Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Diogenes the Cynic · 09-30-2009, 10:57 AM

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Originally Posted by dog-on

Quote:

Originally Posted by bacht

Maybe so, I was just responding to Joan's question about sayings of Jesus. Personally I think they're all fiction, cribbed from Jewish scripture and other sources.

If one does assume an HJ the first question would be Which one? Was he an apocalyptic follower of John the Baptist, or a quasi-Cynic like the Q material, or a magician/exorcist, or ....? One's presupposition of Jesus' identity must influence which sayings are "consistent" or not.

If one assumes an HJ, one is left with only the guy in the books. Any other version is simply made up and is not supported by the evidence.

This itself exposes the utter bankruptcy of the HJ position.

This is not true. HJ could have existed (let's say as essentially sketched by Tacitus) and yet still be largely unrecoverable. There is no scientific reason the Jesus mythos could not have originated with a genuine apocalyptic prophet (as Ehrman believes) or wisdom teacher (as Crossan and the Jesus Seminar believe), or that even some of the sayings tradition attributed to him cannot be authentic. It is not true that Jesus must either be taken as fictional or as the sum of what's claimed about him in the NT. It may not be possible to recover him, but that does not absolutely precluded any possibility of core historicity.

dog-on · 09-30-2009, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

If one assumes an HJ, one is left with only the guy in the books. Any other version is simply made up and is not supported by the evidence.

This itself exposes the utter bankruptcy of the HJ position.

This is not true. HJ could have existed (let's say as essentially sketched by Tacitus) and yet still be largely unrecoverable. There is no scientific reason the Jesus mythos could not have originated with a genuine apocalyptic prophet (as Ehrman believes) or wisdom teacher (as Crossan and the Jesus Seminar believe), or that even some of the sayings tradition attributed to him cannot be authentic. It is not true that Jesus must either be taken as fictional or as the sum of what's claimed about him in the NT. It may not be possible to recover him, but that does not absolutely precluded any possibility of core historicity.

Tacitus didn't even sketch a stick figure...

One would have to actually provide some evidence of this "other" Jesus. The character you describe is not supported by the texts from which you wish to derive it.

aa5874 · 09-30-2009, 11:27 AM

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Originally Posted by Transient

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

And the guy in the books was fully God and man.

This is Tertullian on the guy's flesh.

On the Flesh of Christ 1

See http://www.newadvent.org

All agreed the guy was spiritual over 1800 years ago.

The flesh of the guy is irrelevant

The guy was a myth.

hmm actually Tertullian goes on to answer those questions in a way that demolishes your conclusion.

Where did the author called Tertullian ever claim and conclude that Jesus of the NT was not ever conceived of a virgin and the Holy Ghost, did not ever transfigured, did not ever resurrect and did not ever ascend through the clouds?

The author called Tertullian did not ever demolish my conclusion, he RE-INFORCED my conclusion that Jesus was a myth.

As soon as the author called Tertullian admitted that ALL ARE AGREED OF THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF JESUS, then the flesh of Jesus becomes irrelevant.

Once Jesus is admitted and agreed by ALL to be Divine, to be a God, then Jesus was of a mythical core.

And now the author called Tertullian will ANSWER you.

This is Tertullian "ON the FLESH of Christ" 18

Quote:

Now, that we may give a simpler answer, it was not fit that the Son of God should be born of a human father's seed, lest, if He were wholly the Son of a man, He should fail to be also the Son of God, and have nothing more than "a Solomon" or "a Jonas," — as Ebion thought we ought to believe concerning Him.

In order, therefore, that He who was already the Son of God— of God the Father's seed, that is to say, the Spirit— might also be the Son of man, He only wanted to assume flesh, of the flesh of man without the seed of a man; for the seed of a man was unnecessary for One who had the seed of God.

As, then, before His birth of the virgin, He was able to have God for His Father without a human mother, so likewise, after He was born of the virgin, He was able to have a woman for His mother without a human father.

He is thus man with God, in short, since He is man's flesh with God's Spirit — flesh (I say) without seed from man, Spirit with seed from God....

See http://www.newadvent.org

There you have Tertullian's ANSWER

"The seed of man was unnecessary for ONE who had the seed of God".

TERTULLIAN HAS DEMOLISHED YOU.

JESUS WAS A MYTH.

Diogenes the Cynic · 09-30-2009, 11:27 AM

Let's add the (probably) uninterpolated parts of the TF to Tacitus then...i.e. the Jesus movement was started by a Palestinian preacher named Jesus who was executed under Pilate, and the movement continued after his death.

This hypothesis doesn't have to be supported at all, simply to be unfalsified as a possibility. Nothing specific is being asserted, only that you can't rule out the possibility.

I am agnostic on the historicity issue, myself. I waver on it. I don't think we have any indisputable evidence for it, but we don't have anything against it either.

dog-on · 09-30-2009, 11:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Let's add the (probably) uninterpolated parts of the TF to Tacitus then...i.e. the Jesus movement was started by a Palestinian preacher named Jesus who was executed under Pilate, and the movement continued after his death.

This hypothesis doesn't have to be supported at all, simply to be unfalsified as a possibility. Nothing specific is being asserted, only that you can't rule out the possibility.

I am agnostic on the historicity issue, myself. I waver on it. I don't think we have any indisputable evidence for it, but we don't have anything against it either.

Every bit of evidence you posted is derived from who?

Mark.

You are simply cherry-picking to construct a rational person derived from an irrational story.

TimBowe · 09-30-2009, 12:18 PM

Quote:

The logic of the principle, especially when dealing with ancient sources, is that as an event gets discussed and reports about it circulate, there are greater and greater opportunities for it to be changed until just about everyone gets it wrong. The less time that has elapsed in the transmission process, the less time there is for alteration and exaggeration. Thus if you want to know about the Montanists who lived near the end of the second century, it’s better to consult sources from about their time than sources produced two centuries later. Of our four New Testament Gospels, John is the latest, written, probably, about sixty or seventy years after the events it narrates. On the whole, it is less likely to be accurate than Mark, written some thirty years earlier.

Bart D. Ehrman
Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium

Steven Carr · 09-30-2009, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TimBowe

Quote:

The logic of the principle, especially when dealing with ancient sources, is that as an event gets discussed and reports about it circulate, there are greater and greater opportunities for it to be changed until just about everyone gets it wrong. .

Bart D. Ehrman
Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium

So where is the evidence that these reports in Mark were circulating?

It is like claiming that reports about Popeye were circulating until the cartoonists decided to put them in cartoon form.

No, they just invented them from scratch,even if the character of Popeye was based on a real person.

Where the stories of the infant Jesus killing people circulating among Christians before somebody wrote them down, getting them wrong,making mistakes, and ascribing them to the childhood of Jesus,rather than to the correct period of his life?

Surely Ehrman must know that there have been Christians who wrote fiction, rather than transcribing reports they had heard.

So why are the Gospels immune from even being considered fiction?

aa5874 · 09-30-2009, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TimBowe

Quote:

The logic of the principle, especially when dealing with ancient sources, is that as an event gets discussed and reports about it circulate, there are greater and greater opportunities for it to be changed until just about everyone gets it wrong. The less time that has elapsed in the transmission process, the less time there is for alteration and exaggeration. Thus if you want to know about the Montanists who lived near the end of the second century, it’s better to consult sources from about their time than sources produced two centuries later. Of our four New Testament Gospels, John is the latest, written, probably, about sixty or seventy years after the events it narrates. On the whole, it is less likely to be accurate than Mark, written some thirty years earlier.

Bart D. Ehrman
Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium

So, how did the PAULINE WRITERS manage to claim Jesus resurrected?

Some scholars claim the Pauline writings were the earliest writings before the Gospels.

The lateness of the Gospel according to John did not have any effect whatsoever on the resurrection of Jesus.

The Memoirs of the Apostles as found in the writings of Justin Martyr, the Pauline writings, gMark, gMatthew, gLuke, gJohn and Acts of the Apostles all claimed that Jesus resurrected.

Lateness is not an issue for the resurrection. Paul was supposed to be very early.

Again the resurrection of Jesus MUST happen for mankind to be saved from their SINS.

15:17 -

Quote:

And if Christ be not raised,

your faith is vain;

ye are yet in your sins..

The historical Jesus is irrelevant. He cannot resurrect.

You need a mythical Jesus for mankind to be saved from their sins, you need an entity that can resurrect.

TimBowe · 09-30-2009, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Over the course of Christian history, probably the most religiously significant and theologically powerful account of Jesus life has been the Gospel of John. John say things about Jesus found nowhere else in scripture. A second rule of thumb that historians follow: accounts of Jesus that are clearly imbued with a highly developed theology are less likely to be historically accurate. The reason relates to our first rule of thumb later sources tend to be more theologically oriented than earlier ones, since the greater passage of time has allowed greater sustained theological refection. Over the course of the past fifty years, historians have worked hard developing methods for uncovering historically reliable information about the life of Jesus. As we’ve seen, we do in fact have a number of independent sources for the life of Jesus. It is probably safe to say, for example that Mark, the apostle Paul, and the authors of Q, M, L, and John all wrote independently of one another. Moreover, we have seen that the Gospel of Thomas, possibly the Gospel of peter, and certainly Josephus were all produced independently of our other surviving accounts. This means that if there is a tradition about Jesus that is preserved in more than one of these documents, no one of them could have made it, since the others knew of it as well, independently. And if a tradition is found in several of these sources, then the likelihood of its going back to the very beginning of the tradition from which they all ultimately derive, that is, back to the historical Jesus himself, is significantly improved.

Bart D. Ehrman
Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium

Toto · 09-30-2009, 03:16 PM

Tim Bowe: you are inching up towards copyright violations if you post more of Ehrman's books, and you are abusing this board.

What does that passage mean in your own words? Can you defend Erhman's conclusions? Do you know what his conclusions are?

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09-30-2009, 11:27 AM	#204
Diogenes the Cynic Moderator - Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota Posts: 4,639	Let's add the (probably) uninterpolated parts of the TF to Tacitus then...i.e. the Jesus movement was started by a Palestinian preacher named Jesus who was executed under Pilate, and the movement continued after his death. This hypothesis doesn't have to be supported at all, simply to be unfalsified as a possibility. Nothing specific is being asserted, only that you can't rule out the possibility. I am agnostic on the historicity issue, myself. I waver on it. I don't think we have any indisputable evidence for it, but we don't have anything against it either.

09-30-2009, 03:16 PM	#210
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Tim Bowe: you are inching up towards copyright violations if you post more of Ehrman's books, and you are abusing this board. What does that passage mean in your own words? Can you defend Erhman's conclusions? Do you know what his conclusions are?

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