mens_sana

"To read Paul either way—as hypergnostic or hyperorthodox—is to read unhistorically, attempting to interpret the apostle's theology in terms of categories formulated in the second-century debate." – Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters, p.164

Malachi151

Doubtful, because first of all 33 is not 70, and second of all, there is NOTHING in the Jesus story that is reliant on a "real person", in fact the entire story of Jesus makes more sense as allegory.

I think that "Mark" was writing allegory in his own mind, and had no idea that his writing would be taken as history. Almost every event in the gopsels is based on some other text, typically the "old testament" texts, though some seem also to come from Philo, from Greek legend, and from various other Jewish texts.

There is NO historical root to grab onto.

aa5874

The historicity of Jesus can only be assumed. There is no evidence to support the historicity of Jesus. The Jesus described in the Bible is not a real person. Jesus was believed to be real, just like all Gods.

In the OT, God came down to Moses at the Mount, some have even claimed to have seen God, but just like Jesus, all these God -sighting events never occured.

The Muslims, Hindus, Jews and the Mormons , to name a few, have never seen their Gods, but they believe their Gods are real
Religous beliefs do not need reality, all that is required is a believable concept of a supernatural entity.

No-one can demonstrate that only one person fits the criteria to be called the Christ. It cannot be shown that any person that lived 2000 years knew that when he died, he would be referred to as the Christ. No-one can say, with credibility, that only one person named Jesus was crucified. No-one can confirm that the story of Jesus is actually true.

No-one in history fits the description of Jesus, as described in the Bible, only mythical beings come close.

spamandham

Nice psycho-analysis, but a simple "we have Jesus' foreskin and that's how we know he was real" would have sufficed.

rlogan

Hi Amaleq13!

Snowmachine season on full bore up here now. Hope you got snow down there.


I think that indeed parsimiony is an obvious suggestion insofar as a passing glance at Christianity is concerned. Maybe we can characterize it crudely as the "where there's smoke there's fire" theory.


yes indeed. Once we're past the superficial glance then the problems crop up no matter which way you go.

The MJ guys have to explain Josephus, Tacitus, Seutonius and whatever. The HJ guys have to explain why they are so gullible with Christian forgery (a little ribbing there) the lack of historical references, the lack of an HJ in the Pauline Corpus, etc.

spamandham

In my mind, it's important to keep the writings of Paul distinct from the Gospels and other NT writings. The Gospels were written later. There is a tendency to view the NT as a cohesive work, even though it was written by several authors over the course of as much as 100 years.

If Peter sounds like a legendary figure in the Gospels, it may simply be because he WAS a legendary figure to the Gospel writers. That doesn't imply he was a legendary figure when Paul wrote.

From a mythicist perspective, the Gospels are a more elaborately evolved form of the myth. If that's the case, you would expect to see details being added over the chronology of the development of the myth, which is exactly what we see in the case of Jesus, and is the single greatest argument against a historical Jesus. Those who support the "iternerate preacher" theory almost universally dismiss this as a mere inconvenience.

Considering how important Jesus is to the writings of Paul, and the quantity of Paul's writings, the claim that we can make nothing of the fact that Paul completely ignores every aspect of Jesus other than his death and resurrection is simply grasping at straws, IMHO. It is not reasonable that Paul would so categorically ignore every other apsect of Jesus if he was writing about someone he knew anything about. Paul had numerous opportunities to appeal to the authority of Jesus in point she was trying to make, and chose instead to appeal to the Jewish scriptures. Clearly, Paul had never heard about Jesus teaching these things. Doherty nails this point, and I think it is given short shrift for no reason other than an unwillingness to examine preconceptions.

spamandham

It is quite common for preconceptions to take place and simply stick due to inertia in all fields of study.

What I am interested in determining, is whether or not that is the case WRT Jesus, or if the concensus is what it is because it really is the best explanation.

I'm looking for a solid "we believe Jesus was historical because {fill in the blank}", and not a generalized hand waving explanation. What I am seeing so far, is that the part that fills in the blank requires reems and reems of explanations and probability assesments, which to me, sound more like an apologetic than a solid case, and is certainly not a simple explanation at all.

I can invent a simple explanation that I believe fits all the evidence, though it is clearly pulled staright out of my backside: "Jesus was a fictional character used as a teaching aid by John the Baptist. This spawned a movement upon the death of John as people wished to keep his teachings alive. Johns followers quickly split into two rival groups; one that continued to see Jesus as simply a symbolic character, and one that began to syncretize him to popular mystical concepts of the day. Paul came from one of the mystical camps, and wrote letters of persuasion to the other camps, who had already started to historicise Jesus by the time Paul was writing. The Gospels came from the by-then historical Jesus sects. Josephus, Tacitus, et. al., were influenced by the historical Jesus camps who had already incorporated the letters of Paul by the time the Gospel's were written (because they HAD the letters that Paul had sent to them!)."

This idea is a work of fiction I just invented, but it's plausible, fits all the evidence I'm aware of, and is designed to demonstrates a fundamental problem with the argument that we can learn much about ahistorical Jesus from the Gospel stories.

The problem is, we don't know what genre the Gospels belong to! It is merely assumed they are a sort of biased historical record. They really could be the evolution of a grand work of fiction, that even the writers didn't know was fiction by the time the stories were written down. I don't see that as the least bit improbable.

Amaleq13

It hasn't even gotten beyond the midway point down the mountains yet. That's fine with me since the plow I ordered for my ATV hasn't arrived yet, either. Did a little bulldozing myself (saw your comment in another thread) recently when I built a road up to the new corral. I only came close to dying once.

Along with the "and we'd really need some persuasively clear evidence before even considering that the fire might be entirely an illusion" criterion.

I continue to hold out hope for a shepherd stumbling across another long-hidden cache of scrolls. <insert fingers-crossed smilie here>

Johnny Skeptic

An article at http://www.atheists.org/christianity/didjesusexist.html by 'American Atheists' President Frank Zindler provides sufficient evidence that a historical Jesus did not exist. Zindler discusses Josephus, Tacitus, Papias, and a number of other questionable "sources". At any rate, where is God today? I do not find a supposed God of yesterday to be at all appealing.

Consider the following:

http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm

The most "authoritative" accounts of a historical Jesus come from the four canonical Gospels of the Bible. Note that these Gospels did not come into the Bible as original and authoritative from the authors themselves, but rather from the influence of early church fathers, especially the most influential of them all: Irenaeus of Lyon who lived in the middle of the second century. Many heretical gospels got written by that time, but Irenaeus considered only some of them for mystical reasons. He claimed only four in number; according to Romer, "like the four zones of the world, the four winds, the four divisions of man's estate, and the four forms of the first living creatures-- the lion of Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, the eagle of John (see Against the Heresies). The four gospels then became Church cannon for the orthodox faith. Most of the other claimed gospel writings were burned, destroyed, or lost." [Romer]

Consider the following:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...tml#Conclusion

Richard Carrier

Johnny: I must add that if you are trying to prove that you exist, you most certainly would not put considerable effort into convincing three fourths of the people in the world that you do not exist when that could easily be avoided. If the God of the Bible exists, he could not possibly have anything whatsoever to gain by this behavior, and mankind most certainly does not have anything to gain.

spamandham

:notworthy:

Very well thought out post! Thanks.

As best I have been able to tell, the SHT is simply tradition. I'm not seeing any compelling argument in favor of it. The arguments seem to be more arguments from consequences than anything else. If questioning Jesus leads to questioning other historical figures, that's not a valid reason to avoid questioning Jesus.