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Author | Topic: Divinity of Jesus | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
I am amazed that this whole discussion going on does not have more impact on these fundies arguing whether their God is unitarian or trinitarian. Is the irony lost on them?
They are all using the same book, but they all claim that THEIR interpretation is the only and correct reading. Instead of acknowledging that there may be other ways to read or interpret they proclaim the others to be heretics and cults. Then they have the gall to criticize and demonize atheists that don't believe any of the mumbo-jumbo. If they could get together and present one mumbo-jumbo, I might give them the benefit of the doubt and listen to them. Might but probably not. Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
Why do you assume we who do not believe have never read the bible? I have read the bible numerous times and I seem to know more about what it says than most christians I know. I have read it it without the preconceived ideas that christians read it with.
My findings? It is mumbo jumbo. Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
It was not in the ''eye-witness'' christians, who had been of the generations who had seen Jesus. Can you point out who these people were? I mean give some sort of first hand historical account.
The dispute came by when Gnosticism came along in the 2nd and 3rd generationsa afterwards. This arrival of gnosticism (which is similar in someways to the NewAge movement nowadays) was one of the reasons why John wrote his letters near the end of his life. Oh and please any documentation or evidence to back this up. Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
There was a countroversy on this subject 300 years after Christ, but the idea that Jesus was God was NOT the new kid on the block, it was the contrary. The idea that Jesus wasn't God was, it came with the rise of gnosticism Again I ask. Do you have anything to back up these statements? Other than faith of course. Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
The very first who had Gnostic tendencies where Simon Magnus and Marcion of Sinope. Do you have any idea when these guys date from?
SourceMarcion (—) (ca. 85-160) was an Early Christian theologian who was excommunicate The gnostics or protognostics were there early in the church. To say they developed 300 years after is not true.
This sort of teachings is absent from every document that relates to the eye-witness generation, the great majority of course being the books in the NT. You keep talking about eyewitnesses. What is this eyewitness testimony? The NT? You do realize that all of the gospels are dated quite well after the supposed crucifixion of this Jesus. If you are going to claim eyewitness, provide some evidence. Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
You didn't answer her question.
Why don't you just answer? Maybe with a nice succinct response. You can quote all the bible passages you want but you are not answering the question. By the way no one is impressed. So how about an answer? What is the definition of God? Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
Considering that the oldest manuscript of Julius Ceasar's Gallic Wars is dated at 1000 years after the original writing, yet no one is doubting its accuracy as an eye-witness account. I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the Gospels as coming from eye-witness sources either. There are hundreds of documents that verify and validate the existence of Julius Caesar and his writings. This is a lame argument with NO basis in reality. We even have coins with Caesar name and image. What do we have with Jesus name and image? Here is a quick list of contemporaries(means they lived at same time) that wrote about Caesar.
quote: Source Caesar’s De bello Gallico also be shown to reflect historical events when compared to other sources. Also, you make it sound like there is no evidence for the manuscript for 1000 years after its writing. It is referred to extensively in that period. The first probably before 46 B.C.E. by Cicero in "Brutus, or the History of Eloquence". That there is not an original copy does nothing to diminish the validity of the text. This argument is disingenuous at best and an out right lie at its worst. In comparison there is NO evidence of the historicity of christ or anything in the gospels other than the gospels themselves. This is not a true comparison. It is intellectual dishonesty to state it is.
30-60 years after the death of Jesus ? (which is logic since it is around that time that eye-witnesses would have started to 'die out' so to speak) Again, I need to ask. Do you have any extrabiblical evidence? We know you have no contemporary evidence. Edited by Theodoric, : spelling Edited by Theodoric, : changed subtitle Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
Sorry it took me so long to respond. I was away fishing in Canada all last week.
Josephus makes reference to Jesus and even goes to say that he was performing amazing miracles. This is outside proof of the existence of Jesus. UMMM, I don't think so. The passages in Josephus have been shown by quite a few scholars to not be real reliable. If this is the best you got you have got some trouble. As for the Caesar issue. There have been numerous posters here claiming that Jesus has more historical evidence than Caesar. I wanted to nip that thought in the bud. My arguments still stand. There is tons of external evidence for Caesars writings on the Gallic wars that is contemporary to shgow that it is legitimate. The oldest existing copy has no bearing on the legitimacy of the writings Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
Of course, and I totally agreed with you, suggesting that this last statement should also be equally applied to any historical documents, even biblical manuscripts. But you can not show this with biblical manuscripts.
You have any names about who those scholars could be ?? You want names? If my list of names is longer than your list do I win? Do some objective research on the issue.
quote:Source Any names I bring up you will assault as having some sort of anti-christian agenda. Do a simple search on google. Josephus debunk. Read the evidence. Can you do that? Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
Am I suppose to get from that that the matter IS settled and the passage has positively been identified as a forgery ? Since there is such a controversy I think you christianists would think twice about using such a tenuous easily questioned source. Your condescension does not reinforce your argument. There is no need to be an ass. Josephus is a questionable resource to use for the historicity of Jesus Christ. I find the evidence of a later interpolation is overwhelming. You might actually want to read other sources and READ the arguments. I have yet to read an argument that uses actual reasonable arguments to show that they are not later interpolations. If you know of one please let me hear it. These sites use actual historical and literary analysis to look at the evidence.http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp16.htm Non-Christian Testimony for Jesus? – From the authentic pen of lying Christian scribes !! Is there a problem with their arguments? If so what? Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
Why would questioning christian sources for historicity of Jesus be off topic?
There can be no divinity without existence. Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
Amazing.
First of all to say that GA Wells Earl Doherty are the only proponents of the Jesus Myth is ludicrous. It is disingenuous at best and and an outright lie at worst. I am not going to get into a listing of proponents for or against the theory. This is not a numbers game. It is a strength of argument game. As for your link, I am not sure where to start. First of all if you are going to use someone as a reference maybe you should actually know their name. His name is James Hannam, with an M not an N. He has published one book. This has just been published by a small boutique publisher in Great Britain. I can't tell you a thing about his research on that book. I can tell you about his webpage. His arguments have nothing to back them up. He makes assertions, but has nor references or backing documentation. His main support for Josephus comes from Origen who was born in 182 C.E.(not a contemporary). Hannam's arguments.
What use would the early fathers have had for a passage in Josephus saying Jesus was not the Messiah? An educated Jew saying this would not be helpful in an apologetic sense as it would demonstrate that the prophecies in the Old Testament were not nearly as clear cut as early Christians would have liked to have believed. And because no one ever challenged Jesus' existence, they never had reason to point to a critical Jewish source to prove he did. Hence Josephus was not quoted by the few earlier Christian writers. Lots of supposition. NO evidence. As for his arguments of James the Just again he provides no evidence.
quote: Origen never stated where he got this info. This does no exist in any extant copies of Josephus writing. No where does Josephus say that the destruction of the Temple was tied to the execution of James. This whole idea seems to have originated with Origen. Eusebius later used this and quoted it as coming directly from Josephus.
quote: This exists nowhere in Josephus' wrtings. But Eusebius presents it as a direct quote for Josephus. It is actually a rehashing of the writings or Origen.
It isn't the most complete, but he defends remarquably well the question at hand: the two references of Jesus by Josephus. Not at all. This does not sound like PhD history level writing. He provides no evidence for his theories. It is classic apologetics. I guess that is explained by his motivation. Mr. Hannam makes it clear on his website that he has no intention of being objective. Here is his belief statement
My opinions, beliefs and biases quote: Hardly an objective researcher and writer. Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
Ummm
Do you expect me to believe that the Humanist Net is a great beacon of objectivity ?
WTF?
s it your opinion then that G A Wells was mistaken to back off of his belief that Jesus Christ never lived?
Well first of all you and slevesque are misrepresenting Wells. He still does not believe in the historical jesus you do.
Quick snippet form Wikipedia quote: I still think he is wrong.
I am also still interested in you naming someone during the first 800 years of the first century that went on record arguing that a Jesus of Nazareth never lived at all. Minucius Felix in Octavius. In it he disavows that christianity was based upon "a man that suffered death as a criminal" The key is how many people in the first 2 centuries of the common era did not mention this guy. By the way there are only 100 years in a century. Edited by Theodoric, : Fixed error Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
Do you expect me to believe that the Humanist Net is a great beacon of objectivity ? Objectivity is something you fundies don't understand. Let me try to explain it to you. This is important because it ties into the whole ID thing. The people that post on sites like humanist.net tend to use evidence. Earl Doherty and others do not start with a premise. They, like scientists, go where the evidence takes them. They have no overarching statement of belief. They have come to their conclusions based upon the evidence they have in front of them. Sort of like scientists and the Theory of Evolution. Now if there were evidence counter to their ideas they would reconsider their ideas and reexamine their premise. This is objectivity. Going where the evidence takes you. Now people like Mr. James Hannam think they are objective, but his statement of belief refutes this. He, like you, are not going to consider any evidence that goes against entrenched belief. Like ID, on the subject of Jesus you have a conclusion you want to get to so you interpret, translate, manipulate, massage and change the evidence in order to get to a predetermined conclusion. That conclusion is the existence of the biblical Jesus. This is not objectivity. Maybe you are one of those fundies that believe objectivity has no place in a discussion about Jesus and christianity. There are many who believe an open mind is a very dangerous thing and to question is anathema. Back to evidence. I repeatedly asked you and sleveesque to provide contemporary, extra biblical evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ. Neither of you, and no one else, have or can provide this evidence. If you provide such evidence I would certainly examine the evidence and, if it was verifiable, reconsider my position on this subject. That sir is objectivity. A person that comes to a conclusion based upon evidence is objective. A person that searches for evidence to confirm a preexisting belief is not. Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
So then as a christian you can have no objectivity on the issue.
I don't see the rabbis of first century Judaism writing a lot about who in the world this Jesus of Nazareth could possibly. I can see them disputing His claims. I can see them saying that he was an illegitimate child of Mary and some soldier named Panthera. I do not see them wondering what the hoopla is all about concerning someone who NEVER EXISTED. I have no clue what you are trying to say in the first sentence. They never heard about him. They don't mention him one way of the other. Your sacred Christ never even entered into their thought processes. Why would they disavow something they didn't even know about. By the time christianity became developed it was developing outside of Palestine. The early strength were in Asia Minor Rome and the North of Africa. By this time the Jews wouldn't have even a memory of the time period never mind the events themselves. It amazes me that you think just because no one disputed his existence in the first decades after his purported death that somehow this is proof of his existence. This is ludicrous. The lack of someone disputing his existence is not proof of existence. I have never seen anything written trying to prove the nonexistence of Paul Bunyan. Does this mean Paul Bunyan existed?
They had the most to gain by exposing a totally fictitious Jesus of Nazareth. Again I ask, do you or don't you have any non biblical, contemporary evidence for a Jesus Christ. Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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