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Originally Posted by hjalti Quote: Originally Posted by ApostateAbe I challenge you to go to Price's books, choose evidence where mythicists are perceived to have an uphill battle (baptism, hometown of Nazareth, apocalyptic prophecies, crucifixion, James and Peter in Galatians), and see how Price argues those points. You can find many of those discussions in The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, which I read upon your recommendation. Find any sign that Price cares about probability in those discussions. Does he show how the alternative explanations are better than the established critical scholarly explanation? Or, does he briefly describe the alternative explanations and leave it at that? The one and only thing Price is good at is research, which is great for unloading as many bizarre theories as he can upon a helpless reader. He doesn't argue for the probability of any particular historical conclusion, except, of course, for the conclusion that we just don't know anything, which of course is his whole point. If he ever did argue that one conclusion is more probable than another, then it would contradict not only his general philosophy of postmodernism but also his closely-aligned position of no historical knowledge at all. That is the position he advances all of the time. He has no other message. Don't believe me? It is typical for a qualified author trying to make his or her own case to occasionally show that his or her own objective conclusion is more probable than the competition's objective conclusion. Price never does that. Of course, that is in large part because he doesn't even have any objective conclusions. The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, page 54 Quote: For some it smarts that Jesus should have been a member of a religion, and not just the superhuman founder of one, and here we may discern the reason some had for preferring to understand "the Nazorean" as if it menat "the Nazarene." Here I think we may borrow the text-critical axiom that the more difficult reading is less likely to be the earlier and more authentic. I am betting that originally people spoke only of "Jesus the Nazorean," not of "Jesus the Nazaren," but the latter began to catch on when either some sought to suppress the original denotation of the epithet "Nazorean" or when others just no longer knew the original meaning and connection. Retraction from Abe in 5...4...3..2...1...

Thus, we have no more information about where Jesus was born than about when he was born.

1. baptism,
   
   Christians had to deal with an already existent messianic cult that would seem to have been competition, so they co-opted it. The reference to baptism in the gospel tradition shows a natural progression from earlier religious development to later, old superseded by new, the mantle being passed on. Signs of necessary real figure? Where? ApostateAbe's ruminations reflect his biases about the text. Nothing more.
   
   
2. hometown of Nazareth,
   
   ApostateAbe, like many hysterical jesusers, will never learn on this one. You can't expect him to read the archives, besides his mind is made up.
   
   A very early christian tradition equates Jesus with a notion of Naziritism. All three synoptics have traces of it. The root of the word Nazirite is very close to that for Nazareth. There was never a town called Ναζαρεθ. The fact that the christian town name was never spelt correctly (using a sigma in the Greek rendition to represent the Hebrew tsade) shows that it was not derived from the Galilean town name, נצרת.
   
   
3. apocalyptic prophecies,
   
   Christian writers used Jewish apocalyptic traditions, as can be seen with an analysis of Mark 13. Even Paul, who never met a Jesus provides apocalyptic material long before the gospels. That the gospels contain apocalyptic is a reflection of literature. And ApostateAbe has shown no way that he can escape the literary confines.
   
   
4. crucifixion,
   
   When people start with the gospels and not the earlier written Pauline letters, they don't realize the significance for Paul of crucifixion. Paul's religion is all about the salvific act, the necessary death of the good man through the worst possible means to save humanity from sin, to become cursed without reason to take the curse from others. Being hung on a tree is a certain means of that curse (Deut 21:23).
   
   
5. James and Peter in Galatians
   
   This is one of those I know my conclusions so I'll manipulate the evidence to make it fit. James in Gal 1:19 is called "the brother of the lord". What does that mean? Well, first you have to interpret "lord" to mean Jesus and you have to interpret "brother" against Paul's consistent usage to mean "male of the same physical parents". If you're prepared to manipulate the text that way, you can probably make it say anything you want. Peter, or at least Cephas, is even less relevant.