J-D

Are you genuinely unable to see that the falsehood of the claims about conception by the Holy Ghost is compatible with all seven of the possibilities you yourself listed? You seem to think that only your first possibility is tenable, but your argument fails to disprove any of the other possibilities.

J-D

I'm confused. Are you now asserting only that your 'fourth century invention' hypothesis is a possibility, or are you asserting that it is the most likely possibility? If you are asserting that it is the most likely possibility, what basis do you have for that assertion?

J-D

No, I am claiming that it is possible that that is the case and that your claims to have disproved this possibility are logically flawed.No, I am claiming that if there was such a person, the claims about his virgin birth must be false (basing this on the same reasons that you rely on), but that this does not automatically prove that all the other claims made about him are false. The claims about Alexander the Great being the son of Zeus-Ammon are false, but that does not automatically prove that all the other claims made about him are false.

J-D

Difficult is not the same thing as impossible. To my knowledge at least one book has been produced which purports to eliminate forgeries, interpolations, and redactions and to reconstruct the true story of Jesus from what remains. I don't expect you accept that particular version sight unseen. I don't even know whether I accept all of it myself. But can you be sure that it's wrong? How?

J-D

You are hallucinating. I made no such statement.My position is that your arguments are logically flawed. The only evidence required to substantiate this is the pointing out of the logical flaws. This I have done. Is logic a problem for you? Do you know anything about it?No, it does not logically follow.

If a story contains the two statements: 'Jesus was born of a virgin' and 'Jesus was baptised', and if we know that nobody was ever born of a virgin, then logic tells us that it is not possible for all the statements in the story to be true. But logic does not tell us that all the statements in the story must be false.But you are unwilling to conduct a complete investigation of the story. Because you have detected that some of the statements in the story are false, you obstinately refuse to investigate the rest.

What is more, because you have detected that some of the statements in the story are false, you do not investigate their origin.

Toto

You seem to forget - the society of this time consumed wine regularly, but had no access to any source of caffeine - the Chinese had tea, the Arabs were yet to discover coffee, and chocolate had not made it from the New World. It's a wonder they got anything done at all.

Very funny. But the concept of Markan priority, Matthew copying, and fatigue are common with Christian scholars.

The idea of the Roman-Herodian-Jewish-establishment conspiracy against Jesus sounds like a typical Christian persecution fantasy to me. The gospels and the secular history from the time somehow omit to describe the "trouble" that Jesus stirred up which would have led to him being such a threat to religious and civil authorities.

And I know about fatigue in the gospels - it's no cover story. So I don't think you have any substance.

J-D

The statements 'Jesus was never born' and 'Jesus was never born of a virgin' are not logically equivalent. I agree with you that the second is true, but I don't see that it necessarily follows that the first is true.

J-D

I suppose that may be true in some instances, although you haven't actually cited even one. But an alleged temporary alignment of Communists with some other party or parties would not be as implausible as a temporary alignment of Communists with the US Republican Party, or with a similar party in another country. A temporary alignment between different parties is plausible; but not between parties whose positions conflicted as much as the Pharisees and the Herodians. In fact, if anything, my analogy of an alignment between the Republican Party and the Communists understates the problem, because it doesn't fully reflect the religious obstacles to a Pharisee-Herodian alignment.I find that a little more hard to believe. You certainly haven't given any examples of this.I don't think I would have put it that way. What sort of 'power bases' are you talking about?And I can't imagine how you might think of the Pharisees as seeing their 'power base' threatened in a way that would make them consider even a temporary alignment with the Herodians.Of course, it's true in general that such things do happen in politics. As I said before, many things are possible in politics; but not everything. I still don't see specifically how this specific alignment could possibly have come about.I have no idea, nor do I see how it makes any difference. My qualifications, or lack of them, are irrelevant to the merits of the argument.

spin

Gosh the pot is looking for a kettle to call black. Remember the harebrained "Herodian-Pharisee tactical alliance"? Luke knows nothing about any relationship between the two groups. Matthew mentions one contact. And Mark mentions two. Now both Matt and Luke used Mark so one omitted both references and the other omitted one. They certainly do not support any such crazy concept as a "Herodian-Pharisee tactical alliance".

Did Matt, or did Matt not, leave out a reference to "Herodians" in 12:14? Why did he do so? (And try to do better than a simple "I don't know".)

Would you care to hazard an opinion as to why Matthew doubled the double blind beggars stuff? Remember the blind Bartimaeus who ends up two blind beggars in Mt 20:29ff? What about its prequel in Mt 9:27ff? Is this the same Marcan event in Mk 10:46ff? What's going on? Can you see Matt manipulating the Marcan source or not?

One cannot help the fact that you are so out of touch with biblical analysis.

That's where the idea of fatigue comes from.

How do you explain for example the fact that Luke has used nazwraios twice in his text, but left one example of nazarhnos inherited from Mark?
Or with Matt's predilection for the "kingdom of heaven", why does the redactor sometimes leave "kingdom of god", eg in Mt 19:23 it's changed, but in 19:24 it's not? Or in the rewrite of the death of jtB, Matt 14 omits three of Mark's references, 6:14ff, to Herod being king, but left one in?

Fatigue is the normal means of describing this phenomenon. If you don't like it you don't have to show us that you are ignorant of the process. Take your complaints up with those who introduced it into gospel analysis.

The only one looking silly here is you who can't help displaying your lack of knowledge.

Is that an invitation to do something about your apparent <confusion>?

"Herodian-Pharisee tactical alliance"



Let's face it: you made yet another mistake. You assumed more than you could. Now you cover up your own error, knowing that you willfully misrepresent another's views.


spin

J-D

I see nothing in that thread to support the contention that Tertullian was invented by Eusebius, and I see a number of posts in which people assert that the writings of Tertullian are known independently of their quotation by Eusebius.