J-D

I don't see how a discussion can be focussed if it isn't clear. If it isn't clear, how do you know whether it's focussed on anything?If you intend to define 'historical Jesus' as 'any explanation for the existence of Christianity', then the only way to deny that there is a historical Jesus is to deny that there is any explanation for the existence of Christianity, and it's impossible to distinguish between explanations for the existence of Christianity which include a historical Jesus and those which don't. I don't think that's what you meant, and even if it is, I'm sure it's not what other posters here mean.

Toto

Maybe you had to have been through this discussion before to see why it does make the divide.

Paul based his teaching around Jesus, not himself

"Historicist" would not include those who think that Paul believed in a spiritual Jesus, such as Earl Doherty does. But it would include those who think that Paul believed that Jesus was a real man on earth who was crucified under Pilate.

Now you're just engaging in some kind of weird game. These are not logical statements that can be expressed as simple equations. They are attempts to summarize complicated historical theories.

I suggest that you don't understand the underlying issue. But you might have to read a few books to have enough background knowledge to make sense of it.

The participants here all seem to understand why they disagree, and it's not because any terms are unclear. It has to do with how history is done and how we judge what happened in the past.

J-D

All those people in the street only think they share a common meaning. Most of them have never considered the definitional issues.

A lot of them probably don't even know what the Bible says, and many of them probably think they do even when they don't.

outhouse

true most people go to church to feel good, not to study the bible in depth

most of the members here do know more then the typical theist

J-D

Maybe? Maybe it's being immersed in the discussion that has misled you and you need to step back from it and reconsider.I take it, then, that you when you defined 'historicist' as 'somebody who believes that Christianity originated around a real historic person in the first century', you did not intend that to include everybody who believes that Christianity originated around a real historic Paul in the first century. If so, this is another instance where the words you chose did not clearly capture your intended meaning.Trying to get a clear understanding of somebody's meaning may seem like a weird game to you, but to me it seems neither weird nor a game.If you have three summaries of a complicated historical theory which all have different meanings, then either there's something wrong with your understanding of the theory or there's something wrong with your summarising.I know that I don't understand the underlying issue. But every time I try to get people to explain it to me, I find no agreement on the answer. I think that's legitimate ground for suspicion.The participants here seem to think they know what's going on. I think they're mistaken.

Sheshbazzar

Great. Then we will not need to be reading any more of your speculative horse-shit on here?
No big deal. The actual Gospel composers worked with, and added onto certain basic TRADITIONS that were handed down, subsequent editors 'adjusted' the content of their 'copies' to suit their contemporary prevailing audiences.
There are many identifiable variations of textual branches, some with quite significant theological differences.
What we ended up with in the so called 'Received Text' is really only a compromised composite 'pick and choose' text that does not accurately convey the actual reading of any particular early exemplar. A line from this example, and a line from that, and the third from another source, all kind of smooshed together and then misrepresented by Orthodox Christianity as being the authentic writing of a 'Matthew' , 'Mark', 'Luke' or 'John' when really none of it ever identifiably originated with any such source.

No. We do not. Your claims of 'eyewitnesses' are without merit.
You cannot provide any evidence that any of this text ever originated with any eyewitnesses. Even the texts themselves do not profess to make any such claims.
Our simple explanation is that the texts are comprised of accumulated religious TRADITIONS that were edited and redacted on numerous occasions by unidentifiable church theological editors.
Earlier, shorter versions such as you propose to have once existed are purely hypothetical, and no such imagined texts have ever been recovered.

Personally, I am fully persuaded that these Gospels contained their miracle sections from the time of their original composition, as being integral and required plot elements for the setting up of the mythical situations and attending dialog of the characters.
No miracles, no Gospel story to be remembered. Simple as that.

The Gospels are not THE Gospels when they are stripped of these integral plot elements to conform to your <blankety blank> theory.

Joan of Bark

Okay, Kapyong, you win. I wasn't familiar with the story told that way.

Sheshbazzar

As stupid and ignorant as you may think they are, The Jesus of the Bible is to them is that singular famous first century individual that they have heard of all of their lives, and they are not likely to mistake this Biblical Jesus for any other Jesus you might wish to imagine.
Seems they have a much clearer grasp on what constitutes and identifies the Jesus of The Bible than you do.

So what. I have been reading from the Hebrew texts for over three decades, including the available Hebrew versions of the New Testament, and see no indications that you are not in the same class as those whom you put down.

spin

Sadly though, as you are one of the participants here, you must consequently think that you are mistaken as well.

J-D

I said, and meant, nothing about their being stupid.Then we disagree.

Just because people have heard about something all their lives doesn't automatically mean they understand it clearly.So they can't have a clear understanding based on the Biblical texts if they don't know what's in the Biblical texts.I didn't put anybody down, but if I am in the same class as the average person, so what?