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Author Topic:   Reconstructing the Historical Jesus
ScientificBob
Member (Idle past 4263 days)
Posts: 48
From: Antwerp, Belgium
Joined: 03-29-2011


Message 556 of 560 (622759)
07-06-2011 10:44 AM
Reply to: Message 553 by caffeine
07-06-2011 9:47 AM


Re: Summary: Jesus Myther's and Creationists
Fictional books claim to be fictional books.
This is true in case of the Lord of the Rings analogy. Eventhough I didn't mean the Frodo comment in that way, but I'll blame myself for not being clear in what I meant there.
However, Hercules was not considered or claimed to be fictional. Xenu, the intergalactic emperor, is not considered or claimed to be fictional.
The thing is, people writing things saying 'X person existed and did this' is the only evidence for most figures in ancient history. If they ruled an empire, or wrote a bunch of books, then we might have more (but not always). Demanding stricter evidence leads us to conclude that most historical figures from the time probably didn't exist, which is a bit silly.
I can agree to that, and I can imagine enough examples from ancient greek philosophers.
And I admit that I demand stricter evidence of the jezus claims.
The reason being that jezus is the central subject of a religion with a whole bunch of supernatural baggage.
Suppose we have 2 ancient greek texts who each claim a person existed. One text says that the person in question was a pot and lists a few of his contributions. The other says that the person in question is a son of god who personally destroyed a wicked city with his firey breath and preached peace.
I don't know about you, but when I look at such things, I lend more credence to the historicity of the first claim rather then the second. The extra baggage just puts a whole shadow on the entire thing. I'ld require more evidence of the latter to make it on par with the first.
That's my point... The people who wrote these books were religious people who believed that jezus was a messiah and son of god. Because of this, I feel that their message is tainted with bias.
Personally, and to be blunt, I don't give a rat's ass if it's based on a real person or not. To me, it doesn't change anything at all. I just don't consider a religious text to be demonstrative of anything at all if the religious text is all there is.
A good biblical example would be Pontius Pilate. I accept his historicity. For the simple reason that we have extra-biblical references of this person.
Do we have a clear historitcal setting for them, or are they placed in a vague and undefined distant past. Is there evidence that we would expect to have been left by such a figure? Do they fit their time and place? Are there aspects of the story which we wouldn't expect to be made up?
The existence of a character like Jesus can only be framed in such tentative terms, and this is the sort of thing which needs to be discussed to decide whether existence or non-existence is more likely.
This seems reasonable. But I'm not sure if I agree.
Looking at the questions you ask... it seems to me that almost any fictional story that plays out in the "now" and isn't marked as fictional would, according to those parameters, be indistinguishable from a real one.
I mean, it's also very reasonable to assume that the one who writes a story about jezus would write it in such a manner that it would fit the timeframe he was placed in, no?
Also, if we are being honest about this, if we would ask your questions in context of the actual biblical texts, then the answer is clearly: no, it's NOT likely that he existed.
Because virgin births, miracles, resurections etc never happen.
Don't forget that in order to discuss the historical jezus, christians are allready trown quite a huge bone by leaving out all the supernatural stuff in an effort to make the stories sound even remotely possible...
So I don't consider it very unreasonable to demand stricter evidence then for claims where you don't need to ignore 70% of the content of the claim in order to make it even discussable.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 553 by caffeine, posted 07-06-2011 9:47 AM caffeine has seen this message but not replied

PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 557 of 560 (622768)
07-06-2011 11:37 AM
Reply to: Message 552 by ScientificBob
07-06-2011 9:24 AM


Re: Summary: Jesus Myther's and Creationists
I really don't appreciate all these attempts to drag me back into the argument. Especially from people who can't be bothered to get their facts right or even manage to accurately represent my argument. So much for trying to understand !
Bob, you don't understand that life expectancies are a mean, skewed by many deaths in early childhood. You don't know the dates assigned to the documents (ironic when Crashfrog is arguing for an especially early date for Mark). You are still relying on the false dichotomy between claims and evidence. And still taking a ridiculously simplistic view of everything.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 552 by ScientificBob, posted 07-06-2011 9:24 AM ScientificBob has not replied

Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 558 of 560 (622820)
07-06-2011 3:50 PM
Reply to: Message 555 by deerbreh
07-06-2011 10:23 AM


Re: Jesus and the technicolor evidence
My point was it is up to those making claims to back them up.
Well the purpose of this thread is for those with claims of a historical jesus to back up those claims. As of yet there has been no evidence presented. I am not sure why you think my point about Pilate is relevant. Now that I have backed that up how about presenting some actual evidence like the Pilate stone to back up the historicity of jesus.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

This message is a reply to:
 Message 555 by deerbreh, posted 07-06-2011 10:23 AM deerbreh has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 559 by deerbreh, posted 07-07-2011 11:03 AM Theodoric has not replied
 Message 560 by AdminPD, posted 07-07-2011 11:03 AM Theodoric has not replied

deerbreh
Member (Idle past 2893 days)
Posts: 882
Joined: 06-22-2005


Message 559 of 560 (622902)
07-07-2011 11:03 AM
Reply to: Message 558 by Theodoric
07-06-2011 3:50 PM


Re: Jesus and the technicolor evidence
Well the purpose of this thread is for those with claims of a historical jesus to back up those claims. As of yet there has been no evidence presented. I am not sure why you think my point about Pilate is relevant. Now that I have backed that up how about presenting some actual evidence like the Pilate stone to back up the historicity of jesus.
Pilate is relevant because if there is no historical Pilate there is no historical Jesus - at least not a Jesus crucified at the direction of Pilate. There could be a Pilate without a Jesus, there cannot be a Jesus without a Pilate. As to presenting evidence for the historicity of Jesus - I am not making the claim so you will have to look elsewhere for that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 558 by Theodoric, posted 07-06-2011 3:50 PM Theodoric has not replied

AdminPD
Inactive Administrator


Message 560 of 560 (622903)
07-07-2011 11:03 AM
Reply to: Message 558 by Theodoric
07-06-2011 3:50 PM


Reconstruting the Historial Jesus
quote:
Well the purpose of this thread is for those with claims of a historical jesus to back up those claims.
Not really.
Participants please reread Message 1 to get an idea of what this thread is about.
OP writes:
This is not a thread about Theology or one's personal religious beliefs regarding the nature of Jesus. How does one extract reliable History from the surviving documentary evidence available to reconstruct the Historical figure of Jesus?
My feeling is that this thread has run its course and is ready to be closed down.
If anyone disagrees and truly wants to get back to the spirit of the topic, make a request in the Thread Reopen Requests 2 thread.
Thanks
AdminPD

This message is a reply to:
 Message 558 by Theodoric, posted 07-06-2011 3:50 PM Theodoric has not replied

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