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Author Topic:   Reconstructing the Historical Jesus
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 392 of 560 (620686)
06-20-2011 12:29 AM
Reply to: Message 388 by crashfrog
06-20-2011 12:00 AM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
After all, none of those men wound up being the central focus of a major world religion. That's a bit more extraordinary than just "getting killed by Romans" and it creates a greater burden of evidence.
But nothing about Christianity becoming a major world religion has anything to do with the historical Jesus. So why should the fact that he is the focus of a major world religion have any bearing on the evidence required to conclude his existence?
Jon

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 388 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 12:00 AM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
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Jon
Inactive Member


Message 403 of 560 (620715)
06-20-2011 11:22 AM
Reply to: Message 401 by Panda
06-20-2011 9:22 AM


Re: If not Jesus, then who ?
You are doing exactly the same as a someone claiming that if a physicist doesn't believe in god then he must be able to explain how the universe began - else god is trve and the physicist is wrong.
Physics isn't history.
And there are realms of difference between proposing 'god' as an explanation and proposing 'human being' as an explanation.
Jon

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 401 by Panda, posted 06-20-2011 9:22 AM Panda has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 404 by Panda, posted 06-20-2011 12:29 PM Jon has not replied

Jon
Inactive Member


Message 407 of 560 (620733)
06-20-2011 1:08 PM
Reply to: Message 406 by PaulK
06-20-2011 12:54 PM


Re: If not Jesus, then who ?
He has to explain why his explanation assumes fewer people than a historical Jesus - and he hasn't done that.
And not just people, but premises in general.
Edited by Jon, : clarity

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Jon
Inactive Member


Message 443 of 560 (620798)
06-21-2011 12:34 AM


Ehrman's New Book
Just a relevant heads up; Bart Ehrman's book addressing the matter of the historical Jesus has been planned for this November.
Did Jesus Exist?
It's only planned as an eBook; but should be a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the topic.
Jon

Love your enemies!

Jon
Inactive Member


Message 457 of 560 (620864)
06-21-2011 12:51 PM
Reply to: Message 448 by caffeine
06-21-2011 9:24 AM


Re: The founders of the world's religions
Real, historical people far outnumber mythical ones. The only ones we really have with mythical founders are the truly ancient ones, and it's possible these we only consider mythical since so much time has passed that the stories that have grown up around them have less connection to reality.
One question: In how many of these belief systems is the recognized founder the same person as the one most chiefly venerated by the believers?

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Jon
Inactive Member


Message 458 of 560 (620866)
06-21-2011 12:59 PM
Reply to: Message 456 by frako
06-21-2011 12:08 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
So you are saying a person who rose from the dead, preformed miracles... would not peak the interest of any scholar?
These qualities have NOTHING to do with the historical Jesus.

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 Message 456 by frako, posted 06-21-2011 12:08 PM frako has not replied

Jon
Inactive Member


Message 471 of 560 (620898)
06-21-2011 3:37 PM
Reply to: Message 463 by crashfrog
06-21-2011 2:25 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
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!"
I believe PaulK was referring to the wording between Matthew and Luke for the material in question. They are exact enough to conclude that at least one of them is based on a written source. This, of course, gives us three possible scenarios:
  1. Matthew copied the material from Luke.
  2. Luke copied the material from Matthew.
  3. Luke and Matthew copied the material from a common source.
For (1) I can find no solid information, aside from the frequent mention that the argument for Matthew knowing Luke is hardly ever made.
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)
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 explains the current texts better than (1) or (2); it contains none of the faults of (1) or (2); it's likelihood is supported by the existence of other 'sayings' gospels (e.g., the gospel of Thomas). Hypothesis (3) is the better hypothesis.
Jon
__________
Stein, R. (1987) The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction. Michigan: Baker Books.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 463 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 2:25 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 476 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 4:28 PM Jon has replied

Jon
Inactive Member


Message 472 of 560 (620900)
06-21-2011 4:00 PM
Reply to: Message 468 by crashfrog
06-21-2011 3:19 PM


Assumptions Run Wild
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!"
You have no evidence for this.
Creative types surrounded by a mob of children dying for the latest and greatest "Jesus, King of the Jews" story.
You have no evidence for this.
If the first Christians were people who, as children, had been raised on Jesus stories,
You have no evidence for this.
And the story of Jesus does look entirely fabricated to me
You have no evidence for this.
The fabricated Jesus, being a failed martyr who opposed the Romans, may have rung true for first century audience
You have no evidence for this.
Fact is: Your 'explanation' so far involves at least five times the amount of supposition as the historical Jesus explanation.
Your hypothesis reeks of 'may have's and 'seems so to me's. And through all this wild assuming, you've yet to adequately deal with any of the objections lodged by your opponents.
Perhaps if you even bothered once, Crash, to debate honestly, you wouldn't find yourself reduced to shouting 'fuck you' at any opponent who dares to question your reasonability.
But who am I kidding? Paul's right: You just another Buz.
Jon

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 468 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 3:19 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 477 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 4:34 PM Jon has seen this message but not replied

Jon
Inactive Member


Message 479 of 560 (620920)
06-21-2011 5:02 PM
Reply to: Message 476 by crashfrog
06-21-2011 4:28 PM


Q
So you have an utterly unintelligible claim (seriously, "triple tradition"?) with unspecified relevance to the point of contention.
Huh? The only thing unintelligible is this sentence of yours.
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?
This, of course, is only one of the arguments against Luke knowing Matthew. There are others. Another, for example:
quote:
Stein in The Synoptic Problem (1987):
The thesis that Luke obtained the Q material from Matthew cannot explain why Luke would have rearranged this material in a totally different and "artistically inferior" format. Furthermore, if Luke obtained the material of the triple tradition from either Mark or Matthew and if he followed the narrative order of his source as carefully as he did in this area, why would he deliberately choose to make sure that all the sayings material that he obtained from Matthew would appear in a different order in his Gospel? (p. 95)
I could give more; or, you could investigate the matter through some Googling.
On top of this, there are peculiarities in all of the synoptic gospels. If peculiarities alone were enough to argue against the notion of any of them knowing of the other(s), then we would have to conclude that all of the writers wrote independently.
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?
That's not an accurate understanding of the hypothesized Q document. 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.
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.
It doesn't matter the nature of the sources; their number will still be the same. There is Mark; there is the source of Q (whatever that may be); there is the source of Matthew-specific information; and there is the source of the Luke-specific information.
Which, if any, of these sources goes back to Jesus is a debatable matter; but these multiple sources do exist.
Lost books can't substantiate anything simply as a result of being themselves insubstantial.
It depends on what you're trying to substantiate.
Jon
Edited by Jon, : No reason given.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 476 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 4:28 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 482 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 5:28 PM Jon has replied

Jon
Inactive Member


Message 480 of 560 (620922)
06-21-2011 5:09 PM
Reply to: Message 478 by crashfrog
06-21-2011 4:42 PM


Re: foundations
Out of the cherry-picked five you presented, two-and-a-half were based on fictional characters.
Caffeine also presented a list. And if you're not happy with those lists, present one of your own.
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.
Is this even at all related to the arguments in Mod's posts?
Jon

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 478 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 4:42 PM crashfrog has not replied

Jon
Inactive Member


Message 483 of 560 (620925)
06-21-2011 5:36 PM
Reply to: Message 481 by PaulK
06-21-2011 5:24 PM


Re: Summary: Jesus Myther's and Creationists
Pana has only a superficial knowledge of the arguments of Freke and Gandy (and never mentioned their names).
And Freke and Gandy are about as ignorant as grass under a rock.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 481 by PaulK, posted 06-21-2011 5:24 PM PaulK has not replied

Jon
Inactive Member


Message 488 of 560 (620930)
06-21-2011 5:53 PM
Reply to: Message 482 by crashfrog
06-21-2011 5:28 PM


Re: Q
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"?
These are staple concepts in the debate on the synoptic problem. I cannot define every term unfamiliar to you; consider this a friendly exception:
quote:
Wikipedia on the Synoptic Gospels:
The triple tradition is the material that is present in all three Synoptic Gospels.
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.
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.
In other words PaulK was substantially misrepresenting the content and scope of the Q source.
In what way?
No, it doesn't. Only substance can substantiate!
Huh? The Q material is of substance; just pick up your Bible, thumb through Luke and Matthew. That's Q material you're touching, sir.
Jon

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 482 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 5:28 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 489 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 6:01 PM Jon has replied

Jon
Inactive Member


Message 490 of 560 (620932)
06-21-2011 6:08 PM
Reply to: Message 485 by crashfrog
06-21-2011 5:46 PM


Grow Up, Crash
PaulK, where does Earl Doherty present evidence for the existence of Jesus? Please be specific.
He doesn't. He's an ahistoricist. Which you'd know if you ever bothered investigating anything before flapping your mouth about it.
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.
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.
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.
Similar to Mod, Paul's actually been limiting himself mostly to pointing out the errors in your arguments; he's made very few arguments relating his own position on the matter of an historical Jesus. How you get from that to 'major chip on your shoulder' is beyond me. 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.
I know I'm not going to read any of your posts the same way from now on.
So you're going to consider everything written from now on by PaulK on personal grounds? What a mature mindset to take away from the debate.
Jon

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 485 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 5:46 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
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Jon
Inactive Member


Message 491 of 560 (620933)
06-21-2011 6:16 PM
Reply to: Message 489 by crashfrog
06-21-2011 6:01 PM


Re: Q
So you assume. But where can I read the Q source itself?
There's a difference between Q material and Q source.
I just meant to indicate that your explanation of the Q source has removed its relevance from the debate altogether.
Depends on whose debate you're talking about.
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.
I don't think anything I've said 'demolishes' any claims made, other than the ones you've made based on your ignorance of relevant scholarship.
In the way that he offered it as an independent source that corroborates the claims of the Gospels and the Pauline epistles.
It depends on how much corroboration you're talking about. If the minimal corroboration is just the existence of an historical Jesus, then multiple sources with an historical Jesus as one of their common premises certainly meets the criteria of being corroboratory.
Jon

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 489 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 6:01 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 497 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 6:52 PM Jon has replied

Jon
Inactive Member


Message 496 of 560 (620940)
06-21-2011 6:49 PM
Reply to: Message 487 by crashfrog
06-21-2011 5:50 PM


Re: Does Paul actually support the existence of Jesus?
What is the response to this interpretation? Where specifically does Paul claim that Jesus was a real man who really lived?
This argument is rather common in the ahistorical circles. It fails, though, to take into account the nature of Paul, his work, and his theology.
Everything we have from Paul is in the form of letters, written to people who are already followers of the Jesus movement. This makes it difficult to expect much discussion of matters early Christians would have considered undisputedone such matter could well have been the historicity of Jesus.
Paul admittedly doesn't care much about the life of Jesus:
quote:
1 Corinthians 2:2 (NRSV):
For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
So right here we have to question any arguments made based on Paul's silence about the life of Jesus. But if this isn't enough, we actually have good reason to believe that Paul thought Jesus an actual historical figure. That is, we don't actually have a full silence.
Dead things don't get killed; only living things do:
quote:
1 Thessalonians 2:14—15 (NRSV):
For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone
More here:
quote:
Philippians 2:5—8 (NRSV):
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death
even death on a cross.
And here, where Paul indicates that Jesus' resurrection appearances were witnessed by people then still alive (strongly suggesting that Paul considered Jesus a recent figure):
quote:
1 Corinthians 15:3—7 (NRSV):
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
This is pat of an the argument in 1 Cor 15, in which Paul uses the resurrection of Jesus to convince his audience that they too will be resurrected. This argument only makes sense if Paul is working from the premise that Jesus, like his audience, had at one time been a living creature walking the Earth.
This should serve as a good starting base; perhaps if you can present some of the specific arguments from Flemming, more can be added to the discussion.
Jon

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 487 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 5:50 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 498 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 7:04 PM Jon has replied

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