Vinnie

Of course not. It was perfectly valid. After all, it is an official part of the canon of mythicist methodology. See number eight in the thread.

Vinnie

Clutch

I'm guessing this was supposed to be sarcasm. But I'm afraid this does not impress me.

That a criterion intended to support the historicity of events in one document would lend similar support to the events depicted in known myth would seem to be a non-trivial problem. Repeating this back in a silly voice does not obviously lessen the problem. Did you have anything of substance to say?

Llyricist

forget it clutch, he'll just re introduce the circularity that you have to take into account whether the source was fictional or historical before applying this method of determining historocity. (I Know.... HUH?????, but that's the apologist mindset for ya)

Metacrock

Meta => Of course that assumes you know the sense in which I mean "mythology." But what you say is not true. The Dohery guys definately think it was mythology.

Now I can I undersand your statment to mean that you agree that Jesus of Nazerath existed as an historical figure?

Metacrock

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Clutch
I have several books on Greek mythology, and they all tell pretty much the same stories. And that's a mythology much older than the Christian legends,[/b][quote]



Meta =>Well then they must not be very good books, or you haven't read them carefully enough. Whta is more likely is that they have distilled the stories in their final or popular form for the reader. If you actually the original stuff, or some of the better commentators, you see many verions. In fact all over Mythology Hamilton is always saying "in some verisons." I quote several examples not only from the Greeks but from around the world. See the link on the frist page (why do skeptics never read links?)

two versions of Hercules death, you haven't come across those yet? Adonis is really Tamuz. Many examples.






Meta => Canonizatin process didn't start until the second century, and it was never "top down." It was ratitfied in the end based upon Bishops from all over the known world who reflected the localized interests. If the story had been myth there would have been other versions that were copied and survived in latter texts.

The myth of the canon police is just that. a myth. They could not control for some obscure monk in Turkey copying some forbidden manuscript, and the vast diverse nature of the chruch and of the texts produced by it proves that easily.








Meta =>Yes, I dealt that that when are you guys going to listen! In little details yes, but not in the major story line. His mother is always Mary, his side kicks are always Peter and James and John, he always got crucified (Herckules died two different ways--Tamuz has about 14 different versions. there are multiple versions of Dyonius dying).






Meta => But of course the point is that it was probably based upon historical events or else the basic story line would have changed or at least there would be more than one version.

Metacrock

O I see. The mythcist doesn't know that some books are meant to be fiction and some arent. So they do all their historical research in superman comic books and they don't understand that that's not real history.

No wonder Atheists always counter the anthropic argument with all that talk about the Multiverse. They don't know that DC made that up.

Metacrock

Are you really that dense? You really can distinguish between caliming that Jesus lived as man, and claiming that he's the son of God? Or you can't understand the distinction between private beliefs and what one is arguing at the moment?

why would my claim that the war is wrong not be superntural but my claim that a man named Jesus came from nazerath inthe first century and had followers who thought hew as the Messiah would be?

Llyricist

Did I say I was a Mythicist?? (I DO lean that way, but that is beside the point)

The point is that you cannot site a method of proving the historocity of a source when that method first requires you to only use historical sources!! Why can't you all understand this?!?!?!

Forget about superman comics, how about the movie Titanic?? Does the fact that the Titanic actually sank the way the movie portrays, as shown by many other Historical vectors, prove the existence of the main characters in the movie??
Same for "Pearl Harbor" or "Gone with the Wind" or many of Shakespeare's plays. All set in actual historical circumstances with purely fictional characters and interactions.

Fact is we know not of the provenence of the Gospels, we have no way of ascertaining reliably their genre, so you and Vinnie are on quicksand trying to say that it's any different than applying these methods to KNOWN fiction. If the methods fail with KNOWN fiction, they cannot be used to substantiate the Gospel accounts.

Clutch

You'll have to explain this to me.

If I build a Breathalyzer, and it keeps giving false positives for people known to be sober, what sort of reply is it to mockingly say, "O I see. The police don't know that some people are sober and some are drunk. Well, duh!"

Is it a criterion distinguishing fiction from history or not? If so, then its failure to distinguish fiction from history is not a small defect. If not, why is it offered?

Clutch

What argument mediates this conclusion? First, there is more than one version of both the Greek myths and the gospels. As I observed (though you refused to read it), the differences among the former are greater. And of course, a great deal depends on how you individuate differences, but on any reckoning there are some non-trivial differences even in the canonical gospels.

Second, the question about being based on real events is an open one; I can't think for the life of me why many or most of the Homeric stories, say, shouldn't have been based on actual events. This is a red herring, when the real question is how much drift from initial events might have taken place. (And, to a lesser extent, the question of how much drift would have to take place before it counted as a myth.)

And third, the inference you propose is hopelessly confounded by the powerful top-down discouragement of proliferation once the canon was formed. Whoever adds to these words... are you aware of anything remotely analogous in myths to the spittle-flecked warnings in the close of Revelation, against modifying the story? But of course, this was not a warning written in the other gospels, canonical or otherwise; it only took on its normative force when R became -- by vote, is that top-down enough for you? -- the final book of the canon. So it did not govern the mythologizing that took place beforehand, when proliferation did, coincidentally, occur in the various gospels, but only afterwards when the 1.5-cum-4 gospels had been voted in as the received view. Nothing here suggests veracity.