lee_merrill

Could these last two posts by "dog-on" and "spin" be moved by a moderator to this thread, please? There being no reason I can think of to conduct the same discussion in two places!

Thanks,
Lee

dog-on

I asked my question based on a statement made by Toto in post #83...

Minimalist

And that was a very fair question.

Doug Shaver

You might not consider it credible. And, you might have a good reason for not considering it credible. But there is a vital difference between evidence that is not credible and a complete absence of any evidence at all. Your persistent apparent failure to understand that is very irritatingly tiresome.

Soul Invictus

Just to keep us in line with what the OP actually is about...

This is true, but the burden of proof (I thought) lied with the asserters of that are HJers. If the "evidence" isn't credible to begin with, then those who aren't HJers don't need to assert that there isn't one. Wouldn't the lack of credibility of the initial claim that a HJ existed suffice without taking on a burden of proof?

I honestly don't see how the non-HJer position isn't significantly different than the weak atheist position.

Solitary Man

Soul Invictus,

The non-HJ position? Which non-HJ position? Earl Doherty's is a strong position stating that Jesus was a myth.

Besides, doing this includes a host of problems. Does every historical figure need to be "verified"? If so, what is the standard for verification? Moreover, the Gospels themselves are evidence for someone named Jesus, why are you eager to just ignore it instead of explain it?

aa5874

The Gospels cannot be considered evidence for Jesus until it can be ascertained that Jesus was not fictitious or mythological. For example, the Greek gods and the ancient Egyptians gods were considered to have existed, carried out certain acts and were worshipped, yet none of the information we have about them are considered evidence of their existence, if anything, evidence of their non-existence.

In order for the information in the NT about Jesus to be considered evidence, at least by me, there must be some corroborative extra-biblical information that squarely places the Jesus of the NT, with specificity, within the Jewish region in the 1st century.

So far, all references using the words Jesus, Messiah or Christ appear to me to be arbitrary. I am not certain that those words, as written in the passages of Josephus, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger have any relation to the Jesus of the NT.

Doug Shaver

Historians do not apply that principle to documents that mention any other ancient personage. Why should they make an exception in this case?

aa5874

So, how was Apollo, the ancient Greek gods or the ancient Egyptian gods, determined to be myths? These gods were worshipped, like the Jesus of the NT, and were believed to have existed.

It is the information that that exists about these gods that have allowed them to be characterised as myths, including such things as born of the spirit, supernatural acts and unexplained resurrections. Jesus, as described in the NT, is no exception.

Doug Shaver

If you really have no idea, the answer would be too long to post in this forum.