ApostateAbe

OK, great. We all agree right off the bat that the New Testament contains fiction. I can tell that you spent a lot of time arguing with fundamentalist Christians.

Toto

But you never seem to be willing to admit the possibility that a genuine record might have erroneous or incredible sections, or that this is a matter of constructing the most plausible theory to explain events.

So what does it matter whether you conclude that the entire NT is fictional after showing that one event is fiction or 500? There are rational people who would agree with you that these separate events are fictional, but still maintain that a human Jesus is the best explanation of various non-fictional historical events. You need to move the discussion on to the next level and interact with these people instead of just shouting at them (metaphorically, or course.)

Realize that most of the people that you are arguing with here think that the gospels are a myth and Jesus probably never existed. But because you continue to point out the fictional parts and then immediately assert in bold letters that Jesus was the son of a ghost, you make any discussion difficult.

LogicandReason

There is no collaborative evidence to the Gospel earthquake or darkness claims. It seems improbable that the entire rest of the world missed these phenomenons.

aa5874

I ask you again, please do not mis-represent my position by making erroneous claims about me.

I have stated already anything is possible but only historical evidence can overturn my position.

If you think Jesus did exist then provide the historical evidence.

I have already stated it is possible that a person tested positive for a disease may not have the disease, since no test is 100% accurate. But once tested positive that person would be declared to have the disease.

I am NOT here to waste time with people who want to imagine that there might be historical evidence for Jesus somewhere out there that they do NOT know whether it can be found, or whether it is credible.

The NT, church writers, and non-canonised writers claimed Jesus was a God who created the world and then later became a man and was resurrected and went to heaven.

This creature is a myth.

I can only admit Jesus was a figure of history when historical evidence is found.

You need not mis-represent my position. I will always shout when you do that.

Now, it is obvious irrationality to declare that Jesus of the NT did exist knowing that the NT is full of fiction, and there is no historical evidence to support his existence.

I will never get to the level where assumptions are constanly on this forum are considered as facts.

That is absurd. I can bold any letter that I want to.

All the posters have their positions and they should have their evidence or information to support their case.

It is laughable for you to claim that a bolded word makes discussion difficult, when not one single poster has complained to me about that problem.

And Jesus, the offspring of the Holy Ghost was not fabricated by me, it can be found in the NT, Matthew 1.18.

It appears to me that you are trying to distract me or derail the thread.

Why don't you deal with the OP instead of me.

I write facts not imagination, that is my level

fatpie42

I think the issue here is that Jesus' historicity has not been disproven because it is unfalsifiable. However, there are certain things that would be very unlikely even if a historical Jesus did exist.

While on the one hand, I recognise and understand your decision to be uncompromising in your assertion that there is no good historical evidence for Jesus' historicity and that this fact is vital to the debate. On the other hand, I think it is a bad idea to shout people down when they are merely considering plausible ideas concerning the historical Jesus.

It is plausible that Jesus was a historical person deified by early Christians. However, we would also wish to note that without historical evidence for a historical person, any claims that said person was deified are pure speculation.

See how I'm approaching this?

Aha! I've heard about this before, but I hadn't realised that it was NASA who provided the evidence. It seems so obvious now.

aa5874

When was Achilles disproven, or Unicorns disproven?

It is absolutely not necessary to read every single book ever written to check for the historicity of Achilles, or to personally examine every square inch of the UNIVERSE to search for Unicorns to DECLARE them non-existent.

Let those who think Jesus, Achilles and Unicorns existed provide the HISTORICAL evidence.

I challenge people to produce historical evidence for their Jesus.

I do not compromise my position to people who had 2000 years to produce historical evidence for Jesus and have been a complete failure.

How can it be plausible without historical evidence? You mean you imagine it may be plausible. After reading Matthew 1.18, Acts 1.9, the NT, the church writings and non-canonised writings I threw that plausibilty out of the window.



You see why I can't compromise my position.

You can't compromise your position if you want to shred the HJer's position to bits.

LogicandReason

That is great stuff!

fatpie42

That's precisely my point. If something is unfalsifiable it is unscientific.

Nevertheless I was also pointing out that something being 'plausible' is rather different. This does nothing to advance the historical Jesus case, but it does help to shape the debate.

Just as accounts of unicorns are often implausible (very rarely is a unicorn asserted as simply 'a horse with a horn on its head'), so too is the traditional religious view of Jesus (and even many literalist Christians would accept this because that would relate to the need for 'faith').

As I said before, plausibility does nothing to advance the case for the historical Jesus, but it does at least frame the debate. I think it is important to be able to say to the historical Jesus proponents that "the most you can possibly assert is this...", making clear that in the end all they are able to assert is what almost certainly didn't happen, not what did i.e. if Jesus lived he probably wasn't born in Bethlehem, if Jesus lived he didn't come back from the dead, etc. Ruling out sections from the Jesus story doesn't give you a historical figure, it gives you an incomplete story.

It seems to me that you might be able to view plausibility as a more open question than historicity, that is all...

fatpie42

I'm not sure what you mean. I hope this isn't a backhanded compliment.

LogicandReason

No...I really like what you wrote.