Gamera

Well, he did much more than that. But I take it you haven't read the book? You ought to and decide for yourself. I think he makes a pretty good analysis, or at least it's an analysis with some hard data that can be evaluated pro or con.

As to the impact of this study, if valid, it is a problem for mythicists since it implies the author and readers as early as the earliest gospel did not envision Jesus as anything but an historical figure. This means the process of "historicization" has a terminus a quo at least with these texts, which compresses the purported process to a more or less specific time. I'm sure the mythicists would like to have as much time as possible and I'm sure they would be happy if the gospels could be characterized as in a fictional genre.

Gamera

Honestly Steven sarcasm isn't much of a critique. He doesn't "just say so," but provides an analysis based on literary elements. Something tells me you haven't even read the book.

In any case, it certainly raises the issue of historicity at a level that needs to be addressed.

spin

One might like to address this after Gamera addresses the issue of the coins rather than his usual put-off. He will talk about anything else, won't he? That's because the coins, beside anything else, sink his position.


spin

Toto

If you think that hard data is a word count of how many times Jesus is mentioned, I don't really need to read the book to evaluate that. But I'll look through what I can read on Google books.

Your statement assumes that the time started at a date set in these fictional documents. Are you missing something?

And I don't see that historization needed a long time. Urban legends can start and take on life in a very short period. The key event must have been the destruction of the Temple (unless it was the Bar Kochba rebellion.) At that point, there would be no way of verifying any claimed events from 30 CE.

J-D

Yes. But you are not the only one who hasn't supplied one. Nobody has.

I thought that was how history was done: people try to come up with explanations for the data. You know, like science. But apparently ...... you have a different idea. So maybe you actually do have an explanation for the data but you haven't supplied it because ... well, because ... I don't know, because you think it would be bad juju to do that, perhaps?See above.Hmm. Possibly I did not explain myself clearly enough.

The question: 'Are the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union two separate political parties or components of one single political party?' can be validly answered in two different (and superficially contradictory) ways even give the same set of undisputed facts, depending on how you define the key terms. So long as people are clear about the definition, no confusion should arise: but people don't always recognise a need to deal with the definitional issue.

In the same way, the question: 'Does Pauline and post-Pauline Christianity have continuity of identity with a pre-Pauline religious movement?' can be validly answered in two different (and superficially contradictory) ways even given the same hypothetical set of (assumed for the sake of argument) facts, depending on how you define the key terms. If you are defining 'continuity of identity of a religious movement' in a way that makes consistency of doctrine over time an essential ingredient--in other words, if your definition of 'religion' requires that 'not the same beliefs' necessarily entails 'not the same religion'--then you will give a different answer to this question from the one I would give, but that disagreement does not logically entail any disagreement over the facts. It's just a disagreement about how to use words, which is still interesting but much less important.

spin

Stop talking rot. I do not support an alternative nor do I support your conjecture suggestion.

If you must have replacement therapy for your drug, read my suggestion which you seem to have skimmed past. I do not support it, but if you insist on being fed an alternative to your presumption, I did say that the people who Paul latched himself onto may simply be some variety of Jewish messianists, who knew nothing about a Jesus.

What you, umm suggested, has nothing to do with the data derivable from Paul.

You thought wrong. Conjecture is not the basis of history or science. It may be a way of proposing avenues to investigate.

Self-stimulation comes in all sorts of forms.

I did.

And the following doesn't help your cause.

Sorry, but I find this to be word shuffling. Continuity is continuity is continuity, etc. Nobody is claiming "consistency over time" as a necessity for continuity, but you have to demonstrate some substantial connection. If you can't do that with substantial content, what value does your brand of continuity have?


spin

J-D

I don't think we're going to be able to communicate with each other. Which seems a shame. But there it is.

spin

It shouldn't be too hard though. I asked of you some way to get back before Paul's vision. It seemed to me like you offered a suggestion regarding continuity, "continuity of identity". I have tried to fathom this notion of yours. It seems to assume identity somehow that is not transparent. How can you deal with identity unless you can show something which reveals an identity being continued? The only means I can see is using content, which you for some reason eschew. Yet you haven't provided any means of establishing "continuity of identity".

Are christians really Jews, for example (Roman Mithraists really Zoroastrian)? Is there a "continuity of identity" there? If so, how does the notion help us?


spin

Steven Carr

Wow, I never realised that Doherty claimed that the Gospel of Mark did not place Jesus in an historical setting.

Gamera's years long study of Doherty has really made him competent to critique him.

J-D

Let me offer you the example of the secondary school I attended lo these many years ago. It was founded in 1883. But was the school I attended the same school as the one that was founded in 1883? It had none of the same students. It had none of the same staff. It had none of the same equipment. It had none of the same buildings. It didn't even have the same location (changed site in 1928). So why did people say it was the same school? Not easy to say. And yet I think they were right to say it was the same school, at least in some sense, although I can see there are other senses in which it was completely different.