Butters

Posted by Leonarde,
"the recognition question is settled. What
one makes of the truth behind that recognition is
another thing...."

Well, mabye the confusion is my fault, the only meaning of the word "recognize" that I am aware of in this context is to reconize something as fact. If I say I recognize Jesus as a historical person, I mean that I accept his existance in history as a fact.

What do you mean by "recognize"?

Ion

Huh?

Since October 11, I ask you to back this up with non-religious documents, i.e. historical documents.

How is it coming along?
Now it's October 16, at night.
Any progress?

Any hope of a progress, in your claim of Jesus and his alleged miracles being recognized by historians?

[ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: Ion ]</p>

Bumble Bee Tuna

Kiwi-

I understand that Van's conclusions are ridiculous. I agree with everything you said. I was merely stating that we would never get through to him because he doesn't understand the concept that nothing is ever certain.

He still has not explained the contradiction with why the field was named. Yes, Van, you quoted that in both accounts it says that the field was bought with the blood money. We know that. Don't dodge the issue. The issue is that in the first story, it specifically states that it was called the Field of Blood because it was bought with blood money, and the second account specifically states that it was called the Field of Blood because Judas' blood was spilled there. That is the contradiction here. Don't dodge it.
I'm not saying you won't be able to come up with an incredibly implausible apologetic about it. Of course you will. You can explain anything with enough conjecture. I do think that your story to reconcile these two accounts on this particular detail will be even more ridiculous than the other ones.
I mean, I can come up with one too, but it's silly:

The priests called it the Field of Blood because it was bought by blood money, and simply coincidentally, the people also decided to call it the Field of Blood for an entirely different reason (that Judas' blood was spilled there).

Or maybe it was called the Field of Blood in that short period of time before Judas hung himself and died, then it got a new name because people didn't think that was really applicable, but then Judas died there and his blood spilled on the field, and then the people changed their minds and named it the Field of Blood AGAIN.

Both of these COULD have happened...it's just ridiculous to think they actually did.

I have one last question for you, Van-

Do you have any reasoning to explain WHY Luke would have left the hanging out of his story? When you are telling the story of someone's death, you usually say the way they died, not what happened to their corpse many weeks afterwards. It is equivalent to telling a story about a man who is, say, kidnapped from his life one day and slowly tortured to death. And yet in the story, you just say 'And he went to work, and had a big meeting; and his body was eaten by maggots.' You skip the whole part about kidnapping, torture, death, getting brought somewhere to hide the body, and the weeks that pass, and only tell about the maggots eating the corpse. Why would you ever do that in a story? I mean, sure, you can come up for a way the two stories COULD reconcile...but can you come up with a reason as to WHY they need reconciliation to begin with?

Leonarde-

It is not a matter of whether historians recognize Jesus. It is a matter of whether they have any historical documents to make them believe that.
The issue at hand is not "Do Historians believe a man named Jesus existed". That would be as pointless of a question as "Did a guy named John exist"? It's silly. The question is, did the man named Jesus specifically mentioned in the Bible exist. This means you need evidence of a man that was followed by religious disciples, performed miracles, healed the sick, and rose from the sea. As these "facts" are quite extraordinary, a reasonable historian would in fact expect at least some sort of writings by others about these miracles. There are none. You haven't showed any. A historian's opinion is only more valid that any layman if he is actually using his expertise to answer the question- in this case he would need to be examining historical evidence and have tangible proof of Jesus' existence.
Unfortunately, your idea that the majority of our history professors believe in a historical jesus (which you haven't even provided evidence of) is, if even true at all, because Christians are the majority. We don't need to hear what historians think, we need to hear WHY they think it.

-B

leonarde

Posted by Butters: 1)You need a much better dictionary.

2)Besides "facts" one can recognize: similarities,
dissimilarities, sovereignties of nations, personal rights, the legitimacy/illegitimacy of
certain actions, a friend's face in a photo, an
ingredient in a stew, the authority of a court.

3)The (alleged) fact that Jesus of Nazareth was/is
an historical person is a separate fact
from the other alleged fact that millions of persons recognize him as such. The latter was my focus when I inserted the remark about the 1 billion people.

4)Whether most historians recognize Jesus as an
historical person is separable and distinct from
whether they are correct. Here my focus was the
former question.

Cheers!

leonarde

Posted by Bumble Bee Tuna: They do have such documents and so have--
egads!---written books about the topic.

Cheers!

Butters

Leonade,
You have been practicing to many apologitics.
Now read what I ACTUALLY wrote.

"Well, mabye the confusion is my fault, the only meaning of the word "recognize" that I am aware of in this context is to reconize something as fact. If I say I recognize Jesus as a historical person, I mean that I accept his existance in history as a fact."

Note the words "in this context"
I also said it was the only one "I" was aware of in this context.

Now from your answer below.

"3)The (alleged) fact that Jesus of Nazareth was/is
an historical person is a separate fact
from the other alleged fact that millions of persons recognize him as such. The latter was my focus when I inserted the remark about the 1 billion people."

I seems that I did NOT misunderstand you, you are saying that 1 billion people recognize Jesus as a historical person, meaning that they believe his story as fact.
If we agree that 1 billion people believe that it is a fact, and we agree that their belief is a seperate issue, then their belief has no bearing on the issue, and this whole thing has been a waste of time.

Ion

What's the point of the latter?
I wrote about it that it is meaningless.
(When I posted "...history = established facts = veracity...", days ago, remember?)

From the beginning, I challenged you to prove that "...Jesus of Nazareth was/is a historical person...".

"...1 billion people." who are believers, doesn't matter in this forum (I called them 'fools', remember?) when you deal with scientific-minded contributors who are focusing on historical facts.
From the beginning, I challenged you to prove that "...Jesus of Nazareth was/is a historical person..." is correct, which is the latter.
Obviously by now, you cannot.

As for "...most historians recognize Jesus as an historical person...", which is the former, that's not true because history follows scientific standards for recognizing facts.
Religion doesn't follow scientific standards for recognizing facts, and you are confusing religion with history.
Show me one history book with Jesus existence and miracles recognized in it, not a religious book.

I think you are confusing religion with history.

leonarde

Posted by Butters: Sorry but this sentence makes no sense to me. Perhaps it is my
wayward dictionary again.

Cheers!

leonarde

Partial post by Ion: 1) I think you are just confusing (and frankly confused).

2)You show knowledge of neither history nor
religion on this thread so the relationship between the two is bound to elude you.

3)Historians of a given civilization and/or epoch
typically study religion as an integral part of history, since it (the religion) is an
ineluctable part of human culture.

Cheers!

Bumble Bee Tuna

I also echo the request for a single non-religious book that comes forth with any historical evidence for a miraculous Jesus. You'll find that plenty of historians will professionally vouch for the existence of a Jesus of some sort. None that I know of will professionally vouch for the existence of the miraculous Jesus spoken of in the Gospels. Many will personally claim they believe he existed, certainly, because many are Christians. But none will be able to show much of anything in regards to actual historical evidence to support that belief.

It may seem like it supports you to have the backing of a majority of historians...but you lack their professional backing on the actual issue that counts.

-B