hjalti

Right, it's of course possible that somebody could find a jar with "property of JC, master of the universe" written on it. But the fact that we haven't found something like this doesn't tell us anything about whether there was a Jesus or not, right?

mountainman

"google jesus bowl"





We dont seem to be able to find any Christic archaeology, and any Christic archaeology that we do find, upon closer examination, evaporates into a background pattern of similar facts, perhaps appropriately described as a "Chrestic" archaeology.

No Robots

So, why do you like to watch?

No Robots

I'm referring here to the rise of pseudo-scientific race hate.

The scholarly consensus is in favour of the Jews here.

This may be true of non-Jews, but Jews themselves began the process of reclaiming Jesus long before the Holocaust. In fact, the Holocaust by-and-large interrupted the process. It appears now to be restarted.

Certainly there are still non-Jewish representations of Jesus, but these all have very little means to defend themselves against the Jewish representation. And, it seems to me, they have demonstrated very little interest in doing so. It is only the mythicists that seem to be aggressively promoting their own view of Jesus. The mythicists are able to claim a scientific and rational basis for their views, which frees them from the embarrassing charge that the others face that their arguments are based on faith.

But does Crossley even mention Jewish writers on this subject?

Doug Shaver

Obviously, they won't feel anything about nonexistent criticisms.

Granted that most of them are silent, a few have not been. For just one example, I've read Van Voorst's Jesus Outside the New Testament, which includes an 11-page section on ahistoricism. He seems pretty clearly to think he has shredded that hypothesis to his own satisfaction. I personally find his argument to be mostly question-begging.

The point I hope I'm making is that in any debate on any subject, an advocate's opinion of his own argument is entirely irrelevant.

Chaucer

-- just as (a tiny number of) serious historians like Ehrman are finally seeing they'll have to do with mytherism. Creationism has gotten to the point where it threatens educational systems throughout my country, and ultimately our children's basic understanding of science and scientific research, and not just in Texas. Mytherism, via the Internet, may get to threaten our educational systems during the next generation or two, and ultimately our children's basic understanding of history and historical research, and not just on the web.

Serious evolutionary biologists finally woke up and smelled the creationist coffee and realized it was time to get off their ivory-tower asses and defend themselves before society as a whole got so monopolized by the creationist mindset that it might throw serious scientists into the brig for thought crimes against the creationist Reich. It's past time for serious professional historians to do the same now against mytherism. As religions recede further in the coming generation or two, that welcome development may be poisoned by rationalism's being swamped by a know-nothing-ness within its own ranks that would effectively criminalize serious history. Now that would be a tragedy.

So long as the Antiq. 20 passage and Origen's plain citation of same at a point before christianity was even mainstreamed(!) is not taken as the empirical evidence that it is for an historical strictly human Jesus who preached elevation of the last in society and a coming kingdom of God and who was killed by Rome, historicists and mytherists will continue to talk past each other because mytherists are in total denial of all historical research and method in just the way that the creationists are in denial about the findings of science. Does that mean that serious evolutionary biologists should shut up? Clearly not. Liberty is at stake. We cannot let our children be brainwashed by fictions fueled by blatant pro-religious bias. The creationists may pay no attention to what the biologists tell them, but others will, and so that may turn the tide against the brainwashing creationists.

The time will come when rationalists will outnumber religionists. In fact, we're finally close to that in a few places in Europe and Scandinavia today. What a tragedy it would be if mytherists at that time continue to be in total denial of all historical research and method and all the findings coming from the professional secular historian community. Does that mean that serious historians should just shut up? Clearly not. Liberty is at stake. We cannot let our children be brainwashed by fictions fueled by blatant anti-religious bias. The mytherists may pay no attention to what the serious secular historians tell them, but others will, and so that may turn the tide against brainwashing mytherists of the future.

Chaucer

Toto

Chaucer: no one is in denial about evidence. You have one phrase in Josephus, which Richard Carrier will show was an interpolation (once his paper is published.) You think that Origen shows that this was original to Josephus, but all Origen says is But notice that Origen is not quoting Josephus here, because Josephus does not say anywhere that disasters happened to the Jews because of the death of James, and does not identify this James as James the Just. This is not the smoking gun that you seem to need.

For more, you will have to wait for Carrier's article.

maryhelena

igsfly:igsfly:igsfly:igsfly:igsfly:

Chaucer

"[W]ho was a brother of the Jesus who was called Christ" is too similar to the turn of phrase found in Antiq. 20 to be a coincidence. I know that the mantra of the mythers is that no coincidence is too flagrant not to be embraced as pure coincidence only. But fortunately, serious historians don't labor under such delusions.

Chaucer

Yellum Notnef

Who doesn't gawk at the occasional car wreck? I peek over here every couple months or so to see if anythings changed and if anyone's changed their mind, but it's always the same bunch of you going around in circles.