gstafleu

Aha, now I get it: you are a crypto-IDer! (No, this is not just a quip, I'm actually making a point here. Think about it.)

Gerard

gstafleu

My claim is not vague because we both know that the FBI process exists and is effective. The details of how FBI operated in this case is, as it stands, certainly not known in any detail (although we do know from other experience it is up to the job). But then, neither is your HJ examinable in any detail, so we do not differ there.

But we have made some progress, I think: it looks as if you now get the idea that my Jesus was generated by a process, and that hence the question is: what evidence is there that a process (FBI) can do such a thing. Your Jesus is (in part) generated by a historical person, so there the question is: what is the evidence that such a person existed.

Gerard

Amaleq13

You aren't making a point at all. There is no comparison between assuming that a creator is needed for the existence of the universe and that a creator is needed for a religious movement.

Or are you aware of examples of spontaneously self-generating religious movements?

Amaleq13

Your claim is vague because you really don't say anything specific. You can't say who or where or when or why or even how this process resulted in the mess of evidence we have today. Yet you insist that this rather vague claim must be considered "more likely"? :huh:

I disagree since the HJ position can tell me who, where, when, and why. You seem to me to trying to use the specificity of the HJ position against it as though it were a weakness. That makes no sense. They offer more and you call it "extra" leading to a default position of MJ. :huh:

No, the question is: what evidence is there that the process did do such a thing without any connection to actual events.

Yes, so it is not an extra "component" and the MJ position has no short-cut to "most likely".

No Robots

Maybe that's the key to this whole mythicist project, that at its core is belief in a kind of social indeterminacy, a sociological parallel to the quantum indeterminacy of physics. In this view, all causal factors are to be dismissed as ultimately unverifiable, leaving us with mysterious and unknowable forces guiding our social development. Hmm. You know who else believed in mysterious and unknowable forces guiding our social development?

Toto

I think that mythicists see this as more like a religious market, or an evolutionary process. There are no mysterious or unknowable forces.

There was a creator or at least an initiator of Christianity, but there is no reason to think that it was Jesus or someone who knew him.

No Robots

I dunno, "religious market" and "evolutionary process" seem pretty obscurantist to me.

aa5874

The who, where, when and why for the HJ position was supplied by an ANGEL or some kind of MYTHICAL entity.

The who, where, when and why of HJ can be found in gMatthew or gLuke as dictated by at least one ANGEL named Gabriel.

Matthew 1.20-25 The WHO, WHERE, WHEN AND WHY OF JESUS as provided by the ANGEL.

jjramsey

A supposition that doesn't make much sense when Matthew quotes the Septuagint. Also, if Matthew were dealing with a summary or paraphrase of Judges 13, it would be difficult to avoid the definition of a nazirite, since it is a part of a key plot point in Samson's story.

Shoehorning. Matthew is stuck with Jesus being from Nazareth and feels that he needs to force-fit prophecy to justify this. If one wants to be really cynical, one could suppose that he is making the prophecy up. That certainly makes more sense than the idea that Matthew could be in a position to know about Judges 13 without knowing what a nazirite is. And it's not as if we haven't seen people force-fit prophecies to known facts.

And some conclusions are so wild as to be almost impossible to make without resort to bad methodology.

And if you've paid attention, you'd have noticed that the HJers are not all using that method, and most of the HJers here aren't. Let's retire that strawman, shall we?

aa5874

HJers have been using SILENCE, PLAUSIBLITY, and ANECDOTES all along to support their HJ.

Even though HJers reject the anecdotes of the conception and birth of Jesus of the angels, HJers still, in effect, agree with the angels about his name.

Even though, the crucifixion scene is riddled with dubious and clear erroneous information, HJers still imagine that the event occurred during the days of Pilate as stated in the NT.

The actual name of HJ does not have to be Jesus, HJ does not have to live during the days of Pilate and HJ does not have to be crucified.

HJers cannot rely on the erroneous information from the NT and without external corroboration declare that there was an HJ, but that is exactly what they have one.

The HJ is a case of futility, since no event with respect to Jesus in the NT can be verified, corroboated or even assumed to have really occurred at any time.