wordy

But it could be a combination.

If we should trust History of Christianity in Norway and Sweden they actually killed those who didn't join their Catholicism and they started with burning down their houses and if they then didn't convert from Thor or Odin then they got killed.

So brutal oppression may get result too. A kind of Taliban tactic.

That which support that Catholicism is effective in compare to Gnosticism is that modern form of G has only made inroads in highly protestantic countries.

I mean how many organized New Agers are there in Poland or Ireland? Here is Sweden they are too many.

another way to look at it is that almost none Gnostic is invited to the Morning shows anymore. They where obligatory some 15 or 20 years ago together with Buddhists. Now it is only Swedish Church or Pentecostal like Christians that get invited and Journalists knows what are what counts as political influential and they has decided that Gnostic modern varieties lost political grounds.

So dependent on what culture one belong to the Pope is still important but if your in a Protestant culture the local Bishop is the one who gets invited to talk about ethics of Stem Cell or the Pro Life Pentecostal get invited and neither Secular Humanists nor Grostics/New Ageers gets invited.

They have lost their political status by now.

Radical Feminists are still in political power. Their cultural relativism maybe is a distant cousin to Gnosticism?

2-J

My late and anecdotal reply to the OP's question;

I have known a great many atheists in my personal and professional life, and of those with whom I have spoken about the subject, the vast majority have said they believe there was a historical Jesus, but he was not the son of God. However, hardly any have actually done even the briefest bit of reading on the subject. And I don't even mean scholarly literature, they are not even familiar with the ancient sources on the subject of Christians / Jesus.

It is 'generally accepted' there was a historical Jesus and a 'scholarly consensus' that there was one (for better or worse) and so people just accept that. As others have pointed out on this thread, the most important thing for most atheists is assuring themselves that Jesus was not the son of God, whether he existed is of secondary importace.

On a related note, I think that people who aren't familiar with the field of ancient history assume we know the 'facts' of ancient history with much more assurance than we actually do, as well.

aa5874

Can you please give me an actual number instead of "the vast majority". How many atheists have you really met?

I would think that there was a time when the vast majority of atheists thought the world was flat having not done any research.

Now, what do those atheists who are familiar with ancient sources believe?

I am not here just to list what some generally accept, but to find out the reasons or sources of antiquity that support such acceptance. I cannot find any sources of antiquity, except forgeries in Josephus, that support the historical Jesus.

And further, as far as I understand, there has been no real scholarly consensus of the historical Jesus since they have not even dare attempt to examine his history.

So, far, if my memory is good, some scholars have declare or voted that Jesus said less that 70% of what is written in the Gospels, even if he did exist.



The most important thing for me is whether or not Jesus did exist. So far all the information I have seen denies Jesus his divinity and historicity.

Jesus was just a backdated story.

It must be remembered that in antiquity people were deified, however there cannot be found any credible source to show that the JEWS would have deified a JEW crucified for blasphemy.

But it is far more disturbing when the Church provides fiction for facts expecting that the world would believe.

2-J

No, I can't give you the exact number, but hundreds - in the course of my Philosophy teaching career (students, other teaching professionals both in and out of the faculty). Note that even this only counts, as I full admitted by prefacing my comment, as anecdotal evidence.

It is my experience that most of the atheists who say 'well there must have been a man who started it all, he just wasn't divine' or something along these lines, are ignorant of the ancient sources.

Well the issue here is how we define 'historical core' and I've seen enough intelligent debate on the matter on these forums to know that pinning that concept down exactly is problematic. Here's a rough attempt. I think certainly if there was a Jewish preacher who said some things that were at least a bit out of the ordinary for his time, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and who left a group of followers whose movement was at least causally related in some way to what Paul (I use this name just to denote whoever it was that authored the 'authentic' epistles) and other formative 1st/2nd century 'Christian' movements, most people would acknowledge that preacher was the 'historical core' at the heart of Christianity.


Well I'm no historian of ancient history, but the more I delve into the subject the more I come to realise that much is conjecture often akin, in my opinion, to attempts to reconstruct a historical Jesus (although at least in many other cases the evidence of archaeology is helpful. Not so with a historical Jesus). Agnosticism about most of the facts of ancient history seems the rational attitude to me.

aa5874

So, now that you have defined or described the "historical Jesus," where is the corroborative information from sources of antiquity, external of the Church writers, that show such a person did exist in the 1st century.

The fatal flaw of those who propose an historical Jesus is that they first assume they know how Jesus of the NT was derived when they have no evidence that they are correct in their assumption.

It is known or found in the NT and Church writings an implausible character called Jesus. This Jesus was described similar to any other mythical entity born of the Holy Ghost of God, transfigured, resurrected and ascended to heaven.

I am not agnostic about Achilles, the offspring of a sea-goddess, so I won't be agnostic about Jesus, the offspring of the Holy Ghost of God.

I would consider Jesus a myth until the Church change his description or new information is found to contradict his implausibility.

gdeering

Yes, that used to describe my attitude based on NO relevant information, or inclination to find out why people thought so. It was an assumption based on a conceit that the easiest (non-supernatural) answer to make up was the right one.


I think there is a huge conceptual gap between this and the following sentence, and to fill it one needs to make a great leap of faith. There is no evidence of Jesus' followers outside of the NT mythology.


I believe there is no evidence to support the two assumptions in sequence. Scattered sources that coalesced into the myth we associate with Jesus is more plausible than any remnant of "horses mouth" authority.


Neither Jesus nor the Apostles made a mark in history, this is significant enough to warrant tossing out the "common sense, path of least resistance" assumption about HJ (or HApostles) and any possible transmission of an alleged Jesus' teaching.

Just some thoughts before cleaning the house for my wife's family and their old cult dinner celebration.


Gregg

Anat

But what if the teachings of Jesus are a composite of sayings and ideas from more than one source? How little of the teachings attributed to Jesus should a crucified preacher have said to still qualify as the 'historical core' of Jesus? What if only some of the teachings were his originally and others were quotes of earlier sources? Or later ideas that became attributed to Jesus?

aa5874

HJers cannot answer such questions. Without any sources of antiquity that mentioned Jesus the Messiah, external of the Church, or apologetics, then the historical Jesus will continue to be a case of futility.

The authors of the NT placed Jesus in Judaea amongst Jews where he was executed for blasphemy, claiming to be the son of God, and then was deified by Jews when, based on the writings of Philo and Josephus, it was very unlikely that Jews would deify and worship a man as a God.

Philo, a Jew from Alexandria, claimed or implied that Jews do not worship or deify men, not even Emperors. Josephus also made the similar observations in his writings.

This is Philo on the Emperor Gaius in "Embassy to Gaius" XVI
"Embassy to Gaius" XLVIIt would appear that the Jesus story is not credible at all, Jesus would not have been deified by Jews, based on Philo.

See http://earlyjewishwritings.com

2-J

Personally, I think we can still make sense of a historical core to Christianity even if none of the original preacher's teachings are preserved in Christianity as it is today. E.g. if there was a preacher who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and who left followers who inspired 1st/2nd century 'Christian' movements even if they fundamentally altered or changed his original message. I think it still makes sense to talk of a historical core even then.

It should hardly be necessary for me to point out that in saying this I do not necessarily think there is convincing evidence that this was actually the case.

spin

The logic that I've seen in this thread is the stuff that would make anyone who sees any validity in post-modernism sick. The narrative that people write about the past should start with the evidence from the past, not with modern projections of sense onto the past. Otherwise you create a new story whose validity will only reflect modern projections of sense.

Those projections almost invariably start at the wrong place, ie the gospels, which we know are not the earliest literature in the tradition. The tradition has already evolved into gospels and therefore is inadequate as a starting point for an analysis of christian origins. The earliest literature we have are the letters of Paul. Paul didn't need any historical core at all. He specifically tells us his gospel didn't come from human sources (Gal 1:11-12), but from a direct line to Jesus through a revelation. You might not believe that to be accurate, but you have to deal with the fact that the christianity he spread around Greece needed not a single iota of historical core.

There may have been, but assuming one is senseless.

Then you shouldn't say it. Leave it as potential. What logical benefit can you get out of working on the basis that you can say meaningful things about an entity whose existence you have traditions for, but no evidence for?


spin