Freethought & Rationalism Archive

braces_for_impact · 10-01-2002, 10:13 AM

I don't see it as such an incredible statement, but a true one. The fact is even if Jesus were positively identified as living in the past where does that put you? Nowhere. Why? Because his divinity would most definitely still be in doubt. You would have to move from proving Jesus very existence (a difficult task), to proving he was the divine son of god (a monumental task).

At least, you would if you want chrisian theology to hold any water.

Gooch's dad · 10-01-2002, 10:37 AM

Vander, count me as one more vote, along with Toto, in favor of you backing up the 'sound historical accuracy of the Gospels' claim in your recent post.

In case you missed it, <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=51&t=000512&p=" target="_blank">this thread</a> included a nice list posted by Peter Kirby, of quite a few Christlian scholars who doubt the veracity of the empty tomb story.

The gospel accounts are simply not history. Try finding, in any of the accounts of Alexander the Great, as big a mistake as Matthew 21:5-7, which has Jesus supposedly riding on BOTH a donkey and a foal. The writer just completely missed the meaning of the OT quote he was reading (from Isaiah, as I recall) and it is obvious that he isn't writing history, he is trying to fit OT prophecy by making up stories.

Good luck. Waiting for those references...

-Kelly

Starboy · 10-01-2002, 12:19 PM

Vander has taken to drive by postings. My theory is that he is in it for the attention. If we ignore him maybe he will respond or better yet maybe he will go away.

Starboy

Starboy · 10-01-2002, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by leonarde:
Posted by Starboy:
This is an incredible statement.

Taken out of context yes it is. But people used to bible thumping know all about that.

Starboy

leonarde · 10-01-2002, 01:31 PM

Posted by starboy:

Quote:

Originally posted by leonarde:
Posted by Starboy:
This is an incredible statement.

Taken out of context yes it is. But people used to bible thumping know all about that.

Starboy

Now I understand the "context" of a given sentence
to be composed of 2 elements:

1)what PRECEDES it (nothing precedes the sentence
I quoted as it is your very first (apparently purposely provocative) sentence.

2)what follows it (and what of what follows your
initial provocation "explains" that first sentence? Let's take a look).
_________________________________________________

Quote:

If he did live he was not an important person of his time as was Alexander the Great. Jesus was the excuse that Paul(Saul) needed to create his church. A church that has as much to do with the existence of Jesus as the existence of Alexander the Great. Most of the dogma that is promulgated as Christianity was coined by Paul. A man, who was never an apostle, didn�t know Jesus and did not have the blessings of Jesus� family. In short a fraud, very much in the vein of modern day evangelists. God only exists in the minds of men and requires contact with infected individuals to become present in new minds. Something that would not be necessary if god had a real exisistence.

This is a mess of non-sequiturs and bald unsubstantiated statements, and the inevitable
personal credo "God only exists in the minds of men"....The OP at least is INTERESTED in the relative historical record of Alexander and Julius
Caesar as compared to that of Jesus. The "context"
of your full post only indicates that you are too
prejudiced to consider the historical record of ANY of those persons...

Cheers!

[ October 01, 2002: Message edited by: leonarde ]

10-02-2002, 03:14 AM

I think Toto is right to point out the hyperbole in comparing Alex the Great and Caesar to Jesus. After all, we are talking about men who ruled enormous largest Empires and were responsible for personally conquering much of it. Jesus was practically unknown until well after he died.

But Toto makes a couple of mistakes. Firstly, there is not a little myth about these guys but a vast corpus of it. Much, if not all of this, is fantastical but it is not a reason to prejudge the early and more historical accounts. Also, the fact that someone is credited with a miraculous birth, divinity (while alive, in both cases) miraculous powers again does not mean that we can claim they did not exist or we can know nothing about them. Nor does the fact that their exploits are exaggerated even in the best sources mean we can simply disregard them.

While it is worth remembering that most of the Alexander sources Toto mentioned are no longer extant, they were used by later authorities that survive. They are rather like Q - lost but informing the Gospels.

In fact, the methods we use to untangle the myths of Alexander and try to get to the historical Alex are exactly the same ones as we use for Jesus. All the standard stuff is there: dissimilarity, use early sources, multiple attestation etc. If no methodology exists to get at the historical Jesus then no methodology exists to get at the historical Alex either because the methodologies are nearly exactly the same. The biggest problem with HJ scholars is they tend to be theologians with no historical training - if they were made to write a bio for the historical Alex (like Robin Lane Fox has) or Caesar (like Michael Grant has) then they would probably end up reaching similar conclusions about what we can know about Jesus as these two esteemed ancient historians.

So thanks to Toto for bringing this up. He has helped demonstrate that the Jesus Myth and ultra scepticism is simply bad history. The methods we use on Alex are the same as we use on Jesus which I laid out in my [http://www.bede.org.uk/methodologies.htm]essay[/url]. To go on insisting that such methods do not exist now he has discovered them for himself would be disingenuous of Toto and I am sure he would not want that.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>

lpetrich · 10-02-2002, 03:33 AM

I wonder what Bede considers to be erroneous or fictional in the Gospels. Or will he prefer to swallow stuff that just so happens to be in the Gospels that he would immediately reject if it was outside of the Gospels?

To give just one example, does he believe that the biological fathers of Pythagoras, Plato, and Alexander the Great had been gods and not their purported human fathers? And what is his reason for coming to the conclusion that he does?

10-02-2002, 04:25 AM

Well Ipetrich, it is an utterly irrelevant question, but with my historian's hat on, I would not claim that any of the three you mention or Jesus were sired by gods.

Could you explain what this has to do with anything or is it simply a 'have you stopped beating your wife?' question designed to catch out Christians?

B

MortalWombat · 10-02-2002, 06:08 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bede:
Well Ipetrich, it is an utterly irrelevant question, but with my historian's hat on, I would not claim that any of the three you mention or Jesus were sired by gods.

Plutarch wrote that Alexander's mother Olympius, right before the night when her marriage with Philip was to be consummated, was shaken by a clap of thunder, a lightening bolt struck her womb causing a fire. After the fire was extinguished she bore Alexander the Great.

(Keep in mind that Zeus was considered to be the god of lightning and thunder at the time).

Among his epiphets in Egypt after its conquer was "son of Ra."

And after Alexander visited the Oracle of Zeus Ammon in 331 BC, he wished to be referred to as the "son of Zeus."

[ October 02, 2002: Message edited by: MortalWombat ]

10-02-2002, 06:36 AM

So Mr Wombat, would you agree that the situation in seperating legend from fact for Alex is similiar as for Jesus?

B

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10-01-2002, 10:13 AM	#11
braces_for_impact Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: In a nondescript, black helicopter. Posts: 6,637	I don't see it as such an incredible statement, but a true one. The fact is even if Jesus were positively identified as living in the past where does that put you? Nowhere. Why? Because his divinity would most definitely still be in doubt. You would have to move from proving Jesus very existence (a difficult task), to proving he was the divine son of god (a monumental task). At least, you would if you want chrisian theology to hold any water.

10-01-2002, 10:37 AM	#12
Gooch's dad Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Madison WI USA Posts: 3,508	Vander, count me as one more vote, along with Toto, in favor of you backing up the 'sound historical accuracy of the Gospels' claim in your recent post. In case you missed it, <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=51&t=000512&p=" target="_blank">this thread</a> included a nice list posted by Peter Kirby, of quite a few Christlian scholars who doubt the veracity of the empty tomb story. The gospel accounts are simply not history. Try finding, in any of the accounts of Alexander the Great, as big a mistake as Matthew 21:5-7, which has Jesus supposedly riding on BOTH a donkey and a foal. The writer just completely missed the meaning of the OT quote he was reading (from Isaiah, as I recall) and it is obvious that he isn't writing history, he is trying to fit OT prophecy by making up stories. Good luck. Waiting for those references... -Kelly

10-01-2002, 12:19 PM	#13
Starboy Banned Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Tallahassee, FL Reality Adventurer Posts: 5,276	Vander has taken to drive by postings. My theory is that he is in it for the attention. If we ignore him maybe he will respond or better yet maybe he will go away. Starboy

10-02-2002, 03:14 AM	#16
Bede Guest Posts: n/a	I think Toto is right to point out the hyperbole in comparing Alex the Great and Caesar to Jesus. After all, we are talking about men who ruled enormous largest Empires and were responsible for personally conquering much of it. Jesus was practically unknown until well after he died. But Toto makes a couple of mistakes. Firstly, there is not a little myth about these guys but a vast corpus of it. Much, if not all of this, is fantastical but it is not a reason to prejudge the early and more historical accounts. Also, the fact that someone is credited with a miraculous birth, divinity (while alive, in both cases) miraculous powers again does not mean that we can claim they did not exist or we can know nothing about them. Nor does the fact that their exploits are exaggerated even in the best sources mean we can simply disregard them. While it is worth remembering that most of the Alexander sources Toto mentioned are no longer extant, they were used by later authorities that survive. They are rather like Q - lost but informing the Gospels. In fact, the methods we use to untangle the myths of Alexander and try to get to the historical Alex are exactly the same ones as we use for Jesus. All the standard stuff is there: dissimilarity, use early sources, multiple attestation etc. If no methodology exists to get at the historical Jesus then no methodology exists to get at the historical Alex either because the methodologies are nearly exactly the same. The biggest problem with HJ scholars is they tend to be theologians with no historical training - if they were made to write a bio for the historical Alex (like Robin Lane Fox has) or Caesar (like Michael Grant has) then they would probably end up reaching similar conclusions about what we can know about Jesus as these two esteemed ancient historians. So thanks to Toto for bringing this up. He has helped demonstrate that the Jesus Myth and ultra scepticism is simply bad history. The methods we use on Alex are the same as we use on Jesus which I laid out in my [http://www.bede.org.uk/methodologies.htm]essay[/url]. To go on insisting that such methods do not exist now he has discovered them for himself would be disingenuous of Toto and I am sure he would not want that. Yours Bede <a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>

10-02-2002, 03:33 AM	#17
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	I wonder what Bede considers to be erroneous or fictional in the Gospels. Or will he prefer to swallow stuff that just so happens to be in the Gospels that he would immediately reject if it was outside of the Gospels? To give just one example, does he believe that the biological fathers of Pythagoras, Plato, and Alexander the Great had been gods and not their purported human fathers? And what is his reason for coming to the conclusion that he does?

10-02-2002, 04:25 AM	#18
Bede Guest Posts: n/a	Well Ipetrich, it is an utterly irrelevant question, but with my historian's hat on, I would not claim that any of the three you mention or Jesus were sired by gods. Could you explain what this has to do with anything or is it simply a 'have you stopped beating your wife?' question designed to catch out Christians? B

10-02-2002, 06:36 AM	#20
Bede Guest Posts: n/a	So Mr Wombat, would you agree that the situation in seperating legend from fact for Alex is similiar as for Jesus? B

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