Rick Sumner

It seems like he is, but he's not. I used to argue your end quite vehemently. With the advantage of hindsight and more time with theory I wasn't just vehement, I was also wrong.

I'll try to explain a bit. Spin takes a somewhat different tack, but not utterly, and it should at least put you in the right mindset to see that the difference is neither semantic nor pedantic.

There was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a real Alice Liddell. She was, also beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Alice behind Alice in Wonderland. Real facets of that real girl exist in the storybook character. But it is meaningless to call her the "historical" Alice. There is no historical Alice; she's a character in a story.

I'm aware of the difference between the Gospels and Alice in Wonderland, so please nobody point it out to me. If you think it's important you've missed the point.

When all you have are literary sources, and those sources have no clearly defined context, you aren't dealing with history. What you have is literature. There can be a real Jesus, but there can't be an historical one, because all that survives is a character in a story.

Diogenes the Cynic

I didn't ask a question about the Gospels, though.

Rick Sumner

Now who's being semantic?

You didn't have to. They're the only source in which "historical " can be a meaningful term.

Besides which, the items on your list betray your intentions.

Vorkosigan

That's really nicely put, Rick.

Vorkosigan

JonA

It seems as though the mythicists here are unwilling to address the issue raised in the OP. This is really unfortunate, but not terribly surprising. The mythicist position is built on vagueness and unanswered questions. I tried a while ago to get some honest answers to another question (Explaining Christianity without Jesus) and got nothing but word games and bush-beating from the ahistoricists.

Trying to get anything other than jokes and nonsense out of the ahistoricists for the most pressing of questions is really just a pointless exercise. I wish it were different, though, because I would love to have some interesting discussion with these groups since I have no prejudice one way or the other regarding whether Jesus existed, and would gladly conclude that he did not were the evidence for such a position presented and compelling.

Jon

mountainman

The answer is very simple. We note the different opinions and arrange them on a scale or spectrum of opinion, and we discuss the positive and negative evidence for and against each position.


All working definitions of Jesus are hypothetical. The historical Jesus is hypothetical, the Mythical Jesus is hypothetical and the Fictional Jesus is hypothetical. There is no one working definition that is shared, but a range and a spectrum of working hypotheses. You can define your own jesus, and nowdays even define your own bible translation.

When the philosophy lesson is ended and the history lesson commences, evidence has EVERYTHING to do with the intent of all opinions, because these opinions must be based upon positive or negative evidence that is admissable to the field of history. (e.g. the Christian Cross appears after Helena)



Say you have an idea of how a certain arrangment of evidence would qualify as a basis for he hypothesis that the historical jesus existed. Let's say this evidence could be listed as outlined in this poll. Then this idea and opinion qualifies along with the rest of the ideas and opinions.

This idea sits somewhere on a spectrum that defines all the HJ theories and all the MJ theories, including positions that were agnostic or even disinterested in the question. (See spin's table, or RG Price's Spectrum). All positions have their place in such a spectrum.




In philosophical discussions you will find it difficult to separate questions about Jesus from questions about the canonical and non canonical gospels. In discussions relating to ancient history you will find this to be impossible. Evidence is primary to history.


Essentially the spectrum of opinions from HJ to MJ is a spectrum of hypothetical opinion about what all the evidence (and its absence) is to be explained. The canonical gospels are irreversibly part of this evidence. So too are the non canonical gospels.

aa5874

What????? Where does the name Jesus of Nazareth come from???

What source states a character called Jesus of Nazareth was Baptized by John??

What source states a character called Jesus was crucified Under Pilate??

HJers CONVENIENTLY use the Gospels for details about THEIR Jesus and illogically claim NT Jesus is NOT their Jesus.

Well, if NT Jesus is NOT Your Jesus why are you and Ehrman using The Gospels and Galatians to IDENTIFY HJ???

mountainman

That's what I call putting Jesus down a rabbit hole.

Diogenes the Cynic

Not true - completely leaving the Gospel stories aside, the Christian religion had a historical origin, did it not? If that is true, then whether or not the origin was inspired by a real personality is a purely historical question and a perfectly legitimate one.
My intentions are only to find a consensus on what we mean when we talk about "Jesus." I do not have a personal preference for how we define them, I just think we should make sure we aren't talking past each other.

I don't have an agenda or a side. I am primarily driven by curiosity, not any desired outcome, but I sometimes feel like HJers and mythers are shouting right past each other without realizing it.

We can all agree that Gospel Jesus didn't exist, but that's a different question from whether Christianity was inspired by a real personality cult. Do mythers believe it couldn't possibly have begun as a personality cult, or are they saying that no hypothetical inspiration for this cult can qualify to be called "Historical Jesus."

I am not asking a question about the character in the Gospels, I am asking a question about the origin of Christianity.

Diogenes the Cynic

And that is why only 7 of the Pauline Epistles are considered authentic, but "authentic" in this case really only means "have the same author."