Freethought & Rationalism Archive

aa5874 · 03-26-2008, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by barre

The consenus among New Testament scholars with the Jesus Seminar as a good indication, is that the historical Jesus existed. The big issue is whether he was apocalyptic or not. This generation of scholars genrally think not. I disagree. I hold he was robustly apocalyptic, indeed, a disappointed apocalyptic idealist.

As far as I understand the Jesus Seminar did not make any finding on the historicity of Jesus, they assumed he was a figure of history and only made findings on the sayings of Jesus or what he would have said.

Colored balls, red, pink, grey and black were used in the voting system and it was determined that only about 20% of the words attributed to Jesus were probably said by him.

And there is no non-apologetic information available that supports a robustly apocalyptic figure. All the information of Jesus of Nazareth are apologetic, inconsistent, contradictory, of unknown authorship, undated and filled with errors.

Solitary Man · 03-26-2008, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by barre

The consenus among New Testament scholars with the Jesus Seminar as a good indication, is that the historical Jesus existed. The big issue is whether he was apocalyptic or not. This generation of scholars genrally think not. I disagree. I hold he was robustly apocalyptic, indeed, a disappointed apocalyptic idealist.

I agree. And a growing number of scholars are agreeing as well. See the Context Group.

spin · 03-26-2008, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amaleq13

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Slumming...

Keep moving or you'll be charged rent.

Quote:

Perhaps there still something left once you strip away all the myth and legend... Anyone else wanna try their luck?

Preached

Executed

Hmm, ya know there just may be something beside myth and legend to it after all.

spin

J-D · 03-26-2008, 06:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by barre

The consenus among New Testament scholars with the Jesus Seminar as a good indication, is that the historical Jesus existed.

The consensus among Nazis with the SS as a good indication, was that the Jews were bad. Consensuses of interested parties are not indicative of very much. The trend around here is to try to deal with evidence rather than authorities.

The question was 'What is the consensus?' That seems like a fair question to me, whether you want to deal with it or not. I suppose maybe you want to deal with it by saying that it's a stupid question. I don't see what's wrong with the answer I gave, though.

karlmarx · 03-26-2008, 09:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amaleq13

Keep moving or you'll be charged rent.

Preached

Executed

Hmm, ya know there just may be something beside myth and legend to it after all.

spin

It's like what we know of Paul Bunyan:

Tall
Chopped down trees

Clearly this is something we know without doubt.

bopot · 03-26-2008, 09:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deleet

My take is like this:

Given these three truths:
It's extremely/impossible that the bible is correct about Jesus.
It's implausible that someone invented Jesus out of nothing. (completely fiction)
Myths usually have some historical ground, which the myth grows upon.

Therefore it seems likely that there were an apocalyptic prophet, which caused some trouble and got killed. Mythic material was later added because the story travelled verbally.

That's pretty much my take as well, although I wouldn't call a complete fiction implausible. History is replete with mythologies that were clearly invented out of whole cloth. (Case in point: Yahweh.) But I do find it reasonably likely that Jesus of Nazareth was a real man who was basically shoehorned into a hodgepodge of more ancient myths. My own feeling is that this was done deliberately to lend historicity and believability to what had become patently absurd to the people of that time and place.

Solitary Man · 03-26-2008, 10:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by karlmarx

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Hmm, ya know there just may be something beside myth and legend to it after all.

spin

It's like what we know of Paul Bunyan:

Tall
Chopped down trees

Clearly this is something we know without doubt.

Yes, I'm sure comparing modern fiction with ancient genres is always the best methodology. What other anachronistic devices can we come up with?

karlmarx · 03-26-2008, 10:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solitary Man

Quote:

Originally Posted by karlmarx

It's like what we know of Paul Bunyan:

Tall
Chopped down trees

Clearly this is something we know without doubt.

Yes, I'm sure comparing modern fiction with ancient genres is always the best methodology. What other anachronistic devices can we come up with?

The Paul Bunyan story is folklore, developed over many years by word of mouth. It is a mythological story which, once stripped of the obviously fantastic and exaggerated episodes, has little to nothing left at its core. The fabled exploits of Paul Bunyan have been put down on paper by various authors without any means of verifying the veracity of the story.

What was your objection?

Sheshbazzar · 03-26-2008, 11:21 PM

There also seems to be a consensus of agreement among well known and academically credentialed scholars that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole.
Of course the story of Santa does have a lot more historical evidence to support it than does the legend of J.H.C.

Clivedurdle · 03-27-2008, 02:42 AM

Quote:

This is absurd, Clive. His war with the Pharisees was the war of the spirit against the letter.

Que?

Quote:

The Pharisees emerged as a party of laymen and scribes in contradistinction to the Sadducees, i.e., the party of the high priesthood that had traditionally provided the sole leadership of the Jewish people. The basic difference that led to the split between the Pharisees and the Sadducees lay in their respective attitudes toward the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament) and the problem of finding in it answers to questions and bases for decisions about contemporary legal and religious matters arising under circumstances far different from those of the time of Moses. In their response to this problem, the Sadducees, on the one hand, refused to accept any precept as binding unless it was based directly on the Torah, i.e., the Written Law. The Pharisees, on the other hand, believed that the Law that God gave to Moses was twofold, consisting of the Written Law and the Oral Law, i.e., the teachings of the prophets and the oral traditions of the Jewish people. Whereas the priestly Sadducees taught that the written Torah was the only source of revelation, the Pharisees admitted the principle of evolution in the Law; men must use their reason in interpreting the Torah and applying it to contemporary problems. Rather than blindly follow the letter of the Law even if it conflicted with reason or conscience, the Pharisees harmonized the teachings of the Torah with their own ideas or found their own ideas suggested or implied in it. They interpreted the Law according to its spirit;

http://www.britannica.com/bps/home#t...20Encyclopedia

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03-26-2008, 11:21 PM	#69
Sheshbazzar Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: On the path of knowledge Posts: 8,889	There also seems to be a consensus of agreement among well known and academically credentialed scholars that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole. Of course the story of Santa does have a lot more historical evidence to support it than does the legend of J.H.C.

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