mountainman

I disagree. This response is simply being overly formal and pedantic about the definition of the term 'logical fallacy' in this discussion. This has been already pointed out on a number of occassions. No apologies have been forthcoming. The term 'logical fallacy' at WIKI is as follows, and the bolded section of the definition clearly allows a general use of the term 'logical fallacy' to represent an argument which is problematic for any reason.

Consequent the OP may validly and generally be paraphrased ...:

The HJ theory is a Logical Fallacy

or

The HJ theory contains problematic arguments

Examples of the problematic arguments include "Jesus walking on water", "Jesus resurrection after death", "Jesus ascension through the clouds", etc, etc, etc ad nauseum ....






A table which had been prepared in this forum through collaboration has been provided above. People use the term HJ Theory to refer to books, articles and publications that espouse the postulate that Jesus was an historical figure. I think it is reasonable to expect that aa5874 is using the generally perceived meaning of the "HJ Theory". If you dont understand what this is or what it means it may be appropriate for you to start another thread entitled "What is the HJ theory", and request some assistance.

J-D

1. My question is not what you mean by 'logical fallacy', but what aa5874 means by it. aa5874 has never answered this question.

2. The table you presented earlier does not show 'Jesus walking on water', 'Jesus resurrection after death', or 'Jesus ascension through the clouds' as parts of 'the HJ theory'.

mountainman

It is clear to me at least that aa5874 means that it is problematic. But perhaps it is only clear to me that aa5874 means that it is problematic because I too see it as problematic. You may not. Do you see anything problematic in the historical jesus?


Perhaps you need a picture of the spectrum of HJ theories (plural) and those of the non HJ theories (i.e.myth MJ) (plural):




Note the yellow shaded triangle which is wide and based at the top and diminishes to nothing in the middle of the spectrum of Jesus Theories. This yellow shading essentially represents a measure of HISTORICITY, that fades out to nothing where the Jesus theories of the 21st century turn to the non historical jesus, or mythical jesus, as a postulate for their theories on Jesus.

The historical Jesus theories are all very problematic for many reasons.


The evidence supporting the picture, in the detail are the English translations of the Greek New Testament in which it is written concerning these claims "Jesus walking on water", "Jesus resurrection after death", "Jesus ascension through the clouds". aa5874 has already furnished the references. Did you miss them? Do you want the references again for these problematic examples?

The historical Jesus theories are all very problematic for many reasons.

Non historical Jesus theories

It is therefore suggested that a more successful theory in the field of ancient history, with the ability to adequately explain all the available evidence in our possession in the 21st century, and which will eventually replace the theory that Jesus was historical, will be a theory for which the postulate will be that Jesus was not historical. For those who are logic impaired it will be sufficient to define "historical" with the two diametrically opposed examples. Bilbo Baggins was not an historical person. Bob Marley was an historical person. Jesus H. Christ was not an historical person in the sense that Bilbo Baggins was not an historical person.

J-D

You say the NT is historically unreliable.

Let's talk about historical reliability.

Here's part of what Wikipedia has to say on the subject in its general article on historical method:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histori...al_reliability
I don't know whether you agree with that, but I do.

Few documents are completely reliable. No history, or almost no history, could be written at all if only completely reliable documents could be used. It's reasonable for historians to make extensive use of documents which are highly reliable, moderate use of documents which are moderately reliable, qualified use of documents which are only qualifiedly reliable, and sporadic use of documents which are sporadically reliable.

Further, I agree that each statement's reliability should be weighed, regardless of the general reliability of the document it comes from. Even in a generally reliable document, some individual statements may be unreliable, and even in a generally unreliable document, some individual statements may be be reliable.

In fact, every document that exists, and every statement in each document is a piece of historical evidence. If a statement in a document is false, it is still a matter of historical fact that it was made, and historical method is, in principle, just as applicable to investigating the question of how and why it came to be recorded as it is to true statements in documents, although historians may for various reasons be more interested in some statements than in others and may disregard material not because they have reason to think it false but because they have no reason to think it important.

So here's a short piece of text (Mark 6:21-23) from the New Testament (using the first translation I found when I searched the Web for one):If, for some reason, historians are interested in the reliability of that story, a general judgement of the reliability of the whole of the New Testament or even just of the whole of the Gospel of Mark is not sufficient to settle the point. Nor is it the case that the question even about that short piece of text has only two simple possible answers ('Yes' or 'No'; 'True' or 'False'; 'Reliable' or 'Unreliable'). It might be that some parts are true but some parts are false. For example, it might be that the king offered Herodias's daughter a gift but did not offer anything she asked up to half his kingdom. Or it might be that he made exactly that offer but the part about the girl dancing is not true. Or the whole thing could be made up, or it could all have happened exactly as described.

Historians who wanted to investigate the matter would have to compare many possible theories. True statements are sometimes added to records by eyewitnesses and sometimes by people who only heard about them from eyewitnesses. False statements are sometimes added to records by people who knew them to be false and sometimes by people who honestly thought them to be true. Errors are sometimes made when documents are copied: are there any sorts of errors that might be a plausible explanation of part of the history of this text? If Herod did have a banquet, how likely is it that people would have talked about it? If Herod did not have a banquet, how likely is it that people would have made up the story of one? Was Herod actually a king, and how does that affect the reliability of the rest of the story? Out of several different people known as Herod, which one might this have been, and how might that affect the reliability of the story?

And no judgement on the general reliability of the whole New Testament is sufficient to settle the matter.

J-D

It depends what you mean by 'the historical Jesus'. There are or have been lots of people and things called Jesus. I mentioned just a few of them earlier in this thread.That's interesting, but it doesn't settle the point at issue. For one thing, it's a mistake to have 'a collection of anecdotes' placed on that spectrum. The collection of anecdotes exists. We know that. All the other things on that spectrum might possibly be part of an attempt to explain the existence of the collection of anecdotes. But none of them is stated with enough detail to be an adequate theory about the collection of anecdotes or about anything else. They're too vague. What's the difference between 'an influential person' and 'a minor figure', for example? What if some of the anecdotes are about a minor figure and some are based on pagan myths? What if some of the same anecdotes are both anecdotes about a minor figure and based on pagan myths? What if a mythical Jewish cult figure was a pious fraud based on pagan myths?If the question is 'are the stories about Jesus dying and then coming back to life based on an actual case in which somebody died and then came back to life?', then I answer with no difficulty, 'No.' But nobody is prepared to commit to saying 'the HJ theory means the theory that the stories about Jesus dying and then coming back to life are based on an actual case in which somebody died and then came back to life', and nobody is prepared to commit to any other explicitly testable statement of what 'HJ theory' means.So you say. But it is still not clear to me what any of those 'many reasons' are.

The fact that the New Testament includes some statements about Jesus which are false is enough reason to reject any theory which says 'all the statements about Jesus in the New Testament are true'. But nobody is prepared to commit to that (or anything else) as an explicit definition of what 'HJ theory' means.So far I have seen no reason to prefer the postulate that Jesus Christ was like Bilbo Baggins to the postulate that Jesus Christ was not like Bilbo Baggins.

aa5874

Please deal with the OP.

Herod was NOT described as the Child of a Holy Ghost, the Word that was God, the Creator of heaven and earth who walked on water, TRANSFIGURED, RESURRECTED on the THIRD day and ASCENDED in a cloud.

It is PERFECTLY reasonable and Logical to THEORISE that there was an historical Herod because there are credible sources of antiquity that mentioned Herod the tetrarch.

Well, here is a short piece of text (Matthew 1.18-20)from the New Testament that I found.

Matthew 1:18-21 - Please tell us how historians managed to put forward the "theory" that Jesus of the NT was really an ordinary man form Nazareth when when it was a Child of a Ghost that lived there during the reign of Tiberius in the very same NT.

Once Scholars claim Jesus was really an ordinary man of Nazareth then they have DISCREDITED the authors of the Jesus stories.

It MUST be logical that Scholars MUST find credible sources of antiquity for their ordinary man.

There are no credible sources of antiquity for HJ of Nazareth, who was Baptized by John and was crucified under Pilate.

There are NO historical FACTS for the historical Jesus.

A proper theory NEEDS FACTS.

The is historical Jesus was DERIVED from False Dichotomies and logical fallacies.

J-D

So, are you talking about the historical reliability of everything in the New Testament, or only the historical reliability of some parts of the New Testament?

mountainman

Then I suggest you send an email to the author RG Price. The page reference is here


To some people however it is not in fact a collection of anecdotes but the inspired word of the Most High and Holy God Man. To yet other people it is not in fact a collection of anecdotes but a collection of pious forgeries. We should know that too.


If you spend some time reading about the meaning of the spectrum, after you have examined the various things on the spectrum, you would have greater clarity. You can read how the author originally described the segmentation of the spectrum of theories at the above page.

Alternatively, here is my summary of that author's work:



See above for the sources. All these "what's the difference between" questions are simplified considerably by considering the concept of historicity alone. It should be obvious that there are many forms of HJ theories, but they are all characterised by allocating to Jesus a percentage historicity that exceeds 0%.


Take this up with R.G Price if you send him an email.



Nonsense. The spectrum provided is a spectrum of various explicit HJ Theories from the top ... "The HJ was the One True God" down. You dont seem to appreciate that everyone has their own idea on the HJ and that it is reasonable to argue the case that there have been thousands of "theories" published via the media of books and paperbacks over the last century. The spectrum presented in the picture and in the table correspond to a representative sample across many HJ theories.


Equal mindedness is an asset.

J-D

Excellent. There's something substantial to work with.

Number 1 I know can't be true, because there is no God. As between the other seven I've seen nothing on this thread that justifies preferring one of them over the others.

aa5874

I really don't understand you at all. You don't appear to know Physics, or Logics and keep RECYCLING a lot of questions

1.I have already stated that it is LOGICAL to THEORISE that there was an historical Pilate because Pilate in the NT was corroborated by Philo and Josephus?

2. I have already stated that it is LOGICAL to THEORISE that there was an historical TIberius because Tiberius in the NT was corroborated by Philo and Josephus and Suetonius?

3. I have already stated that it is LOGICAL to THEORISE that there was an historical Caiaphas because Caiaphas in the NT was corroborated by Josephus?

Please deal with the OP.

Jesus Christ in the NT, the same source with Herod, was the Child of a Ghost and Satan was the Devil and they were BOTH on the Pinnacle of the Temple when the DEVIL asked Jesus to JUMP. See Matthew 4.

It would appear that the DEVIL and Jesus were non-historical characters in the NT.

Why is NOT the Devil a figure of history?

Without credible sources of antiquity for HJ it is LOGICAL to consider that Jesus and SATAN were MYTH characters in NT MYTH fables.

It is a LOGICAL fallacy to claim there was an historical Jesus because parts of the stories are embarrassing.

Bart Ehrman uses the "criterion of embarrassment" to claim HJ was baptized by John.

How illogical!!!

Bart Ehrman MUST know that FICTION stories may contain embarrassing events.