GakuseiDon

In this case: someone who interacted with the physical world at some point in history. What is your definition?

No, he doesn't use the word "Jesus". Do you still maintain that he was ridiculing pagans for believing that a dead man could rise, as you said? Or was he ridiculing them for NOT believing? I.e. was your statement correct or incorrect?

Can you not see the problem in your reasoning??? Athenagoras is a Christian apologist whether he is a HJer or MJer. Either way, he doesn't mention the names "Jesus" or "Christ"... why isn't this a problem for the MJers?

rlogan

I was referring to an author that wrote about the Jesus Myth 100 years before Doherty. How could he be retreating from something that hadn't been written yet?

rlogan

Where is Mout Sinai?
You answer with a part hypothetical/part tautology and have the gumption to criticize the direct answer that there is nothing to venerate?

Goodness.

edited to add: There is a key point - so dreadfully key - that i do not see the HJ crowd contending with. What year, exactly, was jesus crucified?


All those witnesses. Big deal "trial" by the Sanhedrin and Pilate. Statements about the day - but not the year. Such a momentous event. The fulfillment of prophesy Christ himself purportedly asserted was necessary.

The crucifixion proponents cannot point to any real evidence that it happened. The first article should be "when".

Why no year? Because the event, as described, did not occur.

Vinnie

Dude, I say this in the nicest way possible: read some books. An exact chronology of Jesus' life and all the problems involved in such a reconstruction are a dime a dozen.

If you do not see HJers dealing with this issue it only serves to show that you don't read much literature here. Start with Volume 1 of Meier's Marginal Jew series. He offers a chronology and a great overview of the relevant issues.

Personally, I favor 30 C.E. for the year of Jesus' death but I am fine with ca. 30 C.E. Knowing the exact date is hardly a "key" and negelcted issue as you seem to caricature it as.

Your argument that there is no evidence for a when is just bankrupt. I thoroughly trashed this in point 15 of the Historical Jesus Skepticism FaQ:

http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/jesusfaq.html

I even provided the relevant pages from Meier on the chronology.

It would serve you and everyone else well here to read and familiarize yourselves with the pro-HJ comments in my Jesus FAQ.

Vinnie

rlogan

You just proved my point. And I do read literature. I happen to have Crossan's "Histortical Jesus" in front of me at the moment. He can't do it either. Nor does Meier.

The best you HJ wallflowers can do is try to give a range by throwing out one of the two contradictory birth dates, appeal to the "about thirty years old" ministry reference, the year of John the Baptist's work, and count passovers.

Nobody, anywhere in this period can say what the year was. Nobody. Dates were referenced by the year of whoever was reigning. "15th year of so-and-so"

That was a pretty snide remark cloaked with patronizing garb about "read some books". I think Toto made a pretty good point some time ago - when you don't have facts to offer you have only insults to offer.

So now, Vinnie - tell me exaclty what year Christ was Crucified according to a source that actually cites the year. Not one wherin someone tries to extrapolate inderectly from contradictory sources.

I know you cannot - because I do read Vinnie. "Favor" 30 C.E. is not a source. What does Matthew say? Mark? Luke? Epistles? Josephus? Anyone? Nobody.

I dug something up in Tertullian and asked for help pegging it to the A.D. dates and nobody offered help.

What the HJer's are not dealing with is exactly what I said: Why does no author say "Jesus was Crucified in year X of Pilate". Now deal with that.

mike_decock

[Mod Mode]

Vinnie: Please refrain from the "read some books" type of rhetoric.

rlogan: Please refrain from namecalling like wallflowers.

Thanks guys,

-Mike...

GakuseiDon

Rlogan, this thread is called "Challenging Doherty". It would be good to keep this thread on-topic. It's too easy for the focus to get split away.

Of course, you're welcome to start a new thread on off-topic subjects. Dating Christ's birth would be a good one.

rlogan

GD, you aren't the moderator.

Do I actually have to preface my Doherty specific points with "Doherty Says", and then Quote him? Very well.

Here's what "Doherty Says":

"Even Paul, this man so emotional, so full of insecurities, who declares (Philippians 3:10) that "all I care for is to know Christ, to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings," "

Paul is sure expressing a powerful want here.
It isn't something that he wants to do. It is all he wants to do.(Share in his sufferings)

So how can anybody be arguing that paul doesn't want to share in his suffering? That would be the crucifixion. If it happened.

So it looks like it didn't happen.

Doherty goes on at length about lack of evidence for crucifixion, and with the perverse logic of the HJers:

"Paul's faith is centered on the crucifixion. What bizarre mental processes could have led him to disembody it, to completely detach it from its historical time and place, from the life which culminated on Calvary?"

Well no kidding. So when did it happen?

Doherty goes on about the complete lack of evidence of a date in the contemporary historical record. He even considers the Christian assertions of darkness or earthquakes that could triangulate the year of crucifiction - and there's nothing there.

The fact that there is no year given for crucifiction is precisely relevant to Doherty.

The veneration theme is precisely relevant to Doherty.

I have reviewed some parts of Doherty and he incorporates by reference literature from 200 years of "Jesus Myth" writings.

So for you to suggest disqualifying me from mentioning such writings as if they did not pertain to Doherty at all is not a very fair tactic.

You want me to disqualify you from, say, quoting the Bible?

Toto

Speaking as a moderator, I see little hope of keeping this thread on a narrow topic. It started after a previous thread on Fredriksen v. Doherty was closed, and that thread was split twice to try to keep on topic. And there are THREE active threads on mythicism vs historicism going right now, with topics spread over all of them.

All we can ask is that the sniping and insults be kept down, and that posts should be substantive.

Toto

Regarding Marcion, I posted this in another thread:

Marcion claimed by Jesus Mythers