aa5874

Well, if you think that people don't lie about seeing things or you are NOT satisfied that LYING can be an explanation then you should accept Matthew 1.18.

Jesus was the Baby of a Ghost is NOT a LIE. Jesus was a MERE MAN is a LIE since the authors of the Gospels did NOT write that Jesus was a Man.

You KNOW the authors wrote what they believe to be true therefore Jesus resurrected too.

Why are you IGNORING all the Options? Lying is an option.

Even "PAUL" Claimed he LIED for the Glory of God. See Romans 3.7

.

Your claim will be DEBUNKED

You have EXPOSED that you don't even KNOW the basis of the HJ argument.

"Historical Jesus" means a PHYSICAL ACTUAL flesh and blood HUMAN BEING with EARTHLY MOTHER AND FATHER and born from normal reproduction.

The Gospel writers did NOT write about an HISTORICAL Jesus. They wrote about the Baby of a Ghost that Acted like a Ghost or its baby.

The Birth Narratives in gMatthew and gLuke are NOT about a mere man, NOT about HJ, just the baby of A Ghost.

show_no_mercy

It was pretty obvious that I wasn't attributing that specific argument to you, but the logic of that argument to you. As in, "Christians believed x, therefore x is historical". It is sufficient to say that simply having Christians believe something to be historical doesn't mean that it actually is historical.

Now back to this point:

So therefore, using the logic of your argument, you must place "a certain weight" on Jesus being raised from the dead or him being an entity that descended from heaven based "on the proximity of the writings to the events portrayed in the writings".

Now some might object to these examples because they're supernatural. But everything about Jesus' existence is supernatural. Even things that are on the face of it mundane - like Jesus eating - were put in the gospels for theological reasons.

The Last Supper describes a ceremony where the followers of Jesus symbolically eat their leader's flesh and blood. This is one of the most anti-Jewish events in the Christian writings. I don't know of any instances where Jews had ceremonies where they symbolically ate the flesh and blood of on of their revered sages. But a similar ritual was happening in Mithraism around the same time (mid/late 1st century). Was Mithras a historical person?

Other scenes where Jesus is eating were put in the later gospels to combat docetism.

Simply put, belief doesn't necessitate historicity - no matter the (your) chronological proximity. For example, Nedd Ludd was believed to have existed in about the same time lapse that the gospels put Jesus on Earth (Paul, on the other hand, gives us no clue as to when his Jesus existed).

What really matters is evidential proximity. Something written by Jesus, or people contemporary to Jesus writing firsthand accounts of their interactions with Jesus, or independent (uninterested) parties writing about Jesus... these are the types of evidential proximity that would warrant the conclusions that you're trying to force. As it stands now, all you have is the beliefs of propagandists pushing a theological agenda.

You don't even have any hostile witnesses to Jesus until the end of the 2nd century. This is even more suspect considering how Jesus was supposed to have offended the ruling establishment earning him his crucifixion. It's as though Jesus was mystery that was recently revealed (Rom 16.25).

bacht

Why can't we read Mark like Job? Job may or may not have exisited, but the story doesn't depend on that, it simply uses Job to present the message of the writer. Tobit and Judith similarly play with historical facts in the service of the author.

Mark seems to come from the sub-apostolic period, and may have been directed at people (like us) who lived after the first witnesses were gone. Since almost every scene seems lifted from Jewish scripture we can't really be confident that any of it was considered history or biography by the author.

Presenting the Christ as a man who walked the earth seems like an anti-gnostic gesture, a dumbing-down move to make the message of the cosmic savior easier for ordinary (gentile) people.

GakuseiDon

Sure we can, by viewing the extant literature.

I don't know. What is your answer?

Yes.

What I'm saying is that we can get a picture of their thinking from extant literature, i.e. "what they 'seemed' to have believed", in order to test ideas against that.

What's the answer? How would you investigate this?

What's the answer? How would you investigate this?

We have what we have. What do you suggest we use?

Juststeve

Bacht:

If you are suggesting that we read Mark as an Allegory, sort of like Animal Farm, you can do that but I see no indication that the author of Mark intended that it be read that way. It reads to me as though the author were trying to describe someone as though he actually existed, whether he did or not.

I think you are right in thinking that the gospel was directed to those who had not seen Jesus. That actually seems quite obvious. It says nothing however about whether Mark thought he was describing a person who actually existed as opposed to a fictional character. I see no indication in the text that Mark thought he was describing a fictional character, do you?

I'm not sure how bringing the Gnostics into it advances the case for those who contend Mark didn't believe in a Jesus who actually lived on earth. The Gnostics, as I understand them believed in a spiritual being who appeared on earth in human form but was not truly human. This goes to the real nature of Jesus, not whether he actually appeared on earth and interacted with real people as though he was human. Mark depicts someone who appeared on earth and interacted with other like a human being. I also see no indication that Mark had gnostic views. More to the point I see no indication that Mark did not think Jesus actually appeared on the earth.

Steve

Juststeve

Don:

I think the answer to your last question to Avi would be the same if you asked it of any of the other mythers. You can use only that evidence that no myther can quibble with. So long as there is room for doubt about the validity of evidence, whether it was forged, whether it was an interpolation, whether it was a pious lie, whether the words don't mean what they seem to mean, the evidence is totally meaningless and rejected by the myther. Show them the one piece of incontrovertible evidence, a trip in a time machine perhaps, and that will be enough, maybe.

Steve

GakuseiDon

Do people here only understand the concept of "cumulative case" when it relates to mythicism? I really don't understand yours and avi's objections.

I'm not saying: "Christians believed x. Therefore x happened". If I did, I would hardly need a cumulative case. I'm saying: "Christians believed x. What's the best explanation for that?"

Yes, I do. I think the body went missing, and this, combined with visions, led to the notion of a physical resurrection, which fed into proof that the general resurrection was at hand.

Not that I know about. But so? How does that interact with any point that I've raised? Please explain.

Cicero wrote in "On the Nature of the Gods" around 45 BCE:

When we speak of corn as Ceres, and of wine as Liber, we use, it is true, a customary mode of speech, but do you think that any one is so senseless as to believe that what he is eating is the divine substance?

Note that Cicero calls it "a customary mode of speech". Paul, writing to the Corinithians, writes in 1 Cor 11:

23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread;
24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me."
25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes.

This is not quite eating and drinking the body and blood. The bread is broken, just as Jesus' body will be broken. Eating the broken bread is a reminder of how Jesus' body was broken. The blood in the cup is the new covenant, so drinking from the cup is a reminder of the new covenant and the shedding of blood.

The problem is that you are trying to read later orthodoxy into Paul. You need to read Paul for Paul. Doherty does much the same thing when it suits him, since he needs a divine Christ for his theory as much as orthodox Christians do for their own beliefs.

I see. You know, that makes no sense at all. For example, was the Gospel of Mark written with a docetic Jesus in mind, such that it needed changing to combat docetism? I don't understand what you are trying to say about the Gospels here.

Right. So your 1% option trumps my 99% option.

True. We have what we have.

I see. That would be an important event, that revealing. An important, historical event. When did Paul place it again?

Kapyong

Gday,

Sadly Steve, you still have NO IDEA what is being claimed here - there was NO mendacity.

If only you could grasp that.

You have this huge bee-in-your-bonnet that if it was not historically true, then it must have been a LIE, a deliberate attempt to deceive.

Sadly, this is completely false. I hope you can one day come to understand this simple fact.

According to YOUR argument, the Greek myths were a LIE, the book of Job was a lie, J.K. Rowling LIED, JRR Tolkein was a liar, Kahlil Gibran is a liar, Arthur Conan Doyle was a liar.

Which is completely ridiculous - you appear to have NO idea that genres such as fiction, myth, allegory, parable, legends even EXIST.

You seem to believe that only TWO kinds of book even exist:
1. true histiry
2. lies
How silly.


Kapyong

Kapyong

Gday,

Because you have your eyes closed.

Several posters showed such indications - you ignored it. I reminded you, and you STILL ignore it - AND claim you haven't seen any !


Here it is again, JustSteve, will you ignore it again?

So -
Dog-on posted an excerpt from the Gospels which describe very NON-real events :

"9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted[g] by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him. "

Dog-on commented :
"Now you provide evidence where you think that the author thinks he is talking about a real person."

His point seems to be that a:
* supernatural events,
* with direct divine intervention,
* a magical dove,
* then angels and
* Satan acting on earth
is hardly a description of an earthly historical person. It's mythology, not history.

Unless you can SHOW that the author really believed such things happened.


Then Toto pointed out :
"The gospels are not just regular history embellished with a few supernatural events or explanations for events. They are full of supernatural events, and their form and structure are derived directly from the Hebrew Scriptures. And each gospel writer feels free to alter the story for his or her own theological purposes."


That is clear and present evidence that the authors did NOT see all this as historical earthly events. The clear conclusion is that Jesus was NOT seen as a historical earthly person. Sure, one can argue against this evidence, but plenty HAS been presented.



Kapyong

Kapyong

Gday,

Yes, many of us have presented reasons, but you keep ignoring them.

One of the big reasons is that most of the Jesus stories in G.Mark were created out of episodes in the Jewish scriptures. That is a BIG indication he was NOT writing history.

But you simply won't even 'see' the evidence when it is put in right front of you.


K.