Toto

Hoffman continues with the barely historical Jesus

Vorkosigan

"Left-Hegelian" Eysinga?

Steven Carr

He loves to put people in boxes and put labels on them doesn't he?

Why not just explain what their arguments were?

'Alternatively, they need to show what events, causes, and conditions may have led first century writers, of no apparent skill, to fabricate the basic elements of their story.'

I guess Hoffman is one of those people who demand to know who wrote Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, why and when, before he will accept that it is fiction.

What is the most parsimonious explanation of people writing a Gospel where the main character walks on water, raises people from the dead, has Moses return from the grave to speak to him and is born of a virgin?

You or I might think that such a figure is a figure of fiction, but that is because you and I are idiots.

Hoffman patiently explains ' It is notable that they do not see that a simple statement–that the gospels present material typical of their time and place and that the figure they present is a typical figure of his time and place–is a parsimonious statement accounting for the existence of the gospels.'

Yes, a 'typical figure of his time and place' had Moses speak to him.

Hoffman's Jesus of the Gospels is an invented figure, formed by removing anything from the Gospels which is obviously fictional, and declaring that anything which is not obviously fictional must be true.

Fallacy of excluded middle, anyone?

Steven Carr

Mind you, Hoffman does make some good points.

Would a typical Jew of that time and place be circumcised?

Yes,

Do the Gospels say that Jesus was circumcised?

Yes.

Now do you accept that Jesus of Nazareth must have existed?

Diogenes the Cynic

I disagree that HJ has to be defined as necessarily synonymous with Gospel Jesus, even a non-supernatural Gospel Jesus. I think the central criterion would be whether a real person was at the root of Christianity. Regardless of the Gospels, Christianity had an origin, and that origin either goes back to the veneration of a real person or it doesn't. I think it's immaterial whether that person has anything to do with the character in the Gospels.

Tenorikuma

I'm not sure that's good enough. What if Peter was at the root of Christianity? Would that make him the historical Jesus? Or what if a non-Galilean Jew was?

(Put another way, if a Pictish king named Galam fought the Saxons in the 6th century, could we consider him the "historical King Arthur"?)

tanya

Steven, I regret to inform you, that the holy prepuce was stolen in 1983. Consequently, your syllogism here seems to me, based on faith, rather than evidence.


What nonsense. Read the history of the Paris Commune.

I found maryhelena's submission persuasive.

Paul and Mark both borrowed from Hebrew texts to flesh out their pagan deity. They sprinkled into the text a bit of Zoroastrianism, a dash of Osiris, a titch of Hercules, the slightest touch of Hinduism, and voila: Jesus, complete with lunar calendar, grace a la silk route, terminus Constantinople, despite the Roman-Persian conflict.

Chili

Sounds like sophistry to me, and flatlander stuff wherein Hoffman probably holds that Jesus was a carpenter too and rancher on the side with 12 shepherds on the go.

andrewcriddle

I'm not sure whether Eysinga was a "Left-Hegelian" but he seems to have been a Hegelian. See Hegel by Eysinga


Andrew Criddle

aa5874

Paul and Mark got "Flesh" from a book of Mythology??

Only Words are in Hebrew Texts NOT "Flesh".

In the Beginning was the Word--All things about Jesus were made by WORDS in the NT.