spin

While I don't agree with you (funny that), this is helpful to get a relatively clear statement of what you believe to be history, one that others can consider and evaluate. It would seem that ultimately humans and their perceptions are irrelevant to your notion of history, other than that they are a part of what happened before now.

Can you express your notion of history involved in the "historical Jesus"?

I could give you some information, but I don't think you are information. The questions seem rhetorical, so please, help us out by stating your unsaids.

aa5874

History is fundamentally the reconstruction of the past. If NOTHING of the past has been recovered then it should be obvious that NO history will known of the past.

It is that simple.

I cannot tell you that my great........great grand fathers name was Jesus of Nazareth because I have NOT recovered any information to support such a claim.

I cannot argue that my great............great grand mother was named Mary because I have NOT recovered any information to support such a claim.

Likewise, it is foolhardy and baseless for people to attempt to argue that some character called the historical Jesus was an OBSCURE preacher man of Nazareth when they have NOT recovered any information from antiquity to support their claim.

These people, HJers, have RECOVERED information about a character was called a Messiah, the Christ, the Lord, the Son of God, born of a Ghost, God the Creator, whose name was WELL-KNOWN throughout the Roman Empire as the Universal Savior of Mankind who had NO human father.

Let us do the history of the character called Jesus.

Let us see what has been RECOVERED.

It has been RECOVERED that Jesus WALKED on water and Transfigured and that he was raised from the dead. See Sinaiticus gMark.

Let us reconstruct the past with what we have RECOVERED.

We have RECOVERED a Myth called Jesus.

Look at what I have RECOVERED in Sinaitcus gMark.

Sinaiticus gMark 16 I have RECOVERED a Ghost story. See Sinaiticus gMark.

Let us see what we can RECOVER from "On the Flesh of Christ" attributed to Tertullian.

On the Flesh of Christ Jesus was a Myth Fable of antiquity that people believed.

We have RECOVERED thousands of Myth Fables of Jesus in DATED EXISTING Codices, DATED NT Manuscripts and Apologetic sources.

There are probable MORE RECOVERED Myth Fables of Jesus than ALL the Roman Greek Myths put together.

It is DATED, Documented and Multiple-Attested.

The history of Jesus has been RECOVERED and it is TOTAL Mythology.

Let us do History.

spin

Just to show that I am actually monitoring the thread...
This is worth noting as a contribution to the discussion. It seems, aa5874, that you see history as a process of reconstruction, which suggests the necessary mediation of a reconstructor--I guess the "historian".

aa5874

No, No, No!!! This shows that you really NEVER had me on ignore. You ALWAYS read my posts but cannot respond.

I knew it all along. The "ignore" feature is a TOTAL waste of time.

Well, first of all the SEVEN Jesus hypothesis is just total BS.

In history, something either did happen or it did NOT.

It is known empirically that some statements about REAL people and EVENTS may be false and that some characters and stories did NOT ever exist or happen even though they appear plausible.

But, what is most remarkable about the Jesus character is that we have THOUSANDS of stories of Jesus where he was described as the Son of a Ghost without a human father and that he WALKED on water, transfigured, resurrected and ascended in a cloud.

THOUSANDS of Jesus stories have been RECOVERED.

Let us do History with the RECOVERED Material on Jesus.

It is SO, SO, SO easy.

Jesus was a Ghost story--that is WHAT WE have Recovered from antiquity.

Diogenes the Cynic

You think there is something wrong with my definition of "history?" You don't believe that everything that happens happens historically? Can you give an example of something happening or existing in the physical universe ahistorically?
I don't understand this question. I have no strong notions about HJ at all. I was attempting to posit a working definition for "historical Jesus," not make an argument for one. It is my opinion that a "historical Jesus" is any real person venerated at the root of the Christian movement. HJ does not need to have anything to do with Bible Jesus in order to be HJ. The Gospels are irrelevant to the question as far as I'm concerned. I think we can ignore them completely and simply ask whether Christianity was precipitated by the crucifixion (as per Tacitus) of a real person. I say if it was, then that person was HJ even if not a single thing in the Gospels is true. I take it for granted that the gospels are fiction. I do not look for Jesus in the Gospels. I don't think Jesus can be found, only arguably inferred by circumstantial evidence like the existence of Christianity itself.

Christianity had a beginning. There is nothing inherently implausible about the possibility that it was inspired by a real crucifixion. I think that's far more parsimonious explanation for Christian origins at its earliest layer (something that is universally attested and unopposed by not only early Christian sources, but all extant pagan and Jewish sources as well) than a grand Roman conspiracy theory with no documentary support from antiquity.
My point with Jack the Ripper is that we have no idea who he was, or anything about him, but we know he had to have existed. There are also a lot of fictional depictions of Jack the Ripper, but it is not an argument against the historicity of Jack the Ripper to point out that a comic book about him is fiction.

I equate the Gospels to comic books creating a fictive version of Jesus the way those movies and comic books create fictive Jack the Ripper characters. I think it's a misdirection to suggest that a historical Jesus has to be defined in any way as Bible Jesus.

Bernard Muller

I think "historical Jesus" was always meant to be about the earthly human "phase" of Jesus, outside the alleged pre-existence & post-existence. The depiction of that "historical Jesus" varies greatly depending on the amount of skepticism applied by the commentators. Even fundies have their "historical Jesus".
Therefore "historical" in "historical Jesus" has no relationship with the so-called (ill-defined) historical method.

outhouse

seems you want to promote controversy with this list, not get to the bottom of a HJ


#7 yes explains the MJ stance

#3 explains BJ

#1 #2 #4 #5 #6 can be merged together in ways and a line of sepration between them can only be guessed at with as little historicity as we have to work with

spin

I can accept (trivially) that "everything that happens happens", but I don't see any added content with "everything that happens happens historically". For me you seem to have reduced history to an almost empty word, "what happened". Certainly everything that happened happened.

Nothing happened that didn't happen. (Incidenally there was a brief period in the history of English poetry when it was in to reify nothing, so that you could find poems with names like "On nothing". Hence, nothing happened.)

That's basically right, to find the significance of "historical" in the phrase.

Perhaps we should have ended here....

I think I got that a while back.

I don't think the A.15.44 material is kosher. (See for example here. And remember who was responsible for the preservation of the text and how they preserved other texts such as Ignatius, whose letters have three recensions.)

If it were from the hand of Tacitus, it is only a report of a religious nature and there are other religious reports. We take them as committed people explaining their religious beliefs.

You could be right.

Mithraism had a beginning as well. That is not a sufficient condition for anything relevant here. You are certainly correct that there "is nothing inherently implausible about the possibility that it was inspired by a real crucifixion." But again, plausibility is not a sufficient condition for anything here. Most works of fiction work on plausibility. I could continue with your thoughts of parsimony but they are a tangent here.

I actually can tell you things about Jack the Ripper. The person certainly wasn't a Jill the Ripper, needing to be rather strong and having had some physical training that allowed him to be able to wield a very sharp implement with accuracy, again not a woman. He was left-handed, by the wounds. And a few other things, but the most important for us is that we had proof of his work and thus his physical existence (which has no counterpart at all with Jesus).

aa5874

This is what I find so disturbing. You have virtually exclusively defended an historical Jesus yet now state that you have "no strong notions about an historical Jesus".

Your actual posts BETRAY you. You appear to have EXTREMELY strong notions about an historical Jesus even though you are AWARE that we have RECOVERED, DATED and Documented stories of Jesus that he was FATHERED by a Ghost.

Again, you statements are extremely disturbing. You are employing Bait and Switch. You use Galatians for your Jesus and in the Gospels and Acts is it claimed that there was an Apostle called James and that Jesus was from Nazareth, a preacher, baptized by John and crucified under Pilate.

This is why I do not accept HJers as being seriously attempting to recover the data of the past of the Jesus story. They appear to be experts at Bait and Switch. HJers advertise an OBSCURE Jesus of Nazareth baptized by John and crucified under Pilate and Look you STRAIGHT in the eye and tell you that they do NOT use the Gospels.

Well ONLY in the Gospels and Acts a character called Jesus of Nazareth was baptized by John and crucified under Pilate.

Tacitus Annals do NOT contain an obscure character called Jesus and does NOT state Christus was crucified.

Christus in Annals was NOT an obscure character.

HJers advertise an Obscure Jesus but SELL a WELL-KNOWN Christus in Annals, the very Gospels and Pauline letters.

This is the classical Bait and Switch argument from HJers.

HJers have NOT recovered any material for their Jesus so employ Bait and Switch.

I will UNCOVER the history of the Bait and Switch argument of HJers.


Bait and Swith!!!

Please, please, please, If you equate the Gospels to comic books then Jesus was a comic book character.

Just forget about your Bait and Switch.

Comic book characters have NO real existence. Please don't switch on me.

Don't advertise a Comic book character and then attempt to sell me a WELL KNOWN Christus.

We have RECOVERED the Myth Fables called Gospels.

outhouse

stop the special pleading



you have no evidence of 100% mythology in the NT, in fact we know its not 100% mythology.


the NT is evidence in its own right when studied by scholars.