archibald

Do you know they're interpolations?

Toto

I'm not going to go through all that again.

It is generally agreed that the longer passage in Ant. 18 is at least partially interpolated, and once you admit that, reconstructing the original is dicey at best. There is also the briefer mention in Ant 20, which looks like an interpolation to a lot of people.

It all depends on what sort of burden of proof you impose on the text.

aa5874

Do you know they're NOT interpolations?

Please tell us what you know.

aa5874

You are posting propaganda.

There are NO ANCIENTS TEXTS for HJ of Nazareth who was NOT born in Bethlehem.

We have Myth Fables about a character called Jesus the Child of a Ghost in the NT Canon who was born in Bethlehem.

Since the 2nd century, Celsus was completely unable to FIND any historical sources for an historical Jesus.

We have just been through this so many times.

Please, please, please. Stop wasting time.

We all ALREADY know that there are NO TEXTS of ancient history for HJ of Nazareth.

archibald

I agree. I've gone through it enough times myself. It's inconclusive. There is basically not enough to take them out entirely, though there is enough to suggest the possibility and so it seems reasonable not to put too much weight on those particular items themselves.

That's why it seemed odd to hear someone say 'if they weren't Christian interpolatons, then the balance of probabilities would be swayed for most people'.

Maybe I am mistaken, it's easily possible in this case, and you may clarify, but that sounded like you were suggesting they were interpolations.

The thing is, it wouldn't be by any means the first time you have stated something about interpolations and after much discussion it becomes clear that you are merely expressing a speculative opinion. In fact, this is one of your better ones, because there is at least some consensus towards at least partial interpolation.

I think there is another one over at the 'Prima Facie' thread about that pre-pauline hymn.

They crop up regularly.

As do the times when you step into a thread to challenge an 'HJ' point, but, rarely, it seems an 'MJ' one, at least never to the same extent, if at all.


I find it very perplexing. I can't decide whether to think of you as the Toto who says and does such things or the Toto who is more reasonably agnostic. In my eyes, you're slightly Jekyll and Hyde, if you don't mind me saying so. That's just general perpelxity, nothing hostile. Out of pure interest, on a scale of 1 to 99, with 50 as wholly agnostic, 1 as wholly mythicist and 99 as wholly HJer, where would you generally see yourself?


Oh, and by the way, the second part, about how if they definitely weren't interpolations, most people would sway. That's not what I've found when discussing it with anyone who has even the slightest mythicist leanings. My experience is it wouldn't matter a damn to many of those people. That is where inconsistencies often surface, often to do with it being 'late' in any case, or somesuch alternative. Maybe you meant most people generally.

And on that note, but just incidentally, I don't think I've seen one person adjust their previously held views in the face of arguments from others. On either side. I may be over-stating that slightly, but not much, maybe it happens occasionally. It's a pity. Too often, one person is just talking past the other. People on all sides generally hold what they already have. I'm not excluding myself entirely either, but in my defense I have modified my views since coming here.

Toto

I think the weight of probability is that they are interpolations. You seem to be implicitly assuming that they have to be proven to be interpolations before that can even be discussed.


I challenge Dave31 all the time.


I am starting not to care.

archibald

Good for you.

Yeah right. Like I said anything even remotely like that.

These inaccurate readings of what I have just previously said are starting to become an unfortunate habit of yours, Toto.

Ok. He doesn't seem to feature much in many of the threads I subscribe to, so maybe I have missed a lot of that.

But you need the big bucks they pay you to be a mod, right? :]

MCalavera

lol, Dave31 is Acharya's biggest fanboy. And he's an embarrassment even to Dohertian mythicists. So I wouldn't count them as the kind of mythicists that Toto would not mind being allies with.:redface:

blastula

Yes, Castaneda's companions.

None of the NT texts' authors claim first hand knowledge of meeting Jesus.

blastula

Yes, and we actually have reliable, contemporaneous copies of the original texts, as opposed to those of Socrates or Jesus.