jakejonesiv

Hey, I believe in Historical Brainiac 2.5! :angry:

archibald

I believe in the Historical Mickey Mouse!

Hey, doing crap analogies is fun.

gurugeorge

No, that's the whole point. DUH.

Until you can, you don't know whether the texts are more like fiction or more like biography, so you don't know whether to expect to find actual history about their central protagonist in them or not.

Because it's what nearly every HJ wallah is doing, so far as I can tell, including you, otherwise you wouldn't have said "the question is whether other parts of the stories, not mentioning ghosts, are historical".

Because until you can answer the questions you asked above, you have no way of knowing whether you're making a howler like you would if you dug up a Superman comic in the desert and thought "ah, the fantastic bits are obviously implausible, the question is whether the other parts of the stories, not mentioning implausible stuff, are historical."

aa5874

In the NT, Jesus was the Child of a Ghost so I don't know how you are going to treat parts of the stories differently.

It was the Child of a Ghost that had a human mother and a Ghost for his Father from the VERY START to the VERY END of the story based on the details in ALL four gospels.

In effect, there was NEVER a time in the Gospels that Jesus was NOT a Ghost Child or did NOT ACT like one.

It is rather ABSURD and ILLOGICAL to attempt to ascertain what the Ghost Child ACTUALLY did.

Please state the parts of the Ghost Child story that may be historical.


You really don't know who wrote the Superman stories, in what context and why. You can ONLY ACCEPT the claims of authorship and the reasons for writing the Superman stories.

Authorship can sometimes be a matter for litigation.

aa5874

Jesus of Nazareth was described as a Child of a Ghost yet you BELIEVE in an historical Jesus of Nazareth. Doing crap analogies must indeed be fun for you.

archibald

Sorry George, I think this is not quite true. I can see how you might want to see it that way, given your hypothesis, but I think you might be over-simplifying matters to get it to lean that way.

There is more reason to believe that the writers believed their main figure had been recently historical and intended for their main figure to be read as having been recently historical (albeit 'history' was not what we see it as today, post-enlightenment) and furthermore that this this is the way they were read. The same cannot be said of Superman.

aa5874

You have ALREADY admitted that nothing is certain and that Agnosticism is probably the best option so why are you just going around in circles trying to voice your UNCERTAINTIES?

MJers have INHERENTLY PREDICTED correctly that HJers would ALWAYS be uncertain of HJ of Nazareth.

You are NOT going anywhere because you are UNCERTAIN of the direction in which you are heading.

We know your position of UNCERTAINTY so what's the point???

I am certain that Jesus was described as the Child of a Ghost in Extant Codices so I will certainly NOT argue for an historical Jesus.

I don't want to be going around in circles when it is CERTAIN that ALL FOUR CANONISED GOSPELS described Jesus as the Child of a Ghost or Acting as a Ghost.

I will CERTAINLY consider that Jesus was MYTH until CERTAIN documents can be found to CONTRADICT the Extant Codices.

In your uncertainty and confusion you seem to have done the opposite. You are accepting Jesus as historical but without any evidence at all.

Toto

Those reason[s] would be ... ?

gurugeorge

Yes it can - if these people believed their "Superman" was historical.

I guess the Superman example can be misleading because it's fictional light entertainment, but the point of the example is it's that it's going to be extremely difficult to distinguish between a (sincerely/innocently/deceivingly) made-up story about a fantastic being, and a (sincerely/innocently/deceivingly) made-up story about a fantastic being that's based on fact, without further knowledge which we don't have (i.e. the actual who/whom/when/what for of the texts, triangulation re. a hypothetical human Saviour Messiah from other sources).

Just the presence of Clark Kentish everyday stuff, a human aspect to the divine being in the story, is not enough to clinch it. Yet that's what virtually every HJ-er is doing - taking it for granted that the human-sounding bits are not only about a human being but EVIDENTIARY OF a human being.

aa5874

Essentially, a claim that Superman was Clark Kent is of no historical value until we can show that a character by that name and description did have some ACTUAL personal impact where he was claimed to have lived and work.

HJ, as the name implies, is really an UNIDENTIFIABLE character whose history cannot ever be recovered.

When one considers that there were many persons called Jesus and that there many who claimed to be Christ then HJ cannot ever be identified.

Without an ID we simply will NOT ever be able to locate HJ.

HJ is meaningless.

All we know is that in the NT Jesus was FULLY EXPLAINED as a Child of a Ghost, God and the Creator of heaven and earth.

Who can EXPLAIN HJ? What does HJ EXPLAIN?

HJ has NO EXPLANATION even to the Church.