Baidarka

How about John Allegro and his Jesus was a mushroom theory?

Bede

I think Peter is concentrating on live people which explains the ommisions of the Bultmanns, Morton Smiths, Raymond Browns etc.

Michael, you live in a world of your own but I'm going to humour you with some methodology stuff as soon as I can. Comparing Jesus to Romulus and Remus is again your favourite strawman - using totally invalid comparisons. Why not go the whole hog and compare him to Luke Skywalker?

And for the record, Confuscius existed and just because one junior professor is out to make a name for himself doesn't change that. This doesn't mean that everything said about him is true (or even most of it) just as Jesus can exist without being the son of God.

By the way, LTJ and other Christian scholars do not claim that what they know through faith is knowable through history. They makes clear distinctions and is hence not an extremist. You are whistling in the wind.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>

Vorkosigan

All to the same standards. How many religions did Caesar found? Where is the Julius Caesar legend cycle, and did it form the basis for a religion? Can you show me which schools of Caesars religions killed off adherents of the others, suppressed their writings, and heavily edited Caesar's words? Does Caesar go unmentioned in contemporary documents? Do modern scholars have radical disagreements about who Caesar was -- Caesar the myth? Caesar the banker? Caesar the preacher? Caesar the engineer? Caesar the general?

Same challenge for you, Jayman. Show that the Jesus legend cycle is different from other Founder Myths. Show why I shouldn't regard it as largely fictional, just like the myths of Romulus and Remus, Confucius, and so forth....in other words, show that the religious propaganda of Paul and the Gospels is actually history.

The "moon landing" comparison is ridiculous. You guys are nothing but empty rhetoric. Substantiate, please.

Vorkosigan

Bede

One. And like Jesus he was diefied and worshiped after death.

LOL! Try Appian, Livy, Plutarch etc etc

Can you show me which schools of Caesars religions killed off adherents of the others, suppressed their writings, and heavily edited Caesar's words?

The Roman Empire. They slaughtered Christians for refusing to partake in the imperial cult and if you think Roman historians were writing anything other than propaganda, you need you head examined. There was heavy censorship of anti-Caesar works which is why there is no contemporary mention of his destroying the Great Library of Alex and why Ciciero was forced to commit suicide.

He's not mentioned in Tibellus or Lucretius so obviously he doesn't exist. Of course, these guys had no reason to mention him but that doesn't worry anti-Christians who give that silly list of silent sources.

Absolutely. Although, like Jesus, the basis facts of his life are pretty clear, also like Jesus his motivations and what he wanted to achieve are contentious subjects. Was he a power mad general, a self aggrandising politician, a lucky patriarch, a stoic ruler? Scholars disagree.

As for the moonlanding - you've thrown up so many non-sequitors I hardly think you have a right to criticise.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://http//www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>

Vorkosigan

Absolutely. Although, like Jesus, the basis facts of his life are pretty clear, also like Jesus his motivations and what he wanted to achieve are contentious subjects. Was he a power mad general, a self aggrandising politician, a lucky patriarch, a stoic ruler? Scholars disagree.

ROTFL. Let's see...do any historians disagree on whether Caesar was a Roman general? Confusion about motivations is not the same as confusion about his actual role. And no, the basic outline of Jesus' life is almost totally unknown, we have only the last, uncertain phase of his putative life, and that full of nonsense. Was Jesus a revolutionary guerilla? Or maybe a Jewish preacher? Or maybe the last real king of Israel? Or a cynic philosopher? Did he speak in parables, or in discourses? Was he executed by Herod or Pilate? Or some other time? Gosh, so many options...so little evidence.

As for the moonlanding - you've thrown up so many non-sequitors I hardly think you have a right to criticise.

Sure Bede. Still waiting for that mighty methodology that is going to rescue your fictional savior from the oblivion of myth.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Can you show me which schools of Caesars religions killed off adherents of the others, suppressed their writings, and heavily edited Caesar's words?

The Roman Empire. They slaughtered Christians for refusing to partake in the imperial cult and if you think Roman historians were writing anything other than propaganda, you need you head examined.

Good. I take it then, that we can agree that your gospels are nothing more than propaganda as well?

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bede:
I think Peter is concentrating on live people which explains the ommisions of the Bultmanns, Morton Smiths, Raymond Browns etc.

Yes, no doubt.

And for the record, Confuscius existed and just because one junior professor is out to make a name for himself doesn't change that. This doesn't mean that everything said about him is true (or even most of it) just as Jesus can exist without being the son of God.

Again, the issue isn't whether X existed. It is whether the stories about X reflect anything about the actual life of X. I know you would like to simply get rid of the ugly facts by repeating "a junior professor" over and over again, but unfortunately that junior professor's critique won't go away merely because you wish it would.

In fact, little can be known about Confucius, save for the name. Traditionally he lived from 552-479. Opinion is divided as to whether he ever actually held an official post. Of the ancient books attributed to him only one, the Lun Yu, the Analects, is thought to contain original ideas of his and dates from long after his time. Of the Analects only a few parts are thought to be his. In short, there is nothing to suggest that we really know anything about him. He appears, like Jesus, to be a largely-invented figure around whom many myths, legends and sayings collected.

By the way, LTJ and other Christian scholars do not claim that what they know through faith is knowable through history. They makes clear distinctions and is hence not an extremist. You are whistling in the wind.

That's even more reprehensible than what critics attribute to Doherty, then. One cannot know anything through faith; and LTJ, NT Wright and the other extremists on the religious side are simply trading on their scholarly positions to advance their faith-commitments (not to mention sell books). Doherty and Wells at least do not abuse scholarship the way the Johnson, Swinbourne and the others do. Those people are sick. Further, and most importantly, the ultimate agenda of people like Doherty and Wells does not serve the sick, facist Christianity that people like Wright and Swinbourne serve.

Note that I do not include Johnson -- I was pleasantly surprised to find that while Wright is an intolerant bigot, <a href="http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1058/n19_v115/21003284/p1/article.jhtml" target="_blank">Luke Timothy Johnson is refreshingly open-minded on the question of gays</a>, although he thinks the sexual permissiveness of the '60s is what makes priests pedophiles. Always making excuses for the Church....

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

In fact, we should look at Caesar. From another post on this very same topic:

We have

• Two works from his own hand about events in his own life
  letters about him from contemporary Cicero
  He is mentioned in contemporary poetry by Catullus
  We have a history from contemporary Sallust -86 to -34, whom Caesar made a governor.
  We have mention of Caesar in biographies by contemporary Cornelius Nepos, ~-100 to -24.
  We know of lost material about written by contemporaries, such as Pollio and Hortensius, and by Caesar himself
  We have numerous later histories. For example, we have Paterculus, who was born in -19 and died in +31. Much closer to Caesar than any of Jesus' later mythmakers were to him.

Of course, this is only some of the documentary evidence. Archaeological evidence -- run a net search on the Battle of Alesia, for example -- confirms some of his accounts, at least of his battles, though he seems, of course, to exaggerate his own prowess, wisdom and foresight, a fault also found in modern generals who write about themselves. Further, we have accounts from friends, enemies, satirical poets....whereas we have nothing from Jesus or anyone who knew him.

There are other issues. Caesar's life seems to bear no resemblence to any Founding myths, unlike Jesus, whose life is typical myth. Jesus life is preserved only in oral accounts before being written down, which typically undergo creative transformation in which the history is lost and unhistorical details accrued. The accounts we have of Jesus' life are obviously composites -- either he spoke in discourses and proclaimed himself openly, as in John, or stayed secret and spoke in parables, as in Mark. Much of it appears to be constructed out of the OT -- from what ancient records were the accounts of Caesar's life taken? Was Jesus a Cynic, or a Jewish apocalyptic preacher or an anti-Roman revolutionary? The Jesus legend also shows clear progression over time, with the tomb stories growing ever more elaborate, and additions like a mysterious birth and prophecies when he was a babe (see Luke 2). Look how spare it is in Paul, who is not even sure when Jesus lived or died, and compare how elaborate it is in Luke. Does the Caesar story show similar embellishment and legendary evolution? Nope.

Again, before Bede jumps in with another confused comment about creationism, this doesn't mean that Jesus didn't exist, only that the stories we have about him tell us nothing about him.

Knowing whether something is a historical fact is tricky, and depends on the totality of evidence, hopefully from a variety of historical vectors. In Caesar's case there is a rich variety of evidence. There are not enough vectors in the Jesus legend cycle to sort out fact from fiction.

Vorkosigan

[ June 15, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

Bede

Michael,

Keep you hair on. Calling respected scholars 'reprehensible', sick' and servants of 'fascist' systems strongly suggests your argumentation is driven by emotion and anger. It would explain your inability to think clearly about this.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>

Toto

Bede: Please get your facts straight - not a "junior professor":

The existence of Confucius as a real person in history is denied by Lionel M. Jensen, an associate professor of history and the director of Chinese studies at the University of Colorado at Denver. His book won the American Academy of Religion's prize for the best first book in religious history.

I'm afraid we have hijacked Peter's thread, if he's still reading. I think the only point here is that intellectually and academically respectable people can discuss the idea that claimed historical figures are mythical. If Peter's web page is going to be complete, it should contain representatives of this point of view applied to Jesus.

Bede is trying to create a climate of fear where the idea that the Jesus of the Bible is not a historical figure is too poisonous to even mention. This indicates to me that the historical nature of Jesus does not have enough facts on its side to survive an honest debate.