Did Jesus Exist? by Bart Ehrman

I need to keep things slow and limited, when talking to you and that substanceless clown with 5 quadrillion posts.SLlllllllloooooowwwwwwww......ly goingHow about you try to exegate Romans 1:1-4(My phone spell check kept changing exegate to execute)(Don't execute the text anymore than you have evaded it)(It might take 1000 posts to get to all your other evasions, since you offered to discuss evidence back around post 475)

I think you mean exegete, and even then you're trying to verb a noun. If you've got something to say about how the passage provides evidence for the historicity of Jesus then go ahead. Here's the passage again:

quote:

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Romans 1: ¹Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— ²the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures ³regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, ⁴and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

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No one's evading anything. It's just that there are no lackeys here to follow your commands. If you have a case to make then make it.--Percy

You seemed to be complaining about those with theological degrees having too much influence in historical conclusions.I believe Richard Carrier has been making some noise on a distinction between those with theological degrees and those with historical degrees.Back in post 479 (?), I quoted Richard Carrier, who was quoting Robert M Price.Price has a PhD in Systematic Theology and that's not all. He has another PhD in a separate theological field.Price was quoted to show two possible interpretations experts reached on the text of Romans 1:1-4.Carrier (a historical doctorate holder) responded that one of the two (standard) possible interpretations is far more unlikely than the other.The unlikely interpretation is consistent with the AHISTORICAL JESUS theory.The other interpretation (which is the massively accepted one) is, in Carriers view, an interpretation that would - in actuality - function as a refutation of the JESUS NEVER EXISTED theory.The double-theologian Doctor Price then felt he had to pick the unlikely interpretation to save the JESUS MYTH theory.Carrier hated his conclusion for multiple reasons.The historian Doctor Carrier offered his own idiosyncratic exegesis of Romans 1:1-4.Soooooooooo...Why is the historian right and the theology major wrong?Why is Doctor History better equipped to interpret the text than Dr Theology?

I'm not complaining about them at all. My only mentions of them is in response to inquiries from you. My interest lies in the evidence these gentleman have uncovered. The minutia of interactions between Carrier and Price do not much interest me. What is *your* interpretation so far as it bears upon the historicity of Jesus? Speaking generally, a Doctor of Theology is handicapped by his religious beliefs.Again, my interest is drawn to the evidence for the historical Jesus.--Percy

IIRC, Percys basic argument is that Theologians carry more weight among believers, which many of them also are. As a result, Critical Thinking and Falsification are less likely to be employed, and the EvC peanut gallery "preaches" evidence (objective verifiable, and/or bias free) exclusively. Falsification is a basic tool of the scientific method.
Last night, I spent a couple of hours listening to atheist activist Matt Dillahunty. I paid particularly close attention to his arguments as to why he is an atheist and why he remains unconvinced by Christian arguments(by believers) Needless to say, he overwhelmed *all* of his callers. Though one could charge that he (Dillahunty) was "sent" by the deceiver(Tempter) I see him as being a useful temper-er who helps me undergo a periodic reality check as to why my position has no monopoly on truth.What I took away from all this (in relation to this topic and your arguments with Percy and Theo) is that there is no possible way to have any more objective evidence than is already known (by both sides). Theo in particular is more like Dillahunty. He remains unconvinced and awaits evidence or logic which could hypothetically convince him. Percy is simply along for the ride. Less bias, perhaps? In my opinion, there are no winners in this debate. You either believe or you do not. Those who rely on evidence alone to influence their worldview will always remain unconvinced barring future "evidence". In my opinion, educational discipline only leads people towards more skepticism and more questions rather than any answer (though many prefer to be labeled as non believers.)

I'm not so sure a doctor of Theology is limited on most historical issues.How can you justify the Gospels endless stories involving supernatural "demons" with any sort of historical or scientific consensus with regards to the existence of (for example) ghosts?Ghosts are rejected because all 30,000 scientific tests have resulted in results consistent with a more materialistic interpretation of the evidence.(I happen to feel UFOs offer the greatest challenge to materialism, but I still feel the UFO "evidence" does not quite rise to the level of observation-accurate standards to affect a paradigm shift)Ghosts being accepted as historical fact (they aren't!) have the added advantage of being consistent with both Jewish and Islamic religious beliefs.Infact Islam demands a belief in Angels, as a requirement of the faith.Hindus have supernatural beliefs, too.Why can you explain a scientific consensus, which supports a materialistic interpretation, of evidence studied, when you complain of theological bias influencing the conclusions?Why does the historian not show a spiritual bias?Theologians seem to leave most, but not all, of their beliefs at the door, if you look at the consensus view of most fields.A massive consensus is almost a guaranteed guarantee that theological considerations just aren't at play - AS A GENERAL RULE

Perhaps that's why I rarely debate this stuff with you. You are uninterested in any possible validity favoring the Jesus of myth.
You prefer to save the education of future generations over finding the Golden Child.

Add to that the criticism that God (if God existed) seemingly purposefully leaves no evidence, and that so many humans have "fallen" for this belief paradigm and we have a real mystery on our hands! Are you suggesting that Historians as a rule show a materialistic bias? Is such a possible bias more in line with evidence based thinking?

I think historians are guided by the results.StudiesStudiesStudiesEndless hashing out.Endless debate.Exceptions come in when there is an issue little studied. There are also tentative issues, when one has, like, a zero percent chance of being aware if a possibility. Tentative issues are also at play when it comes to detecting forces and events. Scientific Astronomy can't hope to come close to parsing out Dark Energy's constituents.

Jesus of Nazareth Millenarian Prophet by Dale Allison is about what my view is.I only have the three decade old edition, where Allison did not think Jesus ever considered himself the messiah.Allison has apparently changed his view, in the updated edition: he feels Jesus considered himself a messiah, in some form.I have evolved in that direction independent of the scholar/historian I tend to agree with the most.Allison is in the apocalyptic school: as is Ehrman, Tabor, and others.The non apocalyptic school is about as strong in the number of historians. The Jesus Seminar promoted a non- apocalyptic Jesus.There is a lot of debate among historians.Alot of uncertainty.There are infeed issues that aren't looked at, by many scholars/historians, that might be overlooked. Allison, like me, feels Jesus was a vegetarian. It is an issue not often looked at.So I feel historians tend to get things wrong, when they aren't looking. They do succumb to traditional views - that perhaps can be ultimately traced back to theological institutions, like the nearly 2000 year-old Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church.But the question of the Non-Existence of Jesus issue has been around for a long time.It has not been overlooked nor has it been ignored. Many feel it has only recently surfaced, but it existed as an issue the entire 29th century.It happens to be a very falsifiable theory. I think is has essentially been falsified.The Jesus Myth theory gets resurrected, but it is a dead man walking.Historians wonder if they should say, "We debate many things. ..assuming the debate does not center around an-already falsified theory".It could probably apply to the Jesus Myth theory, honestly.Carrier and Price are trying to implement a resurrection. I wish them all the luck in the world. They need it.

Yep, I had forgotten that every single discussion with him morphs into indecipherable gobbledygook. I started asking for clarification and lost track of the point immediately. I don't think it's possible to have a coherent conversation with him. It's like Percy said, it's trying to interpret reality looking at the reflection in pieces of a broken mirror.

Um, who cares exactly?I mean those that believe in the miraculous Christ do so without a shred of evidence and those that don't are able to say 'forget evidence for the miraculous Christ you haven't got any, you can't even provide halfway-decent evidence that the guy even existed at all'.All those pious theologians over all those years dedicating their lives trying to show that a fictitious character in a 2,000 year old myth existed - all have failed. You'd think they'd take up train spotting or something equally useless.

Theodoric was the one who refused to engage the Romans 1:1-4 evidence.And it was much worse than a person with 125 posts disrupting a discussion of evidence.He both promoted Carrier, multiple times in this thread...ANDIgnored the fact that Carrier admits that the quantitative statistical analysis of Romans 1:1-4 counts it as evidence.(Carrier still feels his idiosyncratic reading is correct, do he ultimately ditched the evidence in the end, sort of)Carrier and statistical techniques are required to reduce the impact of evidence which - most would say - falsifies his theoryTheodoric just says:Still no evidenceThen attacks meHe is a piece of shit

The post title says it allIf he can call me a hateful insult, like troll, then I can use choice words to describe his utter despicable disruptive behavior

Who the fuck ever said anything about a miraculous Christ?Percy was the last one.Now you have.Why do you address this to me?