Butters

Yea, that's why they are wrong 92.065% of the time.

Uzzah

No...the 15% is the "he probably etc". I noticed after I wrote it that that point might be a little unclear.

The JS gets a lot of flak from xians because the system is set up to promote more grey/black verdicts than pink/red. However they freely admit it and their excuse is simple, "when in doubt, leave it out."

Uzzah

Toto

I found this on an <a href="http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/_PDFArchives/theological-dictionary/TD2W0900.pdf" target="_blank">apologetic web site</a>. I think it is trying to exaggerate the outrageousness of the Jesus Seminar's conclusions when it describes the "pink" votes as doubtful. It says:

[code]
Red Pink Gray Black Authentic
----- ----- ----- ----- ------
Matthew 11 61 114 235 2.6%
(421 sayings)
Mark 1 18 66 92 0.6%
(177 sayings)
Luke 14 65 128 185 3.6%
(392 sayings)
John 0 1 5 134 0.0%
(140 sayings)
Thomas 3 40 67 92 1.5%
(202 sayings)
</pre>[/quote]

[ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]</p>

CX

Really? I'm neither a Xian nor a believer in god and yet I find that the connections between Mithras and Jesus are extremely strained at best. Not least because Mithraism was a mystery cult about which we know very little; Mithras was actually a very minor deity in the Zoroastrian pantheon. There is no evidence that Mithras was actually worshipped by any group of Zoroastrians whose primary deity is Ahura-Mazda.
Basically the Roman cult of Sol Invicti (the "unconquerable sun") grabbed mithras from the Perso-Iranians to add an ancient aspect to their relatively new cult. That was all the rage in the Roman Empire at the time. This illustrates why the early Xians felt the need to tie Jesus as portrayed in the NT to Judaism. There a virtually no similarities between Mithras and Jesus. All knowledge of Mithras within the Roman cult comes from inscriptions and stone reliefs.


The 15% figure (and I'm not sure that's precisely right) corresponds to those things that the JS determined Jesus "almost certainly" said or did.

No. The bulk of the JS findings have the words and deed of Jesus in the NT as somewhere between "for sure" and "no way".

[ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: Bible Humper ][/QB][/QUOTE]

CX

I don't think that's a requirement. I seem to recall some movie producer being part of the seminar.

Toto

An interesting article on the Jesus Seminar by Catholic neo-con Charlotte Allen is <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96dec/jesus/jesus.htm" target="_blank">here</a>. She also had an entertaiing article in Lingua Franca, but that seems to have disappeared from the net.

The one film director is <a href="http://westarinstitute.org/Fellows/Verhoeven/verhoeven.html" target="_blank">Paul Verhoeven</a>, who was invited by Robert Funk because he was planning to make a film on the life of Jesus. (He seems to have a PhD in something.)

Biff the unclean

There a virtually no similarities between Mithras and Jesus. All knowledge of Mithras within the Roman cult comes from inscriptions and stone reliefs.
CX, I think that if you'll pick up a copy of The Mysteries of Mithra by Franz Cumont, which has been the most authorative volume on the subject for almost a hundred years now , you'll find much more information on him than you have been led to believe exists.

CX

I am familiar with Cumont's work since he was perhaps the greatest living authority on Mithraism.
If you would like to provide a reference in Cumont where any written document is referenced by him in relation to Roman Mithraism identified as a religious text of the cult, I'll happily retract my statement. You will not find such a reference because so far none has been shown to exist. All the primary source information we have regarding Mithraism comes from archaeological evidence. I.E. incriptions, carved reliefs and Mithraeum.

Vorkosigan

Verhoeven's PhD is in <a href="http://www.paulverhoeven.net/biography/biography_trivia.htm" target="_blank">math and physics</a>, at least according to that site. It also says he is the ONLY non-religious scholarly member. Having one hardly negates the Seminar, anymore than the SBL should be ignored because they allowed a lawyer/publisher named Shanks to sit on a scholarly panel.

Vorkosigan

[ December 13, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

Peter Kirby

Hi, I'm still around!

The famous figure is that 18% of the units examined by the Jesus Seminar were voted pink or red. A few things have to be kept in mind when considering this figure and its interpretation.

The figure includes the Gospel of Thomas and all the Jesus saying material that dates before the year 325 CE. It would be somewhat higher if the scope were narrowed to the four gospels and significantly higher if a figure were calculated for the synoptics alone. (Which anyone could do by reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/006063040X/InternetInfidelsA" target="_blank">The Five Gospels</a>.)

For the purposes of this figure, a saying with parallels was not counted more than once. When you consider that the existence of multiple versions of a saying is taken as an indication of authenticity, it is evident that a larger portion of the gospel material would be deemed authentic than is indicated by the figure.

Perhaps most importantly, the Fellows of the Seminar attempted to take a skeptical stance by default and only to allow items into the "database" of authentic material if it proved to be trustworthy. (A similar approach is recommended by E.P. Sanders, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0800620615/InternetInfidelsA" target="_blank">Jesus and Judaism</a>.) This means that stuff that is "non liquet" to a scholar would be voted grey by that scholar. Note that the grey material is not included in the 18% figure, which is only the pink and red. That is, the pink and red (which is what is included in the figure) is what the Jesus Seminar claims that we know to be true.

best,
Peter Kirby