aa5874

Who was Jesus in gMatthew? Was he NOT described as the Child of a Holy Ghost?

Who was Jesus in gLuke? Was he NOT described as the Holy thing of a Holy Ghost?

The birth of Jesus as described in gMatthew and gLuke are NOT historical FACTS.

There is NO logical basis for Scholars to theorise that Jesus in the NT was an ordinary man WITHOUT any credible historical sources of antiquity.

J-D

Not in Matthew 3:13.Not in Luke 23:6-7.The references to the involvement of the Holy Spirit in his conception are not historical facts.You have not explained how you decide what is a credible source and what is not.

PyramidHead

Step 1: Find an accurate biography of Martin Van Buren.
Step 2: On the last page, add the sentence "By the way, Martin Van Buren was a wizard."
Step 3: ???????
Step 4: Martin Van Buren disappears from history.

aa5874

Well, you claimed that Logic is not concerned with Facts so explain the Logic behind the IDEA of the Holy Spirit.

J-D

Logic is no more concerned with the content of specific ideas than it is with specific questions of fact. It is concerned with patterns of reasoning.

I don't know who came up with the idea of the Holy Spirit and I don't know how or why they did so.

aa5874

You stated that Logic is concerned with relation of ideas, NOT with FACTS.

Examine your own words at post #310

You simply don't understand what is LOGIC.

J-D

Almost.I said that logic is concerned with relations of ideas, not with matters of fact. The distinction isn't in my own words, though, I borrowed them from David Hume.No, you simply don't understand what logic is.

avi

David Hume:
A Treatise of Human Nature. "Nature":= FACTS, not opinions.

Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding "Understanding" = ability to reason, ability to learn, both assessed by knowledge of FACTS, (e.g. mathematics, geography, astronomy, foreign language acquisition) rather than opinions.

If enotes' summary represents an accurate explanation of Hume's philosophy, then, that's all she wrote. End of the story, from my perspective.

As far as I am concerned, all human thought processes (including "introspection") are based entirely on experience. Remove his/her exhaustive exposure to, and consequent profound knowledge of, Greek and Hebrew, and spin/leiolaila becomes just another, ordinary poster....

In my opinion, logic is concerned with facts, and not restricted to ideas. You cited Aristotle, J-D. Did this famous Greek scientist and philosopher not devote his life to collecting, classifying, and analyzing the many species which he found while surveying the scope of nature? Do Aristotle's treatises on logic ignore or rebut or dispute his own efforts to identify "facts"? If so, can you offer a citation of Aristotle's own writing, repudiating his primary contribution and life's endeavor: systematic study of nature?

The question underlying this thread is whether or not evidence exists to classify the gist of the gospels as representing, on balance, myth versus history.

Obviously, there are "historical" aspects to any document in history, even forgeries and novels. Clearly, some aspects of the new testament do represent history, as both aa5874 and mountainman have pointed out. However, the historical characters presented in the text, intermingled with absurd references to devils, demons, resurrection from the dead, walking on water, etc, etc, render the text as a whole, mythical.

The Gospels' gloss of historical veneer, does not change their fundamental character: mythical accounts, focused on a character, Jesus, whose paternal lineage is either a ghost, or a man dead for more than four centuries ("seed of David"). Such a character is deemed mythical, by definition, and any further elaboration of his "nature", supposed accomplishments (supernatural deeds, unsupported by accounts of authors living in that era,) or methods of contemplation, represent creative dreaming, not history.

avi

J-D

You have not explained how you determine what is fundamental to the Gospel accounts and what is not; you have not explained how you determine what is the gist of the Gospels and what is not; you have not explained how you determine what is included in what aa5874 calls 'the HJ theory' and what is not.

J-D

I can find no reference in Aristotle's writings on logic to his collections of facts, and so far you have not produced one.