Vorkosigan

Whose denying this? But DonG's claim is that you have to part of the paranoid fringe to note that Christians dominate HJ scholarship. DonG is simply deploying rhetoric to get the other side to shut up. Hey! Stop making the fringe claim that Christians dominate HJ scholarship! You paranoid you!

Yes, of course. And the number of these who are HJ scholars is.....?

Vorkosigan

Solo

Spare me the charms, will you ? I have shown in the post the basis for that particular opinion. You snipped it to twist what I said.

No, that sort of deduction is your own. What I said was that the cognitive structures are complex but often read by simpletons. As for my view of the mythical content of the NT and the difficult form it has taken, I have argued my case quite consistently (e.g. here or here or here ). The self-contradictory mythical scenarios argue for historicity but they do not prove historicity. I hope that is a clear enough statement.
You will have to rephrase that, I am not sure what you are saying
Two things: I do not have to assume Jesus’ existence. It is asserted by documents dating from the first and second century C.E.
Second, a conditional sentence is a proposition which is hypothetical by definition. You are free to disagree with the proposition, but you are not entitled to misrepresent it as an assertion.
I don’t think I would be trying to “prove” anything to someone who feels the logic I use deserves quotation marks.

When you say “identified”, you don’t mean by any chance “impartially reported on”, do you ?

Jiri

GakuseiDon

No, that's not what I mean at all. There IS a paranoid fringe who seem to think that pointing out that a particular scholar is a Christian in some way refutes the scholar's opinion. Even more sensible mythicists like Doherty plays that card occasionally.

Is it worth pointing out that a particular scholar is an atheist or not when discussing a historical Jesus, in your opinion?

OK, thanks.

GakuseiDon

Er... no. I'm saying that it may well be worth pointing out that a scholar who believes that there was a historical Jesus is an atheist, for the simple reason that there are some people ("the paranoid fringe") who disagree with a scholar's opinion simply because the scholar is a Christian. I think that we can all agree that that is not a reasonable approach (on either side).

Vorkosigan

That isn't what you wrote. Originally you said:

• But there appears to be a paranoid fringe to the Christ Myth camp who believe that scholars are ideologically driven to accept a historical Jesus.

Not -- the paranoid fringe disagrees with an opinion because a Christian holds it, but that the paranoid fringe thinks that scholars are ideologically driven to accept a historical Jesus. Two different things, Don. Probably you just expressed yourself badly.....

Right.

So what is the secular basis for the consensus that Jesus existed as a human on earth? IMHO it all comes down to Josephus and some remarks in Paul, and the fact of the existence of the gospel stories.

Michael

spin

Actually, this is not correct. The "logical, measured, conclusion from the absence of external historical record of Jesus, is not that he did not exist," but that we cannot tell if he existed or not. Any further and you are going beyond the scholarly position.

(A text needs to provide sufficient evidence for one to build a case for a writer being an "expert witness", so as to consider the less supported data in a more historical light, and yet it still doesn't get into the historically solid until more data sheds light.)


spin

Amaleq13

I would think the answer is rather obviously "yes" if the scholar accepts an historical Jesus since the conclusion is certainly not the result of the scholar's faith.

Toto

This is not paranoia, it is a logical error.

Your use of the term paranoia is distinctly unhelpful in this discussion.

rlogan

The statement I responded to was far more convoluted, and I tried to paraphrase it.

You have not submitted positive evidence anywhere here until what I quote below. Instead, you say we cannot prove some "precursor" or "prototype" Jesus did not exist. One which later became mythicized.

Well that is not evidence. And it is more than shifting the burden of proof, and that of proving a negative. It is to prove something that you can't even identify clearly did not exist.


Garbage aside - we're finally here. What took you so long?

Now could you please state WHICH documents you are asserting so that all of this wasted bandwidth is not in vain?

This bears no discernable relation to what I said.

Let's stick with the OP and prying out of you here what evidence you are handwaving about above. It's not difficult to state what material you are relying on.

GakuseiDon

I would argue that it is both. The dismissal is a logical error, but the reason behind it is the paranoia, the idea that "the Christian scholars know they are wrong, but just won't admit it". You don't have to go too far to find it. From http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/scholars.html (my emphasis):

Fearful to acknowledge that both their faith and careers were built on a monumental misconception they speculated on any number of fanciful ideas – a radical rabbi Jesus, a Mediterranean peasant Jesus, a Jesus with wife and family, a Jesus who travelled to England, India or Japan, a Stoic or Cynic philosopher Jesus – a Jesus for all seasons and all tastes. A hundred or more possible "biographies" for the godman contended, each contriving to avoid the obvious truth that no genuine reality underpinned the sacred fable...

Christian apologists are ever-ready to denounce a "Christ-myther" as an isolated crank on the fringes of sanity, unworthy of serious consideration.

But their strident hostility hides the fear that the downfall of their superhero may not be far off. And what they can no longer deny or suppress is the fact that the exposure of "Jesus Christ" for the fabrication that it is, far from being the manic pursuit of odd-balls, has been embraced and endorsed by a continuous stream of talented scholars in all countries.

Let me reiterate that I'm not saying that all Jesus Mythers are like that, but these are the ones that would most likely distrust the opinions of even nominal Christian scholars.