Toto

Please stop twisting my words. I have not read every claimed refutation of the Jesus Myth hypothesis. I have read enough to feel confident that I am not missing a smoking gun somewhere, that if there were some clearly persuasive arguments, they would be referenced. If I have made any error, it is not circular logic.

Since he makes a blanket assertion without even footnoting it, he might very well have been repeating something one of his colleagues told him. I do not speculate that he made it all up. I merely point out that he himself is not a good source in support of the historical Jesus.

May we then expect that you will stop quoting Grant and replace that quote with something more pertinent from someone who has actually looked at the question? Some actual argument?

Layman

If you want to avoid the "twisting of words" I would suggest being a little more reserved in accusations of mind reading.

In any event, since I am confident you have not read any of the refutations available to Grant when he wrote (And France wrote his response to Wells after Grant published I believe), it still seems circular.

One of the leading classical historians of our time? An expert for the time period in question? I think he's quite a good source at least as to the state of the scholarly question.

I did not bring up Grant in this thread. He is one of many scholars I note who inform us that the Jesus Myth is a dead issue among real scholars, here:

http://www.bede.org.uk/price1.htm

But I did post a link to my reviews of several book-length refutations of the Jesus Myth by leading scholars, here:

http://www.bede.org.uk/price8.htm

I have also shown that Romans 1:1-4 refers to a very human Jesus who was born from a descendent of David, here:

http://www.bede.org.uk/price7.htm

I have also shown that the existence of an Apostolic Tradition in the first century counts against the Jesus Myth, here:

http://www.bede.org.uk/price7.htm

I have shown in a rather comprehensive approach to the Epistle to the Hebrews that it supports the Historical Jesus, not the Jesus Myth, here:

http://www.bede.org.uk/price3.htm

I have shown that attempts by Jesus Mythers to find invention because of the existence of possible parallels with the Old Testament to be suspect, here:

http://www.bede.org.uk/price6.htm

I have shown that Josephus referred to Jesus and likely relied on a Jewish source for his information, with specific responses to Doherty's arguments, here:

http://www.bede.org.uk/Josephus.htm

You may disagree with me Toto, but please do not be so obviously biased as to pretend all I have done to argue against the Jesus Myth is to quote Grant. That's quite a whopper even for you.

Toto

Did I say that all you have done is to quote Grant? Certainly not. But you and others have in the past on this forum quoted Grant as if he were the last word on the question.

Do you have anything to say about NT Wright?

Layman

Yes you did, by begging me for "Some actual argument?"

I have not quoted him as the last word on the question as to the Jesus Myth. If I thought he was the last word, why did I spend all that time writing all those other articles? I think Grant is relevant because he helps establish the deadness of the issue in scholarly circles and because he cannot be accused of being a Christian apologist.

Yes, I have actually read some of his books.

Vorkosigan

LOL. What do you think it is that informs the HJ studies? Behind the desperate attempts of NT scholars to conjure historical data from the Gospels and Josephus is the haunting spectre of the mythical Jesus they lack the methodology to refute. The reason MJ is a dead issue is because of creedal commitments, not because the evidence is substantive one way or another. I can't, offhand, think of any other field where the fraternity of scholars is oath-sworn to a particular position on the central issues of that field.

Vorkosigan

Layman

The JM claims Paul believed in a purely spiritual Christ figure. But Paul clearly believes in a quite human Jesus Christ. The JM claims Hebrews describes a purely spiritual Christ figure. But the letter clearly describes a preexisting spiritual being who came to earth in human form and will return to earth later. The JM (per Doherty) claims that the Gospels are Midrash, but they are no such thing.

BTW, Grant is not a NT scholar. He is a classical historian.

lpetrich

Which reminds me of creationist organizations, which often require their members to state that they believe in the literal truth of the Bible, including the Genesis creation stories as literal history.

Also, what Vorkosigan describes does not exist in other fields. One does not have to believe in Hellenic paganism in order to study the classical Greco-Roman world.

Gregg

Care to back up these assertions? Just stating them doesn't make them true.

The JM states that Paul believed in a spiritual Christ who descended to the lowest level of heaven (standard neo-Platonist cosmology) where he took on the likeness of flesh and was put to death by the Archons, the demon spirits of that dimension. Paul can talk about Jesus in "human" terms because his Jesus mystically took on "flesh" and human characteristics (including the characteristics of the Messiah), but without actually coming to Earth.

Hebrews certainly does not "clearly" describe a "preexisting spiritual being who came to earth in human form and will return to earth later." Have you read the "Epilogue" of Doherty's Supplementary Article # 1, "A Sacrifice in Heaven: The Son in the Epistle of the Hebrews" ? Why don't you study that and come back and refute it for us (with something besides assertions, please).

The gospels are not a form of midrash? Sure, if you say so, I guess.

Layman

The seven links I provided above will have to do for now. More will be forthcoming as time and resources permit.

Steven Carr

Once again, Tercel simply refuses to tell me what Wright says about why Paul never mentions the forthcoming destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem. According to Wright, this was one of the main points of Jesus's ministry, yet Paul never uses the fact that the Temple will soon be destroyed in his arguments about the relevance of the Law.

Non-argument by non-authority. I've never heard of the atheist/agnostic historian Michael Grant. I've heard of a Michael Grant, but not an atheist/agnostic Michael Grant.

Tercel remains silent as the grave on the questions raised in the thread by me about Wright's conclusion.

I can beg and beg people to tell me how Wright answers these questions, but all my begging will be in vain. Wright is for praising, not quoting.

I shall repeat more of my questions, so that more expert people than me can interpret Tercel's lack of response

---------------------------------
Wright writes :-
'This 'transphysicality' would represent a theological view of new humanity for which Jewish belief in resurrection had in some ways prepared the ground, but which goes beyond anything we find in non-Christian Jewish texts of the period.'

I thought Wright was claiming that we can tell what Paul thought Jesus would be resurrected as (bodily, ghostly, etc) by looking at Jewish texts to see what 'resurrection' meant. Luvluv seemed to be implying that.

Now we find we cannot do that, as the Christian conception of resurrection was different, and goes BEYOND ANYTHING we can find in Jewish texts of the period .

So what does examining Jewish ideas of resurrection tell us about what Christians thought a resurrection could be? Nothing, surely.

And what is 'transphysicality'? Does Wright want to claim a physical body when it suits him, and deny it when it does not?

Wright continues 'Furthermore, had they been attempting to speak of continuity and discontinuity between the present body and the risen one within the framework of biblical reflection common to mainstream first-century Judaism, they could have reached for an obvious solution, based on Daniel 12: while the present body remains non-luminous, they could have had the risen body shining like a star.'

But Jesus could glow in the dark BEFORE the resurrection. Why does Wright say the present body remains non-luminous? Hasn't he read the Bible?

Luke 9:30 says 'Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus.'

Wright says the resurrection appearances have to do with recognition and non-recognition.

But it is very easy to recognise a resurrected body. It appears in glorious splendour, and the person can be recognised straight away, even if the observers have never seen the person before in there life.

Wright talks about the appearances being in Galilee in one Gospel and in Jerusalem in another and then says :-

'I suggest in fact, that the stories must be regarded as early, certainly well before Paul; and that, when placed side by side, they tell a tale which. despite the multiple surface inconsistencies, succeeds in hanging together.'

How can placing the appearances in Galilee, while another evangelist has Jesus commanding no trip to Galilee be a 'surface inconstinency', and how can these stories 'succeed in hanging together.'?