Freethought & Rationalism Archive

jules? · 10-14-2007, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

So we probably will never find an hj but we may be able to find an author or authors and a good idea of who the character is modelled on - it may be an antithesis of Augustus!

Who hated Augustus? Anthony and Cleopatra? A Roman supporter of Anthony in Egypt?

Quote:

Mark Antony later charged that Octavian had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favours, though Suetonius describes Antony's accusation as political slander.[22]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus

I am actually finding the case for the gospels origins in Roman social/political literary circles quite compelling. I can certainly see the political case however i think that it is possible to find a Hj of sorts [Jesus ben Pandira VS Alexander Jannaeus (106-79 BC actually being an historical incident] as well as the need for Jewish mysticism to have developed and then escaped into the wider community. A gestation within the DSS scroll community allows for the last supper and the twelve and even an origin for the twin myth. As for its wider breakout i wonder if JCs [Julius Caesar's] 44 comet held some resonance with Qumran belief in a battle complete with heavenly angels emerging as the little apocalpse, the appearance and return of a heavenly christ, the birth star etc.

I am not making any particular case it just happens to be something that fits the bill for me.

JoeWallack · 10-14-2007, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jules?

taking the default stance that 'Mark' wrote fiction why did he/she get the execution so wrong. Everything is wrong [i will happly be corrected], Pilate is involved in an internal crime, wrong, death by crucifixtion, wrong. A Jewish crime was met with Jewish Justice, stoning. Crimes of revolution against Rome would warrant crucifixtion but then there would be no pardon, no mercy, no quick death, it would be a slow gruesome example. It would be public, not viewable from a far.

Mark evidently had other priorities, not least to write up Isaiah's Suffering Servant {plus the psalm] complete with being ignored, humble, silent beaten and pierced, to be confusingly buried with criminals then to have riches [makes sense with crucifixtion with criminals and a richmans tomb]. Perhaps the point was not to have a plausible trial and execution which makes me wonder what the point of Mark's narrative is. Matt is reclaiming Mark's story for a jewish reader, Luke is just doing a spot of research and John takes a passion play and turns it into a religious document. Wouldn't it be funny if it just turned out that 'Mark' was a playwrite, and in the spirit of Aristotle's teachings [particularly tragidy] took a myth in circulation and made it their own.

JW:
My guess is that Paul supplied "Mark" with the basic idea here:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Galatians_3

"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:"

Again, Paul starts with the conclusion that Jesus is the Messiah of the Jewish Bible based on his Death. Because the Jewish Bible is clear that the Messiah is defined by his Life Paul is forced to make Ironic/Ridiculous/Dishonest arguments like this. All his arguments are like this.

"Mark" is using this idea to flesh out the Ironic Contrast in his Narrative of Jesus Bar Abba, who brought Peace, being Condemned like a Rebel, Verses Jesus Barabbas (the evidence indicates that "Jesus Barabbas" is original to "Matthew" and if so, was probably copied from "Mark"), who brought Rebellion, being Freed like a Tzadick. Methinks that "Mark" is also referring to the Historical Rebels who used the Temple as a Base per Josephus:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Mark_14

48 "And Jesus answered and said unto them, Are ye come out, as against a robber, with swords and staves to seize me?

49 I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye took me not: but [this is done] that the scriptures might be fulfilled."

The Greek word for "robber" above also means "rebel", just as "Mark" later describes Barabbas.

Is this Type of Ironic Contrast usually Historical? Did the Romans usually crucify those they thought innocent of Rebellion and free those they thought guilty of Rebellion? Of course not. Implausible. Christianity claims Pilate agreed to crucify Jesus because of the crowd. Why would "the crowd" want Jesus crucified? Because the Priests convinced the crowd? How did they do that? "Mark" can't seem to tell us. Presumably this was the same crowd that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem. And how could Paul, an observant Jew according to Paul, miss all this? For that matter, why didn't anyone at the Trials remember the Temple Tantrum which historically probably would have earned summary execution on the spot.

For the HJ's here, who all seem to have disappeared to wherever the hell Jesus has been for the last 2,000 years, exactly how much of "Mark's" Passion account do you have to exorcise before it becomes plausible?

Joseph

dog-on · 10-15-2007, 12:48 AM

Joe,

HJ proponents simply assume Jesus must have been real. This is the basis from which they begin their arguments, a case of special pleading.

I, myself, don't get it...

angelo · 10-15-2007, 04:17 AM

No, the passion account as recounted in the gospels is not plausible.
First of all, Jesu's followers ran for their lives leaving no one to recount what happened, let alone what was said.
Secondly, if a jesus really was executed, his followers would be at a loss to understand how it came about since he was supposed to be their messiah, and they would have felt to be in a hopeless situation. Until some of them would start to interpret the whole affair as a revelation that this Jesus was meant to die for the sins of mankind and therefore the lamb of god.
Not quite what was expected from their reading of the OT. But never the less, they made up stories of this Jesus being far from defeated by returning from the grave and ascending into heaven. [ in a nutshell ]

JoeWallack · 10-15-2007, 06:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Joe,

HJ proponents simply assume Jesus must have been real. This is the basis from which they begin their arguments, a case of special pleading.

I, myself, don't get it...

JW:
Just for the record, I Am HJ (barely). Every time I read a related post of Spin's though I move back towards my former Agnosticism. I see Paul and "Mark" Reacting negatively towards HJ witness, Q, and that is as close as you can get to evidence for HJ. Per Spin, this is only "data" and doesn't even reach the level of "evidence". He might be right.

Apologists are trying to use the comparison argument to prove HJ and tragically even some Skeptics here (none of the "elite" though) are accepting this nonsense. This type of comparison can be useful to consider possible bias but has become mainly a distraction from the proper Test for HJ:

What is the D - I - S -T - A - N - C - E between the existing evidence for HJ and good evidence for HJ?

The point is the Standard should never change. Apologists want to change it to what existing evidence would be expected. Time is the problem and is inversely related to proof of historicity. There's no getting around that.

By an Act of Providence the Reverent Jim Walker has just updated his related classic article:

http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm

He has this to say about the Alexander comparison:

Quote:

COMPARING JESUS TO OTHER HISTORICAL FIGURES

Many Christian apologists attempt to extricate themselves from their lack of evidence by claiming that if we cannot rely on the post chronicle exegesis of Jesus, then we cannot establish a historical foundation for other figures such as Alexander the Great, Augustus Caesar, Napoleon, etc. However, there sits a vast difference between historical figures and Jesus. There occurs either artifacts, writings, or eyewitness accounts for historical people, whereas, for Jesus we have nothing.

Alexander, for example, left a wake of destroyed and created cities behind. We have buildings, libraries and cities, such as Alexandria, left in his name. We have treaties, and even a letter from Alexander to the people of Chios, engraved in stone, dated at 332 B.C.E. For Agustus Caesar, we have the Res gestae divi augusti, the emperor's own account of his works and deeds, a letter to his son (Epistula ad Gaium filium), Virgil's eyewitness accounts, and much more. Napoleon left behind artifacts, eyewitness accounts and letters. We can establish some historicity to these people because we have evidence that occurred during their life times. Yet even with contemporary evidence, historians have become wary of after-the-fact stories of many of these historical people. For example, some of the stories of Alexander's conquests, or Nero starting the fire in Rome always get questioned or doubted because they contain inconsistencies or come from authors who wrote years after the alleged facts. In qualifying the history of Alexander, Pierre Briant writes, "Although more than twenty of his contemporaries chronicled Alexander's life and campaigns, none of these texts survive in original form. Many letters and speeches attributed to Alexander are ancient forgeries or reconstructions inspired by imagination or political motives. The little solid documentation we possess from Alexander's own time is mainly to be found in stone inscriptions from the Greek cities of Europe and Asia." [Briant]

Inventing histories out of whole cloth or embellished from a seed of an actual historical event appears common throughout the chronicle of human thought. Robert Price observes, "Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Cyrus, King Arthur, and others have nearly suffered this fate. What keeps historians from dismissing them as mere myths, like Paul Bunyan, is that there is some residue. We know at least a bit of mundane information about them, perhaps quite a bit, that does not form part of any legend cycle." [Price, pp. 260-261]

Interestingly, almost all important historical people have descriptions of what they looked like. We have the image of Augustus Caesar cast on denarius coins, busts of Greek and Roman aristocrats, artwork of Napoleon, etc. We have descriptions of facial qualities, height, weight, hair length & color, age and even portraits of most important historical figures. But for Jesus, we have nothing. Nowhere in the Bible do we have a description of the human shape of Jesus. How can we rely on the Gospels as the word of Jesus when no one even describes what he looked like? How odd that none of the disciple characters record what he looked like, yet believers attribute them to know exactly what he said. Indeed, this gives us a clue that Jesus came to the gospel writers and indirect and through myth. Not until hundreds of years after the alleged Jesus did pictures emerge as to what he looked like from cult Christians, and these widely differed from a blond clean shaven, curly haired Apollonian youth (found in the Roman catacombs) to a long-bearded Italian as depicted to this day. This mimics the pattern of Greek mythological figures as their believers constructed various images of what their gods looked like according to their own cultural image.

Historial people leave us with contemporary evidence, but for Jesus we have nothing. If we wanted to present a fair comparison of the type of information about Jesus to another example of equal historical value, we could do no better than to compare Jesus with the mythical figure of Hercules.

JW:
We have huge problems with the Credibility of Christianity as an institution preserving supposed evidence for HJ:

1) Christianity's standard was Faith and not Science.

2) We are guaranteed that Christianity has preserved significant Assertians that are not Historical because of the Contradictions.

This is a L - O - N - G way from HJ.

Joseph

dog-on · 10-15-2007, 07:25 AM

Thanks for the post, Joseph.

Here then is the question. If one were to start from a position of absolute agnosticism, regarding Jesus; if all evidence for and against his existence would be presented; which side of the HJ/MJ fence must one fall on?

Based on the evidence I have seen, I would have to answer, myth.

jules? · 10-15-2007, 08:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Thanks for the post, Joseph.

Here then is the question. If one were to start from a position of absolute agnosticism, regarding Jesus; if all evidence for and against his existence would be presented; which side of the HJ/MJ fence must one fall on?

Based on the evidence I have seen, I would have to answer, myth.

Must one really fall off the fence? Personally i think the limited information does concern an HJ but perhaps not a single person, the Qumran community would have a number of messianic representatives which waited for the heavenly MJ to arrive. the MJ the one that is written about could be a composite of HJ [or HJs] dating from 200bce through to the middle of the 1st century CE. If we were to talk about king arthur then these definitions of historical or myth would be less important and there is room then to have the far more colourful history of part man part myth or for that matter part men part myths. Josephus rather liked his definates and perhaps it is a Roman thing this need to have it one thing or the other.
jules

dog-on · 10-15-2007, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jules?

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Thanks for the post, Joseph.

Here then is the question. If one were to start from a position of absolute agnosticism, regarding Jesus; if all evidence for and against his existence would be presented; which side of the HJ/MJ fence must one fall on?

Based on the evidence I have seen, I would have to answer, myth.

Must one really fall off the fence? Personally i think the limited information does concern an HJ but perhaps not a single person, the Qumran community would have a number of messianic representatives which waited for the heavenly MJ to arrive. the MJ the one that is written about could be a composite of HJ [or HJs] dating from 200bce through to the middle of the 1st century CE. If we were to talk about king arthur then these definitions of historical or myth would be less important and there is room then to have the far more colourful history of part man part myth or for that matter part men part myths. Josephus rather liked his definates and perhaps it is a Roman thing this need to have it one thing or the other.
jules

Ok, just show the evidence for the "part man" part of the "part man part myth". Arguing for a composite character only begs the question for the evidence for the actual men used to form the composite. So, specifically who would you point to and say, "that's the guy, or these were the guys".

aa5874 · 10-15-2007, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Ok, just show the evidence for the "part man" part of the "part man part myth". Arguing for a composite character only begs the question for the evidence for the actual men used to form the composite. So, specifically who would you point to and say, "that's the guy, or these were the guys".

Your statement highlights the problem for HJers. The plausibilty or implausibity of the Passion story does not establish an historical account for Jesus, the son of a ghost, according to the NT.

For example, if I said I spent the week-end in New York or on the planet called Mars, the statement may affect my credibility or sanity but not my historicity.

The HJ claim is specific, that is, there was one singular person whose mother was Mary, who had thousands of followers with 12 disciples and was crucified after a trial, declared to be the Messiah and considered to be the son of a god during the times of Pilate.

An HJ needs an historical record not a plausibilty scale.

jules? · 10-15-2007, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Quote:

Originally Posted by jules?

Must one really fall off the fence? .................................................. .......................
jules

Ok, just show the evidence for the "part man" part of the "part man part myth". Arguing for a composite character only begs the question for the evidence for the actual men used to form the composite. So, specifically who would you point to and say, "that's the guy, or these were the guys".

The tricky bit is finding evidence that everyone agrees upon. So what is accepted? I wouldnt want to waste time finding referances that are commonly accepted.

Mark is the earlist gospel, dating from 70-90 ce, agreed?

Mark is educated, is certainly not writing from experience but has collected sayings, perhaps letters of Paul and wraps them up in narrative/play style [for what ever reason]. is this agreeable?

Paul is peddling a savior to Hellinised Jews and Greeks. One may presume all that money he is collecting is not going to repair the parish church roof. Elements of his 'christ' are gnostic/mystery tradition as well as having a Jewish end time theme. Despite the mystery school 'flavour' it is also evengelical with a very public damnation for non-believers. Is this agreeable?

Revelation is an early 'christian' document, possibly doctored later on but none the less early, perhaps pre Paul, Agreed?

Book of Enoch and other Jewish apocalyptic literature is reflective of early 'christian' belief. agreed?

Early christians are doom mongering end timers expecting the imminant arrival of a heavenly jesus or rather heavenly saviour/destroyer. is this agreeable.

I understand this is the mythical part but i need to start somewhere, and also do some homework.

I am open to variations and in fact they may help, will have to see.
jules

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10-15-2007, 12:48 AM	#103
dog-on Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 3,397	Joe, HJ proponents simply assume Jesus must have been real. This is the basis from which they begin their arguments, a case of special pleading. I, myself, don't get it...

10-15-2007, 04:17 AM	#104
angelo Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 5,706	No, the passion account as recounted in the gospels is not plausible. First of all, Jesu's followers ran for their lives leaving no one to recount what happened, let alone what was said. Secondly, if a jesus really was executed, his followers would be at a loss to understand how it came about since he was supposed to be their messiah, and they would have felt to be in a hopeless situation. Until some of them would start to interpret the whole affair as a revelation that this Jesus was meant to die for the sins of mankind and therefore the lamb of god. Not quite what was expected from their reading of the OT. But never the less, they made up stories of this Jesus being far from defeated by returning from the grave and ascending into heaven. [ in a nutshell ]

10-15-2007, 07:25 AM	#106
dog-on Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 3,397	Thanks for the post, Joseph. Here then is the question. If one were to start from a position of absolute agnosticism, regarding Jesus; if all evidence for and against his existence would be presented; which side of the HJ/MJ fence must one fall on? Based on the evidence I have seen, I would have to answer, myth.

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