Metacrock

Meta => You are right about Johnson, although he does give evidence and evaluates some of the evidence (although not all) for Jesus' being real. IN the context of answering JS types also makes good points about it.


but you know, questioning it is like questioning that George Washington was real or that the battle of the Alamo really happened. So you can say "well historians just assume Washington and the alamo wihtout ever giving any real evidence for it." That's true, but why should they.

It's also a little bit like the big foot hunters saying "no one ever gives conviencing evidence disproving big foot."




Meta => You have to work me here Pete, we don't have a flash light. The idea is that all we can do is what we can do. WE can't gather evidence on matters that are beyond empirical investigation.


Meta => Call me old fashioned, but I believe it to be true, and that is good enough. I think truth is worth sticking up for.





Meta=> Yeeeeeeaa sorta. Anyone who would strech the Greek language out of shape like he does just to prove little points upon which rest his whole ediface, is not into truth.

two examples:

no 1

Romans 1 Paul refurs to his genology (or I can't remember the exact term, I think he says "hemoatone" boodline). Doherty has the most aburdly improbable argument twisting the Greek out of proportion. His reading is [b]possible[/b but highly unllikely I showed it to a Greek scholar at Cambridge and he laughed.


example 2

Hebrews clealry states "during his life on earth." The whole point that the author is comparing Jesus' life as a human with ours, diciplined by fathers, so we can identify with him as our high preist. Doherty trys to twist that out of shape. It's cealr as clearly as day in the Greek he's saying "his life on earth" and that he describes a fleshly existece and the paralellism of the analogy makes it all too clear that he's speaking of a life in the flesh on earth.


to me those two things just indicate an unwillingness to examine other views. I realize that he refutes other views but I don't believe that he really examines them!

Fred

Wow, I really enjoyed reading your posts guys.

As for my answer ?
Well I first of all think that anybody who tries to say they can prove Jesus' existence is on shaky ground. This is because there is no real evidence, as we all know. There is no argument with this because it is a historical fact at this point in time. Things may change in the future but until then, we can't prove it.
We then are faced with no less than two individuals to find. Jesus Pantera and the Jesus known as the "Christ". Certainly the latter is a development of pagan symbolism formulated by Paul later, after what seems to have been his break from the Nazarene hierarchy.
To my mind, when one reads the NT one is not reading the ideas of Jesus at all, but those of Paul.
As for Jesus the man ? We may yet find something, but at this point we haven't.

I must add that anybody who tries to use the words in the NT as is shown above, fails to take into consideration the actual history of the Gospels. Remember it wasn' t until about 350 AD that the NT even existed in its present form. They were compiled first around 160 AD if I remember correctly and the names at the headings are there simply as attributes and the chapters themselves were written by hands unknown.
A study of the Early Christians in Rome would also not be out of order. They seem to have been vastly different than what exists today.

Vinnie

Music to Dom's ears!

Vinnie

Toto

George Washington left a big imprint on history. There is no need to assume anything. He left property, writings, associates, portraits, false teeth. . .

The battle Alamo, on the other hand, is already mired in legend. Just google "myth alamo", and tell me who fought the battle and what their cause was, and how you would know.

Toto

Could you locate the precise verses that you are talking about?

Doherty is on-line: Romans

Epistle to the Hebrews

Then we can decide if Doherty refutes those other views without examining them. (?!?)

Are you talking about the whole kata sarka controversy, or something else?

Peter Kirby

What evidence does Johnson provide for the historicity of Jesus?

If historians were aware of a contingent who denied the existence of Washington and if historians were often making dogmatic proclamations that doubt about Washington's existence is absurd, then I would expect someone to take the time to respond in detail to the doubting books and set the record straight. In the case of Washington, this would be easy given the abundance of primary evidence.

Nobody's asking HJ scholars to disprove something that they do not care about. I am asking HJ scholars to demonstrate something that they believe and is foundational to their field.

I guess I have to agree with you, as I am not even sure exactly what it would mean to say that a person is a god.

I take it, then, that you are not willing to explain why the historicity of Jesus is particularly important to you.

It is important to me because it impinges on our understanding of materials I study and because it is the subject of a fascinating debate.

It is a non sequiter to say that Doherty is unwilling to think about other views because he has made errors about the meaning of an ancient Greek text.

This would be like me saying that you are unwilling to consider other views because you make up stuff about second century pilgrims to the tomb of Jesus. It just doesn't follow.

best,
Peter Kirby

MortalWombat

Full point, Peter!:notworthy

Fred

{Originally posted by Meta}
"Call me old fashioned, but I "believe" it to be true and that is good enough. I think "truth" is worth sticking up for."
{End quote}

I have a problem with this. You wish to argue a point regarding archaeological evidence simply because you wish to believe something is true. To assume it is true simply because you wish it so, is no basis for an argument.
"sticking up for", I take it to mean "fight for" ? If this is so you are willing to fight in some way, simply because of a feeling, without any proof ?
These types of actions have caused millions of deaths over the centuries.
If you want to do actual research, I recomend putting your personal feelings aside and simply study the evidence on its own merits.

Toto

Yeah - what about that tomb and the alleged pilgrim(s)? I'm still waiting for an answer to The Truth about the Empty Tomb from someone who values truth so much.

Metacrock

Meta => Well there is a small band of historians who believe that John Wilks Boothe survive the assination and went to Texas and lived many years afterward, thought to be dead all along. They even have a picture of the guy they think he became. Do find that a real compelling issue to get behind?

But what if this band of George denying historians used evidence like "we don't any official records of him, prove he existed, I can ask questions you can't answer so that proves he didn't exist." Would you still take them seriously?




Meta => WEll actually I think I went a long way toward proving it. 19 gospels that portray Jesus as flesh and blood, and all of them dated before the second half of cent. 2, and many before the canonicals. So that should at least prove [color]that the early chruch saw Jesus as felsh and boold and historical[/color]. It doesnt' prove he existed, but it disproves Earl's theory.

and why should we have to prove something that already has presumption? That's not what presumption means, it means we should be able to assume, we don't have to prove it. The challenger to status quo has to disprove it.




Meta => It's been several days, what are you agreeing to exactly?




Meta => Well, I said I think it's true, and truth is important to me. I fail to see why that's not an explaination!


Meta =>If that can be your reason, why can't "cause I think it's true" be mine?



Meta => OK, you are right! I stand humbly corrected and most humbly apologize. i should not have said that he is unwilling to consider other views.

I should have just said his scholarship sux


(I don't really mean that--the problem is not his brains or his undestanding of scholarship, but the color of the lens in the shades he uses for study).