Dave31

Jeffry, those are all things we still don't have for the Jesus of the bible - no grave yard or bone box, headstone or tax list. Where's the documentation for the trial of Jesus? None of this appears to be very convincing. it might be for believers who select to believe regardless of how unconvincing the evidence is though - we already know that.

Exactly, which is one reason why the author wrote Who Was Jesus? (or via: amazon.co.uk) with a mostly Christian scholar bibliography pointing out that what Christian biblical scholars hold up as "evidence," they also admit to being "SCANTY AND PROBLEMATIC" and then, go on to make the assertions and conclusion for an HJ is really quite disappointing. It seems either dishonest or deceptive to me. Maybe they need their feet held to the fire for these claims. It's time we stop just accepting the giant leap of faith for an HJ.

Where's the data/evidence that would demonstrate the existence of an HJ that would stand up to peer review of both theist and atheist biblical criticism as well as hold up to scientific scrutiny. As opposed to Christian rhetoric and propaganda disguised to appear as "evidence."

If the Jesus Seminar concluded that around 85% of the words of Jesus were "unauthentic" why still accept the HJ position as well?

I agree with Sounds like we need a "HJ Challenge."

Dave31

- Who Was Jesus? page 84

Dave31

- Who Was Jesus? (WWJ) page 86

* Dr. Meier is a Catholic University New Testament professor, ex-Catholic priest and monsignor

Dave31

- WWJ 84 (or via: amazon.co.uk)

thedistillers

I already asked twice for a clarification, and you did not provide any answer.

What kind of evidence do you expect for the HJ? Whatever your answer might be, why do you expect that kind of evidence? What do you mean by "scientific scrutiny", considering history is not a "hard" science? Why do you expect historians to demonstrate a HJ? Why can't they just posit a HJ if it reasonably explains the data we have?

Have you read Meier and Bruce? Or does your knowledge of them is limited to the quotes you provided?

aa5874

And the author must be corrected, Tacitus and Suetonius did even not mention the word Jesus. It is a fallacy to think that Christus and Chrestus MUST mean or can only mean Jesus of the NT.

Jeffrey Gibson

The evaluation given here is of the value of the information about Jesus in apocryphal Gospels and the NH material.

Ex Catholic priest? Where ever did you get that bit of information?

Jeffrey

gstafleu

When we find a headstone in an abandoned grave yard, that in and of itself is evidence of a relation between it and a historical person, simply because the purpose of a headstone is to mark the grave of such a person. If there still is a legible name, and perhaps date, on the stone we then know a little bit more about the person. Even if the text is mostly eroded away, there is in general no reason to assume that it was a "void" headstone. Possibly we could find a blank headstone, not clearly associated with a grave, in which case we might conclude that it possibly was a "spare" and thus not (yet) assigned to a person. But in general it is reasonable to assume that there was a relation between a headstone and a historical person.

The issue with Jesus is a different. Here the claim is not that, because we have a bit of evidence, a person must be associated with it. The claim is rather for a person with very specific attributes to have existed. At a minimum an HJ must have played an important role in the early development of Christianity. It is evidence for such a person that is scant.

In addition to this, we do not have evidence that is unambiguously linked to a historical person. In the case of a headstone, or a name on a tax list, we do have such evidence: we know that in almost all cases such an entity signifies the existence of a person, even if we do not know if that person was a butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker.

The scant evidence we have of Jesus is, however, not of the type where it is generally agreed that it must relate to a real person. This would be the case if, for example, euhemerism had been established as a general principle: "In nine out of ten cases, stories like the Jesus story are based on a real person." But that has not been established. And that makes the analogy between the situation with the evidence for an HJ on the one hand, and the situation with headstones and tax list on the other, a false one.

To summarize, a headstone or an entry on a tax list is in and of itself evidence for the existence of a person, even if we don't know more about that person than that his/her name made it to that stone or list. For Jesus we have a number of stories and references that can be explained as well by a "fictional" as by a historical character. In addition, there does not seem to be any evidence of the headstone type, where not only the evidence by its nature points to a real person, but where this real person also has the very specific attribute of being a founder (of some sort) of Christianity.

Gerard Stafleu

Jeffrey Gibson

And here I thought the point that I was making was that it would be nonsense to insist that because we do not have the life details of a merely mentioned person, we can, let alone should, deny that that person ever existed.

Thanks for missing it entirely.

Jeffrey

Lógos Sokratikós

I actually watched the video.
1) A.S. contends that the Bible is not inerrant.
2) A.S. contends that the Gospels are not firsthand accounts.
3) A.S. contends that parts of the narrative that should have provoked historical reports in fact did not (thus casting doubt about their veracity), such as the tearing at the temple and the dead people coming out of their tombs at the moment of Jesus' death.

I don't remember the video contending that "there wasn't a persona named Jesus upon which the Gospels were based" or anything similar.

I'm wondering if those three points are too radical for the audience here.