rlogan

You have all the evidence you need here. There isn't even any indications in Paul mid-1st century that there is any biography to this alleged person to begin with. If there is no positive claim to any historical person to begin with, you are not going to find any challengers to it. Really, it grows so tiresome to hear the threadbare "Kata Sarka" B.S. when there is absolutely zero in the way of a living person.

There is no 19th century evidence that bugs bunny did not exist. But I think there was a bunny in the 19th century. A special one. He had a hole in the ground and ate carrots. Born of a rabbit.

now, I've emboldened "of Nazareth" above because it is very, very seldom that I can pin you down so some testable biographical data on who you are dedicated to defending. the first reference to Nazareth is in the gospels, which for the most part you have held in contempt.

I don't see that you have any way of determining that we can take this as something truthful whereas the rest is bogus. I do. This is mined out of the H.B. like every other significant feature of Christ. A mistake, even, over "naza-something". See the multiple threads here on this.

In the first place, all of the important gospel components are mined out of the HB. Now, you have gone out of your way to distance yourself from the gospel jesus without putting anything of substance in its place. So how can we show something that exists in your mind, as a nebulous idea, is "attached to a nonhistorical genre"?


IMHO. Vork has kicked ass from here to Sunday.

Case closed. You have some other Jesus in your mind that there is absolutely no evidence for.

You know what would be nice? Is for you to just ONCE admit that. Because doing so makes you a reasonable person that says, yes - I am speculating here about the existence of something that does not even have a literary base for it. Where is there any document whatsoever attesting to this "Historical Jesus"? There aren't any. But we do have these B.S. superman or mystical gibberish tracts that you seem to want to create a living person out of.

My dear ben - it is therefore a form of special pleading. The Bible is chock full of bunk. Why, even the very letters of Paul have within them bogus stuff about everlasting life and such. But we plead that the undocumented "histoprical Jesus" we somehow extract from this is a special case of believability.



Then you are not talking about the gospel Jesus. Because that one rose from the dead. and you now wish to substitute the historical bunny for bugs bunny and still call it bugs.


yes it does. and here is a very important place where "historicists" distingish themselves from historians. You put in bogus stuff about any "historical" figure doing miracles, coming back from the dead and so forth - and you have myth, period.

I keep asking for the actual person the myth is based on. That would make me a believer. Just please supply that person. Who is he? Was his name actually Jesus? Where did he really live? When? Etc.




but if it can be demonstrated that those close to him thought he did we would have a line of continuity between an historical figure and a later set of biographical materials.


Name them. We're back to a nameless person now.


On the contrary, it is critical. Because the myth is based on quote mining the HB, and here is one example. So you wish to throw out all of the evidence that it is a myth based on HB quote mining, but retain the demand that it be shown to be "positively attached to a nonhistorical genre".


Who is this man? I have been asking you for him throughout these threads. You're damned right it is minimal. It is as close to zero one can get.

I think there's just no meeting of the minds on this, Ben.

Cheers!

Zeichman

One thing which occassionally confuses me is when mythicists or pseudo-mythicists make comments like this, that Paul never states that he is referring to a historical person, but there seems to be little reason to expect that. Paul never explicitly states that Jesus is wholly within the heavens or in the "realm of the flesh" either. Paul DOES make statements which are extremely unexpected if he is referring to a wholly mythical figure (born of a woman, line of David), and there are problematic lines for the historicists, as Doherty seems more than willing to point out on his page.

The thing is, Ben is asking for positive evidence, and none has been offered. Only arguments from silence.



Vork's goal, from what I've read (and he may disagree with me on this) is that next to nothing can be conclusively demonstrated to go back to the historical Jesus. I disagree his opinions regarding sources, and I find his idea that more than half of Mark was derived from the Hebrew Bible a bit hard to accept, especially with his emphasis on the minimal amount of a pre-Marcan tradition. The idea of someone putting together a few wildly separated traditions by means of systematic exegesis of the HB seems unlikely to me.


Even Doherty admits the possibility of an HJ at the bottom of Q (!!!), and other hypothetical documents seem to presuppose an HJ, such as the Miracle Source, a pronouncement source, and a passion source. Given the common traditions in the earliest layers of Q, Thomas and the Pronouncement source, it seems likely that they may reflect some of the Historical Jesus' teachings.

(emphasis added)
Are you saying that Paul didn't believe in the afterlife? If not, what relevence does this carry?



What does this even mean?

At best, the Virginal Conception can be used to attest the exegesis from the HB in later Christianity. It says nothing about Mark or the traditions which preceded him.

Roger Pearse

Numerals in ancient texts get corrupt at the drop of a hat. This results from the lack of separate numeral signs; letters are used, and people mistake them for copyist errors, names, whatever.

We have a specific instance of this in Jerome's Chronicle where he is translating Eusebius' Chronicle. One family treats the numeral THETA as a letter, and mistranslates the whole sentence. The mistake is probably Jerome's; fortunately he corrected it.

(Not that I agree with your point in general, tho.)

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Ben C Smith

Rlogan, is it possible to separate the historical Caesar Augustus (the one whose navy won at Actium, who ruled Rome all those years, who wrote the Res Gestae) from the legendary Caesar Augustus (the one who was born of a serpent, descended from Apollo, and who could command animals)? If not, why not? If so, why is it impossible to separate the historical Jesus from the legendary Jesus?

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Agreed. Do you think the original had 500 or such?

You do not agree that numbers get exaggerated?

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Just to clarify, the minimal biography was not, repeat not, all that I think we can know about the historical Jesus. It was all that we need to make some kind of historical connection. Answering point B on my rudimentary outline would necessarily have to entail more than the minumum.

The first half of this statement is false. The second half is true, but only because I have not written a book about it. One thing at a time.

Ben.

Julian

Actually, it seems to be a general problem. Studying primary sources from medieval and renaissance texts, especially of battles, numbers are universally exaggrated. It becomes a very difficult task to figure out how many people did, in fact, participate in some event. If an event takes place in a time and place where social factors were well-known it is possible to estimate the proper number, but when it comes to antiquity it is almost impossible. How many men did the Persians have at Thermopylae?

In the case of crowds following Jesus we have pretty much no way of knowing. It could zero, it could be 5000. It would seem prudent, however, to guess towards the low end simply because a larger crowd would probably have attracted the attention of some historians. Five thousand people is just short of a Roman legion in terms of size. That would have cleaned out a good number of villages of the time.

Julian

Ben C Smith

I do not remember which ones, but I have read Christian mystics who made much of not knowing how to pray as they ought, and thus prayed with deep groans or tongues or other sounds. Do you suppose these mystics, medieval and later, were unaware of the paternoster?

Nevertheless, arguing that Jesus never offered this prayer and arguing that Jesus never existed are two very different things, just like arguing that the waters of the sea at Pamphylia never parted for Alexander and his men and arguing that Alexander never existed are two very different things.

These kinds of observations may, just may, cast shadows on the historicity of individual sayings or events; they do absolutely nothing against historicity of the person.

How is an ascribed lineage positive evidence against the historicity of Jesus? Is the fact that Plutarch traced the ancestry of Alexander back to Hercules evidence against an historical Alexander?

Ben.

Jobar

We are so lacking in positive evidence for the ahistoricity of Jesus largely because of the enthusiastic book-burning of the early Christians. If some Pope decided that a particular text was heretical, often we only know of that text because we have records of it being condemned as heretical- all copies of it were destroyed. So even it there were once numerous testimonies from writers who had a father or grandfather who lived in Jerusalem, and told them that nobody like this "Jesus Christ" was around in those days, none of their writings saying so have survived to the present day. So we shouldn't be too surprised that contemporary, relevant, positive evidence for the ahistoricity of Christ is severely lacking.

However, the silence from those who would have written of a person as extraordinary as Jesus supposedly was, speaks quite loudly in itself.

Ben C Smith

Thanks. I will enter your name in the none column on my Positive Evidence against Historicity spreadsheet.

Whatever ancient sources you can supply for this enthusiastic bookburning would be appreciated (but on another thread, please).

Ben.