Doug Shaver

The so-called arguments and alleged thought processes employed by aa5874 are not like mine, taken to an extreme or taken any other way, I assure you.

Doug Shaver

What, in your opinion, makes it unreasonable?

aa5874

You have NOT shown that there is anything wrong with my argument.

In fact you have even blatantly claimed that you won't argue with me.

On the hand I have shown that your arguments for HJ are a total waste of time and based on guesswork, as you yourself have admitted.

Now, this is my position. Any statement from HJers that there is an abundance of historical information for HJ is false and mis-leading.

The abundance of information from antiquity about Jesus describes him as a God or the son of a God, the Creator, offspring of the Holy Ghost and a Virgin, who walked on water, instantly healed incurable diseases, transfigured, resurrected and ascended through the clouds.

My position is SOLIDLY supported by sources of antiquity.

You have nothing but your imagination.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Steven,

Yes, a great deal of the argumentation is obscurantist and mystifying. Imagine a society of astrologists who peer review each other's work and use statistics to prove that one star or another has influence on people's lives in certain directions.

Instead of treating the biblical texts as texts similar to other texts, Biblical Scholars generally treat them as unique and miraculous objects. Imagine a group of chemists so obsessed with gold that they treat it as a unique element with no or few properties in common with other elements. They publish peer-reviewed papers that only show the unique properties of gold and how it differs from all other elements. Would we not have to suppose these people to be more alchemists then chemists?

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

ApostateAbe

OK, I have the book in front of me, and the descriptions of each method begin on page 87. Here they are:

RULES OF THUMB

• The Earlier the Better
• accounts of Jesus that are clearly imbued with a highly developed theology are less likely to be historical
• Beware the Bias

SPECIFIC CRITERIA

• The Criterion of Independent Attestation
• The Criterion of Dissimilarity (a better name for the criterion of embarrassment)
• The Criterion of Contextual Credibility

Later in the book (page 196), he talks about the problem of miracles: "Even if there are otherwise good sources for a miraculous event, the very nature of the historical discipline prevents the historian from arguing for its probability... The fact is that we all know several thousand people, none of whom can walk on water, but all of whom at one time or another have been mistaken about what they thought they saw, or have been misquoted, or have exaggerated, or have flat out lied."

But, maybe all of this is chasing a misunderstanding. MJ advocates seem to share these methods, except maybe for the Criterion of Dissimilarity. My original point was that, "I am just trying to find a good way to get my methodological points across and encourage their acceptance." I don't spend a lot of time encouraging these methods, but I do spend a lot of time criticizing the additional methods and assumptions of MJ advocates that I find faulty. For example, they may take the pattern of Paul's usage for the word, "brother," as evidence for the meaning of the phrase, "James, the Lord's brother." But, that method really should yield to the meaning gained from examining the specific context, the seeming purpose for its use, and the interpretation of Paul's contemporary readers. Underlying their argument, which often comes to the surface in further discussion, is the belief that a mere possible explanation is sufficient to compete with an explanation that otherwise seems probable, which is why I keep bringing up probability and postmodernism.

spamandham

You're right, it's no coincidence. We can't expect the 80% of the population who are Christians to objectively consider the possibility that the Jesus of the gospels never existed in any meaningful sense. Nor can we expect Muslims or Buddhists to take the idea seriously, because to do so subjects their own cult figures to scrutiny.

Support for such an idea really can only come from those without any religion.

It *is* reasonable. The gospels are a lot like all teh Christmas specials you see where the author spins a tale to explain some tradition that no-one really knows the origin of.

Where did the idea of flying reindeer come from? Well, the wizard in the forest had some magic corn and wanted to help Chris Kringle in any way he could...and that's why reigndeer fly.

Where did the idea of ritutal consumption of the body and blood come from? Well, on the night he was betrayed he broke bread gave it to his disciples and said....and that's why we celebrate the eucharist.

Gee, why hasn't Jesus returned yet? A generation has already passed. Well, you see, know one knows the hour or the day and we must remain vigilant...and that's why he hasn't yet returned.

It's so obvious, it's absurd to try to hand wave it away.

That isn't to say that simply because the gospels are origins stories rather than biographies (in the modern sense) that there is no historical Jesus. That conclusion follows from a combination of trails of thinking, one of which being, that once you remove the obviously invented origins stories, the obvious 'my god is bigger than your god' propaganda stories, the allegorical 'jesus = the jews' stories, and the 'see, this proves the messiah already came' stories, there's nothing left.

ApostateAbe

There are two big reasons that make such a position unwise.

• The earliest surviving biography of Jesus was written 30-40 years after his claimed death, which, historically speaking, is a short time period.
• The biographies of Jesus contain accurate background details. If they got correct the social environment of Jesus, including the Temple of Jerusalem, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Passover, Pontius Pilate, crucifixions, John the Baptist, James, Peter, the Dead Sea, Samaritans, Jewish laws and history, and the town of Nazareth (attested nowhere else in history at the time), then it is not exactly reasonable to grant the gospels only the barest historical legitimacy, even if they really did make up the whole Jesus story.

I think MJ advocates tend to take that position in small part because of their own anti-religious biases and in large part because the gospel stories attest to miracles and other unlikely events. But, it seems most reasonable, then, to view the gospels as a mix of truth and falsehood, and we apply certain methods to sort them out.

Toto

Do you realize how bad your logic is?

Except that you don't know when the gospel of Mark was written. There is no record of it before the second century.

And even if it were written a generation after Jesus' alleged death, there is no indication that it was written as a factual biolgraphy.

This issue has been done to death here.

:banghead:

Have you even read a historical novel? They generally get lots of background data correct.

No, it is not most reasonable. It is grasping at straws. Those "certain methods" are not used in any other branch of study, and have not been shown to work.

aa5874

Again, you have consistently produced mis-leading information.

No early document about Jesus Christ of Nazareth has been found that has been DATED by any acceptable method to have been written 30-40 years after the ACTUAL death of Jesus.

Again, NO DATE for the death of Jesus CHRIST OF Nazareth has been confirmed by the use of any credible source of antiquity.

It is most illogical and absurd to state that details about places of antiquity is directly based on the historicity of Jesus when it MUST BE OBVIOUS that whether or not Jesus existed has no bearing whatsoever on the description of a geographical location, a building, a ritual or some other character known or unknown in the 1st century.

And again, there is no corroborative source for Paul.

Paul cannot be the source that confirms his own existence when the writings under the name Paul have been considered to be heavily manipulated.

ApostateAbe

Toto, I know that just about all of the issues have been done to death here, but it doesn't change the facts nor the probabilities. The dating of the gospel of Mark accepted by the scholarly establishment seems to be a good one, because the gospel of Mark is not ashamed to quote Jesus as saying, "...this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened," unlike the gospel of John, dated to 90 CE, which merely makes an excuse for that rumor of such a prophecy. The moving of the dates of the gospels is a special position of MJ advocates, and they either need evidence or they should not treat the claim like it deserves serious attention. It is an ad hoc claim, accepted by hardly anyone except by those who need to believe it to support their own theories.

"No, it is not most reasonable. It is grasping at straws. Those 'certain methods' are not used in any other branch of study, and have not been shown to work."

We don't have to debate those "certain methods," because the point I was making is not relevant to whatever methods you use. The fact is that the gospel stories are a mix of truth and falsehood. That means it is certainly not reasonable to grant the gospels only the barest historical legitimacy. So, how are you going to deal with that? If you have a theory that explains with greater probability the contents of the Christian gospels, containing truth and falsehood both, then that is what is needed for the MJ position to gain acceptance. The idea that the gospels were historical novels is one way to go about it, though it is probably not going to work, because it seems to be a preposterous theory in light of all the contents of the gospels (such as the genealogies, long moral sermons, and lack of romance or violence or death), but at least it is an effort to explain the data.