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Author Topic:   Reconstructing the Historical Jesus
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 460 of 560 (620876)
06-21-2011 1:51 PM
Reply to: Message 441 by Modulous
06-20-2011 6:02 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
Because if they were going to fabricate a messiah, it probably wouldn't have been someone that failed so miserably and all the other explanations this thread has detailed.
But I don't contend that the authors of the Gospels "fabricated" a messiah, no more than Santa Claus was fabricated by 7-year-olds. I merely contend that they have no credibility on the subject, given that they fabricated so much else.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 441 by Modulous, posted 06-20-2011 6:02 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 462 by Modulous, posted 06-21-2011 2:02 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 461 of 560 (620879)
06-21-2011 1:59 PM
Reply to: Message 455 by caffeine
06-21-2011 12:01 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
There are many people whose historicity is widely accepted, despite the total absence of any evidence contemporary with their lives.
Maybe it shouldn't be! But, again, none of those people are the Historical Jesus or anything similar. The degree to which the "Historical Jesus" position is treating historical standards of proof unfairly is by not recognizing the greater burden of proof necessary in the case of Jesus, as opposed to historicity which does recognize the greater burden of proof necessary to substantiate the historicity of Beowulf, Robin Hood, etc.
Jesus is a character much more akin to Beowulf and Robin Hood than to Socrates or Ghengis Kahn. To treat Jesus the same as Socrates is to violate accepted principles of historicity (and logic.)
It's simply that the insistence on contemporary written accounts is not the standard way we approach questions of historicity
It is, actually. It's just that the standard is so easily perverted by the bias of historians towards affirming their own views of history. The fact that the majority of "Jesus history scholars" are themselves nominal Christians is a pretty good reason to look at the issue without regard to the "expert consensus."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 455 by caffeine, posted 06-21-2011 12:01 PM caffeine has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 463 of 560 (620887)
06-21-2011 2:25 PM
Reply to: Message 437 by PaulK
06-20-2011 4:17 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
Obviously you got ahead of yourself again, since I dealt with the possibility that Luke copied from Matthew.
No, you just conclude that he did not. But you have no evidence that he did not.
And the copying - both from Mark and that proposed to be from 'Q' - is exact enough to indicate copying from a written document
You can't possibly conclude that anything was copied "exactly" from the Q source unless you have the Q source text there with you to compare. What an absurdity - "clearly, it's an exact copy of something I've never seen!"
The argument is that Luke actively disagrees with Matthew - even in the placement of the alleged Q material.
So he copied and disagreed! Just as I'm copying your remarks and disagreeing with them.
Then it must mention both Tacitus and Josephus.
And it does.
If you bother to read the quote it starts with the word "If".
Irrelevant, since you concluded that I was and that I was therefore wrong.
And let us note that since you jumped into the conversation to defend that very statement along those lines it is hardly unreasonable of me to suggest that you might agree with it.
Well, so which is it, Paul? Are you claiming that I claim it, or are you not? You seem to want to have it both ways.
In fact it was ScientificBob who said it.
Then why did you claim that I claimed it?
But you can't point to anything beyond your assumption that Tacitus could not have believed it. Where does Tacitus qualify his statement ?
Right at the beginning, where he explains the origin of the beliefs of Christians.
So the evidence that it IS referring to fiction must come from outside the text. Now we know that Star Wars is fiction and that the writers of that report knew that. But we don't KNOW that Jesus was fictional, or that Tacitus knew it.
Exactly right. So, at best, Tacitus cannot be support for either position, because we cannot know that he intends to use his personal knowledge to substantiate the existence of Jesus, or merely to use his personal knowledge of Christians to explain what they believe and why.
So Tacitus cannot be considered an independent verification of the existence of Jesus, or any sort of evidence for it, because we lack evidence that Tacitus actually is providing any independent confirmation of the existence of Jesus.
In other words you ASSUME that Tacitus made no effort to determine the truth.
Not at all. I simply refuse to assume, on the basis of no evidence, that he did or even intended to.
This is enough to show the possibility, which is all that I claim.
Anything is possible. What is true?
They couldn't JOIN Christianity at all, since it didn't exist as a religion before they started it !
Utter nonsense. It started when they joined it!
And obviously they would know what THEY did !
Why would they? If they thought they were joining a religious movement that existed in Judea, but actually were starting the first Christian church, why would they know that?
Again you overpresume the capacity of the lied-to to know that they were lied to. But obviously, by the very definition of a lie if you believe a lie, you don't know it's a lie!
You claim that there ISN'T an equivalent of L. Ron Hubbard for early Christianity.
No, I don't claim that. I've never claimed that. I've claimed that someone came up with the Jesus stories, or at least some of them, and then some other people believed those stories to be true and started Christianity. And it's quite obvious from the evidence that's exactly what happened.
Without looking at the examples, you can't tell.
It's precisely by looking, and by having been trained in elements of storytelling, that I can tell.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 437 by PaulK, posted 06-20-2011 4:17 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 467 by PaulK, posted 06-21-2011 3:19 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 471 by Jon, posted 06-21-2011 3:37 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 464 of 560 (620888)
06-21-2011 2:27 PM
Reply to: Message 462 by Modulous
06-21-2011 2:02 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
And the point is that some things don't look fabricated, that if they were fabricated we'd expect something different.
But my point is that they look exactly like what they would look like if they were fabricated. Your point is that they don't look like what they would look like if they were fabricated to serve the agenda of the first Christians.
But I don't contend that the Jesus mythology was fabricated by the first Christians. The first Christians were simply the first ones to believe the fabrications - fabrications that may well have included "there are all these other Christians all over the place."
I mean, I think everyone agrees that Plato made stuff up about Socrates to serve his own purposes but that doesn't mean we can't try and pick out what might be historical from what are Plato's inventions.
Determining the historical existence of Socrates is a subject for another thread.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 462 by Modulous, posted 06-21-2011 2:02 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 466 by Modulous, posted 06-21-2011 2:58 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 468 of 560 (620894)
06-21-2011 3:19 PM
Reply to: Message 466 by Modulous
06-21-2011 2:58 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
Maybe if you could indicate who the proposed fabricators were; were they Jews, Greeks, someone else?
I don't know anything about the proposed fabricators, other than that they were people for whom it was in their interest to tell a story. Itinerant bards. Thirsty guys at the tavern saying "hey, buy me a drink and I'll tell you the news from Judea, and you won't believe it!" Creative types surrounded by a mob of children dying for the latest and greatest "Jesus, King of the Jews" story.
If the first Christians were people who, as children, had been raised on Jesus stories, that would go along way to explaining their apparent credibility in regards to the stories as adults. There's certainly time enough between Jesus's supposed ministry and the writing of the Gospels for the gospel writers to have been hearing Jesus stories as children.
Stories get told because it's the most human thing in the world to tell them. The idea that there always has to be an agenda for a story to be popular - that a popular story is always the result of calculated effort to make it popular - is mistaken. Harry Potter started out as bedtime stories for J.K. Rowling's children.
And the story of Jesus does look entirely fabricated to me, based on an appropriate understanding of what it means to be "entirely fabricated" or "based on a real historical person." A pot-boiler novel about a tough New York cop who doesn't play by the rules is entirely fabricated regardless of the fact that New York has always had a bunch of cops who don't play by the rules.
The fabricated Jesus, being a failed martyr who opposed the Romans, may have rung true for first century audience as a result of the fact that failed martyrs were thick on the ground. But none of that makes Jesus a real historical person or reduces the evidentiary burden for successfully connecting the Jesus mythology to a real, live person. The fact that a fictional character is also a plausible character isn't any evidence of their genuine historicity.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 466 by Modulous, posted 06-21-2011 2:58 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 472 by Jon, posted 06-21-2011 4:00 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 473 by Modulous, posted 06-21-2011 4:06 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 469 of 560 (620895)
06-21-2011 3:23 PM
Reply to: Message 467 by PaulK
06-21-2011 3:19 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
You know what?
Fuck you. I'm sorry that I'm not such a total fucking idiot that I'm prepared to accept the testimony of sources that don't even fucking exist. If you can't handle it that I'm not willing to suspend any pretense of rationality and swallow whatever bullshit you come up with next, go home and cry more about it. I don't give a shit.
I've spent more than a hundred posts, here, trying to get at the genuine, real historical evidence for the existence of Jesus, and all I've discovered is a thinly-sourced "expert consensus" that survives solely on the basis of directing ridicule at anyone who voices a disagreement.
Everybody's a creationist about something. I guess we've found out what PaulK is a creationist about.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 467 by PaulK, posted 06-21-2011 3:19 PM PaulK has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 470 by Phat, posted 06-21-2011 3:36 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 486 by Kapyong, posted 06-21-2011 5:47 PM crashfrog has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 475 of 560 (620907)
06-21-2011 4:22 PM
Reply to: Message 470 by Phat
06-21-2011 3:36 PM


Re: Were It Anyone Other Than Jesus
If it were an argument trying to prove or disprove the history of Ordinarius Maximus, normal citizen, the argument would scarcely draw a whimper were it proven either way.
Well, yeah. Presumably, if the subject were Ordinarius Maximus, nobody would open a threat to impugn the rationality and mental health of those who voiced anything but the most full-throated support for his existence.
You're right that the stakes are a little higher in this case, but is that a fucking surprise? We're talking about someone you venerate as the Son of God.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 470 by Phat, posted 06-21-2011 3:36 PM Phat has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 476 of 560 (620910)
06-21-2011 4:28 PM
Reply to: Message 471 by Jon
06-21-2011 3:37 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
For (2) we have this:
quote:
Stein in The Synoptic Problem (1987):
One of the strongest arguments against the use of Matthew by Luke is the fact that when Matthew has additional material in the triple tradition ("Matthean additions to the Markan narrative"), it is "never" found in Luke. (p. 91)
So you have an utterly unintelligible claim (seriously, "triple tradition"?) with unspecified relevance to the point of contention. In fact, doesn't it outright contradict the notion that Matthew and Luke are based on a third "Q" source to point out that Matthew has stuff that Luke doesn't? If Matthew and Luke both plagarized Q, which it is implied is where the "extra" stuff Matthew has came from, then why wouldn't Luke have plagarized it, too?
I just don't see how Q can possibly be put forward as an independent source of information about Jesus when the problem is that Q doesn't exist and therefore can't be put forward at all.
The only problem that faces (3), of course, is the fact that the document utilized does not exist. But this should not be reason for rejecting (3):
It may or may not be, but it's certainly a reason for rejecting any reasoning based on the assumed content of Q, which is what PaulK was doing. You can't base an argument off of the content of a work that has no known content. Lost books can't substantiate anything simply as a result of being themselves insubstantial.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 471 by Jon, posted 06-21-2011 3:37 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 479 by Jon, posted 06-21-2011 5:02 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 477 of 560 (620912)
06-21-2011 4:34 PM
Reply to: Message 472 by Jon
06-21-2011 4:00 PM


Re: Assumptions Run Wild
Your 'explanation' so far involves at least five times the amount of supposition as the historical Jesus explanation.
Wrong. The evidence that these things existed in the First Century is that they have existed in all human cultures since the dawn of history. Assuming that something that applies universally will apply in any specific case isn't by any means a leap of logic or an extraordinary claim. It's not even an ordinary or mundane claim - it's not even a claim; it's a tautology.
And through all this wild assuming, you've yet to adequately deal with any of the objections lodged by your opponents.
An utter lie. I've addressed every objection raised by the three or four people I'm single-handedly debating on the subject. And then when you ignored the rebuttals and repeated the objections, I addressed them again. And then a week later when you yet again ignored the rebuttals and repeated the objection, I addressed it yet again.
How many times do I have to point out that your side is confusing claims with evidence and imagination with actual sources before it sticks? Before you stop lying about it? Apparently three or even four times isn't enough, so I eagerly await the next person to remind me that the Historical Jesus Christ wouldn't have actually been called Jesus or Christ, as though I didn't know that (or hadn't already been told a half-dozen times.)
Perhaps if you even bothered once, Crash, to debate honestly
All I've been is honest. The problem is, I'm arguing with liars like you and Paul.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 472 by Jon, posted 06-21-2011 4:00 PM Jon has seen this message but not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 478 of 560 (620915)
06-21-2011 4:42 PM
Reply to: Message 473 by Modulous
06-21-2011 4:06 PM


Re: foundations
Would you agree that it is not an extraordinary claim that the founding cause of a major world religion is a human being that the religion claims is the founding cause?
No, I would disagree. I would say that it is an extraordinary claim, based on the characteristics and qualities of religion.
Similarly, it's an extraordinary claim to claim that a madman is right about something. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't, but the fact that we're talking about a person (or, in the case of religion, a system of knowledge) that is best characterized as being completely decoupled from reality means that any particular success of the knowledge system at arriving at something true is, at best, utter coincidence.
Imagine that I showed you a computer program that produced sentences by assembling random words. It would truly be an extraordinary claim to claim that any particular sentence produced by this system also happened to be a real fact about the world, and it would require substantially more evidence than "hey, it could be, we don't know for sure" to conclude that the claim was correct.
I think we established to some reasonable degree that most 'personality cult' type major world religions do have a figure that is considered historical at their core and therefore postulating one at the heart of Christianity is far from controversial?
When did we establish that? Out of the cherry-picked five you presented, two-and-a-half were based on fictional characters. To that I add the cargo cults of John Frum and the narcotics cult of Jesus Malverde, and that's 4.5 to 2.5 out of all the religions put forth for consideration. Religions based on real figures are a minority, not a majority.
Or do you still contend that most major world religions with such a foundational figure are discussing fictional characters?
Obviously, since that's a true claim that has not been rebutted.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 473 by Modulous, posted 06-21-2011 4:06 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 480 by Jon, posted 06-21-2011 5:09 PM crashfrog has not replied
 Message 494 by Modulous, posted 06-21-2011 6:31 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 482 of 560 (620924)
06-21-2011 5:28 PM
Reply to: Message 479 by Jon
06-21-2011 5:02 PM


Re: Q
I could give more; or, you could investigate the matter through some Googling.
I'm not required to do your homework or argue with Google. What you've presented isn't a compelling case to exclude Luke plagarism of Matthew. "Artistically inferior"? Maybe Luke was an inferior artist.
And, still - WTF is the "triple tradition"?
. The Q material is the material in common between Matthew and Luke that isn't in Mark; the Q document is one of the things hypothesized to explain these agreements against Mark in Matthew and Luke (see my previous post for the other two hypotheses). By definition, the only thing we can propose to have been in Q is the stuff that Matthew and Luke have in common against Mark.
So then you've torpedoed the notion that Matthew, Luke, and the Q source are all independent sources of information about Jesus that corroborate each other.
In fact, the Matthew-Luke-Q construct is really a single source of claims, and they can't corroborate each other because they are each other.
In other words PaulK was substantially misrepresenting the content and scope of the Q source.
It depends on what you're trying to substantiate.
No, it doesn't. Only substance can substantiate!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 479 by Jon, posted 06-21-2011 5:02 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 488 by Jon, posted 06-21-2011 5:53 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 485 of 560 (620927)
06-21-2011 5:46 PM
Reply to: Message 481 by PaulK
06-21-2011 5:24 PM


Re: Summary: Jesus Myther's and Creationists
THere has been no mention of, for instance, Earl Doherty.
Is Earl Doherty in this discussion?
Have his arguments been put forward for consideration?
PaulK, where does Earl Doherty present evidence for the existence of Jesus? Please be specific.
Crashfrog is still claiming that his assertion that most founders of religion are fictional is a fact despite not offering a shred of evidence for it.
Er, wait. I've not ever claimed that the founders of most religions are fictional; if they were fictional then how were the religions founded? That makes no sense.
You'll not find a single instance where I've claimed that "the founders of most religions are fictional."
For an especially clear example we can consider Crashfrog's insistence on his "Jesus wasn't called Jesus" argument - supposedly an important difference between the Biblical Jesus and the historical Jesus.
I've never at any time made a "Jesus wasn't called Jesus" argument. That argument has only ever been made by those on the Historical Jesus side.
In response to PaulK's utter misrepresentation of the lines of debate, allow me to demonstrate that he's the creationist:
1) "Reading assignments"
It's very common for creationists, lacking themselves the mental fortitude to address evolutionist arguments, to claim that the evolutionist arguments are invalid because they do not reply to or even mention some presumably-important religious figure. For instance, from one particularly stupid reply to Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion:
quote:
What, one wonders, are Dawkins’s views on the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? Has he read Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace or Moltmann on hope? Has he even heard of them? - Terry Eagleton, the London Review of Books
Clearly, the intent here is to claim that even though the evolutionist interlocutor has made arguments that the creationist cannot refute, that evolutionist is clearly impotent against the real badasses of creationism, therefore creationism wins! This is clearly the mode of argument PaulK employs in his first point.
2) Assumption of a lack of research
Little more here than an "everyone is like me" blindness. Creationists continually assume that evolutionists have given as little or even less thought to the issue as they have. They assume that an actual qualification in the biological sciences is little more than a theoretical construct, and that it takes hardly any brains at all to think about evolution. The assumption that there's no research done by Mythical Jesus proponents is abundant in PaulK's second point but no effort is made to substantiate it.
3) Premature assumption of victory
How do we know evolutionists are wrong about evolution? Because they're irrational! How do we know they're irrational? Because they believe in evolution, which is wrong!
4) Objections to being called "dishonest"
Despite their blatant and open dishonesty, creationists will object to any attempt to point out dishonesty as a "personal attack", which they will claim is employed by evolutionists to distract from losing the debate.
It's obvious that PaulK is being the creationist, here.
If I hadn't already had proof of Crashfrog's nature from recent threads I would be deeply disappointed.
Unlike you, PaulK, I actually am disappointed. I had reason to believe that you were an honest sort who had given real consideration to this issue.
But immediately you entered the debate with a major chip on your shoulder, already incensed that people could exist who did not accept the "expert consensus" that anybody who questioned the actual existence of Jesus was some kind of dullard. That's simply not typical of your general high level of civility and the high quality of your argumentation.
What the fuck happened to you? You should be very embarrassed of your conduct in this thread. I know I'm not going to read any of your posts the same way from now on.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 481 by PaulK, posted 06-21-2011 5:24 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 490 by Jon, posted 06-21-2011 6:08 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 492 by PaulK, posted 06-21-2011 6:17 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 487 of 560 (620929)
06-21-2011 5:50 PM


Does Paul actually support the existence of Jesus?
Watching Brian Flemming's "The God Who Wasn't There" (now on Netflix!) Flemming makes a quite interesting claim - he claims that Paul, potentially the earliest source for Jesus's life, doesn't actually seem to believe that Jesus existed. Flemming contends that Paul writes about the life and times of Jesus only as occurring in a spiritual realm - not as though they detail events that really occurred on Earth.
What is the response to this interpretation? Where specifically does Paul claim that Jesus was a real man who really lived?

Replies to this message:
 Message 496 by Jon, posted 06-21-2011 6:49 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 509 by Theodoric, posted 06-23-2011 10:49 AM crashfrog has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 489 of 560 (620931)
06-21-2011 6:01 PM
Reply to: Message 488 by Jon
06-21-2011 5:53 PM


Re: Q
Actually, I never argued that they were all independent; nor did I argue that they are sources of information about Jesus; nor did I argue that they all corroborate each other.
Well, I didn't specifically claim that you did. But, that was put forward as support for the Historical Jesus by Paul, who you appear to have jumped in to defend.
I don't mean to imply that you must thus be defending all of PaulK's claims. I just meant to indicate that your explanation of the Q source has removed its relevance from the debate altogether.
I get that you're kind of doing your "own thing" when it comes to defending the Historical Jesus, so I recognize that I can't necessarily hold you to a defense of the arguments of the other people on your side. Regardless, I'm certainly going to point out when you put forward a claim that demolishes a claim I'm defending against. Please don't feel like you have to take that as my assertion that you've demolished one of your own claims.
In what way?
In the way that he offered it as an independent source that corroborates the claims of the Gospels and the Pauline epistles.
That's Q material you're touching, sir.
So you assume. But where can I read the Q source itself?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 488 by Jon, posted 06-21-2011 5:53 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 491 by Jon, posted 06-21-2011 6:16 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 493 of 560 (620936)
06-21-2011 6:26 PM
Reply to: Message 490 by Jon
06-21-2011 6:08 PM


Re: Grow Up, Jon
Which you'd know if you ever bothered investigating anything before flapping your mouth about it.
Then who cares about Earl Doherty?
I'm not interested in having you or PaulK or Modulous respond to Earl Doherty's arguments about the ahistoricity of Jesus; if I were, I would have presented them.
I'm interested in having you respond to my arguments. So what's the relevance of Earl Doherty or anyone else to that? I'm asking what the available evidence is that supports the genuine physical historical existence of Jesus. Of what relevance to that is Earl Doherty?
The fact that PaulK understands the arguments of the synoptic problem, is familiar with the prominent proponents of ahistoricism, recognizes the difference between the Biblical Jesus and historical Jesusall things you've failed miserably attells me that he has given more real consideration to the issue than you have given, or are likely even capable of giving.
I believed that PaulK had given consideration to the issue, as well. Believe it or not, there was a time when I believed in the historical Jesus just because PaulK did. As I said to Modulous in your other idiotic thread:
quote:
I do remember what caused me to say that six years ago - the utter conviction of all the people I thought were reasonable that they had evidence that there was a real historical Jesus. People like you. I assumed that there was no way they'd believe that on the basis of no evidence, and they said, like you've been saying, that there was evidence.
Eventually I got around to asking them what the evidence was and that's when I discovered the very curious phenomenon I've been referring to - the widespread conviction that there's all this evidence for a historical Jesus, but nobody is able to actually communicate it. When I say that people believe there's evidence for a historical Jesus despite not knowing about any of it, that's not a cheap rhetorical trick or a joke. I'm relating my own personal experience of actually being someone who thought there was all this evidence for a historical Jesus, but didn't actually know any of it. It happened to me! That's why I believe it's happening to you, and to everyone else who says there's abundant evidence for the existence of Jesus, but aren't able to actually recount any of the evidence.
I've seen absolutely nothing that would indicate that you, Mod, and PaulK (and others) don't suffer from the same precise mental lacuna that I did. Sure, PaulK's given consideration to something but as I've abundantly demonstrated, he's given consideration to the wrong things. Like Terry Eagleton, he's spent far too much time pondering "Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace, or Moltmann on hope", so to speak, instead of actually considering what the evidence for the existence of the historical Jesus is.
Similar to Mod, Paul's actually been limiting himself mostly to pointing out the errors in your arguments
But I'm not making any arguments. I'm asking what the available evidence for the existence of the historical Jesus is, and all I'm getting is personal invective and shadowy attempts to wave hands at untrustworthy or even non-existent sources.
If an evolutionist showed up here and attempted to defend evolution by gesturing at Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould ("they believe it; are you smarter than they are?") and simply telling creationists they hadn't done their homework, we'd be on his ass. That's just not good enough. There really is proof that laypeople can understand, without recourse to scientific jargon or appeals to authority, and it's our obligation to provide it when someone claims to come asking. Someone who just trashes creationists without really making an attempt to satisfy the request for evidence doesn't make the cut around here.
So why should people be allowed to make the same kind of case for the historicity of Jesus?
But I assume it has something to do with your tendency to belittle, mock, and misrepresent anyone who dare disagree with your or claim you've made a reasoning error.
Yeah, like that time I opened a thread to talk about how people were mentally ill for denying that there was sufficient evidence of the historicity of Jesus.
Oh, wait, that was you!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 490 by Jon, posted 06-21-2011 6:08 PM Jon has seen this message but not replied

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