aa5874

Can you show me these essentisl points where the Bible records are accurate. I have been looking, for years, to find those essential accurate points.

I have not been able to link the name Jesus to a body. I believe your finding, that the Bible is accurate in essential points, may reverse my view.

Thanks in advance, hope to hear from you soon. I am desperately in need of your information.

TrueMyth

Sorry, I didn't read your profile close enough to see that you were from the UK and probably don't know about what we here "across the pond" call liberal arts colleges. :Cheeky: Liberal arts colleges here are basically institutions of higher learning that place emphasis on a broad range of learning, and not just specializations. See liberal arts, here.

I think you're doing violence to the term "fundamentalism/ist" by including as essential features belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus, original sin, and Satan. This is more than my personal opinion which I am stating here. See fundamentalism, here, for a definition. In it, you will notice that emphasis on inerrantism, dispensational eschatology, social separatism, and the abstinence from drink, tobacco, dancing, and/or cards are essential features of fundamentalism. Your description encompasses all of orthodox Christianity but the most liberal of denominations/theologians.

Thus, Lewis was not, in any possible sense of the word which is accurate, a fundamentalist. In fact, any fundamentalist would shudder at the thought!

gurugeorge

Nice one! Good that you're taking up this ball and running with it.

Actually thinking about it a bit more, we need to have the MJ camp similarly split! There are several "mythical Jesus"s too. There's the usual type of "spirit communication" god - i.e. the founders actually had experiences of communicating with an entity they called "Christ". Then there's the idea of a philosophical bridge-entity (an entity that has to exist philosophically). Then there's the idea of dying-and-rising God, betokening immortality or future life. A whole menagerie (in several given members of which the early Christian community may well have believed!)

So that would be 2 columns - the historical Jesi and the "mythical" Jesi (already we can see the limitation of "mythica- but it's not too bad a term to describe the camp who think there was no flesh and blood guy behind the story at all).

Yes, I think it would be good to throw it out to a more general audience.

TrueMyth

I'm afraid I must respectfully disagree. No other passage in the Antiquities has been seriously questioned by scholars, which lends credence to both passages referencing Jesus in it. In addition, the "Testimonium Flavium" was in an entirely different book from the passage I was referencing, which called Jesus "the so-called Christ". Thus, it is not embedded in a controversial passage, and cannot be said to have been a later Christian addition. Even the TF is argued by Louis Feldman, the pre-eminent Josephus scholar, to have this quality: "The most probable view seems to be that our text represents substantially what Josephus wrote, but that some alterations have been made by a Christian interpolator" (p. 49, Loeb edition, 1963). As far as what we can glean from Josephus' person, be careful you do not Poison the Well. Simply b/c he was polemic in some areas does not mean he is unreliable in all. The question we need to ask is, Where is it reasonable to suppose, in a given passage, that his known bias might be interposing? In the brother of James passage in Book 20, which I was referencing, there is a definite tone of skepticism: "the so-called Christ". There is no bias obviously present, and since Josephus' Antiquities is considered a reliable record overall, we can deduce that the following are true of the historical person we know as Jesus:

1. Jesus the man existed (Books 20, 18)
2. Jesus was "a wise man" (18)
3. Jesus was "a doer of wonders" (18)
4. Jesus "drew many after him" (18)
5. Jesus was executed by Pilate (18)
6. Jesus was known as the Christ/Messiah (20)
7. Christians were named after him. (20, 18)

You are very right, and I apologize for jumping to motivational conclusions. This is an area where the historical record is not entirely 100% clear, but if I were to assign it a valence, I would put it about 75% that the above facts are true about Jesus. These are the "essential facts" about the Gospel record which I see as being historically accurate. Beyond that, the Gospels can only be used for theological purposes.

J-D

And therefore it is impossible for this book sitting here on my lap to exist.

And yet I can feel its weight on my thighs! I'm sorry, you just can't explain that away.

J-D

That strikes me as assuming what is supposed to be proved.

J-D

Intriguing. I shall look into this further.

J-D

In fact, the (pre-Christian) Romans did not use a seven-day week, nor did 'most' ancient cultures: for example, the Egyptians didn't. The seven-day week is an ancient Mesopotamian invention, based on the astronomical/astrological considerations you refer to, and seems to have passed from the Mesopotamians to the Jews and thence to Christianity and Islam.

J-D

Why should I restrict my investigations to the views of people who can't spell?

TrueMyth

"It can be shown" depends on one's original assumptions. If another person does not see why they ought to operate under those assumptions, the conclusions drawn from them will then be suspect. For example, here are three of the major presuppositions of the Jesus Seminar:

1. Prophetic statements: References to actual occurrences, such as the destruction of the Temple and/or Jerusalem, could not possibly have been stated by Jesus, because no one could know the future.

2. Miracles: Are not possible, therefore any on record are later additions by over-zealous followers. Thus, we can expunge all record of miracles from the Gospels as inauthentic.

3. Jesus' person: Any reference to his Messiaship, his place as the fulfillment of prophecy, or his relationship to God must have been added by his devoted followers. Jesus did not make these sort of statements.

Later on, you state, "It depends on what you mean by 'authentic.'" This is precisely the point I am making: not that the Gospels are obviously historically accurate or reliable, or that we ought to approach the above types of Jesus statements as possibly true. However, it must be acknowledged that these presuppositions a priori rule out the Jesus of the Gospels as existing. These assumptions appeal to a naturalistic philosophy, and well they should; yet, they are not universally applicable. Thus, they are not conclusions for everyone, they are conclusions for those who agree with the presuppositions.

If the intent of the Jesus Seminar, and other similar hermeneutics, is to provide evidence for the naturalistic community, then it succeeds brilliantly. If its intent is to present an argument as part of a coherentist web of beliefs which is compelling in virtue of its overall coherence, then it makes many good points. However, as someone for whom the arguments for those presuppositions are not compelling, and who finds the overall web of beliefs in naturalism to not correspond with what is known of reality, I do not agree with the findings of the Jesus Seminar.

In addition, I would challenge most strongly your assertion that what we can find of Jesus shows him to be a bigot, racist, and unoriginal. To illustrate this, let's look at the five sayings of Jesus which garnered the most votes for authenticity from the Jesus Seminar:

1. "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also"
2. "If anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well"
3. "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God"
4. "If anyone forces you to go one mile, go the also the second mile"
5. "Love your enemies"

All five advocate moral behavior very much above and beyond the moral understanding of the time. The ethic of "An eye for an eye" was still very much in place, and for Jesus to seemingly contradict this would have been very original. In addition, to state that the Kingdom of God belongs to the poor would have been absolutely unheard of in ancient Palestine, as would loving one's enemies. I am baffled as to how you can perceive these five most authentic sayings of Jesus (as determined by a jury which is hardly anywhere near partial) as being evidence of racism, bigotry, or an ethic which is far from what we consider as good, let alone unoriginal. I can find absolutely no foundation for this claim of yours. If you have some, please provide it for me so we can discuss it.

I respectfully disagree. It is entirely reasonable, and a very sufficient explanation, to state that Josephus in the "brother of James" passage was simply identifying which Jesus he was referring to. He references at least 12 different Jesuses in the Antiquities alone, and one of them even occurs later on in the paragraph. In addition to this, there does not seem to be any reason to suppose that this was added in later by Christians. If Josephus were to say, "Jesus, the one who was the Christ," there would be good grounds for supposing this, especially in light of Origen's testimony regarding Josephus' beliefs. However, he stated, "Jesus, who was called the Christ," which in some translations comes out as "Jesus, the so-called Christ". This seems quite clearly to be an absence of partisanship in any form. At its worst, it is even expressing sarcastic derision to such partisanship. Josephus was no more being partisan in that sentence than I would be if I would say, "Mohammed, whom some believed to be a prophet of Allah." Thus, I find no reason to suppose that any part of the James passage is a later addition, and strong prima facie evidence to suppose that it was original.

He was indeed known to be critical to claims to Messiaship. Which is why he did not endorse Jesus, as Origen tells us. There is nothing in the "brother of James" passage which indicates his endorsement of Jesus, and in TF this is almost certainly inserted by later Christians.

In addition, I would like to point out that Paul began his ministry among the Jews, and later abandonded this venture to focus on the Gentiles. Part of this was due to the response he received in the Jewish community, and part of it was due to his feeling that God was telling him to spread the message to more than just his Chosen People.