Adam

Nice that you read enough of my Post #2 to quote part of one sentence....But had you read on in the post you would have found seven instances of proposed eyewitnesses. In each case you would have found by following the first link (Post #69 in was the johannine community jewish) that there was a supporting post in my Gospel Eyewitnesses at Post #436 that listed the proposed written source from an eyewitness to Jesus.

Perspicuo

So copying from another story is not a sign that the new story never literally happened?

(I'm not a mythicist, I just happened to come by and notice a hole in your logic.)

Toto

I don't think the quote is selective.

The important point that Davies makes is that mythicism is a respectable possibility, and most claims that Jesus surely existed do not have a firm basis in historical evidence or sound logic. You have so far refused to concede that point.

This is probably an accurate summary:

outhouse

any event recorded in ancient history, needs to stand under its own merit.



example Noahs flood, straight mythology with no historical core because it just didnt happen right??? well no you would be wrong. There was a real flood the story was based from, amnd a real man who rode down a flooded river on a barge with livestock and goods loaded up.

Noahs story was just influemced by previous mythology, so that Israelites could teach their morals and allegory through theology

Clivedurdle

Isn't Carrier being disingenius? Is not the writer Catholic and all he has done is restate Catholic theology that Christ is fully god and fully man, and that the historical jesus idea is a heresy?

As fully god fully man is a chimera, this therefore makes the Orthodox and Catholic and Anglican and basically all churches' Christ a mythological figure for atheists.

But for xians who believe in a real god this is not a mythical chimera.

We really must be very clear and precise about peoples' background assumptions.

(And on Adam's point, I am confused about the reference above to eye witnesses of the resurrected Jesus).

Perspicuo

Whoa.
How do you know the basis of the Noah story is a tiny kernel of truth?
How do you know the Jesus story has a tiny kernel of truth?

See the difference?

Also,
Does Superman have a kernel of truth? What about Herakles? Where do you draw the line between minute "kernel of truth" and "theme"? By theme I mean "man who preaches", "smart bunny", "hero", "unruly boy has adventures", where there is no kernel story, just a story subject.

maryhelena

Good advise!

At first blush the statement from the Product Description of his book sounds encouraging re a scholar prepared to uphold, or at least consider, the ahistoricist JC position.

The Product Description goes on:

It could well be that Brodie is attempting some 'sophisticated' theology here...

Sure, a theist could still be an ahistoricist re the gospel JC. But a Catholic Dominican scholar? It seems that Brodie still has his job: Director, Dominican Biblical Centre, Limerick, Ireland.

I think Carrier said he will review the book. Perhaps then he, and his readers, will get a better idea of what Brodie actually means when, as in the Product Description, he writes to the effect that: "Jesus did not exist as a historical individual."

If Brodie is saying that the figure at the center of the gospel story, and thus of the Christian religion/theology, was not a historical figure - then how is he getting away with staying in his job? Hans Kung was censured for much less than this....

Hans Kung

Kung rejects the Catholic infallibility doctrine and loses his licence to teach as a Catholic theologian.

Brodie - re the Product Description of his book - rejects the gospel JC as being a historical figure - and keeps his job teaching Catholic theology?

Clivedurdle

I understand the mythicist position to be very simple and completely in accord with church doctrine over the millennia - Christ is fully god and fully man.

There is a tiny difference in how this state of affairs came to be. The xian view is that God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son etc.

My position is that we are looking at story and myth and dream, of god with us, of lions laying down with lambs, without a vision the people perish.

A historical Jesus as some idea of history always needs founder, some kind of grit in the pearl is both blasphemous to xians and unnecessary logically.

maryhelena

But did he walk the sands of Palestine? Did he leave a footprint? Whatever sophisticated theology can dream up - the man on the street or sitting in that pew on a Sunday - is there because of the human touch, the flesh that was pinned to that cross of Calvary. If Brodie can no longer teach this theology, that the Word became Flesh - then how come he still has his job?

Visions for terra firma - I sometimes think Christian theology has left terra firma behind and opted for a place among the heavenly stars.... It's that ride on the clouds of heaven they are waiting for......

That aside - yes, visions that focus on terra firma are, to my thinking, what it's really all about...

outhouse

I told you bud, each legend has to stand under its own merit after study.

we cant nor do, lump them togther. that would be bad scholarships



because there were many myths about a flood, and the wording is identical in places from Ziusudras ride on a barge on the Euphrates in 2900 BC

The man is real found on a Sumerians kings list, and the flood is attested in archeology and written in mythology by Sumerians


and we see that myrthology evolve in mesopotamian mythology almost a 1000 years before Isrealites write their version almost word for word.

Isrealites had no idea there was a historical core, but hey used that mythology as their forfathers did.

the Isrealite legend matches in many places word for word from the original, as many aspects made it 1000 years in written and oral tradition told arouind campfires.

You want a book dont you


Ill say for multiple reasons.

Legends told by different authors from different sources at different times that almost all describe the same thing. And I understand Gmark is the foundation, the other authors used, but hey did add what they thought was different in their version.

and of course taking into account the older the kegend the lager it will get.


roman emporers were called "sons of god" and were living mortals.

romans wrote about jesus, not all jews, and these romans were competeing with other mortal men with jesus divinity, which they attributed to mortals in their hellenistic mythology.

Josephas mentions people in the early mnovement in negative ways like christos, which almost a dirty word

romans would not deify a jewish peasant teacher healer who worked only for dinner scraps.




what I see is the events at the temple in front of possibly 400,000 witnesses, is jesus fighting the corruption in the temple due to the roman infection, and this spread the oral tradition within the jewish and roman communities

and that is exactly what we see in the writings left over written decades after the supposed facts