Tercel

Fiach,
If you are well acquainted with liberal Christians who do not believe things you assumed to be core Christian beliefs: Why then would you think they were core Christian beliefs?

Of course, exclusivism is common to many extremist sects.

Since you are an athiest, I would not expect you to agree with those core beliefs. If you agree you cannot disprove them then that is fine and we are agreed: Arguing that was the main point of my post.

I am very skeptical that a biological argument could be useful or sucessful against a claimed miracle such as the resurrection.

Each sect of Christians doubtless has relatively well defined, clearly understood beliefs. But here we are talking about what "Christians" as a whole believe: It's kind of like asking what "Americans" believe. It is inevitably going to be difficult to pin down.

As much as it provides a convenient defense for apologetics purposes, the diversity of Christianity is truth like it or not. Personally I'd greatly prefer all Christians believed exactly the same thing (ie what I believe) and worked together in perfect unity: No doubt every other Christian would feel the same way!

Gregg

No offense, Terc, but I'm not too terribly impressed thus far. This is a pretty scattershot approach, not a coherent argument. However, I promise I'll read the whole thing and offer some comments.

Gregg

lpetrich

Whatever references those are.

And I think it interesting that the Jesus-myth hypothesis should get Radorth's goat so much.

Tercel

It's not an argument, it's a list with comments. I originally constructed it for personal use to help me address Doherty's arguments, but I thought "what-the-hey, I might as well formalise it and stick it online along with my critique when I finish that".

The list has been really helpful to me for constructing counters to Doherty's standard generalised false statements such as:
"The earliest reference to Jesus as any kind of a teacher comes in 1 Clement, just before Ignatius, who himself seems curiously unaware of any of Jesus' teachings. To find the first indication of Jesus as a miracle worker, we must move beyond Ignatius to the Epistle of Barnabas.....
.....The first century epistles regularly give moral maxims, sayings, admonitions, which in the Gospels are spoken by Jesus, without ever attributing them to him." -Doherty (Part 1: A Conspiracy of Silence)

I can have a look down the list and find 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, 1 Corinthians 9:14, 1 Corinthians 11:23, Ephesians 2:17, Colossians 3:16, 1 Timothy 6:3, Hebrews 1:1-2, Hebrews 2:3-4, 1 John 3:23 etc. Which are somewhat useful in constructing a refutation.

Thanks.

Gregg

I have to take issue with your term "standard generalized false statements." This sounds like a pretty way of saying "lies." But be that as it may, Doherty clearly distinguishes between a spiritual being in heaven teaching by revelation (the apostles being "those who heard him," or through Scripture, and a person on earth teaching by, well, teaching.

Doherty probably should have left the absolute word "ever" out of his sentence. But the point is, Doherty does not ignore the passages you list above...on the contrary, he addresses many of them in depth elsewhere on his site. So what you are doing with your list is a bit dishonest--picking on isolated statements of Doherty's and suggesting that this somehow discredits his entire argument.

By the way, I looked at some of these quotes, and I found Ephesians 2:17 interesting: "And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near." Have you really read this carefully? Jesus literally came and preached to these Ephesians, these Gentiles? Where in the gospels does it say Jesus went to Ephesus and preached to the gentiles there? Wasn't that worth recording?

Gregg

Gregg

Tercel,

I've written responses to about half of the comments in your draft. I've got it saved as a Word file. I don't think you can attach Word files to posts, can you? If not, could you PM me your e-mail and I'll send the file.

Gregg

lpetrich

That would be the town of Ephesus, where (according to Acts) Paul had a run-in with those who objected to being put out of business by denying the basis of their business -- making silver statuettes of the Artemis of the Ephesians.

He got off very easy, but it's a pity that his successors have been total ingrates.

And his successors invented a substitute -- they turned Jesus Christ's mother into a sort-of mother-goddess. And she was given the title "Mother of God" by a Church council that met in 431 in (guess where?) Ephesus.

Fiach

Christianity is a religious amoeba. It slips and slides along. It gobbles up pagan cults and takes its gods. It gives those older gods a "paint job" and engine tune up, and gives them their old jobs back. I think Mary was invented after Jesus. It may be because there were so many venerated female goddesses of fertility, or the Mother earth. Artemis, Diana, Athena, Cybele, Venus were early examples. In Ireland Patrick let them similarly incorporate Sila na nGig, Eriu, Danu, Brigid, Babd, Morrignu, Morgana all became transformed into one or more Saints and the Mother of God. Their sacred springs and shrines just underwent name changes while still doing the same curing of diseases, cleansing of sin, and renewal of fertility.

The major success of Christianity has been its ability to cannibalise pagan cults and in a way become like them with new names. Old Celtic Christianity was not very different from Druidism. It has a "Celtic Cross" with no body on it, and intricate intertwined curving lines, 4 centuries before Christianity. It rather conveniently resembled the Christian plain cross or the crucifix with a body on it. Patrick gave up on that when Irish pagan Kings called Christianity the "Religion of the Dead God." Similar assimilation occurred with the Egyptians earlier, and the Greeks earlier thant the Celts. Much later it was used to incorporate asatru and Mayan/Incan Indian customs.

Fiach

Radorth

Re: Ipetrich

Heh. Are you kidding? JM'ers are just an endless source of satirical fodder. Hence the number of my comments. What's interesting to me is what myth JM'ers make up themselves to answer all the questions raised by rational readers.

Which of thirty JM hypotheses were you talking about BTW?

Sorry, only Durant's hypothesis really irritates me.

Rad

Biff the unclean

Ahh, Fiach, you already know Mary the Mother of God, you just know her by another name.
In Ireland (sorry I studied Irish mythology and not Scottish) we had a Goddess named Brig and later Brigit. She was a triune Goddess having three aspects The Nymph, The Virgin (Mother) and The Crone (wise woman) It was her snakes that Patrick drove out of Ireland. She is the Goddess of inspiration, the one who brings the creative fire to the mind of the poet.
In the Far West she was Brig, but she was a pan-Celtic Goddess, worshiped by all the Celts, though by a different name with each group.
The Celts who lived farthest to the East were the Galatians (who lived in what is modern day Turkey and not people of a very similar name who lived in what is now Spain) and they called her Mary. The Goddess Mary had temples as far away from Galatia as Alexandria by 50 BCE. With one of the largest temples to her being found in Tarsus.
She appears in the NT in all her aspects. All three together attend the crucifixion. The virgin mother, The Nymph (Magdalene) and the Crone (Mary Sister of Lazarus)