Transient

This is your thread so I will bow out of it - let's get it back on track.

spamandham

If the goal is to discover these kernels, then the approach is not to start by assuming the story is basically true and speculating endlessly about how it might really have happened. The approach is to attempt to understand the culture that produced the stories, and then analyze the stories in that context. I don't see anything even remotely like that going on here.

Most scholars used to think the sun orbited the earth. The arguments in favor of a HJ are unimpressive. That isn't to say there was no HJ, but there is little reason to assume there was either.

Sheshbazzar

There may be "kernals of truth" in the tale of "Jack and the Beanstalk", thus we can't just dismiss the possibility that this Jack might have had a real historical core?

Who in their right mind would devote the next fifty years of their lives attempting to defend the proposition that Jack was a real person, and that the story would not have been written unless there had been a real Jack, and a real Beanstalk? and yes even the possibility that there was a real Giant that lived in the heavens up above?

Beanstalk, Jacob's ladder, or "taken up" into the heavens, are all variations on the same line of mythological hooey, and 'taint one no better than the other, more elaborate, longer, with more grunts and strainings maybe, but no better, and no more worthy of swallowing.
The stink of religion is bad, its high time to wipe, hit that flush lever, get off the pot, get a life, and leave that old shit behind.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Spamandham and Joan,

Another good example for widespread common and scientific error is the concept of the aether. In the 18th and 19th century it was supposed by most scientists and the less sophisticated to be a medium that allowed for the propagation of light waves. It was not until the late 19th century that the aether was found to be an unnecessary fiction. Still, even as late as 1951 scientists (Paul Dirac) were still arguing for its existence.

The existence of Abraham and Moses was generally accepted by scholars up till the 1990's. Now the belief in their existence is a minority opinion. Also, the existence of the Biblical Kings Saul, David and Solomon went virtually unchallenged until the 1990's. Now a significant minority, if not the majority of scholars see them as fictional characters.

While it is quite true that no sane person believes in Superman and sane people do believe in Jesus, it should be noted that there is no five hundred billion dollar-a-year industry promoting the idea of an historical Superman. If there was, it would be probable that most sane people would believe in an historical Superman.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Joan of Bark

I'm not assuming the story is basically true. I'm only assuming that part of it is possible and going from there.

I bow to your wisdom. You clearly know more than those PhD's.

Sarcasm aside, I'm not saying the scholars must be correct. I'm saying they can't be ignored or their arguments tossed aside just because you don't like them. From what I've seen, scholars on both sides of this debate consider the arguments of their opponents, and often admit their strengths. Doubt of one's position is the key to finding the truth. Remember that it was scholars like Copernicus and Galileo who countered the Earth-centric beliefs of others, and they didn't do it by ignoring the earlier beliefs, but by using newly-discovered evidence (such as satellites orbiting Jupiter) to strengthen their case.

An analogy that counters yours would involve The Iliad. Almost everyone believed that story to be pure fiction until the 19th century when Schliemann discovered the archeological remains of a city that matches the description of Troy / Ilium. Now the consensus is that there is some truth to Homer's epic poem. If Schliemann had taken the attitude of: "well, it's obviously totally bogus because of the fantastic parts involving Zeus, Athena and Achilles", Troy might still be undiscovered.

Joan of Bark

How many times do I have to repeat myself? We're rejecting the supernatural parts of the NT and looking at the rest (which is something historians do with many events -- you wouldn't write that the English never fought the Spanish Armada because the claim that 'God sent a wind to blow the armada off course' is clearly nonsense. Or that the first crusade never took place because at the time the victory was credited to God's will).

Unlike Jack and the Beanstalk, which fails to mention any known historical person or place, the gospels contain the names of Herod the Great, Quirinius, Pontius Pilate, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Caesar, all of which (I assume) you agree existed.

Anyway, the title of this forum is Biblical Criticism and History, which makes me wonder what you're doing here.

Transient

Nah.
Often these guys had to think right outside the square, to remove themselves from current ideas and look for themselves at the data and dream up different possibilities.
That is the real hard thing to do because you are going to be laughed at and chided for being too different etc and in the case of the catholic church of course, threatened with excommunication etc etc .

As to the OP - so if we are to assume that the stories of miracles are lies or mistakes and not real, then why would the romans have taken so much interest in him as to post guards at his grave etc?
Or maybe that too was made up?
Was the story o his legs not being broken made up too?
Was the story of him being put in a grave made up too?
It is an impossible slippery slide you are on here with no ground to stand on.

spamandham

What is the point of such an assumption? Just a game of whatif?

You're more than welcome to present any scholarly arguments in support of HJ you find compelling. But mere opinion unsupported by analysis is generally worthless, even when held by scholars.

I think you may be overestimating how much work has been done by scholars to analyze *whether* there was an HJ.

Sheshbazzar

Lets see, we have the Biblical Jesus that performed mighty miracles and attracted thousands of believers, shook up the Jewish religious establishment to its roots, and whose fame spread far and wide, yet strangely left no other mark upon history other than a few outlandish stories from unknown authors produced at unknown dates, that cannot be corroborated by any external sources. These are the facts that raise the question of his actual existence.

Now, you take this story-book character who is already of doubtful reality and start removing everything supernatural from the stories,
The question is, where do you stop? When you pare away all of the supernatural situations, scenarios, and miracle stories, it is also necessary to to pare away with them all of that additional dialog that was engendered by, and associated with the performance of those supernatural situations and miracles, and also any related public and private reactions that professedly arose out of people having any participation in, knowledge of, or awareness of these situations and miracles.
Now your narrative has such huge gaps in it (say good-bye to around half of the entire Gospel texts) that it has utterly lost its narrative structure, and the protagonist has been stripped of even more of his already far too sparse modicum of identity.
You take away all of this and you have an unknown nobody, that actually did almost nothing, and so attracted no ones attention, but was at some time you don't know when, misidentified by someone you don't know whom, as being somebody that did something, but because the stories are rejected supernatural fictions, no one now knows what it was that he did do. And the one that didn't do those rejected supernatural things, and that no one knows anything about, is the one that we are to identify now by what it is that we don't know about him.
Does this make him more believable as being any actual historical character?
I don't think so.
The supernatural explanation, although utterly preposterous, unnatural, and unbelievable, makes far more sense.
Of course it is not a given that either of these two silly options are the only options.
I don't accept either.

You "are rejecting the supernatural parts of the NT"? and pray tell, who extended to you that license?
The New Testement sans its supernatural parts, is no longer The New Testement, the very basis of the NT is its supernatural parts, its stories and claims.
The Gospels say what The Gospels say, whether you like what they say or not, and what they DO say, discredits your attempts at making them into something they were not, and that they are not, or to say something that they do not.
Your arguments that the NT stories mention some real places and some real world historical personages is hardly worth addressing, as that approach has been discredited thousands of times within these forums.
You can dig up every square foot of Jerusalem and Israel and you still will never find a shred of indisputable evidence for the existence of a "real" Jesus, simply because there never was any such person, nor any individual anywhere similar to that fictional character that is described in the NT.
Rejecting the Jesus the NT described, you are stuck with creating your own fully imaginary Jesus, one for which you can provide no evidence at all.

spamandham

It is not a valid historical approach to start with a story of fantasy, remove the impossible portions, and then presume the rest is somewhat true. The right approach is to try to understand the culture that produced the story first, and understand the writers' motives if possible as well. Only then is it possible to determine if portions of the story are likely historical or not.