spin

Removed Dale Allison because of a conflict with an interlocutor from another forum. I have no desire to read any more of Dale Allison, so it's easier to remove him. It would still be good to have more examples of proponents of any of the positions listed below. Thanks.

[T2]{r:bg=lightgray}{c:bg=slategray;ah=center;b-b=2,solid,black}Type of Jesus
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{c:ah=center;b-b=2,solid,black}Status of Jesus
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{c:ah=center;b-b=2,solid,black}Characteristics
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{c:ah=center;b-b=2,solid,black}Worth of the gospels
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{c:w=45;ah=center;b-b=2,solid,black}Use of Myth
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{c:ah=center;b-b=2,solid,black}Published Proponents
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{c:bg=#80C0C0;av=top}Maximal
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{c:bg=#00C000;av=top}Existed in real world
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{c:av=top}The gospels are seen as reliable documentary evidence and record the known events in the life of the man who started the religion.
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{c:bg=#0070B0;av=top}Basically historical material
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{c:bg=#ffe4b0;av=top}Minimal
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Joseph Klausner, Birger Gerhardsson, Luke Timothy Johnson
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{c:bg=#80C0C0;b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}Historical
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{c:bg=#00C000;b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}Existed in real world
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{c:b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}The record is problematical, but literary records--gospels, church fathers and even pagan sources--contain vestiges of real world knowledge of a preacher, who was crucified.
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{c:bg=#0090D0;b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}Historical data obscured by transmission problems
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{c:bg=#f6d480;b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}Some, causing source problems
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{c:b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}Marcus Borg, J.D. Crossan, Burton Mack, & Jesus seminar
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{c:bg=#80C0C0;b-b=3,double,black;av=top}"Accreted"
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{c:bg=#A0FFA0;b-b=3,double,black;av=top}A core preacher existed
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{c:b-b=3,double,black;av=top}Jesus was the product of various sources including knowledge of a real person, as can be found in "Q". This position does not see the crucifixion as historical.
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{c:bg=#60B0FF;b-b=3,double,black;av=top}Little of historical value
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{c:bg=#F0C060;b-b=3,double,black;av=top}Yes
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{c:b-b=3,double,black;av=top}G.A. Wells
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{c:bg=DarkOrchid;b-b=3,double,black;av=top}Spiritual realm
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{c:bg=#FF2050;b-b=3,double,black;av=top}Existed in spiritual realm, not the mundane world
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{c:b-b=3,double,black;av=top}Purely theological in origin, Jesus died in our stead not in this mundane world, but in a spiritual realm. Later this spiritual being became reconceived as having acted in this world and reified.
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{c:bg=#E060C0;b-b=3,double,black;av=top}Embody a complex myth & reflect honest belief distorted by reification
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{c:bg=Orange;b-b=3,double,black;av=top}Full
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{c:b-b=3,double,black;av=top}Earl Doherty (*)
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{c:bg=#B05070;b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}Mythological composite
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{c:bg=#F00000;b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}Authorial invention
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{c:b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}Jesus was the product of mainly pagan mythological elements, be they solar myth (Acharya S) or dying & resurrection myths of Osiris/Dionysis (Freke & Gandy).
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{c:b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}Nothing but cobbled myths
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{c:bg=Orange;b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}Full
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{c:b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}Acharya S, Freke & Gandy
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{c:bg=#B05070;b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}Fictional
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{c:bg=#F00000;b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}Authorial invention
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{c:b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}Jesus was the product of purely literary activity. A Roman emperor constructed a new religion. In the Atwill version, it was Titus with the aid of Josephus who tried to gain control over the unruly Jews.
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{c:b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}A tool for deceiving & manipulating people
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{c:b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}[-]
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{c:b-b=2,dashed,black;av=top}Joe Atwill (*)
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{c:bg=#B05070;b-b=2,solid,black;av=top}Transformed
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{c:bg=#F00000;b-b=2,solid,black;av=top}Did not exist
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{c:b-b=2,solid,black;av=top}Jesus was the product of corrupted retelling of events relating to Julius Caesar. Under Vespasian the story was developed into a new religion.
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{c:b-b=2,solid,black;av=top}Underlying history garbled beyond recognition
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{c:b-b=2,solid,black;av=top}No
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{c:b-b=2,solid,black;av=top}Francesco Carotta
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{c:bg=RoyalBlue;av=top}Traditional
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{c:bg=#D0D0B0;av=top}Unknown (tradition doesn't permit clarification)
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{c:av=top}Tradition doesn't distinguish between real and non-real. It merely takes accepted elements ("accepted" -> believed to be real) and passes them on with associated transmission distortions.
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{c:bg=#D0D0B0;av=top}A complex of traditions with complex transmission, making veracity unverifiable
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{c:bg=#D0D0B0;av=top}[-]
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{c:av=top}[-]
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{c:bg=RoyalBlue;av=top}Jesus agnostic
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{c:bg=#D0D0B0;av=top}Unknown
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{c:av=top}Due to the nature of available information there is insufficient evidence to decide on the existence of Jesus.
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{c:bg=#D0D0B0;av=top}No current way of evaluating for veracity
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{c:bg=#D0D0B0;av=top}[-]
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{c:av=top}Robert M. Price[/T2]Notes:
1. Degrees of affinity between the various Jesuses (as indicated by the divisions between them): Single: close; Dashed: further; Double: little; Solid: none
2. Quotes around the types of Jesus indicate labels needing improvement.

spin

DCHindley

I've read all of his books, and it seems to me he did believe we can know something about a real Jesus from the accounts told about him. Otherwise, why go on about Jesus' attempt to live out his ideal of a messianic secret? Why write a psychological evaluation of Jesus?

While he did think that critics often import their own ideas into their interpretations of Jesus traditions, he also believed that criticism was a refining process in which historical facts can be extracted from the traditions about a historic Jesus as succerssive scholars put the evidence, as well as conclusions of other critics, to the test.

(Whatever that means ...)

DCH

No Robots

If it's any help, I've posted a bunch of quotations by Schweitzer on the subject. Here's one:

The problem of the life of Jesus has no analogue in the field of history. No historical school has ever laid down the canons for the investigation of this problem, no professional historian has ever lent his aid to theology in dealing with it. Every ordinary method of historical investigation proves inadequate to the complexity of the conditions. The standards of ordinary historical science are here inadequate, its methods not immediately applicable. The historical study of the life of Jesus has had to create its own methods for itself. In the constant succession of unsuccessful attempts, five or six problems have emerged side by side which together constitute the fundamental problem. There is, however, no direct method of solving the problem in its complexity; all that can be done is to experiment continuously, starting from definite assumptions; and in this experimentation the guiding principle must ultimately rest upon historical intuition.

The cause of this lies in the nature of the sources of the life of Jesus, and the character of our knowledge of the contemporary religious world or thought. It is not that the sources are in themselves bad. When we have once made up our minds that we have not the materials for a complete life of Jesus, but only for a picture of His public ministry, it must be admitted that there are few characters of antiquity about whom we possess so much indubitably historical information, of whom we have so many authentic discourses. The position is much more favorable, for instance, than in the case of Socrates; for he is pictured to us by literary men who exercised their creative ability upon the portrait. Jesus stands much more immediately before us, because He was depicted by simple Christians without literary gift.

spin

I'm happy to defer to weight of knowledge here. What exactly does one recommend?


spin

judge

At the moment we have no categroy for Albert Schweitzer, although we know he existed and had some influence. We also have a category called "Traditonal" even though Spin doesnt have even one person who fits in the category. :huh:

DCHindley

The late John P Meier was a moderate Catholic, John Kloppenborg is probably a slightly left of center moderate from the Reformed camp. Richard Horsley is slightly center right moderate (I cannot tell his affiliation). Edward P Sanders is probably a little right center moderate (again, cannot tell his affiliation, if any). To these people, Jesus was a real person who lived in the real world and fully interracted with the Jewish faith, socioeconomic and political issues of Roman controlled Judea and the remnants of the Herodian dynasty in the early 1st century.

Those kind of scholars never ever get mentioned here. All of them have solid academic credentials, are not prone to dogmatic statements, or likely to suggest half thought out solutions to complex problems. What's wrong with those guys anyways?!

No wonder Spin hasn't heard of them.

DCH

spin

Don't be fucking cheeky. I've got a couple of books by Sanders, the famous ones about Paul and about Jesus, or maybe don't have anymore. My problem is how to qualify them. E.P. I'd tend to put in as a maximalist. I'd tend to do the same with Meier, along with James D.G. Dunn. Kloppenberg I don't really know much about, except from his Q work and that doesn't give me much about his Jesus.

The question will always be: how do they fit in.


spin

judge

Spin has of course heard of therm.
The problem is his methodology. Spin wants to have a certain category. So he puts the category down first and then hopes to have someone fill it.

This reverses the rationalist, free thinking, scientific approach. It's hillarious.

It is like creationism. Creationists say x is true, then they look for facts to show that x is true.

This thread has been going for weeks now, why is there still a category with no evidence that anyone holds thsi view?

Would not a free thinking rational scientific inquirer remove something if they had no evidence for it?
If he has evidence why is he hiding it? If has has none why wont he remove it?

Isnt this the whole point of being a free thinker, a rationalist?

judge

I recommend that if you have no evidence for even one person fitting a category you remove that category.
Secondly, I recommend that in future you dont put categories down until you have evidence that someone actually would fit in that category.

This will stop you trying to shoehorn the facts to meet your pet theory .

Song of Erra

spin will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think his intention was so much to catalogue only published positions, as it was to depict a spectrum of possible positions, so that people might be less tempted to lump together all “mythicists” or all “historicists”, or be unaware of the available middle-ground.

The chart is far from perfect, but that's hardly surprising to say of a work-in-progress. Personally, I can't see much of a difference between “Traditional” and “Jesus agnostic”, so maybe spin would care to merge them. That would at least solve the “problem” of the empty row.