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Author | Topic: Did Jesus Exist? by Bart Ehrman | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Phat Member Posts: 18717 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 4.2 |
Theodoric writes: Why do you feel people should accept things with absolutely no evidence? I would reword that as saying that people *can* accept things with absolutely no evidence. And we have every right to accept anything that we fancy. Your next question might be:
*Why do you personally accept such an argument given that there is no objective evidence*?
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Phat Member Posts: 18717 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 4.2 |
AZ writes: Well, we had some, but you vanquished them with but a thought. What questions surround the supernatural claims made by the New Testament authors? You easily erased the evidence in your own mind, but you may have more work cut out for you erasing the subjective evidence from *my* mind, which you regard as rusted shut! ![]() Perhaps WD40??
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PaulK Member Posts: 18062 Joined: Member Rating: 5.0 |
quote: If you know a way to determine the contents of the relevant reports, let us know. Perhaps you could locate the official reports for the few crucifixion victims who have been found.
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Taq Member Posts: 10385 Joined: Member Rating: 5.8
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Phat writes: I would agree. And we won't find objective answers. What we *will* find are numerous arguments both for and against a supernatural Jesus (or *any Jesus*) for that matter which are highly emotional and driven by a need to be right. I am willing to be more generous than that. Religious belief is also driven by personal (subjective) experience and faith. I am one who believes that the human experience involves both the subjective and objective, so I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with religious belief/faith. I am not one who requires humans to be Vulcans and adhere to some universally applied true logic and objectivity. All I would ask is that people be honest about what can be objectively demonstrated and what can not. So if people believe in God because of subjective emotions, experiences, and faith, all the more power to them. I absolutely support peoples' rights to pursue those beliefs. I would just ask for the same respect for those who don't believe.
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Percy Member Posts: 23189 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.6 |
Granny Magda writes: For the existence of Jesus as "an obscure religious mystic?" Why would such a person even be necessary? I'm not sure what you mean by necessary. Christianity has to have come from somewhere and having it's origins in a real person is a highly parsimonious explanation. It's like I said before. I don't see much difference between basing Christianity on someone on whose life was nothing like Jesus's on the one hand, and basing it on no one at all on the other.
If that's who Jesus really was then 95% of the gospels are fiction, and if there never was a Jesus then 100% of the gospels are fiction. That 5% hardly seems worth finagling over. Well I wouldn't like to put a figure on it, even loosely. Certainly I would not encourage amateurs and laymen to uncritically view the Gospels as reliable history, far from it. Historians though, textual critics and other scholars of antiquity approach their sources with far greater caution and detailed analysis than laymen. "What you call "finagling over the 5%" is what such people do! I have no problem with other people doing that.
I also think that the question of whether one of the most influential individuals of all time existed or not is a bigger deal than just part of that "5%". We agree that the Jesus of the gospels never existed, but Christianity's outsize influence is due to people's belief that that Jesus did exist, not to any belief that he was an obscure mystic. Concerning Biblical scholarship, even the most powerful microscope cannot create evidence that doesn't exist. That's why Biblical scholars have no consensus, only a range of opinion from a Jesus of miracles at one extreme to no Jesus at the other.
His [Paul's] various claims don't make sense unless there was some sort of pre-existing Christian movement. So you believe Paul made up stories about a resurrection but not about a religious movement.
It doesn't. I don't think any question about distant history really matters much. Did king Arthur exist? Or Robin Hood? Probably not. Does it matter? Not in the least. Actually, the Jesus that I believe did not exist, the one of the gospels, is a good analog to believing King Arthur did not exist, the one of the round table and the magic sword. Some hypothesize that there was an actual King Arthur, just not the one of legend. Does it matter? Not in the least. But if the King Arthur of legend existed then that would be a very big deal. *That* would matter. In the same way, some hypothesize that there was an actual Jesus, just not the one of the gospels. Does it matter? Not in the least. But if the Jesus of the gospels existed then that would be a very big deal. *That* would matter. --Percy
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Granny Magda Member (Idle past 364 days) Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: |
We seem to be broadly on the same page.
We agree that the Jesus of the gospels never existed, but Christianity's outsize influence is due to people's belief that that Jesus did exist, not to any belief that he was an obscure mystic. I agree, Christianity is based pretty much entirely on the mythic Jesus. Any real Jesus is practically a ghost. Sadly Christians are the last people who want to hear about him.
Concerning Biblical scholarship, even the most powerful microscope cannot create evidence that doesn't exist. That's why Biblical scholars have no consensus, I think it is completely fair to say that there is consensus on the historicity of Jesus amongst scholars.
So you believe Paul made up stories about a resurrection but not about a religious movement. No. If I were the betting type I would probably bet on Peter being the first person to become convinced of Jesus' resurrection, and if not him then James or someone else form Jesus' inner circle.
In the same way, some hypothesize that there was an actual Jesus, just not the one of the gospels. Does it matter? Not in the least. But if the Jesus of the gospels existed then that would be a very big deal. *That* would matter. Again, that's not how I would put it, but... semantics. Mutate and SurviveOn two occasions I have been asked, – "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
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AZPaul3 Member Posts: 8716 From: Phoenix Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
If you know a way to determine the contents of the relevant reports, let us know. Me!? I'm the one asking. Were there such things? Is there a probability such executions were recorded and reported up the political chain? Does anyone out there know? It does no good to just ask me the same question. If I had answers I would not have had to inquire.Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!
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Granny Magda Member (Idle past 364 days) Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: |
Hi Phat,
Perhaps a good question to rhetorically ask is"Why Is This Argument Important In The Grand Scheme Of Things?" I didn't say it was. As I said to Percy, it's not emotionally or philosophically important to me. It is important to Christians though; no Christ, no Christianity, obviously. I think that whether or not Jesus existed is a valid question, I think that it is in principle an important question for Christianity to address. It's just that the answer is "Yes, he probably existed" which is probably a relief for Christians, but not the knockout punch that others were perhaps hoping for. I can see why some atheists find mythicism appealing. It promises to sweep Christianity away in one fell swoop. I just don't think it fulfills that promise. I think it's a bad argument against Christianity and I don't see why anyone would bother with bad arguments against Christianity when we have so many good arguments against Christianity. Mutate and SurviveOn two occasions I have been asked, – "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
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PaulK Member Posts: 18062 Joined: Member Rating: 5.0 |
quote: Likely there’d be some sort of report but we don’t have them. Even if we did I doubt that we could definitively identify Jesus from them. And as Messianic claimants go he wasn’t a lot of trouble,
All sorts of misfortunes also sprang from these men, and the nation was infected with this doctrine to an incredible degree; one violent war came upon us after another, and we lost our friends which used to alleviate our pains; there were also very great robberies and murder of our principal men. This was done in pretense indeed for the public welfare, but in reality for the hopes of gain to themselves; whence arose seditions, and from them murders of men, which sometimes fell on those of their own people, [by the madness of these men towards one another, while their desire was that none of the adverse party might be left,] Josephus on Judas of Galilee, who resisted the census of Quirinius. Antiquities XVIII 1
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Percy Member Posts: 23189 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.6 |
AZPaul3 in Message 236 writes: The position that I consider to be “not sensible” is the position that we can conclude that Jesus didn’t exist (solely) because we don’t know where or when he was born. I agree. Is someone making that argument? Only the two criteria? No, no one is. The word "solely" was not part of the original statement, which appears in Message 132. Back in the Who Owns the Standard Definition of Evolution thread PaulK had been drawing analogs to what we don't know about lifeforms using planets and Jesus. Apparently he meant the things he mentioned that we don't know to be interpreted as the only things we don't know, while I assumed he meant them as examples of things we don't know, given that there's tons we don't know about planets and Jesus. --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 18062 Joined: Member Rating: 5.0 |
quote: And yet the words “based on those facts” are part of it and those two facts are the only ones mentioned. Not to mention that the context also points to that reading. And in a follow-up - also cited in Message 132 - I clearly indicated that more facts could justify the conclusion.
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AZPaul3 Member Posts: 8716 From: Phoenix Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Ok, so now that the dust has settled, we can conclude the following:
1. The biblical Jesus is a non-starter. Didn’t happen.2. A historical Jesus is a probability in that: a. Scholars think some of Paul’s letters are plausibly him. b. In the story of Saul that he wrote, there apparently was a job that involved taking Christians to Damascus for persecution. c. There were christians, there was a church at the time of Saul. d. Someone had to start it. Identified as the historical Jesus No one can say, as documented fact, what this someone did or said. All we have are the stories, suspect apocryphal. The stories make this place-holder Jesus seem like a loving flower child who liked to piss off his elders. Stories. It was all oral history, so it seems, since there was no parchment with any of these myths inked in until Mark (whoever) dropped his gospel. Everything after is suspect copy with embellishment. Especially that nutjob John. That boy was higher than I am and it burned his brain.Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!
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Percy Member Posts: 23189 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.6 |
Granny Magda in Message 276 writes: Concerning Biblical scholarship, even the most powerful microscope cannot create evidence that doesn't exist. That's why Biblical scholars have no consensus, I think it is completely fair to say that there is consensus on the historicity of Jesus amongst scholars. I agree there's a scholarly consensus on his historicity, but I believe that's only because most Bible scholars are believers. Bart Ehrman, an agnostic, accepts the historicity of Jesus, but he's not the only non-believing Biblical scholar. I wonder what the consensus among them is. But the comment from me was longer than what you quoted and wasn't about historicity. It was about the range of scholarly opinion that extends from the Jesus of miracles all the way to no Jesus at all. Historical Jesus - Wikipedia says:
quote: There is agreement on nothing but the baptism and the crucifixion, which is pretty slim pickings to hang a historicity hat on, and even those seem historically questionable to me. I think religious believers make poor judges of the historical foundations of their religion. I'm sure there's a strong consensus among Mormon scholars of the historical foundations of Mormonism, such as the golden plates, the seer stone and so forth. Wikipedia continues:
quote: In my view if you subtract the Christ of faith from the Jesus of history there is little meaningful left.
So you believe Paul made up stories about a resurrection but not about a religious movement. No. If I were the betting type I would probably bet on Peter being the first person to become convinced of Jesus' resurrection, and if not him then James or someone else form Jesus' inner circle. Allow me to restate. So you believe Paul was unreliable about a resurrection but reliable about a religious movement. --Percy
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Tangle Member Posts: 9638 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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You can't get from any of that to "probable."
Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. Olen Suomi Soy Barcelona. I am Ukraine. "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
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AZPaul3 Member Posts: 8716 From: Phoenix Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
You can't get from any of that to "probable." How about to "certainty", then. The church did not start itself. Such person or persons, the historical Jesus, exists to instantiate the founders. I give no abilities of any sort to this Jesus save to jawbone a small sect into existence.Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!
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