spamandham

If that's all you had, then no, it wouldn't be reasonable, because there's nothing extraordinary about the idea of a historical core to Jesus or Paul, and we know the ancients had a tendency to puff up men they respected with claims of the divine or miraculous.

However, if you construct a viable model from the available evidence that explains how people came to believe in a historical Jesus and a historical Paul even though they were not historical, and if that model better fits the evidence than competing models, then you can make your claim and it will be reasonable.

bacht

I wonder though if the criteria shouldn't be different for a character like Jesus. Fantastic claims were made about him by his followers while at the same time there is no mention of him by non-believers. His life and its aftermath took place in Hellenistic Palestine, not some remote backwater like Britain.

Isn't he a special case in comparison to other ancient figures? I don't think there is as much dispute about the existence of Buddha, whether or not legends accreted later.

spamandham

Well, now you're discussing the exact type of evidence of absence I was referring to. No special exception applies, because you're building a case.



Maybe aa will follow your lead.

bacht

So in the case of Jesus, the proliferation of believers is the evidence for his existence? [sorry if I'm over-simplifying your argument] I don't think we can say that this evidence points to only the one conclusion.

spamandham

The drug dealer scenario was a general demonstration of the principle. I didn't intend it as an analogy to Jesus.

IMHO, the HJ crowd has failed to provide a scenario that accounts for all the evidence. They seem to simply assume theirs is the default position and rather than ask the hard questions, bicker among themselves about absurdities like how to account for the empty tomb or how Jesus pulled off his walking on water trick. Their arguments to me seem to be hand waving.

The arguments of the Dutch radicals seem to me to deal with all the evidence with the fewest assumptions and implausibilities in the most comprehensive manner. It seems to me to be a well reasoned position from which to conclude that most likely, neither Jesus nor Paul existed.

aa5874

In your previous post you claimed that if Jesus and Paul never existed then you would not expect to find credible evidence about them.

Now in order to look for evidence of Jesus and Paul, they must be described.

Briefly, Jesus is described as the son of the God of the Jews, who died, resurrected and ascended to heaven. Paul is described as the man who Jesus blinded by a bright light and spoke to him. Paul claimed Jesus revealed many things to him after Jesus died and ascended.

Now, where can I find credible evidence for Jesus and Paul?

Doug Shaver

I don't accept your antecedent. The probative value of absence of evidence depends on the situation. In some situations, absence of evidence is conclusive evidence for absence. In other situations, it is weaker than that. In some situations, absence of evidence proves nothing at all.

Given any particular historical claim, it must be asked what evidence we should reasonably expect it to have generated if it were true. Then it must be asked whether we should reasonably expect that evidence to have survived long enough for us to know of its existence. Only then can we consider the implications of our not knowing of its existence.

patcleaver

Even if there is nothing extraordinary about the historicity of a man, you still have to provide ordinary reliable evidence for the existence of the man.

Jesus was not an established historical character who was later mythicized. He was never known as anything but a myth - just like all the Greek Gods who were only ever myths. Jesus was a hero-God just like many other hero-Gods, and I have no reason to think any of them including Jesus ever existed.

There is lots of evidence that Mark is a fictional story. A fictional story is not ordinary reliable evidence that anyone in the story was a real person. The vast majority of characters in fictional stories are only fictional characters. You can not establish the real existence of a character in a fictional story from his appearance in the fictional story. The only way to establish the historicity of a character in a fictional story is with other reliable evidence. I do not know of any reason to think that Jesus ever existed as a man besides wishful thinking.

The existence of the fictional story of Mark explains everything about Christianity.

Do you also think there was an historical Wizard of Oz?

spamandham

I'm not arguing in favor of a historical Jesus or Paul. I'm arguing against your approach.

Your approach totally ignores the well known tendency of the ancients to tack a bunch of divinity and magic onto men deemed important.

We do not know a priori whether that's what happened with Jesus and Paul, or whether they are pure myth. There is no default position on this matter.

spamandham

I agree. To claim someone was historical, requires evidence and argument, just as does the claim they did not. There is no default position on these matters.

There you go making a case for a mythical Jesus again. Good on 'ya.

Hopefully by now, you've gathered I'm not trying to make a case for a historical Jesus or Paul, but am instead arguing against the idea that absence of evidence is sufficient evidence of absence, as aa seems to argue.


...and no, I don't think there was a historical Wizard of Oz. Dorothy? Maybe, but not the wiz. :Cheeky:

(and there definitely is a historical Toto. He posts here from time to time.).