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Author | Topic: Reconstructing the Historical Jesus | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ScientificBob Member (Idle past 3050 days) Posts: 48 From: Antwerp, Belgium Joined: |
When you said to Crash that it just pushes the question further back into "why were these stories invented", did you realise that the exact same reasoning would follow for... EVERY religion out there?
Why was Shiva made up? Thor? Zeus? Allah? Quetzalcoatl? Answer those questions, and you'll have your answer to "why was jezus made up?".
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ScientificBob Member (Idle past 3050 days) Posts: 48 From: Antwerp, Belgium Joined:
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quote: Because there no other source besides the bible to be found about this jezus character, that's why. Because the only "evidence" people can come up with is essentially a circular argument, that's why. quote: Maybe they truelly believed it. There's even no reason to think that the people who made it up did so purposefully. The psychiatric wards are filled with people who are convinced to be the target of a worldwide conspiracy. This is very inconvenient for them and it completely disrupts their lives. But they have no evidence for it. They made it up. I'm not suggesting that the first christians were psychotic or whatever... Only pointing out that this would really really NOT be without precedent. The "i can't imagine why they would make it up" argument is not a good reason to simply accept the claims are truthfull. In fact, it's a fallacy. Not to mention that if that is the standard to accept claims, you'ld be required to accept every single religion out there. Why was Islam made up? Or Hinduism? Scientology? Mormonism?
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ScientificBob Member (Idle past 3050 days) Posts: 48 From: Antwerp, Belgium Joined: |
quote: That assumes that they purposely made it up and lived by it, knowing it was wrong and not believing it. I hardly think that is the case. I think it's obvious that they sincerely believed all of it. But that also goes for the people who've been anally probed by aliens. So yes, I do think that asking that same question about every other religion out there is what the argument leads to. People make up stuff for all sorts of reason. It's not like we don't have any precedents of such cases.
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ScientificBob Member (Idle past 3050 days) Posts: 48 From: Antwerp, Belgium Joined: |
The books of the bible aren't contemporary or independent.
And Jezus is spelled with a "z" in Belgium.
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ScientificBob Member (Idle past 3050 days) Posts: 48 From: Antwerp, Belgium Joined: |
None of the things you mentioned are contemporary. And not rational? How is that not rational? Independent contemporary sources are practically a standard in the historical sciences.
What makes you think you can find out the actual reason why it was made up?
I don't feel like I'm doing that.
Agreed. I see that I blurred the line in my post between the supernatural and the historical jesus a bit too much. I agree with your general sentiment that "less" evidence would be required for a historical jesus as that would not be such an extra-ordinary claim. However, I see an equal amount of evidence for both: nothing. Edited by ScientificBob, : No reason given.
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ScientificBob Member (Idle past 3050 days) Posts: 48 From: Antwerp, Belgium Joined: |
I'm not moving anything. I consider it a given that sources used as evidence for historical things are to be contemporary and independent.
But that's exactly the issue at hand. You do NOT have a "single" source. You have NO sources (that are contemporary and independent). You only have baseless claims and anecdotal stuff that is written down at best decades after the facts and for the most part, more then a century after the fact - and written by people that are clearly biased towards the topic as well... It would be no different from Tom Cruise writing a book on Xenu, the galactic emperor.
That's not what I said, now is it?
No, I'm not. In fact, I couldn't care less. But when you want an accurate and intellectually honest depiction of history, you need to let the data speak. I couldn't care less if there was or wasn't a historical jezus. Point me to a legit source and I'll happily accept it. Until then... why should I?
People keep repeating that there is evidence, but fail to deliver it. There is NO evidence of a historical jezus whatsoever. Or at the very least: if there is, I haven't seen it.
I said Hercules, not Zeus. Maybe you should look harder into greek mythology.
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ScientificBob Member (Idle past 3050 days) Posts: 48 From: Antwerp, Belgium Joined: |
Which is exactly why the bible isn't a credible source for the historical jesus. They were followers... off course they will say he existed...
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ScientificBob Member (Idle past 3050 days) Posts: 48 From: Antwerp, Belgium Joined: |
To my knowledge, the bible is not a contemporary (nore independent) source. So, really, it's not the evidence that you claim it to be.
All the christ mentions of extra-biblical sources are basicly of people simply repeating whatever the bible claimed or what christians told them. Again hardly independent (nore contemporary). The bible is evidence of jezus just as much as greek mythology is evidence of Hercules or scientology 'scripture' (or whatever they call it) evidence of Xenu, the intergalactic emperor. Besides, if the bible indeed was "evidence" of a historic christ, then this thread wouldn't exists, now would it?
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ScientificBob Member (Idle past 3050 days) Posts: 48 From: Antwerp, Belgium Joined: |
Care to elaborate on that? I have given my reasons why I don't consider the bible to be valid evidence of...the biblical claims. They are not contemporary and they most certainly aren't independent. And it seems to be circular as well. If your argument is that the bible's very existance (regardless of content) is evidence (or a hint of evidence) that the person of the new testament actually existed, since it had to be based on something,... Then it seems to me that the same can be said about Frodo and Lord of the Rings or Hercules and greek mythology. You are free to explain where I am in error instead of just saying that I am. In fact, I would prefer it. Edited by ScientificBob, : No reason given.
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ScientificBob Member (Idle past 3050 days) Posts: 48 From: Antwerp, Belgium Joined: |
You seem to think I wasn't aware of that. I guess I'll just repeat myself: none of these are contemporary or independent. The earliest one was written down decades after the facts, in a time where average life expectancy was about 35. It's really unlikely that these people new the historic christ and lived to tell about it 60 years later. And off course, most of these books were written down more then a century later. I don't see how I can trust these sources. Not to mention that these sources in fact ARE the claims we are discussing here. These claims would necessarily have to be substantiated with extra-biblical sources. Just because a book (yes, yes, collection of books) makes mention of a person doesn't mean that that person existed. I fail to see how I could ever treat the historic claims of biblical texts as anything other then hearsay and anecdotes if they aren't substantiated with independent and perferebly contemporary material.
Accepted as evidence of the events it claims happens? Come on...
I beg the differ. Your argument seems to be that there probably was a historical jezus because the new testament had to be based on something. If you make up a rule like that, it should apply to all similar circumstances.
I'm not necessarily trying to convince anybody. I'm just giving you my view on things and trying to understand yours. Edited by ScientificBob, : No reason given.
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ScientificBob Member (Idle past 3050 days) Posts: 48 From: Antwerp, Belgium Joined: |
This is true in case of the Lord of the Rings analogy. Eventhough I didn't mean the Frodo comment in that way, but I'll blame myself for not being clear in what I meant there. However, Hercules was not considered or claimed to be fictional. Xenu, the intergalactic emperor, is not considered or claimed to be fictional.
I can agree to that, and I can imagine enough examples from ancient greek philosophers. The reason being that jezus is the central subject of a religion with a whole bunch of supernatural baggage. Suppose we have 2 ancient greek texts who each claim a person existed. One text says that the person in question was a poët and lists a few of his contributions. The other says that the person in question is a son of god who personally destroyed a wicked city with his firey breath and preached peace. I don't know about you, but when I look at such things, I lend more credence to the historicity of the first claim rather then the second. The extra baggage just puts a whole shadow on the entire thing. I'ld require more evidence of the latter to make it on par with the first. That's my point... The people who wrote these books were religious people who believed that jezus was a messiah and son of god. Because of this, I feel that their message is tainted with bias. Personally, and to be blunt, I don't give a rat's ass if it's based on a real person or not. To me, it doesn't change anything at all. I just don't consider a religious text to be demonstrative of anything at all if the religious text is all there is. A good biblical example would be Pontius Pilate. I accept his historicity. For the simple reason that we have extra-biblical references of this person.
This seems reasonable. But I'm not sure if I agree. I mean, it's also very reasonable to assume that the one who writes a story about jezus would write it in such a manner that it would fit the timeframe he was placed in, no? Also, if we are being honest about this, if we would ask your questions in context of the actual biblical texts, then the answer is clearly: no, it's NOT likely that he existed. Because virgin births, miracles, resurections etc never happen. So I don't consider it very unreasonable to demand stricter evidence then for claims where you don't need to ignore 70% of the content of the claim in order to make it even discussable.
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