The Historical Jesus: Did He Create the Universe?

This topic is essentially silly. There seems to be no sensible discussion to be had on the subject.The only way the topic of the title would make sense is if it were claimed that it is possible to demonstrate that the Jesus of Faith existed through historical methods. But this is simply not possible - history certainly cannot demonstrate that Jesus performed even one genuine miracle - and even that would be insufficient.Instead of that all we get is ICANT’s uninformed opinions on cosmology. To which I will respond that all the relevant experts disagree, which is a better argument than ICANT’s personal incredulity - which is all ICANT offers and very likely all he can offer.

Maybe you should have read something by Biblical scholars. At least the ones who are actual scholars. There’s a reason why people like Faith hate them.It was Biblical scholars who discovered the literary dependencies between the synoptic Gospels.It was Biblical scholars who showed that Daniel was about the period of the Maccabean revolt - and (at least mostly) written at that time.

If you want to be prejudiced and ignorant that’s up to you. But it’s not a good thing.

That would be fine if you didn’t go off spouting on about it. If you don’t know and don’t want to know anything about the subject you’re not going to have anything worth saying about it.

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I would argue that the life cycles of any living thing (including humans) be given a rational argument in support of Jesus, seeing as how the universe itself could give a rats ass about us (If IT indeed had a voice).

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That looks like a massive non-sequitur and off-topic, too. The stated topic is the historical Jesus so any argument should be using the methods of history. Which can’t show that Jesus was anything more than a man.

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Though I think that all of you should at least hear some of R.C. Sproul, I can't force you to listen

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I have, remember? It was awful. Though I don’t know why you can’t find written sources on the web.

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Point taken. So do you personally have any belief or are you simply a numbers and data type of guy

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I have no religious belief.

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ICANT knows that he is out of his league in the science of Cosmology

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He’s further out of his league than he knows - some of his errors are painful to read. Not that he’s much better on the Bible, putting his own nutty ideas forward as facts and refusing to consider the problems with his (heterodox) readings.And cosmology has nothing to do with the historical Jesus, so he’s clueless on history and philosophy, too.

I’m not a troll. The truth is still the truth no matter how much you hate it. Maybe you should take a look at yourself.

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Perhaps I can...but Percy wants me to express myself in my own words.

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Videos are not “your own words” either, so that hardly justifies posting links to videos rather than written sources.

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Often, critics attack the sincerity and/or expertise of "apologists" so lets nail that word down

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It’s not a definitional issue - it’s experience. Christian apologists are more interested in persuasion than truth and often rely on false or misleading claims.

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It appears that ICANT is arguing for a better understanding.

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It does? It seems to me that ICANT is arguing from deficiencies in his own understanding. Including a failure to understand what “the historical Jesus” actually means.

It really seems pointless. As I’ve said before the Jesus of History must be Jesus as revealed by the methods of history. And that can only show Jesus as a man living 2000 years ago. The historical Jesus can no more create the universe than the historical Julius Caesar.

What “revisionist arguments” are you talking about? I certainly didn’t reference any.

Your replies seem to have no relationship to what I’m saying.Let’s try again. What “revisionist arguments” are you talking about given that I never mentioned any - simply pointing out the limits of what historical methods can show.I see that your edits have answered the point, but the answer has nothing to do with what I saiid (and I don’t think that the “revisionist” label deserves to be applied in cases where the original ideas had so little basis in evidence.)

I think in this context revisionism would be better applied to doctrinal changes since I don’t think that the authorship of John was based on anything much more than tradition. From a historical point of view the authorship was not well established.But again this has nothing to do with my main point which is that history cannot show that `Jesus was anything more than a man, so there is no basis for the idea that the historical Jesus - as opposed to the Jesus of Faith - did or even could have - created the universe.

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Not to get too philosophical in a "magic" thread, but RC Sprouls basic philosophical argument resonates with me. Basically he argues that in order for something to exist something always had to exist. If at any time there was nothing, logic dictates that there would now be nothing

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I hope you’re misquoting the argument because logic dictates nothing of the sort (logic doesn’t dictate much of anything). And, of course it is a long long way from “something always existed” to “God exists”.
(For a start, is “always” a finite quantity as Christian apologist William Lane Craig argues?)

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Existence precedes essence.~John Paul Sarte

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The only people I’ve ever seen arguing otherwise were people trying to define God into existence. Which convinced me that Sartre was right on that one. Any idea that lets you define things into existence is pretty clearly wrong.

Perhaps you would like us to historically prove that these prophecies were fulfilled. We can leave out ones which are so easily fulfilled as to be worthless, like being Jewish or teaching in parables.Don’t forget to include that actual test of the prophecies and where they appear in the a Bible so that we can read the context.As a hint, historians do not unreservedly trust any sources - especially sources which are unreliable and heavily biased.