show_no_mercy

So what if it's a pre-emptive strike. It means nothing if your "pre emptive strike" is a rubber band. Maybe you should actually demonstrate some sort of textual criticism utilizing "internal evidence" that also somehow demolishes the Iliad and Odyssey's claims to historicity about Achilles.

CMc

The term Christ is based on the Greek for "anointed one" which refers to the Hebrew "Messiah" which was foretold in the OT. The concept had been around for centuries before it was attached to the myth of Jesus.
I conceded initially that the Josephus TF was probably not authentic. The content of the NT would not qualify as evidence for historicity of Jesus. The existence of the NT and the beliefs it contains are evidence for the existence and nature of Christianity itself and for the myth of Jesus. My opinion is that the most plausible origin for Christianity and the myth of Jesus is simply to extrapolate back from the myth to the origin of the myth which would be a charismatic preacher, with some the details stripped of their supernatural and messianic trappings being accurate. There would be no way to know which details are accurate.

spin

Could you please, seriously, specify exactly which internal evidence?

Why do you reduce a multiple solution problem to only two choices?

Here is a range of choices:

1. Historical
2. Mythical
3. Fictional
4. Error/misinterpretation-initiated
5. Dream/fantasy-initiated
6. Delusion-initiated

spin

No Robots

Let's start with genre. The genre of the Gospels is clearly akin to Talmudic material, but with these singular aspects:

1. They center on the person of Christ
2. They originate with the illiterate ammé haaretz

It is simply impossible for these ignorant peasants to have invented this character who continues to exercise world dominating power by sheer force of personality.

ChuckE99

Was there a man at the origin of "Q"? Probably. Was his name Jesus and did he come from Nazareth? Unlikely, and unlikely to the probability of zero. Was there a man who lived the life and performed the acts described in the canonical gospels? Unlikely, probability of zero.

spin

What makes you think that the texts were written in Palestine (the only place where one found am ha-aretz)? The first gospel, Mark, certainly wasn't -- on linguistic grounds. Matthew and Luke were literary efforts based on the text of the first.

All attempts at genre require one to know more about the background of the source texts than we know with the gospels. If you don't know the context you cannot claim to know the genre the author participated in.


spin

No Robots

All attempts at genre require one to know more about the background of the source texts than we know with the gospels. If you don't know the context you cannot claim to know the genre the author participated in.

The source material was not written at all, but was oral, just like the Talmudic material.

spin

You didn't make any response to this issue, which should show that one of your foundations is probably on sand.

This is probably partially true, though obviously both Matthew and Luke were not mainly based on oral texts. Whatever the case regarding orality, it doesn't change the issue about genre. What we have are written sources that have been edited and re-edited. The genre must still be demonstrated.


spin

aa5874

So, how can I confiirm that the source material was not written?

You have just invented a strawman.

You really have no evidence for your theory.

patcleaver

I agree with you that all of these are possibilities, but some of them are much more likely than others. I think that there is internal evidence in Mark that makes fiction the most likely alternative.
1) The scenes in Mark are all based on portions of the Jewish Scriptures and there is so much of it that it is difficult to believe that it was not done intentionally.
2) Mark is written (at least partially) in Chiasmus and all known narrative Chiasmus are fiction.
3) R. G. Price (Malachi151) lists a lot of other good reasons at http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...ospel_mark.htm and I agree with most of them.

Also, no matter how much you loath MM, you should have listed Propaganda - it is certainly a lot more likely than history.