gurugeorge

What point? We don't know whether the earthly, super-powered human being Hercules was totally made up or not. Likewise, we don't know whether the earthly, super-powered human being Jesus was totally made up or not.

In both cases, there might have been a human being behind the myth, but there's nothing in the legends that could make you say for sure that "yes, there was a human being there". There are numerous other possibilities - "urban legend" type development; sheer fiction; entities seen in visions, etc.

The difficulty is about whether there's evidence of a human being in the stories, anything that would decide for a human origin for the myth.

gurugeorge

"Huge" difference? No, not really - especially not, if both are made up

I'd bat an eyelid if they said "highly" probable, but yes, there's certainly some believability there. There wouldn't be much of a reason to conjecture about a mythical JtB.

But that believability is of course missing in the parallel case with Jesus, because of the suspect nature of the TF.

GakuseiDon

You seem to be saying something important here, but it is beyond me, I'm afraid. By "historical Jesus", I mean someone who walked the earth and interacted with people around 2000 years ago. This is how the term appears to be used by Hoffman of the Jesus Project, by Earl Doherty, by Price, and by Peter Kirby in his list of "Historical Jesus Theories".

If you have a better term, I'll use it. In the meantime, I'll use "historical Jesus", to be consistent with everyone else.

GakuseiDon

Haha! True enough.

GakuseiDon

They weren't trying to write history like Josephus. Mark wrote to record the actions and sayings about a Jesus Christ who was crucified, whether he made it up or not. Paul, writing earlier than Mark, also wrote about a Jesus Christ who was crucified. Paul appears to have believed that Jesus Christ existed in some form. If Paul believed in a Jesus that came in the flesh -- and, beyond that, communicated that belief to groups throughout the Roman Empire -- then Mark coming along with his Gospel suggests he was recording the sayings and actions of the same Jesus Christ.

There are some permutations. For example, Paul was heavily interpolated on the "flesh" statements, or Paul had his own unique meanings on the terminology he used. So Mark wrote about a completely different Jesus Christ to the one that Paul wrote about.

But for those who think that Paul wrote about Jesus Christ being in the flesh to mean an actual person, and Mark wrote about a Jesus Christ who is the same person referred to by Paul, then Paul and Mark together are enough to assume the existence of a historical Jesus. There may not be any recoverable history in Mark's Gospel, but we have separate sources for the name "Jesus Christ".

dog-on

Not if Mark knows Paul we don't...

mountainman

This would make a very interesting interesting survey. Are there not already databases of extant ancient documents that might be used to create a list of the scope?

spin

It's fine for all these people to debate about a "historical Jesus". The term is modern and clearly meaningful to them. History is about what in varying degrees can be shown of the past. If something is historical it means that there is a clear evidence-based case for someone or thing to have existed. Lots of real people in the past never made it into the report of history. Jesus becomes the historical Jesus when he can be placed through evidence in a specific past reality. I've tried to indicate in the past that Jesus may have been real despite there being insufficient evidence for his existence, ie real but not historical. Then again Jesus may simply have not been real.

The problem comes when you retroject the notion into Paul's time and claim he talks about a historical Jesus. The best you can hope for is that Paul provides evidence for the existence of Jesus that we can use to substantiate a historical Jesus.


spin

avi

How can Paul provide "evidence" of anything?

Can Paul's testimony about Babe confirm the latter's methane gas production?

show_no_mercy

Along with a "historical" Jesus, Paul thought there was a historical Adam, a historical Eve, a historical Moses, a historical Joshua, and every other Biblical character. And just like Jesus, he is not a witness to any these characters. From my first post in this thread, I don't see how you can argue that just because someone thinks there was a living person behind the name, that this is evidence that this person existed.

If Paul is evidence for the existence of a "historical" Jesus, the Paul is evidence for a historical Adam.