Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Amaleq13 · 07-07-2009, 04:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lpetrich

Hasn't anyone ever tried to check such methodologies?

It isn't intended to resolve the HJ/MJ dispute but, IMO, often provides interesting, albeit necessarily speculative, arguments.

spamandham · 07-07-2009, 09:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Self-Mutation

In order to prove something true, one must only need find one thing that refutes everything else.

Here is my one verse proving to everyone that Jesus existed on Earth and only a FOOL would claim the Gospels didn't mean to portray him as historical:...

Uhm, you do realize that the NT had multiple authors, don't you? One verse doesn't prove anything, because the NT is not a singular work. If you want to make inroads here, you have to have sophisticated arguments that start with minimal assumptions.

mountainman · 07-08-2009, 12:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lpetrich

A lot of Gnostic writings were long known from what orthodox theologians said about them -- the Nag Hammadi discoveries represented a revolution in our knowledge of Gnosticism. Celsus's writings of Xianity survive only as quotes in Origen's rebuttals of him.

Celsus's writings of Xianity survive only as quotes in Origen's rebuttals of him via Eusebius. Celsus appears to have been an extremely well informed person on the spread of the new christian religion in the second century. The problem is that we know absolutely nothing about this Celsus fellow except what is revealed to us in the fourth century via Eusebius.

Eusebius tells us that the Gnostics were "Christian heretics" living in the past alongside the canonical christians with their own libraries and own series of extra books, like the Gospels of Peter and Paul and Mary. Serapion was able to walk into a heretical library and borrow the gPeter with his orthodox library card. It just does not wash.

jakejonesiv · 07-08-2009, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Self-Mutation

In order to prove something true, one must only need find one thing that refutes everything else.

Here is my one verse proving to everyone that Jesus existed on Earth and only a FOOL would claim the Gospels didn't mean to portray him as historical:

But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews?

10For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy.

11But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them.

12And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews?

13And they cried out again, Crucify him.

14Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him.

15And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified.

If Jesus ONLY EXISTED in a SPIRITUAL REALM, this passage makes no sense. It's OBVIOUS to anyone with a brain that the writers viewed Jesus as a historical person.

Unless you want to argue Pilate had the power to go into the "spiritual realm" with Jesus! :rolling:

It is noteworthy that the Barrabas text you refer to as proving that Jesus was historical calls into question that very premise. The whole episode does not give the impression of history.

“That the people, in front of captive Jesus, passed suddenly from admiration to hatred and that, to not contentedly to prefer Barabbas to him, they asked with rage that Pilate crucify him; that Pilate lent himself at once to this furious whim. Those are all details, which fit better the category of legendary fiction than history and which would rather resemble for a purpose of theater in a melodrama or a childish tale rather than with reality.
Finally the coincidence of two Jesus, both “son of the father,” is too singular to be true. One can conclude firmly with Loisy that, from the point of view of the history, the incident of Barabbas is an “improbable fiction.”

JESUS BARABBAS by P. - L COUCHOUD AND R. STAHL

Jake Jones IV

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