bacht

Maybe there was a Galilean like the one Mark gives us. I don't reject the possibility, it justs seems less probable the more I learn about biblical scholarship.

gurugeorge

But those references are not to a "historical Jesus" as we understand it (some wise guy or revolutionary) - those references are to a divine, miracle-working god-man.

To simply assume that they ARE in a roundabout way referring to a real human being is what is called "circular reasoning".

spamandham

I can not simply read Tom Sawyer and conclude that Huck Finn was historical. I *must* understand the intents of the author in order to properly analyze his work. The problem is, the gospels were not written with the intent of history, nor with the intent of biography in the modern sense, in spite of the fact that they are generally categorized as ancient biographies (a misnomer IMHO).

Their purpose is to explain Christian origins, to settle doctrinal disputes in the early church, to demonstrate that Jesus is more powerful than other gods, to demonstrate that Jews are no longer the chosen people, and so on. There is enough humor, irony, foreshadowing, and scriptural allusions in them to conclude that they might have even originated as actual fiction for the purpose of entertainment.

When you understand what the intents are, the gospels, and the entire NT more generally, are indeed evidence, but they are not evidence of the historicity of Jesus. They are evidence of the history of the early church.

GakuseiDon

So, did we ever get an answer to the question: Why "Jesus of Nazareth" in the Gospels? Was it because of the passage in Judges 13:5?

5 For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.

Did some "midrashist" see that passage, decide that the Messiah was supposed to be a Nazarene and either decided to make it into "Jesus of Nazareth" or some later person mistook "Jesus the Nazarene" (who travelled around Galilee and lived in Capernaum) into "Jesus of Nazareth"?

Alternatively, is Judges 13:5 a valid 'prophecy', so that evangelists are correct in that there were expectations that the Messiah was going to be a Nazarene, if not from Nazareth? Were there any messianic expectations about the Messiah being a Nazarene?

Kapyong

Gday,

"tag-team"? How silly.
You are tired of people disagreeing with you?
Perhaps you should address the facts then.


Steve - you just don't seem to understand what is going on here.

No-one "excludes" all the evidence.
We analyse it and draw conclusions.

And many of us conclude the evidence for a historical Jesus is very poor. Which is the OPPOSITE of "exluding all the evidence".

But you won't address the argument, and you won't even read any MJers work. You completely refuse to address the issue of Nazara etc. which shows your original post WRONG - you just stopped talking about it. Any posts which show you wrong just get ignored. You failed to come up with even ONE atheist NT scholar, so now you have totally dropped that subject too.


Prove?
So, you STILL don't understand there is no "PROOF" in ancient history ? Why don't you EVER listen to anyone, Steve?


It HAS been set forth, right here on this thread.
And you've been pointed to Earl's work.

But you refuse to address it.
You simply ignore most of the posts here, and you will NOT read Earl Doherty - but you keep claiming the MJers are wrong, while simply ignoring the arguments posted.


Like I said - you just refuse to address the arguments that HAVE been set forth. You START by rejecting the JM arguments, and then continue by just refusing to consider the JM arguments.


They ARE "cult documents".
How can you claim otherwise?
What is your point, exactly?
Or you picking nits about the word "cult"?
They are clearly "religious documents", faith documents.


Miracles stories ARE false. We know that. Miracles do not happen.


13 pages in - and we've all seen that you refuse to discuss the reasons. You started a thread about Nazareth - but when the details about Nazara etc. showed you were wrong, you just STOPPED discussing it. You conspicuously and repeatedly show you will NOT discuss something once you have been shown wrong.


Will YOU ever read Earl Doherty?
It appears not.


K.

Toto

That is a problem with discussion boards. If you want to have a one on one discussion with someone, there is a Informal Debate forum here. But I don't think that is quite what you are ready for.

The specific argument is that there is no positive reason to see Mark as a historical souce. You have not provided one. You have only attempted to shift the burden of proof onto others to explain why Mark cannot be historical.

I don't think you have absorbed all of the arguments.

Instead of shifting the burden of proof, state your case. Why should Mark be considered as evidence for a historical Jesus?

The following arguments will not work: 1) There is a consensus of experts that you have not read that Mark is historical. 2) If you remove the supernatural elements from Mark, the rest is possibly historical. 3) There are some details in Mark that later Christians thought were embarrassing.

GakuseiDon

How would you conclude that Huck Finn was historical or not? Surely one way would be to see if it fell into the genre into which fiction was expected, and also to examine how it was treated by the people at that time?

Ancient biographies were fancified accounts intended to highlight the life and death of its hero. The Gospels were written about someone who died in the authors' recent past. AFAIK ancient biographies were written about people who were thought to have existed. Where the bio was about someone who lived in the distant past, probably not even the author knew for certain whether the hero lived. But if indeed the Gospels were written within a century of the hero, that would raise the probability that the hero actually live, assuming that the work was not intended for fiction.

From what we understand, the Gospels were thought to be about someone who actually lived. That notion that the gospels weren't written to record history is irrelevant, AFAICS, if they fell into a category where it is thought that the **central character** was historical.

Certainly the possibility exists that the Gospels were written as fictional works. But given their genre and how they were viewed, I don't think the evidence is very strong. People changed them around, which is not how we would treat modern biographies, but as you remind us: they weren't biographies in the modern sense of the word.

Well, I would say that they are evidence for the historicity of Jesus, when you take into account:
1. From the evidence we have, everyone took them to be the record of someone called "Jesus Christ" who was crucified under Pilate
2. Paul seems to be referring to a man ("born of woman", "from the fathers according to the flesh", etc) called "Jesus Christ" who was crucified arguably in the first half of the First Century (based on "first-fruits", appearances to Peter, James and Paul, etc). No-one thinks that Paul was writing fiction.

I know people here disagree with both points so no need to tell me I'm wrong, but putting both together provides a strong circumstantial case for the historicity of Jesus. The gospels could be fictional, and **still** both points would be strong evidence for historicity. (Actually, Paul alone is probably enough to establish historicity, but that's another question).

Ferryman to the Dead

No he has no idea. Lets look at what we don't have for this Jesus.

(1). Nothing in his own hand writing.
(2). No life from age 12 until his thirties.
(3). Nothing historical on him at all.
(4). Born of a virgin but yet had brothers (Total contradiction).
(5). Was never seen by anyone only in dreams and visions.
(6). Died on a cross, rose in 3 days, Gospel accounts from 3 hours to 3 days?
(7). Been predicted to return the last 2000 years still not here.

The list goes on. Suffice it to say that given the information we have he was created from other ancient Gods and God men, he was born out of astrology nothing more than an astrological motif. Steve you should really look deeper at the Mythicists position my friend because as was said you have no idea. Mythicism just does not concern Jesus, it concerns other Gods who were created out of astrological motifs and there were many.

This is one part that does not make sense. Why would Nero turn him back over to Pilate to be executed? His only crime was blasphemy and under Roman law at the time that was not punishable by death. Pilate was forced into executing him by the Jews at the time. Which goes to show that even the Jewish population at the time did not believe in this fairy tale. They were given a choice between a convicted killer and Jesus they chose the convicted killer.

aa5874

HJers REJECT the Galilean in gMark.

According to HJers, Jesus of the NT was fully embellished or fictionalized.

Juststeve

Toto:

If you read Don's post number 327 you will have an answer I would think very reasonable. I would also endorse the three reasons you have ruled out of court as a prima facie matter but then I have more respect for recognized scholars than you. Real scholars at real universities, not guys like Doherty who as far as I can tell is posting from his mother’s basement.

Steve