skepticismskeptic

Hi Spin,


The question was meant to be taken seriously. As Toto pointed out there are those who question the historicity of Confucius.

Alright.



This thread was indeed pitched to the intelligent reader.

That is an interesting point.




I agree.


-Skepticismskeptic

ohwilleke

The key point is that it is far less important that Confucius (or the most similar figure from the Greek tradition, Plato) existed, than it is that Jesus existed.

In the case of Plato and Confucius, what is important is that some philosopher or small group of philosophers formulated a body of philosophical works which are attibuted to them and that those philosophical ideas became important in more or less the time period attibuted to them, give or take a couple hundred years. Whether the real name of the author of "Plato" was Anadopolisicus who was really a soldier instead of a teacher, or the real name of "Confucius" was Mu Shoo Ho Wan who was really a shoemaker and not a bureaucrat, doesn't fundamentally change the meaning of each man's (or woman's) life opus.

In contrast, a significant part of the theological important of the Gospels in modern Christianity flows from the man and not the message. The claim that "God sent his only son to die for our sins, that he did die and that he returned from the dead after three days.", is central to the theology of the large part of the Christian faith, and the notion that may Paul or Peter or John really made up the Gospels and the philosophy espoused in them would have profound theological impact.

Also, keep in mind that it is a common literary device for the true author of a story to tell it as if it was imparted to them from someone else. Joseph Smith, founding the Mormon religion, for example, claims the the Angel Morroni (sp.) told him what was recounted in the book of Mormon. The purpose of doing this, of telling a narrative in the second person, rather than the first, is primarily to make it harder to attack the credibility of the "true author". The people who first read the Gospels knew the authors of those Gospels and knew they weren't divine, so claiming divine authority in their own right would be difficult. In contrast, claiming that someone who died before most of the audience was paying attention wrote it, takes the true authority beyond question and cross-examination.

skepticismskeptic

cweb255

For those who argue a mythical Jesus they pinpoint many references to what they believe to be the mythological makeup of such a person.


As the excerpt from the article stated above:

“…much of what is commonly reported about the man (Confucius) is based on legend and conjecture…�



Toto provided some good information in his post above answering that very question.



-Skepticismskeptic

skepticismskeptic

Hi Ohwilleke,


The issue is not which of these individuals is more significant, but the evidence for the historicity of each, specifically, in the case of this thread, Confucius.


-Skepticismskeptic

ohwilleke

It goes to the evidence issue as well. If the true identity of the author isn't that important to the message, than there is little incentive for people in the period not long after that person's death to authenticate their identity.

Equally important, it goes to the "confidence" historical scholars have about making a claim. It is more important to be accurate about a material fact than it is about an immaterial fact. Saying "Confucius preferred to eat sticky rice doused in broth" is a relatively harmless flourish. Saying "Jesus was unlikely to drink wine because Jews of the time drank only beer.", is a statement of serious import. How we record history has a lot to do with what we think is important.

EDITTED TO ADD: Also, as this is posted in the Biblical Criticism forum, the implicit question behind the issue of "Was Confucius Historical?" is "How should we determine whether Jesus was historical?", and the level of scruitny applied to each claim has a lot to do with the implications of each claim. To say Jesus is historical is to take one big step towards a theistic worldview (although not the final step). The same does not apply in the other case.

spin

I don't believe you. But if you were sincere, you'd know that it has no place here, on BC&H.

So what? There are numerous people from the past whose existences I could seriously question (eg Homer and Socrates), but it is irrelevant to the forum.

That's what they all say, but you didn't pick that up.

Rubbish. It's a transparent consequence of your umm... thought.


MODERATORS: this thread, as indicated by the iniators words, does belong in BC&H.


spin

Diogenes the Cynic

This thread has nothing to do with the Bible and if the initator of the thread wants to talk about Confucious he can talk about it in NAR&P.

Diogenes the Cynic

As long as I'm in this thread, are there a great number of Jesus mythicists who are pounding the table and digging in for a historical Kung Fu Tse?

At least the Confucious legend comforms to a basic standard of historical credibility and does not automatically discredit itself with patently impossible and fantastic claims.

chapka

For what it's worth, we do have one source of information on Confucius that we don't for Jesus. Confiucius' descendants were identified and his family tree traced within a hundred years or so of his death.

However, I agree that it doesn't really matter. It reminds me of the "who wrote Shakespeare" kind of controversy. It doesn't really matter, unless you are trying to argue that who Shakespeare was was more important than the plays themselves. (This is in fact the position of many who have questioned Shakespeare's authorship, who tend to claim that either Shakespeare's plays could not have been produced by a commoner or that they were produced by the theorist's own ancestors). When a literary scholar talks about "Shakespeare," he or she is talking about the author of the plays. If he or she wants to relate something in the plays to some known fact about Shakespeare, then and only then does it become relevant.

Homer is another good example. If you asked a Homeric scholar whether or not Homer existed, as the historical founder of an oral tradition which led to the manuscripts now attributed to him, I'm not sure they'd think it was all that important a question.

Toto

I'm surprised spin didn't bring up his favorite example. An early Christain sect was known as the Ebionites, meaning "the poor". But some of the later church fathers decided that the Ebionites must have been founded by a guy named Ebion.

Similarly, the Jesuits in China had a mind set that religions were founded by founders. They saw something in China that they decided was the Chinese religion, and decided that there must have been a founder of that religion.

It just goes to show how inventive the human mind is.

But the (non)-existence of Confucius has nothing to do with the value of the precepts of Confucianism.