Sheshbazzar

More correctly, as often conceived of, with the wings, halo's, glowing nimbus, and performing miracles no, not likely. (although some so insist)

However, the original Hebrew term מלאך -'mal'akh'- simply designates one who is a 'messenger' or an 'ambassador' and 'messengers' and 'ambassadors' minus the wings, halo's, glowing nimbus, and performance of miracles, most certainly do exist.
One might encounter one anywhere at any time without even recognizing him, her, or it as being a 'messenger'.
Sometimes all it takes is even looking at a particular person, or a thing to 'get the message'.
Even an ant working industriously, or a dumb ass braying, might convey a 'message' to the perceptive.
Or a statement made by a neighbor or by a chance stranger that instigates a change in one's behavior, or thought, or causes one to 'move on'.

That is how, after 57 years of living in mid-Michigan, I pulled up stakes and moved to the hills of Kentucky. 'Messengers' of various sorts had 'spoken' to me in various ways until I finally 'got' the message, and hauled ass for the hills.
Even my 'ol hound dog here tells me lots of things, when I am willing to listen close enough.

Sheshbazzar The Hebrew

Adam

One would think FRDB could come up with a protest from someone more notable than Shesh, but he seems to be the only one willing to lose to me again and again. Shesh protested everything I ever said, so I hope he is not claiming some unique prescience here.
Nor does "Q" exist, but it is well accepted. Proto-Luke is widely accepted as well, though not quite so much. Its lesser status is due to doubts about whether it included the Passion Narrative. The proper resolution is that the Passion Narrative existed prior to and separate from Proto-Luke, but was read after the end of it.
I recently posted here a detailed text of the
Passion Narrative at Post #243 of Falling Dominoes? I do contend that a text quite like that once existed (closer than the scholars' current text of Q is to the original Q). Various "prefaces" to it were added later, such as the Signs Gospel, gMark, and the Proto-Luke at issue here. Proto-Luke (Q plus L) was a text read in Jerusalem before reading the Passion Narrative, all this coming about before 70 CE. More technically by my definitions, this would be "The Gospel According to the Jews". This would be much like the Classic Liberal Jesus. However, since the Johannine Discourses were also available at this time and were likewise largely free of supernatural happenings, I lump it in together with these and call it "The Gospel According to the Atheists". I acknowledge that it never existed in this combined form, but modern atheists could extract these sources from the gospels and make a case for HJ as a more vainglorious form of what the Jesus Seminar presents. Even atheists can acknowledge a Thomas Jefferson type of non-supernatural Jesus.
I presented it many times, starting
Gospel Eyewitnesses Post #561 Yes, the Passion Narrative portion thereof was "unreadable", but see link above.
Simmer down there. I certainly never claimed that mythicists would acknowledge my text. Only on FRDB (and a few other similar sites) would "atheist" be equated to "mythicist". Lots of atheists are HJ, as Shesh should know full well. I have even specifically stated that I regard my findings as disproving MJ (in its hard form that we can know that there is no evidence for a historical Jesus). I have presented four sources each of which shows Jesus existed, but leaving open which if any of these give a history of Jesus. There will stll be the battle between Liberal, failed prophet, or (for non-atheists) Son of God.
Already refuted above.

Sheshbazzar

You wish. But you have no evidence at all that what you wish, represents any account of the facts.
Your claim is nothing more than conjecture which you, apparently having failed 7th grade Composition, still do not comprehend how to present in an acceptable and non-assertive fashion.
Perhaps a few hours spent in a remedial English Composition course would teach you how to compose your material in an acceptable manner
No, you DID NOT. You posted a string of disconnected verse numbers. That does NOT comprise a TEXT. and no such TEXT or DOCUMENT exists.
Then you are ADMITTING that this 'TEXT', if it ever existed, -no longer exists.
Atheists can acknowledge a Thomas Jefferson type of non-supernatural Jesus. But then most Atheists, even 'HJ' ones have little cause nor inclination to take the liberty of fabricating imaginary horse-shit texts to fit their horse-shit theories like you do.
The TEXTS are what they are, and they DO contain all that they contain, and until you can actually present a genuine earlier TEXT that actually lacks all of these huge swaths of TEXT that you propose to omit, you don't even have a leg to stand on.
That is not a TEXT nor a DOCUMENT, but a collection of 'chicken parts' verse numbers culled from the documents of christiasn mythology.
As I have stated in previous threads you present nothing more than a bunch of 'plucked and dismembered chicken pieces rearranged' to suit yourself, and then continue add to and subtract from that pile of offal without any explanation, rhyme, or reason. "omit this", "add this", "substitute this for that". etcetera

Still crap.


You still have not produced any damned TEXT to acknowledge. A freaking list of verse numbers culled from various books is NOT a TEXT.
Anyone with eyes can see that big RED * and see my footnote directed to HJ believing Atheists.
"*IF any of our HJ faction desires to accept the premise of a "Gospel According to the Atheists" existing, or its contents, let them bring forth and produce any such DOCUMENT.

Ah Ah Ah. :devil: First of all you have failed miserably to disprove MJ.
You flatter yourself, that you 'regard' yourself to have done so is really of very little consequence here. (or anywhere else for that matter)

You have presented four sources. But these 'four sources' could very well be entirely fictional, as it is well known many MJ'ers hold.
There is no evidence at all that these 'individuals' were ever anything more than literary bit characters in a heavily mythical religious tale.

You have failed miserably at demonstrating that these characters were ever living, breathing, human beings. Or that they ever did any of the things reported within these myths.
As such, your presentation of these likely to be mythical bit characters proves nothing at all with regards to the existence of any such Jebus.
Or just a bunch of made up literary horse-shit.
...And the continued possibility of an entirely mythical religious literary creation.
Your flaky and shaky propositions do not, contrary to your boasting, at all discredit the MJ position.
My ass. just more of the same old insane horse-shit from the insane horse-shit Liar-for-Zombie-Jebus camp.

Kapyong

Gday,

The ancient versions of the story come in two versions - one has the jar filled with good things, which were lost when it was opened.

Theognis has a version suggesting it contained good things :

In a major departure from Hesiod, the 6th-century BC Greek elegiac poet Theognis of Megara tells us:

Hope is the only good god remaining among mankind;
the others have left and gone to Olympus.
Trust, a mighty god has gone, Restraint has gone from men,
and the Graces, my friend, have abandoned the earth.
Men’s judicial oaths are no longer to be trusted, nor does anyone
revere the immortal gods; the race of pious men has perished and
men no longer recognize the rules of conduct or acts of piety.

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

The other has it filled with evil, which spread when it was opened.

As to what was left - Greek elpis or "hope" - it is not clear if hope was left for man, or kept away from mankind. Again showing two different flavours of the myth.


Consistency means falsehood ?

But no-one witnessed Jesus. None of the NT writings were by witnesses.


K.

Adam

What is the use answering Shesh in #103 above? What Shesh says here is often opposite to what he says elsewhere. I should be non-assertive? Elsewhere he highlights wherever I say "probably" or "could be". Or the reverse, not complaining earlier that my Post #243 Passion Narrative was just verses, not text--apparently he forgot what he read earlier and did not recheck again to see that it was precisely the text he had asked for. And as always, he shows no evidence that he has read past a dozen verses of my proposed text.

I've yet to see any Mythicist suggest who might have written the various gospel layers as fiction. I have shown the written record fits neatly the perspective of that single eyewitness in each source (no omniscient narrator, at least not in the sources). The source layers are well recognized in scholarly works, so my theory cannot be waved without substituting a better answer. Denying Q gets around the problem, but only by creating bigger problem.
You rely on Fundamentalists who focus on the four canonical gospels rather that the sources underlying them; the former you can explain, the latter you can't.

Sheshbazzar

Went back and read your links at least twice while posting. Disconnected 'chicken parts' culled from the actual content of the well known texts. You have not provided a text or document, but a badly cut up butchery.
I said it before and I'll say it again. I'd accept the original TEXT, and that Jebus really is up in heaven writing all this down before I'd ever accept that hack job you impose on these texts.

Then you must read the posts appearing on this Forum with your head shoved up that place where the sun don't shine.
In hundreds, if not thousands of posts, the mythicists have repeatedly presented that these 'Gospel' writings are the product of anonymous church writers and these 'Gospels' weren't composed until the 2nd century CE.
Not one writer of these Gospels ever laid eye on any living Jebus the christus.
It is all only religious hear-say TRADITION expanded and written down by unknown church theologian writers some 100+ years after the alleged events.
They were no more 'eyewitnesses' to any living breathing Jebus than you are an 'eyewitness' to an equally fictional circa 1900 'Yacob the Jew'.
Claiming that there were originally shorter less mythological texts has no validity without being able to provide actual genuine copies of such texts. Butchering the present texts will not substitute for providing that necessary evidence.

And doing so proves nothing.
Baloney. Nothing in these alleged sources is presented in the first person singular.
Not one writer ever states that he his self was personally present to observe any of these alleged events, or ever uses personal pronouns that would indicated any personal presence or involvement. The entire Gospel Texts consist of mythical narrations by unidentified parties.

Yes, scholars can identify source layers. But none that amount to shit as scholars, are stupid enough to try to claim that they can positively identify by name the actual writers of these various layers.

Unfortunately for you, it can be waved away because it is not supported by any scholarship, and rests entirely upon accepting your line of horse-shit. Christian scholars won't buy it, and neither will we.

Your problem. No one here has even attempted to 'deny Q'.
We all agree that The Gospels contain layers. We simply do not accept YOUR utterly bogus claim to be able to positively identify by name the authors of those layers.

And neither can you. A collection of horse-shit and unprovable ass-ertions about the origin of various portions of texts does not stand as an acceptable explanation.
Your theory sunk without leaving a ripple when you presented it on christian sites, and it is all the more bound to sink here.
Even Christians, those with a highly vested reason to 'buy' it, know better.
Otherwise we would by now be seeing your amazing 'discoveries' and your name being trumpeted from a thousand Christian sources. Instead the Christian response to your doo-doo has been silence.

Why do you suppose that is Adam? Are all these Christian scholars really that much stupider than you?

J-D

Not answering other posters' questions is something you do more than any other poster here.

J-D

Mind-boggling or not, what you offer here as if you imagine it clears up the confusion in fact is just another example of it.

In consecutive sentences you offer two different and non-equivalent definitions. If you suppose they are equivalent, you err.

'A real human Jesus' is one thing; 'a real human Jesus in Galilee when Pilate was Governor of Judea' is another.

The formulation 'a real human Jesus' does not capture what people here mean when they use the term 'historical Jesus'. As I pointed out earlier, in its literal sense the statement 'there was a real human Jesus' is proved true by the example of Jesus Maria Ciriaco Jimenez Zamora, who was twice President of Costa Rica. But people here who use the term 'historical Jesus' are not referring to Jesus Maria Ciriaco Jimenez Zamora. Therefore the definition 'a real human Jesus' is inadequate to capture what they mean by 'historical Jesus'.

Although Jesus Maria Ciriaco Jimenez Zamora was a real human Jesus, he was not a real human Jesus in Galilee when Pilate was Governor of Judea. But we don't have a comprehensive list of the names of all the real human people in Galilee when Pilate was Governor of Judea. I don't know whether there was a Deborah or a Naomi or an Isaac or an Ezra or a Michal among the real human people in Galilee when Pilate was Governor of Judea, and I expect you don't either, so I don't see how you could know whether there was a Jesus among them, either. For all I know, there may have been more than one Jesus among the real human people in Galilee when Pilate was Governor of Judea. But that definition is also inadequate to capture what people here mean by 'historical Jesus'. Suppose that next month an archaeological dig somewhere in Galilee finds a document or inscription definitely datable to the period when Pilate was Governor of Judea and referring to a contemporary individual by the name of Jesus. That would show there was a real human Jesus in Galilee when Pilate was Governor of Judea, but I don't think it would be accepted by people here as evidence of whatever it is they mean by a 'historical Jesus'. Therefore, 'a real human Jesus in Galilee when Pilate was Governor of Judea' is not a sufficiently clear definition of what people here mean by the term 'historical Jesus'.

Sheshbazzar

Why the hell would anyone in their right mind, Reading in a Forum titled "BIBLE CRITICISM & HISTORY think that 'A real human Jesus' would be referring to Jesus Maria Ciriaco Jimenez Zamora???
One gets sick of needless hair-splitting and obfuscation for the sheer sake of being obtuse.

J-D

You have offered, in two consecutive posts, two different explanations of the terminology, and they are not equivalent, which is more evidence of the confusion I've been talking about.

The two statements 'none of the statements in the canonical Christian Gospels are records of historical fact' and 'some of the statements in the canonical Christian Gospels are records of historical fact' are sufficiently clear to define a division between two positions which are logically exclusive and exhaustive possibilities: that is, it is not possible that they are both true and it is not possible that they are both false--it has to be one or the other. (It is noteworthy that when the issue is defined that way, there is no direct reference to any 'Jesus' at all.) But I don't think it's true that everybody here would accept the definition of 'historicist' as meaning 'some of the statements in the canonical Christian Gospels are records of historical fact' and 'mythicist' as meaning 'none of the statements in the canonical Christian Gospels are records of historical fact'.

As far as I can tell, in your other post your definition of the 'historicist' position is something like 'the first Christians were the followers of a Jewish teacher or reformer who decided to break with Judaism after his death' and your definition of the 'mythicist' position is something like 'at some point in the history of Christianity, somebody had a vision of a saviour under the name of Jesus, and at some later point in the history of Christianity people began to believe (incorrectly) that this saviour had once existed as a real human being'. This is more problematic than the other approach. First, it's not clear that it's impossible for both statements to be true. Second, it's not clear that it's impossible for both statements to be false.

In any case, the statement 'the first Christians were the followers of a Jewish teacher or reformer who decided to break with Judaism after his death' is not equivalent to 'some of the statements in the canonical Christian Gospels are records of historical fact'. Likewise, the statement 'at some point in the history of Christianity, somebody had a vision of a saviour under the name of Jesus, and at some later point in the history of Christianity people began to believe (incorrectly) that this saviour had once existed as a real human being' is not equivalent to 'none of the statements in the canonical Christian Gospels are records of historical fact'.

Since you have there not one definition of 'historicist' but two (non-equivalent ones), and not one definition of 'mythicist' but two (non-equivalent ones), plainly you have not yet succeeded in giving a sufficiently clear definition of what is at issue for meaningful discussion to be possible.