TedM

Toto, I think the time to close a thread is when the thread by and large has become highly repetitious and no longer promotes Rational Discussion, but won't die by natural causes for one reason or another. In this case I would add the following two points: The person who opened it has a position which is clearly extremist in viewpoint from the forum's typical standards, AND he thwarts rational discussion by ignoring reasonable contrary points to his extremist views. For these reasons I favor closing this thread.

While this thread can go on indefinitely because

1. It's leader is likely to continue to promote it
2. It will continue to attract curiosity-seekers, new persons, and people like myself trying in vain to promote rational discussion by explaining and repeating themselves over and over.

, one must question the value of allowing such a forum to continue to exist.

For all the above reasons I think we can conclude that at best this thread has served its purpose for discussion. You may certainly keep it alive to serve the purpose of aa's personal conversion tool, but I think you would agree that this is not the primary reason for the existence of the FreeThought and Rationality Discussion Board.

The bottom line for me is this:

When the atmosphere of a thread that won't die on its own accord is no longer conducive to a rational discussion it has minimal discussion value for a forum devoted to Rational thought, and should be terminated.


Ted

Sheshbazzar

Pssssst... Ted, you shore ya wanna just duck outta here without revealing the secret of where those NT claims of seeing Jeez-us are located ?
Gonna miss out on this hear opertunity to really put 'ol aa in his place.

aa5874

No, No, No!!! You cannot derail my thread. Please open your own thread to argue your absurdities.

You appear to have deliberately posted on this thread to get it closed because you had nothing to contribute from the start.

aa5874

It is extremely clear that the Church and its writers did NOT argue that Jesus was human and born of a human father.

This can be seen in "Against Celsus" attributed to Origen.

Celsus claimed Jesus was the Son of Panthera.

What would Origen argue??"

Would he argue that Jesus was the Son of Joseph??

No, No!!!.

Origen would argue that Jesus was Fathered by a Ghost and that Celsus was a LIAR.

Origen NEVER claimed Joseph was the Father of Jesus.

'Against Celsus' 32 Up to the mid 3rd century, the Church writers claimed Jesus was Born of a Ghost.

But, even later, Christians were arguing that Jesus EXISTED but was NOT born.

In the 5th century, Christians did NOT believe Jesus was BORN.

Around the 5th century Augustine of Hippo wrote "Against Faustus" 2.

UP to the 5th century Christians did NOT even believe Jesus was born.

The argument for an historical Jesus is absurd and hopelssly weak especially when even Christians after hundreds of years argued that Jesus was NOT born.

The NT is a compilation of Myth Fables like those of the Jews, Greeks and Romans.

Duvduv

Since we're talking about Celsus, I have wondered why "Origen" debates Celsus about the father being Panthera, who is part of the traditional Jewish narrative, because Panthera was never said to have been the father of the 1st century gospel Jesus, but rather the father of the magician in the 1st century BCE who had never even been accused never accused of being a false messiah in the first place.

It seems to me that the Origen discussion was the Christian regime's way of grappling with a belief that the Jewish tradition about Yeshu Pandera was merely a slander against the gospel Jesus. Or perhaps the source of information concerning Panthera did not know that the events were from the 1st century BCE. Indeed, one could have imagined "Origen" simply saying to Celsus, "Sir, you have all your information via the Jews confused. The individual named Yeshu mentioned by the Jews was not the Lord in the days of Pilate described in the gospels. He was someone else entirely who lived a century earlier who was fathered by Panthera and whose mother coincidentally was named Miriam."

“(Jesus) invented his birth from a virgin…born in a certain Jewish village, of a poor woman (Mary) of the country, who gained her subsistence by spinning, and who was turned out of doors by her husband, a carpenter by trade, because she was convicted of adultery; that after being driven away by her husband, and wandering about for a time, she disgracefully gave birth to Jesus, an illegitimate child, who having hired himself out as a servant in Egypt on account of his poverty…
"…when she (Mary) was pregnant she was turned out of doors by the carpenter to whom she had been betrothed, as having been guilty of adultery, and that she bore a child to a certain soldier named Panthera…”

aa5874

Let us stop imagining and inventing.

Let us deal with the written statements as they are found in "Against Celsus".

1. It is claimed that Jesus was the son of Panthera according to Celsus.

2. Origen argued Jesus was miraculously born of a Ghost.


Only Origen's claim MUST be false if Jesus did actually exist.

Only Origen's Jesus could NOT have been born as described.

Only Origen's Jesus MUST be Myth.

Origen's Jesus is Jesus of Nazareth in the NT.

The Jesus of Nazareth MUST be Mythology as soon as it was claimed he was miraculously born of a Ghost.

In Roman/Greek Mytholgy Perseus was born of Zeus and a virgin.

Sheshbazzar

Wonder is, they didn't think to have Jee-sooce fly off to heaven on Pega-sooce.



שקר הסוס לתשועה

"Sheqer h'sooce le'teshuah..."

"Deceptive is 'the horse' for deliverance..." (Psalm 33:17)


The letter 'H' of the Hebrew alphabet became the 'E' of the Greek alphabet....

'hey-sooce' of Hebrew becomes 'eay-sooce' of Greek.... in English becomes....now how do we "frame our lips to pronounce it" ? ....oh yeah.

Coincidence?

"Alexemos Worships his God" ...... 'The Alexamenos graffito', Look it up.

Coincidence?

And this is only the tip of that particular string of 'coincidences' regarding 'hey-sooce' 'the horse' and his 'riders'.

Gen 49:17, Prov 21:31, Jer 51:21, Amo 2:15

aa5874

Apologetic sources have confirmed that for Hundreds of years it was Not established at all even among Christians how Jesus came into existence.

Up to the 5th century, Augustine of Hippo and Faustus were still arguing about the nature of Jesus.

But, they were really arguing the very same thing.

If Augustine agued that Jesus was born of a Ghost and Fautus argued that Jesus was NOT born then there is really no difference in the nature of Jesus.

Jesus was NOTHING real but was Believed to have existed.

That is all.

There was no documented evidence that Jesus was an actual man up to the 5th century or else Augustine of Hippo and Faustus would be considered IDIOTS by people of the Roman Empire.

There was No mention of Jesus Christ as a human being with a human father in Josephus, Tacitus or Pliny the younger or else Augustine and Faustus would have been considered Mad Men.

Jesus was merely a Belief of unknown origin.

Effectively Jesus was a literary construct invented in the 2nd century.

Duvduv

The fact is that Celsus and Origen fail to distinguish between the background setting of the son of Panthera of the Jews versus the gospel Jesus. And therefore the question is WHY is this so? Certainly it would strengthen Origen's position by pointing out this difference between the gospel setting and the Jewish one. Surely the Jews who informed Celsus also knew this. Nowhere is the first century a subject of dispute despite the fact that Celsus himself is described as living only a century after the gospel story.

Here again would seem to be a case where an opponent is actually used in a backhanded way to support the underlying premise of the Christian claim.

lmbarre

It is methodologically irrelevant that Christian works are biased. All works are biased. This practice of thinking that Christian literature somehow "doesn't count" is wrong-headed. What matters is whether or not it is relevant data.

When mythicists arbitrarily "disqualify" literary data because it is Christian, and thus find no "evidence" of Jesus, they only fool themselves and those who do not have the methological sophistication to recognize their built-in bias.

Here is a listing ancient texts that are relevant to the investigation of the alleged historical Jesus.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

Furthermore, if written by Paul, which is certainly the consensus, Gal 1:19 and 1 Cor 9:5, eloquently and roundly debunk that mythicists' thesis that Jesus was a fictional character. The interpretation that adelphos/adelphoi as a literal sibling is beyond any serious doubt and harbors no credible figurative, alternative interpretation of the word in these contexts. Furthermore, even according to their bogus exclusion of Christian literature, there are secular sources that attest to the crucifixion of Jesus. Taken together, with the Pauline statement mentioned above, it is virtually certain that Jesus was a historical figure who has attracted legendary and mythological embellishments. In New Testament circles, this qualification is stated as the opposition of the Jesus of history verses the Christ of faith.