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Author Topic:   Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith
Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 1658 of 1677 (848262)
02-02-2019 9:50 AM
Reply to: Message 1655 by LamarkNewAge
02-01-2019 6:57 PM


Re: Research Delusions
James, brother of Jesus "who is called Christ", died 61 or 62, in Jerusalem.
What are your sources?

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1655 by LamarkNewAge, posted 02-01-2019 6:57 PM LamarkNewAge has not replied

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


Message 1660 of 1677 (848310)
02-03-2019 9:56 AM
Reply to: Message 1659 by LamarkNewAge
02-03-2019 2:36 AM


Re: Though Theodoric is confused, here is a link supporting his argument.
This will be my last reply to you as I do not debate with dishonest debaters or people that make it personal.
I said that Josephus chronologically placed James' death in 61-62 A.D., then Theodoric responded, saying, "What are your sources?"
He is saying that standard acceptance of the extant Greek Josephus text is wrong, I assume.
Your actual statement that I wanted additional sources for is below..
James, brother of Jesus "who is called Christ", died 61 or 62, in Jerusalem.
(Josephus is one major source and he said what I have in quotes)
You make a claim that there are more sources. Yes cannot supply them.
You are a dishonest debater. Absolutely nothing you say in your long diatribe actually addressess my post at all. You have no sources that corroborate your claims for what Josephus says and means.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1659 by LamarkNewAge, posted 02-03-2019 2:36 AM LamarkNewAge has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1663 by LamarkNewAge, posted 02-03-2019 5:26 PM Theodoric has not replied

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


(1)
Message 1661 of 1677 (848330)
02-03-2019 2:08 PM


Years ago,shortly before I joined, Kapyong wrote the definitive posts on the historicity of Jesus and the dearth of evidence that supported the existence of Jesus Christ. There is no sense in reinventing the wheel. Here are those two posts.
Message 7
Message 8
Here is what he posted about Josephus.
quote:
JOSEPHUS (c.96CE)
The famous Testamonium Flavianum is considered probably the best evidence for Jesus, yet it has some serious problems :
* the T.F. as it stands uses clearly Christian phrases and names Christ as Messiah, it could not possibly have been written by the Jew Josephus (who refused to acknowledge anyone "messiah"),
* The T.F. comes in several versions of various ages,
* The T.F. was not mentioned by Origen when he reviewed Josephus - Origen even says Josephus does NOT call Jesus the Messiah, showing the passage was not present in that earlier era.
* The T.F. first showed up in manuscripts of Eusebius, and was still absent from some manuscripts as late as 8th century.
* (The other tiny passage in Josephus is probably a later interpolation.)
An analysis of Josephus can be found here:
LIGAUBO - Daftar Situs Judi Slot Online Gacor Deposit Pulsa Jackpot Terbesar
In short - this passage is possibly a total forgery (or at best a corrupt form of a lost original.)
But,
its COULD be actual evidence for Jesus. late, corrupt, but just POSSIBLY real historical evidence.
Such is the weakness of the evidence that this suspect passage is considered some of the best "evidence" for a historical Jesus of Nazareth.
Even Josephus mentions a Jesus Christ, it is very late and probably influenced by Christian writings that now form parts of the bible. It is not firsthand and there is no corroboration. It would not be evidence for Jesus Christ but solely that there were writings of a Jesus Christ. Very different things. If Josephus is the evidence for a Jesus Christ that people want to rely on, the evidence is very slim indeed.
The second post by Kapyong shows the utter wasteland of evidence for a historical Jesus.
quote:
How Likely was a mention of Jesus?
The issue is really HOW LIKELY they would be to mention Jesus.
Factors which increase the expectation that Jesus would be mentioned in a work include :
* a large work (i.e. one which has large index of names)
* a work on an issue somehow related to Jesus or the Gospel events,
* a work whose genre tends to frequently mention or allude to many subjects and people,
I have thus classified these writers into broad categories -
* writers who surely SHOULD have mentioned Jesus (5),
* writers who PROBABLY SHOULD have mentioned Jesus (4,3),
* writers who COULD have mentioned Jesus (2,1, or even 0.5),
* writers who WOULDN'T have mentioned Jesus (0)
I have given each writer a WEIGHT out of 5 as indicated.
As well as -
* writers CLAIMED to mention Jesus.
Of course, one writer who didn't mention Jesus means nothing.
But,
when DOZENS of writers from the period in question fail to mention anything about Jesus (or the the Gospel events or actors), this argues against historicity.
The argument is sometimes made that these writers could not possibly have mentioned Jesus - because he was a minor figure and unrelated to the issues at hand.
This assumes that no such writer ever mentions a minor figure in passing, that they never make an aside about other events or figures who are not specially related to the subject.
Of course, this is not true, as the evidence below shows that many of the writers mentioned make many references to many other minor figures and often make excurses about other subjects and events and people.
I have included astronomers on the list who might have mentioned the Star of Bethlehem and/or the darkness at the crucifixion - if they had heard of them. This is a lesser issue then the existence of Jesus, and I have rated such writers as 0.5.
Summary of Results
The results of my current classifications is:
1 writer who surely SHOULD have mentioned Jesus (Philo.)
3 writers who PROBABLY SHOULD have mentioned Jesus (Seneca, Plutarch, Justus.)
31 writers who COULD have mentioned Jesus.
(20 writers who could not be expected to.
6 writers claimed to mention Jesus, but disputed or suspect.)
He used to have a page that showed all of this laid out to help visualize everything. Alas, that link went dead a long time ago

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?

Replies to this message:
 Message 1662 by AZPaul3, posted 02-03-2019 3:17 PM Theodoric has not replied
 Message 1665 by Phat, posted 02-04-2019 8:41 AM Theodoric has replied

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


Message 1667 of 1677 (848387)
02-04-2019 9:01 AM
Reply to: Message 1665 by Phat
02-04-2019 8:41 AM


Re: Reinventing The Wheel
I don't care about the beliefs. I care about the historical facts. I find it very interesting that people put so much credence in a book of unknown provenance, questionable authors and no corroborating historical evidence to back up it's central premise. Paul(whoever he was) was speaking of a celestial Jesus, that is obvious. I think he, and the group he was speaking for would be very surprised and dismayed by the whole gospel rigmarole that has been pinned to the mystery cult of Jesus that they were advocating.
A very good peer-reviewed but readable book on this subject is Richard Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt
As I have been saying since I first started on this forum, if anyone can present me with independent, contemporary, corroborating evidence for the historical existence of the Jesus Christ character, I would consider it. The only evidence presented is based upon the bible itself. There is non evidence. As I have no belief in the supernatural, I cannot accept it on faith alone. There needs to be verifiable evidence. Someone show it. I will consider it.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1665 by Phat, posted 02-04-2019 8:41 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

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


Message 1669 of 1677 (848389)
02-04-2019 9:57 AM


Quick lesson in posting replies
The purpose of this site is to have vigorous, honest debate. There is a small subset that like to use if for proselytizing, bullying, shaming and to make themselves feel good about themselves.
I find those that knowingly engage in logical fallacies the most irritating. We have a prime example on this thread. This is the text from the first post of mine LNA responded to.
Theodoric writes:
The fact is there is no independent corroborating historical evidence of the existence of a Jesus Christ outside of the bible. All future mentions of this character are tied the gospels. Nowhere else in the historical record does this person exist. The character is as much a myth as Prester John and William Tell.
Even Paul does not seem to have known anything about a historical Jesus. Then again why would he know anything about the gospels as his writings(or maybe more accurately, the writings attributed to him) were written decades before the gospels.
If a document is to be accepted as legitimate historically, then the provenance of the document must be verified. Not only can the provenance of the gospels not be verified, there is no evidence of who even authored them. The conflicts and inconsistencies between them show that nothing in them can be relied on as being factual.
If you look at his reponses they are riddled with strawman arguments. He has attempted to shift the argument completely off of my the post he originally replied to. At times has even misrepresented what I have posted. He follows with a gish gallop of information that is not pertinent to the argument at hand.
If you want to have a successful, informative debate with someone, stick to the subject and drop the logical fallacies.
Here is my favorite link for a quick tutorial on logical fallacies.
Fallacies - Nizkor
Now back to my original point on this thread.
The fact is there is no contemporary, independent corroborating historical evidence of the existence of a Jesus Christ outside of the bible.
If there is someone should present it. You can quit wasting your time LNA. What you have presented is neither contemporary or independent. If you want to start a thread on the vileness of the mythicists, you should do that. I want to talk real facts and evidence.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?

Replies to this message:
 Message 1672 by LamarkNewAge, posted 02-04-2019 11:09 PM Theodoric has not replied

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


Message 1670 of 1677 (848390)
02-04-2019 9:58 AM
Reply to: Message 1668 by AZPaul3
02-04-2019 9:48 AM


Re: Im a lover not a fighter
If the post really cared they would have spent the millions hiring journalists.
Just my cynical self.
It was a good ad.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1668 by AZPaul3, posted 02-04-2019 9:48 AM AZPaul3 has seen this message but not replied

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


Message 1676 of 1677 (848872)
02-17-2019 10:53 AM
Reply to: Message 1673 by LamarkNewAge
02-16-2019 9:48 PM


Re: (Post #1) Response to Kapyong in closed thread.
Clement does not mention anything historical of Jesus and does not mention the Sermon on the Mount story. He shows no knowledge of the gospels.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1673 by LamarkNewAge, posted 02-16-2019 9:48 PM LamarkNewAge has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1677 by Theodoric, posted 02-18-2019 9:55 AM Theodoric has not replied

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


Message 1677 of 1677 (848903)
02-18-2019 9:55 AM
Reply to: Message 1676 by Theodoric
02-17-2019 10:53 AM


Clement I may be much earlier
As Clement shows no awareness of any of the gospel fables and mentions that Paul and Peter are recently deceased, there is a possibility that it is much earlier than 95 CE. Some scholars, for example Carrier, give it a possible date as early as 60 CE. That does not help the historicity of the Jesus character though. Clement says nothing that supports that he thought Jesus was a flesh and blood human. We also have the problem of actual attribution to Clement and who he actually was other than church tradition and conflicting accounts.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1676 by Theodoric, posted 02-17-2019 10:53 AM Theodoric has not replied

  
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