MCalavera

Christian Gnostics believed Jesus was real ... just not "in the flesh".

jakejonesiv

Christians believed the Holy Ghost was real too, just not "in the flesh." You are very selective in how you slice and dice the gospels deciding what you want to believe is historical and what you don't.

So let me ask you a very simple question. Do you believe the resurrection story in Luke24;36-43 is historical?

Come on MCalavera, Jesus eats a piece of fish. he shows them his hands and feet. He proves to the disciples he is not a spirit. What more evidence do you need?

Well, the fact is that someone was going all out of their way to portray resurrected Jesus as a physical and historical reality. But we both know it just ain't so. So we have mythical and religous imagery dressed up and presented as historical fact. And you don't have any textual basis for discerning what is fact and what is fiction in the rest of the gospels, just your own guesses and prejudices.

The simpliest and most sensible approach to the gospels is to treat them for what they are, faith based fairy tales. You have no way to separate the wheat from the chaff. For all we know, it is all chaff.

jakejonesiv

No misrepresentation. You are chopping the text to bits and then trying to convince the world that whatever you imagine is left is the historical truth.

MCalavera

I don't believe the resurrection was historical. I do, however, believe there was mass delusion back then about how thier Messiah was risen from the dead and exaggerations occurred.

Why I believe the resurrection wasn't historical was because of what the scientific evidence tells me and because of the quite a parsimonious theological motive behind it.

I don't trust theologically driven verses as historically reliable.

It's not a passage I can trust as historically reliable. Too heavily ridden theologically with the aim to convince the reader that Jesus Christ really did get resurrected.

Luke 1 speaks against you. The last chapter of John also speaks against you.

The whole collective context of the Gospels suggests they were trying to promote Jesus as the Messiah, implying that they were historical testimonies with biases and exaggerations.

The context speaks against you.

You can't just selectively ignore evidence speaking against you. That's not parsimonious.

MCalavera

Still waiting for mythicists to provide a simpler explanation that fits the evidence.

aa5874

gLuke is a Ghost story where the main character is the Holy Thing of a Ghost.

You use Ghost stories for your history of HJ of Nazareth so HJ is GIGO--GHOST IN---GHOST OUT.

It is time for you to call it QUITS. You are DONE, NOW.

HJ of Nazareth is the product of gLuke where the the author SAYS Jesus was a CHILD of a Ghost.

jakejonesiv

Still waiting for you to explain how you decide what to limbo out of gospels as historical fact, when the simpliest explanation is that you can't tell the difference.

jakejonesiv

You haven't demonstrated any ability to differentiate between "theologically driven verses" and those that contain valid historical data other than your own imagination.

The Prologue of GLuke tells us that the whole gospel is theologicaly driven, to convince Theophilus of "the exact truth" (1:4) of what he had been taught.
Luke 1:35 tells us the "exact truth" that Jesus was conceived by a historical visit of the Holy Ghost to a Virgin.

It is only your conceited opinion that you can scavenge bits and pieces of history from incredible tales in a make believe world where the impossible is unremarkable.

What? You just finished saying you don't believe the resurrection story and Luke, and you turn to a resurrection story in John to prove your point? You don't know what you are talking about.

Are you totally uninformed that the last chapter of John is held by almost all liberal scholars as not original? Here is a hint, the redactor in John 21:24 is lying ! Apparently only you and Christian apologists don't know this. Your self proclaimed ability to know what the simpliest explanation of anything just went up in flames.

You need more study. Do some homework.

Jake

Sheshbazzar

So do you mean Christian Gnostics believed that Jebus was a real -ghost-?

MCalavera

That's a load of strawmen and misunderstanding the point.

What the fuck should I care whether or not the authors were lying about stuff? Those arguments would work more properly against Christians not me.

You're telling me to do homework when I'm in agreement with the scholarly consensus. Who's the ignorant here? You, an amateur, or the experts?