stephan huller

The article mentions Ehrman, Carrier, Price, Evans and the usual cast of characters and arguments. Evans's objection about it being implausible that Paul should give his life for a mythical Jesus is incredibly stupid as he forgets about Marcion being the original interpreter of Paul. Idiotic. Don't these people think?

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/0...yth/?hpt=hp_c1

dockeen

I find the "people wouldn't have been willing to give their lives for ideas that are not
true" as one of those arguments that the people who use it refuse to go to the next
logical step with. If this criteria is used as a way of ascertaining the truth of an idea,
then they just let a lot of ideas in the tent that the didn't want.

By the way Stephan, I heard your name mentioned on "The Bible Geek" the other day,
I don't distinctly remember the context, but the mention was positive. I know such
is probably not of importance, but it is interesting to see "reality" collide with this
little piece of "heaven".

Toto

The article was very fair to both sides of the debate, except that the author picked up the term "Jesus denier," as if there were clear evidence that Jesus existed that deluded people decided not to believe.

EmmaZunz

That's not bad for MSM. You can't expect much, but that was fairly good at just letting both sides speak.

aa5874

When did Paul give his life?? This must be some kind of joke.

In Acts of the Apostles there is NO mention that Paul gave his life.

Apologetic sources don't even know when Paul really lived. They claimed he died under Nero or before c 68 CE but still commended gLuke which was probably written very long After c 70 CE.

Personally, I find the CNN article to be filled with erroneous information.

MrMacSon

Well, allegedly dedicated his life to preaching "the faith".

Evans ought to consider and discuss other theories about how the movement started beyond the single view that "because Paul converted" ...

PhilosopherJay

Hi MrMacson,

Good point.

Sidney Carton gave up his life for Charles Darnay in "Tale of Two Cities," saying, "Tis a far far better thing I do than I have ever done."

I think Spock gave up his life to Save Captain Kirk, the Star Ship Enterprise, and the Earth in Star Trek II (although I think he did resurrect in Star Trek III.)

There's that Romeo and Juliet thing too.

And I won't even mention Rue and Katniss in "Hunger Games".

Why a fictional character giving up their life for a fictional character counts as historical evidence for a fictional character's existence is hard to understand.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

aa5874

I make NO presumptions about the veracity and historical accuracy of the Pauline writings.

The Pauline writings are historically quite contradictory even based on apologetic sources.

In Acts of the Apostles, an apologetic source, Jews were supposedly CONVERTING by the thousands, sometimes in a day, after hearing about Christ Crucified and Saul/Paul was even looking for Jews in Damascus to have them Persecuted.

The Pauline writer even claimed he Persecuted the Church and wasted it.

But, there is a Massive problem.

No Jewish or Roman writer accounted for any cult whose leader was called Jesus in the 1st century before c 70 CE and that thousands of Jews were Converting to a New Religion where a man called Jesus was a UNIVERSAL Saviour of Mankind because of his crucifixion and resurrection.

Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings are not corroborated.

They MUST be corroborated before I can accept any event or character mentioned in those writings.

youngalexander

Carrier's take on it...
Jesus Myth on CNN
Doesn't seem overly impressed.

MrMacSon

Hi PhilosopherJay[Raskin]

Also a good point - why none of these so-called scholars like Erhman do not address Paul's lack of historicity is an interesting omission