J-D

In this case the authors have not given such an answer.It's not easily answered by me.You have not yet given any grounds for accepting this conclusion.That you have given no grounds for anybody to accept your conclusions.It doesn't matter how many times you say it. You don't make it true just by saying it.I am not saying that I don't know why people lie. I am saying that specific lies are told for many different specific motives, of which I know some but probably not all, and that in this case I don't see what the specific motivation is supposed to be.No, I don't think that. Why do you ask?Whether or not you know the reasons, you have not told us what you think those reasons are, nor given us any grounds for accepting that you are correct about them.You have given us no account of the basis from which you made those deductions or the process by which you arrived at them. All you have given us is your unsupported word, and that isn't enough.

J-D

I do not find the fact that the two of you are in agreement to be sufficient grounds to conclude that you are correct.

AtheistGamer

After reading up to page nine of this hilarious thread I have to conclude that the only evidence for the existance of Jesus as a real person is the unlikelyhood of an entire religion being founded on a non-existant person.


At first I thought the quotation from the advent web site about there being "many copies of Josephus" was convincing, but then I noticed that the advent seems to be a christian web site of some sort.

And an atheist quoting WLC in order to support his position? Are we going to quote Fox News in order to support some moderate political stance too?

I think Jesus was a historical person but the JM guys hardly deserve to be laughed at.

J-D

If you are asking how any such thing could even be possible, I can answer. I just want to be clear before I do so that when I describe what is possible I am not making any claim about its degree of probability, still less averring that my description of the possible is certainly what happened. Do you see the distinction?I already know that Paul's theological claims are false, regardless of whether his reports of events are true or not, but that does not prove that his reports of events are false, still less that they are intentional lies.I'm not dismissing anything. I'm arguing for not dismissing possibilities. In other threads I've argued for not dismissing the possibility that Paul was lying. Here I'm arguing for not dismissing the possibility that he was not lying. If you want to dismiss that possibility by saying 'it will not do', I'd like to know why.So you've already admitted one possibility in which the writers could have been writing what was not true without being liars--they might have been mentally ill. I see no grounds for eliminating that possibility.The fantastic parts of the texts I don't believe because they're fantastic. That's not enough to establish conclusively that everything in the texts is false, still less that it's all intentional fabrication.I would be interested to see you list them.

Sheshbazzar

I think that it is quite clear above that I did ask.
I am most sincerely interested in what lengths you will need to go to 'explain away' these things.
So please do give us your explanation, we cannot be expected to already know it, or to be at all able to gauge the value of its strengths or its weaknesses, unless, or until, you have actually presented it.

dog-on

Perhaps the first, or perhaps the second.

No.



Or he never saw them nor claimed that he did.

Perhaps.

A little bird?

J-D

The text does not say that Paul did recognise or identify him.I have met people who have told me that Jesus died and came back to life. What they tell me is not plausible, but they are not liars.

J-D

Not if he didn't know he was on drugs.

Solo

Assume - and it is a safe assumption - that all the ecstatic visionaries, and that would include Jesus if he was one, are drunk just on plain water at one time or another.

Jiri

Sheshbazzar

J-D, I asked you in post #345 just above to provide us with your 'explanation' of how Paul could make the claim of having traveled to Jerusalem AFTER the Resurrection, and there to have conversed with Peter, James, and John and recieved "the right hands of fellowship; from them, "(Gal 2:9) when the arguments he presents within his epistles indicate that he was woefully ignorant of the contents of the Apostolic Gospels, sayings and acts which, according to the Gospel accounts, were well known to all of the Disciples.

Now, just to be clear on this point, Do you believe that these claimed face to face to face meetings with The "Pillar" Jerusalem Apostles actually took place?

Or is it your 'explanation' as you suggest above, that these meetings did NOT actually take place, but were the product of drug-induced 'visions'?

I only ask this again, as you have not been particularly forthcoming with that "answer" that you claim to be able to present.

Does your 'answer' and 'explanation' for 'Paul's' claims consist of a theory that he 'experienced' these things only within his head, under the influence of drugs?
I just want you to clarify if this is the 'answer', and the 'explanation' that is the gist of your opposition.
If it is, then we can move forward with an examination of the pluses and minuses of this 'drug' theory of the NTs composition.

Note, I am NOT rejecting it out of hand, but I AM asking you to clarify your position, and exactly what it is that you are suggesting, as I do not wish to engage in a protracted debate as to whether "Paul's" tale of meeting with The Pillars was drug induced vision, only to have you switch back to a claim that these meetings, and the claimed 'agreements' and 'arrangements' actually took place as described within the texts.

Do you, or do you not, believe that 'Paul' actually met with, and made agreements with The Pillars?