No Robots

I guess you're pretty serious about this, Doug. I have been doing some background work on it. Brunner has an excellent bit contrasting Plato and Aristotle. It can be found around page 400 of Science, Spirit, Superstition. Unfortunately, Googlebooks only has snippet view. I don't know when I'll get a chance to scan this and post it. I have put up an English translation of the complete work from which the bit is taken, Materialism and Idealism. This is in a rather clumsy TIFF format, and the translation itself is a little shaky. I can also supply the original German text. It is well worth reading. Basically, Brunner argues that Aristotle never grasped that Plato was dealing with the science of ideas, and not of things. At one point, he says that if all the herrings in the world suddenly disappeared, there would be many individual herrings destroyed, but only one concept. Beyond this, though, is the assertion that ideas have real being, and do not depend on any particular expression in an existing thing to validate their being.

spamandham

Well, Paul obviously didn't write Acts, and it was written long after he was gone, so Acts isn't very helpful toward understanding Paul. As a reasonably prolific writer, his own words are our best insight into Paul.

Extreme caution is in order when using a 2nd hand source written at least decades later.

The intent of this type of biography was to record *a* story of the life of the subject set to pre-existing heroic mythical themes, that settled nagging questions about the hero, as well as settling doctrinal issues.

The stories need not have had anything to do with actual history in these types of works. That's why it isn't valid to simply strip away the implausible and declare the rest history - the gospels were *not* history reports, nor were they intended to be understood as such (although, that doesn't preclude actual history being incorporated).

In regard to Mark specifically, Jesus is portrayed as the Christ, the son of God - the spiritual savior of all mankind, a perfect version of the otherwise mundane parochial Jewish messiah.

Amaleq13

No, he doesn't. Again, there is no logical requirement to provide an alternate when critiquing an offered explanation.

Amaleq13

You are simply wrong that it is a problem at face value and misguided in thinking that the imagined problem is any less speculative than the obvious solution to it.

There is absolutely nothing inherently implausible about the notion of a charismatic man making such a profound impression on a small group of followers that they continued to revere him beyond his death is certainly not unreasonable. Nor is there anything inherently implausible about the notion that their reverence could be turned into a new religion among a new group of eager seekers of "truth" with the right guy selling it with the right spin.

You claimed it "made no sense" but there actually is nothing nonsensical or irrational about it. It clearly does makes sense and this is only more true when one corrects it to comport with the texts.

Toto

There is no comprehesive theory about the historical Jesus, so why bother with that? There are only contradictory versions of who this person was (deranged end of times prophet? Marxist revolutionary peasant? actually from a priestly family?)

What is more rational - that someone rose from the dead, or that someone wrote a fictional story about a mythical hero rising from the dead? I'll pick the latter. What is more rational - that an obscure peasant sparked a powerful new religion, or that a religion that started for other reasons created a mythical history for itself based on a man described as either a carpenter or a son of a carpenter, and then two millenia later, this man was viewed by Marxists as a revolutionary peasant?

There are at least three choices - historical, mythical, or agnostic. And the historical choice has a number of contractory options. And since you refuse to do any research, it's not clear why you think there is no evidence.


In the second century, the proto-orthodox church made the historicity of Jesus a matter of dogma. (The divinity of Jesus was also a matter of dogma.) This means that any literary evidence of the mythical origin of Christianity was written over, or not preserved. The Christian church was relatively small at this point, so there are no "large groups through centuries" involved.

But the actual concept of a [merely] historicy Jesus is a modern invention. The ancients were not concerned about his existence for their own reasons.

William Tell is proof that even modern people can invent founders. Does anyone go looking for the historical Romulus and Remus? The historical Achilles? The historical Yellow Emperor?

What is unexplained?

You're not making any sense here. I use reason and experience, and my conclusion is that there was no historical Jesus. Other people might use their reason and experience to come to a different conclusion, but I am challenging you to lay out a reasonable case.

Wrong. I explained that this is just the best explanation of the evidence.

Would you recognize a comprehensive theory if it bit you?

Elijah

You use what you have available. It’s as helpful as it’s going to get. Like not considering the gospels when trying to figure what is going on with Jesus cause he didn’t write them. Nonsense.
Regardless of your method of determining what is actual history you need some reason to believe that it has no historical core at all.
The Christ isn’t the messiah, but a Son of God? What is the difference between your understanding of the Son of God and the messiah? How literally and materialistically should I take that sonship?

Amaleq13

It might help you to know that Elijah is firmly committed to a belief that Paul and the other early Christians could not possibly have believed in the literal meaning of the words in Paul's letters or the Gospels. They didn't actually believe in magical powers or any of the "cartoon" things those words seem to unapologetically describe.

He can elaborate, I'm sure, but it essentially involves retrojecting much later beliefs upon the early Christians despite what they wrote about what they believed.

Elijah

What do you find lacking in the theory?
Is that what we are comparing? Rising from the dead vs Fictional origin? I thought it was historical origin vs fictional origin. Try to stay on track.

Religions are usually created by men and divisions/offshoots of those religions are also fueled by men... not by confusion around fiction. We’re not talking about two millennia later it is confused we are talking the whole time they consider him historical. There is a church history that may not be accurate but has always considered him historical.
Not making a choice doesn’t count as a choice. I’ll do research if something is presented that I feel I need to research. I don’t think there is evidence for what??? Mythical Jesus origin? Shouldn’t some have been presented by now if there was any?

Nice story but is there any reason to believe it’s not just your fiction here. You need to really flesh out your concept of who did what where and when if you want to try to further the position.
Can you prove William Tell didn’t have a historical core? Or any of those for that matter?
How the myth got confused for history.
No you are parking in a safe spot where you know there isn’t evidence to bother your position. What problems do you have with a historical origin that I need to reason out?

What evidence? The lack of evidence? Is that all you have really?
Don’t know, but I recognize someone without one.

Elijah

Yes I don't interpret things literally if they couldn't literally happen. I try to understand the concepts rationally, philosophically and politically. Not a fan of the Sunday school cartoon understanding of Christianity.

spin

I have. You plainly have no evidence. You've admitted it. You are merely purveying an opinion tarted up.

You don't have to answer anything. You've had your opportunity and you've ducked out.

All you have to do is stop fishing for something to shoot at and realize you haven't got anything to support the position you're in. Other positions are irrelevant. You must deal with your own evidencelessness.

When you start using terms a little more in a scholarly manner, you'll have less confusion.

Junkie mentality is hard to kick.

Here it is again:

History is the attempt to delineate the past based on evidence.

You could have done this earlier and saved us some time.

Levity and refusal to admit lack of knowledge will help you to mess up further.

Then you have admitted to having no criteria for doing history with the material.

Working to hard to make a response. You should have understood, but have ignored. Keep on with the green cheese.

You like using words like "nutty" and "insane". Keep it up. It fills the spaces of not having anything more meaningful to say.

Coy.

Mere possibility has nothing to do with historical data. Try again. What criteria can you use to individuate from traditions what is a historical datum?

History is about what can be shown of the past. It means that one has evidence to substantiate what one says about the past. If you have no evidence, then you have no history. This last fact does not necessarily imply that any figures you are dealing with were not real. There are lots of people in the past for whom we have no evidence, ie they are not historical, but were real. History is about demonstration of the past. Reality is merely the way the past was. A figure may or may not have been historical, and yet be real.

And leave you behind?

You are just touching on the problems you have when you insist on something being historical when you have no evidence. Being lower class merely makes your job harder and your claim more empty.

Evidence is obviously nonsense to you.

These were the ways I listed that notions can enter traditions:

1. historical core
2. myth
3. fiction
4. error
5. dream
6. revelation

I've heard most of them used.

I'm not going to match your error with another one, just because you won't fulfill your responsibilities. You know you don't have evidence and you'll hold a belief because you need to have some commitment on the issue -- though you don't with Robin Hood.

But there isn't only one option. You already know that -- unless you suffer from short-term loss. Look at the list above as to how traditions can be formed. there are probably others.

Oh, utter rubbish. You have been asked, cajoled, prodded, poked, egged on, and yet you have resolutely refused to present any evidence whatsoever. You have none. You've just got a bunch of unprocessed traditions that you have no criteria for handling.

Does it matter how long when you don't have evidence to make a decision?

This statement isn't clear to me. What is "the most common in the world"?

This is colloquially called "gullibility". Let's go for a reality check. Did Jesus write a letter to Abgar? It is possible isn't it? Did Paul write a series of letters to Seneca? Isn't that possible? Do you believe in the veracity of these sources? If not, you have more specific criteria for these than you do for the gospel traditions.

People can be wrong in their statements, in their presentations, in their passing on of the traditions they received. They can feel the need to fabricate information and you are willing to accept it all as long as it doesn't seem impossible to you. That's not history: that is belief.

Do you mean "real" here?

From what era are you referring and how would you know?

And ultimately what people thought doesn't change whether the figure was real or not.

Again, irrelevant. We have a literary tradition that fades off back in the 13th century. How do you get before that to decide whether there was a real person or not. It is then that matters, not long after the fact.

There is obviously less reason for interest in an Ebion tradition. No-one believed in him. This doesn't change the fact that he was conjured into existence. Did Paul conjure Jesus into existence in the revelation mentioned in Gal 1:12? You have no way of knowing. Whatever the case, his proselytes needed no historical Jesus, just faith in what Paul taught.


spin