aa5874

It is PRECISELY for that reason why I can ONLY accept Jesus as a Ghost story.

Based on what you say about Ghosts and humans, Jesus as a Child of a Ghost was doing things you claim humans can do and it is clearly stated that the mother of Jesus was WITH CHILD by a Ghost.

I cannot accept the Gospels as history based on what you say about Ghosts and humans.

Whenever credible evidence is found that can CONTRADICT the Gospels then I may have to re-consider my position.

The NT claims Jesus was the Child of a Ghost, God and the Creator and people of antiquity believed it was true.

It is written that people called Christians BELIEVED Marcion's Phantom WITHOUT Birth and Flesh did exist in Capernaum in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius.

So it is NOT at all unusual for so-called Christians to believe Ghost stories or Myth fables were historically credible.


I ALREADY DID. It is FALSE and ILLOGICAL to assert that "You can only accept my claims about what I know".

I already REJECTED your claim as false and illogical.

gurugeorge

Whereas you have no grounds for saying that anything about the Joshua Messiah story is historical, unless you can answer the provenance questions you asked (so that you are in the analogous position of knowing that Simon & Shuster wrote Superman, and in what context they wrote it).

Again, I know the analogy, while fun and striking, can be misleading - in this case we are talking about the possibility of a "Joshua Messiah - Divine Superhero" figure who it's clear at least some of people involved believed existed.

The central thing is the logic: is this figure a total myth, or myth based to some degree on fact. Non-fantastic elements in the biography aren't clinching for the latter position, since a total myth could have such elements too.

But that question can't even arise until you've established whether the authors are more analogous to religious Simon & Shusters (who believed in their divine figure) or more analogous to religious journalists (who knew people who knew people ... who knew a human Joshua) who have merely exaggerated and embellished.

Only if you have some grounds for the latter (or perhaps some external evidence of a contemporary human "Joshua" who might fit the bill for the man who became mythified into "Joshua Messiah"), does "the question" arise.

But as you yourself have pointed out, we don't actually know who wrote, why, when, etc. - so "the question" can't be "the question".

In the post I was responding to you said: "Nobody does treat the parts of the stories which refer to ghosts as historical sources; the question is whether other parts of the stories, not mentioning ghosts, are historical. "

Prior to that you said: "Each of the four gospels makes some statements about Jesus which cannot possibly be historically true and some statements about Jesus which might or might not be historically true. "

In both those statements, the referent of "Joshua Messiah" or "Saviour Messiah" must be the entity described in the texts.

But you do not know beforehand whether the entity referred to in the texts is myth all the way down or mythified man. (Remember, the sheer presence of quotidian stuff in the story, or otherwise-attested historical characters like Pontius Pilate, is not decisive.)

Only if you had other reasons to conclude the latter, would the logic flow such that some of the statements about the referent character might or might not be historically true. (After all, there's no question of whether a hypothetical all-myth referent might or might not be historically anything, is there?)

i.e. the question whether a given bit of the "Joshua Messiah" stories "might or might not be historical" only arises if it's granted that the referent of the "Joshua Messiah" stories is a man mythified.

But that's what's yet to be proved.

There is only one circumstance in which what you are saying makes sense - i.e. whether the stories are myth all the way down, or man mythified, certain incidental aspects in the stories that don't refer to the central character in question, may or may not be historically true, in absolute terms (e.g. was there a census at the time?, was Pontius Pilate's title "procurator" or "prefect", etc., etc.)

J-D

I did not assert that anything about those stories is historical.If there is nothing to clinch the question, then the question is still open.Why not? Why shouldn't somebody, picking up any book, ask exactly this question? What justification do you have for attempting to bar the question?Not knowing those things is an obstacle to answering the question, but that's no reason not to pose it.You put the words 'the question' in scare-quotes, as if you don't accept that it really is a question, which suggests to me that you're still, puzzlingly and depressingly, having difficulty distinguishing between a question and an assertion.And here again you're bizarrely suggesting that something can't be a question if we don't know the answer.No, I don't. But I don't need to.No, that's not right. There's no logic in that.Yes, there is. There is such a question if somebody asks it.

If I took your view, it would appear to exclude both questions we can't answer and questions we have answered, so I don't know what kind of questions you would leave room for.On the contrary. The question of whether a given bit of the stories might or might not be historical is legitimate if the subject of the stories might or might not be a man mythified. It is not necessary to establish the answer before posing the question! in fact, that's exactly back-to-front.Again, if you take the trouble to look closely at exactly what I actually said, you will see that this remark is irrelevant.

gurugeorge

Sure, you can ask it, but it would be a nonsensical question to ask about a hypothetical all-myth referent of "Jesus".

It would only make sense to ask it of a hypothetical man-mythified referent of "Jesus".

Here are your words again:-

If you are asking this straight off the bat, and if you believe what you are saying (i.e. believe that this is a valid, and not nonsensical question), then you are implicitly granting that the referent of "Jesus" in those texts from antiquity is a mythified man. You must have already made up your mind, for some reason, that all-myth is ruled out.

Or to put it another way:- independently of the question whether the "Jesus" entity is all-myth or man-mythified, statements in those texts from antiquity that are fantastic cannot be historically true (or at least, are vanishingly unlikely to be historically true, given our knowledge of the world). That is correct.

But the question whether some non-fantastic (realistic) statements might or might not be historically true depends on whether the HJ/MJ argument has been either granted for the sake of the argument, or settled, in HJ's favour, because it's only of a human being you can say that something might or might not be historically true, not of a fantasy being.

IOW, the referent of "Jesus" in those ancient texts has to be granted as "historical" (man mythified) before the question "historically true or not", asked of any statement about him in those ancient texts, makes any sense. (Of course trivial questions re. incidental details may or may not be historically true either in a fiction or in a historical text, but surely that's not what you're talking about - you're talking about statements about "Jesus".)

aa5874

Your assertion is NOT logical. If it is Granted that Jesus is historical then the question "historically true or not" is IRRELEVANT.

HJers grant that HJ of Nazareth was historical and do NOT question their presumption.

It is those who do not grant that the texts are historical who May ask the question "historically true or not ?"

When one examines the Gospels it cannot be granted that the texts are historical when they claim Jesus was a Child of a Ghost, God and Creator.

gurugeorge

Sorry, but you are wrong.

If it is granted (either for the sake of the argument, or because of some kind of evidence external to the cult's texts) that "Joshua Messiah" is historical, then and only then, of any (non-fantastical) statement in the cult's texts about what "he" did, may the question be asked "is this historically true or not?".

(That is to say, only if you first grant that "Joshua Messiah" was a historical person, can you look at a statement in the texts about what "Joshua Messiah" did and say "hmm, this bit about him walking from Capernaum to wherever might actually be historical, he may have done that - or maybe he didn't". And then you could investigate the matter further, to decide.)

Questions of historical truth cannot be asked about a fantasy being, they can only be asked of a being that could be evidenced by facts - i.e. a human being.

aa5874

How can a person KNOW in advance that their questions are about a FANTASY being? The claims in the NT that can be investigated for veracity without first granting historicity.

You seem to have forgotten that one MUST FIRST reject the texts about NT Jesus, the Child of the Ghost, God and Creator to "grant" historicity.

Jesus of the Gospels MUST FIRST be REJECTED unlike Jesus Son of Ananus of "Wars of the Jews" 6.5.

There is NO claim that Jesus son of Ananus was the Child of a Ghost so the texts may be granted to be historical but NT Jesus was described as a Ghost Child so the NT texts of Jesus MUST FIRST be REJECTED as historical.

In the NT, I must take for GRANTED that texts are NOT historical when it is claimed:
1. Jesus was a Child of a Ghost.

2. Jesus was on the Temple with Satan.

3. Jesus walked on water.

4. Jesus TRANSFIGURED.

5. Jesus resurrected.

6. Jesus ate FOOD after he was supposed to be dead and buried.

7. Jesus ascended in a cloud.

HJ of Nazareth has no source. Nothing can taken for granted when NOTHING was written of HJ of Nazareth.

gurugeorge

If, in reality, the texts are about a fantasy being (of one kind or another - perhaps a literary creation, or a believed-in divine superhero figure), then historicity questions are senseless, and if you are asking historicity questions of the text you are in reality gabbling nonsense, whether you know it or not.

If, in reality, the texts are about a man whose story got mythified (blown out of all proportion with fantasy elements layered on top of it - which is the standard HJ idea), then historicity question have sense, and if you are asking historicity questions you are in reality asking meaningful questions, whether you know it or not.

But you don't know in advance which is the case in reality.

A prior investigation has to be made before you can either ignore historicity questions or start asking them (of the text - I mean, looking in the text for bits of genuine biography of a man).

That means, triangulation from external sources (either looking for likely contexts for a fantasy creation or for a mythified man, and also other possiblities like fraud, various types of literary forms, etc.), trying to find out who wrote the texts and in what context, etc., etc.

(There might be some "giveaways" internal to the text, but it's going to be extremely difficult to find them, due to the fact that a text that's in reality about a fantasy being with a human aspect may look quite similar to a text that's in reality about a human being whose story got fantasy layered on top of it.)

J-D

Things I claim humans can do? Is there any dispute about whether it is possible for humans to eat, walk, and talk?Yes, it is, and those statements in Matthew and Luke cannot be historically true. But that does not change the fact that there are other statements about Jesus in the canonical gospels that might or might not be historically true.I never suggested that you should accept the Gospels as history.I'm not sure what you mean by 'CONTRADICT' in this context.Yes, it includes passages which make those claims.Some of them did and some of them didn't--not that I can see what difference it makes.Where is that written, and even if it's true, what difference does it make?Even if that is true, what difference does it make?I'm not sure why we're arguing about this. Even if you're right about this point, it doesn't change the fact that the canonical Gospels contain some statements which cannot be historically true and other statements which might or might not be historically true.

J-D

Okay, on the hypothesis--that is, the assumption--that something is mythical, it makes no sense to ask whether it's historical.

It makes no sense to assume an answer to a question and then to ask what the answer to the question is on that hypothesis. To assume an answer to a question is to decide to treat it as no longer open. But I am making no such assumptions and I see no reason why I should. In the absence of hypothetical assumptions about the answer to the question, I still don't see any grounds for treating the question as closed. If you can give grounds for accepting an answer to a question as established, without just assuming the answer as your hypothesis, then you have grounds for treating the question as closed. Otherwise it's still open.You're confusing assertions and questions again. That sentence is a statement, not a question. If you think it's a false statement, I don't know why.Not at all. If everything the canonical gospels say about Jesus is entirely mythical, then in that case none of those statements is historically correct. But I have taken no position one way or the other on whether everything the canonical gospels say about Jesus is entirely mythical. I have said that some of the statements about Jesus might or might not be historically true. One of the ways they might be not historically true is by being entirely mythical. I have said nothing to rule out that possibility. I have neither accepted nor rejected it. I have left the question open.Of course statements about Jesus can't be historically true if they're entirely mythical. 'Historically true' is one possibility, 'entirely mythical' is another, and perhaps there are others. The question is open.I never said that the question of whether a statement is historically true is independent of whether it's entirely mythical. 'Historically true' and 'entirely mythical' are mutually exclusive options. If the answer to one question is 'This statement is entirely mythical', then necessarily the answer to another question must be 'This statement is not historically true'; and if the answer to one question is 'This statement is historically true', then necessarily the answer to another question must be 'This statement is not entirely mythical'. But so what? I don't see how that affects the issue actually at hand.No, that's not right. If it has been established that the 'Jesus' referred to in a statement is entirely mythical, then that settles the question of whether the statement is historically true--it can't be. But if the question of whether the 'Jesus' referred to in a statement is entirely mythical has not been settled and is still open, then the question of whether the statement is historically true may also still be open.