Iasion

Greetings sparty (fishfood),

Hmmm,
you arrived with a post that sounded like an advert for your favourite theory - and you announced repeatedly you BELIEVE there was a Historical Jesus.

Well,
this is a DEBATING forum, its for debating different ideas about Jesus - we don't just sit here waiting for people like you to tell us the "truth about Jesus".


So, you really expected all of us to roll over and accept your unproven theories?


I neither said nor implied anything like that - I merely debated your point of view. I even went out of my way to say "welcome", to use the word "polite" etc..

In short, if you want to argue a point of view, you need to be able to defend it - I'm sorry if I offended you, I thought you wanted to debate and discuss Jesus.


Quentin David Jones

Ted Hoffman

sparty
WHY?

Where was Jesus famous? Do you have any evidence for that? How many historians wrote about his fame? Why didnt you want any more "Jesus was the Son of God" or "Jesus was a unique peasant who taught us all how to love" arguments? Were you looking for something that could please you or the truth?
Is all this about what you want?

Why? Why is it a cop-out? What is there to cop-out from? Do you think its easy to explain away all that is written about Jesus as myth?
The Jesus Puzzle was not written to impress so telling us you are not impressed doesn't help one bit.
Write down clear points concerning what you think is wrong with the Jesus Puzzle. Its not enough to claim without explanation that "it isn't a way of dealing with the situatin in hand" - what is the situation in hand? And what is the best way of dealing with it? On what basis to you judge one way of dealing with it to be better than another?

fishfood
So who was Jesus? And what did he do according to what you have read?

You are asking why so many people have been exposed to the christian religion (some even converting) - a simple question. I see no mystery at all ever heard of memetics? missionary zeal? indoctrination? most people attend missionary schools especially in the developing countries.
How many people think critically about matters of religion in any population? the majority or the minority?

If you accept him as real, just present the evidence for that belief, thats all, if you have no evidence, then we have no use for baseless opinions - which everyone has anyway.
This is a philosophical forum - every significant thing you claim, must be backed by evidence.
If you are uncomfortable about tough questions, there are other forums for chitty-chatter.

No one has expressed any worry so far.
Most people who accept him as a historical man have christian backgrounds - unless you would like to provide examples of scholars without christian backgrounds who beleive in a historical Jesus. The inertia of childhood indoctrination is not an easy thing to shake off.

We leave no stone unturned.

Why is this not the place? You came here yourself remember? Have this place been disqualified from being "the place" because we ask disturbing questions?
Tell us where the place for that is and we will come there and rigorously assess your arguments.
If this is a cop-out, its the fastest cop-out I have ever witnessed.

Yuri Kuchinsky
Existence of a historical Jesus is critical for any argument about his association with the Samaritans. Discussing Jesus' association/ belonging to a particular group while there is no evidence he existed is thes the very epitome of building castles in the air.

"overstate" is a matter of personal taste - a non-issue. Jesus Mythicism is not a cult or movement. Many different people have different basis for their Jesus mythicism/ ahistoricist beliefs. they do not make the same case or follow the same so its not critical for their ideas to be in harmony. Each argument must be examined on its own merit.
Perhaps its time you got over expecting people of different minds and education to think alike and to come up with similar explanations.

The positive? and what would constitute the positive? Paul writing that "Jesus did not exist" as Richard carrier suggests? Is that realistic?
What we Mythers assert is that there is no strong evidence for the existence of Jesus and UNTIL THEN, its up to those championing the historicity of Jesus to put some evidence on the table - otherwise, it remains a baseless claim.

Cant prove a negative - can you prove that ghosts dont exist?
The negative, which has been accomplished, is that there is no reliable evidence for the historicity of Jesus. That Jesus existed, is a positive assertion that requires evidence - do you have some?

Even those arguing for historicity don't agree . Dominic Crossan, Burton Mack etc talk of different Jesuses some say he was a Cynic Sage, some assert he was an itinerant preacher, some say he was an insignificant Jew, some a magician etc. But that is no reason to discredit the existence of a historical Jesus. Even if they all came up with a harmonised image of a historical Jesus, that in itself DOES NOT prove that Jesus existed. Existence of a historical person is based on HISTORICAL evidence, not on contemporary scolastic opinions.

Vorkosigan
Very succinct.

<noticing that fishfood has fled>
How do we deal with people like fishfood in future. I really dont appreciate someone coming here claiming that he has read such and such a book and its so beautiful and - what did he say again? - "stable", then when asked some questions, they flee.
Maybe the mods can put some notice that people who come here to "sell" any ideas must be ready to defend them?

[ August 22, 2002: Message edited by: Intensity ]</p>

Yuri Kuchinsky

By positive I meant the positive case as to how Christianity originated. This is what people expect from the Mythicists, but so far there seems to have been some problems with that.

[/QB][/QUOTE]

Well, I'm not championing the historicity of Jesus, at least not at this time. All I'm saying is that people should be allowed to discuss the Historical Jesus without always having to go back to square one.

In other words, it's perfectly legitimate to begin one's analysis by saying, "Assuming that there was a the Historical Jesus, we can investigate further if he was connected with the Samaritans.

But I'm not making any positive assertion. See above. You must be confusing me with the fundies, or with that whole dishonest academic Historical Jesus industry, who are mostly a bunch of bigots and crooks.

Well, some do use these disagreements in the mainstreamers camp as evidence of a non-existence of the Historical Jesus.

But I think you misunderstood me. You see, the Historical Jesus camp do have a coherent story that they all agree on. Namely, that Christian religion was started by a historical individual named Jesus. But the Mythicists don't quite agree with each other to the same extent in this area of Christian origins. They only agree about the negative, but not about the positive.

Yours,

Yuri.

Ted Hoffman

Hi Yuri,
I haven't misunderstood you and I am sorry for giving that impression. Thank you for making your position clear.

You see, the Historical Jesus camp do have a coherent story that they all agree on. Namely, that Christian religion was started by a historical individual named Jesus. But the Mythicists don't quite agree with each other to the same extent in this area of Christian origins. They only agree about the negative, but not about the positive.
The mythers agree that the Jesus of the gospels did not exist as a physical person.

Fiach

Was Jesus a Jew? Of course not. I have seen his face in portraits of churches in the UK, Norway, and USA. Jesus had blondish-brown hair, pale colouration, blue eyes, straight narrow nose. All of these are Celtic or Nordic features. So Jesus was a North European. Bollocks! He can be anything you want him to be because he is not real.

I have long been a sceptic regarding Jesus of Nazareth in several aspects. First of all, there is insufficient evidence to prove that he was ever a living human being at all. All so-called evidence for Jesus comes from the Bible and gospels written many decades after the alleged time of his life. Notations in the secular press of the Empire were only noting that there were people who believed in Jesus, no eyewitness secular reporters noted his existence. So I must start by saying that Jesus is a hypothetical person.

Secondly, he was supposed to be born of a virgin. It depends on whether you think God shagged Mary to inseminate her, or did some other trick. If God impregnated Mary then she was not a virgin. If she was a virgin, then Jesus would have been born only with Mary’s DNA. That double stranded helix would have two X chromosomes. Therefore, Jesus had to be female if Mary was a virgin. There was no obvious source for Mary to have acquired a Y chromosome (the male sex chromosome) unless God penetrated her with his penis and ejaculated his Y-chromosome containing sperm.

Parthenogenesis is a process in which a female gives birth to offspring without the aid of a male. In typical cases, the female has germ cells, ova that contain half of her chromosome content in each cell. Each one has half of all of the somatic chromosomes plus one X sex chromosome. Perhaps she was mated to a male. The Male’s sperm have half of them with a Y-chromosome, and half have the X-chromosome. All the female ova have only the X-chromosome. All male vertebrates have an X from mother and Y from father. All females have two X chromosomes, one from mom and one from dad.

Mary, if not impregnated with God’s sperm containing alien Y-chromosomes, had to produce Ova that doubled their chromosome load by nucleotide mirror production of each coded GCAT amino acids. The X chromosome would have of necessity produced a mirror image X chromosome.

So, either Jesus was entirely fictitious (my view), or Jesus was a live person. If Jesus was a live person, then either he was an ordinary human male produced by human-human intercourse, or Jesus was produced by parthenogenesis, and She was a woman.


Fiach

offa

Offa;

Question 1; What is a Jew?

In reading Scripture everybody seems to be Samaritan until King David.
Noah and Abraham appear to be Arabic (Samaritan, Gentile, Sinners) until
David defeats Saul (Idumean, Samaritan, Gentile).


Question 2; When were the gospels written?

Just when were they written and please give me some kind of proof.


Question 3 ; What is a virgin?

If the chief priest is called "father", a.k.a. "Our Father who art in Heaven"
then what the hell is a Virgin. What is a Sister? What is a Brother? What is a
Sinner?

Iasion

Greetings,

Well, there is no proof.

The evidence available includes :[*] 1st century -
No Gospel manuscripts, no Gospel quotes, no mention of Gospels.
[*] Early-mid 2nd century -
Papias c.130 first refers to (proto) Gospels
P52 c.125 earliest Gospel fragment (of John)
Aristides refers to the Gospels (being preached a "short time") 130-160?
[*] Mid 2nd century -
Justin Martyr quotes Gospel material (amongst unknown material) c.150
[*] Late-mid 2nd century
Diatessaron first NUMBERS the Gospels as FOUR c.170
Irenaeus first NAMES the Gospels c.185 and gives many quotes.
[*] c.200
First non-tiny manuscript (gJohn).


The traditional dating of 70-80-90 is wishful thinking in my view, based on nothing solid.

The Gospels seem to have been written early 2nd century.

Quentin David Jones

[ August 23, 2002: Message edited by: Iasion ]</p>

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hello, Quentin,

I generally agree with almost everything you say, except for the two items that I cite above.

1. The dating of P52 at c.125 is highly problematic. No ancient MS can be dated with such precision palaeographically. And, in fact, everything to do with P52 is highly problematic, as it's such a tiny scrap of papyrus -- compared to how much weight the NT establishment is trying to place on it. Quite obviously, the whole thing is a scam. This little fragment can just as easily be from 200 CE, or from 300 CE.

2. You say that "the Gospels seem to have been written early 2nd century". Maybe so, but this shouldn't be taken to imply that our current canonical text of the gospels dates from this period. In fact, quite simply, our canonical texts are 4th century texts. A lot of water flowed under the bridge between early 2nd century and the 4th century.

All the best,

Yuri.

The Six Big Fallacies of NT Studies,
<a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/loisy/message/5850" target="_blank">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/loisy/message/5850</a>

Iasion

Greetings Yuri,

Sorry, I usually say 100-150 (which is the mainstream view) - why do you date it so late?


Well,
yes, I'd agree that the texts were changing even up to the 4th century - but manuscripts (such as P66 and Chester Beatty's) suggest much of the NT had formed by c.200

It may be a bit bold to say "our canonical texts are 4th century texts" when we have considerable evidence from the 3rd century.

In your view, how much of the NT had formed by c.200? how much do you think was later?

Quentin David Jones

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hello, Quentin,

Actually, I don't date it at all... I'm just saying that the whole thing is a fraud! It's impossible to date a small scrap of writing like this with any precision. I will post more on this subject soon in a separate thread.

No, my friend, it's not bold at all. It's simply stating a fact. Take a look into any critical edition of the NT. It's all based on 4th-5th century MSS.

As to the Papyri, which all come from Egypt, they do indicate that something like our standard Alexandrian text has been around since the 3rd century. But that's just fine with me. Still, none of them push the date any earlier than 200. In my view, Alexandrian text originated ca 200-250 CE, and this is fully consistent with the Papyri.

But the Papyri also attest a lot of textual variations that have not been accepted into our standard NT, and some of them also attest the Western text, which seems like the earliest one of them all.

All the best,

Yuri.