George S

Speaking of the supernatural Jesus and His Dad...

Does anyone know what limited said Dad to just One Son?

dog-on

I don't understand. Why do you think my conjecture is using an argument from silence? I am using the text itself, the "scholarly" accepted dating of said texts and the "scholarly" accepted fact that none of the texts are Palestinian in origin.

I then relate this to a modern example of a similar occurance.

Maybe you could explain how you get to your position, a bit.

Sure.

dog-on

What would you call a trinity with 4 parts?

(The Mormons believe that Satan was JC's brother, from what I can recall and that the big G had, in fact, many boot-knocking sessions with mrs. big G...)

John W. Loftus

Such questions and discussions are never-ending. I've got to get busy with other things right now. Maybe I'll come back.

Carr, you can take it from here. Tell everyone how I can't answer you even if I tried, okay? Proclaim victory because you have more time on your hands than I do. Okay?

Cheers, everyone.

Steven Carr

Gosh, it would take John 2 minutes to stop whining that I keep asking him questions, and instead to trot out the standard historicist explanation of Romans 10.

Remember, these guys have done the work on the subject. The answers are all there. It is just that John is way too busy to tell people what they are.

I guess saying a page number of a book where Romans 10 is discussed as supporting a historical Jesus who preached and was rejected by Jews is just too much hard work.

dog-on

Steven, the problem always seems to be this:

How does one get to a historical Jesus, without making him up?

A seemingly impossible task considering the available evidence and the fact that the all singing, all dancing version is , somewhat, passe...

Steven Carr

Perhaps this is a similar question to asking - how does one get to a historical Maitryea, without making him up?

Perhaps it is. Perhaps it isn't.

Only one thing is clear. Historicists are not ready to debate this issue yet.

dog-on

I really don't think that they actually have the data to do so. That's probably why they are so hesitant.

aa5874

The non-existence of anything MUST be based on SILENCE.

Jesus can be considered a myth or fiction since only apologetic sources produced witnesses or claimed there were witnesses to obvious fictitious and implausible events, while the skeptics were completely silent about such a character.

The historicity of Jesus cannot be assumed using text that are known fiction, implausible, incoherent and chronologically erroneous.

gentleexit

It's a chicken-and-egg thing with most ancient holy men. Did the ethos, the great story, the sayings, come first and then one men got them for a life or was there someone underneath the accretion of lore? With most, this is unanswerable.

Take Pythagoras. Lot's of biographies written. Towards the end of philosophy, he was the favorite. After all he left behind so many wise sayings, had an eventful life. Was there a Pythagoras? They thought so and so did my old math teacher.

Even if there were such men, does it matter? Their lore so overwhelmed their flesh that existence is at most peripheral. Or is it? Kids will still learn about Pythagoras' theorem even if there was no man. But would they learn of the son of God if there was no son?

This isn't about answering the answerable. It's about holding on to faith. There can be no debate about that and all else is window-dressing.