Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Steve Weiss · 04-06-2012, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Weiss

How could there be a tomb for Jesus if he ascended bodily into heaven?

Is it necessary for a Historical Jesus to have ascended bodily to Heaven?

Yes, if he is a god/man, and no if he is just a regular guy.

smeat75 · 04-06-2012, 09:37 PM

Quote

from me)
Your comment about Grant being a "two-edged sword" because he rejects the reliability of Eusebius is very revealing and shows just why this "mythicist" position annoys me.

mountainman said:
"Your statement above is also very revealing.

Would you mind expanding upon the logic behind it?"

I don't mind but I don't know how to expand upon the logic behind it except to repeat what I already said. Didn't you assume that since I quoted Grant saying that there was as good evidence for Jesus' existence as many figures from antiquity whose existence is never questioned, I must be a Christian believer who wouldn't like it that Grant did not accept Eusebius as a reliable source? And I assure you I am far from anything of the kind. I had an open mind on this matter years ago when I first started reading about it and the evidence convinced me that there was indeed such a person as Jesus, but the only thing we know for sure about him is that he was crucified under the authority of Pontius Pilate.
And the "mythicist" position annoys me because it is a distraction from the message that needs to get across to the public that the Bible is not a source of accurate historical information.

aa5874 · 04-06-2012, 09:38 PM

Again, we know that Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3 and 20.9.1 and Tacitus Annals are forgeries because no apologetic sources used them when arguing that Jesus did exist for hundred of years after they were supposedly written.

Once we understand that apologetic sources were claiming that Jesus was fathered by a Ghost and a virgin , was God the Creator who walked on water then the supposed documented writings of Josephus and Tacitus would have EXPOSED apologetic sources as fiction since the 1st century.

And further, if Tacitus and Josephus did claim Jesus was human then the Church would have to REFUTE them just as Origen REFUTED Celsus.

There was NO refutation of Josephus and Tacitus by apologetic sources.

aa5874 · 04-06-2012, 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

What makes a real crucified cult leader so impossible?

What makes a mythological Jesus so impossible?

You were supposed to provide sources of antiquity that show your Jesus did exist and utterly failed to do so.

No one here is arguing that YOUR Jesus is impossible--all we know is that you have NO case for an HJ because you have NO sources except forgeries.

MrMacSon · 04-06-2012, 10:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

What makes a real crucified cult leader so impossible?

Of course "a real crucified cult leader" is possible; but, whether Jesus Christ was a real crucified cult leader is another matter.

It is possible someone was charged with the sedition portrayed in the biblical story of Jesus Christ, and crucified for it. The crucifixions in those days were almost always on an X or T shaped cross; and they were often flogged to death, too. A resurrection would, perhaps, be much less likely.

Diogenes the Cynic · 04-06-2012, 10:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

The historical kernel is a faith statement because it is maintained despite explanations that robustly explain every detail of a passage without a necessity for a historical figure.

Every passage of what? Books are not what I'm interested in explaining, the origin of Christianity is. I see the books as irrelevant fictions. I disregard them, for the most part, except for a possible core sayings tradition. Christianity definitely had an origin, though, that's not disputable, and the most prosaic reason a group would say they revered a dead guy is because they revere a dead guy.

Quote:

Yet Ehrman appears to think something historical underlies this.

Not true. I have the kindle open right now. Ehrman does not give the slightest indication that he thinks the story is historical and only cites it because it contains an Aramaic phrase. He cites this not to suggest that story is historical, but only that it had an Aramaic. pre-Markan origin. Ehrman is only counting independent sources. He's commenting on the language of the passage, not the narrative content. You can disagree that Mark's Aramaisms show a pre-Markan heritage, but it's not accurate to say that Ehrman claims that story has any historicity. He does not. You don't like Ehrman making erroneous claims about mythicists, so be careful what you ascribe to him. He countenances very little of the Gospel narratives to be historical.

Quote:

There are not "7 independent attestations before the end of the 1st century."

Paul, Mark, John, M, L, Thomas, Q.

Ehrman also argues for pre-Markan sources and very early, pre-Pauline statements in Paul and Acts. He also counts 1 Clement as 1st century. The evidence for independence of all these sources is grounded in hard scholarship and is not frivolous or arbitrary.

Quote:

Certainly, if you can't think of another example, it must be impossible.

I didn't say it was impossible. I'm asking why it should be preferred to the prima facie historical claims made by multiple independent witness that Christianity was founded on the veneration of a crucified cult leader. Why is that claim at all dubious in it's prima facie form? If you see bootprints in the snow, why bother looking for an elephant wearing boots, instead of assuming it wa a person? What am I missing? What makes a personality cult (for which we have innumerable historical examples) less plausible on its face than a purely invented personality?

Diogenes the Cynic · 04-06-2012, 10:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMacSon

It is possible someone was charged with the sedition portrayed in the biblical story of Jesus Christ, and crucified for it. The crucifixions in those days were almost always on an X or T shaped cross; and they were often flogged to death, too. A resurrection would, perhaps, be much less likely.

This is basically all I'm asking. Are mythicists categorically saying that no original personality cult existed, or or they saying it doesn't matter if it existed, because any object of a seminal personality cult was not JESUS CHRIST, but just some asshole?

I like to use the analogy of Nikolaus of Myra and Santa Claus. There is obviously no "Historical Santa Claus," but we do have a real, historical St. Nick who was a partial human inspiration for a myth that incorporated other folk elements as well.

Do Jesus mythers say only that there was no "Santa" (something most of us agree on whole-heartedly) or are they saying there wasn't even a St. Nick, or are they saying it doesn't matter if there was a St. Nick, because Santa Claus ate him and there's no way to know anything about him anymore?

The last part might be true (a hypothetically authentic crucified cult leader who has become so subsumed by his own Santa Claus-ification that it's impossible to see him anymore), but is it the mythicist position that such a person is categorically not "Historical Jesus," or that such an event categorically did not occur?

Vorkosigan · 04-06-2012, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Christianity definitely had an origin, though, that's not disputable, and the most prosaic reason a group would say they revered a dead guy is because they revere a dead guy.

Yes, except the dead guy they revere died in heaven. That's what they say.

Quote:

Not true. I have the kindle open right now. Ehrman does not give the slightest indication that he thinks the story is historical and only cites it because it contains an Aramaic phrase. He cites this not to suggest that story is historical, but only that it had an Aramaic. pre-Markan origin. Ehrman is only counting independent sources. He's commenting on the language of the passage, not the narrative content. You can disagree that Mark's Aramaisms show a pre-Markan heritage, but it's not accurate to say that Ehrman claims that story has any historicity. He does not. You don't like Ehrman making erroneous claims about mythicists, so be careful what you ascribe to him. He countenances very little of the Gospel narratives to be historical.

"He cites this not to suggest that story is historical, but only that it had an Aramaic. pre-Markan origin"

That's the appeal to the historical kernel, Dio. There use of Aramaic is just there to give a bit of window dressing to the "historical kernel" concept. In reality it indicates no such thing, except that the writer either knew some Aramaic or had it explained to him. Where is the evidence or method that can show a kernel under that tale?

Quote:

Paul, Mark, John, M, L, Thomas, Q.

Ehrman also argues for pre-Markan sources and very early, pre-Pauline statements in Paul and Acts. He also counts 1 Clement as 1st century. The evidence for independence of all these sources is grounded in hard scholarship and is not frivolous or arbitrary.

I didnt say it was frivolous or arbitrary. Again you go for this nonsense. Please stop.

The gospels are second, not first century and for the sources he names there is no evidence or method that shows they are first century or go back to any historical figure. I have no problem with 1 Clem being first century although I think it is second. In any case like all the other epistles it has no HJ.

I'll have more to say on this in my review.

Quote:

I didn't say it was impossible. I'm asking why it should be preferred to the prima facie historical claims made by multiple independent witness that Christianity was founded on the veneration of a crucified cult leader.

Probably because there are no such multiple independent witnesses to the veneration of a person crucified on earth. Only in heaven.

Quote:

Why is that claim at all dubious in it's prima facie form? If you see bootprints in the snow, why bother looking for an elephant wearing boots, instead of assuming it wa a person? What am I missing? What makes a personality cult (for which we have innumerable historical examples) less plausible on its face than a purely invented personality?

Why do you keep returning to plausibility? Plausibility is not an issue here. The issue is evidence. The epistles are very clear on where Jesus came from -- the world of the spirit, his story constructed out of the Old Testament. Why do you ignore that clear evidence and instead, while denying much historical importance to the gospels, nevertheless retroject them back into the epistles?

Your interpretive framework is an ideological construct of later proto-orthodox religion.

Vorkosigan

PhilosopherJay · 04-06-2012, 11:03 PM

Hi smeat75,

Historians often change their opinion about what is historical and what is not.

For example, a man named William Herndon spent 25 years gathering material about Abraham Lincoln after he died. For more than a century the best Lincoln historians dismissed all of Herndon's work as false inventions and fabrications. For almost a century almost no major biographer of Lincoln used Herndon's material for fear of being laughed at by his colleagues.

In the last 20 years, there has been a considerable reevaluation of Herndon's work with many Lincoln historians now seeing Herndon's work as generally reliable and giving us important insights into the life of Lincoln before he became president.

If all historians in a field could be wrong about material relating to a modern figure like Lincoln, is it not quite conceivable that all or most historians could be wrong about material relating to an ancient figure?

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Quote:

Originally Posted by smeat75

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Doherty on Grant

Very very interesting, thank you very much for posting that for me to read, I found it quite fascinating. I'm afraid it doesn't change my mind at all though in fact the article has reinforced my confidence that Tacitus in particular is reliable testimony to the existence of Jesus.

This article doesn't actually say much about Michael Grant or his book "Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels" except that Grant notes that the position that people here call "mythicist" has been "annihilated" by "first rate scholars" and references people that Doherty does not think have annihilated anything at all. One that Grant references is Oskar Betz, "What Do We Know About Jesus?" who includes "a paragraph outlining “non-Christian sources” which “permit no doubt as to the actual existence of Jesus of Nazareth.” They include, of course, Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Suetonius".
All of these are quite scornfully dismissed by "mythicists" as forgeries or worthless or both, but here's a serious scholar who says they "permit no doubt as to the actual existence of Jesus of Nazareth".
Then Doherty says "Grant himself, not a New Testament scholar, is prey to the same restricted and simplistic thinking that refuters of the myth theory often themselves betray."
The fact that Grant was a secular classical historian and not a NT scholar is the very reason why I trust and accept what he wrote. He came to the subject of Jesus with no theological bias, he was not teaching at a seminary or holding a position in theology at a university or similar, he could not lose his job or be black-listed from journals etc for coming to the "wrong" conclusions. Grant wrote excellent books about many people from antiquity, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Herod the Great, many many books on Roman history and applied the same methods to his book on Jesus.
Then the Doherty article goes on to a long discussion of the work of Maurice Goguel "Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History?" and describes how Goguel came to the conclusion that "“But one fact is certain, and that is, Tacitus knew of a document, which was neither Jewish nor Christian, which connected Christianity with the Christ crucified by Pontius Pilate. The importance of this observation does not require to be emphasized.”
Since this book was published there have been quite a few passages in Tacitus identified that show that he did have access to, and consulted, official Roman archives. Tacitus was a senator and this presumably gave him this privilege. The passage Doherty quotes from Goguel does not say a word about the Tacitus passage being a forgery, or an interpolation, or saying "procurator" instead of "prefect" or "Chrestians' instead of "Christians". And Doherty doesn't say any of those things either, he seems just to complain that Goguel isn't being logical.
Anyway, thanks again Toto, I enjoyed reading it!

aa5874 · 04-06-2012, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMacSon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

What makes a real crucified cult leader so impossible?

Of course "a real crucified cult leader" is possible; but, whether Jesus Christ was a real crucified cult leader is another matter.

It is possible someone was charged with the sedition portrayed in the biblical story of Jesus Christ, and crucified for it. The crucifixions in those days were almost always on an X or T shaped cross; and they were often flogged to death, too. A resurrection would, perhaps, be much less likely.

We ALREADY have a QUEST for an historical Jesus PRECISELY because Jesus of the NT is NON-Historical.

Whether there was an Historical Jesus and whether or not an historical Jesus will ever be found is a matter for HJers to deal with.

It is AGREED that the NT is about Divine Jesus-the Jesus of Faith--Myth Jesus.

HJers will just have to KEEP LOOKING for their Jesus but there is a big Problem they don't know "how he looked".

Why don't HJers look for an Historical Satan???

Satan and Jesus were together on the Temple in the Bible.

May be if HJers find Satan they will find THEIR Jesus.

04-06-2012, 09:37 PM	#112
smeat75 Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Washington DC Posts: 27	Quotefrom me) Your comment about Grant being a "two-edged sword" because he rejects the reliability of Eusebius is very revealing and shows just why this "mythicist" position annoys me. mountainman said: "Your statement above is also very revealing. Would you mind expanding upon the logic behind it?" I don't mind but I don't know how to expand upon the logic behind it except to repeat what I already said. Didn't you assume that since I quoted Grant saying that there was as good evidence for Jesus' existence as many figures from antiquity whose existence is never questioned, I must be a Christian believer who wouldn't like it that Grant did not accept Eusebius as a reliable source? And I assure you I am far from anything of the kind. I had an open mind on this matter years ago when I first started reading about it and the evidence convinced me that there was indeed such a person as Jesus, but the only thing we know for sure about him is that he was crucified under the authority of Pontius Pilate. And the "mythicist" position annoys me because it is a distraction from the message that needs to get across to the public that the Bible is not a source of accurate historical information.

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04-06-2012, 09:38 PM	#113
aa5874 Contributor Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: the fringe of the caribbean Posts: 18,988	Again, we know that Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3 and 20.9.1 and Tacitus Annals are forgeries because no apologetic sources used them when arguing that Jesus did exist for hundred of years after they were supposedly written. Once we understand that apologetic sources were claiming that Jesus was fathered by a Ghost and a virgin , was God the Creator who walked on water then the supposed documented writings of Josephus and Tacitus would have EXPOSED apologetic sources as fiction since the 1st century. And further, if Tacitus and Josephus did claim Jesus was human then the Church would have to REFUTE them just as Origen REFUTED Celsus. There was NO refutation of Josephus and Tacitus by apologetic sources.

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