Chris Weimer

Leaving out the argument from authority, Peter Kirby gives excellent reasons why that passage should be deemed entirely an interpolation. I'm not 100% positive that it is, but I've been leaning dangerously close to that. Bar myself, and I believe Ken Olsen also thinks it's entirely an interpolation, though I could be misrepresenting his views.

jjramsey

From what I understand, technically the majority view is that the TF was tampered with rather than wholly forged, but it is not such a lop-sided majority that the position that the TF is a complete forgery is a fringe position. There are very respectable views on either side of that issue.

gstafleu

Perhaps the debate should be re-framed. Christianity is based on a Christ with all attributes intact. Not some stripped down version, that simply isn't enough to base the religion on. So any attempts to show the historicity of anything less than a full fledged Christ should be dismissed as irrelevant.

Once that is done the situation becomes much clearer. A full fledged Christ is quite an extraordinary claim, and hence needs quite extraordinary evidence. That evidence simply isn't there, even if you let the NT and the few extra-NT passages stand.

The NT is an anthology of books that are not independent of each other. The sum total of the evidence it offers amounts to something, but even in the most uncritical appraisal not to a lot (OK, I'm excluding apologetic appraisals here). The few outside-NT bits don't add a lot either. So there simply isn't enough evidence to take something as extraordinairy as a HJ (full-fledged, the others don't count) seriously.

So the historical Jesus hypothesis gets shelved for lack of evidence. Maybe there was an HJ, but FTTB the working assumption has to be there wasn't.

jjramsey

In that statement, and I think also in some of what Malachi151 and clivedurdle said, is the assumption that if the HJ was a mere mortal, then there isn't much point to the MJ vs HJ debate. This isn't quite true. One of the "elephants in the room" is the perception that the MJ position is a gross distortion of the facts that needs to be corrected. Now obviously I believe this perception to be justified, and I won't pretend that I don't. However, even those who do not believe that it is justified should recognize that the perception is there and that it provides at least as much impetus for debate as the desire to defend Christianity.

Chris Weimer

Your conclusion is non sequitur. How do we get from "Jesus as depicted in the disciples is not supported by the evidence" to "Jesus never existed"? That's like saying Troy never existed - just because it's not as depicted in the Iliad doesn't mean it never existed at all!

Toto

Why does this alleged gross distortion by mythicists bother you so much more than the Christian apologist distortion of the historical evidence? Why do you feel the need to correct that distortion by such an adamant support for the historicist position, as opposed to a militantly agnostic position?

Do you take similar action on other historical errors, such as the people who think that George Washington was a publicly devout Christian - surely a more important error?

(Not meant to be rhetorical - I really am curious.)

jjramsey

Part of it is that I feel that atheists and agnostics have fewer excuses for distortion. Their beliefs are supposed to be based on reason, Occam's Razor, argument to the best explanation, etc. I myself am inclining toward embracing atheism on those grounds, especially argument to the best explanation. Distortion, while still not acceptable, is at least somewhat more understandable for people with "faith-based" worldviews. A dogmatic faith in obvious conflict with the facts on the ground certainly requires some way of "fixing" the facts to fit what one feels the need to believe. That said, I often do hit Christian arguments, though you haven't seen me do that much here.

Some posts on the JREF forums:

Brief points arguing against "Christian Dude": http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php...&postcount=278

Arguing a bit of both sides, here, but mostly against use of OT prophecy by "kurious_kathy": http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php...9&postcount=12

Some of my SkepticWiki contributions:

Birth narratives of Jesus
Geographical errors of Gerasene/Gadarene demoniac accounts
Timing of women buying spices for Jesus' corpse

Because the militantly agnostic position doesn't seem appropriate in this case. The preponderance of evidence, IMHO, favors a historical Jesus, and an apocalyptic one at that.

Rick Sumner

Hoffman is still wrong, however. "Critical scholars" do not agree that it's an interpolation. Critical scholars almost overwhelmingly view it as a partial interpolation. It's one thing to favor that it is interpolated (I do myself, in fact). It's quite another to suggest that you have the support of a consensus of "critical scholars" when the consensus, if there is one, is against you. This is at best disingeuous.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Chris Weimer

Rick,

My reply was to Zeichman who seemed to be unaware of any scholar who thinks the passage was an interpolation ("I don't think even Mack goes that far..."). I agree that the consensus is that it is a partial interpolation, which is why I only listed myself (or my former self) and possibly Ken Olsen as immediate candidates (with the rest appearing on Peter's website).

best regards,

Chris Weimer

PS - I thought you'd have it by Monday? j/k, j/k

Rick Sumner

My sincerest apologies. I've been busy as hell as of late. . .I'm working on it though :P

Regards,
Rick Sumner