Freethought & Rationalism Archive

judge · 03-27-2012, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Do these words appear in the Peshitta?

I presume you mean the peshitta OT .Im pretty sure not. Unlike the targums the POT tends to just be a translation word for word of the an hebrew text, and the various books tend to relflect (or are thought to be closer to) the massoretic hebrew text we know . it's likely the product of aramaic speaking jews east of judea.
There doesn't seem to any relationship between the POT and the PNT though, in that the PNT doesn't reflect the POT when it quotes the hebrew bible.

dog-on · 03-28-2012, 12:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by judge

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Do these words appear in the Peshitta?

I presume you mean the peshitta OT .Im pretty sure not. Unlike the targums the POT tends to just be a translation word for word of the an hebrew text, and the various books tend to relflect (or are thought to be closer to) the massoretic hebrew text we know . it's likely the product of aramaic speaking jews east of judea.
There doesn't seem to any relationship between the POT and the PNT though, in that the PNT doesn't reflect the POT when it quotes the hebrew bible.

Yes, POT. Thanks.

dog-on · 03-28-2012, 03:40 AM

The use of OT scripture, with regards to Jesus:

Quote:

So too with the Gospels of the New Testament. They do indeed contain nonhistorical materials, many of which are based on traditions found in the Hebrew Bible. And to understand the gospel stories you do indeed need to understand the intertexts on which they are based. But that has little bearing on the question of whether or not Jesus actually existed. It has to do rather with how reliable some of the stories told about him are. To decide whether Jesus existed, you need to look at other evidence, as we have done.

Ehrman, Bart D. (2012-03-20). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (Kindle Locations 3191-3194). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

How much of the "other evidence" actually derives from independent oral tradition that is not, in turn, derived from "traditions found in the Hebrew Bible"?

What if the most basic bit, such as being crucified, was somehow derived from the Hebrew Bible?

Doug Shaver · 03-28-2012, 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by denarius

In this case Paul claims to have personally known a real brother of Jesus.

No, he does not. He claims to have known a "brother of the lord."

denarius · 03-28-2012, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Quote:

Originally Posted by denarius

Evidence #1- Some of the stories about Jesus originated in the Aramaic language. This destroys the Mythicist argument that all of the stories were made up by the Greeks. At least some of them came from Palestine. On p. 88-89, Ehrman discusses Mark 2:27-28 which doesn't make sense in English or Greek but makes perfect sense when translated into Aramaic.

And the Hitler Diaries are in German. That must make them true.

After all, Hitler spoke German.

Are you claiming the unknown author of Mark could not speak Aramaic, and so was unable to invent stories that contain Aramaic touches?

Or that not one person in Jerusalem could invent an Aramaic story?

Quote:

Originally Posted by denarius

Evidence #2-The story of Jesus could not have been made up by the Jews. The Jews were expecting a messiah who was a military leader that would destroy God's enemies or a priest, but they did not expect someone who would be crucified because the OT says that anyone who hangs on a tree is cursed by God. The crucifixion is the reason that most Jews could not be converted.

That is evidence that Jesus never existed.

Because if Jesus had really existed, the main two reasons that Jews could not be converted would have been 1)Everything he had said and 2)Everything he had done.

Just as people reject Hitler today because of what he said and what he did, not because they expected the Saviour of the Nation to usher in a 1000-year Reich, rather than killing himself in a bunker. The manner of his death is not what leads people to reject Hitler.

If there had been a real historical Jesus for the Jews to reject, then they rejected him before he was crucified, in which case the crucifixion would not have been a stumbling block - they would still reject Jesus after the crucifixion for exactly the same reasosn they rejected him before crucifixion.

If Jesus had been invented from scripture, then Jews would have accepted Christian claims that the Messiah had been prophesied in scripture and then balked as soon as Christians claimed the Messiah had to be crucified.

An invented crucified Messiah would be rejected because of claims that the Messiah had to be crucified, but a real person who was rejected and then crucified, would be rejected because of who he had been.

Christians invented the concept of a crucified Messiah. That is a fact. Why did they think the Messiah was crucified, if you are halfway right, and Jesus did not tick any Messiah-boxes?

And Christians weren't preaching a dead Messiah.

As far as they were concerned, they were preaching a military Messiah who was going to come and overthrow the Romans and usher in the Kingdom of God.

To them , there was no contradiction between a crucified Messiah and a conquering Messiah.

So why do you claim there was a contradiction between a crucified Messiah and a conquering Messiah?

The Hitler diaries show that the author was a German or at least was fluent in German. That does not make them true. And no one has said that evidence that some of the stories in the Gospels were originally in Aramaic makes those stories true either. They are evidence, perhaps not overwhelming, that some of the stories originated from an Aramaic-speaking source.

The crucified messiah story makes the messiah someone who was cursed by God. There is no reason that a dying messiah could not have been invented. He could have been stoned to death or subjected to any number of other traumas, but it is unlikely that Jews would have invented a messiah that was cursed by God because it would make conversion of the Jews improbable.

Steven Carr · 03-28-2012, 08:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by denarius

The crucified messiah story makes the messiah someone who was cursed by God. There is no reason that a dying messiah could not have been invented. He could have been stoned to death or subjected to any number of other traumas, but it is unlikely that Jews would have invented a messiah that was cursed by God because it would make conversion of the Jews improbable.

So having ruled out the idea that Christians could have thought that their crucified leader was a Messiah, how did Christians come to think of their crucified leader as a Messiah, rather than as a Roman Emperor, or a space alien, or anything else which we are assured would not have been invented?

dog-on · 03-28-2012, 08:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Quote:

Originally Posted by denarius

The crucified messiah story makes the messiah someone who was cursed by God. There is no reason that a dying messiah could not have been invented. He could have been stoned to death or subjected to any number of other traumas, but it is unlikely that Jews would have invented a messiah that was cursed by God because it would make conversion of the Jews improbable.

So having ruled out the idea that Christians could have thought that their crucified leader was a Messiah, how did Christians come to think of their crucified leader as a Messiah, rather than as a Roman Emperor, or a space alien, or anything else which we are assured would not have been invented?

Once Jesus, who these Jews thought was the Messiah, was crucified, they decided to go back to the drawing board and rethink their utter aversion to claiming a crucified messiah. Of course, this is documented to have happened almost immediately, or at least within one year according to Ehrman, after Jesus's death. Stumbling block be damned...

stephan huller · 03-28-2012, 08:59 AM

No one could have believed that Jesus was the messiah. He did nothing messianic. He was not like Moses. The implication of the gospel was that he either claimed to be a divine hypostasis or the messiah. The idea that both claims would be made together by the same individual is also strange. One gets the feeling that it was originally one and then the other was added by later editors to obscure the original claim.

Was the original gospel writer's claim that the Jews thought Jesus claimed to be God and then the claim for messiah was later added? I think it was the other way around - Mark had the Jews think he was a messianic figure but really he was something else. Why do I think this? Because it fits with Mark's running theme that the Jewish leadership were idiots and brought the destruction upon themselves.

dog-on · 03-28-2012, 09:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

No one could have believed that Jesus was the messiah. He did nothing messianic. He was not like Moses. The implication of the gospel was that he either claimed to be a divine hypostasis or the messiah. The idea that both claims would be made together by the same individual is also strange. One gets the feeling that it was originally one and then the other was added by later editors to obscure the original claim.

Was the original gospel writer's claim that the Jews thought Jesus claimed to be God and then the claim for messiah was later added? I think it was the other way around - Mark had the Jews think he was a messianic figure but really he was something else. Why do I think this? Because it fits with Mark's running theme that the Jewish leadership were idiots and brought the destruction upon themselves.

I always thought that Mark's running theme was why there were no Christians in first century Palestine.

denarius · 03-28-2012, 09:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by denarius

...
No, I am not under the impression that Creationists have successfully poked holes in the theory of natural selection.

So you admit your analogy is false.

And then you compound your error. Global warming deniers have no evidence but a lot of oil money on their side.

Quote:

Your list of problems with historicity don't strike me as all that compelling, and you admit that there could be a historical figure behind the Jesus legends. What you haven't done is demonstrate that the scholarship consensus is false.

I don't expect you to be impressed with anything I write, but Richard Carrier, a credentialed historian, will publish a book next month, and another next year, demonstrating the problems in the scholarship.

The analogy is not false. Please understand that I am not saying that mythicists are kooks. They have a good case that the church lied and invented stories and that they made up the legendary Jesus character that Christians believe in today. The analogy is about tactics, about being motivated by an agenda, and about not providing a single alternative theory (instead of a patchwork of dubious hypotheses) that could better explain the facts. If Jesus didn't exist as a historical person then mythicists would have an easy task of proving to Christians that their religion is false.

I will be looking forward to reading Richard Carrier's review of Ehrman's book. Maybe Carrier will convince me that Ehrman is wrong. But I was not impressed with Carrier's bogus argument about the word 'brother' in Paul not meaning 'brother' but something else. Fundamentalists are forever explaining away discrepancies in the Bible by saying that the passages mean something other than what they clearly mean.

BTW, I do not accept Ehrman's argument about the Testamonium Flavianum in Josephus. It shows clear evidence of tampering which taints the entire paragraph.

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Whatever spin says it does	4	20.00%
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03-28-2012, 08:59 AM	#58
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	No one could have believed that Jesus was the messiah. He did nothing messianic. He was not like Moses. The implication of the gospel was that he either claimed to be a divine hypostasis or the messiah. The idea that both claims would be made together by the same individual is also strange. One gets the feeling that it was originally one and then the other was added by later editors to obscure the original claim. Was the original gospel writer's claim that the Jews thought Jesus claimed to be God and then the claim for messiah was later added? I think it was the other way around - Mark had the Jews think he was a messianic figure but really he was something else. Why do I think this? Because it fits with Mark's running theme that the Jewish leadership were idiots and brought the destruction upon themselves.

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