Llyricist

As Toto said, he claimed no such thing, you are back reading the gospels into Paul. And I don't throw away Paul. he provided no biographical details except possibly that a descendant of David got crucified... that's IT.

Besides this has nothing to do with the idea that several real people being the basis for the gospels is a historicist stance. Which is the context of the reply to which you are replying.

I am?

Not quite a strawman, just an incomplete "man", so you accept and interpolate a few more details than I mentioned above as biographical, it still doesn't make it historical,

Speaking of strawmen, who said anything about "entirely made up"? I'm arguing FOR the idea of several real people being the basis for alot of the gospel stories.

Isn't that exactly what I said you did?

Frankly I think that if there was a real guy that the religion was based on, he was more an insurrectionist than a cynic style teacher.

BECAUSE of Paul, if he existed then he was crucified (assuming Pauline priority). And if he was crucified, it wasn't for teaching the golden rule, turn the other cheek, render unto Caesar, etc.. , it was because that sword he brought instead of peace was not metaphorical.

Chris Weimer

Read my post after Toto for clarification.

Paul claims that a real person named Jesus was crucified. By the time the gospels were written, you have a totally different person. I trash the gospels because they're fiction. However, Paul's epistles aren't fiction. There's a real person behind Paul who I'm (and historicists in general) are trying to extract.

Yes. I already outlined my position earlier, and then you try to bash an outline which I give no thought to at all. I'm not taking the gospels at face value, why do you feel the need to debunk them?

Your exact quote: "Well, what biographical details that exist in the gospels, ARE entirely made up."

I meant I disagree with that position, not your assessment of my position.

Sure. This is probably why he was crucified. Cynics weren't crucified, the loonies preaching the end-times and trying to overthrow Rome were. I also included this in my position. You did read that, right?

Agree 100%.

rlogan

hi Chris.

Sorry if I offended you - I thought when I wrote that I had distinguished between the class of sneering "historicists" pretending there is such a stark contrast between the "mythicists" and themselves.

I do not even know what you mean by "fundamentalist". The Jesus of the gospels is without question a myth, period. Even Paul's "Christ" is a myth by standard definition:


Paul talks mostly about things in the above definitions as opposed to historical details of some person.

The "historicists" have gotten off so easy due to the tremendous cultural inertia behind Christianity.

It isn't enough to claim that by inference there must be "someone" behind the myth.

By all means, identify that person. Shouldn't proof of a "historical" person actually require identifying them? Simon Bar Kochba? The goofy Jesus who was killed by the Roman seige engines during the destruction of the temple? The Jesus who led a bunch of scabber fishermen and such in raids against Romans?

I'm pretty well convinced that these were historical persons. They are not though the "historical Jesus" of Paul or Mark.

Please bring yours forward. And again, sorry for offending you.

Llyricist

I did, still back reading I'm afraid.

That is by no means clear.
ummm you think Paul actually experienced the risen Christ? That the Lord himself revealed the Truth's Paul taught?

Paul is non-fiction? seriously?

Maybe, maybe not.... I lean mythicist but I can't see the evidence as existing to force either conclusion.

darstec

And what percentage of those historicists do you suppose are affiliated with a relligious department of a university, college, seminary, bible school, or are employed in a religious ministry within the broad scope of Christianity?

If they propose "heretical" points of view publically, what do you think their chances are of remaining employed or part of that religious ministry?

I know for an absolute fact that while I was in the seminary, some of my professors said one thing in print with an imprimatur and nihil obstat, and another thing when they corrected our translation because they said we could not use the status quo translation because we and they knew it was wrong. Some of the professors wrote the 'books on Christian Apologetics' (particularly Roman Catholic). But they would never air those views in public most especially in print. So how would someone like you know what they really thought by reading their status quo, party line cow chips?

Malachi151

Here is my favorite Jesus was a myth website:

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/

I am now fully in the Jesus was a myth camp. I was once in the HJ camp, then in the "loose HJ" camp, now I'm in the complete myth camp, and most of that conversion comes from my own reading of early Christian writings from the 1st to 5th century.

If you read many extra Biblical texts of the early Christians you find that Jesus plays an almost nonexistant role.

In both the Bible and in the extra-Biblical writings you find a wide variety of views of who Jesus was, if he was just a god, if he was real, if he was the son of god, where he came from, how he died, why he died, when he died, what he said, what his teachings meant, etc.

The biggest point for me, however, is that pretty much every single teaching and event attributed to Jesus was also already attributed to other mythcial characters in the region.

Then you have the complete lack of any first hand accounts of the guy, the fact that early Christians worshiped the cross for reasons that had nothing to do with crucifixion, the fact that we know for a fact that most of what was written about Jesus was false (his birth story was obviously 100% made up, his mericals were made up, and at the least his resurrection, etc was made up), the fact that there are threee different modes of death attributed to Jesus (first being hung from a pole in the Greek telling of the story, then stoned to death and hung from a tree in the Jewish telling, then crucified on a cross in the Roman telling).

The early Christian writings make it clea rthat there was no greater concensus about Jesus within the first 200 years of Christianity that there is now.

Furthermore, how much of a story about someone has to be "true" before it can be said that the person described in the story existed?

For that matter, as has been said, we can say that the story of Paul Bunyion is based on a true story because there were lumberjacks in America.

Chris Weimer

No, it's alright. I'm still a bit shocked at some here implicating me as an apologeticist. Perhaps I'm just reading too much into these statements.

Yes, undoubtedly, but that doesn't mean that Christ started as a myth.

Perhaps this is true for some, but certainly its not true for others. If the Chrsitian intertai was so strong, why would I be adamantly an atheist? I think we ought to drop this line of arguing once and for all. It's no good to accuse others of the intellectual dishonesty, even implicitly. Plenty of historicist defy Christian convention, yet still argue for an historical Christ - including me.

The inference was in Paul's language.

Does he have to be famous? Josephus lists dozens of crucified Jesus who would otherwise be unknown. As for who Jesus was, I listed what I've gathered so far earlier.

How do we differentiate?

No, sorry for being too pugnacious. Let's direct our attention to civil discussion though, shall we?

OK - I outlined my position earlier. I'll repeat it here:

"From what I gathered so far, here's my basic outline: man named Yeshua from Galilee taught a bit and was crucified by the Romans. He was apocalyptic, expecting the end-times to come soon. His followers included a James, a John, a Simon Peter/Cephas (I'm not sure about this one, could have been one, two, or three different people), a group known as the Twelve, and quite possibly a Mary. This Jesus was fully Jewish, and was thought to be the Messiah, was thought to come back in a short time after his death to defeat the Romans and restore the Holy Land. There may have been a secret side to his teachings, but I'm more inclined to think that it was invented by Mark."

I guess my only point of contention would be that even though this man was the original inspiration of the earliest Christian traditions, it doesn't matter how they are portrayed by later authors. I can agree that Mark is mostly fiction, and Paul assumes a radical view which departs greatly from other contemporaries. It's also unfortunate that none of the earliest Christians wrote anything - which I already explained in the Yeshu thread why.

Gerard

That seems to be the state of the art at the moment. The question is simply not adressed a lot by professional historians yet.

They will acknowledge however that the evidence is few and ambiguous.

Chris Weimer

How so? Seems pretty clear to me.

I never said that.

Yes, by definition Paul is non-fiction. They are epistles, aren't they?

Well, I'm not concluding anything either. But some here have concluded such and thus its not up for debate for them. I've given my position, but no one has seriously touched it. If your opinion isn't closed, why would you merely dismiss it?

Chris Weimer

Is this one some resort to, claiming intellectual and academic dishonesty? That's just shameful.