Doug Shaver

So, if I read a work of fiction that mentions the assassination of President Kennedy, then I know that Kennedy was not really assassinated?

Doug Shaver

Unfalsifiable hypotheses usually are.

ApostateAbe

Yes, it is of interest to Paul. He uses the order of appearance in order to construct a hierarchy of apostles, himself being on the bottom. He does not draw a distinction, in this context, between human and spirit "resurrection," and there may not have been much of a distinction in the minds of the Christians of that age. There would be a distinction for people like us, who think critically, because a human Jesus says things that are witnessed and corroborated by many witnesses, it isn't as easy to make things up about what he said, and it is much more probable that someone will challenge you if anyone may think you are misquoting him. But, a spiritual Jesus can say anything you want. I apologize if I avoided your question--I still don't quite understand what you mean.

ApostateAbe

There may be many things that make a historical human Jesus less likely than the alternatives, including a gradually developing myth leading up to the complexity of the Christian gospels, or an early apologetic attack against a critic who claims that Jesus was fictional. When you think in terms of absolutely certainty on a historical subject, then you are bound to be misled. There should be no such thing. There are more lines of evidence that seem to make a historical Jesus more likely, like the attestation to the existence of Peter, James, John, Pontius Pilate and John the Baptist. You may choose to ignore those things simply because they are not certain and direct enough. Well, again, it is not about absolute certainty. The criterion of "falsifiability" may be appropriate for science, but I favor ABE, which is a methodology appropriate for any field of decision-making, in my estimate. That means theories that are most "easy," especially after all of the evidence and many potential problems are considered, really are the theories that win out.

aa5874

What nonsense are you proposing. Just look in a dictionary and find out what FICTION means and then post.

You don't have a dictionary?

dog-on

It's not unfalsifiable.

Doug Shaver

If a hypothesis that a certain individual existed, in a certain place at a certain time, is consistent with any conceivable evidence (which is more or less the definition of unfalsifiability), then what difference does it make whether the hypothesis is true or false? And if it makes no difference, then what is point of believing it?

At least when it comes to claims about empirical reality, past or present, unfalsifiable statements are epistemologically worthless. Or so it seems to me. If you think you can defend them, go for it.

Doug Shaver

OK. You seem to be talking about a man for whom no evidence survives and who had no effect on subsequent history. What would falsify the hypothesis that he existed?

aa5874

That is correct. The human Jesus theory is completely unsupported by the NT and Church writings.

If Jesus was just a man who lived in Galilee for about thirty years, was executed for blasphemy after his disciples ran away after he was arrested then went into hiding for fear of the Jews then the NT Canon would have been known to be FICTION by potential converts who lived in Galilee.

It makes absolutely no sense for the Pauline writers to have been telling people since around 40 CE that Jesus was the Creator of heaven and earth, was EQUAL to God, that he was RAISED from the dead and that Jesus had the ability to forgive the sins of ALL mankind.

The Pauline writers would have been deemed to be TOTALLY MAD, without credibility or completely dishonest.

The lack of external historical sources for the Pauline Jesus or doctrine and the IMPLAUSIBILITY of the status of the Pauline Jesus tend to indicate that the Pauline Jesus was VERY late and is compatible with the STATUS of the Johanine Jesus who was also ELEVATED to be EQUAL with God and was the Creator of heaven and earth.

It must be noted the the Synoptic Jesus was NOT claimed to be EQUAL to God or the Creator of heaven and earth only in the later gJohn.

It would appear the information in the Pauline writings to place them before the Fall of the Temple were manipulated or deliberately inserted to produce a bogus timeline for the Pauline writings.

EarlDoherty

Careful, Mary, you are slipping into something dangerously close to ad hominem here. Mythicism may not be defined by my particular take on it, but my concept of mythicism is not determined by some subjective "reluctance" on my part against considering the possibility of an historical X. It is determined by my study of the evidence and conclusions drawn from it. I stated that clearly, and if you wish to disagree, you ought to study my evidence and conclusions and decide whether I seem justified in them, not resort to accusing me of having a personal reluctance of some sort which, by implication, has determined my conclusions.

As for definitions of mythicism:

This is a limited and rather subjective definition (and not all that clear), and would not generally agree with the position of mythicist writers like myself or Bob Price. Mythicism primarily defines the Jesus of Paul as non-existent, not based on any actual historical figure no matter how unknown or how buried. It is certainly not applied solely to the Gospel phase of development (I don't know where you got this). In fact, a mythicist like Wells actually postulates the possibility of an historical figure behind that portion of the Gospels derived from the Q background. (And "dog-on"s comment is equally too limited, and anything but "perfect.")

As for Q, you seem to have a deficient understanding of the issue, as well as some of the other things I've said:

I said that the amalgamation with the Q side of things, which we find in the Gospel of Mark, was relatively 'overnight', something brought about by Mark himself and his community. That has absolutely nothing to do with how long the cultic Christ sect which Paul joined was in existence, or how long before Paul wrote his letters. What does that phase of things have to do with the amalgamation process? It preceded it.

What is illogical is you confusing this with the development in the Markan community itself which joined Paul and his pre-Paul tradition (however long it may have been) with the Q traditions which were a separate phenomenon on the first century scene.

I cannot see any logical connection here. Now you've introduced the idea of whether the Pauline movement had an historical figure behind it or not. What does this have to do with the amalgamation issue?

Of course it can. If one presents compelling evidence to do so. You can only decide on that if you are familiar with my evidence, and perhaps that of other mythicists. What is your evidence and case for suggesting that there was another inspirational figure who lived and died pre-Paul? It does little good to suggest this or that scenario if one has no concrete evidence to back it up. Perhaps the Pauline cult was inspired by an alien visiting earth. Theoretically possible? Maybe so, but is this something we should consider in the light of no or poor evidence for it?

And what does this have to do with the issue of whether Q existed or not (since you've lumped all this into the same paragraph)? I never said the issue of Q determined mythicism, although if one independently accepts the existence of Q (as I have done, backed up by very considerable argumentation), then one's picture of mythicism will involve that document. But a somewhat different picture could be presented in the absence of a Q. There are really two independent 'myths' involved here. One is the myth of a figure behind Paul, the other is a 'myth' that there was a founder or inspirational figure behind the Q traditions. In my view and case, the two were equally non-existent. Someone like Wells would disagree. I'm not quite sure what Bob Price's take is on the root of Q.

Earl Doherty