JoeWallack

JW:
JW:
GD is either Denying or at least does not understand what the purpose of this debate is supposed to be. His responsibility here is to show/demonstrate that Jesus was Historical. He has re(mis)stated the purpose of the debate to what is the evidence that Jesus was historical. Not coincidently this is exactly the same problem Christian Bible scholarship has with it's Assumption of HJ. Instead of demonstrating that the supposed evidence supports a conclusion of HJ they merely present what the evidence is for HJ without constructing an argument who's evidence supports its conclusion. GD needs to consider the Quality of his supposed evidence for HJ.

At the present rate of debate I fear it possible that Jesus might actually return before the debate is finished to settle the issue so in order to speed things up some GD also needs to consider the Credibility of Paul as a witness. Once again, something Christian Bible scholarship doesn't like to consider.

GD, you need some comparison in order to help get you grounded. Try to think of how a courtroom would operate.



Joseph

Ieousiscity.The Argument For HJ. A Skeptical Reconstruction.

Vivisector

A strict reading of Paul does not require that Peter was a follower of the flesh-and-blood Jesus, so I'm not sure GD will make much of that. However, Galatians refers to James as the "Lord's brother," and 1 Cor refers to "Lord's brothers." Even though MJ advocates have shot a lot of electrons at these references, I wouldn't be surprised if GD introduced them as well. After all, if Jesus had flesh-and-blood brothers, that settles the argument rather decisively.

Cheers,

V.

enoch007

thanks

dog-on

I will be amazed if an actual argument for historicity is or can be presented.

Sincerely, I don't believe that I have actually ever seen such an argument actually laid out. I have however seen the "a priori" Jesus done to death.

Good luck to Don in this unprecedented endeavor.

JoeWallack

JW:
Neither one of you have presented any Criteria to help determine the quality of evidence. The issue from GDs first post is the quality of Paul's witness. Since GD has not established that Paul is a Credible witness, let alone even addressed the issue, there is nothing that Mal needs to Oppose at this point. All that is Likely at this point based on GD's post is that Orthodox Christianity "preserved" what Paul wrote because they liked what it said and not necessarily because it contained Historical information.

I've thrown out some possible criteria in my Ieousiscity.The Argument For HJ. A Skeptical Reconstruction Thread.

1) Credibility of evidence

2) Closeness of witness to subject

3) Credibility of witness

4) Consistency of evidence

5) Personal nature of evidence

6) Preservation of evidence

GD first needs to establish Paul's General credibility. Good luck. This criteria is normally avoided by HJs. GD than needs to weigh the value of Paul's supposed excerpts as support for HJ:

Information which refers to Jesus.

Condition = Must be Possible.

Quality Factors:

1) Jesus is Primary subject.

2) Evidence is unique to Jesus.

3) Details

Once the supposed specific references to HJ have been evaluated they need to be weighed in total against Everything that Paul wrote. Another step that HJs don't want to do. 5 HJ references out of 100 is exponentially better evidence than 5 out of 1000 (do the Matthew).

Specifically here GD has righteously quoted Romans as evidence that Paul thinks the Messiah was a physical descendant of the Jewish Bible. This has to be evidence of HJ. The question though is how good is this evidence? What was Paul's Source for this Assertian? Is it possible that Paul assumed this or at least lacked a reliable historical source? Or even worse, did Paul always, mostly or sometimes start with the conclusion that his Jesus fulfilled prophecy from the Jewish Bible and than construct an argument. Does a Bar take a Peshitta to read in the woods?


Joseph

Ieousiscity.The Argument For HJ. A Skeptical Reconstruction.

aa5874

That's odd. Does a fictitious person exist, if it is claimed this fiction had a brother? Well, I have a brother and he is born of the Holy Spirit.

spin

I will be amazed if any meaningful evidence will be presented on either side. Gak didn't say much at all, but then his antagonist said even less.

Gak presented material that deserved more comment. He happily opened up part of the case against historicity himself by referring to messianic background found in the Hebrew bible. This certainly doesn't add anything to a claim of historicity, but does provide evidence for a literary model of the messiah already existing in the tradition and once in the tradition it is ripe for development without the need for a reality behind it. The Hebrew prefiguring is a blow to Gak's case, but Malachi151 has happily ignored the issue in his opening (though hopefully he'll think about it again).

What Paul says about his Jesus seems to be irrelevant, given the fact thaqt Paul wasn't a witness to any events of a life of his Jesus. In fact Paul indicates that his Jesus was the fruit of a revelation and what he taught wasn't given to him by humans. This renders the value of Paul's data of no use to history for he has ruled his information out himself. It simply doesn't matter about this "according to the flesh" stuff. Gak is only dealing with a mythicist view of Jesus, ie that the first believers thought that Jesus was myth. What this has to do with showing historicity is nada. What's Malachi151 said on the issue?

Oh well. Let's look to a brighter future.


spin

Malachi151

Well, Thanksgiving week is here, so I'm probably going to have to put this on hold until the Monday after Thanksgiving.

I may be able to reply tomorrow. Anything after tomorrow will have to wait until after Thanksgiving.

I appreciate the time and effort that GD put into his first post.

I'd like to open the debate up to a broader spectrum of potential evidence, which is why I didn't go into too much effort thus far, I'm hoping to steer it into different evidence, and not just hash over this.

No disrespect to GD's opener, I think it was a good job on what was presented, but as i said, I think that its simply barking up the wrong tree.

I'm not sure about spin's comments.

Are you saying spin that I didn't address it strongly enough? I certainly addressed it.

Also, I'm not really making an argument that counter's GD's, I'm simply arguing whether GD's argument is persuasive in and of itself.

In other word, I'm not going to make any argument for mythicism or anything else, nor will I argue that the use of a prefigured Messiah by Paul points to anything else. I think that it does, but that's not what this debate is about.

I hope that makes sense.

spin

Gak shot himself in the foot by mentioning the Hebrew prefiguring. You, Malachi151, should be pointing to the hole, saying look at all the ugly gore that's oozing out of the festering pus-hole.

He's talking about "in the flesh" as though he's arguing against mythicism rather than for historicity. He's been trying to deal with Doherty too long to understand what's relevant to historicity.

This should be like Arthur and the black knight. Whoooop goes one arm. Spurt goes the blood. Whoooooooooop goes the other. More gushes of red... It was nothing. Just a flesh wound.

Read Smokin' Joe Wallack. What should Gak be doing?


spin

Diogenes the Cynic

Malachi, as a participant in the formal debate you are not supposed to be posting in the peanut gallery thread until after the debate. Please remember the rules.

DtC, Moderator, BC&H