Adam

So much for Joe Wallack's claims that this is the big leagues. I shouldn't have trusted him any more than I trusted Doug Shaver. Apparently no one here even knows any scholars to cite for an argument against me. Even the HJ majority here should want to diminish the amount of eyewitness testimony in Gospel According to the Eyewitnesses in order that they can preserve their particular favored sayings of Jesus for their own flavor of HJ.

Apparently most of you wish my argument away. All the better if you could wish me away.

Sheshbazzar

Wahhh boo hoo. People here saw through your the holes in your worthless claims, well bawl your eyes out.

I don't wish you away. I wish you would shape up, learn how to apply critical thinking, and stop trying to spam and proselytize us with your present line of vacuous horse shit.

Adam

I thought you said HJ was the majority position here? My Gospel According to the Atheists is firmly in their camp, so I'm preaching to the choir. Thus it's understandable they don't argue against that half of my eyewitnesses to Jesus. It's understandable also that they don't express support, however, fearing they may entangle themselves in the other half.

Perhaps you would start leading by example on "how to apply critical thinking"? It's not at all obvious from your posts what that phrase means to you. Perhaps you could list a definition we could all follow from now on?

Sheshbazzar

Nope. Toto has repeatedly explained to you, editing out the miracles in the text does not result in history.
The HJ position that advocated by most atheists on this board is not one that endorses the content of these texts, they only hold that a real living 1st century Jew or several Jews did or said some things that inspired the creation of these texts. This HJ did not necessarily say anything or do anything that made it into the mythologized writings we are dealing with., and cannot based solely upon the content of these writings be demonstrated to have actually said or done anything presented within them.
In short the HJ position that prevails here accept that there was a 'Jesus' or 'Jesus's' but these texts are all much latter literary productions of very little value in determining anything about the actual person or persons.

Adam

So you're saying that the HJ position like the MJ position is so weak that no HJer has any case against me either? With friends like you, the HJers would be better off with enemies.

In contrast, an "enemy" like me can tell HJers, "You may be right that not everything in my "Gospel According to the Atheists" is "gospel-truth", but even if you have a minimalist position that may need some more openness to whether there are facts about Jesus from eyewitnesses, there is no "proof" that Jesus had supernatural powers or was divine. Any such texts were later, not as likely from what any eyewitnesses actually saw. You can have your HJ (with a little more flesh on the bones) and still be a self-respecting atheist.

I did not "edit out" the miracles. It is not apologetic scholars who focus on sources underlying the gospels. It is academic scholars who have. The Passion Narrative is well recognized, and it was Teeple, an atheist, who by stylistic considerations extracted from within it a simple, non-supernaturalist source. Bultmann and other Form Critics found a Discourse source within gJohn. Q is mostly sayings. That they are encased within the Christian canon of gospels does not make them cease to be evidence--except for MJers and minimalists with their heads in the sand.

No one here can face the truth that we know a lot more about Jesus than anyone here believes. So, Stephen Huller, you know now what my answer is to your Post #105 (as you would long have known had you dared pay much attention to what I have written).

Sheshbazzar

You can 'tell' the HJers here anything you want to.
Getting them to believe anything you 'tell' them will prove to be quite another thing.
But its your life, so you are free to piss it away any way you wish.

I know a lot more about 'Jesus', and the truth's of 'Jesus' than you have any idea of.

If you weren't so wrapped up in spreading horse shit you might have even learned something.

Adam

Please elucidate what you know, while as you ask yourself:

Sheshbazzar

It is for me to know, and for you to find out.
As it is not fit that I should cast bread reserved for the children to a dog, nor cast precious peals before swine.

If it is destined for you to receive the hidden knowledge, then you will, and no man could ever prevent it.
If not, then there is nothing, nor no one that can ever teach nor explain it to you in any fashion you that could understand or accept.

Our conversations and conflicts indicate that you currently do not posses the fundamental personal qualities nor those ethics which are first and foremost, and absolutely necessary and required of any that walk that path, which no one else can ever walk for you.

You may talk and write about the Bible endlessly, but there is no possibility that it will ever get you beyond the common grave unless you first divest yourself of your robe of pride, and lay aside that bulky bag you have long been carrying.

Take off your hard shod shoes, and feel the holy ground beneath your feet.
Throw away your old and filthy rags. Wash yourself and come clean.
Clothe yourself with humility. Circumcise your heart, your ears, and your eyes,
That you may see, hear, feel, and know.
Then draw near to Elohim, and He will begin to teach you as becomes His own child.
Then you will know how you came to the knowledge of the Most High.

Sheshbazzar The Hebrew

Adam

So we see how you "apply critical thinking".
Whereas Littlejohn eluded explaining himself for only a few posts and a few months, you outdo Littlejohn by hiding your sacred truths for over 6000 posts and nine years. What self-control you display to be able to write so prolifically without ever saying anything.

Sheshbazzar

What I may openly or obliquely write, whether I hide my sacred truths, or I shouted them from the rooftops, in no way excuses or lends any substance of truth, accuracy, nor credibility to your vacuous theory or claims. They fail entirely on their own lack of evidence and lack of merit.
And they are just as shoddily constructed, and fail just as badly, whether I or anyone else steps forward to point out those failings or not;
Only after your dishonest construction edits out all the portions of John's text that contain John's clearly stated supernatural claims and elements.
No it is NOT. It is only evidence that to make this mythical story appear to be historical, you and your mentors have selectively edited it, and omitted all the supernatural elements which are present within John's narrative, so as to produce a mutilated and shortened text, not John's, that conforms to your theories.
And by the same token there is also no "proof" that there ever was any 'Jesus'.

'Jesus Christ' consists of nothing more than an entirely mythological god/character in a highly mythological religious propaganda tale, when you don't get to fuck with, edit, or shorten the actual Story line as it is written.

And you have NO proof at all, ZIP! that the Gospel of John was ever any shorter, or that it did not always contain every single one of those supernatural elements you chose to omit, from the day that it was first composed.
Again you are making a claim about these texts for which you have absolutely NO proof, and absolutely NO evidence at all. ZIP! only your worthless speculations.

Bring forth any genuine early text of John where Jebus does not have any supernatural powers, or is not divine.
Tell us where it was found, and what its Paleographic and/or c14 dating is. You CANNOT, because NO such text of John with a Jesus without miracles, or without possession of Divinity has ever been found.
Nor have any such -deficient- texts ever been reported to have ever existed within any ancient Christian writing or report that you can produce.
Certainly such a thing would have been remarkable to some faction of Christianity, if such had ever been reported, yet it is not even so much as reported as being a belief held among heretics.

You are relying entirely upon on your worthless imaginations and suppositions, and upon mutilating the actual content of the only version of these texts that have -ever- been reported, or known to mankind, for the sake of your vain and worthless theories.

You can gobble and gabble and edit and omit, and 'drop names' all you want, But what every one of you so called 'NT 'scholars' lack is even one tiny little bit of positive proof, one tiny bit of positive evidence, that what you are claiming about these texts is the truth.


Anyone who has read my replies to you knows I have said something clearly and repeatedly to you from the beginning;

There are no such things as any known or identifiable 'Gospel Eyewitness Sources'.

Your theory is composed out of nothing more than your imaginations and your speculations that are totally lacking any positive evidence, and are without substance.

You willfully distort through your selective omissions the actual content of these texts.

You cannot produce even one single genuine early example of the form of text that you imagine.

You cannot cite even one single early witness to the existence of any such form of text as you imagine.

You have completely failed to in any manner provide any proof at all that the characters that you theorize as being NT writers, ever wrote even one single verse of The NT.

In short, your 'theory' and your claims of 'eyewitnesses' are little more than globs of slimy mythical religious horse shit held together with the straw of your religiously motivated imaginations.

I BELIEVE! BELIEVE! I BELIEVE! <edit>

It may be observed that you have managed to get away with spamming this Forum with more NT texts, and religious propaganda than perhaps any theist has ever managed in its entire history.

You should have long since became quite aware that virtually no one here is buying your theory or its arguments. So one wonders for what reason it is that you persist?
Is it possible that you believe you have found a clever way to sneak your thinly disguised attempt at preaching and proselytizing around the Forum's rules against preaching or proselytizing, by the ruse of dressing up your religious spam up as being a 'scholarly' presentation?

The perceptive will perhaps recognize the real reasons you have been permitted to 'get away' with this here for so long.




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