lpetrich

I suggest making a list of purported events in Jesus Christ's life and then trying to find out what the consensus is on each event. You may have to create two lists, one for the Synoptic Gospels and one for John, but that shouldn't be too difficult. That would clear up a lot of the clutter in the discussion here.

There is a similar sort of controversy about Socrates, called not surprisingly the "Socrates problem", about how much is fact and how much is fiction about him. Though Socrates most likely existed, we don't know much more than that about him. Plato used him as a literary sockpuppet, Xenophon could have been copying from Plato, and Aristophanes could have been trying to satirize philosophers in general.

That's because we don't have a lot of people haranguing everybody about how the canonical biography of the Buddha is an absolutely literally true documentary and that anybody who finds it less-than-convincing deserves to be reincarnated as a cockroach.

And the more philosophical sort of Buddhists tend to think of his teachings as what is important, not necessarily the literal truth of his biography, miracles and all.

So Jesus Christ was irreligious?

And No Robots, you are demonstrating appalling ignorance of evolutionary biology. It is not some grandiose and villainous ideology, but a description of the history of the Earth's biota. Would you like it if someone demonstrated similar ignorance about your heroes? Seriously.

Sheshbazzar

Rather it appears that the originating and "activating genus" and inventor of "Christianity" was the flesh and blood Saul of Tarsus, who preached his own and original version of "christ" and "christ-ianity", based wholly upon on a "vision" that he claimed to have had, admitting that he had NOT recieved his doctrines from men (ie. the other Apostles or believers) And also that he had never at all actually been an eye-witness to that "heavenly being" that he declared himself to be an "Apostle" of.

Both the "heavenly beings" that Paul, and Joseph Smith claimed to be messengers of, were alike claimed to have lived, died, and been resurrected, In each case these alleged "heavenly beings" allegedly communicated their respective "correct" theology to only that one particular individual, and then conveniently and permanently disappear from the scene.
And with such imaginative men ordaining more imaginative men, each religion spawned schisms, and schisms of schisms, and neither "Jesus" nor "Moroni", though they are both claimed by their adherents to be still hanging around "hearing" and "watching", never show themselves or step in to correct even the most outrageous of perversions that are carried out by their followers.

Of course the "Moroni" story does have a solider claim to being a "historical" account as several known and named witnesses testified to, and left posterity their personally signed affidavit's of having also seen Moroni.

spin

The latter seems reasonable. The former is what is frequently debated here and your assumed conclusion regarding it has no validity.


spin

Alf

Paul and Jospeh Smith you mean?

Alf

No Robots

And I would say that the more philosophical sort of Christians tend to think of Christ's teachings as what is important, not necessarily the literal truth of his biography, miracles and all.

Not just irreligious, but anti-religious.

I disagree.

But, my dear fellow, my claim is that you are guilty of ignorance with regard to your own heroes, from Darwin to Dawkins. Not one of the great biologists would embrace the kind of narrow, reductionist, wholly materialist approach that is standard fare around here.

J-D

Thanks.

Are there other examples of scholars in the same field as Michael Grant whose scholarly training and career lay outside religious institutions? And, if so, do they share his views about Jesus?

J-D

Can you offer a single confirmed historical example of a religion that originated without a founder?

J-D

The archaeological evidence makes it plain that the Nephite culture described in the Book of Mormon never existed. Hence, no last Nephite prophet can ever have existed either.

The evidence about the early history of the Book of Mormon points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that Joseph Smith made it up. If so, he can't have derived it from records entrusted to him by Moroni.

The existence of Mormonism is evidence for a founder--if we needed any. We have plenty of evidence for that founder--Joseph Smith. If somebody told me that Joseph Smith never existed, I would think it totally reasonable to ask 'Well, who founded Mormonism, then?' And I have no problem with answering the question 'Who founded Mormonism if there never was a Moroni?', the answer being 'Joseph Smith'.Of course it wouldn't. But nobody said it would, did they?

You seem to be confusing two separate issues. If a time traveller provided us with conclusive evidence: that about the fourth decade of the first century, a man called Jesus preached a messianic message of some variety to the Jews of Palestine; that some accepted him as their leader; that they continued to acknowledge his leadership and preach his message after his execution, and gathered more followers; and that from this group progressively evolved (with doctrinal differences developing over time) the various groups subsequently identified as Christian; then that would be no reason for anybody to become a Christian, but it would be proof that there was a historical Jesus. (Hypothetical) proof that there was a historical Jesus does not equate to a justification for Christian belief.

J-D

The first two points are not evidence, they are absence of evidence.

The third point is not evidence, but argument. (I also think it's a faulty argument.)

On the fourth point, the implausibility of many incidents in the Gospel accounts is evidence that they never happened, but that is not evidence for the non-existence of the central figure, only evidence that he (leaving open the central question of whether he was real or fictitious) was frequently made the subject of legendary stories.

The fifth point is not evidence, but assertion.

J-D

That's very interesting. I never heard of the 'Socrates problem' before. Why do people believe that he existed?