Logical

At minute 18:02, Carrier claims that Philo of Alexandria spoke of a pre-Christian religion with a celestial being called "Jesus". I can't find information on this on the Internet. Do you know of any sources? It would be nice to read the actual text by Philo. Do you happen to know what mainstream scholars say about this? I bet Christian literalists probably say this proves that Satan predicted Jesus' coming to Earth.

Logical

Not when they thought the end was near. Creating written records happened when the years went by and Jesus' followers noticed the story needed to be preserved, especially due the the rise of so many conflicting heresies.


Give me the benefit of the doubt, and see if any part of my story is salvageable. Perhaps I do have an aunt. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Otherwise, you'd be basically arguing that any historical figure to whom unbelievable stories and supernatural aspects were attributed, is entirely fictitious and made-up since we can no longer trust the sources.


I'm just giving the sources the benefit of the doubt. If you tell me your aunt has wings, I will immediately dismiss the wings part, but then start with the assumption that you do have an aunt.

Look, even Ehrman spends some time in his book (Did Jesus Exist?) spends a lot of time detailing the weakening of the historical Jesus hypothesis, from the apparent ignorance of Paul (of many things attributed to Jesus), to the lack of historical records AT ALL until the end of the first century, to the weakness of the historical records even after that (due to forgeries, shallowness, etc), etc.

It seems to me his default approach is to give the benefit of the doubt, to assume the existence of a historical Jesus, unless a VERY STRONG argument is made against that. And he's maintaining that such an argument, while containing many challenging factors (like the ones I just listed) falls short.

I know Doherty is just going to say: Don't give me that crap about the "Brother of the Lord" and "Born of a woman", etc. No, I will raise those issues because whatever BS magical conceptions Paul had of Jesus, he did freaking say things that imply Jesus was after all a historical figure.

aa5874

Well, based on what I have learnt so far there was NO City called Nazareth and in the Synoptics it is claimed Jesus lived in the CITY of Nazareth.

Matthew 2:23 KJV No CITY of Nazareth has been ever located in the 1st century.

Jesus of the Gospels "LIVED" in a Non-Existing City because he was the product of a Myth Fable.

Logical

Much of history is recorded by biased people with an agenda.

Did I really have to point that out?

aa5874

Well, I have to point out that the Past is NOT ever re-constructed with KNOWN Fiction and Implausibilities.

The Four Gospels in the Canon are fundamentally KNOWN Fiction or Implausible events about Jesus from Conception to Ascension.

You seem to NOT know the difference between Bias and Credible or Myth Fables and History.

Toto

Why should an unreliable source be give the benefit of the doubt? The aim is to decide what probably happened, not what Christians can get away with claiming happened.

If you were accused of a crime and the only witness against you claimed that you did it, and that a host of angels helped you out, and that he saw everything because men landed in a flying saucer and gave him some advanced technology that they then took back. . . should you be convicted?

When you have an allegedly historical figure for whom we only have unbelievable sources and supernatural attributes, we have no reason to be sure that figure was historical, without more - some physical evidence, some triangulation of sources.

Logical

Question: In the historical Jesus model, Jesus was actually a Nazarene, but since he was "supposed" to be from Bethlehem, the gospels invented the improbable nativity stories to reconcile an embarrassing fact with an expectation.

What is the mythicist explanation? Why did the gospels invent the whole story about Jesus being from one city, but being born in another?

outhouse

its not.


its beeen analyzed for what it is, studied in depth and measured by unbiased historians to determine historicity.


because you personaly dont like the outcome of research, doesnt change the historicity given.

Toto

I'm not sure why you need an mythicist explanation for a myth.

The gospels drew from a creative reading of the LXX. Both Bethlehem and Nazareth (and other locations) are part of the myth-building.

Toto

Logical said it had to be give the benefit of the doubt. Ask him.


Where was it analyzed by unbiased historians? What were there names? Where was this research published? Why has it been hidden from the world? Why does no one else here know about it?

:huh: