dog-on

As long as by "plausible" you don't really mean "in fact historical", I would agree.

Rick Sumner

If you think I meant "in fact" anything you completely missed the point of my post.

dog-on

Ah, but "in fact" I didn't...

grog225

The key words here are "usually assumed". While I don't object to those dates, I think it is important to point out that those dates rely on the assumption of the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. The point for dating Paul is the crucifixion. If we free ourselves from that assumption, which for the sake of objectivity, it is fair to do, then we can't even really nail Paul down to the 50's or 60's.

I don't believe that Eusebius wrote Paul and Mark (I'm not sure who makes this argument, though I think there is good reason to suspect his authorship in the case of the TF). For me, I don't see the evidence to follow, as Detering argues, a line of reasoning that forces Paul into the second century. Clearly we can see that the Pauline material is not all genuine and there is room for a lot of debate on what the "original" Paul thought about his Christ Jesus. I follow the argument that Paul is not talking about a recent person hailing from Nazareth and crucified by Pilate. If he is talking about any sort of historical Jesus at all, I see no reason to rule out the possibility that he himself is referring to an historicized myth. His references are vague enough to support the conclusion that Paul's idea of Jesus as an incarnated human are not well-formed and not based on real person.

Dating the Gospels falls into the same problems. It seems that we can establish that the first gospel (and I mean Mark, not following the tradition of Matthew being the First Gospel), was written around 70 at the earliest. However, there is very little to give a late date before 100 unless the reason is theologically driven. (Really, everything I've seen is ad hoc--well, Mark refers to the destruction of the Temple so it must be fresh in his mind, but from my perspective, there is not reason that the author of Mark would not be aware even decades later of the devastating impact that event had.)


So "it is assumed" is a phrase that should send of alarm bells. Like I said, I have no specific objection to accepting those dates, but I want to point out the tentative nature of dates that are "assumed" for NT documents (and other early Christian writings).

Toto

The only one making that argument is mountainman a/k/a Pete, an Australian surfer and IT professional.

No one else has been persuaded, in spite of years of his effort.

grog225

Ok, I think I remember that. He has a website, doesn't he? I haven't been on this forum in a couple of years.

The OP seems naive to me. Is that just me?

Toto

Yes, he does. It gets a very high Google rank for certain searches.

No, it's not just you.

aa5874

Is this another conspiracy theory by the historicists?

ALL the historical records of Jesus were lost with the 99% but only the mythical 1% remains. The Devil did it.

GakuseiDon

Well, it may be just the grog talking.

Why does it seem naive? (I'm the OP author, btw).

dog-on

Not naive. It is in fact a possibility, just as saying Mark and Paul is enough to conclude no HJ is.

The problem with HJ, especially when one rejects the gospel stories, is that no one really knows who, exactly, we are looking for.