Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 10-01-2009, 05:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Rip off the cover pages of Jane Austin's book and eliminate the knowledge that Jane Austin wrote fiction, leaving only the text of the story.

Now apply your method...

It's fairly easy to tell when reading Jane Austen that it's fiction. You don't need the cover pages, or prior knowledge.

Miracles left, right and center, Ghost-who-walks, resurrection accounts ... its fairly easy to tell when reading the new testament that it's a fictional account from antiquity - and a fabricated collage. You don't need the cover pages, or prior knowledge.

aa5874 · 10-01-2009, 06:25 AM

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Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

What question? You don't understand what irrelevant means?

'Irrelevant' means 'not related to the matter being considered'. So whether something is relevant or not depends on which matter is being considered. You have said that 'the historical Jesus is irrelevant', but you have not said which matter you think is being considered, so it is not clear what specifically you mean by 'irrelevant' in this particular case.

THE HISTORICAL JESUS IS IRRELEVANT WHEN DISCUSSING THE RESURRECTION.

THE HISTORICAL JESUS COULD NOT RESURRECT.

badger3k · 10-01-2009, 05:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bacht

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

If they didn't question the historicity, then their number is wrong.

I can easily go through the Gospels and verify that everything said by Jesus was, in fact, said by Jesus.

In other words, by simply assuming historicity, their project became senseless.

Maybe so, I was just responding to Joan's question about sayings of Jesus. Personally I think they're all fiction, cribbed from Jewish scripture and other sources.

If one does assume an HJ the first question would be Which one? Was he an apocalyptic follower of John the Baptist, or a quasi-Cynic like the Q material, or a magician/exorcist, or ....? One's presupposition of Jesus' identity must influence which sayings are "consistent" or not.

Wasn't it Albert Schweitzer who said that people find the Jesus they look for. We've had feminist Jesus, Liberal Jesus, Stern Jesus, etc - (maybe we need action figures? Apocalypse Jesus with Kung-Fu Grip? :constern01: ) - which is one of the points the Robert M Price makes. There may have been a historical Jesus, but he's been lost in the mythology that came to be attached to him, and therefore (with what we have) everything is speculation.

I've gotten to here so far, and still can't figure out Tim - the arguments make no sense, the appeal to authority, this importance of a historical Jesus, the using Craig (!) as an authority. Not sure at all. Oh well, back to the thread and see what I've missed so far.

badger3k · 10-01-2009, 05:11 PM

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Originally Posted by Toto

Tim Bowe: you are inching up towards copyright violations if you post more of Ehrman's books, and you are abusing this board.

What does that passage mean in your own words? Can you defend Erhman's conclusions? Do you know what his conclusions are?

Is Tim Ehrman in disguise? All we need are links to his books so that we can all buy them.

badger3k · 10-01-2009, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

It's fairly easy to tell when reading Jane Austen that it's fiction. You don't need the cover pages, or prior knowledge.

Miracles left, right and center, Ghost-who-walks, resurrection accounts ... its fairly easy to tell when reading the new testament that it's a fictional account from antiquity - and a fabricated collage. You don't need the cover pages, or prior knowledge.

The Phantom is in the Bible? Does it also have his horse and dog? Kewl. The problem I have with analyzing ancient texts as that is the idea of what they regarded as possible. We have accounts, seemingly believed to be true, or mairaculous deeds from antiquity (as we have some today). Did the writers think they were writing fiction (as I feel Mark did, at the least), or were they simply telling tales they had heard and actually believed. Now, today, we can and should call a lot of it fiction, but if you want to try to understand the writers...it's a bit harder. Not disagreeing with what you said, just amplifying my own thoughts on the matter.

J-D · 10-01-2009, 06:00 PM

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Originally Posted by dog-on

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Originally Posted by J-D

No, I'm afraid I don't.

Simple, in order to come up with a Jesus, apart from the one described in the books, you have to make him up.

To come up with any historical account of anybody at all, historians have to make it up. Somebody who simply repeats verbatim what an earlier source says is not a historian. All historians select which elements from their sources they are going to include in their accounts and which elements they are going to discard. You can't show me examples of historians who work in any other way.

Sai · 10-01-2009, 06:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by badger3k

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Miracles left, right and center, Ghost-who-walks, resurrection accounts ... its fairly easy to tell when reading the new testament that it's a fictional account from antiquity - and a fabricated collage. You don't need the cover pages, or prior knowledge.

The Phantom is in the Bible? Does it also have his horse and dog? Kewl. The problem I have with analyzing ancient texts as that is the idea of what they regarded as possible. We have accounts, seemingly believed to be true, or mairaculous deeds from antiquity (as we have some today). Did the writers think they were writing fiction (as I feel Mark did, at the least), or were they simply telling tales they had heard and actually believed. Now, today, we can and should call a lot of it fiction, but if you want to try to understand the writers...it's a bit harder. Not disagreeing with what you said, just amplifying my own thoughts on the matter.

STORIES, you know, just always seem to involve miracles, dont they? Talking animals, magic wands, giants, invincible warriors, transformations, etc etc.

Its so odd to think of picking out one group of stories, from someone else's cultural tradition, and deciding to adopt that a sacred perfect truth.

it seems to work best when a culture is weak from internal problems or conquest. the cultures of china and japan have never been weak enough for those foreign stories to gain any ground.

J-D · 10-01-2009, 06:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

It's fairly easy to tell when reading Jane Austen that it's fiction. You don't need the cover pages, or prior knowledge. In Northanger Abbey she mentions the fact explicitly near the end of the story, although it's fairly obvious even near the beginning.

That aside, I don't see what your point is.

My point is, to repeat, that it's extremely common for written works of all kinds and genres to include some elements which have historical evidential value and some which don't.

I don't disagree with that generality.

but:

You don't think that the gospel writers do the same as Ms. Austin?

Quote:

1The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.[a]

etc...

Different written texts are written with different purposes and using different techniques. I do not assume that the Gospel writers worked in the same way and with the same purposes as Jane AustEn. A historical investigation for historically usable evidence would have to proceed differently (in detail) in the two cases and should properly produce different results.

However, in neither case would it be proper to say that the discovery in the text of some details which have no value as historical evidence is enough by itself to dismiss the whole text as valueless. The parts of the Gospels which refer to God are obviously false because there is no God, but that is not by itself enough to prove that nothing in the Gospels is true. It is generally considered that the so-called Testimonium Flavianum is a spurious interpolation in the text of Josephus, but that doesn't prove that the text of Josephus is wholly spurious. Kings and Chronicles both mention God, but they also mention some individuals and events corroborated by independent evidence, so some parts of them do have historical evidential value.

TimBowe · 10-01-2009, 06:10 PM

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"there were something like 8 zillion books written about Jesus .... It's not there aren't enough books about Jesus out there. It's that there aren't enough of the right kind of book. Very, very few, in fact. I'd say about one and a half."

Bart Ehrman

The right kind of book, according to Ehrman, is one that portrays Jesus as Albert Schweitzer did, he believes that apocalypticism is the core of Jesus' message.

J-D · 10-01-2009, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

It's fairly easy to tell when reading Jane Austen that it's fiction. You don't need the cover pages, or prior knowledge.

Miracles left, right and center, Ghost-who-walks, resurrection accounts ... its fairly easy to tell when reading the new testament that it's a fictional account from antiquity - and a fabricated collage. You don't need the cover pages, or prior knowledge.

It's easy to tell that it contains a lot which is not historically accurate but, as I said before, that by itself doesn't prove that it contains nothing of any historical evidential value.

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