Doug Shaver

What claims does anyone make about Virgil, beyond his having written the Aenead?

The book obviously is evidence for the existence of somebody who wrote it. The question is whether that somebody also was a disciple of the book's central character.

It could mean much or it could mean very little. It depends entirely on where the Romans who wrote those things were getting their information.

If that is a complaint against double standards, I'm with you. However, I think the standards that many people use for secular history are entirely too low. I think the world needs more skepticism in all areas of inquiry, not more credulity in any area.

post tenebras lux

There was this thread which alleged that the Jesus Seminar was refusing to discuss the MJ hypothesis.

This is a response from the editor of Fourth R:Maybe the guy's did it unintentionally (yeah, right, he's the editor) but I note what he actually says rather than what he appears to say.

HJ scholars don't want to talk about the MJ hypothesis.

Celine

This is a ridiculous rendition of "skepticism," nothing whatever of the "nature" of skepticism. It is nearly a parody of skeptical inquiry, and any "scholar" who makes such an off-the-cuff misstatement should have to retake critical thinking methods.
In fact, true skeptics should always be prepared to to have their minds changed. As you say, post tenebrus lux, this casts serious doubts on the motives of such NT scholars.

leederick

Thanks for all the comments.

post tenebrus lux;

That quote from the Jesus Seminar was absolutely facinating. I can see how New Testament scholars could be ideologically wedded to a HJ. After all, if a HJ doesn't exist then their discipline loses much of its importance - rather than looking at a historical figure who founded a major religion they'd be just studying a bunch of myths.

Toto & gstafleu;

Good points: I can see it isn't just Christian sensibilities that might be upset. I hope I don't sound like a broken record, but still - are academics really that worried about upsetting people? I've also reluctant to accept the idea that it's resisted or just isn't examined in academia because Jesus is part of peoples cultural identity. I think that explains reluctance in lay people (like me), but I'd have hoped professional historians would be more wedded to the evidence and wouldn't have those sort of reservations.

GakuseiDon;

I'm all for pushing the JM in the academy. It was discused in detail about a century ago (before being more-or-less rejected) wasn't it? Though obviously the case has changed since then. I remember seeing a 1970's article in the 'Journal of the History of Ideas' suggesting the idea would be worth being looked at a bit more. But nothing really since then...

Llyricist

Actually they said things more like "Yeh there's a pretty active group who claim their original leader was crucified by us in Judea."

Pretty different when not misrepresented, eh?

gstafleu

There is another question about the HJ-MJ issue: what does it really matter?

Consider for a moment the conclusion reached by the Jesus Seminar (the people whose journal refused the debate):
Now notice what is not there: no son of god, no resurrection, no atonement. That means that even in the view of the Jesus Seminar, Jesus cannot carry the weight of Christianity. In that light HJ vs MJ becomes a debate about a historical side issue. The question whether there is any validity to (standard) Christianity is in fact answered by the Jesus Seminar: No. But I think they leave this answer implicit.