Tristan Scott

I think the historical parts were mede as accurate as the writers could make them with the knowledge they had in an attempt to add credence to the mystical parts. They weren't writing this shit for people in the future, they were writing it for their contemporaries.

J-D

It may or may not be the most basic question, but it isn't the question I was asking.That answer may or may not be correct, but it's not an answer to the question I was asking.It might be. Or, on the other hand, that might not be the second question.I might. Or, then again, I might not.

bacht

If Jesus is truly the Son of God, the Word made flesh, then history is irrelevant except to pinpoint the time of this revelation. God himself is beyond time and space. Quibbling over events in 1st C Palestine is secondary to the message itself: God lives and loves his children, and wants us to live as righteous lives as possible. Isn't this the whole point of religion, to lead us to a better life?

[sorry if I'm preaching, I inherited didactic genes from both sides :redface:]

Back Again

The history is relevant to the study of history!

Maybe your point is that you don't expect the New Testament to be accurate historically since this was not the intended purpose of the works?? I think the authors intended to add credibility to their stories by placing them in a historical setting. They probably did the best they could from sources like Josephus and pulled the rest out of their ass.

bacht

Of course it's relevant to the study of history, but crypto-apologists like J-D blur the line between disinterested scientific history and irrational religious revelation. Since the 2nd C people have tried to conflate the time and place of the arrival of the Christian message with the insertion of God himself into human history. Once you build a universal institution you have to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator, the one that requires the least imagination. People can understand Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus much more easily than the Logos seated at the right hand of the infinite eternal Almighty.

Back Again

Yeah. Agreed.

I guess to restate my point (which is a bit orthogonal to your point) more succinctly. I'm saying that the NT would be extremely valuable in the study of the history of first century Judea...if the books were actually written in the first century by anyone that had ever been there. Because of that potential it must be evaluated seriously as a possible historical source. I think the result of those critical evaluations (of the Gospels eg) is that there's not a whole lot in there of historical value that's not available in other sources such as Josephus.

J-D

I don't know what you mean by 'crypto-apologist' and I don't know what makes you think I am one. If you're interested in history, you should be interested in evidence, and if you've got a scrap of it, I'd like to see it, since it's me you're making possibly offensive allegations about.

J-D

But he isn't, obviously, because there is no God.

Presumably, on the track record, most of the people who think he is God would be likely to answer the poll question with 'all', but I knew that going in.No, the whole point of religion is to act as a mechanism of social control.

bacht

No doubt. I didn't mean to jump on your posts, I wasn't sure how serious this thread was going to be.

I think scholars have spent the last couple of centuries trying to separate the "wheat from the chaff" and haven't come up with a lot of usable data. As you say, some items might support other sources (I'm thinking more of Acts than the gospels). I suppose theoretically there's a history of 1st-2nd C ideas/beliefs buried in the material, but it's like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing.

bacht

Well, you didn't provide much detail in the OP. When Toto tried to clarify the obvious meaning of your question you didn't give a usable response. You seem to be hiding your real intentions or beliefs on the matter. If I'm wrong about this I'm sorry if I misunderstood. You aren't making it easy.

Typically it's the true believers who cling to the historical value of the NT texts. Apologists regularly show up here and tell us all about the Bible and Jesus as if it was news, usually with a minimum of scientific perspective. Sometimes it's a stealth approach, which is what I thought you might be doing.