Kapyong

Gday,

They ARE similarly suspect.

That's the part you don't get.

K.

show_no_mercy

I don't see how this follows. What you seem to be arguing is that if "x" person said something awesome through the pen of "y" writer and might have been fictional, the fact that the "speaker" was fictional somehow destroys the credibility of that awesome concept.

This seems to be in the family of ad hominem reasoning. A thought process devoid of logic.

Whether Einsten was real or simply an illusion propegated by intelligent aliens from Andromeda has no effect on whether Special and General Relativity work. The same with Socrates, the Buddha, Democritus, Confusius, etc. The message is valid and/or true, regardless if the person saying it was real or a sockpuppet.

The viceral, emotional reaction to Jesus Mythicism comes about because Jesus himself is the message. It's the "good news of Jesus the Christ". There doesn't seem to be any hint of a wise, traveling preacher Jesus in any of the Christian epistles written before the fall of the Temple... because Jesus himself was the message, not anything he said.

Chaucer

On the contrary, I'm saying that many of the concepts in Atomism have been proved right in the past century. There is no question these concepts are essentially correct. Consequently, wouldn't it be odd that a scattershot bunch of over-imaginative chroniclers would have put just such unique and accurate notions in the mouth of a mere concoction, Leukippos in this case? Isn't it more likely that one man, a real historical Leukippos, arrived at such atomic concepts in a genuinely historical way?

Baloney: What he says in "Q" is uniformly ascribed to him and him only, sometimes even by extra-canonical and extra-Scriptural sources like Thomas. Now, you can suppose that Jesus of Nazareth is a mere concoction. But even that concoction has just as much to do with what he said on an abstract philosophical level as with what he did or was.

Chaucer

Chaucer

It's. All. We. Have. For. The. Great. Thinkers. Of. Ancient. Times.

Chaucer

Give me a complete list and explain exactly why each one is suspect.

show_no_mercy

This is still a non-sequitur for the reasons I mentioned.

"Q" is a hypothetical document. What evidence do you have that, if it even existed, that it (and Thomas) existed prior to Mark's narrative written after the fall of the Temple?

spin

(This was an attempt to poke you about your anti-lefthanded comment.)

Ummm, try facing the consequences then.

History is partly the use of better information, such as what we have for Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius etc., to establish pegs in the past and the attempts to bring less solid data into the body of knowledge we have of the past. Once something has been given historical status this way it becomes part of the accepted body from which further additions may be made (though the status of anything can of course be challenged and one needs to be able to meet the challenge). When you cannot bring them into the fold, then they float in limbo until they can (if ever).

(I think I can include some great thinkers, such as Marcus Aurelius and Julian.)

But your approach of abnegating your responsibilities because you're afraid of losing someone is not conducive to history.


spin

No Robots

Relax, Chaucer. There is not a single historian or historiographer to whom spin can look for support for his hard-hat empiricism.

Toto

As far as I know, the JP is alive and well. The only reason for not continuing would be the current recession and difficulties in fund raising.

DeConick decided not to sign on, as did Erhman and a few other big names, but it wouldn't call the reaction "dismay." There are still a number of interested and interesting participants.

Most of the participants in the JP are historicists who think there was a historical Jesus. Why are you hoping that the project might be scuttled? Don't you think that the existence of a historical Jesus can stand up to scholarly examination?

GenesisNemesis

But... we need data!