Kapyong

Gday,

I was talking about BIAS, not dishonesty. A common idea among apologists seems to be that there can only be 2 possibilities :
1. it's true
2. it's a LIE
But no - it IS possible to be wrong without being a liar, Steve.

What about Muslim scholars in Muslim universities, Steve? Do you give their views the same weight as your 'serious scholars' ?
Of course you don't.

And - is it 'possible' ?
Of course it is - just as it's possible for them to be wrong. SO what? Being 'possible' is no argument - it's admitting there IS no argument.

Would you agree it is possible for Jesus to be a myth?


It's nothing to do with how orthodox they are - it's about whether Jesus existed AT ALL. Most of these persons have careers and positions and books and social connections that depend on Jesus having existed. None of these 'serious scholars' could come out and say Jesus never existed without serious repercussions. No-one who argued Jesus did not exist would get very far in a culture dominated by Jesus beliefs. There is a huge bias in our culture - and universities.

Apologists are still mostly at the stage of ridiculing JMers - but these 'serious scholars' you champion have not really addressed the JM argument at all. They mostly just repeat the circle-jerk that it's been long disproved. Earl Doherty shows examples of scholars avoiding his theories here :
http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net...quesRefut1.htm


Well OK, I'll consider your list - prune out all the avowed Christians, and all the Christian universities. How many atheist scholars in secular schools agree with you?

Now -
how many have actually seriously addressed the historicity of Jesus?


Kapyong

Kapyong

Gday,

Hmmm...
This is a key issue.
I'd suggest a split thread with title like :
"Which scholars have addressed the JM theory"

What do others think ?

K

Juststeve

Kapyong:

To directly answer your question, yes its possible that Jesus is just a myth. I just don't think that's the case. What other answer could I resonably give?

Steve

GakuseiDon

Judges 13:5 is:
For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.

So, how do we get from there to "Jesus of Nazareth"? Wouldn't "Jesus the Nazarite" have made more sense? Where does "Nazareth" enter into the picture?

Juststeve

Toto:

I seriously doubt that any of the recognized brand name scholars have undertaken a detailed refutation of the Doherty position if that’s what you’re asking. I suspect that’s for the same reason that recognized archeologists don’t do detailed refutations of Eric Von Daniken’s theory that the Pyramids were built by extra terrestrials. When nonsense sinks to a certain level real scholars simply pay it no attention. That’s the case with Von Daniken and Doherty.

That said there are scores of book written on the historical Jesus by reputable scholars teaching at secular universities each one of which deals with evidence relating to the Jesus of history and draw conclusions and inferences from that evidence. The conclusions of such books in that Jesus actually lived in the first half of the first century C.E.

The Jesus seminar (150 men and women) as an organization undertook the project of trying to determine which of the events recorded in the Gospels likely occurred and which did not. Of 176 investigated they concluded that only 10 were nearly certain to have occurred. Hardly the result one would expect from a group of Christian Zealots, is it? Nevertheless those 10 required the existence of an historical Jesus. If your interested the book is called The Deeds Of Jesus which you can read or you can just check it out on an internet chat room to get the real scoop.

I don’t know if that counts as a yes or no to your question.

Steve

Juststeve

Kapyone:

Bart Ehrman and Richard Dawkins come immediately to mind as agnostic/atheists who have stated that they believe in a historical Jesus. As to others you really want to define who is a Christian. I know that people like Spong and Crossan deny a physical resurrection which would disqualify them as Christians in most churches. Do they count. As to the remaining member of the Jesus Seminar I have no way of knowing what their religion is. Do you?

Steve

Toto

No, I am asking if any brand name scholar has presented a positive case for thinking that Jesus was a historical person. I haven't found any that are at all persuasive. I read a very slim book by RT France, but it just claimed that the gospels must have been based on history.

And if you think that Doherty is at all comparable to van Daniken, you are mistaken - and even then, you can find reputable scientists who explain what is wrong with popular myths. None of your scholars want to touch the question of the historicity of Jesus.

Nope. These books assume that there was a historical Jesus in the first century CE and examine the evidence to see what is probably true about him.

You mean The Acts of Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk).

The Jesus Seminar refused to grapple with the question of whether Jesus existed. That is why the Jesus Project was set up.

If you really want to be able to say anything interesting on this question rather than just mindlessly relying on people you mistake for experts, you could start by searching this forum for threads with Jesus Project in the title, and dealing with a more sophisticated level of argument.

Kapyong

Gday,

Well, the point of that little sub-argument was that any argument based on 'it's possible' is very weak (unless it's facing the claim "it's NOT possible".)

I too agree it's possible that Christian scholars can do honest work.
So what?

The issue I raised was bias - the vast majority of these people HAVE to agree Jesus existed - if they disagreed that would mean ridicule, loss of jobs and friends and positions etc.

Do you consider what Muslim scholars in Muslim universities say about Mohamed, has as much weight as your 'serious scholars' ? Of course not.

We keep hearing how all these scholars have dealt with the JM theory.

But when you look close it's all just people repeating each other -
Bruce : yes, HJ is well proven, see scholar Steve
Steve: oh yes, HJ is fully proven, scholar George did it
George : yup, MJ is fully disproven, scholar Bruce said so.

The vast majority of your 'serious scholars' simply START with the assumption that Jesus WAS historical, then pick out the bits of the story they think are not myths and legends - voila - yet another Historical Jesus.
How many HJs now - 2 dozen?


K

Kapyong

Gday,

See?
That's exactly what we mean - instead of dealing with the issues, you just ridicule ED out of hand. You haven't even READ his work, and show no signs of doing so. Just like your 'serious scholars' who won't address Doherty either.

Earl Doherty is NOTHING like V.Daniken (I've read both) - this is a base insult. But it's much easier to abuse and ridicule than actually address his argument. Will you ever read Doherty, Steve?


No, that's the ASSUMPTION of such books.
They START with an HJ, then come up with their own take of who he was.
There are like 2 dozen HJs now - maybe 3-4 different MJs.

Can you name, say, three of those books by reputable scholars (are they different to 'serious' ones?) that actually ADDRESS the evidence, rather than assume an HJ?


But they started by assuming an HJ.
They did not address that issue first.
There's the pesky elephant in the room again.


K.

Kapyong

Gday,

Bart Ehrman is an agnostic, not an atheist at all - why did you blur the issue with that 'agnostic/atheist' tag ?
Bart's early life was evangelical, and his works are all assuming an HJ. There is almost no chance he could change his mind to MJ now.

Richard Dawkins is not an NT scholar.

Spong is a BISHOP !

Crossan was a Servite and then a Priest !
He's is no atheist.

So, you cannot actually name ONE SINGLE atheist NT scholar who agrees that Jesus existed.

Well - of COURSE Christians believe Jesus existed. How could they not? That's what I mean about being the most biased possible sample. It would be almost impossible to find a modern NT scholar who is a full-blown atheist.



K