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Author Topic:   Reconstructing the Historical Jesus
cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 365 of 560 (620640)
06-19-2011 3:50 AM
Reply to: Message 360 by crashfrog
06-18-2011 9:43 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
Absent the Gospels, there's no Paul.
Huh? Paul's writing almost certainly predates the four Gospels, and his theology and presentation of Jesus could not be more different to the Synoptics.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 360 by crashfrog, posted 06-18-2011 9:43 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 374 by crashfrog, posted 06-19-2011 1:22 PM cavediver has replied

cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


(2)
Message 381 of 560 (620665)
06-19-2011 4:12 PM
Reply to: Message 374 by crashfrog
06-19-2011 1:22 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
The earliest date given for the authorship of Mark is 50 AD, and the date given for the authorship of the Pauline epistles is 51 AD.
I have to say that I have never seen a date for Mark so early. The date for Paul is what is commonly accepted. Even if Mark was 50 AD, that hardly gives time for Paul to hear of, gain access to, read, and finally reject the majority of Mark in favour of his own invented Jesus theology, then nip around the middle east establishing churches, so that he can write to them in 51 AD.
The dating of these books, frankly, is a mess, given how they were later edited and altered. There's literally nothing that can give us any confidence that the books of the Bible are accurately reporting any real history; they corrupt everything they touch. Anything with a connection to the Bible must be disregarded absent some kind of real evidence.
Am I the only one that detects a hint of fanaticism here? Even though I am now an atheist, I retain an interest in the historical and archaeological aspects of Judaism and Christianity. I can certainly entertain the idea of Jesus being entirely invented, and it would be interesting to see how that would fit around the historical charatcters of Peter, Paul, James, etc, and their rifts. But I think it is more likely that there was a historical Jesus, and the mythical elements of the story grew, as they say, in the telling.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 374 by crashfrog, posted 06-19-2011 1:22 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 389 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 12:02 AM cavediver has not replied

cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


(1)
Message 405 of 560 (620730)
06-20-2011 12:52 PM
Reply to: Message 401 by Panda
06-20-2011 9:22 AM


Re: If not Jesus, then who ?
And CF has explained why 'no historical jesus' is self-evidently more parsimonious than 'an historical jesus'.
Other than linking a definition of 'parsimonious', I see little more he can do to explain it to you.
No, Crashfrog has simply demonstrated yet again (and now you also) that 99.9% of all attempts to use parsimony in an argument result in pure bollocks. Would you care to define what metric you are using to perform the necessary comparison? I'm sure I have a paper somewhere around here that actually gives the calculations for comparing likelihood of mythical imaginative ideas vs mythical real-person-inspired ideas but for some reason I can't quite lay my hands on it right now

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 Message 401 by Panda, posted 06-20-2011 9:22 AM Panda has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 409 by Panda, posted 06-20-2011 1:22 PM cavediver has replied
 Message 416 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 2:04 PM cavediver has not replied

cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 413 of 560 (620740)
06-20-2011 1:56 PM
Reply to: Message 409 by Panda
06-20-2011 1:22 PM


Re: If not Jesus, then who ?
I'm sure you have a paper somewhere that actually gives the calculations for 'pure bollocks'.
Many, several written by myself. But sadly they are all a bit specific and not in as general terms as required here. Perhaps now is the time...
Would you care to define what metric you are using to perform the necessary comparison?
In specifc terms, that's easy - as already explained, it is simply the absence of the required metric when talking out of one's arse concerning parsimony (and Occam's Razor of course). For more details and calculations in the general case, please see [1].
[1] C. Diver - "On Bollocks" - forthcoming

This message is a reply to:
 Message 409 by Panda, posted 06-20-2011 1:22 PM Panda has not replied

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