Family Man

I'm agnostic on Jesus Myth issue. This thread isn't about that, so I have no idea what you're talking about.

lpetrich

But I wonder if Mr. Conklin would prefer such supernatural assumptions as that Jesus Christ had been a false prophet sent by the Devil.

Ron Garrett

I'd be fascinated to know how one adopts a neutral bias towards the super-natural? Either you are willing to accept without a shred of empirical proof the contravention of what appear to be inviolable patterns of occurence, or you want empirical proof. The supernaturalist expects us not only to accept their mere "say so" as proof, but additionally expects us to accept mere "say so" that contradicts all reason and experience. I am quite sure that supernaturalists set a higher standard by which they judge the claims of toilet paper manufacturers than they do the claims of their religion.

Sasquatch75

Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend. But as always, as ever, back to business.
All right let's talk about the Historical Jesus. One of the assertions made intially was the fact that Jesus was crucified by Pilate sometimes in the 30's. Under what charges and circumstances was Jesus tried and convicted?

Sasquatch75

Also to reply to some earlier questions thrown my way:

"Who says the information came from the disciples?"
Disregarding the question of authorship, it would make logical sense for the disciples to be the prime source of information when writing the gospels, would it not? Outside of "the man" himself where else would you find basic, detailed information about Jesus and his ministry other than his disciples?

quote:

"And what would be the purpose of doctoring all of these details about Jesus when it only killed them in the end? Why wouldn't they deny it if they didn't believe it to be true?"

response by Family Man:

"Of course they believed it to be true. The fools that killed themselves at Heaven's Gate must have truly believed the comet was really a spaceship come to take them away. People truly believe all sorts of strange things, even to the point of being willing to die for them. Jesus's divinity happens to be one of those wierd things."

Yes, but as has been stated by other users on this board, the disciples ascribed these claims of divinity and messiahship to Jesus. Therefore they are intentionally fabricating not falsely beleving or being deluded. And again the question: why would a set of individuals (the disciples) who knowingly and willfully instigated a set of incorrect inventions about a man suffer endless persecution and eventual death if they KNEW it was a lie?

NOGO

Family Man

The HJ is irrelevant. What is important is the concensus. That way preacher can say to their congregation that even atheist admit that Jesus is historical. Believers will draw all sorts of conclusions from this.

Instead of the HJ list we should concentrate on the Jesus-myth list which is all of the NT minus the HJ list.

Family Man

No, it doesn't. Jesus had other followers other than the disciples, and as it is clear that many of the stories about Jesus were fabricated, it doesn't follow that it must have come from the disciples. In fact, the source of the stories are unknown, though the disciples may have been one of the sources.

For instance, Raymond Brown believes that the original source of the gospel John was a disciple -- but he does not state that as a fact. Then, after the disciple was out of the picture, the text was revised several times, and that included adding material. Then, after the gospels were written down, I believe it was revised several more times.

In short, your view that the disciples were the main source of the gospels is a) unproven and b) questionable.

There is actually very little real information about Jesus in the Gospels, which is why Bede's list was so short. Remember, HJ advocates disbelieve much of what is in the gospels.

And that changes things not a whit.

In all likelihood, it was all three.

Since I've already demonstrated that people die for patently false things, and you haven't demonstrated why "attributing divinity to Jesus" is any different from the examples I've given, I consider that question already answered.

[ September 03, 2002: Message edited by: Family Man ]

[ September 03, 2002: Message edited by: Family Man ]</p>

Family Man

NOGO --

I disagree. It doesn't matter what skeptics say about this issue; Christians will find a way to denigrate it. They'll look at the Jesus Myth position, declare it to be absurd, and marginalize its advocates. I find the argument interesting, but I don't think it is so overwhelming that it's going to convince anyone predisposed against it. After all, creationism is alive and well (at least in the States) and evolution has a ton of evidence for it.

I personally think it is far more fruitful to point out the paucity of evidence in the Bible, especially as most of the research has been done by Christians. But to each their own. You can make your arguments; let me make mine.

[ September 03, 2002: Message edited by: Family Man ]</p>

Family Man

That strikes me as irrelevant to the point of this thread. Perhaps you'd like to start a thread of your own.

not a theist

Let me add to what Family Man has already said in response to this (and which I also agree with).

You make the assumption that the authors of the gospels were primarily writing down "information" about Jesus. Though there is information within the gospels, their primary intention was not to convey information about the historical life of Jesus but rather to proclaim the kerygma of who they believed Jesus was. In this area they didn't need eyewitness information about Jesus. Rather, they probably searched the Old Testament for statements that they regarded as Messianic and applied them to Jesus. If they understood a statement or prophecy as being Messianic, then it must have happened to Jesus so they may well have wrote an incident into the gospels in which they simply ascribe it as happening to Jesus with no evidence whatsoever that it did happen to Jesus.

They were also interested in typology and in making Jesus appear to be following in the footsteps of OT characters such as Moses and David. So some of the incidents in the gospels may simply be invented stories which try to relate Jesus to these OT persons. Again, since Jesus was, in their minds, a type of these persons, these events had to have happened to Jesus so they wrote them as if they did happen to Jesus. They weren't lying, they were simply reconstucting the "history" of Jesus based upon who they believed he was.
Since it was not the immediate disciples who wrote the gospels or were even the source for all of the things in the gospels, your question seems misplaced.

But as for the disciples (who were not the authors of the gospels nor even necessarily their primary sources): Please provide evidence that many of the eyewitness disciples actually were killed for their beliefs about Jesus. Most of these accounts are from late and unreliable sources who are writing centuries after the supposed martyrdoms. The only ones that seem to have fairly early attestation are those of Peter and James (or perhaps the Jameses). Of these even, we don't know why James the brother of Jesus was killed.

As for the actual authors of the gospels, we have no good evidence that they were killed for their beliefs.