aa5874

Please tell us of your training in statistics. You ought to know that ordinary people throughout the world can analyze OR EXAMINE written statements of the past for veracity and historical accuracy.

Again, you produce rhetoric.

Theories based on electron charages have very little to dio with the matter under discussion.

There are WRITTEN statements about a character called Jesus and it is those statements that need to be examined just as ordinary people examine WRITTEN statements about events of the past.

We have the Birth of Jesus.

What you want to believe is irrelevant.

The conception, birth, walking on water, the transfiguration, resurrection and ascension are found in the Jesus story. See the NT Canon.

Jesus of the NT was NOT historical as described.

You seem NOT to understand the difference between Speculation and an hypothesis.

One can hypothesize that Pilate was Governor, Tiberius was Emperor and Caiaphas was High Priest c 33 CE Based on credible sources of antiquity.

But, to argue that a character described as the Son of a Ghost was human is Mere speculation because there is not a shred of evidence to supporrt such a notion.

J-D

You could say the same about any proposed methodology whatever, good or bad. That doesn't explain why you're proposing this one.

outhouse

its much better then a general lack of understanding



people have a long history of creating mythology surronding historical events and people

yet through your complete lack of understanding, you require special pleading.

facepalm......

Sheshbazzar

To paraphrase one of my old teachers;
If grasping the significance of examining each individual verse to determine its 'historical' value, and of becoming personally aware of the results of such an exercise is too complex of a concept for your limited intellectual abilities, you may be excused from any participation.
If you wish, you are free to take a nap, doodle, play quietly by yourself, read from your favorite book of Fairy tales, or whack the donkey while the rest are doing their lessons.

J-D

Your old teacher's insults also don't explain why you are recommending this particular methodology.

Toto

Here's a poll:
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=313296

Here's a thread that tries to classify positions along the historicist-mythicist spectrum:

beginner's guide to Jesus positions
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=293174

There's more, if you want to search.

Where? Point to it.

Sheshbazzar

Homework is passed out to the entire class. One either completes the reading assignments, or one does not.
On multiple choice quizzes one either places a check mark in the appropriate box, or one does not.
One either completes their math assignments, deriving supportable answers, in a timely manner, or one does not.
Many do not do their homework. Some will remain stupid all of their lives.

This particular methodology is the one available method for serious students to methodically examine this particular material, to categorize it, and to derive that empirical data that will allow them to confidently check the right boxes in the multiple choices that life will present to each of them.

I do not care to engage in any further word games with you. If you desire to remain ignorant as to exactly how much of the Gospels you personally accept or reject as being historical, you are entirely free to do so. It is no skin off of my ass.

You are welcome to live with the fact that I will know, that because you refuse to learn, and would rather engage in obfuscations, and play with pretend to be stupid questions, you don't know and won't know what the hell you are talking about.

tanya

Hi Shesh, I agree with J-D, here, I too am perplexed about the assignment, and of course, I freely acknowledge having been a terrible student, in part, because of a stubborn insistence on leaning FIRST, why I should memorize the names and dates of reign of all of the British monarchs, before undertaking that chore. How does anything change, once I have memorized all those dates?

I do appreciate the distinction between memorization of lists of "facts", and thinking about something, as you have requested.

However, I do not understand how the end result of your assignment would clarify anything. The work assigned is both arduous, and relatively meaningless, absent some additional clarification. What will we do with the results? How can we compare our results with those obtained by others?

Suppose I asked you to compare the base sequence of the Monarch Butterfly genome (about 0.29 picograms) with that of the smallest mollusc, (approximately 0.43 picograms in mass)

I am certain that you could do the comparison. I am not certain, after completing this task, that you could explain how/why this endeavor would have assisted you in clarifying the evolution of the invertebrates. I am not writing this to suggest that such analysis is meaningless, simply that one profits from understanding the rationale behind any inquiry, prior to commencing the analysis. It could well be the case, that upon further elaboration, one understands that this sort of pencil and paper approach, will not really be productive, and that what one genuinely requires is a computer program to perform the inquiry, instead....That of course, leads to the debacle of finding a Greek OCR ability.

Further, you need to clarify, Shesh, WHICH Greek text to use, since they are all quite different.

Compare, for example, the three extant versions of Mark 1:1. Two of the versions offer no reference to I.C. as son of god. Another version omits the abbreviation, and spells out Iesous Christous, so we know who is being discussed, unlike the situation with I.C., which could be anyone, or anything.
In other words, looking just at this first verse of the first gospel, one finds confusion in how to classify that particular verse, because of the significant textual variations in the three versions.

J-D

The threads you just pointed to yourself are typical examples. They illustrate the absence of consensus on the definition of terms, and the contentious disputation, shedding no light, which that absence of consensus contributes to.

J-D

If a teacher is challenged about the reasons for assigning a particular task, and can give no explanation beyond 'Because I'm telling you to do it, and I'm the teacher', that points strongly in the direction of two conclusions:
(1) the teacher is incompetent and will not contribute to the education of the students;
(2) there is unlikely to be any educational benefit to the students from the assignment.We have only your word for that, and by itself your word is insufficient.If you don't want to explain your position more clearly, that's your choice, not mine.You, I, and all of us know some things and are ignorant of others, and we all have to live with that.