Vivisector

This seems to assume that they wrote anything at all, and I'm not sure there's any good evidence that they did prior to the fall of Jerusalem. Maybe the question also assumes, to a lesser degree, how the Jerusalem group (I hesitate to call them Christians, because I really think they were still Jewish) viewed Jesus's "ministry." From Paul, it seems that the Jerusalem group considered themselves firmly within Jewish traditions - perhaps no more out of the mainstream than John the Baptist and his followers. If this were the case, then I'm not sure we should expect them to have written anything more than JtB's disciples wrote.

Cheers,

V.

Nuwanda

What's "critical" about your approach? You're using a bunch of self-appointed liberal Bible scholars of the Jesus Seminar who's finds are not based on critical scholarship but on a presupposition that says anything relating to the supernatural, such as miracles and divinity, are to be rendered myth without further investigation. If they are your source for debunking the life of Christ then you shouldn't laugh when Christians use Pat Robertson as their source for the debunking of pop psychology or evolution. You've both made the "critical" error.

Vivisector

Toto is more than capable of carrying his own water, but I have to say ...

The word I'd use is "credentialed;" in other words, terminal academic degrees in appropriate field(s) of endeavor and a record of publication in peer-reviewed scholarly journals.

It's a bit more than simply members of the Jesus Seminar.

What is your assessment of the supernatural claims regarding, for example, Augustus Caesar, Vespasian, Apollonius of Tyana and Mohammed?

V.

Nuwanda

A better question would be: do I throw them out based on the assumption that their is no supernatural? which is the actual method of those involved with the Jesus Seminar. If that was my method I would first have to prove that miracles are impossible and that the supernatural does not exist. I cannot do this and therefore I would not reject the examples you gave based on my unfounded assumption just so that liberal scholars would give me a seat at the table. I would find a more credible way of excusing claims.

Vivisector

Understood. Do you reject them on any basis?

V.

gnosis92

Maybe b/c the Romans destroyed Jersualeum ca 70AD?

If no one found the dead sea scrolls or Nag Hammadi Library, we would be missing a signifcant library of texts.

Doug Shaver

There is essentially no evidence, good or otherwise, that anybody in the Jerusalem church wrote anything about the Christ. But if Paul was ignoring facts about Jesus on account of his disputes with people who had known the man, it strikes me as highly improbable that they would have written nothing in response.

In any case, speculation about what people who knew Jesus would have written if they had written anything cannot be evidence for Jesus. That is quite regardless of whatever reasons those people might have had for writing nothing, or for whatever reasons those documents vanished without a trace from the historical paper trail.

gnosis92

We have no documents from the Pharisees or Sadducees in the Second Temple period. Were it not for the dead sea scrolls, we would have no documetns from the Essenes.

Doug Shaver

Yes, we would. And in that event, nothing we now believe on the basis of those texts would be a justified belief.

John Kesler

Perhaps because they had a financial disincentive to do so. Paul met with the "pillars" at Jerusalem and received permission to preach his form of Christianity in exchange for his sending money back to Jerusalem. To use a modern term, he purchased franchise rights.