spin

Wot?

What Nazareth cul-de-sac? What do you mean?

Don't drag a literal translation into areas that have nothing to do with it.

All those things you want to read into a Greek word used before "all the notions of national identity" had had their harrying effects on our history.

Greeks lived in small cities, towns and villages and there usually wasn't the notion of anything greater, so when someone talked about their "πατρις", it was a tiny piece of turf.

Don't run with this. You're not looking where you're going with it, but at where we've been without it. Result is abrupt end of forward motion upon meeting wall.


spin

maryhelena

Are you saying that 'fatherland' refers to some place in Galilee? Would Capernaum, for instance, be more acceptable than Bethsaida - just because it is within the borders of Galilee? Thus making no sense of the translation 'fatherland'.
The never ending story - Jesus of Nazareth and his home town. Still there last I heard.... despite the arguments of some people that such a town was non-existent at the relevant time period.

Nope - big hole in the wall....

Sure, I don't need 'fatherland' - got where I'm at without it.... But it does so bring a little extra colour to my picture.

As for running with this - great fun to see just how far an idea will stretch....

dog-on

Maybe 'fatherland' refers to heaven, the only place where Jesus could find a working toilet, at the time.

maryhelena

Now that's a stretch too far that shatters any notions of 'fatherland' to pieces. ie one 'world' government up there....

And Galilee as a 'fatherland' to god fearing Jews when there is a Herodian usurper sitting in power if not on a throne.....:angry:

andrewcriddle

In modern history we typically have substantial amounts of material both from high quality sources and from weaker sources. A lot of the information from the weaker sources is both true and is confirmed by corroboration from the high quality sources. Some of it is false and is contradicted by the high quality sources. Some of it is true without confirmation and some false without contradiction.

Given the typical large quantities of first rate sources for modern history, material found only in weaker sources is likely to be both relatively unimportant and, (even if not explicitly contradicted by high quality sources), often wrong.

For ancient history there are typically much smaller amounts of information from really first rate sources, hence the fact that material from a relatively weak source is not explicitly corroborated by a really high quality source is not in itself much of a ground for suspicion. And, if we are to do history in this field at all, it is difficult to avoid using these non-ideal sources, too much important information is found only in such sources. Eg, if one wishes to try and write some sort of biography of Alexander the Great it is difficult to avoid using Plutarch's material on Alexander's childhood. (Without this material we have little evidence concerning the early influences on Alexander.) However, Plutarch was writing c 400 years after Alexander's death and his sources for the young Alexander are unclear.

Andrew Criddle

aa5874

Well, if one wishes to write the BIOGRAPHY of JESUS it is extremely difficult to avoid gMatthew, gMark, gLuke, gJohn, Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings.

Without the NT, we would have little evidence that Jesus was the OFFSPRING of the Holy Ghost, the Creator of heaven and earth, equal to God, who walked on water, transfigured, RESURRECTED on the third day and ASCENDED to heaven.

The Jesus story was written probably within 100 years of the supposed RESURRECTION and the source for the story is UNKNOWN.

Now, if one wants to write some kind of BIOGRAPHY on ROMULUS it would be extremely difficult to avoid Plutarch's account of ROMULUS.

It must be the EXTANT material about Alexander, Jesus and Romulus that MUST be examined. The time they wrote is NOT a real detriment unless they made up their stories.

There was a tradition in Antiquity for hundreds of years that Alexander was a man who died.

There was a tradition in Antiquity for hundreds of years that Jesus was the offspring of the Holy Ghost, with a human father, walked on water, transfigured , RESURRECTED, and ascended to heaven.

Jesus was just a TRADITIONAL MYTH based on the Histories of Antiquity.

The idea that the Creator of heaven and earth, the offspring of the Holy Ghost was crucified MUST be mythology regardless of the time the author actually wrote.

Kapyong

Gdsay,

But
We DO have a lot of references to minor figures of the day, there are 1000s of names mentioned in 1st and 2nd century works - such as this reference to a Jewish prophetess in Pausanias - a minor person no-one has ever heard of :

"Then later than Demo there was a prophetic woman reared among the Jews beyond Palestine; her name was Sabbe." Phokis, Book X, 12, [5]

So if even minor nobodies could be mentioned - we would expect there to be SOME mention of Jesus, if he existed.


Whoa !
You just switched from 'records' to 'eye-witness reports'.
Did you think people would not notice that bait-and-switch?

I have not seen anyone here 'demand' any 'contemporaneous eye-witness report'.
Have you?

So -
We DO have records of many minor figures from that period, including nobodies much less known that Jesus.

If Jesus made ANY mark at all, we would expect some references.


K.

aa5874

And that is EXACTLY what you cannot show. I am really surprised that would claim there are elements in the storyline that there was a SIGNIFICANT historical figure behind the gospel Jesus and cannot produce any evidence whatsoever to support the claim.

It is the COMPLETE OPPOSITE.

The fundamental ELEMENTS of the Jesus figure is HEBREW SCRIPTURE.

Examine gMatthew. Virtually EVERY EVENT and EVERY WORD was so that it might be fulfilled that was spoken by the prophets as it is written in the Scriptures.

Mt 1:22 - Mt 2:5 - Mt 2:15 - Mt 2:17 - Mt 2:23 -
Mt 3:3 -
Mt 4:4 - Mt 4:6 - Mt 4:7 - Mt 4:10 -
Mt 4:14 - Mt 5:17 - Mt 5:18 - Mt 5:27 - Mt 5:33 - Mt 5:38 - Mt 5:43 -
Mt 8:17 -
Mt 11:10 - Mt 11:13 - Mt 12:3 - Mr 12:10 - Mt 12:17 - Mt 13:14 - Mt 13:35 - Mt 16:4 - Mt 19:4 - Mt 21:4 - Mt 21:13 - Mt 21:16 - Mt 21:42 - Mt 22:29 - Mt 22:31 - Mt 24:30 - Mt 24:34 -
Mt 26:24 - Mt 26:31 - Mt 26:54 - Mt 26:56 - Mt 27:9 - Mt 27:35 - The actual EVIDENCE suggests that no historical figure was NEEDED to fabricate the Jesus figure just Hebrew Scripture.

spamandham

The argument is that Jesus was not really all that popular in his own day, and so there is no reason to expect any contemporary references to him, but that due to the actions of later cult members, his name became known. (one wonders why a nobody who remained a nobody was able to start a cult at all, and why that cult survived his death...)

Of course, if we give credit for the rise of Christianity to later cult members rather than Jesus, which is necessary to resolve the lack of contemporary reference, then the nobody Jesus presumption becomes an unnecessary hidden variable, unless it somehow does a better job of explaining the existence of Christianity. But it doesn't. Instead, it causes problems that simply don't exist from a mythicist perspective.

Mythicism is simpler in that it requires the fewest and least stretched contrivances, so it is tentatively correct.

spin

Appeals to simplicity require a concommitant demonstration that the proposition deals with all facets of the matter under consideration. The Einsteinian rule is make it as simple as possible, but no simpler.


spin