stephan huller

careful aa you better not let your finger slip off of the capital key. God knows you probably wore through the paint that says 'shift' ten years ago - probably broke the plastic just now.

Grog

Everybody starts with assumptions period.

My first assumption is that all phenomena have natural causes; that all phenomena are based on natural physical operations. Thus, my first assumption about someone who could have been the inspiration for the Christian religion could not be as described in the Gospels.

Now, that assumption could be wrong. So far, though, I remain convinced that I do okay with that in making sense out of the world I see around me. (Also, related to that, I assume that the same set of physical laws we observe today were operative 2,000 years ago and really since the beginning of time.)

Having made that assumption, leads me to a number of conclusions regarding the source documents that we have available to us regarding Jesus of Nazareth. Both in terms of their content AND (as aa points out) in regards to the dating of at least some of that material.

For example, the purpose of the Gospels cannot be to depict a set of historical occurrences because what is described therein violates physical laws. Thus the Gospels themselves are unreliable sources for determining what occurred in the late 20's or early 30's regarding the origins of Christianity.

Another assumption I make is that no observer is truly objective, but that we as observers must be careful to pursue objectivity and be self-conscious, to the extent that we can be, of our biases. I do assume that there is an objective truth to be found, but in engaging in that pursuit for truth, we are ourselves are not objective, though we try to be and employ tools to aid us in our goal of objectivity.



Everything you think you know is based on a set of assumptions. You cannot assume nothing about Jesus. Then you have no way of understanding anything.


I'm not sure what you are referring to. If you are making a positive statement that "Jesus of Nazareth" existed then you either have evidence of that existence or you don't. I believe that there is evidence that falsifies that statement, at least if you start with assumptions about who Jesus was. For example, was he from Nazareth? Is that a basic requirement for an individual to be the inspiration for the Christian religion? Must he have been crucified under Pilate? Is that a basic requirement? What is the baseline for what must be meant to answer affirmatively that Jesus of Nazareth existed. This is mine:

That a man named Jesus had a sufficient fan base to threaten Jewish and Roman officials to the extent that he was crucified by Pilate, and, by his death, inspired the origins of the Christian religion.

You might not share this set of assumptions of what minimally is required to say that "Jesus existed." That's fine, but then if you do make an argument for or against the statement "Jesus existed" you have to at least make clear what you mean. That requires making some assumptions. Otherwise, you are spouting meaningless nonsense and we all would do well to simply ignore it.

Then why spend any time at all in this forum?

Will Wiley

You original question was about assumptions about Jesus. I say assume nothing and look at the evidence we have.
We can make some assumptions about the evidence we have.

Ancient writers mixed up events with supernatural occurances at times. So I'm not sure we can retroject modern ways of looking at things onto them.

The assumptions you've mentioned aren't really about Jesus, so we seem to be talking past each other.
I wanted to know what sources you meant, so I could comment on something specific.

Will Wiley

Grog, at the end of the day I dont' know what to make of the gospels. None of the analysis , whether from atheists agnostics, christians or scholars (or a mixture) really seem to fit to me. They are quite mysterious, still, to me.
Perhaps the most insight I ever got into one of the gospels (John) came from a Hindu, froma Hindu perspective, although that really didn't deal with whether Jesus existed, and would have made just as much sense if he hadn't.

Will Wiley

I find this kind of thing difficult to believe. I would think that this would have precipitated violent disagreements between the two views.

The Celestials: Our jesus is the right one , foul heretics.
Earthers: No ye spawn of satan, jesus trod the earth.
The Celestials: Why you bunch of $#@&*&^%$ how dare you defame our celestial prince.
Earthers: No ye understand not, dim-witted celestials.

We know that early christians liked to document heretics and the disputes, yet we have no record of any such dispute.

Now that, is an interesting silence.

outhouse

theres no reason to think he is 100% mythical.

its pretty obvious he isnt.


The BJ and HJ each, was a human who walked the earth and lived a pretty crappy life of poverty and oppression and died a horrible death.

BJ had very human traits that mirrored the reality of zealot influenced life in Galilee, which are some really weird traits for romans to be giving a deity if they created a MJ.

aa5874

Again, you have NO sources for your claims. You are just an INVENTOR that want people to believe your stories.

We have enough Jesus stories and yours will NOT be able to be corroborated just as the NT.

The reconstruction of the past is NOT A PRODUCT of imagination.

Sheshbazzar

The general rule seems to be, when you don't believe the actual New Testament description of Jebus, just make up your own version of Jebus horse-shit and call it 'historical'.

Diogenes the Cynic

Aren't you creating the same false dichotomy that fundies create by saying that? Are Bible Jesus or no Jesus the only two choices?

outhouse

the best ive seen is carriers replacement MJ and there still holes in it.


someone should write out and organize a short version that makes sense if you want credibility for a MJ.



as it stands now MJ leaves much more questions unanswered then a HJ.




you really need something to tie in the evolution to paul. and then explain why said what he did. And answer was paul involved, or just writing what he had heard.

why would romans deify a pesant, poverty stricken jew