Peter Kirby

The legal analogy is invalid because there is no 'positive' or 'negative' charge in history; there is only the claim. If you want to say that Nero didn't murder his wife, there is a burden of proof there, if there is one anywhere.

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Peter Kirby

Kimpatsu

But this isn't an historical argument, Peter; it's a metaphysical one. If you dismiss the possibility of the Tooth Fairy, then it is a double standard to believe in god(s). If you don't beleive in Zeus, why believe in Jesus? They're both equally fairy tales, after all.

Peter Kirby

I am a naturalist, not a metaphysician. I approach this within such framework. If there was a Santa, or a Jesus, it is not the god which you are exercised to declaim.

In any case, the original question concerned what Paul believed, which is certainly a question for historical inquiry. Instead of advancing that question, what you and gurugeorge have posted serves only to obfuscate with this `burden of proof' dime store philosophy.

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Peter Kirby

neilgodfrey

"Silly substitution method" and "dime store philosophy" are denigrations of Kimpatsu's argument that appear to arise from a misunderstanding of it. If you are a naturalist you do not believe in a god or gods or god-men or sons of god any more than you believe in the tooth fairy.

Some historical figures did attach to themselves mythical labels like "gods" etc but we do not start with those mythical labels to establish their historicity. Nor do we start with one or two references whose authenticity is hotly disputed to establish their historicity.

The only reason we treat a son of a god or god-man figure differently from our historical foundations for other known figures is the power that that god-man figure has in our culture. That it takes books like Wells' and Doherty's to begin to alert us to the difference between statements of logic ('tooth fairies don't exist' vs 'tooth fairies do exist': "these are equally plausible logical statements that require competing arguments for us to decide") from statement of knowledge (the sun will rise tomorrow, tooth fairies do not exist, god-men or men possessed by gods or sons of god do not exist) is a bizarre indictment on the power of that myth in our 20-21st century culture.

It ought to be a no-brainer to even ask the question "did a historical Jesus exist". We simply have nothing to begin any quest with. All we have a theological writings about a theological or metaphysical (not historical) person.

Even if there was a historical Jesus for whom we no longer have any evidence (does anyone still believe one can establish a "historical" jesus out of the theological and metaphysical constructs of which our evidence consists?) that question has simply become irrelevant and pointless.

The much more interesting question, one for which we do have evidence with which to work, is the origins of Christianity question. The cause of naturalism and science will be better served by secular historians not leaving it to "religionists" to explore the question of the origins of Christianity.

Valid historical method does not waste its energies trying to find something for which we have no evidence and that defies all basic precepts of naturalism.

The "did jesus exist" question is a distracting waste of time from the real question about the origins of Christianity. The only purpose the 'did jesus exist' question serves is, as alluded to above, to prise our culturally bound thought processes back into logical sanity and common sense knowledge in relation to ALL metaphysical constructs, even those bound up in our seemingly otherwise inescapable cultural heritage.


Neil Godfrey

http://vridar.wordpress.com

Peter Kirby

Neil, you write, "Valid historical method does not waste its energies trying to find something for which we have no evidence and that defies all basic precepts of naturalism."

I may assume that by 'something', you have in mind 'Jesus'.

And by 'metaphysical construct', you are thinking 'Jesus'.

And by 'god or gods or god-men or sons of god', again, 'Jesus' is on the brain, though you may hasten to add a Prometheus or Krishna to the same list.

I may conclude that you have yet to detach your 'Jesus' from your concepts of the supernatural, the theological, and the metaphysical. Through your truculent declamations of his--or, rather, His--existence, you testify to the freight of nineteen centuries of Christian theology.

Yet, I know, you would protest that you are truly the one upsetting the apple cart, that you are the one upon whom culturally bound assumptions fall feckless, and that you, above all, are professing 'logical sanity and common sense knowledge' simple and true.

If only your logical knife could find a crevice on the surface of your concept of Jesus, to carve it up as the exigencies of the evidence demand, you might not have to pay demurring witness to the immutability of the image of Christ Kosmokrator in your mind. Then you might truly be an iconoclast.

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Peter Kirby

gurugeorge

"The burden of proof" is not a physical entity it's a concept. If you think a physical being called "Jesus" existed, prove it. The Myther has nothing to prove, only possibilities and plausibilities to explore. The Historicist has no such luxury - his or her argument must end up in the proof of a particular fact, the fact of a certain physical entity's existence.

The "gospels" are such attempts - attempts to show that there were eye witnesses. They turn out not to be credible witness reports.

Next.

Etc.

neilgodfrey

In simple terms, historical evidence offers us historical persons to whom mythological labels were attached. Jesus is not one of them. Seems to me there is really no debate about a historical Jesus so much as there is a debate about a search of "exigencies of evidence" to "demand" such a person.

Neil Godfrey

http://vridar.wordpress.com

Peter Kirby

I wish it were simply a debate about evidence. Your previous post makes it out to be much, much more. As it must be, because in the main the people who are exercised on this point of probity are relatively unconcerned of a myriad other things which pass for fact. It is not out of blameless noetic duty that the debate is sparked. It's a dirty, pitched, bloody point of issue--as I've had it reiterated for me many times. So it's not surprising when people make brash sweeping claims about the state of evidence and the bias of those who can only be framed as opponents, as these are basic flint and tinder for those engaged in `the good fight'.

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Peter Kirby

jgibson000

I wonder if this particular "fight" couldn't be continued in another thread and/or under a different header? Certainly it has little to do with, and is in no way answering, the question posed in the OP about whether Origen thought the "rulers of this age" referred to in 1 Cor 2:6-8 were "spiritual beings", and especially "spiritual beings" who acted as they are said to have acted in 1 Cor. apart from human agency.

And if not... hey, guys: get a room.

Jeffrey Gibson

Peter Kirby

:notworthy:

I forgot, I have the power to split threads asunder!

I shall now exercise that authority.

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Peter Kirby