aa5874

If the Gospels are not considered to be historically reliable and there are no other credible extra-biblical source, how could this character called Jesus Christ be deemed to have existed as a real person?

Such a concensus is unprecedented and has no basis.

No Robots

It is the the Jesus Seminar that has determined the Gospels to be "historically unreliable". Other scholars disagree. I would recommend Birger Gehardsson as an antidote to the JS.

Toto

Lets call it the liberal-Christian-Deist historical Jesus theory. It starts with the idea that Christianity exists, and must have had a founder. It takes the few references to Jesus in Josephus as a confirmation of that hypothesis, and accepts the references to Jesus in Paul as another confirmation. It assumes the gospels are not historically accurate, but that something must have happened.

In general, the existence of a charismatic man who starts a religion is not an extraordinary event - it happens many times today, and has happened throughout history. So we need not look for extraordinary evidence of this person, as we would ask for extraordinary evidence that someone actually rose from the dead. So the amount of evidence we have is sufficient to think that such a person probably existed.

Now, you or I might find that this consensus is based on a house of cards, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a consensus, or that you can just dismiss it without trying to understand it.

aa5874

The assumption is flawed, there were many people called Jesus, even magicians claimed they were Sons of God.

Gooch's dad

This is a classic piece of MJ'er illogic, and does no justice at all to Toto's well-reasoned post.

"there were many people called Jesus" is an absolutely null statement, with regards to falsifying the statement "the assumption is flawed". In fact, it actually SUPPORTS the statement. If there were so damned many people called Jesus, then what is so extraordinary about claiming that one of them was a charismatic preacher, and that Jesus is at the root of the Christian movement?


And what magicians claimed that they were "sons of God"? Not that this is here nor there regarding Jesus, who probably never said such a silly thing at all.

Toto

What assumption? There are lots of assumptions here.

Actually, Jesus (or Joshua) was a common name, and all Jews were "sons of God" in some sense, so I don't know how your reply answers what I wrote.

Llyricist

Actually, this isn't really true, at least if you are talking about religious movements that survive the death of the founder. I can't think of any others where the founder was the object of worship. Islam... muhamid was a prophet, not a god. Scientology... L Ron is not the object of worship. Mormons, Joseph Smith was the messenger. All the cases I can think of where the religion has survived the founder, the founder was a human messenger, not a god. This fact makes Jesus' existence LESS probable, not more probable. We have a founder candidate that fits the "normal" mold much better, and that would be "Paul" (assuming he existed).

mountainman

The tide turns every six hours and fourteen minutes
give or take a few minutes.

Whatever happened to the question of the integrity
of the little mass of "ecclesiasistical" history, as distinct
from "history"?

What isn't?

In my opinion Eusebius provided such a level of interesting
speculation in regard to the HJ, that it has promoted discussion
for almost two millenia.

The MJ position is an FJ position
disguised in politically correct text.

Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the tides are celestial in origin,
or that they are caused by the differential gravitational dynamics of the
holy trinity of the earth and sun and moon?

Perhaps the idea of MJ (see above), such as in the times of Emerson,
could not have taken root in the times. But times change, and the
seeds which would not have grown and flourished in the time of Emerson
in today's environment, fare well.

There are of course the longer cycles, and shorter cycles.
All is tidal, it would appear, a rising and a falling away.




Pete

youngalexander

We believe that there are those,
Who believe that their beliefs are true.

We would like to believe what they believe,
But we don't believe we do!:notworthy:

Incidently Gdad, you are in some danger of becoming known as a MJ Denier!

The tide is indeed rising, but as for turning, I think that mm got it about right.

Toto

There is no point to trying to find some distinguishing characteristic - every historical event is unique, even where it fits a general pattern. There are religious movements started all the time by charismatic people; some of them happen to survive the death of the founding figure, whether or not that founder is elevated to godhead. So a charismatic wandering preacher is not an extraordinary phenomenon. A religion or religious movement that survives the death of a founding figure is not extraordinary - just look around you. Scientologists come as close to worshipping L Ron as modern sensibilities will allow. There is Christian Science, founded by Mary Baker Eddy, still going strong (perhaps as a gathering place for New Age energetic healers.) There is Ba'hai. There is the Unification Church - its founder is still alive, but the church itself is a well functioning economic enterprize that very well might survive him. There are godmen wandering around India as we speak; one of them came to the US in the last century and founded the Self Realization Fellowship, which has outlasted him. The various parts of Christian history do not require any extraordinary or even uncommon events.

I have written this in response to aa5874, who is obsessed with the idea that there is no proof of Christian origins. If I required a level of proof that would be needed to assume that Christianity was the Way and the Truth, I might agree. But that is not the question here.

And I should also note that just because there is a secular, non-supernatural explanation of Christian origins based around a wandering charismatic preacher, it does not follow that there might not be better explanations of Christian origins based on some other story - a mythical savior, for example.