GakuseiDon

"Cheerleader squad"? AAbe's review didn't read that way to me. :huh:

GakuseiDon

It is disappointing if he didn't cover what he thought the mythicists got right. Thanks AAbe.

James Brown

What's the difference between Ehrman's latest and Lee Strobel's The Case for the Real Jesus? (or via: amazon.co.uk)

ApostateAbe

He at times states his agreement with mythicists, often in the process of calling those points of agreement "irrelevant"--the tone was certainly not conciliatory.

tanya

Ok, thanks for clarifying my error. I better stick with what I can quote!!

NONSENSE. UTTER RUBBISH.

The gospels, like most works of fiction, contain legitimate, honest, authentic, genuine, real historical data.

We know this, not from reading the gospels, but from reading other sources.

The fact that there are sprinkled throughout the gospels, bits of truthfulness, in no way alters their essential composition as doctrines of myth.

Documents describing mythical activities can not be employed to explain any aspect of history. You cannot use the newspaper accounts of Paul Bunyan, to explain the history of deforestation of North America.

So, Abe, Diogenes, have either of you a link to these "earliest accounts of" the life of Jesus? I refer to "Q, M, and L".

No. You don't. Neither does Ehrman.

This is blatant dishonesty.

:huh:

aa5874

ApostatAbe has already stated that there is really no new argument for an historical Jesus so perhaps the only new thing is the diatribe against the MYTHERS.

No evidence for HJ just diatribe AGAINST his opponents.

ApostateAbe

I haven't read that book, but I would anticipate that Lee Strobel would not count the "apocalyptic prophet" model of Jesus as a strong argument. Bart Ehrman makes a lot of it, toward the end of his book. I wish he developed the argument in greater detail, because I would count it as the best argument for a historical Jesus, only my argument would be different from Ehrman's.

My argument would be:

1) Christianity was a doomsday cult.
2) The myths of all human founders of doomsday cults are small variations of actual humans.
3) The myth of Jesus was that he was the human founder of Christianity.
4) Therefore, the myth of Jesus is a small variation of an actual human.

Ehrman did not use this argument. Instead, his argument was that:

1) John the Baptist was apocalyptic.
2) The gospel authors and Paul were apocalyptic.
3) Linking those two is Jesus.
4) Therefore, Jesus was apocalyptic.

I think this is a weaker argument--the only sources that tell us that John the Baptist was apocalyptic are the synoptic gospels, though the description of John the Baptist in Josephus fits what we may expect for an apocalyptic prophet (getting arrested and killed by the ruling king and the followers predicting the king's downfall as a result). Ehrman's argument was designed mainly for the liberal Christians such as JD Crossan who believe Jesus to be a human being of some other occupation (they all agree that John the Baptist was apocalyptic).

Grog

St. Nikolaos of Myra was not Santa Claus (or vice versa). Santa Claus is a mythical character that was made up from an amalgam of mythical and historical or supposedly historical figures, not just St. Nikolaos. In fact, the evolution of Santa Claus could be a decent example of how a mythical Jesus Christ could evolve out of the milieu of first century hellenistic Judaism, superimposing a mythical savior figure on greek mythos as well as actual historical would-be messiahs.

Diogenes the Cynic

I still don't really understand his reasoning for that.

He does bolster his argument with examples in the Greek text that only make sense when translated back to Aramaic.

Diogenes the Cynic

Scholarship, facts, evidence, credentialed expertise, basic honesty.