Transient

The answer is obvious - you can't.
But then we don't have to because we are trying to help the op and use some logic.
I have already set out some logic and am not about to repeat it.

Thomas II

Darn...

Joan of Bark

Actually, I have stated as much. From an earlier post of mine ...

Transient

So lets assume that he was just an ordinary man then that could perform no miracles and that those stories were made up.
Do we still attribute all the sayings to him or were most of those made up too?
What was there about him then that would have made him any different to all the other trouble makers, zealots and messiahs that were running around back then?
Why should we believe that the romans were that interested in him then or that anyone would bother asking for his body etc etc etc.
Once the genie is out of the bottle it's a bit hard to draw lines isn't it?

spamandham

The probability that Jesus as described in the Gospels actually existed = 0+.

...discussions of further probabilities are somewhat pointless. We are left with assessing parsimony. One of the tools used to discern the simplest scenario when information is complete, is to pick the one that is most in line with ordinary experience and which requires the fewest "yeah but maybe..." in order to be plausible.

Of these two choices, which requires the fewest contrived scenarios?

1. Jesus was crucified somewhat in line with the passion story, but survived the crucifixion.

2. The passion story is just a story not representative of any actual historical events (though possibly very loosely based on some historical events, it isn't necessary).

The second is straightforward, coincides with our ordinary experience that people write fantastic stories about things that never happened, and requires nothing contrived to be plausible.

The first is not straightforward, does not coincide with ordinary experience (surviving crucifixion must certainly have been rare), and requires contrived scenarios to be sort of plausible.

Joan of Bark

YES! Which is why we discuss ALL those issues here. That's the whole point of this forum!!! If you're going to take the attitude of: "we don't know what's true or not anyway, so it's all meaningless," what the hell are you doing here?

Joan of Bark

See my post above.

Transient

Hey cool down - it's all good.
What I am merely saying is that if we are trying to think if "Jesus" could have faked his death - ie got taken down early or got drugged etc then we do really have to consider the whole box and dice as I have stated.
We do have to consider how much of these stories we are going to believe because that will impact on the outcome of our consideration - to do otherwise if a waste of time.
If you go back thru my logic maybe you can comment on some of those statements individually.

spamandham

I don't see anything constructive in that post. I'm not advocating that we give up. I'm advocating that we stop pretending to know more than we do, and that we rationally assess the problem like we would any other problem.

If we read a Norse story about a magical guy who dies, was resurrected and went on to rule in Valhalla, I doubt many would bother pondering the mechanism by which he escaped death (since resurrection isn't plausible). We would write the whole thing off as fantasy...just as is appropriate to do with the passion.

Rather than pissing in the wind with swoon theories and crap like that, let's concentrate on trying to understand the culture that wrote these fantasy tales.

Joan of Bark

Transient: Again, to re-state my point, we do consider everything in the Bible. In the case of this thread (which is now completely derailed), we consider the proposition that the crucifixion occured and the tomb really was seen to be empty, and then ask the question: what naturalistic explanation can we produce for this? In other threads, we might consider very different propositions. For instance, maybe there never was a crucifixion, or perhaps those who claimed to have seen Jesus afterwards were mistaken. All these propositions are possible (although perhaps not probable), and worthy of analysis. We're not excluding any rational hypothesis just because we consider one particular proposition in one thread.

spamandham: you've been around here long enough to know how things work. There are kernals of truth in all mythology. You can't simply dismiss everything in a story just because some of it makes no sense. There are fantastic stories about just about every historical character; history is all about seperating the truth from the fiction and exaggeration. And again, most scholars -- even those who are non-believers -- believe in a HJ. You can't ignore them simply because you don't agree with them.