aa5874

So is it your view that any person named Jesus, who was baptised, preached, gathered disciples and was crucified, qualifies to be Jesus the Christ?

I was of the opinion that we were looking for a 'Christ' who raised himself from the dead, and raised others from the dead. Now, if the 'Christ' could not and did not do those things, what makes the storytellers credible?

Can you tell me what part of the NT is true, with respect to the life of Jesus the Christ? We all know, to some degree, what is possible or plausible, but can you simply outline anything with respect to Jesus the Christ, as written in the NT, that you know is true.

I am tired of the same old arguments of plausibilities.

Johann_Kaspar

If you don't understand a text, the problem is not with the text, it is with you.

spamandham

You can extract some historically likely facts even from works of fiction. But the more intertwined a person/place/event is with verifiably fictional aspects, the less you can say about history regarding that person/place/event. Every aspect of Jesus is tightly coupled with verifiable fantasy. The mythical aspects are central to the character, not merely augmentations.

We have Santa as an example of why that approach does not work for characters where myth is central to who they are. It is generally accepted that Saint Nicholas actually existed, but you could learn no salient point about him at all if all you had to analyze was 'The Night Before Christmas' and later stories based on it. Most of the various early Christian writings are every bit as legendary as that story in regards to Jesus.

Reading through 'The Night Before Christmas', you can certainly determine some historically accurate facts regarding the time period in which it was written; that people celebrated Christmas, that they lived in houses, that the homes used to have chimneys, that mice commonly lived in the homes, that heating was not sufficient and so people slept with hats on, etc.. But you can't learn anything usefull about the historical Santa from it, not can you learn anything about the main character's specific house, nor anything relevant regarding the specefic events of that night, as these are central to the fictional part of the story.

I don't know of any reason they might not contain some historically true information either. I'd say they do indeed contain quite a bit of historically accurate information. That much is expected even from works of fiction.

That isn't the point. The point is that the central character is tightly coupled with myth and legend. So much so, we aught to be questioning the genre, or as a minimum, admitting we know nothing at all about a historical Jesus - including whether or not he existed.

aa5874

What do you understand to be true with respect to Jesus the Christ as described in the NT?

Are the ascension, resurrection, crucifixion, miraculous deeds, temptation and conception true accounts of a character called Jesus the Christ?

I would like to draw to your attention that if all the 'superhuman' activities of 'Superman' were to be ignored or not taken into account, then 'Superman' would be plausible. However, like Jesus the Christ, I do not know anything about 'Superman to be true.

aa5874

The same fallacious argument can be used to support any religion. The Gods of Shintoism, the Gods of Hinduism, the God of Islam, the Gods of the Mormons or that of Jim Jones are all true since they either have been around for thousands of years, had billions of followers or had possible hundred of thousands dying for them.

J-D

I agree that the conception of the son of God through a holy ghost contradicts established biological knowledge. I agree that it is not credible. It does not logically follow that it is not possible for anything recorded in the Gospels to be historically true. There are some things recorded in the Gospels which could possibly be historically true. I don't know that they are, but I don't know of any reason to consider them historically impossible.

J-D

I don't understand what you mean by 'qualifies to be Jesus the Christ'.

One possible meaning is: 'would fulfil traditional Jewish Messianic expectations'. If that's what you mean, then the answer is: 'No, being baptised, preaching, gathering disciples, and being crucified are not, by themselves, sufficient to fulfil traditional Jewish Messianic expectations.' But I don't know whether that is what you mean.If that's what you were looking for, why didn't you begin the thread by saying so? You began the thread by purporting to attack 'the HJ position'. I didn't know what you meant by 'the HJ position', so I asked you for clarification. And when you did eventually provide some reluctant clarification, you didn't say: 'The HJ position refers to the view that a "Christ" raised himself from the dead, and raised others from the dead.' What you said was: 'All the stories about Jesus the Christ, in the NT, appear not to be credible.' I specifically drew the distinction between asserting this about some of the stories and asserting it about all of the stories, and you apparently adhered to the view that it is true about all of the stories.

If you are putting forward the view that there never was a 'Christ' who raised himself from the dead and raised others from the dead, then I agree with that view.

If you are putting forward the view that everything recorded about Jesus in the Christian Scriptures can be dismissed as historically inaccurate on the grounds of intrinsic implausibility, then I do not agree with that view.

Do you think those two views are logically equivalent? Is that question too hard for you to answer?Why are you asking me this question? I didn't say they were credible. If you think I did, please check back over my actual words. Ask me for clarification if they're not clear to you. I'm happy to provide it.No, I can't. So what?With respect, you started it. You were the one who insisted, not simply that you believed that everything about Jesus in the Christian Scriptures was not true, but also that everything about Jesus in the Christian Scriptures could not be true. If that's not really what you meant, or not really what you wanted to discuss, then I've given you opportunities to clarify your position and it's not my fault you haven't taken them.

J-D

The position I have been arguing against is the one that says: 'We can be sure that nothing in the Scriptural accounts of Jesus is historically true.' I have still seen no reason to accept this.

The position you now seem to be putting forward is a different one: 'We cannot be sure that anything in the Scriptural accounts of Jesus is historically true.' I am not going to argue about that position on this thread, but I would like to know whether you acknowledge that they are two different positions and are not logically equivalent.

Larsguy47

This is an interesting topic, the "historicity" of Jesus, which should be simply the "extra-Biblical" historicity of Jesus since, obviously, the gospels are a form of history.

But as a Biblicalist, my position is that there is no need to prove beyond the history of the gospels anything about Jesus to those who question the gospel account, simply because no one is in any position to disprove anything in the gospels. To me its a little like somone who doesn't believe in the invisible man requesting photographic proof rather than some other more relevant proof of an invisible man. I think asking for more than what we have on the historicity of Jesus is asking for the wrong type of confirmation.

I can understand people who have some need to give themselves doubts. But from my persepctive, I tend to think these gospel writers and Jewish historians seem relatively reliable and truthful and since no one can disprove a single thing they have said, to my investigation, I don't see why I shouldn't believe them.

So I, respectively, tend to simply be on the other side of the fence of the nonbelievers simply because they haven't proven anything in the Bible didn't happen, to my satisfaction, so why shouldn't I believe what's in the gospels or the Bible until it's proven otherwise? Why would this culture and these people make all this up? Isn't that a rather elaborate conspiracy theory? --to say the least?

In the meantime, if I were on the search for the Invisible Man, I don't think I'd bother insisting upon photographic evidence as a primary confirmation. Would you?

Larsguy47

J-D

People do make things up. You do know that, don't you? Just because something has written something down in a book, that doesn't necessarily make it true. You do know that, don't you? Even documents which are supposed to be accurate records of historical facts sometimes turn out to be partly or wholly inaccurate, sometimes because of deliberate falsification and sometimes because of human error. You do know that, don't you?

The possibility certainly exists that some parts of the Christian Scriptural record are historically accurate (that's what I've been arguing on this thread so far, and so far nobody has shown me a reason to change that view). But the possibility of error or fabrication also exists, and you haven't given any reason to dismiss it. You've only avowed your personal confidence, but there's no reason why that should count for anything with anybody else.

As for whether anything in the Christian Scriptures can be 'disproved', it depends what standard of 'proof' you expect. The discussion on this thread was about historical credibility. By historians' usual standards, there are some things in the Christian Scriptures that cannot be accepted.