mountainman

What year do you think it is this year, and logically, why?

J-D

I think you may not have been paying close attention.aa5874 quoted Bart Ehrman using the expression 'not historically reliable' not about people, nor about events, nor about relics, but about accounts.

J-D

It's 2011. I make that judgement not solely by the use of pure logic (which by itself cannot answer questions like that) but by empirical procedures. I regularly see references to the current date in print and online, and they all concur that it's 2011 now.

Why do you ask? Are you in any doubt about which year it is this year? What point are you trying to make?

mountainman

2011 years from which Jesus?

J-D

I don't know whether it's 2011 years from any Jesus. It might be or it might not be. Again, what point are you trying to make?

mountainman

The very first Historical Jesus Theory was authored by Eusebius and was submitted for "peer review" c.325 CE. He may have been sponsored (in gold) to research his thesis. However the evidence indicates that it appears to have caused a great controversy in Alexandria, and Constantine had to intervene. Eusebius seems to suggest that the theory was publically ridiculed at that time by the Alexandrian Greeks in their theatres, and that they didn't believe in his HJ theory, and that Arius of Alexandria was a very nasty piece of work. Emperor Julian calls Eusebius WRETCHED, and gave the HJ Theory (presumeably that of Eusebius) the proverbial thumbs down.

But over the last century or so, the original HJ Theory of Eusebius has slowly fallen from grace. Eusebius has made too many mistakes - even in the basics such as chronology. He states Matthew wrote first, that Josephus called Jesus the Christ, that Paul wrote all his letters and that Jesus personally emailed King Agbar before ascending through the clouds. His exciting series on "The Martyrs of Palestine" is bad fiction at best, and his "Life of the Thrice-Blessed Emperor Constantine" is a dead give-away about how much influence "The Boss" had over "Big E." All these things are remote from logical truths, and demonstrate that the original HJ theory of Eusebius is inextricably interwoven not only with logical and chronological errors, but with criminal activity. (See this essay on Eusebian identity theft).


It appears that Bart Ehrman is going to write a new one for us.

J-D

What leads you to say that?

mountainman

I am happy to run with a multi-colum spreadsheet into which the evidence can be indexed - one column for unambiguous evidence, and a second column for ambiguous evidence. However the problem is that when the list is prepared and we have say 100 entries sitting in the ambiguous column, it still leaves unanswered the argument that the HJ theory has no historical evidence. Those who think that it is not unreasonable to require some unambiguity in the evidence may therefore be entitled to regard as a logical fallacy.

Faith is insufficient evidence.

mountainman

Eusebius himself, the ancient historical evidence, and the comments of many ancient historians. In fact it is generall agreed that this undertaking was accomplished during the years 312 and 324 CE with many revisions in order to accommodate the all important Council of Nicaea. See Richard Carrier on Eusebius for example.

avi

This is a somewhat paradoxical reply, to my way of thinking, J-D. If I have learned nothing else, it is that my thinking is really aberrant, with respect to some of the forum members....

I am going to rewrite what you have written, so as to confirm that your meaning is as I understand it to be: (aka = acronym commonly employed in surgical notes, to indicate "above the knee amputation", i.e. removal of the entire lower extremity at the hip; pt = patient; amelia = birth without limbs, LE = lower extremity, bilat = bilateral, w = with)

ACTION...................................PHYSICAL POSSIBILITY.........LOGICAL POSSIBILITY

............................................"J-D".........."avicenna"..........."J-D"....."avicenna"

1. aka.....................................YES...........YES..................YES..........YES

2. aka in pt w bilat le amelia........NO.............NO...................NO............NO

3. walk on water.......................NO.............NO...................YES...........NO

Please correct my summary if there is an error.

In psychiatry, we define "delusion" as an idiosyncratic, fixed, false belief.
The notion that one can logically walk on water, represents, in my opinion, a delusion. Treading water, using only the lower extremities, without sinking, is impossible on planet earth. As long as an action is physically impossible, it is also logically impossible to perform.

avi