Amaleq13

Since I think you are smart enough to understand what I've said better than this, I can only assume this is more game playing. It is tiresome but not unexpected given the nature of your "argument". You ask a question that is irrelevant to the mythicist position and consider two non-mythicists and a scholar from a century ago to be "prominent mythicists" yet somehow feel you have identified a weakness in the mythicist position.

There is difference between calling you stupid, which I do not do, and calling you on your game-playing. Pretending to not understand that "prominent atheists" should have been "prominent mythicists" certainly seems to qualify as playing a <edit> game. This accusation seems to be just more of the same but feel free to take it to P&C. :wave:

NOGO

You are full of questions, Yuri, but you have yet to show us why the HJ to martyrs connection is a necessary one?

Until you do all this discussion is just hot air.

As far as the MJ preceeding the HJ is concerned answer this.

Paul, in his preaching, claims to speak for Jesus.
GJohn says that Jesus is the WORD of God and that it is his teachings which saves.
Then there is that parable of the sower where Jesus compares his teachings to seeds falling on good soil etc.
With all this emphasis on Jesus' teachings how is that Paul does not seem to know any of it. Paul preaches alright ... but he does not preach what Jesus preached. Why?

Paul says that Jesus became son of God upon reentry into heaven. The Gospels have him son of God ... at birth, at his baptism where the father calls his son and in many places where the evil spirits recognize him as son of god.
Does Paul know anything about the HJ?

Paul speaks of a resurrected body which is different than the dying body. One is corruptible while the other is incorruptible. The Gospels show a resurrected Jesus with all his wounds and eating fish to show that he is not a ghost.

Yuri, what elements of the Gospels do you consider to he historical.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Sorry, NOGO, but I've never claimed that the HJ to martyrs connection is a necessary one.

Simple answer, the gospels were written after Paul's time. (As I think that Paul's "letters" really date to the 2c, this seems to create an additional difficulty, of course... But the answer here is that, whoever wrote Paul's "letters" in the 2c did not IMHO really see the gospels as all that important, as yet, and didn't feel a need to cite from them (with a few exceptions).)

But none of this is really relevant to the main subject of this thread.

Please read Loisy for an answer to this. I basically accept his reconstruction of Christian history, which is quite different from most mainstream scholars.

Regards,

Yuri.

PS.
I've raised my concerns about Amaleq13's recent behaviour in the Problems & Complaints Forum, so I'll not answer his posts anymore, and wait until these matters are clarified.

Clivedurdle

Yuri

Looking at Loisy, he feels to me to be making assertions about Jesus from a faith position. I am not sure why - was he a priest?

He was writing before the dead sea scrolls and nag hammadi.

I personally see no reason to postulate a historical Jesus, and it is for historicists to prove their hypothesis.

Many statements like "crucified under Pilate" have a very strong liturgical feel to them.

Pliny accused the xians of going around singing, there are examples of early hymns at various points in the NT.

What if all this allegedly historic stuff are just lines in a hymn?

The martyrdom stuff can all be explained psychologically, hypnosis, group behaviour as at Waco.

I do not understand why you seem not to be drawing the conclusions that seem obvious from what you write. If Paul is second century, there is even less reason for an HJ and we should take Paul at his word - that he is talking about someone he met in a vision.

rlogan

Yuri, you've been answered more times than I can count, and I think Vork has a succinct response here.

Among other things, it is a "novel" approach to rely on alleged martyrdom as a "proof" of historicity, demand the opposition bring forward those alleged martyrs who you have failed to provide, and yet elsewhere insist that a challenge to their alleged existence is a derailment.

As prosecutor you want the defense to fabricate evidence against the client and simiultaneously argue that evidence is irrelevant.

Most recently, you seem to have rejected your premise in the first place - that martyrs demonstrates historicity.

or at least you claim that you didn't say so.


I guess that leaves us with you haveing defeated your own OP.

andrewcriddle

Loisy was a Roman Catholic priest and leading Catholic NT scholar around 1900.

His controversial expressed views led to his excommunication.

After excommunication his expressed views moved further from traditional Christianity (partly because he was now less restrained in expressing what he really thought partly because his views genuinely altered.)

Andrew Criddle

Marxist

Yuri, I think I understand what you are asking, but I don't think it is a fair question. As I see it, the mythicist position is really just an outcome of the fact that the Gospels are demonstrably mythical in nature (the classic demonstration being Strauss' Life of Jesus). Even if one takes the few statements of Paul about his Christ that could be interpreted as historical to actually be about a historical Jesus that lived sometime in his recent past, it is not possible to know anything about this person. Many prominent scholars in the last 150 years have stated basically the same things mythicists do today: that the Gospels are not historical, and that there is no way to get back to the historical Jesus. Mythicists just take it one tiny step further.

So yes, Yuri, mythicism is almost entirely negative in scope. But this should not be seen as a negative thing! Asking us to give an alternate explanation of the origins of Christianity is a bit much, as we have barely anything of historical value to work with to construct an alternate scenario. The true origins of Christianity will probably always be shrouded in mystery.

I could equally challenge you to do so, in light of the facts mainstream scholars and mythicists alike have uncovered about the mythical nature of the Gospels. How are you able to construct anything positive out of that? If you agree with the fundamental foundation of the mythicist argument (namely the mythical nature of the Gospels), it would seem that there is no way to precede any further, whether you accept the existence of Jesus or not.

Yuri Kuchinsky

I replied to Vork's post here,

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showpost.php...0&postcount=81

Wrong. I never relied on alleged martyrdom as a "proof" of historicity.

All I'm saying is that, if the mythicists claim to be real historians, they need to explain the earliest martyrs from a historical (i.e. scientific) position.

I provided a long list. Haven't you followed this discussion?

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

That's a good summary, Andrew.

But even more relevant from my perspective, I would say that, after excommunication, his expressed views moved further away from the conventional NT scholarship (rather than "from traditional Christianity").

Thus, he proposed that all 4 canonicals were originally Jewish-Christian documents (but then reedited by Gentiles ca 135 CE), and that none of Paul's "7 authentic letters" are really authentic.

Regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Yes, Marxist, it is true that the Gospels are for the most part mythical in nature. But, more precisely, they are for the most part OT-based in nature. (So this already provides an important datum in need of an explanation.)

Nevertheless, the typical scientific historical position is that, still and all, a few parts of the gospels _are_ historical and factual. So the challenge is to determine which parts are factual. For example, almost every NT scholar believes that Jesus was indeed a disciple of John the Baptist in real life.

Thanks for admitting this!

Well, then people like Doherty can't really claim to be good historians, if they throw up their hands in desperation and admit that they don't really have any answers to these questions...

I just follow Loisy!

(Or, at least, he provides me with a good primary foundation for my further reconstructions.)

Well, fine, those who admit that they see no way to proceed any further are at least being honest... I can accept this as an honest answer. But they certainly cannot claim to have succeeded as historians IMHO.

What, for example, are we to do with the simple and self-evident fact that the Gospels are for the most part OT-based? Surely, a competent historical investigator should be able to come up with some sort of a rational explanation for this? And somehow tie this up with the question of martyrdom?

So these are the sorts of positive answers that I'm seeking, but so far not really getting...

Best,

Yuri.