Toto

No they don't. The more academic and sophisticated HJers admit that Mark is mythical. If you prove that Nazareth didn't exist and every pericope in Mark is fictional, you have still not proven that Jesus never existed.

If you want to argue against the historical Jesus, start with someone who has put forward a case for the historical Jesus.

The HJ hypothesis is an attempt to explain the existence of Christianity. Some HJers may base their theories on the existence of Christianity, and the observation of many similar New Religions that have an actual historical figure as a founder.

aa5874

I really can't believe my eyes. Toto, you can't be serious.

Who are these " more academic and sophisticated HJers that admit Mark is mythical"?

Please, name them.

What sources do these "more academic and sophisticated HJers" use to support their HJ of Nazareth who was crucified?

The Gospels and Acts of the Apostles in the Canon refer to a character called Jesus of Nazareth.

The Gospels and Acts of the Apostles claimed Jesus of Nazareth was crucified.

And tell me how do SOPHISTICATED HJers PROVE their HJ existed?

Toto, I just don't understand why you are using such awful arguments.

I really don't understand you.

I have zero interest in your advice and I don't waste time trying to tell people what they should write or argue about.

I am not interested in your opinion of the HJ hypothesis because you may not even understand the HJ hypothesis.

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus

It is CLEAR that the Historical Jesus is DERIVED from the Gospels so I really don't know your "more academic and sophisticated HJers" who claim gMark is mythical.

This thread is titled--"gMark--The Perfect HJ argument killer" and I will show that gMark is a compilation of ABSOLUTE FICTION with respect to Jesus in Eleven chapters and has no corroboration from any credible historical sources.

But, don't forget, please name the more academic and sophisticated HJers that claim Mark is mythical and show the source these sophicated HJers use to PROVE their HJ did exist.

Toto, I want to know how Spohisticated HJers PROVE their HJ did exist!!!!

Don't disappear now. Please back up your claims about the Sophisticated HJers.

Toto

Start with Bart Ehrman. More from Early Christian Writings: Alvar Ellegård, G. A. Wells, John Dominic Crossan, Robert Funk, Burton Mack, Marcus Borg, Stevan Davies, Geza Vermes . . .

Read up on their theories and get back to us.

Quite frankly, most of their arguments are awful. But they are serious, and if you want to be taken seriously, you have to understand their arguments.

That's why you are not a moderator.

The HJ derived from the gospels is not the gospel Jesus.

Think about what this means.

tanya

Thank you for this comment, earlier today.

Sheshbazzar had posed an interesting question, which I think relates to your assertion, above, Toto.

To me, perhaps uniquely, and perhaps in error as J-D asserted, without explaining himself, the particular verse cited by Sheshbazzar, Mark 11:11 "proves there was no historical Jesus".

Shesh declined to address my point, which I offered, TWICE, in two different posts on this thread.

So, as far as I am concerned:

a. the OP is both sincere, relevant, and interesting;

b. at least that component of this thread, which contains my response/question, remains open, virtually ignored, though both J-D and Sheshbazzar have written some cursory reply, ignoring however, the main thrust of my argument, perhaps embarrassed by its sophomoric disposition.

Accordingly, I hope that if you are keen to shut the thread, you would perhaps address the points I have raised, yourself, Toto.

tanya

Hi Sheshbazzar,
No, friend, you are way out in left field here, but the ball was shagged to right.

I did not ever make any such claim as you have written.

My claim is that ONE VERSION, (the Byzantine,) describes, (in Mark 1:1,) Jesus as the son of God.

I have no idea, NONE, about the nature of authorship. I do not know when the author(s) lived, or wrote Mark 1:1. I am not sure whether that claim, that Jesus was the son of God, is in the original text, or if it reflects a subsequent addition.

I deny that Mark 11:11 can reflect an historical Jesus of Nazareth, because the text of Mark 11:11 focuses on activities of a human being, whereas, the text of Mark 1:1 claims, contrarily, that Jesus was not a human being, but a God. In other words, Mark, beginning with 1:1, is clearly a work of fiction, not an historical account.

J-D claims that I have made some kind of logical error here, but I have no idea which error that would be.

I know of no scenario which permits people to become transformed into Gods. A god is a god. People are people. It's that simple, to me. Accordingly, I don't detect a logical error.

If you wish to identify Mark as a work of history, then, fine, that is perhaps the basis of our disagreement.

I repeat: Mark is NOT a work of history. Consequently, it is illogical to write of a fictional character portrayed in the novel, that this fictional character could have been a real person. He could not have been a real person, because the very first verse explains that he is a god, not a person.

I am reminded, reading some of the comments on this thread, of the guy who insists that his new electric automobile works well, apart from the disagreeable fact that there is no suitable location into which the owner could insert his buggy whip.

aa5874

No, Toto. You read them and show me where they claimed that Mark was mythical.

You made a claim that "more academic and sophisticated HJers" claim MARK is mythical. You MUST show me where you got that piece of information.

Just do that.

And you have UTTERLY failed to show how HJers PROVE there was an historical Jesus.

No, Toto. You made an assertion so you are OBLIGATED to show that your claim is really supported by sophisticated HJers and that you did NOT invent it in order for me to take you seriously.

I am really tired of your delaying. You seem to be back-pedalling.

Toto, your statement is contradictory. You seem to have very little idea of what you just said.

How is it possible that there was more than one Jesus in the Gospels?

You mean that Jesus was Myth and history simultaneously?

J-D

I have refuted your claim by showing that you have made a logical error which makes your whole argument fallacious.

J-D

I criticised your points in detail in two earlier posts:
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....58#post6975258
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....17#post6977817

J-D

The logical error I am referring to is the one I discussed in this post:
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....72#post6977172

tanya

Thank you J-D. It is always a pleasure, at least for me, to encounter one of your detailed explanations: thorough, detailed, honest, and expressed with unbounded confidence.

I like your attitude. I wish I could respond as affirmatively regarding the substance of your discussion of "the way the logic works".

I will detail my disagreements with your explanation, below, but I should first offer a generalization: Your detailed description of my erstwhile error in logic is flawed by absence of any link to an authority. Your writing is excellent, demonstrating remarkable communication skills, but that alone is inadequate here.

You need to furnish a reference. For example, your first sentence strikes me, at least, as very controversial. It demands an authoritative work in support of your point of view.

I contest, vigorously, this assertion. I dispute it. I deny it. I think you err here.

Imagine that I am discussing failure of a power supply. Does the logic change depending on whether it is an actual failure of a genuine power supply, or an hypothetical description of a fictional power supply? I deny that hypothesis. The logic remains the same in both circumstances. Whether the burned out capacitor, causing failure, is real or imaginary, the logic explaining the inability of the power supply to function properly does not change.

Do we have different rules of logic, discussing characters described in James Hilton's Lost Horizon, compared with discussing characters alive today in JianTang Zhen, i.e. one of the locations offering a climate and physical landscape rather similar to that of ShangriLa?

I dispute your contention that rules governing logic change depending on the subject matter under investigation. I require a reference to demonstrate this supposed error on my part.

This strikes me, at least, J-D, as a sentence completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not the Jesus described by Mark, in harmony with the OP, is non-human, so that any further elaboration of behaviour limited to human frailities (Mark 11:11), by definition, excludes the Jesus described by Mark.

"If there really were a Pilate...." No. Absolutely not. I acknowledge without reservation, that Mark's gospel includes references to genuine people, like Pilate, and genuine places, and genuine dates, and so on.

Hugh Conway, may, or may not have been a real veteran of the very real first world war, Neurologist Rutherford, may or may not have been a genuine person in real life, not just another character in Hilton's novel, Lost Horizon.

Inclusion of real people, real events, real dates, in a work of fiction, does not change the fictional character of the novel.

"If there really had been a Jesus who had been a phantom...." This is just nonsensical gibberish, J-D. If there really had been a Superman.... If there really had been a "Green Hornet"... If there really had been a Batman.... It is silly to commence a discussion arguing that Mark fails to repudiate the notion of an historical Jesus, by claiming that logically there could have existed a phantom named Jesus. No, J-D, logically, phantoms, which do not exist, could not have been named Jesus, or anything else.

There are no phantoms. Phantoms are imaginary, not real, therefore, by the rules of logic, which I understand, there can be no such entity as a "Jesus who had been a phantom", except in the realm of fiction. All references in Mark, whether in 11:11, or anywhere else within the gospel, must regard Jesus as "son of god", as defined in Mark 1:1--at least in the Byzantine version of Mark 1:1.

I repeat myself. ALL, 100% of the references in Mark's gospel, to "Jesus", refer, by definition, to Jesus, son of God, as defined in Mark 1:1. In other words, Mark is a work of fiction, not an historical treatise.

"If there really were a Pilate...", no. This is improperly written. Pilate was a real person, not a fictional character. Mark's inclusion of Pilate lends both realism and credibility to Mark's fictional narrative of the life of Jesus. There is no "if" involved here, when describing Pilate. He was a real person.

"But if there never really were a Jesus..." Stop right there, J-D. All references in Mark, to a character named Jesus, refer to the same Jesus, "the son of god", a fictional character possessing supernatural powers, logically befitting a god. Jesus, as son of god, could not have been human, hence, was not limited by mere human frailities: he could fly, perform magic tricks, defy gravity, and so on, as is appropriate for divine characters in a work of fiction.