mountainman

It is also important to be efficient in the business
of ancient history. Look, we could assign an extra
little check-box as a unique possible attribute against
every event, person, text, papryi, inscription, vase,
coin, statue, building, art-work, etc, etc, etc.

The checkbox shall be called "CLAIMS TO BE DIVINE".

Now this can be ticked on and off against a whole
range of evidence without substantially effecting
the principles of ancient history.

If Jesus Christ and the NT have the big tick in this
checkbox, well so what says the ancient historian.
The person and the texts are just any other person
and text in the great sucession of persons and
texts on this planet. The problem is to put them
in perspective.

What the text a fraud? If so who and when and why
and how. The CLAIMS TO BE DIVINE checkbox is not
used in an assessment of this nature. We are just looking
for a person in political history who had the most input
and the most to gain (or lose) in the publication of the
fraud. (If it is a fraud).

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

mountainman

Thanks for outlining this Finnhawk,

Such is my aversion to entering into the to's and fro's
of arguments related to atheism and theism (and of course
also the special pleading of christians) that I often flatly
state subscription to a simple belief that the whole
universe is alive, so as to circumvent contrained and
individual conjectures as to what might contitute either
divinity or the lack thereof.

Such argument is rarely productive.

My focus has been the field of ancient history.
At least there some of the ancient guidelines of
common sense are still adhered to.


I understand this man. I guess I only responded myself
in an effort to articulate that in the end the argumentation
needs to be decided in the field of ancient history.

I cant see how the 17 centuries of bickering about this
and that is going to be resolved without the appeal to
modern methods of analysis. Hot air (from both sides)
seems a wasted use of time.

The final arbitur on whether "Jesus existed" in the flesh,
in the first century CE, or was simply a docetic fiction
fabricated in a later century, or a combination of these
two historical possibilities, is the field of ancient history,
drawing upon (in todays world) the fields of science,
technology and archaeology.

Who knows what new information may surface?
Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Minimalist

aa5874

Well, you are making things a bit complicated, Homer's Achilles didn't need any checkbox to be considered a myth. You just read Homer's story and immediately you begin to realize this guy cannot be real, and then you look for historical sources to back up the story, if there is none you just can put Achilles in the "divine only" check box.

Again, Jesus was called the Son of God, the Christ, Elijah, son of David, he raised the dead, made the blind see, the deaf hear, and the lame walk, he was crucified and raised himself from the dead. Jesus had thousands of followers and beat people up in the temple and was preaching in the synagogues and cursing or rebuking the chief priest and Pharisees calling them devils and vipers, yet, he still did not observe the Sabbath.

He must have been the most talked about person in Judaea, everybody must have heard about this so-called Son of God, healer and Messiah, and thousands upon thousands must have seen him and personally have known him.

Well, let's check the credible historians and writers of the day.

There is absolutely nothing.

Just put Jesus in the "divine only" check box, like Achilles.