JonA

Poetic?

Literary flourish?

I wasn't aware that The Jesus Puzzle was written to be a novel. Oh well, when I find it full of fictitious nonsense at least I'll know why.

Seriously, though; I hope the rest of the book isn't full of such horrendous blunders. For what it's worth, I rarely ever read prologues, prefaces, or introductions; so maybe they're all just as bad in any book you read. So I'm willing to give Earl the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Jon

EarlDoherty

I'm sure Jon would have preferred Lincoln to have opened his Gettysburg Address with:

"Eighty-seven years ago our great-great-grandparents started a country..."

No poets in Jon's ancestral genes, obviously.

Sorry, John. You wanna refund?

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

Perhaps you could tell us, Jon, when Jesus answered "I am" to the High Priest's question, "Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?" why in Mark's view this was blasphemy deserving of death, if the term were as innocuous as you'd like to think it was.

You are making an a*s of yourself, Jon. I know--any excuse to dump on Doherty, but really. Save it for something worth while, something which would show that you really know what you're talking about.

E.D.

JonA

Of course not.

I'd rather you explain what the hell you were talking about in that intro instead of trying to brush the problem off as 'poetic license'.

JonA

LOL. I was waiting for someone to bring up the 'I am' response to the council. Unfortunately, the gap here is too far for even this kind of stretching to reach.

Hand waving and fancy interpretations don't make your errors go away.

They do make them more weaselly though.

MrMacSon

There are plenty of people today with either point of view, & plenty between antiquity and today that have thought either, too.

There have been and are plenty that think Jesus was both a person and the god, too.

MrMacSon

What gap/s, Jon? - among the various interpretations of vague texts; or between your pedantry and reasonable discourse?

"Hand waving and fancy interpretations don't make your errors go away", Jon.

"They do make them more weaselly though."

EarlDoherty

You didn't answer my question, Jon. If you were waiting for the "I am" response, why don't you explain it for us? You've also made no attempt to answer aa's objections. Or are you only capable of empty insults?

E.D.

LegionOnomaMoi

I have. Again, I can actually read greek.


Unfortunately, your use of "apologetic sources" is haphazard and amounts to "if it supports my view, I'll use it." In fact, that's your approach to all sources. Myth, rumor, and/or supernatural in Josephus, Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, etc.? No problem, it's history. The same in the gospels? "EVIDENCE of mythology." When you have a coherent historiographic approach (one which either consistently applies the same hypercritical rejection of sources which contain clearly unreliable accounts, or one which applies a consistent method for determining what, within any given problematic source, is likely to be historical) let me know.

Where in Matthew does the phrase "son of a holy ghost appear" out of curiousity?

You brought up mythology earlier. You are aware that plenty of mythological and historical figures were thought to be divine and human? Like, say, Augustus? Remember when you tried to use Plutarch?


And of course there has never been a historial person whom people believed did supernatural things. The 50-60 thousand people executed in Europe for witchcraft? Never happened. After all, that would mean we had documentary evidence for historical people who were thought to do things which "were NOT humanly possible."

There are people alive to day whom others claim have performed miraculous healings, not to mention the belief within certain neopagan circles that magic (or magick, magicks) are real. I actually know several people who believe that their spells have worked. I don't agree they did, because I don't believe in the efficacy of ceremonial magic, spells, etc. (anymore than I believe that my brother is correct, and during his catholic mass the wine and wafers become the body and blood of Christ), but I find it rather hard to imagine that these people aren't historical.

JonA

There's nothing to explain. Mark's Jesus keeps himself separate from God throughout this Gospel (Mk 13:32, for example).

There is little on which to base the interpretation here that Jesus is declaring himself God. But I've not yet read your book; so I'm open to new ideas.

AA is on my ignore list. As he should be on everybody's.

Jon