Reconstructing the Historical Jesus

:et me start by making clear that I refer only to the Jesus Myther's on this forum. There are some people who make rather more respectable answers (I have hopes for Richard Carrier's so far unpublished argument, but it seems a long time coming)1) The Jesus Mythers have little knowledge or understanding of the evidence and arguments. Even of the arguments FOR the Jesus Myth position. THere has been no mention of, for instance, Earl Doherty. Pana has only a superficial knowledge of the arguments of Freke and Gandy (and never mentioned their names). And there is no hint of the less well-known names at all. If anything, they seem to be less well-informed than even the typical creationist.2) The Jesus Myther's place high value on their own opinions without any attempt to research them. Crashfrog is still claiming that his assertion that most founders of religion are fictional is a fact despite not offering a shred of evidence for it. In fact he refuses to admit the evidence against it on the grounds that his (completely unsupported, remember) assertion is true !3) The Jesus Myther's make irrational arguments. For an especially clear example we can consider Crashfrog's insistence on his "Jesus wasn't called Jesus" argument - supposedly an important difference between the Biblical Jesus and the historical Jesus. In fact it isn't. The transformation of the name is simply a consequence of the differing languages used. In fact the name of the Biblical Jesus and the name proposed for the historical Jesus are the same.4) Being ignorant of the arguments and therefore being unable to answer expert opinion in a rational way, they resort to unsupported accusations of dishonesty. A tactic which is also applied to opponents.In my experience all these behaviours are typical of creationists.If I hadn't already had proof of Crashfrog's nature from recent threads I would be deeply disappointed.

I'm not required to do your homework or argue with Google. What you've presented isn't a compelling case to exclude Luke plagarism of Matthew. "Artistically inferior"? Maybe Luke was an inferior artist.And, still - WTF is the "triple tradition"? So then you've torpedoed the notion that Matthew, Luke, and the Q source are all independent sources of information about Jesus that corroborate each other.In fact, the Matthew-Luke-Q construct is really a single source of claims, and they can't corroborate each other because they are each other.In other words PaulK was substantially misrepresenting the content and scope of the Q source. No, it doesn't. Only substance can substantiate!

And Freke and Gandy are about as ignorant as grass under a rock.

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Love your enemies!

Gday, Sure - by Buddhists !
In fact, the evidence is doubtful. There is no historical figure "Dao".
The founder was a Lao Tzi - probably mythical. There is no hard evidence for Confucius - possibly mythical.K.

Is Earl Doherty in this discussion?Have his arguments been put forward for consideration?PaulK, where does Earl Doherty present evidence for the existence of Jesus? Please be specific. Er, wait. I've not ever claimed that the founders of most religions are fictional; if they were fictional then how were the religions founded? That makes no sense.You'll not find a single instance where I've claimed that "the founders of most religions are fictional." I've never at any time made a "Jesus wasn't called Jesus" argument. That argument has only ever been made by those on the Historical Jesus side.In response to PaulK's utter misrepresentation of the lines of debate, allow me to demonstrate that he's the creationist:1) "Reading assignments"It's very common for creationists, lacking themselves the mental fortitude to address evolutionist arguments, to claim that the evolutionist arguments are invalid because they do not reply to or even mention some presumably-important religious figure. For instance, from one particularly stupid reply to Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion:

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What, one wonders, are Dawkins’s views on the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? Has he read Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace or Moltmann on hope? Has he even heard of them? - Terry Eagleton, the London Review of Books

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Clearly, the intent here is to claim that even though the evolutionist interlocutor has made arguments that the creationist cannot refute, that evolutionist is clearly impotent against the real badasses of creationism, therefore creationism wins! This is clearly the mode of argument PaulK employs in his first point.2) Assumption of a lack of researchLittle more here than an "everyone is like me" blindness. Creationists continually assume that evolutionists have given as little or even less thought to the issue as they have. They assume that an actual qualification in the biological sciences is little more than a theoretical construct, and that it takes hardly any brains at all to think about evolution. The assumption that there's no research done by Mythical Jesus proponents is abundant in PaulK's second point but no effort is made to substantiate it.3) Premature assumption of victoryHow do we know evolutionists are wrong about evolution? Because they're irrational! How do we know they're irrational? Because they believe in evolution, which is wrong!4) Objections to being called "dishonest"Despite their blatant and open dishonesty, creationists will object to any attempt to point out dishonesty as a "personal attack", which they will claim is employed by evolutionists to distract from losing the debate.It's obvious that PaulK is being the creationist, here. Unlike you, PaulK, I actually am disappointed. I had reason to believe that you were an honest sort who had given real consideration to this issue.But immediately you entered the debate with a major chip on your shoulder, already incensed that people could exist who did not accept the "expert consensus" that anybody who questioned the actual existence of Jesus was some kind of dullard. That's simply not typical of your general high level of civility and the high quality of your argumentation.What the fuck happened to you? You should be very embarrassed of your conduct in this thread. I know I'm not going to read any of your posts the same way from now on.

Gday, Yah.
This is happening on several forums lately - a concerted effort to argue that :* Jesus existed
* because there is a CONSENSUS of "experts"
* based on the Gospels etc. as historical EVIDENCE
* and anyone who disagrees is like a creationist or holocaust denierI think the HJers are feeling the heat, and are desperately circling the wagons.K.

Watching Brian Flemming's "The God Who Wasn't There" (now on Netflix!) Flemming makes a quite interesting claim - he claims that Paul, potentially the earliest source for Jesus's life, doesn't actually seem to believe that Jesus existed. Flemming contends that Paul writes about the life and times of Jesus only as occurring in a spiritual realm - not as though they detail events that really occurred on Earth.What is the response to this interpretation? Where specifically does Paul claim that Jesus was a real man who really lived?

These are staple concepts in the debate on the synoptic problem. I cannot define every term unfamiliar to you; consider this a friendly exception:

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Wikipedia on the Synoptic Gospels:

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The triple tradition is the material that is present in all three Synoptic Gospels.

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Actually, I never argued that they were all independent; nor did I argue that they are sources of information about Jesus; nor did I argue that they all corroborate each other. In what way? Huh? The Q material is of substance; just pick up your Bible, thumb through Luke and Matthew. That's Q material you're touching, sir.Jon

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Love your enemies!

Well, I didn't specifically claim that you did. But, that was put forward as support for the Historical Jesus by Paul, who you appear to have jumped in to defend.I don't mean to imply that you must thus be defending all of PaulK's claims. I just meant to indicate that your explanation of the Q source has removed its relevance from the debate altogether.I get that you're kind of doing your "own thing" when it comes to defending the Historical Jesus, so I recognize that I can't necessarily hold you to a defense of the arguments of the other people on your side. Regardless, I'm certainly going to point out when you put forward a claim that demolishes a claim I'm defending against. Please don't feel like you have to take that as my assertion that you've demolished one of your own claims. In the way that he offered it as an independent source that corroborates the claims of the Gospels and the Pauline epistles. So you assume. But where can I read the Q source itself?

He doesn't. He's an ahistoricist. Which you'd know if you ever bothered investigating anything before flapping your mouth about it. The fact that PaulK understands the arguments of the synoptic problem, is familiar with the prominent proponents of ahistoricism, recognizes the difference between the Biblical Jesus and historical Jesusall things you've failed miserably attells me that he has given more real consideration to the issue than you have given, or are likely even capable of giving. Similar to Mod, Paul's actually been limiting himself mostly to pointing out the errors in your arguments; he's made very few arguments relating his own position on the matter of an historical Jesus. How you get from that to 'major chip on your shoulder' is beyond me. But I assume it has something to do with your tendency to belittle, mock, and misrepresent anyone who dare disagree with your or claim you've made a reasoning error. So you're going to consider everything written from now on by PaulK on personal grounds? What a mature mindset to take away from the debate.Jon

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Love your enemies!

There's a difference between Q material and Q source. Depends on whose debate you're talking about. I don't think anything I've said 'demolishes' any claims made, other than the ones you've made based on your ignorance of relevant scholarship. It depends on how much corroboration you're talking about. If the minimal corroboration is just the existence of an historical Jesus, then multiple sources with an historical Jesus as one of their common premises certainly meets the criteria of being corroboratory.Jon

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Love your enemies!

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Is Earl Doherty in this discussion?

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Have his arguments been put forward for consideration?

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PaulK, where does Earl Doherty present evidence for the existence of Jesus? Please be specific.

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And here is a clear example of what I mean. I mention Earl Doherty as a person who is well-known for arguing AGAINST the existence of Jesus. Someone whose arguments I would expect to be cited by Crashfrog or Panda or ScientificBob. And this is the response I get.Crashfrog is too desperate to gainsay my points to even read them. Mindless aggression used as a substitute for reason.

Then who cares about Earl Doherty?I'm not interested in having you or PaulK or Modulous respond to Earl Doherty's arguments about the ahistoricity of Jesus; if I were, I would have presented them.I'm interested in having you respond to my arguments. So what's the relevance of Earl Doherty or anyone else to that? I'm asking what the available evidence is that supports the genuine physical historical existence of Jesus. Of what relevance to that is Earl Doherty? I believed that PaulK had given consideration to the issue, as well. Believe it or not, there was a time when I believed in the historical Jesus just because PaulK did. As I said to Modulous in your other idiotic thread:

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I do remember what caused me to say that six years ago - the utter conviction of all the people I thought were reasonable that they had evidence that there was a real historical Jesus. People like you. I assumed that there was no way they'd believe that on the basis of no evidence, and they said, like you've been saying, that there was evidence.

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Eventually I got around to asking them what the evidence was and that's when I discovered the very curious phenomenon I've been referring to - the widespread conviction that there's all this evidence for a historical Jesus, but nobody is able to actually communicate it. When I say that people believe there's evidence for a historical Jesus despite not knowing about any of it, that's not a cheap rhetorical trick or a joke. I'm relating my own personal experience of actually being someone who thought there was all this evidence for a historical Jesus, but didn't actually know any of it. It happened to me! That's why I believe it's happening to you, and to everyone else who says there's abundant evidence for the existence of Jesus, but aren't able to actually recount any of the evidence.

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I've seen absolutely nothing that would indicate that you, Mod, and PaulK (and others) don't suffer from the same precise mental lacuna that I did. Sure, PaulK's given consideration to something but as I've abundantly demonstrated, he's given consideration to the wrong things. Like Terry Eagleton, he's spent far too much time pondering "Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace, or Moltmann on hope", so to speak, instead of actually considering what the evidence for the existence of the historical Jesus is. But I'm not making any arguments. I'm asking what the available evidence for the existence of the historical Jesus is, and all I'm getting is personal invective and shadowy attempts to wave hands at untrustworthy or even non-existent sources.If an evolutionist showed up here and attempted to defend evolution by gesturing at Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould ("they believe it; are you smarter than they are?") and simply telling creationists they hadn't done their homework, we'd be on his ass. That's just not good enough. There really is proof that laypeople can understand, without recourse to scientific jargon or appeals to authority, and it's our obligation to provide it when someone claims to come asking. Someone who just trashes creationists without really making an attempt to satisfy the request for evidence doesn't make the cut around here.So why should people be allowed to make the same kind of case for the historicity of Jesus? Yeah, like that time I opened a thread to talk about how people were mentally ill for denying that there was sufficient evidence of the historicity of Jesus.Oh, wait, that was you!

If we include the ones by caffiene (Message 448) the score is a little different. Feel free to examine the major world religions that propose a historical founder, and tally up the score yourself. John Frum and Jesus Malverde are hardly major world religions. But .... To continue to claim that it is extraodinary for a person to be at the centre of a religion about a person pretty much ends the discussion I think.

I don't recall you mentioning Earl Doherty except as someone related to the debate, and you mentioned him in the context of Mythical Jesus proponents not knowing anything about the arguments in favor of the Historical Jesus.If you now admit that you were using that context to mislead people as to which position it is that Earl Doherty - whoever that is - actually argues in support of, that's just another example of the great dishonesty with which you've prosecuted this debate.And note - you didn't answer any of my questions. Is Earl Doherty in this discussion? Have his arguments been put forward for consideration?Yes or no?