Adam

There's no necessary conflict between Ehrman here and Ehrman there. The forgeries would tend to focus on late (even 2nd Century) NT documents like the Pastorals and II Peter. Then Ehrman might contrast them with early documents (Paul and gospel sources). In my thread Gospel Eyewitnesses I came around to realizing (in my Posts #526 and #534 particularly) that 3 or 4 sources to the gospels lack supernatural admixture, so would not need to be automatically rejected by anyone. Such "Gospel according to the Atheists" texts could prove the Historical Jesus.There is no source document underlying the Mormon scriptures (except the books itself, which was written as a fiction by Rev. Spaulding), and Smith appealed from the start to the supernatural, so there's no comparison

Sheshbazzar

And in the same thread it was explained to you, repeatedly, that simply avoiding those supernatural elements does not serve to make the accounts credible.
It amounts to simply eviscerating these fictional texts of their carefully contrived buildup to the supernatural miracle of the resurrection of the living dead carcase of your Zombie Jeebus gawd.

It is to be presumed that as a Christian, you do wish to preserve the supernatural 'miracle' of your Zombie gawds resurrection? No?

If we are to buy into that, the Greatest stinking lie ever written, then why not the rest?

Isn't the end of all of your efforts to produce 'eyewitnesses' an attempt to validate The Greatest Story (and lie) Ever Told?

Taking out a few of the stupid and ridiculous elements from the actual tale as it is presented within these texts will not magically, supernaturally, miraculously turn this work of religious FICTION into a historical account. Only make your Holy Book into a holey book.

No supernaturally risen dead/alive zombie Jeebus, and you have nothing left worth being a X-ian for, and nothing left worth buying by anyone.

Don't continue to make an ass out of yourself. Your religion calls for an all or nothing acceptance. Believe and Stand Fast for what the texts of your Holy Bible states to be the truth.....or just get the fuck out now.

If they are true, by your betrayals, you are already bound for your Christian Hell.

Adam

Suppose I take "seriously" your claim here that any gospel as such is ludicrous because of miracles? Doesn't that make non-ludicrous any sources within each gospel that is free of miracles (or at least free of what can't be explained away as psychological, magical, or otherwise explainable)? Within gMatthew there is Q, within gLuke there is L, within gJohn there are the Discourses, and within all four the common elements in the Passion Narrative lack supernaturalism. That gives a lot more HJ than just a Jew crucified by the Romans. I've identified four of my seven eyewitnesses to Jesus that cannot be dismissed a priori--see particularly my Posts #526 and 534 regarding the "Gospel according to the Atheists" in my thread Gospel Eyewitnesses.

Sheshbazzar

All you have done is sliced out whatever parts betray what a ridiculous tale it is, and then pretend that you are able to positively identify the tales unidentifiable writers.
We have already seen your tendentious thread regarding your empty and unprovable theories, examined your claims at length and found them seriously flawed and lacking in terms of evidence and substance.

You write this crap without even considering how the text would read, and how senseless it becomes once you remove all of the miracles and supernatural elements.

You like to write copious amounts of high sounding text. I'll offer you this simple challenge.
Take your Gospels one or all, and write a coherent text that does not include any supernatural elements, miracles, or actions or interventions by any invisible entities.
And present here what you believe to represent the most accurate, original, and uninterpolated example of how your alleged original texts originally read.

Why not just start with the 25 verses of the first chapter of Matthew and work your way on through?
Only 25 verses. Remember include no invisible supernatural entities, supernatural occurrences, or miracles.
With your great knowledge and proficiency at the keyboard it ought to take you ...what? say maybe fifteen minutes or half an hour?

I'm waiting breathlessly to see what it is you can actually produce.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Adam,

I would agree that it is non-ludricrous to consider that parts of gospel text that do not involve supernatural elements may be of a factual or historical nature. However the lack of supernatural elements is not enough to judge a section or type of writing as factual or historical.

For example, in Superman, we often encounter Superman as Clark Kent. He rarely does anything as Clark Kent that is superhuman. Clark Kent may be a real person or an historical character. However, if we understand the role of Clark Kent in the narrative, it is apparent that his existence is only for purposes of the Superman narrative.
Certainly the writers of the gospels had political and theological views and expressing them through a Son of God or messianic character gives those views a certain amount of strength. While the views may be real, there is no reason to believe the character expressing them are.
The passion narrative does have a ring of authenticity to it, but that could very well be do to the commonness of Roman executions of Jewish rebel leaders in the First century. If the point that the original author was trying to make was that Jesus was a God or Messiah and the Jews killed him, then his use of supernatural powers during the passion narrative would have been out of place. The whole idea of the passion narrative is clearly to blame the Jewish leadership for the Jew's defeat in the Jewish-Roman War. Their God tried to help them by sending a savior, but they wouldn't listen and killed them instead.
We may take his death statement at face value, "God, why have you forsaken me?" God has to forsake him because otherwise Jesus doesn't die and there is no point to the story.

Think of Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" Obviously the three ghosts could have used their supernatural powers to terrorize Ebenezer Scrooge into giving Christmas bonuses and helping the poor, or the supernatural ghosts could have helped the poor with their supernatural powers. The fact that no supernatural powers force Scrooge in the end to reform, but it is only his own volition, thorough his own reflections and reasonings does not suggest that Scrooge is real. It only suggests the moral of the story (that self-examination and reason may reform a stingy, rich bastard) dictated the actions of the last scenes. The moral of the story precludes the use of supernatural powers in the ending as that would have undercut the point of the reformist story. Likewise God rescuing Jesus on the cross would have undercut the whole point of the narrative that the Jews themselves condemned their heaven-sent savior.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

beallen041

Jay, we know that Clark Kent was based on Harold Lloyd. So at one level, we can easily say that there was indeed a historical Superman, he just wasn't from Krypton, didn't have super powers and wasn't ever named Kal-El, never met Lois Lane, never worked as a reporter and never lived in any of the places Superman was reputed to have lived.

Sheshbazzar

but...but...but we don't have any evidence that the REAL Harold Lloyd wasn't from Krypton.

Or that Harold didn't posses superpowers (maybe he was able to perfectly conceal them, -even better- than Clark Kent.)

How could we even presume to know how many aliases Harold or Kal-El may have had? He might have had thousands of names!

Do we have any proof or evidence that Harold never met any woman named Lois Lane??? is it really all that unlikely?

How can we be certain that we know every job that Harold ever held?

Did anyone ever think to keep track of all of Harold's movements?... Maybe Harold had found himself a double to stand in for him while he was about his business.
....why, the possibilities are absolutely endless!



[/Applying the argumentive methodology of a Christian Apologist to Clark Kent] :Cheeky:

Adam

I was going to write a reply to Shesh once again exposing his inaninities, but his post here is real humor that I can appreciate warmly.

Sheshbazzar

Again.

PhilosopherJay

Hi beallen041,

Good points.

Some elements of Harold Lloyd, such as the glasses that he used in many movies for his "glasses character" were copied in Clark Kent. As you point out many or most aspects of the Clark Kent character do not match anything in the life of Harold Lloyd.

I would say that Clark Kent is a fictional character with some trivial elements based on an identifiable historical person.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin