youngalexander

Yet curiously, only post 250 C.E. More silences I'm afraid. Rather late ones!

Antipope Innocent II

Any depictions of Jesus prior to 250 AD are rare. This is (like most of these arguments from silence) a rather weak and contrived line of reasoning.

youngalexander

Quite so. Extremely rare within the context of Christian art which instead had a rich pagan adaptation (eg. The Good Shepherd - Logos?) and OT narrative (eg. Jonah, Noah & Daniel) iconography. In Callistus catacombs the themes concerned redemption, salvation and deliverance - but not the historical Jesus.

Toto

An argument from silence is a lot more convincing than an argument based on sneers and name calling, isn't it?

Yes, depictions of Jesus are rare before 250, and there are no depictions of Jesus on the cross until much, much later. The historicists have no coherent explanation for this. We went through a long thread some years ago, debating one of Doherty's sounds of silence, in which historicists tried to claim that there were no pictures of Jesus because . . . maybe Jews were opposed to pictorial representations! But Hellenistic Judaism was not so opposed, and there are preserved pictures of Aaron and other figures of Jewish legend from the ruins of Dura Europa.

This is all consistent with the evolution of Christianity from worshipping a spiritual savior to worshipping a historicized god-man.

andrewcriddle

The pictures on the walls of the Christian Church at Dura Europa probably include depictions of Jesus performing miracles although the state of preservation makes certainty difficult.

The reluctances to depict Jesus on the cross by Christians seems to have continued until after the abolition of this ugly punishment within the Roman Empire. (We have an earlier anti-christain graffiti http://www.religionfacts.com/jesus/i...s_graffito.htm) This reluctance continues too late to be relevant to the question of mythical/historical views of Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

Steven Carr

Good to know we can tell an authentic miracle from a non-authentic miracle at a distance of 2,000 years by applying the following tests for ring of authenticity :-

1)

2)

3)


All we need to do now is fill in the blanks.

I suggest the following tests for 'ring of authenticity' :-

1) Is it about Jesus?

2) Is it in the Bible?

3) Is it in the New Testament?

Johnny Skeptic

Do you believe that Jesus performed miracles? If so, why?

Today, millions of Christians disagree as to what constitutes a miracle healing? What evidence is there that the situation was the same during the time of Jesus? One would think that if Jesus really wanted people to know that he was able to perform miracles, he would have performed them in front of millions of people around the world.

It seems to me that the biggest flaw in a literal interpretation of the Bible is trying to reasonably establish God's intent and motives for doing what he does and allows. If a powerful alien came to earth and acted like the God of the Bible sometimes acts, surely many fundamentalist Christians would question his motives, but why? The alien might have justifiable motives for indiscriminately killing people and innocent animals with hurricanes, right?

Antipope Innocent II

Er, yes. Where have I called anyone names? I find many of the arguments used in debating this question contrived. I can't think of a better way to describe them, though I can think many actually nasty and sneering ways to describe them. I prefer to used the accurate word "contrived" and avoid nastiness.

You clearly don't find them contrived. Fine. But resorting to mere petulance doesn't do you any favours.

Apart from the stigma associated with crucifixion and the fact that this stigma only receeded after it was banned? Which is when we then find depictions of the crucifixion appearing in Christian art. This is considered perfectly "coherent" by every art historian I know of, so why it's not "coherent" enough for MJers I have no idea. Apart from the fact it's inconvenient.

It is? Why is a "spiritual saviour" more consistent with this than God incarnate?

Read what I wrote again. Did I say anything about "authentic miracles"? No, the stories I referred to were faith healings that didn't work or didn't happen at all. Clearly I was talking about "authentic stories" of failed attempts at miracles.

It makes sense that those stories circulated about the historical Yeshua and found their way into the corpus of stories in the gospels. How those tales of a Messiah who fails fits with the MJer idea, however, I still have no idea.

I suggest you realise I'm an atheist. I don't believe Yeshua did any "miracles" beyond the kind of folk medicine and suggestive faith healing of any village holy man.

aa5874

May I remind you that events, in gMark or gJohn, surrounding Jesus have not been confirmed to be true. A 'ring of authenticity' is not at all related 'veracity'.

And in any event, you must show that Jesus actually lived before you can even try to established what exactly he did.

The raising of Lazarus from the dead, feeding five thousand with a few loaves of bread and fish and resurrection in gJohn are either fictional or legendary and supports mythology.

Antipope Innocent II

May I remind you that I said absolutely zero about anything being "confirmed to be true" let alone "veracity".

If by "show" you mean "confirm to be true" then that's a fairly ludicrous requirement. People who like things to be "proven" should avoid the study of history (paticularly ancient history) and stick to things like physics and maths. What I'm saying here is that these stories are odd ones and that they fit better with the HJ hypothesis than the MJ idea.

Only fundies and other less liberal forms of Christianity regard those things as being anything other than legends. But that doesn't make Yeshua himself legendary.