Celsus

Nobody denies that, but can any of the representations get "truthful" (however defined; more below) descriptions?
Not so. Archaeology constructs no narratives (although the archaeologist does)... If for instance, it describes people as eating a certain kind of food, or burying their dead in a certain way, it still does not complete it with a picture of the overall culture of that group. For that, we draw on narrative, particularly metonymy, which the archaeology can only lend probabilities to. The construction of cause and effect, of linking various characteristics, of describing functions, all call upon the archaeologist or historian to make ontological choices about how the world works in order to come up with a coherent explanation. Pompeii is an easy example of demonstrating why a city fell, being out of the realms of human affairs, but how would we explain the fall of Rome?
I don't see it that way: he doesn't examine the theories he's constructing to explain the silence, or else I'm missing something--he doesn't fundamentally examine his narratives as narratives, only proposes/uses them without critical reflection. A good instance of missing the point is his exchange with Holding on the 200 silences--both shouldn't have bothered with the debate if either understood that the cause of the silence is underdetermined--there are multiple competing explanations (which we usually just call it "speculation" and are done with it). As such, the "bedrock" of his analysis should also then throw out the argument from silence. Maybe someone should ask him to get in touch with Keith Jenkins, Frank Ankersmit or Alun Munslow.
Right on (though representation is quite different from getting at the "truth" of the past). Coherence relies on correspondence (if it is to escape circularity), correlation is watered-down correspondence, and consensus theories of truth are arguably question-begging. What then are we left with?
How is a framework different from a narrative? What's the difference between reifying history and reifying theology? History is historiography, and as such there is no history, as Munslow has pointed out (sorry, but his two books are the most recent I've read and he is much better at explaining this than me). The epistemic choices we make in writing history are undoubtedly closer to literary than scientific choices, and Doherty's framework (whatever his Age of Reason website is about) leaves a lot to be desired from a methodological point of view.

Anyway, apologies for jumping in and out of the thread, but I will be leaving for Geneva tomorrow, so I'll have to leave it at that for now. Thanks for the fun discussion, and for the kind words, everyone.

Joel

Edit: More discussion was had here.

Alf

Keep in mind that Spinoza lived in europe at a time when even being non-christian was scored. He could sort of get away with it because he lived in Holland (his family had fled from spain when jews were prosecuted by the spanish inquisition).

In those days the lack of evidence supporting Jesus was not readily appearant. even highly educated people just took for granted that Jesus was given - a historically undeniable actual person.

The jesus myth theory has perhaps been raised by other people but it is only in modern times when we have both lifted the church's hold on society and the research done that we have found out that the evidence that people took for granted to be there simply wasn't present and so the case for a historical Jesus is on much thinner ice than what people used to think.

For example, most people still take for granted that the gospel of Mark was written by the biblical Mark - something which is impossible. Even in this board you some times hear christians who claim that the author of the gospel of Luke was Paul's companion, something which is not very likely etc etc. I wonder how long it will take before it sinks down to "the common man in the street" what the scholars has known for a long time already - that the writers of those gospels are anonymous writers and we don't know who they were.

In modern times that ice has completely melted and the HJ theory is only floating on hope and dreams at the moment.

Alf

freigeister

From Brunner (Our Christ, p 350):

Chili

The literal historical Jesus was invented by the Reformers and just now the Jesus mythers are trying to come to grips with that.

We still believe in the good news that the historic Jesus brought to mankind but not in the sense that he must be worshipped as a historic figure. In fact, the opposite is true and that is where the confusion lies between the historic and mythic Jesus. In fact, it is the difference between heaven and hell.

Chili

Jesus worshippers believe that Jesus died for their sins and as a result they will go to heaven. Since that doesn't seem to be very obvious they are willing to suffer until they die with the hope that things will get better then.

"Jesus followers" are willing to take Jesus down from the cross and place themselves upon it. That way they will die to the sins of their own world and will have heaven on earth in the right here and now.

The explantion for this is found in Rev. 13 and 14 with the followers of Jesus being the first beast and the worshippers of Jesus being the second beast. The first beast was begotten by God and therefore came from the celestial sea while the second beast was born from carnal desire and therefore came from the old earth (see Jn.1:13).

Chili

"Incomparable" if we are brothers and sisters in Christ? . . . and that Jesus said that we would do greater things? . . . And that there are many mansions in heaven? . . . and that we crowned Mary queen of heaven and earth?

freigeister

Brunner, Our Christ, p. 264



QED

Chili

Reminds me of Macbeth who wanted to be "king [in the] hereafter" and actually died from agony to get there. Go back to the second beast of Rev.13 to get a description of him and you'll be able to recognize the "master" you are identifying.

But we're done here. Thanks.

freigeister

Well, not quite.

Brunner, Our Christ, p. 300:

There. Now, we're done. And you're welcome.

Chili

Interesting but wrong nonetheless.

Allow me to make a distinction between the mystic and the gnostic and I do not want you to be confused with the term Gnosticism because "the gnostic" has no -ism or there would be churches in the New Jerusalem. The gnostic has the mind of Christ and is resident of the New Jerusalem. He is in charge of his own destiny and "has no equal, he is God" is what Gogol said about him in Dead Souls. The gnostic has noetic vision and please note here that Gnosticism as an -ism is not gnostic or God would have to have grandchildren and that is impossible.

The mystic has lyrical vision but not gnostic and can have both correct or wrong opinion. Some evidence of this is that he or she cannot critique (rationalize) his or her own poetry. Mystic-ism is misleading and most often wrong as a discipline.

An interesting proof here is that in poetry and prose, such as the Bible and for example "The Consolation of Philosophy" by Boethius or "Dr. Zhivago" by Pasternak the poetry serves to explain the prose because lyrical vision is easier to understand from our hyletic (obscured) vision. The prose, of course is gnostic . . . and that is 'way out there.'