Didymus

Your disclaimer reminded me of an exchange on Larry David's TV series, "Pardon My Enthusiasm." (David, the writer of "Seinfeld," is a comedy writer.) When he introduced himself on the phone, the guy on the other end responded with a gratuitous "Yeah. Not a fan." David was put out, as he often is, but in this case it was justified. That's a bit how I felt when you told us how you didn't care etc., and then asked etc.

Nice. Thanks! Onward...

Stark is a sociologist whose "The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal, Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force" is a comprehensive - and readable - survey of the growth of the religion during the first few centuries of the Common Era. Stark is a Christian; nonetheless, he refutes the notion that God had to have taken a hand in Christianity's "miraculous" expansion. It's an easy, informative and entertaining read.

Didymus

Amaleq13

That is neither included in nor implied by anything I've written here. It isn't even implied by or included in anything you've written in response to my posts. To all appearances it is a brand new critique that has nothing whatsoever to do with your stated criticism of the notion of "shared visions" and this "watertight" nonsense is an obvious strawman.

It is a reasonable explanation that appears to hold up whether Jesus was historical or not and really offers nothing with regard to differentiating between the two possibilities.

No Robots

Epictetus (d. 135), a famous Roman scholar, left no writings of his own. Scholars estimate literacy in ancient Palestine at 3%. The Talmud was oral until A.D. 200.

Gamera

That's simple enough.

When Jesus was alive he lived in the backwaters of the Empire. No reason for any Roman or Greek to write about him before the Jesus movement arose. He would have been considered one of many half-crazed preachers of the time. Certainly his detractors wouldn't honor him by writing down his story

As to any early writings after his death, well, the earlier the writing the more likely it will not survive. There is an attrition rate. Also, mss that get "superceded" and are no longer considered important tend not to be preserved and fall by the wayside, failing to be copied when the mss deteriorates. That's what apparently happened to Q. The production of the synoptic gospels and other NT texts are of high quality by any standard. Earlier more primitive gospels may have simply gone by the wayside because they were not as well-written as the later writings. Its a pretty good rule of paleographic thumb that the good stuff gets preserved and copied; the bad stuff doesn't. Copying was a labor intensive practice in those day -- unless there was an audience, nobody would bother to copy a primitive gospel that was superceded by the synoptics. As I recall, a good vellum mss in the middle ages had a production value of about $30,000 in our money. So copying was parsimonious except for the mss that were in demand.

Finally, the early church was likely made up of lower class Judeans, with little education, who lacked writing skills. Only later did Paul and other highly educated men like Luke, enter the stream of the Christian movement. So there were probably not a lot of Christians capable of writing decent texts about Jesus until Paul came along. And there was no reason for the detractors to write about the man -- he was dead and buried as far as they were concerned, leaving behind what they considered an odd Jewish sect hardly worthy of mention. Until it took off.

Sparrow

Why did none of the Romans running the area (Judea, Palestine) write down any of the amazing feats. They were apparently great record keepers, from what I've heard. No reports back to Rome about water walking, feeding multitudes with a fish sandwich (think of what that would have done for the Roman Legion!), curing blindness, healing leprosy, etc? Or are none of those things real events?

Is there any motivation to fake or embellish Epictetus' record? I mean in the sense that say a religion tries to convert people and has a motivation to embellish its own record. I'm not that familiar with Epictetus. Were there claims that he was divine?

The Jesus movement arose when? when Paul began writing/preaching? Or when Constantine made it the state religion? Were there many half crazed preachers running around then? Did they all perform miracles or just some of them? How do we discern amongst them? By ennobling any who were remembered decades after their death by a groupie?

I understand what you're saying about the copying of manuscripts. Do you realize that the earliest fragment of any of the four gospels we have is usually dated to ~150CE and that said fragment (P52) contains only parts of 7 verses of GJohn? Although Gjohn is commonly dated to something like ~90CE. How can we say with any certainty what that document contained then. We know the numerous errors made by copyists. Sorry, but I don't buy that as ironclad prove of historicity. I live in Atlanta and some visitors want to visit Rhett and Scarlett's graves.

No Robots

I hate to disillusion you, old boy, but: THERE ARE NO MIRACLES!

None that I'm aware of. But that's my point: many people had many reasons to embellish Christ's record. By the by, such efforts really just reduced his grandeur.

Wikipedia: your friend and mine. AFAIK, there are no claims that Epictetus was divine. But that's hardly the point. The point is that you have a celebrated scholar teaching in the imperial capital who left no writings. And you have an executed colonial living a hundred years earlier who also left no writings. It doesn't smell like conspiracy to me. In order to clarify the question of how such a man could be so ignored, perhaps you should re-examine your assumptions about how the NT actually presents Christ, and strip away all the ecclesiastic obfuscation that has accumulated over the centuries. It seems you still have the Church Jesus in mind. Of course he is an impossibility. But you are fighting a straw man. The real man is there if you look hard enough.

Sparrow

What's with the old boy stuff? Did forget to turn off my webcam again? Perhaps you lost track in this thread, but I stated earlier that as I subscribe to methodological naturalism, I already discount the miracles.

Reduced it to what? The same as many other half crazy preachers of the time? Of what use is Jesus without the miracles? Of what significance is he without Paul?

Give me the Cliff Notes version if you will. Why should I care if there was or was not a real Jesus if he wasn't divine, and wasn't resurrected as you seem to claim?

ETA: Can I have salvation if I believe in Epictetus or your other example? That's why the situation is not the same. No one says that if you don't believe in Epictetus you'll suffer everlasting torment in the fires of hell.

No Robots

Just a shot in the dark.

I had no doubt. I just think it silly that naturalists demand proof for miracles that they know cannot occur.:huh:

Well, that's the real question, isn't it?

Look, if there were no Jesus I would be looking at someone else's insights to help guide my way through life, the fiery torments of which are quite sufficient, if only temporary. Epictetus wouldn't be a bad choice, actually. But it really is for me a question of choosing the best of the best. Once you strip away the religious mumbo-jumbo, what Christ provides is a reproducible method for living. Of course, according to Karl Jaspers, this is precisely what he doesn't do. But that's all a very long story, well outside the bounds of Cliff's Notes.

Geetarmoore

The MJ argument is the only theory that is consistent with the known facts, for which no apologies need to be forwarded. To get to a historical Jesus within the written record, there must be a multitude of excuses made as to why the evidence appears to point in every way to an ever evolving mystic Jesus movement.

You have shut down your brain to true critical thinking if this is your one criteria. You should fall on one side or the other, ONLY IN REGARDS TO THE EVIDENCE IN THE INDIVIDUAL SITUATION. This argument reads like this;

"Since I want Alexander the Great to be historical, Jesus must also be historical."

Geetarmoore

I don't believe anyone had common visions. I'm fairly confident after reading his work that Doherty doesn't either.

With this post you (again) show that you haven't totally read/comprehended the MJ thesis.