aa5874

I did not claim that Jesus of the NT must have been a high priest, a madman or a robber, I am just pointiong out that the information in the NT is by far the WORSE possible evidence to support the historicity of any human character whether called Jesus or not.

The authors of the Gospels did not simply write that they believed Jesus was the offspring of the Holy Ghost, they had a witness, Mary, the so-called mother.

The authors did not just write that they thought Jesus was transfigured, they produced witnesses, Peter, James and John.

And it is the same with the ascension through the clouds, they found witnesses, the disciples saw Jesus in the air.

The credibilty of the Gospels writers is virtually zero, they produce witnesses for fictitious events.

This analogy cannot be used. 911 is a confirmed event, known or accepted to have occurred universally. Christians, Arabs, Hindus, Mormons, Atheists, Jews and other groups accept that the event occurred.

Nothing about Jesus can be confirmed to be true, not even by Christians.

Why must you assume that the NT is true and find no need to support your position, when the NT clearly contains implausible and fictitious accounts?

Achilles was reported to have died when he was shot in the heel by an arrow, a seemingly plausible event, so then we can deduce that Achilles did exist?

Jesus was reported to have been crucified, a plausible event, but did this ever happen? The authors also claimed he ROSE from the dead and was with the disciples eating fish and bread.

A plausible event does not have to be true.

Again, 911 cannot be used as an analogy for events written by anonymous writers that are implausible and clearly fictitious.

All we have are stories about Jesus that are too good to be true.

They probably are.

Ben C Smith

I noticed that.

I agree that Bauckham is more representative of where HJ studies are moving than the Jesus Seminar, but I still see him as right of center, as it were. I like to balance his arguments with some of the better ones from left of center, so to speak.

But a great scholar he is. You would be amazed at the flimsiness of some of the arguments and, worse, the asininity of some of the accusations against him on this board.

Ben.

aa5874

Well, you just tell me the historical value of writing that Jesus was the offspring of the Holy Ghost, that he could transfigure or ROSE from the dead and ascended through the clouds.

The BIO of Jesus in the NT is clearly some sort of ghost-like entity.

Why didn't the authors also then claim that James ,the brother, or Mary, the mother of Lord was raised from the dead and ascended through the clouds to inform the readers of the historicity of James and Mary?


Your opinion about George W. Bush has no bearing on his historicity, even if you make false statements about him or claim he does not exist.

George W. Bush cannot be used as an analogy for Jesus.

The mother of Jesus, according to the NT, is a witness that Jesus had no eartly father. The life of Jesus is also fundamentally implausible and witnessed by the disciples.

I cannot find such a claim and witnessed by the mother of George W. Bush or the Republicans.

Toto

The "hermeneutics of suspicion" sounds like the standard historical approach to ancient documents. What exactly is wrong with it? And I have no problem also applying that standard to the Jesus Seminar.

spamandham

Indeed it is. Does it really require further discussion? It's a dead horse already.

I don't speak Greek, but I'm certainly not questioning the translation of 'eye witness'. I'm questioning how you can contort the following into being a claim that Luke knew the eye witnesses he refers to:

A straightfoward read of this has Luke claiming that his information originated from eye witnesses, but he is not claiming to have known them. The translation implies a long passage of time between eye witness and Luke. I don't know if that nuance exists in the Greek.

Do you just discard ideas such as Q and Markan priority out of hand? If not, then Luke could not possibly have known any eyewitnesses, in addition to not claiming to have known any.

No rational person would demand argument that miracles are implausible. The story is grossly implausible at face value, and is based on earlier works (Q, Mark, or Matthew depending on what scholar you ask). Are there any serious scholars who claim Luke is an original text based on some eyewitnesses? I can't imagine there are.

Luke is worthless in regard to uncovering 'the real' Jesus.

What is the threshold at which we admit the text is a story and not history? Must 10% be implausible? 20%? 50%? How much of it must be drawn from OT passages before we recognize it as exegesis? 20%

I'm not sure what the thresholds are, but they've been exceeded.

Nothing. But that isn't the story. The story is that Pilate found him innocent, and yet crucified him anyway due to pressure from the crowd, and even bent over backward to try to release him. Not a lick of this is possibly true, so why on earth would we assume the crucifixion itself is true?

Even if that were what it means, and that certainly isn't clear, it would be an obvious lie.

Ben C Smith

Luke says that (A) eyewitnesses handed stuff down to (B) us, a group that presumably includes the author himself. If that way of saying something implies a long passage of time between A and B, does the same way of saying it in 1 Corinthians 11.2 imply a long passage of time between (A) Paul and (B) the Corinthians? Same Greek expression.

How do Q and Marcan priority remove the possibility that Luke had access to eyewitnesses? There is plenty of time before the end of century I, and an author is allowed to consult both texts and witnesses.

Please note that I am undecided on whether the author of the third canonical gospel really did have such access. I am merely questioning your methodology.

Ben.

andrewcriddle

The "hermeneutics of suspicion" can be a profitable way of examining texts (not only ancient texts)

The problem IMO is that applied consistently it tends towards rather extreme scepticism and becomes obviously partial if applied selectively.

For example some scholars using this hermeneutic tend to combine scepticism towards most of the accounts of early Christianity with credulity towards any evidence of women in positions of leadership.

Andrew Criddle

spamandham

In addition to the 'handed down to us' phrase, there is also the phrase translated as 'from the first'. Both of these imply something in the distant past - at least in the translation. What I don't know is if that same implication exists in the Greek.

Also, I don't see 'handed down to us' as meaning 'handed down to me and you', but rather 'handed down to our group'. In other words, it is not a claim that the author was present at the time of the handing down, but rather, simply that he is a member of the group that at one point received the handed down information.

In direct answer to your question, possibly it is the same implication, though I hope we won't diverge off into analyzing 1 Corinthinas right now.

In the sense I'm using the word 'possible' here, no I don't think so. But then, I'm thinking about things from a modern perspective. Further, Luke does not name his eyewitnesses, nor does he make any kind of claim that everything he writes comes from an eye witness.

Ben C Smith

What I am contending is that neither of these phrases implies anything about the distance between the eyewitnesses and Luke, except that from the beginning does imply that Luke is not writing at the very beginning, but, then again, I do not think anybody says he is. If the beginning is circa 30, then it is just as possible to attempt to trace things back to the beginning in the sixties as it is after the turn of the century, and vice versa.

I am further contending that this is the case both in Greek and in English. I think you are reading more into the wording than is there.

I did not understand this.

Ben.

spamandham

In regards to the English translation, I disagree with you completely.


Why would Luke appeal to the authority of eye witnesses, and yet not strengthen that appeal by naming them, if the handing down of information were an event from their own memories? Since it isn't an event from their own memories, a rather vague appeal to such authority makes sense.

Why would he point out that those eye witnesses had been there 'from the first'. If they were eye witnesses that Luke (and probably members of his audience) knew, then stating they were there form the first is redundant. However, as an additional emphasis in regard to events of the distant past, it makes perfect sense.

A modern writer attempting to record events for accuracy and posterity (as Luke states as his purpose) who had direct access to eye witnesses, would not lean heavily on the written work of someone else - and yet not even bother to mention that other author to bolster his own writing's authority. We already know Luke is willing to appeal to authority - even if that authority is nothing more than anonymous eye witnesses.

Would such behavior be out of place for an ancient writer? I don't know.