Clivedurdle

Gnostic Paul (or via: amazon.co.uk)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Pagels

GakuseiDon

Yes, true enough.

blastula

almost sort of

Laura D.

I notice your source cites a minority of "true hard-core people" that believe the Jedi religion. Do we have an actual worshipful following (hence religion from fiction) or is this just urban legend? As long as they don't have light sabers and stay away from the Koolaid, I don't mind them awaiting Luke's return. Although, their prophet Mr. Lucas doesn't make it sound promising.

Doug Shaver

Is his being an atheist supposed to add something in the way of evidentiary value to what he says? Why didn't you mention his nationality or his ethnic background? They would have been just as relevant.

I don't have a problem with Grant's argument, as stated, but I suspect that he is making an unwarranted assumption about how much of the New Testament ought to presumed to be historical material. In particular, he probably taking at face value the gospels' apparently biographical or historical nature.

Naturally, if we assume that the gospel authors were under the impression that what they were writing was history, it is difficult to explain how they got that impression without assuming the existence of a real man behind the obviously legendary material that they recorded. And, all else being equal, we might justified in assuming that the gospel authors believed that what they wrote was factual. All else is not equal, though.

Leaving that aside, though, while Grant does not say which pagan personages whose existence we would have to reject if we reject Jesus' historicity, I quite agree with the principle. And I suspect that there are indeed many personages who have been treated as unquestionably historical whose historicity should indeed be questioned.
We would have to go case by case if anyone wants to thoroughly explore this argument, but let's examine its form. It says:
To begin with, for the argument to work, it is necessary not only that evidence for both X and Jesus was roughly equivalent (and that itself is not soe asy to establish), but also that there be roughly equivalent evidence against X's historicity. There is evidence against Jesus' historicity, i.e. there are facts inconsistent with his real existence. You cannot argue equivalent evidence without considering both positive and negative evidence.

If, and only if, an equivalency of evidence is established, then consistency does not compel us to one decision but a choice between two. Either we accept the historicity of Jesus, or we deny the historicity of X. Just because nobody ever has denied X's historicity does not mean it never should have been denied.

Toto

There was a young law student in Michigan who was so enthralled by Luke Skywalker that he actually changed his name to "Luke Skywalker." (Later historians might identify him as the historical Luke Skywalker.)

Beliefnet has a section on the Jedi religion: THe Force is with . . . Everyone

Wikipedia has pages on Jedi Religion, including the people who list their religion as Jedi Knight on the census.

I don't know of a current religion that can be shown to look like this - but we really don't know a lot about the founders of most religions.

And there is a similar tendency to historicize Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle was a bit hurried (or sloppy) in his writing and there are inconsistencies in the various Sherlock Holmes stories - and faithful followers who reconcile those inconsistencies the way apologists reconcile the Bible.

Toto

I read Pagels hoping to find some indication that Paul was a Gnostic, and she was careful to avoid coming to any conclusion about whether Paul himself was a Gnostic or not.

That wiki paragraph needs to be edited.

spin

Perhaps I have misunderstood your discussion on prefects. I would think, without the special case of Egypt, there should be no discussion whatsoever in trying to present a prefect as being a procurator.

Appointment as procurator, obviously.

It's hard to tell. I did not ask for a single word decontextualised. That doesn't help us much at all.

A prefect fullfilling the role of prafectus civitatium would not be considered a military position but as an administrative one. Living in far off Alexandria doesn't give Philo the qualifications to know the exact protocols and positions.

To rephrase the events, Vitellius, the legate of Syria, after receiving a delegation from Samarians disgruntled at Pilate's activities, removed Pilate, the prefect of Judea, from his position, sent another to inform him of the change, to take over his position and to order Pilate to go to Rome to answer to Tiberius, whose possess the province of Judea was, about problems in Judea.

And theory that there was some initialising efforts by Tiberius is certainly not born out in the source text. In fact the text says that Vitellius acted upon the approach by the Samaritans, so you are putting forward a baseless conjecture which the source doesn't allow.

We are left with the wholely subordinate role of Pilate to the Syrian legate. The archaeology says that Pilate was a prefect.

Before Claudius's appointment of Cuspius Fadus, procurators were financial administrators in provincial administration, not governors. Claudius changed the status of the position of procurator.


spin

spin

Mythicism has nothing directly to do with the discussion of many infidels in this thread. It seems to indicate an unwillingness on jjramsey's part to contemplate any position other than the black and white of MJers and HJers.

Now as it seems that jjramsey is deliberately poisoning the well, perhaps s/he might explain the double standard, especially considering my criticism of the Grant statement as out of touch with what historians are doing with the efforts to verify their sources more rigorously through archaeological means amongst others.


spin

Laura D.

I can understand.

I considered the Baha'i Faith, founded 1863 by Baha'u'llah (Manifestation of God by Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.); Cao Dai founded 1926 by Le Van Trung (Acting pope?); Falun Gong founded 1992 by Li Hongzhi (levitate off the ground, become invisible. control others' movements by thoughts, teleportation, powers "unimaginable for ordinary human beings", reincarnated deity); Church of Latter Day Saints, founded 1830 by Joseph Smith (visions); Rastafari, founded 1920 by Marcus Garvey – divinity is Haile Selassie (God Incarnate, former Emperor of Ethiopia); Scientology founded 1954 by L. Ron Hubbard ("discarded body" to do "higher level spiritual research"). But none of these really fits.

We also have a raft-load of apocalyptic cults ala David Koresh, but there is no need to recap the history of those cults as they are commonly known.

An argument. One theory on the web is that Seneca wrote a lost play called Nazarenus. And that this lost play forms the foundation for Passion Story of Christ. So under this theory, the Sherlock Holmes’ devotees would be analogous.

God bless,

Laura