Steven Carr

Similarly, Popeye's astonishing feats after eating spinach do nothing to remove the possibility that the character was based on a real person.

Juststeve

Steven Carr:

At last you begin to catch on. astonishing feats after eating spinach do nothing to remove the possibility that Popeye was based on a real person. If you assert that he wasn't, and can find someone to argue with, you will need more evidence.

Steve

Toto

That's why no one ever makes that claim.

The incredible claims made for Jesus show that the documents making those claims are not reliable. I think that is the only argument that you will find from skeptics.

And if those unreliable documents are the best evidence for Jesus, what would you conclude?

PhilosopherJay

Hi Logical,

Academic fields vary quite a bit regarding what things are debated and what represents a solid core of evidence and fact and thus beyond debate,

Probably, the closest analogy to the idea of the non-existence of Jesus is the non-existence of Moses. There was simply no debate in the field of biblical archaeology over the existence of Moses until, I believe, the 1970's. By the 1990's the consensus changed and the majority of people in the field put Moses in the non-existence category.

The existence of Homer was not a question in the field of Homeric studies in the 19th century. It became a serious question in the 20th and the majority opinion now seems to be that either he did not exist, or he was a compiler of other people's works, although there is still much debate.

"Apotheosis of Homer" from the 3rd Century B.C.E.

On the other hand evolutionary theory is basic to a number of scientific fields, so while the enhancement (evolution) of evolutionary theory is constant, its overthrow is virtually unimaginable.

For the most part, the debate over the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth did not begin until the 1990's and only now is it seriously heating up.

Is it a good rule of thumb to accept consensus opinion in an academic field? In general yes, but one has to be aware of the nature of the field and the question at issue. To simply accept consensus academic opinion in every field is intellectual laziness.

One should note in support of this how astrology was a reputable academic field until the age of enlightenment (Mid 1700's).

As Wikipedia notes:

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

outhouse

LOL its not heating up at all. it is still a unsupported fringe position reperesenting a very very very small minority opinion.


very good point, but its really evidence against a 100% mythical jesus.


Moses was a leader and a knoble charactor

jesus is written in as a poor traveling peasant who is crucified for tax evasion, and mythology layered around him.


While I agree moses is a literary creation, many still follow that there is a historical core of a leader bring a tribe in from egypt. im sure someone did just that and it was remembered in oral tradition. I dont think his name was moses.

But the biggest difference is moses was written in hundreds of years in the past

jesus 20 years, thats where the huge difference lies.

aa5874

Your statement is absurd. ALL we have of Jesus are Fictional accounts it is theretore reasonable to consider Jesus as a fictional character until better evidence can be found.

This is basic. This is standard practice in any normal investigation.

It is WHOLLY contrary to assume a character did live when every version of his supposed life is TOTAL fiction and NOT one piece of credible information about has survived. And not only, that NO evidence for his family and disciples have survived.

Gorit Maqueda

And this is when mountainman comes in... :devil1:

graymouser

I've been thinking about this one for a while, and honestly I believe that the emergence of Christianity itself is the reason that most people assume the existence of a human Jesus. It's the simplest explanation for the existence of a movement that, within a few decades at most, called its founder a crucified man named Jesus of Nazareth - that such a man existed. Relative to this, the mythicist argument is a relatively sophisticated one, that requires very particular assumptions about the motivations and ideas of Paul and the evangelists.

Now, you can have all that subtle argumentation you want, but I think that the very existence of Christianity gives the stronger ground to a very minimalist historical Jesus. If you consider that any mythicist theories in academia are going to be a hard uphill slog against that notion, you can see why historians and Bible scholars don't generally go ahead with it. Add in the association with pop-religion cranks like Freke/Gandy and Achyara S., and the whole field of mythicism is also, admittedly unfairly, tarred with the brush of pseudo-history.

Personally I haven't found a mythicist case that is intellectually satisfying, while a minimal historical Jesus makes sense. I'm not certain that a historical Jesus existed, but I consider it a lot more likely than a wholly invented Jesus.

Grog

Hmmm. Well, I don't think it is that simple. Do you have a sampling, some kind of data from say a survey that indicates people who question the historicity o fJesus are "ideologically self-serving"?

Can you state what the consensus is exactly?

Is there an academic consensus that Jesus of Nazareth performed many miracles, rose people from the dead, himself came back to life after being dead for 3 days... That's what the documents that the "consensus" relies on, says.

What facts about Jesus of Nazareth do the scholars in this consensus agree on? Do they agree on what Jesus taught? Do they agree on who his father was?

It seems to me that the one agreement is that he was crucified under Pilate. That is pretty much it. But finding the evidence to prove that someone named Jesus was crucified under Pilate and then proclaimed alive again existed is a bit difficult.

That wasn't the case for me. I started researching the historicity of Jesus because I was determined that my Roman Catholic view if his life was more accurate that that I heard depicted by evangelicals. I wanted to prove that Jesus was the Che Guevara of first Century Palestine. Crossan was like a god-send to me then. I even toyed with the idea of writing a sort of historical fiction, but when I began to research further, it all began to fall apart. Chasing leads to the historical Jesus always end up in a dead end. It's like nailing jello to the wall. Go ahead, give it a try yourself.

On what aspect? I agree with many experts on many things related to the historical Jesus. I read and cite and scholarly papers. I could list many arguments with which I agree with the scholarly consensus: Markan priority, Paul writing in the 50's/60's, G Mark written mid-60's or later.

I disagree on this one piece: I don't think Jesus existed. You won't find in the literature presentations of arguments finding he did. What you do fiind is speculation (a la Crossan) as to what he would have been like if he did exist.



Ok. Well, we'll just see wait and see what the experts say then.

Juststeve

Toto:

Review post number 46 on this thread and then tell me that no one makes the argument I suggested is beneath careful thought.

Steve