denarius

Thank you for the welcome. Yes, I have read some of his postings and remain unconvinced by them, but sometimes aa5874 has some interesting observations to make.

aa5874

I HAVE SEEN the EVIDENCE and all we have are FORGERIES in Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3 and 20.9.1.

I have no intention to be side-tracked by the opinion of the INCOMPETENT Ehrman who discredits the very sources that he TRUSTS.

denarius

You haven't even read Ehrman's book, so you don't know what his evidence is, but you castigate him anyway based on nothing. I think that shows that you are the one who is incompetent. If you want to criticize someone, you should at least know what they are saying.

For your information, Ehrman's evidence is not based on Josephus because (according to Ehrman) anything Josephus might have said would be hearsay.

Keep in mind that we are talking about evidence and not proofs. If you want proofs you should take up mathematics because you won't find them in any other discipline. I can't cover all of Ehrman's book in a single post, so I'll mention just a couple of pieces of evidence that he presents. If you read the book you'll find out about all of his evidence. The evidence does not necessarily depend on the stories being true.

Evidence #1- Some of the stories about Jesus originated in the Aramaic language. This destroys the Mythicist argument that all of the stories were made up by the Greeks. At least some of them came from Palestine. On p. 88-89, Ehrman discusses Mark 2:27-28 which doesn't make sense in English or Greek but makes perfect sense when translated into Aramaic.

Evidence #2-The story of Jesus could not have been made up by the Jews. The Jews were expecting a messiah who was a military leader that would destroy God's enemies or a priest, but they did not expect someone who would be crucified because the OT says that anyone who hangs on a tree is cursed by God. The crucifixion is the reason that most Jews could not be converted. No Jew expected a messiah that would be cursed by God. Therefore, Jesus had to have been a real person who was crucified. He couldn't have been made up.

Evidence #3- There is agreement throughout the writings of the NT and from outside the NT that Jesus lived in Palestine, preached an apocalyptic message and died by being crucified. Everyone, including Gnostics or you name it agrees to the same general 'facts' about the life of Jesus. The multilply attested facts about Jesus life are evidence that Jesus existed as a historical person.

Evidence #4- Paul personally knew Peter and Jesus brother, James. The fact that Jesus had brothers and sisters indicates he was a real person and not made up.

There is a lot more, but I can't copy his whole book here.

Now you might not find this evidence convincing, but it is still evidence for a historical Jesus. On the other hand, when you examine the Mythicists' evidence what do you find? Nothing, nada, nil. Just a bunch of arguments from silence, no evidence at all.

Not only is there no evidence that Jesus is nonhistorical, but Mythicists don't offer a single theory or present a united front about how the Jesus myth could have been invented. In that sense, their tactics are the same as creationist tactics attempting to discredit evolution: just try to poke as many holes as possible into the established views and to hell with any evidence.

Ehrman has given his evidence. So where is your evidence that Jesus was invented?

mountainman

Did he test translating it into Sanskrit? It might make even more perfect sense in Sanskrit.



Tolkien made up a story about Bilbo Baggins. Was Bilbo a real hobbit?



The Gnostics wrote that Jesus was the pilot of a water taxi. They wrote he was an old man, a baby, a child and a malevolent trickster. The Nag Hammadi authors wrote that their generation was fleeing because they did not even believe that the Christ was alive.

The gnostics are pointing away from an historical jesus bigtime.




And Frodo personally knew Bilbo and Samwise and the Elves of Lothlorien.



It is evidence of FAITH alone, pure and unadulterated dogma.



The dog did not bark in the night Sherlock.



You have done some research. Keep going.




Oh dear, here we go again .....



He has appealed to his own authorities.



an index of fraud concerning "christian" history by century

Toto

Strictly speaking, this is not evidence. There is no evidence of any original stories about Jesus in Aramaic. These Aramaic documents are a conclusion drawn from analysis of Mark.

I don't know of any mythicist argument that all of the stories were made up by Greeks, so whatever "evidence" there is does nothing to destroy mythicism (although, as you note, there is no united mythicist party line.)

Again, not evidence, but a conclusion. There has been some discussion of this claim in another thread, and it has been found wanting. I would be highly dubious that anything had to have happened because it could not have been made up - look at the varieties of stories that people have made up.

The quantity and quality of this evidence is not overwhelming, even for ancient sources.

You are assuming that gods and fictional characters do not have brothers and sisters? This argument is also the subject of a few other threads here.

It is an argument. It's not a bad argument, but it's not a slam dunk.

Not actually true. I don't think you've read any of the literature.

The difference is that creationists are unable to poke any holes in the evidence for evolution, while mythicists can point to many legitimate problems with the case for historicity.

The historicist camp has more in common with creationism than mythicism, but certain Christian apologists think that they can bask in the glory of scientific consensus. If you look at what the consensus about Jesus is based on, the case starts to fall apart.

But stick around. Try to develop your argument. Just don't expect a productive dialogue with aa5874.

ApostateAbe

Strictly speaking, that would count as evidence, the same as all other evidence. All evidence can be interpreted as evidence only after it is subject to analysis.

denarius

Most of your comments are strawmen. No one has claimed that the Jesus stories orginated in India, or China, or Japan. I am familiar with the information in your link. No one disputes the fact that the church has manufactured documents and some of the stories in the NT (for example, the nativity stories). Ehrman's argument is that even though the NT is historically unreliable and that some books of the NT were forged, there exists some historical information that can be extracted from the NT even where the stories themselves might not be true.

aa5874

Again, I did say I have seen the evidence so Ehrman must use Logical fallacies or forgeries.
You are claiming that Ehrman did NOT use Josephus so he Must have used Logical Fallacies.

Logical Fallacy 1. Stories about Jesus are NOT historically accurate because some were made up in Aramic. Ask Ehrman what language the OT is in and if the OT is all history.


Logical Fallacy 2. Ehrman presumes Jesus did live and PRESUMES he was crucified and then claim that the Jews did NOT expect what he PRESUMES.

Logical Fallacy 3 There is agreement throughout the Bible that there is a God. There was an an agreement among the Romans that Romulus and Remus were the founders of Rome and human brothers born of the same woman for hundreds of years.

Logical Fallacy 4 Paul claimed God was his father and God is NOT considered human.

Ask him for permission so that we can point out ALL the Logical Fallacies.

I just got started and you're done already??

If Ehrman did NOT use the forgeries in Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3 and 20.9.1 then he MUST use logical fallacies.

Toto

The evidence is Mark. An Aramaic source for Mark is an inference from the evidence, and not an inference that every expert agrees on.

denarius

That at least one story makes sense in Aramaic but not in Greek is evidence. That the story comes from Palestine is a conclusion. Ehrman does not say that there are Aramaic documents. He maintains that the stories were oral traditions circulating in Palestine.

You are right that the Aramaic argument does not destroy mythicism and I didn't say it did. It is just one piece of evidence against Jesus being invented by the Greeks.