dongiovanni1976x

A large majority of these scholars (not all) have agreed that it is more probable that Jesus was a Jewish man, who preached a Jewish message (that god's justice was "at hand") that attracted some followers, who was later crucified and then venerated for one reason or another, than that he never existed at all and the whole story was made up.

Geza Vermes, Paula Fredriksen, Michael Grant, Bart Ehrman, Helmut Koester, Wayne Meeks and Harold Attridge to name a few of the more recognizable scholars who have supported this minimalist position.

Biff the unclean

Oh, so when you say that all these scholars claim there was an HJ what you are really saying is that all these scholars agree that they don’t have an HJ but they really, really want there to be an HJ. With all of the ranting and raving going on on these boards by supporters of HJ about all of these wonderful scholars emphatically stating that there was an HJ I had been left with the false impression that there was an HJ.
Why did you bother to give me this list of scholars so poor that they cannot support their own position?

dongiovanni1976x

Define support and what you think their HJ position is, and I will be better equipped to answer you.

Biff the unclean

Support for the HJ position would be having an HJ...not just wanting there to be an HJ.
The MJ position is supported by the bible, there's the myth of Jesus the magic Jew right there. But the contention is that there is also an HJ. Like there is an historic Robin Hood and an historic King Arthur.
The contention in this thread has been that most scholars claim there is an HJ. Now you tell me that there isn't one.

dongiovanni1976x

When did I say there was not one? This is why I asked you to define what you thought it meant to say you were a HJ supporter. What does that mean if someone were to make such a claim?

For example...my father believes the Bible is inerrant in the traditional fashion thus of course he believes in an historical Jesus. I myself do not believe that any human being has ever risen from the dead and thus I am in complete disagreement with him. Yet, I do agree that there is sufficient evidence to support the claim that there was a real human being who was likely the origin to Christianity and I have laid this out as simply as possible a number of times. The best evidence is to link Jesus to his brother James and do so with at least three independent sources- Paul, Mark and Josephus.

Are you claiming that the historians I listed are unable to support the claim that such a human being existed? If such a minimalist position is to be rejected then it is a slippery slope to the disintegration of many figures from antiquity.

Biff the unclean

When I asked for information on the HJ, like what his name was, and instead of telling me you replied with “probabilities.” There are no probabilities, you either have an HJ or you don’t… and you don’t. That’s okay, be sure to give me a call if one ever turns up. But if you are going to claim that oodles of scholars say there is an HJ then you really have to have the HJ they say there is.

Huh? What? One guy who imagines Jesus, another guy who is a fictional character and an historian who writes about Jesus hundreds of years after he (the historian himself) is dead??????
Are you making a joke?

Apparently, otherwise you’d be telling me the facts that are known about HJ instead all this hand waving.

Well if the “scholarship” for them is as piss poor as the scholarship you are making an HJ claim on then it sounds like a good “house cleaning” is long over due. You make it sound like a “slippery slope” is the very thing that’s needed. Slip away!

By trade I’m a zoologist. Zoology is a science, but there is also a pseudoscience called “crypto-zoology.” Now as a zoologist I would LOVE IT if there were an historic Loch Ness Monster, just love it. But I can’t claim there is one because none has ever been found. Crypto-zoology fans feel that the probability of an HLNM is great and are convinced that HLNM exists. That’s one big difference between science and pseudoscience.

Chris Weimer

You seem to be confused. Does Paul mention a the infant massacre? Does Mark? Does Luke? John? Only Matthew does. And contrary to your "got it from India" hypothesis, which requires quite a rediculous travel, it can be easily traced to the story of Moses. See here and here.

These are all merely assertions. You have shown nothing substantial here. If you cannot differentiate between the historicity of Acts and the historicity of Jesus, I seriously doubt your ability to make a qualified judgement in this area.

No. That's far too late for me to bother.

Have you read Crossan, Grant, Tabor, Ehrman, Vermes or Davies yet? Start with real biblical scholarship, not some parallel-finder. For centuries it is well known that merely "finding parallels" is not good scholarship and has never been able to secure real results. A lesson in etymology should teach you that.

This has been stated below. You avoided the question.

aa5874

You appear to be confused, your statements contradict each other. I cannot recall that you have put forward any evidence to support the MJ position. Can you give me the number of the post where you stated that Jesus Christ is not historical?

Can you give the number of the post where I put forward an absurd argument?

There is no evidence to support the historicity of Jesus Christ, at least I have not seen any, of the approximate 650 posts on this thread,, no-one has given one single corroborative evidence to support the HJ position.

Biff the unclean

I must be confused. I thought if it was mentioned in the Gospels then it was part of the Jesus story. Now I see that it must be mentioned where it is convenient for you in the Gospels.

I said the story is traced back to ancient India. You find the same mythological motif reoccurring many times over the centuries and not just in the bible.
And since you and I are conversing in an Indo-European language the travel required to transmit a story is minimal. Do you think that people don’t talk to those around them?

Close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears and Euripides might go away. La, la, la, la, la.
Let me guess. West Side Story is not taken from Romeo and Juliet because there are no dancing Porto Ricans in Shakespeare.

What historicity? I’m open to any historicity you have to offer. But so far you’ve presented none.

Then let me help you. The date was already the holyday of the Goddess of the dawn, Easter, because that was the day she resurrected Adonis. That’s why there are still sun rise services on that date, the same as there were 3000 years ago.

In other words “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. The Great Oz has spoken.” Perhaps you should try some real scholarship and not just biblical “scholarship”

Actually it’s been known for centuries that it is very good scholarship indeed as it observes myths in the context of their history and how they spread and evolve through neighboring cultures.
Justin Martyr made quite the ass of himself when confronted by his myths previous owners because he refused to consider this scholarship.

Which question? Was it one of the many asked to avoid answering my simple request of what information is available on HJ?

dongiovanni1976x

Is it “possible” that Socrates did not exist? If there is just a slight possibility then you slip down the slope to a point where all we are discussing is what is probable. The kind of certainty you are demanding is not in plentiful supply for a great deal of figures from antiquity- and even much later. All we can deal with is what is MOST PROBABLE.
Paul is a contemporary of Jesus, though he never met him in person he claims that he knows of Jesus' brother (Gal 1:18,19 - “Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days; but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother.” ) and for us to have a written testimony of such a claim is an historical source. To have Josephus, an independent Jewish source corroborate this James by recounting that, (Antiquities 20.9.1- “so he (Ananus) assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, whose name was James, and some others, and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.”) augments Paul’s account. But Mark’s Gospel, which Earl Doherty admits sprang from Q and independently from Paul, adds a third source to breathe life into this James, (6:3) “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?”

So to sum up we have three sources, independent from each other, with no agenda for making up this figure named James and all three agree he was the brother of the leader of the group of people who later called themselves Christians. This is all demonstratable without even making the appeal to Tacitus (whose literary account of the crucifixion is independently supported by Paul (1 Cor 15:5) and by the archaeological evidence of the Plaque of Pontius Pilate in Caesarea Maritima and very probably by the Alexamenos Graffiti) or to Seutonius’ Chrestus or the almost universally recognized interpolation of TF by Josephus.

Therefore, for all intents and purposes with regard to how historians approach figures from antiquity, it is quite obvious why there is a near universal consensus that Jesus was an actual figure in history who was: born of a woman (Gal 4:4, Rom 1:3); was born as a Jew (Gal 4:4); that he had brothers (1 Cor 9:5) one of whom was named James (Gal 1:19, Mark 6:3, Antiquities 20.9.1); that he ministered among the Jews (Rom 15:7); that he had twelve disciples (1 Cor 15:5); that he instituted the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:23-25); possibly that he was betrayed (1 Cor 11:23, assuming that the Greek term here means “betrayed” rather than “handed over” to death by God); and that he was crucified (1 Cor 2:2, “executed by Pontius Pilate under Tiberius" in the Annals 15.44; Alexamenos Graffiti(? perhaps))

You cannot get much more evidence for this in antiquity from someone who was reportedly a criminal, who never wrote anything himself and was not wealthy enough to have monuments built in his honor or held any public position.

I feel like a broken record here...why is this not enough to establish a minimalist position that such a human being EXISTED? Not that he rose from the dead, but simply that he was a real person with a brother named James???