ercatli

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean why did I ask the question in the OP? If that is your question, I tried to make it clear there, I was trying to "re-frame" a discussion I'd been having previously in an attempt to make it friendlier and more productive. I think this succeeded to some degree. I wanted to hear what you non-believers thought were the main reasons to disbelieve in the historical Jesus. And some of you have told me. I have responded to some comments, not to others, because I don't wish and never intended to get into long arguments about it all.

Is that answering your question?

ercatli

Yes, that is correct Doug. The difference I was making is between presenting what you see as the evidence and the arguments, but not investing emotional energy in trying to change my mind - i.e. doing what you can do without worrying what I will do. As I said in the OP, I hoped that might create light but less heat. And perhaps it has to a degree. At any rate it has occupied us all for 20+ pages so far. Thanks for your contribution.

ercatli

You also made an assertion: "This is not true, but you keep repeating it." Are you willing to support it with evidence? I don't want to go to the trouble of gathering my evidence together and then find you don't come to the party with yours.

So, if I assemble my evidence first, will you undertake to assemble yours?

Larkin31

yes

so, you are just canvassing for info? Are you genuinely curious about the topic, or is this an anthropological inquiry?

Have you read Price (I have not, but a friend is going to lend to me soon)? There are probably better sources out there than these superficial posts here.

Toto

Are you saying that you made that assertion without having the evidence at hand????

I'm calling your bluff. You are typing statements that, if true, would support your position, but you don't actually have the evidence to support them

You have claimed that "It is significant that scholarship (and not just christian apologetic scholarship) is increasingly concluding more positively about the historicity and reliability of the gospels. I first studied this stuff a long time ago, when people like Bultmann were the most influential, but a lot has changed since then, and more rigorous methods are leading to this change."

I say this is baloney. The only "scholarship" that is "increasingly" positive about the historical reliability of the gospels is Christian apologetic scholarship, such as Richard Bauckham's attempts to find evidence of eyewitnesses in the gospels.

You might be able to argue that the so called "third quest" was more positive about scholar's ability to extract history from the gospels than an earlier time, but this trend did not continue. The high point of the third quest was the Jesus Seminar, which was based on an assumption that Jesus existed and was unwilling to actually face up to the lack of historiticy of the gospels.

What have you actually read of current biblical scholarship?

Toto

Which is precisely my point - there is no trend towards finding more historicity in the gospels. If anything, the trend is to avoid the question as unanswerable.

Chaucer

Nor is there a trend to finding none either. The stalled JP seems to have stopped that in its tracks as well.

Chaucer

Loomis

Sure it is. Zombie is in fact a sensible word for it.

Here’s the definition of zombie:
And here’s Matthew 27:52-53:
The definition says that a zombie is a dead body that has been brought back to life. And Matthew 27:52-53 says that bodies came out of the tombs; were raised to life, and went into the city.

That would make them zombies.

See?

Zaphod

Here are some basic reasons not to believe in a historical Jesus:

You say you believe in a God who performed supernatural miracles, and you want to know why skeptics don't believe in the historical Jesus.

We don't believe in the historical Jesus for precisely the same reasons you don't believe in the 10,000 or so gods who preceded him. Each of which had multitudes of followers who believed in them as fervently as you believe in the god you have been inculcated to believe in since you were a small boy.

You already are an atheist for 10,000 gods, each of whom also performed supernatural miracles. Why should you not be an atheist for one more?

Right now on Planet Earth there are more people who believe in a different god than the number of those who believe in yours. Don't you find it curious that 99.9999 % of all religious people just happen to believe in the god and sect their parents believe and inculcated them in? Which god you believe in is therefore almost completely dependent on where and when you were born, yet even if there is a god, at least 2/3 of the believers in the world worship a false god.

Why doesn't this make you want to examine your initial premises, which were drummed into your head when you were a mere child, and instead actually demand evidence for the very unlikely proposition that your particular version of the godhead is not as false as all the others?

aa5874

So, in effect, religious people just "DO as the Romans DO". If the Romans say the Earth is flat, the earth must be flat. If the Romans say Jesus is a God, they must say Jesus is a God.

How can they do that when they were told and was drummed into their head that they can go to heaven?

Some people post here because they are missionaries for Jesus. They are actually doing the Lord's work and expect a reward in heaven.

Matthew 10.32 But, what would have happened if the Romans had chosen Marcion's Phantom as God or Allah?