JonA

Utter nonsense. Pure malarkey. This isn't even speculation, but sheer rather delusion.

The point is that they believed in a Jesus who had lived on earth some time in the past.

That you've managed to jump from what I've said to talking about 'the modern post-Enlightenment' tells me you've seriously misread what I've written.

Jon

Iskander

It is getting really funny; the gospel writers made it quite clear that they did not believe Jesus ever existed? Is that the argument of the deniers?

Toto

Why do you think it is obvious that the gospel writers thought that they were writing straight history as opposed to theological allegory? What is the basis for this?


They also believed in gods, ghosts, demons, etc who lived on earth. Did they believe Jesus was a god? a ghost?

Feel free to clarify.

You appear to have adopted the Protestant Rationalist view of the gospels. You feel you can ignore the supernatural aspects and assume that the rest is reliable history, and you assume that the writers of the gospels agreed with you.

How do you infer the intent of the gospel writers from what they wrote? What about those magical tales indicates that the writers thought that they were writing about someone who walked on earth?

JonA

No I haven't. Stop being ridiculous.

Stop being ridiculous. Any mythicist argument that must be backed to the point you're going to is clearly nothing but nonsense.

Now stop being ridiculous.

There's serious discussion to be had.

Toto

Stop spluttering. If the argument is ridiculous, surely you can put together a sentence or two explaining why?

Why exactly are the gospels to be treated as reliable in any sense? Why are the writers assumed to be honest, even about their own beliefs?

Iskander

Take it easy. It is nothing ,nothing to get excited about

JonA

Do you have anything serious to give as a response to the lengthy post I made earlier?

You're just jumping from one nutty idea to the next. Modern post-Enlightenment? Protestant Rationalism? Theological allegory?

These things aren't even related to the points I made in my post—not even remotely so. They're just distractions; you're just trying to jump around and sidestep the issues I've raised against Doherty's argument.

Jon

aa5874

Your statement is completely strange. We have the NT Canon with four Gospels and they state with remarkable clarity that the NT Jesus, the Son of God and Creator, born of the Holy Ghost, was on earth, was baptized by John, did miracles on earth in Galilee, was on trial on earth in Jerusalem before the Sanhedrin and Pilate, was crucified on earth in Jerusalem, was buried by Joseph on earth in a tomb and the the women disciples did VISIT the burial site of Jesus on earth.

It is wholly and completely without support that people of antiquity did NOT believe NT Jesus was on earth.

The very anti-Marcionite arguments show that people of antiquity did believe Jesus, the Son of God, the Creator, was in Capernaum of Galilee.

The historical Jesus is NOT an argument merely about existence it is a claim that Jesus was human and did NOT exist as a Divine character. People of antiquity argued that Jesus existed on EARTH as the Son of God, FATHERED by the Holy Ghost and was God the Creator with an human mother named Mary.

We have an Apologetic source "On the Flesh of Christ" which explains in detail that people of antiquity did believe Jesus had NO human father when he was claimed to be ON earth.

Toto

My post was quite serious.

Are you so totally unaware of the intellectual history of the Quest for the Historical Jesus that you don't even know where your ideas come from or how they fit together?

==

Let's back up. Tell me what you agree with or disagree with in the following.

Are the gospels history? No, not even close. They are anonymous, they don't cite their sources, they are written from an omniscient point of view rather than an observer's point of view. They also describe fantastic events, and it is true that there are historical documents from the time that add supernatural touches to historical narrative, but at least Josephus starts out with a historical narrative. There is nothing to indicate that the gospels are based on actual events.

Did the gospel writers even think they were writing "history" in anything close to the modern sense of the term? I say no. Richard Burridge has written a book that tries to say that the gospels are in the form of Greek bioi (or lives) but these bioi were written about gods who were not at all historical. And if you search for Burridge in this forum, you will find some pointed criticism of his approach.

So if the gospel writers said that Jesus walked the earth, that does not show that they thought he actually walked on the earth, or that anyone at the time thought that there was a historical Jesus of Nazareth who walked on the earth, or that their language is any indication of how they would phrase something if they thought he had walked on the earth and would be returning for a second time.

You have not raised any issues against Doherty's argument until you account for this.

aa5874

Your statement appears to be illogical.

You put forward the absurd notion that the gospel writers were writing about events that they believed did NOT happen on earth and that people of antiquity did NOT believe the events happen on earth but still blamed the Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus on earth.

There is just no support whatsoever anywhere in antiquity where Jesus was claimed by apologetic or non-apologetic sources to have been crucified in the sub-lunar.