Toto

Freke and Gandy are neo-Gnostics. Timothy Freke gives seminars and lectures aimed at a New Age audience on "The Mystery Experience."

Acharya S writes frequently on politics. She has published "The Gospel According to Acharya S", which you can find on her site.
I ask you to please stop quoting from Acharya S as if she were a recognized authority. She is not, and her works tend to set certain people off.

Ferryman to the Dead

The Bible sets certain people off as well. See ya.

aa5874

Well, that is indeed the problem.

No supposed contemporary of Jesus wrote that they SAW Jesus alive.

A Pauline writer claimed he was ALIVE when there was a governor of King Aretas in Damascus [2 Cor.11-32-33] and the author of Acts claimed he traveled ALL over the Roman Empire with Saul/Paul [Acts 16-28], yet NOT one even claimed they SAW Jesus alive before the non-historical resurrection.

The Pauline writers SAW Jesus when they could NOT. They SAW Jesus in a NON-historical state. They SAW Jesus when no-one else could have.

The Pauline writers HEARD from Jesus when they could NOT. They heard from Jesus when he could NOT talk.

The Pauline writers RECOGNISED Jesus when they could NOT. They recognised Jesus when they were BLIND and Jesus was in a NON-historical state.

There is just NO external corroborative source or even any internal source that claimed they were contemporaries of Jesus that SAW him ALIVE before the resurrection.

And the Pauline writers claimed Jesus MUST have resurrected for mankind to OBTAIN Salvation.

Jesus MUST carry out a non-historical event for the REMISSION of Sins.

1Co 15:17 - Ga 1:1 - Galatians 1.11-12 The Pauline writings do not reflect history but theology based on mythology and fiction.

No Robots

Your effort to distance yourself from any actual social implications with regard to the promotion of your position is most charming. However, now that real scholars, using their real names and using their real social status, have begun to promote this same position, those who oppose it have a clear duty to respond, in whatever forum is available. The veil of scientific objectivity cannot be allowed to cover the nakedness of your position.

GakuseiDon

I just don't understand. It is "historical in the modern sense" vs "historical in the ancient sense". Maybe both terms need to be defined? I would say that "historical in the modern sense" means that we think that Hercules (for example) actually existed around the time of Troy. "Historical in the ancient sense" means that they thought that Hercules actually existed around the time of Troy.

I suppose you could argue that they had no equivalent word for "historical" or "historicity". But what did they say when they wanted to distinguish between someone who didn't exist and someone who did? Or have I got a mistaken idea of even "historical in the modern sense"?

BTW, thanks for your other comments, but as I am interested in how people thought back then, I'd like to get this cleared up. It may be that I have been working under a misapprehension about a lot of things (which no doubt many might agree with!) I don't understand the significance of yours and Toto's comments on this.

GakuseiDon

Pygmieeeeeeeesssssssssssss! Pygmies, pygmies, pygmies, pygmies, pygmies, pygmies, pygmies...

aa5874

But, don't you believe the offspring of the Holy Ghost lived in a CITY called Nazareth?

Don't you BELIEVE Jesus was an historical ghost of god?

Your BELIEF about the son of God is SIMILAR to the Pygmies?

Please state exactly what you believe and what Pygmies believe about Jesus according to Acharya and see if there is any major difference.

According to Achyra S "The Pygmy Christ was born of a virgin, died for the salvation of his people, arose from the dead, and finally ascended to heaven."

You propound nothing different to the Pygmies for your historical Jesus of the CITY of Nazareth.

Pygmies will be with YOU in heaven according to YOUR Jesus, the offspring of the Ghost [HOLY] from the CITY of Nazareth who was RAISED from the dead.

spin

Yet this shouldn't be hard for you to understand. We you and I and most everyone else in the "western" world have grown up with some common everyday understanding that history is a study of the evidence from the past. We make analogies with science which deals with evidence about the world. We know that we can ask why do we think that and get some sort of evidence to back it up. We have some notion of independent evidence. For something to be "historical" we know that there must be findable sources to justify the claim. This strict sense of history comes from our schooling built on centuries of philosophical developments in the field of history, developments obviously unavailable to ancient people. Incidentally, the OED gives the adjective "historical" as having entered Late Middle English (which for me is Chaucer's time) after "history" did. Latin historicus and Greek istorikos, which were rarely used in literature, meant both "pertaining to the writing of histories" and "those who did the writing".

(At the same time there is a loose sense of "historical" which approximately means "real" as opposed to "legendary", based as far as I can see solely on the common sense of the speaker. And there are other meanings in modern English, which I don't think need to be mentioned.)

As I've said, our notions of "story" and "history" weren't separated in ancient Greek. Historians wrote stories of the past.

As to definitions of "history" I've given one here in the past, "the attempt to say what happened in the past based on the available evidence."

I don't understand.

I think that the term probably used was "true", referring to the past.


spin

GakuseiDon

I think I understand. What you are saying is that Abraham Lincoln is historical, because we have independent evidence for him. But (for example) Lincoln's great grandparents are not historical, because we don't have independent evidence for them. We know that they must be real, but we can't say that they were historical simply because we have no evidence about them. Is that what you mean?

OK, I think I understand this now. Thus we should say that we have very little history of the past, simply because there are few things we can verify based on the available evidence.

spin

(I've used this one: just because you don't know anything about Pilate's father doesn't mean he didn't exist.)

The distinction is correct, as I see it. History requires evidence, but lack of evidence--though signifying lack of historicity--doesn't in itself imply not real--a fact that some of the non-believers here have difficulty grasping. Our past is full of people who never made it into records.

This is the relationship between "real" and "historical":

[t2="p=4;bdr=1,solid,#000000"]{c:bg=lightgreen;rs=2;w=60}Real|{c:bg=silver;w=80} Historical||{c:bg=lightblue;rs=2}Not historical||{c:bg=white}Not real[/t2]

The proportions aren't accurate, but hopefully one can get the idea that not all real events are historical. Historicity isn't about reality per se, but what can be shown to have (sufficient) evidence for its reality.

History is made up mainly of "big events", and accidents of preservation. When I go to join my ancestors, my deeds will be written in the wind, like theirs.


spin