bacht

Historians use more than documents to establish facts about historical figures.

How can you say that after being in this forum for four years? The general trend since the 18th C has been to reduce the historical reliability of the Christian literature. There is definitely room for doubt.

I'm not sure there's "utterly compelling proof" for any person from two millenia ago, that's an unscientific way to describe the situation.

Juststeve

aa5874:

The source from antiquity would be the Gospels which I believe contain historical information but which must be read critically. Cognizant of the fact that the Gospels were not intended as biographies but rather as tools for spreading the faith we need to be conscious of the fact that they tend to aggrandize the figure of Jesus and contain numerous implausibilities which although believed when the Gospels were written ought not be accepted as true by reasonable persons. I’m thinking hear resurrections, walking on water, and raising the dead for examples.

All four Gospels portray Jesus as an itinerant preacher. This picture is separately attested by the synoptics and by John which I count as two attestations. There is nothing implausible about the existence of a traveling preacher at the time and place so I consider the dual attestations to be an adequate basis to conclude that such a fellow probably existed. This is consistent with my general approach which is to require strong evidence for extraordinary claims, and accept mundane claims based on less evidence.

I suspect you will quibble about the size of his following and it is my opinion that it was exaggerated by the Gospels. How can I know? I can’t for sure, but I have reasons to be suspect of the Gospels. First, attributing to Jesus a large following is just the kind of aggrandizement I would expect if the Gospel writers were trying to make Jesus seem more consequential than he was in life. Second, we know that Jesus did not make enough of a stir during his life to come to the attention of secular historians. This in my view makes it less probable that he had as massive a following as the Gospel writers pretend.

Your approach seems to be a simplistic one in which a source is accepted completely or rejected completely. If I were forced to that choice I would be compelled to dismiss the Gospels entirely, as you seem to, since they are riddled with implausibilities. I just view that as a dumb way to read the Gospels.

Steve

ThermalCry

I was simply responding to someone, not falling off topic into, yet another, HJ vs. MJ thread.

ziffel

A lot of people here already acknowledge that there was a historical Jesus. Why bother with Ehrman? Why not move on to show how the historical Jesus equals the magical NT god-man Jesus, something that Ehrman most certainly does not believe.

I just find it odd that you would use Ehrman as a stepping stone to get to the Super-Jesus. You could just proceed under the assumption that there was a Jewish guy named Yeshua in the first century who went around preaching and stirring people up to follow him. (Those guys were a dime a dozen). The hard part is producing solid evidence (or ANY evidence at all) that this Jewish fellow was the son of a god.

No Robots

"Son of God" is Jewish concept that was later distorted by Gentiles.

Loomis

Nope. We do not.

We need to learn how to form an argument.

:banghead:

Loomis

Son of God is a Ugaritic concept that was later distorted by Jews.

aa5874

A faith based belief that the Gospels contain historical information about Jesus is completely of NO value, ZERO value, as historical evidence.

You MUST FIRST find corroborative sources to SUPPORT your belief. I really don't care much about your belief it is the historical corroborative evidence for the Gospels that I want to see.

Marcion, it is claimed, BELIEVED Jesus was a NOT real. What do you believe.


We are NOT cognizant of any facts that the Gospels were not biographies.

Please state what apologetic source of antiquity did claim as FACTS that the Gospels were NOT biographies.

You believe your OWN FACTS.

You ignore the facts.

These are the facts.

1. It is a fact that in the Gospels Jesus walked on water.

2. It is a fact that in the Gospels Jesus was RAISED from the dead.

3. It is a fact that in the Gospels Jesus raised people from the dead.

Based on the information that are claimed to be facts in the NT Canon then Jesus was in FACT a MYTH.

Based on the Gospels, your claim is not really factual. Jesus was NOT portrayed as a mere itinerant preacher but as the offspring of the Holy Ghost, the son of God, the creator of heaven and earth who was God.

See Matthew 1.18, Luke 2.35, John 1 and Mark 14.33.


Examine John 1. This is NOT the portrayal of an itinerant preacher.

Joh 1:1 - Now examine Mark 1. This is NOT the portrayal of an itinerant preacher.

But John 1, Mark 1, Matthew 1 and Luke 2 portray Jesus in extraordinary fashion.

Your sources, the Gospels, are historically unreliable.

Once you ADMIT that your sources, the Gospels, are suspect then your claim of historicity has been a disaster.

Your sources LACK credibilty.


Once you admit that the authors who knew Jesus LIED about him then your sources are NOT credible.

The author of gJohn claimed Jesus was the TRUTH and the LIFE, yet based on your own expectations, the author of gJohn was expected to LIE about the TRUTH and the LIFE.

Examine this passage. Is it the TRUTH?

Joh 14:6 - The Gospels is NOT CREDIBLE.


That also makes it likely that Jesus was an invention. The authors of the Gospels wrote fiction about Jesus and the FICTION was NOT detected by any writers.

Josephus and Philo seemed completely unaware of the fiction found in the Pauline writings about a man called Jesus who was NOT a Jewish Messiah and was NOT worshiped as a God.

Please state what parts of Homer's Achilles do you accept.

Do you accept that Homer's Achilles was described as the offspring of a sea-goddess?

I ACCEPT that Jesus of the NT was described as a MYTH.

You accept that the Jesus stories are fiction but that Jesus was real USING THE VERY FICTION as your source.

Your position is SIMPLY absurd.

gdeering

I'd like to add that the Gospels portray a walking talking God who chose the densest people in Palestine to follow and believe in him. As an itinerant preacher did Jesus choose his disciples to be comic relief? That's the way I read it. They only exist for him to prove his point. Really I am surprised that anyone takes this seriously.

Still, I was like you; an atheist that thought there must be "something" an historical core. But it's an assumption based on a denial of the fantastic, not an ascertainable distillation from the gospels. On the surface, and to not call Christians complete fools, HJ seems the easiest conclusion to draw. That was true for me until I started to think about what was history and what can be known - vs. how much evidence there is for midrash, wishful thinking and later tinkering.

Anyway, worked for me. The more one looks the more HJ slips into nothing and disappears.


Gregg

Mudcat

I know he used to be a Christian. I know that he is currently not.

Bill Craig, a man that knows Bart and has debated him. Would say there are possibly two Bart Ehrmans. A scholarly one and a popular one.

If you have an hour to burn.. http://vimeo.com/11144955