Metacrock

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Fred
{Originally posted by Meta}
"Call me old fashioned, but I "believe" it to be true and that is good enough. I think "truth" is worth sticking up for."
{End quote}

I have a problem with this. You wish to argue a point regarding archaeological evidence simply because you wish to believe something is true. To assume it is true simply because you wish it so, is no basis for an argument.[/qute]







Meta =>You have distorted my words, and I wonder if you got in on the begining, because you seem not understand the context here. I never said I believe that because I wish it to be true! I said that I argue for the histoircal nature of Jesus becasue I believe that it is true that Jesus was historical.

the context was that I don't need a historical Jesus to be a christian, because I can take it as symbolic anyway. But the fact of the matter is I do actually believe that he was historical, and that is justification enough for arguing about it.





Meta => I really think that you should read the context of a discussion before you jump in. Because I've done nothing for two weeks but give proofs and evidences for Jesus' historicity. So obviously I'm not just "fighting" for it because I have a [b]feeling[/i] with no evidence. the evidence is all over this thread and several others.

BTW can't you find a less politically regressive term than "fight for"? That's offending my postmodern sensiblities.







These types of actions have caused millions of deaths over the centuries.


Meta => What types of actions? Arguing for the historical Jesus? I doubt it! show me one case where a person died because of the historical crtical method?




MEta => If you want to make a valid contribution to this discussion I suggest you go look at the mounds of research I've already done and posted here! Otherwise, if you just want to be a pontificating stuffed shirt, you made a good start.

Yellum Notnef

I don't understand how a Christian (who admits he would still be a believer regardless of scholarship) who was taught at a SEMINARY can say ANYTHING at all about the color of someone elses lens.

Metacrock

I admitted up front I couldn't prove it! I admitted it was based upon Eusebius, and since around here's the same as saying "it's a lie" then that's nothing at all. But in fact I don't think Eusebius lied about everything. And Lightfoot did say he was honest, go look it up!

what more do you want? It's partially corroborated by excavations, but not proven. It's all going to come down to what you are willing to believe about Eusebius. So that that rate it's not worth arguing about.

We do have that pilgrim's writtings btw, he was a major guy. But we don't have all of them, including that one. (Of course, that would be too easy).

my point was not to prove the Res through that account but that you cannot assert boldly, as you do, "no tomb was ever vinerated in the first century. Because I accept the evidence that it was, and your only reason for doubting it is a distrust of Euebius, and I don't distrust him. So you can't make that assertion cause you don't know. You have no evdience against the vineration in first century. The best you can say is I doubt that it was.

Metacrock

Meta => That's because you don't understand the context of the orignal statment. When I said that about still being a believer, I did not say regardless of scholarhip. I said I would still be a christian even if I had to just taken Jesus symoblically, but that would change the trajectory of my faith.


I also said I would be a Baultmannian. Now you may not be familiare with the works of Rudolf Baultmann. He was a German theolgoain, arche liberal, probably one of the two most influential theolgoains of the 20th century. Baultmann was known for his attempt to "de mythologize" the New Testament. He believed in a historical Jesus, but he felt that almost everything in the NT was mytholgoically based and of symbolic-existentialist value. He re casted the faith as a version of modern Heideggerian existentialism.

If, and only if I came to feel that Jesus was not historical, I would do that too, rather than saying "O religon is BS I'm going to be an atheist and argue with chrisians on the sec web and say silly things to tick off all the time."

Because I have reasons for believing becyond the historical criticism. They are not based upon the text, they are based upon phenomenological apprehension. But that's still valid as a reaosn for one's world view. IN fact I think its the only valid reason for holding a world view. all world views are formed by phehonomenology really.


Stop reducing things to utter simplicity and try to learn what's being said. The reductionist thing is a mistake and a poor excuse for understanding. don't reduce to simplisity.

Peter Kirby

Why would my opinion matter? The only thing I know of it is what you've just told me. The first thing I would ask is: what evidence shows that John Boothe died when most think he did?

I wouldn't take them seriously because we do have official records of George Washington (such as the inaugural address preserved at the National Archives in the Center for Legislative Archives), we can prove that he existed (assuming a non-mathematical sense of 'proof', if multiple eyewitness documents are sufficient), and there are no questions about the existence of George Washington for which there are no plausible answers. I wouldn't take them seriously because of the particulars of the evidence concerning George Washington.

Earl's theory allows that the idea of a Gospel Jesus may have developed as early as 70 CE. How does the claimed date of 150 or before contradict Doherty? To disprove Doherty's theory in this way, you could show that an extant gospel dated before the time of the Jewish Revolt.

If the challenger does not hold that the proposition is definitely false but still in serious doubt, the challenger does have a burden, a burden of showing that the existing foundations of the belief are unsound. Otherwise, if a theory were formed on a matter in which there is no clear evidence, yet it commanded a majority of opinion, it could never be overturned in favor of a healthy skepticism.

I agree that it is quite hard (or impossible) to prove the divinity of Jesus using historical methods.

I don't wish to deprive you ownership of your own motivations. But my experience is that people don't go about putting up web sites and debating at length for every single proposition he or she thinks to be true. So I think it is definitely part of the equation but not the whole formula.

I believe that a person can be intelligent, honest, learned, objective, open-minded, meticulous, scrupulous, diligent, convinced, and wrong.

best,
Peter Kirby

Metacrock

It's only a controversy because he wants to insist upon the most unlikey reading becasue it helps his case. I don't claim to be an expert in Gree, certainly not. But I did take it as my undergrad lagnague and then in seminary. I sturggled with it for many years, and in those years I read a lot of Greek.

Kata means according to.... It could bean other things, but in the context, with the word Sarka (flesh) the meaning is abundantly clear.


If you have a Greek NT (Nestles or whatever, anyone will do) look ta the top of the page! "Kata Markon" "Kata Mathiaon" "Kata Lukon" "Kata Ionion" that's there for a reason. that's the most used and most likely use of the term--[u]according to![/i] that's why they use it, according to Matthew, according to Mark, ect.

Yellum Notnef

Sorry if I misquoted as saying "regardless of scholarship",but my point about you being in NO position to comment on the color of someone elses "lens" remains.
You yourself have just proved my assertion by saying you would still be a Christian even if you were left with only a symbolic,dare I say "mythical" Jesus.
You'll have to explain what the new (as well as current) "trajectory" of your faith would be as I'm not sure what you mean.


Call it what ever you want,but it all boils down to you finding any way possible to remain a Christian and find any way possible to defend it.
It's as if YOUR Jesus colored glasses are GLUED to your face.

What you seem to be saying is that you're gonna have your Jesus regardless.
You'd probably prefer him on the bone,but you'll settle for little pieces on a sandwich if thats all thats available. And IF Jesus is ever totally taken away from you,you'll get some artificially flavored Jesus sauce and put it on a cracker.
One way or another you're gonna find a way to have your Jesus.


Here you are still proving my point,but now you've added an insluting straw man.
We're all just little ants running around the feet of the all powerful and super scholarly metacrock. Nothing we say will ever matter since our knowledge pales in comparison with his thousands of dollars worth of seminary instruction so lets just bite at his toes (as well of those of other Christians here at the secweb) in hopes that we can tick him off.

Fred

I don't mean to continually respond to you as if picking on you so forgive any misunderstanding.
I have also done much research by the way and I find most of your proofs thin to say the least. Suetonius mentioned Jesus ??? What ?
My entire response is due to the fact that you state what you believe to be "truth". I am sorry but what is true to you is not necessarily true to others.
My comment on the many dead is due to the world history of those who presume to know the truth, and the way they have persecuted others who felt differently. It was no way directed at you. I will make that more clear i the future. Thanks for pointing it out.
I did fully read this thread before I responded.

Toto

Lightfoot also said he was not smart enough for the task. How many times do we have to go over that? It's not a question of Eusebius lying, it's a question of his general reliability.

So there was an excavation, and Eusebius saw something. What exactly did he see that indicates a Christian monument? Was it as detailed and credible as the nails and crosses that he also "observed"?

So we have no indication that he venerated the tomb, or that Christians in the second century did what Christians in the fourth century and later did - make mass pilgrimages to the Holy Land. That's the only point. There is no evidence.

And I do not believe that survival of Christian manuscripts was a random affair. I think that if Melito of Sardis had written and described the tomb and its veneration, that section would have been quoted and preserved.

My reasons for doubting it go beyond the unreliability and lack of specificity in what Eusebius wrote. I gave you a scholarly work that quoted early Christians who deliberately avoided venerating places. You have not reacted to that.

This has nothing much to do with the Resurrection. It is a simple question of what 1st-2nd c. Christians did. And so far we have no credible evidence that they venerated a tomb or any other place, and not much more evidence that they knew or cared where the tomb was. You can make a lot of excuses for this - war, destruction, theology - but those are the facts on the ground.

On kata sarka, Richard Carrier discusses the translation issues here :

MortalWombat

According to (no pun intended) Richard Carrier:

Edited to add: Looks like Toto beat me to it. I should have read the whole thread before posting. Oh well, it still bears repeating