No Robots

This cuts both ways. Mainstream scholars refer to the inconsistencies and contradictions in the Christian Bible to reveal the historical Jesus. Is it only the sceptical atheists that cannot see what scholarship has made abundantly clear, the man Christ?

The syllogism that mythicists seem to operate under is:

Gods are mythical.
Christ is a god.
Therefore Christ is mythical.

It doesn't take much inquiry to see that the second proposition is completely false. Even the Bible clearly refutes it. Mythicists have to get gods completely out of their heads. Then maybe they will see something about men.

Christ has finally been liberated from the godhood foisted on him. The mythicists may well be the last ones to hold to the old view. Even many Christians no longer claim that Christ is a god. Thus mythicism, far from being a progressive movement, is actually quite retrograde. The masses are voting for the historical man, and have no interest in the mythical god. This is also the clear direction of scholarship. The masses and their professors have decided. And I have to say that in this particular case, they are in the right, and so say all those of a spiritual bent. Mythicism has done the impossible, it has made allies of the people of spirit and the masses. Good work, gents!

aa5874

Again, I ask for reliable, verifiable extra-biblical evidence to refute that statement. To continue to say it is possible without evidence, is futile.

The Gods of all known religions are known to be mythical, why would Jesus be different. The Abrahamic God is a Myth. Jesus is the Son of a Myth. Jesus is a Myth. I am looking for extra-biblical evidence to show otherwise from the 'professional historians'.

mens_sana

I'll go along with that, but I'm not a mythicist. Christ is mythical. Jesus is not. :angel:

RUmike

Yes, that's a fair assessment. Thanks. What I implied (at least in my head), and have stated elsewhere, is that the majority of historians/biblical scholars have considered the longer passage to be authentic at least in some form. It just bothers me when people try to portray the scholarly community as saying something else (either by accident or intentionally).

Clivedurdle

Are not statements that someone is born of a woman and is according to the flesh of themselves extremely fishy? Why state the obvious?

dog-on

That is why they should be consigned to the interpolation dustbin.

Rick Sumner

There was a nice paper in JBL 119 that argued against this by Christopher G. Whitsett. I found it ultimately unpersuasive--a little "over-exegeted" IMHO, but a nice paper nonetheless.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

dog-on

So far, the "pre-Pauline creed", seems much more like a post-Pauline interpolation. The suspicion arises specifically due to a couple of things.

1. Tertullian goes too far in trying to demonize Marcion. He doth protest too much!

2. Statements by church fathers which actually seem to advance arguments contra Tertullian's portrayal of Marcion, here is one by Eusebius from Book II of 'Ecclesiastical History' :

From my understanding, the Therapeutae were a Gnostic sect who took their scripture allegorically. Of course, they had no belief in a physical/human Christ that actually appeared on earth.

It seems possible, that despite the church's claims to the contrary, Gnosticism actually predates, what we know as, Christianity.

Rick Sumner

I must confess that I find the willingness of those who have not bothered to read Bultmann's Theology of the NT (which, I believe, is the origin of the argument) to insist that it is an interpolation rather than a pre-Pauline address quite baffling.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

dog-on

What would you consider to be Bultmann's most persuasive argument that "Seed of David According to the Flesh" is a pre-Pauline address?