Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Gooch's dad · 12-12-2005, 04:00 PM

Bright Life asked for Roman census or tax data about Jesus, which seems to be rather a strange request. Do we have any such data at all, for anybody from Roman Palestine in the 1st century?

emphryio · 12-12-2005, 04:03 PM

No actually it is too much to ask. No one has any responsibility to spoon feed you an education.

Furthermore to take the majority of "scholars" who write about the issue and just believe whatever they believe, is extremely lazy. How bout you get off your keister and use a search engine on your own? You've been given enough key terms here to work with. The issue is fairly trivial. Good luck.

Gooch's dad · 12-12-2005, 04:18 PM

Fine, then let me put it more bluntly, emphyrio, since you apparently don't understand what a rhetorical question is. We don't have *any* Roman census or tax data about anyone from 1st century Palestine. So putting the bar here is a classic case of special pleading. Am I clear enough?

emphryio · 12-12-2005, 04:21 PM

Err, we cross posted there guy. I wasn't even responding to you.

Gooch's dad · 12-12-2005, 04:22 PM

My apologies, then.

emphryio · 12-12-2005, 04:28 PM

No problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by achristianbeliever

So your response is to complain about the example I gave? How about instead you give a source that gives an opposite conclusion about what the majority of scholars and historians believe. You don't like this example I gave? I'll give others: Van Voorst, Howard Marshall, Rudolf Bultmann. Now I wouldn't be surprised if somehow you or someone else complain about their credentials or their motives but if that's the case then please, please give me a source. (Not Earl Doherty) All I've seen so far is speculation and argument by outrage over how worthless wikipedia is. So please someone give me a source that shows the majority of scholars and/or historians believe in the Jesus myth. That isn't too much to ask.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RPS

The flaw isn't exclusive to Christians. The majority of scholars (according to this book, written by a non-Christian) accept the Josephus Testimonium as authentic but interpolated, not a complete forgery. Moreover, that interpolation doesn't deal with or eliminate the Josephus "brother of James" reference. Dogma-clutching goes both ways.

And, by the way, if Yahoo hits were the measure of competent scholarship, creationism would rule the day. Instead of pointing to internet conspiracy theories, why don't you list any reasonably current academic scholarship advocating the Jesus-myth idea?

See my above post concerning your intellectual laziness.

Toto · 12-12-2005, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RPS

1. Why do you think any quality professional scholar, much less a non-Christian one, would assume the existence of an historical Jesus without basis?

It's an easy assumption to make.

After the Enlightenment, scholars in Christian countries became embarrassed by the supernatural content of their religion, and tried to put it on a more rational basis. They looked at the gospels and tried to reinterpret them in a naturalistic way, so they didn't depend on supernatural events. They reinterpreted Jesus, and turned him from a supernatural godman into just a Great Man of History.

Many non-Christians picked up on this Great Man theory of Jesus. Thomas Jefferson removed the miracles from the New Testament and revealed what the thought was just a moral philosopher. Will Durant was a humanist (not a professional historian) who wove Jesus of Nazareth into his history of the world.

But all of this revisionist scholarship was not able to come up with a coherent picture of who this Jesus of Nazareth was, or why the Romans executed him, or why the Jews didn't follow him.

Quote:

2. Might it be that these scholars assume that the Jesus-myth idea is false in the same way that scientific scholarship assumes that creationism is false and doesn't engage it -- because it's a silly idea?

This false. Scientific scholarship does engage creationism, and defeats it, detail by detail. Science does not "assume" that creationism is false - it amasses data that shows it is false. Please find me a standard site like talkorigins where the Jesus myth is refuted - but there is none.

In fact, the historical Jesus theory is more like creationism. It has a veneer of scholarship, but it is based on trying to salvage some part of the Christian Holy Scripture and save the religion from being disproven by modern science.

achristianbeliever · 12-12-2005, 04:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by emphryio

No actually it is too much to ask. No one has any responsibility to spoon feed you an education.

Its too much to ask to know what the majority of scholars believe. And to do so means you are spoon feeding me an education. Sounds more like your afraid to do so because your afraid the majority of scholars and historians believe in his existence.

Quote:

Furthermore to take the majority of "scholars" who write about the issue and just believe whatever they believe, is extremely lazy. How bout you get off your keister and use a search engine on your own? You've been given enough key terms here to work with. The issue is fairly trivial. Good luck.

And yet skeptics do that all the time. "Majority of scholars believe Matthew, Mark, Luke, John didn't write their books" "majority of scholars say Paul didn't write the epistles" "majority of scholars say Mark wrote after 70AD". I've heard skeptics use the "majority of scholars" line all the time. Don't tell me that its laziness for me to want to know what the majority of scholars say about the existence of Jesus when skeptics continuously bring up what the majority say on other issues.

Biff the unclean · 12-12-2005, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by achristianbeliever

As far as I know the overwhelming historical and scholarly opinion is that he existed.

Quote:

Don't tell me that its laziness for me to want to know what the majority of scholars say about the existence of Jesus when skeptics continuously bring up what the majority say on other issues.

It's you that made the assertion, not the skeptics. There you are making it in the first quote.
Feel free to back your own assertion up lazy-bones.

Toto · 12-12-2005, 05:23 PM

There are times when you need to rely on scholary consensus - when scholars actually have access to more information than you can. But if you always go with the "consensus" you will never make any progress.

In the case of the existence of Jesus, just a little investigation on your own will tell you that the so-called consensus is based on shifting sand and has no foundation.

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12-12-2005, 04:00 PM	#31
Gooch's dad Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Madison WI USA Posts: 3,508	Bright Life asked for Roman census or tax data about Jesus, which seems to be rather a strange request. Do we have any such data at all, for anybody from Roman Palestine in the 1st century?

12-12-2005, 04:03 PM	#32
emphryio Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: WV Posts: 4,369	No actually it is too much to ask. No one has any responsibility to spoon feed you an education. Furthermore to take the majority of "scholars" who write about the issue and just believe whatever they believe, is extremely lazy. How bout you get off your keister and use a search engine on your own? You've been given enough key terms here to work with. The issue is fairly trivial. Good luck.

12-12-2005, 04:18 PM	#33
Gooch's dad Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Madison WI USA Posts: 3,508	Fine, then let me put it more bluntly, emphyrio, since you apparently don't understand what a rhetorical question is. We don't have any Roman census or tax data about anyone from 1st century Palestine. So putting the bar here is a classic case of special pleading. Am I clear enough?

12-12-2005, 04:21 PM	#34
emphryio Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: WV Posts: 4,369	Err, we cross posted there guy. I wasn't even responding to you.

12-12-2005, 04:22 PM	#35
Gooch's dad Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Madison WI USA Posts: 3,508	My apologies, then.

12-12-2005, 05:23 PM	#40
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	There are times when you need to rely on scholary consensus - when scholars actually have access to more information than you can. But if you always go with the "consensus" you will never make any progress. In the case of the existence of Jesus, just a little investigation on your own will tell you that the so-called consensus is based on shifting sand and has no foundation.

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