aa5874

The notion that Jesus was a myth is based on DIRECTLY information found in the NT and the Church writings presented as the truth with witnesses.

The claim about Jesus in the NT and Church writings are absolutely clear and repeated hundreds of times, Jesus considered a God, the offspring of the Holy Ghost who walked on water, transfigured, resurrected and ascended to heaven.

These are undeniably written information that no-one has to invent.

The description of Jesus is undeniably mythical. No different to Romulus or Achilles.

Jesus is internally and externally confirmed to be mythical.


Now, there is no description of Jesus as just a man in all the extent NT and Church writings of antiquity, even the forgeries in Josephus, the TF, show that the author of the forgery did not know if to classify Jesus as a man but nonetheless wrote that he rose from the dead.

The historical Jesus is, in effect, an INVENTION supported by imagination only.

HJers are doing the impossible, on one hand they discredit the sources of Jesus and then simultaneously turn around and cherry-pick whatever they believe to be true in the very sources that they have just discredited.

HJers are attempting to historicise their Jesus without credible historical evidence. No serious historian would try to historicise Achilles and Romulus after discrediting their sources.

The historical Jesus is an invention. No author of the NT or the Church writings DENIED the information recorded in Matthew 1.18.

Matthew 1.18 was NOT INVENTED by the mythicist, but the historicist MUST INVENT the history of Jesus.

Jeffrey Gibson

I wonder if, in the light of the generosity that the current season is supposed to engender in noble breasts, you'd do us all a very great favour
and hold off on repeating this your mantra of yours until you've read and checked your claim against what you'll find in Murray Harris' Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk)?

<edited>

Jeffrey

maryhelena

aa5874

I don't think you will find, in any of my posts, that I hold to the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical person. On the contrary, I hold to a mythicist position regarding the gospel storyline. So, really, you are simply preaching to the choir here.....:wave: And since I've been in the mythicist camp for well over 25 years - I'm not about to get sidetracked this late in the day...

That said - it is also my position that there is no need for a mythicist position to reject the idea that the early Christians believed, somehow or another, that a historical person was relevant to their interpretation of OT prophecy. No, not Jesus of Nazareth by some other name. That figure is created out of OT prophecy with a strong addition of mythology. Looking for a historical person underneath all of that - well, one may as well go looking for a needle in a haystack! A better way would be to endeavor to identify which historical figures could have contributed to the prophetic aspect of the Jesus of Nazareth character. Mythicists spend a lot of time on mythology - and, it seems to me, little time on going over the relevant historical time period - that date stamp again. Perhaps trying to view that time period through a prophetic lens might produce some forward movement...

Mythology is not the beginning and the end of the mythicists case. If this position is going to carry the day it will have to present a far more compelling case - a case that takes that date stamp into serious consideration.

Clivedurdle

Thank you Jeffrey for posting a link to a supporter of the mythicist position.

maryhelena

Yes, lots of questions re that date stamp in the gospel storyline - why that date and not another. Was it just an arbitrary date - or was it used for some effect? It is very easy to dismiss the date stamp as of no relevance - that its just a part of the backdrop for the storyline. But, I think, that to do that one could be minimizing the prophetic aspect to the gospel storyline.

Jeffrey Gibson

How nice to see you once again not going beyond the internet -- and in this case, an amazon review -- for your intrepid insight into things!

But you failed to note that that is hardly all that Harris (or the reviewer says:

Harris, whom, despite your implicit claim to be familar with his book and to know what he says, you've quite evidently never read, concludes:

Quote:

As used of Jesus, QEOS is a generic title, being an appelation descriptive of his genus as one who inherently belongs to the category of Deity

(which, by the way in the first century is something other than later systematic theology conceives it)

And the reviewer says:

Are you speaking of Harris???

Jeffrey

Clivedurdle

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...22&version=KJV

Datestamps, crosses, beginnings and ends, alphas and omegas....

Clivedurdle

I use the definition of mythological as pertaining to chimera like godmen. Harris explicitly states Jesus is god!

Solo

I have explained my position vie-a-vis medical labelling several times. You seem to be picking at it to make it fit your own preconception of what I am saying.

For example, I have never said that all visionary/mystical experiences require a view of them as a specific disorder, or a generic class of disorders.

I recognize for example that certain transient para-normal mind states can be achieved by meditation practices or, most frequently, by ingestion of psycho-active substances.

What I suggest, instead, is that there are many interlocking indications in the descriptions of the phenomena associated with the Holy Spirit, including its personification in the gospels, that fit very well with challenges experienced by people of our time with a tendency to extremes of moods, and occasional loss of control of their moods, manifesting itself as psychosis. Paul had no difficulty in owning up to this, believing of course, this to be the form of communication God chose to reveal his secrets, which appears as 'foolishness' to people who are not spiritual, and who were not 'elected'.

Further, the content of Paul's theology, or the early Christianity as a whole, is not explainable in terms of the bi-polar challenge alone. In the most obvious character element outside the BPD, Paul's sense of righteous conducts which he 'owes' (to God) sets him apart from bipolar visionaries who saw the spirit as licence to do whatever they pleased. It is also clear that it was precisely on this cutting edge that the transition of the spirit-driven egalitarian church to one dominated by hierarchy and apostolic tradition was effected in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. This kind of 'culture selector' which extricated the new religion from the expectations of the end of the world shows that the social potential of Christianity reached well beyond coping with the socially enforced idiotic visions of the collapse of heavens.

a real hallucination, is it, gg ? How would that be different from an unreal one, I wonder ? I suppose the unreal one would be classified as 'pathogenic' or 'insane', right ?

The problem that this theory has is that it does not explain the mythical root of the argument that Paul had with the Jerusalem people, namely about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. If Paul's Christ references some distant nebulous mythical figure what does the persecution "for the cross of Christ" (Gal 6:12) relate to ? Why would real people be persecuted (and by whom) if their only trespass was a belief in variant death intermezzo of an indestructible myth hero ? Pray, tell !

Jiri

aa5874

I will make Tertullian answer your repetitive little mantra.

Look at Tertullian's On the Flesh of Christ 18

See http://www.newadvent.org

It is clear that Jesus was considered a Supernatural creature born of the Spirit of God without a human father.


Your response is absolutely ridiculous.

But, first explain how is it that a lady was laid Spiritually as found in Matthew 1.18, Luke 1.35 and "ON the Flesh of Christ" and still be a virgin after the "CHILD" was born? If not I LAY your mantra to rest forever.

Please read, Matthew 1.23-25

The lady got laid Spiritually, she brought forth JESUS.

Your repetitive mantra has been LAID to rest regularly from different positions.