I am the son of King David, would you believe that I may also be the Son of God.

In any event, the historicity of Jesus the Christ, in my opinion rests upon the belief of the resurrection.
According to Matthew, the body of Jesus the Christ was buried in a sealed tomb, under guard by soldiers, however when the tomb was visited by his followers, no body was ever found. The story is fiction or Jesus was resurrected.

Based on all other findings, fiction appear, to me, to be the solution.

Chris Weimer

Talk about your False Dilemma.

aa5874

You have not shown or identified the 'False Dilemma'. Chris Weimer says it is a 'False Dilemma' so it is true.

Are you the sole authority on 'dilemmas'?

Ben C Smith

Chris probably did not want to belabor the bleeding obvious.

No, of course Chris is not the sole authority on false dilemmas. In this case, your less-than-average Kindergartener could have identified the false dilemma. On a bad day. With a toothache.

Ben.

Johann_Kaspar

The resurrection story is a later addition to the first gospels. Hence the numerous contradictions between the synoptics.

Fiction is a poor excuse for not understanding the meaning of the gospel.

As for the fictitious HJ, I am still waiting the analysis of the slavonic version of the War...

It is amazing that everybody is discarding it. Close mindedness

It is the best case for a HJ.

aa5874

I do not have a copy of the slavonic version of the War......

aa5874

You are probably wrong.



Are you claiming that Chris is a less-than-average Kindergartener, with a bad day and a toothache?

spamandham

Now, imagine further the letter claims the Vivaldi brothers were born of a virgin, the sons of Odin, and that every aspect of their lives involved magical happenstances centered around wisdom teachings common at the time, and that they sailed off in a boat of fire into the sky. Would it still make sense to assume they were historical if that were the case?

In the case of the Vivaldi brothers, legends arose later on, but we have an ordinary pre-legend account also available. In the case of Jesus, the earliest indication we have is already highly mystical/mythical in nature. The comparison fails.

{emphasis mine}

I'm curious where you got the idea that Mark (upon which the other gospels are based), was intended as a biography. The author never makes any such claim, nor does he provide any background of his character to indicate it is intended as a biography. It reads like a typical fictional work - the main character enters the story with an irrelevant past and the story begins from there. Not only that, but the main character is the same Son of Man character from the books of Enoch.