Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Malachi151 · 04-11-2007, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

What tools do you have for Jesus? I have been asking for tools everyday now and nobody has responded.

Although I accept that the NT is the worst tool, I applaud your ability to get positive results for Jesus.

Actually, I think that the Bible itself is a perfectly fine tool for this purpose.

I agree with spin that ultimately, there are cases where we simply have to say that we don't and can't know based on the information that we have, but I think that based on what we do have, the case is stronger for Jesus having never existed than it is for his existence. Neither case is a slam dunk, nor will they ever probably be.

Febble · 04-11-2007, 12:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

Care to comment on my article?

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...th_history.htm

Thanks. It will take me a while to read properly and digest. You certainly make some interesting points.

My first reaction is to say that at least some of your evidence could point in both directions. I agree that the gospels are not straight histories, and you may be right that their rootedness in the OT is evidence for their complete fabrication. But it strikes me as just as arguable that the OT stuff was an attempt to anchor a real story to an existing tradition as an attempt embed a new story in such a tradition.

I'm also temperamentally unconvinced by what I have recently learned is the callled the "faggot fallacy" - the fallacy that a number of weak arguments bundled together makes a strong one! I don't think that follows, necessarily. I've yet to be convinced that you have one strong stick.

But let me read more of what you have written, and if you think I have chickened out of a response, PM me.

Thanks

Lizzie

aa5874 · 04-11-2007, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Febble

My hunch is that Jesus was historical because to me the gospels read like inconsistent accounts of real events rather than fiction. Or, if fiction, more like magical realist fiction than mythology.

You use your hunch to come to an HJ, I use evidence to come to a MJ.

Quote:

So it strikes me as more plausible that there was a real man, a teacher, of great charisma, who was crucified, and whose followers somehow came to believe he returned to them, bodily, after death. Real people have believed stranger things with less excuse, in my lifetime.

You don't even have to read a single word in the NT to come to your conclusion. You just go with your hunch.

aa5874 · 04-11-2007, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

Actually, I think that the Bible itself is a perfectly fine tool for this purpose.

I agree with spin that ultimately, there are cases where we simply have to say that we don't and can't know based on the information that we have, but I think that based on what we do have, the case is stronger for Jesus having never existed than it is for his existence. Neither case is a slam dunk, nor will they ever probably be.

I have asked for someone to present a case for the historicity of Jesus, no-one has taken up the offer. I have already said that the historicity of Jesus is baseless, perhaps you could tell me on what basis could Jesus be considered historical.
I know of none.

Zeichman · 04-11-2007, 04:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

You don't even have to read a single word in the NT to come to your conclusion. You just go with your hunch.

The same can be said of your "argument."

Why is this thread still open? Very little worth reading has been posted in the past five pages or so.

aa5874 · 04-11-2007, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Someone doing research has only three options:

what can be proven;
what can be disproven; and
neither of the above.

The reason why you come up with your results is because you unwisely omit the availability of the third option. What that means is that you are unable to deal with all the possibilities, making your analysis biased. Hence, your attacks on the bible are you blaming the tool you are using and as the saying says,

A poor worker blames his tools.

All that you are doing is substituting one belief for another.

You know everything that I know? If you don't know whether Jesus existed or not then just say so.

I have stated my position, what exactly is yours. I don't waste my time trying to tell you how to make your decisions. Everything you say about me is unsubstantiated speculation .

J-D · 04-11-2007, 04:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

And why is this incompatible ?

Acts 5:34-39
Then stood there up one in the council,
a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law,
had in reputation among all the people,
and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space;
And said unto them,
Ye men of Israel,
take heed to yourselves what ye intend
to do as touching these men.
For before these days rose up Theudas,
boasting himself to be somebody;
to whom a number of men,
about four hundred, joined themselves:
ho was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered,
and brought to nought.
After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing,
and drew away much people after him: he also perished;
and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed.
And now I say unto you,
Refrain from these men, and let them alone:
for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought:
But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it;
lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.

How would the Gamaliel advice to the council many years later,
after the crucifixion, be incompatible with the tactical alliance to
trip up Jesus when he alive and teaching and walking in Jerusalem ?

Perhaps by "incompatible" you simply mean "a change of Pharisee tactics" in a very different situation.

Only beatings.
And a command not to speak in the name of Jesus.

Which clearly could not be obeyed by the apostles.

As to the rest of your post, I really have no idea what you are
asking for. The tactical alliance is very sensible, the "tape
recorder" we have are the two Gospel accounts. If you want
to take the view that such an alliance is impossible and express
incredulity, I simply have no idea on what basis you do so.

Does even Flusser or Schiffman or anybody knowledgeable on
1st century Israel express similar incredulity ? Perhaps
at least you could quote Raymond Brown or somebody.

As pointed out again and again, in politics folks make alliances
with their opposition all the time. And in this case there was
not even any concession involved, it all led to simply ..

'How can we trap Jesus and show him as an enemy of Caesar'

Very crafty, what you might expect from folks loyal to that fox Herod.

Shalom,
Steven

Whether anybody else has asked the question or not seems to me to be irrelevant to its merits.

The philosophical (not tactical) position adopted by Gamaliel (the leader of the Pharisees) in Acts is philosophically incompatible with the approach implausibly attributed to the Pharisees in the Gospel account.

You keep repeating that the manoeuvre described in the Gospels could have been for tactical advantage, but you have yet to give any reason to suppose that there would have been any tactical advantage to the Pharisees in seeking to 'trap Jesus and show him as an enemy of Caesar'. It sounds as if you think of the Pharisees as reacting to Jesus as a threat to their political power, an impossibility, since they had no political power. You have given no reason to think it plausible to see the Pharisees as a party manoeuvring for tactical political advantage and prepared to sacrifice their ideological principles to that end.

'Folk loyal to that fox Herod [which in this context must mean Antipas]' might conceivably have seen Jesus as a fomenter of sedition and hence as a political threat, but the Pharisees were not loyal to Herod; they were ideologically opposed to him (although not in an active political way).

aa5874 · 04-11-2007, 04:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeichman

The same can be said of your "argument."

Why is this thread still open? Very little worth reading has been posted in the past five pages or so.

So why did you respond? I need people who can support the historicity of Jesus to respond. There may be none.

J-D · 04-11-2007, 04:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Larsguy47

Don't forget about the "Holy Grail" stuff. In "The DaVince Code" there were supposedly these records that were kept of the genealogy of Mary Magdalene and the line of Jesus. I believe that the Templars wouldn't have been so powerful if they were not looking for something real or something they had a firm foundation for believing was "real." Per the Bible a segment of the Christian Jews from the 1st century would be chosen to live and "survive until the time of the lord" through the years down to our time. This seems necessary to fulfill the requirement of the promise to Abraham that his family would become a "kingdom of priests", with 12,000 from each tribe. This is a reduction of 90%, thus the entire kingdom of priests is really 1,440,000. That is, because of Jewish unfaithfulness to God's covenant, the holy king-priesthood represented as a tree is cut down, but 10% of it is left in as the root.

Anyway, I believe the Templars stumbled upon these people and/or those records, including that John himself was still alive and they began a quest to find him and those records. They adjusted the story to claim they were looking for Mary Magdalene as the "chalice" or carrier of the royal bloodline, but John also carried the royal bloodline and John and Jesus were, well, John was "the one Jesus loved" which they took as them having a "special relationship", so it was sanitized by turning John as Jesus' "special partner" into Mary Magdalene, his wife. John is thus depicted in some paintings as looking very feminine.

But ALL THAT TO SAY THIS: If there were some from the original congregation who were chosen to survive down to our time, and the purpose of that was to reeestablish a modern 12 tribes of Israel by those who could prove their ancestry in Jesus' day based upon their family records, then likely those records were important and they were maintained down to this day as well. Likewise, John and Paul, two who were also chosen to "survive down to the Lord's day" (1 Thess. 4:15, 17) likewise preserved other original writings and the gospels as well, and themselves are eyewitnesses to what happened.

Their appearance now, of course, threatens all those who would benefit by claiming they were fakes or that the Bible has been substantially changed. Therefore all the rhetoric about the "historicity of Jesus Christ" is potentially a totally mute point if ever these people surface with their 1st-century records. Of course, proving who they are and that they've survived all this time would be a greater testament to the truth, likely, than the records themselves, but that is all part of the "surprise package" awaiting us!

So maybe all the arguments challening the "historicity of Jesus Christ" are just preparing the way and making the appearance of these people and/or the records more dramatic.

LG47

That's all delightfully fanciful, but I see no reason to give it a scintilla of credence.

J-D · 04-11-2007, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

You are asking me questions about your questions?

No, I am asking you questions about what you mean, because your meaning is not entirely clear to me. And in the hope that it might assist in achieving this clarification, I am suggesting possible interpretations of your meaning, so that you can either confirm or correct them.

Do you see something wrong with that procedure?

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

I am saying that the authors of the NT have 2 completely different genealogies of Joseph. The author of Matthew or Luke or both have no idea who Joseph was or if he was, i.e there is bogus information in the NT. And to make make matters worse, one of the authors wrote that an angel talked to Joseph.

Unless there is some independent confirmation of these stories, I regard them as fiction.

Obviously it is not possible that both of the genealogies given for Joseph are correct, unless we assume an adoption or something of the kind. But that leaves at least three other possibilities: (a) one of the genealogies is accurate and the other is not; (b) both genealogies are inaccurate, but Joseph was still a real person; (c) there never was such a person as Joseph.

As far as I can make out (but please correct me if I am wrong), you are asserting that only (c) is a possibility. I don't see how you can be sure of this conclusion.

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