Kapyong

Gday,

Pardon?
I quoted you making this claim - a statement, not a question :

Your argued :
HAD THERE been significant dispute about the actual existence of Jesus in antiquity ....

Which means :
There was NOT significant dispute about the actual existence of Jesus in antiquity ....

i.e. :
There is a SILENCE of significant dispute about the actual existence of Jesus in antiquity.

And you say if there had NOT been such a silence,
"that [would] be supporting evidence for your position."

That is a textbook example of an argument from silence - the silence of "significant dispute about the actual existence of Jesus in antiquity" - which silence lessens the "supporting evidence for your [oponent's] position."


Then why do you :

* keep bringing theis absence of doubt about Jesus

* ignoring the issue that almost NO god-man or myth was doubted back then


Well, how did YOU know the existence of Jesus was not significantly disputed? Where did you look that up ?


Kapyong

Juststeve

Kapyong

I didn't say Jesus’ existence wasn’t questioned in antiquity, I asked and others on this board, all skeptics of the HJ, told me there was no ancient dispute that they knew of. As I said in the first post on this subject, I didn't know whether or not Jesus' existence was disputed in antiquity, still don't. Just going by what HJ skeptics have said. If you don’t like their answer take it up with them.

Now back to you. How do you claim to know that the existence of Apollo, Bacchus and Hercules was never disputed? Do you have an answer? No, I guess not.

Steve

P.S.

You should really learn the difference between a question and an argument. It isn’t that subtle.

S.

Kapyong

Gday folks,

Regarding early arguments that Jesus did not exist at all :

Consider this from Ignatius in early 2nd C. :

Trallians 9,1... :
"Stop your ears, therefore, when any one speaks to you at variance with Jesus Christ, "

Earl Doherty has this translation :
"Close your ears then, if anyone preaches to you without speaking of Jesus Christ".

Here we see Ignatius arguing against Christians who ignore, or omit Jesus Christ from their preaching.

Ignatius insists it's all true :
"who was descended from David, and was also of Mary; who was truly born, and did eat and drink. He was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate; He was truly crucified, and [truly] died, in the sight of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth. He was also truly raised from the dead, His Father quickening Him, even as after the same manner His Father will so raise up us who believe in Him by Christ Jesus, apart from whom we do not possess the true life."

This is usually interpreted as anti-docetic, but it reads just as easily as arguing against an a-historical Jesus


Ignatius also says :

that ye fall not upon the hooks of vain doctrine, but that ye attain to full assurance in regard to the birth, and passion, and resurrection which took place in the time of the government of Pontius Pilate, being truly and certainly accomplished by Jesus Christ

Once again, he is assuring his readers that the Gospel stories are true - apparently arguing against other Christians who do not accept that.


We see a few other Christians in the 2nd C who do not include Jesus Christ in their Christianity :

* Minucius Felix who denies the incarnation - in rather opaque words

* Athenagoras - writes at length, in detail, about Christian doctrine, including a detailed esoteric Christian treatise On The Resurrection Of The Dead arguing that resurrection is possible (in a non-fleshly body), but without once mentioning the resurrection of Jesus, or even using the words Jesus or Christ ! He also composed In Defense of the Christians - no Jesus nor Christ is mentioned.

Thus we apparently see some evidence of early Christians who did not see Jesus Christ as part of their religion.

(Thanks for Earl Doherty's book for these references.)


K

spamandham

If Mark and his audience both know that Jesus is not a literal person of history, then there is no longer any reason to tie the prophecy down to ~30CE + 40. Instead, it would be clear to both Mark and his audience that "this generation" refers to Mark and his audience rather than to the generation of Jesus. It isn't a failed prophecy, because both Mark and his audience know that Jesus is a symbolic character who's words are being used to tell Mark's story.

An alternative view is that from the perspective of Mark and his audience, the apocalypse had already happened.

Kapyong

Gday,

Well, you made this claim :
"Had there been significant dispute about the actual existence of Jesus in antiquity I would consider that to be supporting evidence for your position."

That's not a question at all. You were clearly saying here that there was no "significant dispute about the actual existence of Jesus in antiquity". You clearly considered your question had been answered in the negative, and went on to make an argument from silence based on it.


Pardon? You still don't know?
Aren't you reading the posts here?
Didn't you just say we
"told [you] there was no ancient dispute that [we] knew of" ?


I did answer. You ignored it. This was my answer :
"Well, how did YOU know the existence of Jesus was not significantly disputed? Where did you look that up ?"

Perhaps you just didn't understand it, so I'll be more clear.

How do I claim to know that the existence of Apollo, Bacchus and Hercules was never disputed?

Because I have read many of the sources, studied ther subject, discussed it with others etc.

And it that time, I have not found, or heard, any such doubts about those figures.

(I should point out that there ARE a few doubts expressed about some ancient god-men - such as Plutarch on Osiris. Perhaps readers would like to add any others they know of?)

This is exactly the same way I have found that there was no significant dispute about the existence of Jesus - by studying the evidence.


This is not a question :
"Had there been significant dispute about the actual existence of Jesus in antiquity I would consider that to be supporting evidence for your position."

Questions start with "Is" or "Does" or something like that.
Questions end with a "?"

Who are you kidding ?


K

Juststeve

Kapyong:

Perhaps it’s a reading comprehension problem. perhaps you just can’t admit being in error. In any event, my entire statement, which you truncate to misrepresent what I wrote was:

Doug:

“ Thanks for your response but I seldom make arguments from silence and am not making one here. Had there been significant dispute about the actual existence of Jesus in antiquity I would consider that to be supporting evidence for your position. The converse is not true, for some of the reasons you have offered and some others as well.”

This should be clear to anyone able to read at the 9th grade level. . I specifically disclaimed the argument that the absence of ancient dispute about the existence of Jesus was evidence that Jesus existed. That seems to me to be a very poor argument. I did conceded that had there been early dispute it would strengthen what I take to be Doug’s position but reiterated that the Converse is not true. Do you grasp the concept of the converse?

If you want to continue beating this horse you may do it without me. Doug, to whom my comment was addressed, seems to have understood it and that’s sufficient for me.

Steve

Toto

[staffwarn]To All: Please avoid personal attacks and excessive sarcasm. The internet seems to foster miscommunication.[/staffwarn]

gurugeorge

It's not that they should be interpreted together, it's that that's all we can do, since they are the texts of a religious cult, and presented as all of a piece. We have nothing that's not a cult text that tells us anything about an entity called "Jesus".

Furthermore, literary analysis shows the cult texts as cribbing from each other left right and centre. They are about as far away from independent as you can get.

yin_sage

Hi Steve,

You might be interested in reading The Synoptic Apocalypse (Mark 13 par): a document from the time of Bar Kochba. It begins with a good discussion of the mainstream ~70CE dating of Mark, stressing some of its weaknesses.

To wit:

GakuseiDon

From what I can tell, fiction writers never wrote bioi about people they knew didn't exist. I'm not saying it isn't possible, but my question arose from someone else's post on this topic.

That's fine. I don't think we can take this further without stepping into the HJ/MJ debate, which I'm not interested in spending time on nowadays.