Peter Kirby

LOL.

In the case of Meier, how about the fact that he says so himself (that he hasn't studied the issue)? Meier states in A Marginal Jew (I am going on memory cells) that G. A. Wells produces the type of popular book the likes of which it is not worth his time to consider. His grounds? Nothing other than his verdict on the partial authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum. That is what Meier says he points reporters to when they query about the existence of Jesus. Meier has obviously studied the matter of the historical Jesus, but he evidently has not considered very much the foundational question of whether there was a historical Jesus.

And here is Crossan in his own words:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hjmate...gy/message/146

"I had a friend in Ireland who did not believe that Americans had landed on the moon but that they had created the entire thing to bolster their cold war image against the communists. I got nowhere with him. So I am not at all certain that I can prove that the historical Jesus existed against such an hypothesis and probably, to be honest, I am not even interested in trying. It was, however, that hypothesis taken not as a settled conclusion, but as a simple question that was behind the first pages of BofC when I mentioned Josephus and Tacitus. I do not think that either of them checked out Jewish or Roman archival materials about Jesus. I think they were expressing the general public knowledge that 'everyone' had about this weird group called Christians and their weird founder called Christ. The existence, not just of Christian materials, but of those other non-Christian sources, is enough to convince me that we are dealing with an historical individual. Furthermore, in all the many ways that opponents criticized earliest Christianity, nobody ever suggested that it was all made up. That in general, is quite enough for me."

So, apparently, Crossan is not very interested in trying to show the historical existence of Jesus. His main argument is the one that is usually deplored by HJ believers, an argument from silence. (Of course, I myself think that there are good and bad arguments from silence.)

So, yes, I would say that the subject of the existence of Jesus is in an infantile stage among the scholarly establishment. This is in contrast to the highly developed creation/evolution debate, to which HJ believers innocently but erroneously compare. If I were more disposed to believe in his theories, I would say that we are in nineteenth century Britain and Doherty is Darwin. As I currently stand, I think a closer analogy would be that the mythicists hold to a steady state theory (eternal universe) and that the establishment holds to a beginning of the universe. We still have to uncover the theoretical basis of Big Bang cosmology and find the uniform cosmic background radiation. Science will benefit from an open exchange of ideas.

best,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

Meta =>So to you all religion is a conspiracy? So you got hold of some Fuererbach and you think you have a bold new innovative idea?

I didn't say you hadn't thought about it. What I said was, you've mistaken the goals of religion for your own personal goals and forgotten all the lessons you learned about power when you were an atheist and a Marxist. Christianity is a social institution like any other, whose end is power and control. If it were not power-hungry, there would be no indoctrination of the young. There would be no intolerance. There would be no eschatological threats. There would be no resurrection.

I was an atheist, I was a Marxist, I was an anti-war protester agains the vietnam war when I was 12 years old. I worked in the central Amreica solidiarty movement for eight years. I've read more Marx, Troski, Furerbach, Gramsci, and Mandel than you will ever read. Obviously I've thought about it.

Meta, if you want to play the "who's read the most books" game, I can play too. For example, how can you have read Gramsci and Foucault and not included any critique of power in your thinking about Christianity?

But there is a subtext to relgious history that you are just ignoring. It's just as elaborate and just as pwerful, and deserves to be thoguht of as the religious legacy of the west as does the other. That one includes Dorothy Day (Catholic worker movment) and Albert Schweitzher, and Shindler and all the other chrisitaians who gave their lives to eliviating suffering and fighting tyranny. So that is groundless and peranoid charge.

The subtext is death and power. That is why, for every Dorothy Day there were a thousand germans tossing jews into the ovens. Schindler saved a couple of thousand jews while 16 million jews, gays, gypsies, poles and others died in the camps and at the hands of execution squads all over Europe. The religious legacy of the west, Meta, is the Holocaust, European colonialism....need I go on? Christianity is about power. Why do you think religious killing and religious warfare are mostly found in places where the BibleGod holds sway? Why do you think every WWII dictator came out of a Christian background, and most Catholics?

And since you mention Dorothy Day (a personal hero) let me point out that the Church has pointedly refused her the kind of recognition she deserves; and would have squelched her completely if she had not so obviously been a saint. Who do we have instead? That death-worshipping Mother Teresa, who is on the fast track.

And finally Meta, you gotta watch your rhetoric. Not only did Oskar Schindler not "give his life" (he survived the war and died in poverty) he was a failed Catholic and an atheist, as I recall.

Meta => the glass is half full!why do you refuse to look at the Christians of Lo Chambo who gave their lives to hide Jews from the Nazis?

I don't. But I note that this transformative power is found in every culture where people resist evil, independently of religion and almost always opposed by it. Even Communists sacrifice for the cause and for the others. It is part of the way humans regard their social identities and has nothing to do with the particular doctrines of any particular cause. Look at how many different kinds of organizations, from the KKK through the Anarchists, engage in charity work. Power takes many forms. Organizing others to work for "social" causes is a primary demonstration of organizational power: "look how many people we can field for society!"

The fact is that organized religion served Hitler. A few Christians opposed him; the vast majority served him, without comment or complaint, and many with enthusiasm. The question is not why people were inspired by their personal vision of Jesus. The question is why there were so few. The glass is not "half full." The glass is completely full -- of Christians serving as soldiers in Hitler's illegal and expansionist invasions of Russia, Norway, France, Denmark, Poland, Holland, and elsewhere, in his execution squads, his concentration camps, his private armies, in every aspect of his state, Mussolini's, Stalin's (where the vast majority of individuals, even in the Party, remained Christians) and Franco's. Neither the Catholic nor the Protestant Churches objected when Tiso, a cleric, served as dictator of Slovakia, or when clerics served as commanders of death camps or helped the Nazis hunt down Jews. Hitler, Stalin, Franco, and Mussolini faced no serious opposition from the Churches; indeed, the Vatican dismantled the parties that opposed Hitler in exchange for special rights in Germany.
So your "half-full" glass turns out to be a glass full of torture and murder, with a tiny molecule of decency on top. Hitler was not some exception or some dark side, he was the ultimate realization of the Christian messianic ideal of eschatology and utopianism.

Meta =>When I say it works, I don't mean that it works as a fulfillment of Marx or Stalin or even Degaul. I mean it works on an idividual level as a transformative agent existentially.

Meta, any transformative experience has that effect. Buddhist, Communist, Atheist, all are the same. We've been over this ground. Such experiences begin and end inside the skull.
In any case, the vast vast majority of believers do not have transformative experiences, but grow up in it and believe out of habit. Your mysticism is not everyone's experience.

But you know, the only reason it isn't growing in America is about Americans are 90% identified with it anyway.

About 85%, but I never claimed it was growing here. Its growth is taking place in the Third World, where dominance is easier without democratic traditions and independence of thought to fight it.

It's not growing in Eruope because Eruopean notions of civliation have been jaded by two world wars,

No kidding. Those two world wars, and the embarrassment of colonialism, completely invalidate Christianity. And the growth of democracy in Europe has meant an end to the old authoritarian habits of thought - like Christianity.

and the French wont let go of pop art, and the Italians refuse to try and remeber the Renaissance, and the Germans never did understand anything other than theology. Seperated from their theological roots all they offer is us cars and watches.

What a snob you are!

Meta =>The whole point of my post was that this doesn't matter. Stop looking at the minutia and try for the big picture. Besides, I would like to you try and prove that is a latter addition.

I am not looking at the minutae! The adulterous woman sequence is a later insertion. You cannot rely on it to show how wonderful Jesus was. It's ironic that you turn to it for support for your notion of Christian ethics. Christian ethics means in practice is stoning the woman and then having your smiling picture taken next to the body while bragging about how righteous you are.

Meta =>You don't think death is a shared experiece? We all die, how could God ignore death and pretend to be in solidarity?

We all have sex too. As human as dying. Did Jesus? Why didn't Jesus express solidarity through that most human of experiences? What was god afraid of?

you speak of the brutality and horrors of human history and yet you can't face them. You can't accept the fact that this is a universal aspect of the human conditon. but you ignore the other side of the coin because you are determined not to look at belief in a positive light. There is also resurrection; and is the symbol of hope and future. It's a dialectic. God = thesis; Jesus = anti-thesis (because regjected by God) resurrection (by God) = synthesis, hope and future which we share in.

Pure nonsense. There is no solidarity with omnipotent beings. In any case, if there was really solidarity, god would just get rid of death and pain, as any of us mere mortals would do if they could. I show solidarity with others by empathizing with their pain and working to end it. The whole idea of solidarity is to live humbly for a cause, not to die gloriously for it. By dying, your Jesus simply gave up. Suicide is the coward's way of facing reality.

Further, we do not "share in" this hope and future as you claim. You can only "share" in this future as a penitent, not an equal, and only if you accept other absurd claims about gods and reality, as well as behave in certain ways. In other words, the resurrection is only solidarity if you knuckle under to the claims of god and acknowledge its power. The resurrection is a demonstration of power just like Hiroshima and Dresden. It bluntly says "obey me or you will die forever."

Meta =>Ah! so it's debasement you fear? you can't worhsip God because your ego is too great. that's an old story.

No, I can't worship god because I am an ethical being. To take action on behalf of, or out of belief in, the supernatural is fundamentally unethical.

But the part about intolerance is just plain bull. You simpley refuse to look at the great humanitarian things that christitians does and inspires, you prefur the negative. You would rather live in a negative world of hopelessness.

Yes, that's me, the hopeless democracy activist, Peace Corps volunteer, soccer coach, church and school volunteer, faithful father of two. My life is just one long act of nihilism.

total misunderstanding about the nature of the divine, of humanity and of logic and necessity. God is limited by our free will because our abliity to make moral choices outweighs everything else.

This is empty assertion. May as well argue about which hand Frodo peed with. The nature of god is simply a fantasy of yours. It could be anything you wanted. A hundred and fifty years ago you'd be trying to convince me that slavery was what god had ordained for the blacks. Three hundred years ago you'd be arguing that we should put Protestants to the sword. You're simply reflecting back into your god the superior ethical systems you've learned as a member of our Enlightment-influenced culture.

So we are given that choicce, and that means we choose badly sometimes and need redeeption, which God offers out of pure Grace. Which you reject because you want a world of hopelessness.

No, I prefer hope for this world, not nihilistic rejection of it in favor of some future holidayland no one has ever seen. I pefer to love my fellow men and not damn some portion of them because they fail to believe in the same fairy sky daddy I do.

Stop dwelling on the negative and try looking at the light rather than quibbeling over the color of the glass!

Stop the killing, intolerance, authoritarianism, and death-worship, and I'll stop complaining.

Besies, atonement is the post positive thing God could do. how better to show his love than to actually die as a human in a horrible way?

How better to show his love?! How better!? You must be mad! He can cure my sister of the nerve condition that is killing her. He can get rid of SARS, AIDS, and malaria. He can stop war, famine, illness and catastrophe. Hell, he could put forth decent public policy that would lead to 4% growth annually everywhere in the world. That would save millions of lives. How can you be so deluded! What you believe is an act of hopeless nihilism: "Here I am! God come down to earth! Sorry, but I don't have any time to share important findings about managing the money supply, drug manufacture, labor-saving machinery or plant genetics. I'll just die."

But that's not the end of it, he has victory over death, which we can share in and be risen too.

....and a free mug warmer for the first 500 to sign up!

You're just worshipping power and calling it love, Meta.

We screwed up the world. God gave us the choice and we chose to screw it up

Sure. The 2,000 who perished in the last earthquake here chose to die lingering and painful deaths in the dark buried under tons of rubble, earth and mud. My sister chose to die a painful death over two decades of a degenerative nerve condition, which leaves her unable to taste food properly and do the one thing she longs to do more than anything: raise a child. No loving person would ever torture another so.

'm sorry to insult you after you said you admire my courage, but I dont' admire your shallow, intolerant, narrowminded appraoch to theology. you've clealry never read any real theolgoians.

The difference between, say, Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion Novels and Paul Tillich's writings on the Nature of Being is that Bujold has never pretended her gods are real.

You just snipe at the easy targets instead of taking on the real thinkers.

That's because Christianity is just one big easy target, Meta. You guys invalidated yourselves with the religious wars, slavery, simony, and the Holocaust. All the brilliant writing in the world won't turn fantasy into reality, and it won't wash off the stink of the death camps. Theology is worthless without right action. History has shown that right action does not require Christianity, and that when the big test came - that's what Nazism was, Meta, THE test of Christian ethics -- Christianity failed miserably. Across the board. All the major Christian organizations fell over themselves to worship Hitler just as they had worshipped Jesus. They knew Power when it appeared before them.

But if you wish to stage a real debate on a "real" theological issue, by all means, suggest one. I'll be happy to oblige. What would you like to debate?

But then it appears you don't even know about them. I dare say you've never heard of liberation theology or read a single major theolgoian, is that right?

I've read quite a bit, Thomas Merton, Hans Kung, mostly older stuff read many years ago. It was interesting and well argued fantasy-writing; like Trekkies debating the nature of Captain Kirk ("How would Kirk have handled the Kosovo Crisis?"). Unlike theologians, however, I try to keep my fantasies and the reality of human existence on earth separated. And I certainly don't make them into a basis for forcing all others to think as I do.

that you think this sutff is just empty rhetoric shows how far out of the loop you are thoelgoically speaking.

You are right. I am out of the loop, theologically speaking. So tell me, are we breaking it at the Big End or the Little End nowadays?

There's a whole world of books out there about which you clearly know noting; a whole tradition you've overlooked, but you prefur intolerance and prejudice to learning, that much is clear.

Oh, you're right, you're right. I am the original philistine. Now where did I leave my tickets to the monster truck rally....?

Vorkosigan

Vinnie

PK, I would say the whole mythcist claim is based on over-skepticism. The historicity of a person is not a major detail. All you need are texts and possible lines of transmission to solidly authenticate the historicity of a person. Something about Jesus' family and followers (see V. 3, Marginal) alive during the composition of the Pauline corpus. Historical plausibility comes into play as well. I see Crossan as speaking under this rubric. Dd you miss the nature of Crossan's comparison? Let's not forget his final comments:

Further, I highly doubt Meier's only grounds for historicity are Josephus. It's simply the easiest and most obvious answer for those who accept a partially reconstructed TF. The actual Meier quote is as follows (p. 87): "Well's book, which builds its arguments on these and other similar unsubstantiated claims, may be allowed to stand as a representative of a whole type of popular Jesus book that I do not bother to consider in detail."

Meier appears to say that he doesn't waste his time with nonsense like that and I can hardly blame him.

As I've stated before, Jesus' historicity is axiomatic to scholars given the texts (their contents and dating) and historical plausibility. I don't see how the historicity of Jesus is in its infancy. There really isn't much to discuss. As I believe you've said, if there is an HJ in Paul then Doherty's theory is booted. Extraordinary evidence is not required here.

Vinnie

Koyaanisqatsi

You have stopped beating your wife, correct?

Peter Kirby

Vinnie: Meier appears to say that he doesn't waste his time with nonsense like that and I can hardly blame him.

If the worst flaw of Wells is that he disputes the authenticity of references to Jesus Christ in Josephus, then Wells deserves much more respect than he is usually given. I would say that the very fact that only a few scholars such as Ken Olson take the time to challenge the consensus on Jesus in Josephus is grounds for an indictment of bias in the scholarly establishment.

Vinnie: As I believe you've said, if there is an HJ in Paul then Doherty's theory is booted.

And how many scholars have explicitly set out to discover whether Paul's Jesus had led a recent life on earth? And how much time have they allotted to the endeavor? Too few, considering the number of dissenters since the nineteenth century, and too little, considering the prodigious output of the likes of Couchoud and Doherty.

Let me give you an example of why I say that study of the existence of Jesus among scholars is in its infancy. Galatians 1:19 refers to "James the brother of the Lord." This is widely regarded as the crown jewel in a small tiara of references to an earthly Jesus in Paul. In his debate with Price, Greg Boyd appealed to this passage as a refutation in itself of the Christ myth view of Paul. Gary Habermas likewise made it an important part of his refutation of Wells. But, if it is a diamond, it is still rough and unpolished. I will leave alone the question of the meaning of the phrase, which has been debated at length by Wells and Doherty (and not without justification, as it has been debated as far back as Origen). Frank R. McGuire writes:

http://www.hermann-detering.de/did_p..._galatians.htm
So it is apparent (from Tertullian's Against Marcion 5.3) that some copies of Gal 2:1 did not have the "again." According to the UBS Greek New Testament, the word "again" (PALIN) is omitted by "it-e cop-bo Marcion Irenaeus-lat Tertullian Ambrosiaster Chrysostom Augustine." Moreover, the Marcionites had a text of Galatians that did not have the Gal 1:18-24 passage, as is apparent from Tertullian. There is motive both for its insertion and its removal; it would be inserted by those who want to make Jerusalem circle and Paul look like they were in close agreement, as it is used by the orthodox, and it would be removed by their opponents. What makes me more suspicious is verse 20, "As to what I am writing to you, behold, before God, I am not lying." Why would this incidental and nondescript fortnight in Jerusalem be a cause for doubt to Paul's audience? This rather sounds like a later scribe committing pious fraud.

Despite the text critical issues and the difficulty of ascertaining the original meaning of the text, this verse is consistently used as a knock-down argument for the historical existence of Jesus. I have not found any historical Jesus scholar that goes into any detail to refute the interpretation of the likes of Wells, let alone discuss the problem of authenticity. That is what I mean when I say that the subject is in its infancy.

best,
Peter Kirby

Koyaanisqatsi

No, you'll just do what you always do (and I said you would do in the original thread you're referrencing here); introduce these arguments as a means to proselytize your beliefs.

It was you who misconstrued what I posted into this silly strawman that has (as all of yours do) collapsed in upon yourself per usual.

Why do you feel the need to beat Vinnie's wife?

Are you done now making up false accusations against yourself and trying to put them into my mouth? You are doing precisely what I said you would do; using these arguments as a smokescreen in order to proselytize.

I have no problem with somebody who wishes to discuss their beliefs; just don't obfuscate that fact with pointless "white noise" the way you do is all I would ask.

It is disengenuous at best.

Bully for you.

Uh hunh...

Is there a point coming up any time soon?

No, actually, I use a hundred watt bulb.

I see, so it's my fault for correctly interpreting the threat implicit in Jesus' statements regarding what happens to someone who simply lusts after another woman in his heart, for just one of many examples? That one will be cast into hell for doing so?

An imaginary place of eternal punishment inflicted by an imaginary being?

Yeah, you're right. I'm the one who made up all that stuff about hell being the "second death" and fearing the one who can cast you into it and blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's all my fault that Jesus told his disciples that they had to hate their mothers and fathers and nursury school teachers and own lives also or they can't be his disciple; it's all my fault that Jesus said "I come not to bring peace, but a sword," but for some reason I just can't get passed my bias to read it as written, because it's all just parable and metaphor!

Right? Just like the fiction of Shakespeare.

You're right, it's all my fault that you imply the NT is nothing more than Shakespearian-esque in the same breath you affirm the divinity of Jesus and blah, blah, blah.

Oh, for f*ck's sake, Metacrock, give it a rest. You've been posting the exact same tripe ever since I've known you and it is always the same fallacious, circuitous flash powder to allow you to proselytize.

If you truly were inspired by the bible in the same way you claim to be inspired by Shakespeare or Picasso, then you would treat the bible as nothing more than the collection of mythological stories that it is.

There would be no divinity ascribed to the characters found within that mythology, just as you don't ascribe any divinity to Hamlet or King Lear!

These transparent attempts of yours were cute the first fifty times you posted them, but now they just bore me, so I'll take your invitation and leave.



Even your ad hominens are pathetic. Have fun avoiding all of the substantive arguments while pretending you're not just doing all of this nonsense in order to proselytize!

Vorkosigan

Moreover, the Marcionites had a text of Galatians that did not have the Gal 1:18-24 passage,

Like I said, Vinnie, there is good reason to think that both of the James references are later interpolations.

Vorkosigan

MortalWombat

It reminds me of those chain letters you get all the time: "This is absolutely true, I am not making this up..."

Metacrock

Meta => I put downa ton of arugmentation. I have a whole book by Luke Timothy Johnson of argumentation for it. you can find the books if you want to go into it.



[quote]But you do seem to think that you have to prove the existence of Jesus by saying things like, "how come the story is told again and again without varying versions?" Why is it that the existence of Jesus is a matter of evidentialist apologetics but His divinity and resurrection are not?[/qoute]



Meta => "The logic of the lamp post." The idea being, you lose your keys in the dark but you look for them under the lamp post. Why? cause you can't find them in the dark. Jesus' exitence can proven with evidential methods, his divinity cannot be.




Meta => WEll thaks, I assume included in that. I don't think Doherthy is a stupid person, not at all.I think he's bright and well read. I just think he's hung up on a certain view point and wont think about other view points.

do I think about other view points? I don't know. I try to...

Peter Kirby

Are you referring to Johnson's The Real Jesus? Johnson is responding to the likes of the Jesus Seminar and holding out for a supernatural Jesus by faith. Johnson doesn't interact with the idea that Jesus is a complete myth. You indeed have attempted to respond to mythicist ideas, but I was referring to scholars in print, who say that it's insane to doubt that Jesus was a real person without any attempt to put forth an argument. Go back and look at the surrounding sentences of all of the quotes you mined. Let us know what logical arguments you find.

I always thought of it as the fallacy of the lamp post (usually the guy is called a drunk). Obviously I would grab a flashlight or feel around on my hands and knees to find the keys where I think I dropped them.

Anyway, I am not asking whether you think that the existence of Jesus can be proven. I am asking why you think it is important that people believe the existence of Jesus can be proven.

Won't think about other view points? Doherty spends most of his space in his writing considering the viewpoints of HJ scholars and explaining why he thinks they do not hold up well to examination. It's not as if Doherty takes the non-existence of Jesus for granted and urges us to ignore the writings of people who believe in a HJ.

best,
Peter Kirby