The Historical Jesus II

[IanS]

To sum up: dejudge says that Mark's Jesus is not human. I say on the contrary that Mark's Jesus is human.

Well whether or not the writer of g-Mark believed Jesus was human or a spirit of God, the issue here is that you are trying to claim g-Mark as evidence that Jesus existed!

The only reason you began arguing about this point with dejudge is precisely and entirely because you have been claiming that we can know Jesus was real because in gospels like g-Mark in says in places that he had human parents called Joseph and Mary.

 

[tsig]

Why do you ask that? Please read my post. The "Son of God" concept is human messianic. In the story both the priest and Pilate concur that Jesus is a messianic King. Therefore in this passage invoked by dejudge, it is not true to suggest that "gMark's Jesus is not human", as gejudge claims.

This discussion is about "gMark's Jesus". I reply that "the very passage you quote alludes to the royal Davidic son of God idea." Which is human.

To sum up: dejudge says that Mark's Jesus is not human. I say on the contrary that Mark's Jesus is human.

Because I wanted to know.

Your whole argument is based on some of the NT being accurate so I wanted to know if this is one of those parts but I see you would rather not get too particular about that.

 

[dejudge]

Why do you ask that? Please read my post. The "Son of God" concept is human messianic. In the story both the priest and Pilate concur that Jesus is a messianic King. Therefore in this passage invoked by dejudge, it is not true to suggest that "gMark's Jesus is not human", as gejudge claims.

Your claim is false.

In gMark, the Jesus character TRANSFIGURED, Walked on water and Resurrected on the THIRD day.

With or without a Davidic title Jesus of Nazareth is NOT human in gMark.

No human being in the known history of mankind has ever transfigured, walked on water, and resurrected on the THIRD day.

Mark 6.48---and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them.

Mark 9:2 NIV---2 After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them.

Mark 14. 61=----But he held his peace , and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?

62And Jesus said , I am : and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Mark 16:6 ---6 "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.

This discussion is about "gMark's Jesus". I reply that "the very passage you quote alludes to the royal Davidic son of God idea." Which is human.

Your statement is an established fallacy.

gMark was used by Christians of antiquity to ARGUE that Jesus was GOD of God and to argue AGAINST the historical Jesus [a Jesus with a human father]

See "Against Heresies" attributed to Irenaeus.

Your 21st century "Davidic title" idea is total unsupported nonsense [a complete mis-representation of gMark] derived from your imagination.

The Church which canonised gMark PREACHES that gMark's Jesus is the very same Jesus that was born of a Ghost and was God from the beginning.

gMark's Jesus was a Transfiguring, Water Walking Son of a God who resurrected on the Third day.

gMark's Jesus is a MYTH/FICTION character.

 

[Craig B]

Because I wanted to know.

Your whole argument is based on some of the NT being accurate so I wanted to know if this is one of those parts but I see you would rather not get too particular about that.

dejudge rules out the existence of a human Jesus. His doing so depends on absurd statements like: the Jesus of gMark is entirely supernatural. I deny that. Therefore I do not exclude the possibility that these statements are true: Jesus was a Messianic pretender. He was put to death on that account.

There is some other evidence of this in other passages. Gamaliel's statement in Acts 5, which can't possible be literally true (chronological errors) nonetheless indicates a tradition that the Jesus group were Messianic rebels. As I say, unlike dejudge, I don't rule this out.

 

[tsig]

dejudge rules out the existence of a human Jesus. His doing so depends on absurd statements like: the Jesus of gMark is entirely supernatural. I deny that. Therefore I do not exclude the possibility that these statements are true: Jesus was a Messianic pretender. He was put to death on that account.
There is some other evidence of this in other passages. Gamaliel's statement in Acts 5, which can't possible be literally true (chronological errors) nonetheless indicates a tradition that the Jesus group were Messianic rebels. As I say, unlike dejudge, I don't rule this out.

How do you know those two statements are true? It looks like you are assuming an HJ then trying to find texts to prove your assumption.

 

[dejudge]

dejudge rules out the existence of a human Jesus. His doing so depends on absurd statements like: the Jesus of gMark is entirely supernatural. I deny that. Therefore I do not exclude the possibility that these statements are true: Jesus was a Messianic pretender. He was put to death on that account.

Again, you display intellectual dishonesty.

I have PRESENTED the written statements found in versions of gMark which state Jesus of Nazareth TRANSFIGURED, WALKED on the SEA and was RAISED from the dead.

I have ALSO made reference to Christian writings of antiquity which used gMark to ARGUE AGAINST an historical Jesus [a Jesus with a human father]

In "Against Heresies" attributed to Irenaeus it was an established LIE that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of Joseph.

God is the father of Jesus in gMark--NOT Joseph.

The Jesus of Nazareth in gMark is a FICTION/MYTH character.

There is some other evidence of this in other passages. Gamaliel's statement in Acts 5, which can't possible be literally true (chronological errors) nonetheless indicates a tradition that the Jesus group were Messianic rebels. As I say, unlike dejudge, I don't rule this out.

Again, you display intellectual dishonesty by admitting your sources are not credible but still using them as historical sources.

You discredit and mis-represent the Christian Bible of the Holy Mother Church yet turn around and use it as an historical source for your invention called HJ.

Acts of the Apostles is tantamount to PERJURY.

Acts of the Apostles is not an historical account but fiction/myth fables of Jesus and a Holy Ghost.

According to Acts of the Apostles, the disciples had NO power to preach the Gospel UNTIL they received a HOLY GHOST on the day of Pentecost as promised by the Ascended Resurrected Jesus.

 

[maximara]

How do you know those two statements are true? It looks like you are assuming an HJ then trying to find texts to prove your assumption.

Well given how many Messianic pretenders were running around it seems a safe bet that if Jesus did exist he would have been regarded in this vein.

I should mention that Carrier's minimal Historical Jesus doesn't require that Jesus was killed by The Powers That Be but that his followers claimed that this was true. So Craig B's two criteria aren't that far off from Carrier's three criteria:

1) An actual man at some point named Jesus acquired followers in life who continued as an identifiable movement after his death
2) This is the same Jesus who was claimed by some of his followers to have been executed by the Jewish or Roman authorities
3) This is the same Jesus some of whose followers soon began worshipping as a living god (or demigod)

As I said before there are places where this fails but you do NOT get the Jesus myth but the ahistorical Jesus ie "no historical Jesus in any pertinent sense".

Several examples of this are:

* John Robertson's 1900 idea that the Gospel Jesus was a composite character or that a person inspired by Paul's writings took up the name Jesus, tried to preach his own version of Paul's teachings, and got killed for his troubles.

* The idea expressed by Remsberg that there was a Jesus but his following wasn't an identifiable movement until Paul and later the writers of the Gospels got a hold of it: "Jesus, if he existed, was a Jew, and his religion, with a few innovations, was Judaism. With his death, probably, his apotheosis began. During the first century the transformation was slow; but during the succeeding centuries rapid. The Judaic elements of his religion were, in time, nearly all eliminated, and the Pagan elements, one by one, were incorporated into the new faith."

* G. A. Wells' Jesus Legend (1996) on with its mythical Paul Jesus + 1st century teacher who was not executed fails point 2 (they are not the same Jesus) so by Carrier's criteria is NOT a "historical Jesus in any pertinent sense" (This does explain Carrier's classification of this work as 'ahistoricitical')

* Dan Barker's "Other skeptics deny that the Jesus character portrayed in the New Testament existed, but that there could have been a first century personality after whom the exaggerated myth was pattered." (2006 Losing Faith in Faith pg 372) would also fail Carrier's criteria as Baker's first century personality need not be named "Jesus" or if he was his movement was not identifiable until much later.

So failing one of Carrier's three historical criteria does NOT necessarily result in the Jesus Myth theory but it does result in the ahistorical Jesus theory.

 

[Craig B]

How do you know those two statements are true? It looks like you are assuming an HJ then trying to find texts to prove your assumption.

It doesn't look like that to me. I don't know that the statements are true. I rebut dejudge's method of showing that they are impossible; which suggests that they may be true.

 

[maximara]

It doesn't look like that to me. I don't know that the statements are true. I rebut dejudge's method of showing that they are impossible; which suggests that they may be true.

Aolso note that for Carrier's criteria all that is required is that followers of a human Jesus claimed that he was executed by the Jewish or Roman authorities. He could per GA Wells actually wandered off into obscurity and was said to be executed so as to jive with Paul's vision.

 

[dejudge]

How do you know those two statements are true? It looks like you are assuming an HJ then trying to find texts to prove your assumption.

It doesn't look like that to me. I don't know that the statements are true. I rebut dejudge's method of showing that they are impossible; which suggests that they may be true.

I rebut your HJ argument because you use the Christian Bible--a known discredited historical source filled with forgeries, false attribution, fiction, discrepancies, contradictions, historical problems and events which did not and could NOT have happened.

You have failed to admit that the fiction/myth fables of gMark state that Jesus, the Son of God, TRANSFIGURED, WALKED on water, and Resurrected.

Jesus of Nazareth in gMark is an absolute myth/fiction character.

 

[Craig B]

I rebut your HJ argument because you use the Christian Bible--a known discredited historical source filled with forgeries, false attribution, fiction, discrepancies, contradictions, historical problems and events which did not and could NOT have happened.

You have failed to admit that the fiction/myth fables of gMark state that Jesus, the Son of God, TRANSFIGURED, WALKED on water, and Resurrected.

Jesus of Nazareth in gMark is an absolute myth/fiction character.

I know that nothing will stop you spouting this gibberish, as if the Bible was a single source. But it is important in the analysis of the different sources in the gospels (see any discussion of the "Synoptic Problem") that gMark has no birth story and no resurrection story, as the last twelve verses of that gospel are more or less universally rejected, even by Christians, as an interpolation. These things were invented later, and the resurrection was "retrofitted" into gMark by a later hand. But none of this makes the least impression on you.

 

[Craig B]

Your willingness to brand others as insane does not help your argument.

You're saying that Mark, Paul and the Synoptic Sayings Source are of later origin than the second century?

 

[IanS]

It doesn't look like that to me. I don't know that the statements are true. I rebut dejudge's method of showing that they are impossible; which suggests that they may be true.

Craig, it does not matter what "May" be true. Absolutely anything might be true about anything you can name in this entire universe! What matters is only the evidence showing a thing to be true.

And in the case of Jesus the problem is that there absolutely no evidence of him. None at all. Zero.

What you are describing as evidence of Jesus, is certainly only evidence of religious beliefs written by people who had had never met any human Jesus. They did not even claim to have got their Jesus stories from anyone else who ever claimed to have known a human Jesus. Nobody at all ever met a human Jesus!

Earlier in this thread you, Brainache, Belz, Eight-Bits and others (eg "Stone") all claimed to asses the existence of Jesus as 60-40 likelihood or more, based according to you on the evidence. But that has been shown here to be absolutely impossible ... because you have no evidence of Jesus ... there is none ... there is only evidence of peoples un-evidenced unsubstantiated religious beliefs written as faith-preaching by religious fanatics in the bible.

So it's not a question of what "may be" at all. Anything might be possible. The only genuine criteria here is "Evidence" of anyone reliably describing how they knew a human Jesus. And there is no such evidence of Jesus known to anyone.

You are not using evidence to obtain your Jesus belief. You are relying entirely upon faith! You are trusting to the completely un-evidenced religious faith of completely ignorant 1st century religious fanatics who were drowning in religious superstitions of the supernatural, but where none of those people had ever known any such person as Jesus.

 

[tsig]

Your willingness to brand others as insane does not help your argument.

You're saying that Mark, Paul and the Synoptic Sayings Source are of later origin than the second century?

No, I'm saying that Your willingness to brand others as insane does not help your argument.

 

[Craig B]

No, I'm saying that Your willingness to brand others as insane does not help your argument.

Thank you for that valuable observation. My argument, however, is that these early sources can't be assigned to later than the second century. Do you have an opinion on that? And an opinion on whether dejudge's frequent disparaging remarks help his argument, such as it is?

 

[tsig]

Thank you for that valuable observation. My argument, however, is that these early sources can't be assigned to later than the second century. Do you have an opinion on that? And an opinion on whether dejudge's frequent disparaging remarks help his argument, such as it is?

From dejudge's second post I have down arrowed his posts, why anyone responds to them is a mystery to me.

My opinion is no matter when the gospels were written no reliance can be put on them.

 

[IanS]

Thank you for that valuable observation. My argument, however, is that these early sources can't be assigned to later than the second century. Do you have an opinion on that? And an opinion on whether dejudge's frequent disparaging remarks help his argument, such as it is?

Well at whatever date any of this writing was actually done, none of it contains any evidence whatsoever of a human Jesus!

But even despite that, if you only want to claim that our Jesus stories come to us from material written before about 200AD in the case of P46 and Paul's lattés, or before about 4th-6th century in the case of the gospels, then apparently you are wrong! It does not come to us from dates earlier than that.

The fact that some fragments, or even more extensive damaged or partly legible pages may be thought to be earlier than P46, is irrelevant. Because the fact that any such fragments and pages are largely incomplete, means we do not actually know what those copies actually said about Jesus (because most of those remnants are now missing, contents unknown).

The story of Jesus which we have today, and the story that you and bible scholars are relying upon, does not come from a few mere fragments or damaged illegible pages thought to date before P46. It comes from those more complete and more legible gospels that are universally dated to be about 4th to 6th century but mostly later than 6th century!

In fact the Jesus stories that bible scholars and everyone else are using, apparently come (afaik) mainly from what those bible scholars regard as the earliest copies of g-Mark and g-Mathew. And the copies that are being used for those are apparently, as I say (e.g. see wikipedia ... which nobody here has ever tried to dispute) 4th-6th century at their earliest.

So in summary - we do not have any gospels or letters written anywhere near the supposed lifetime of Jesus circa. 3BC to 33AD. We do not even have anything reliably dated to any time in the 1st century. Instead the Jesus stories which are being claimed as evidence from gospels, are those that come from the useable, readable, more complete manuscripts written several centuries after the supposed lifetime of Jesus ... in fact, apparently written not in Judea but in Egypt!

 

[dejudge]

I rebut your HJ argument because you use the Christian Bible--a known discredited historical source filled with forgeries, false attribution, fiction, discrepancies, contradictions, historical problems and events which did not and could NOT have happened.

You have failed to admit that the fiction/myth fables of gMark state that Jesus, the Son of God, TRANSFIGURED, WALKED on water, and Resurrected.

Jesus of Nazareth in gMark is an absolute myth/fiction character.

I know that nothing will stop you spouting this gibberish, as if the Bible was a single source. But it is important in the analysis of the different sources in the gospels (see any discussion of the "Synoptic Problem") that gMark has no birth story and no resurrection story, as the last twelve verses of that gospel are more or less universally rejected, even by Christians, as an interpolation. These things were invented later, and the resurrection was "retrofitted" into gMark by a later hand. But none of this makes the least impression on you.

Again, you display intellectual dishonesty. Joseph was a LATE invention. Joseph was INVENTED with Holy Ghost birth narrative and the Logos in gMatthew, gLuke and gJohn.

ONLY GOD is the father of Jesus in gMark.

Joseph as the father of Jesus was REJECTED as a Lie since at least the 2nd century.

You have been shown that Jesus of Nazareth in gMark was a Resurrecting, Transfiguring, Water Walking Son of a God.

gMark's Jesus was a TRANSFIGURER--a fiction/myth character.

gMark's Jesus could INSTANTLY CHANGE his appearance WITHOUT birth.

In addition, there were Christians of antiquity who claim their Jesus came down from heaven WITHOUT birth.

In the NT itself, Satan the Devil and the Angel Gabriel were on earth WITHOUT a birth narrative.

In gMark itself, Satan the Devil and Angels [without birth narratives] were in a wilderness with Jesus who was a Transfiguring Water Walking Son of a God.

Mark 1:13

And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.

It is just total nonsense that Jesus of Nazareth was a human being because it is claimed he was on earth in gMark.

A TRANSFIGURING character in the myth/fiction fables of gMark does not need to be born.

Examine "Contra Faustum 2" attributed to Augustine of Hippo.

1. Faustus said: Do I believe the gospel? Certainly. Do I therefore believe that Christ was born? Certainly not.

It does not follow that because I believe the gospel, as I do, I must therefore believe that Christ was born. This I do not believe; because Christ does not say that He was born of men...

Please, stop your nonsense. The Jesus character in gMark does NOT say his father was Joseph.

Characters in gMark do not require to be actually born in order to be on earth.

Your HJ argument is the very worst kind. It is derived from the discredited Christian Bible and your own imagination.

The Christian Bible, especially gMark, supports mythology and fiction--NOT historical accounts of Jesus of Nazareth.

 

[IanS]

I know that nothing will stop you spouting this gibberish, as if the Bible was a single source. But it is important in the analysis of the different sources in the gospels (see any discussion of the "Synoptic Problem") that gMark has no birth story and no resurrection story, as the last twelve verses of that gospel are more or less universally rejected, even by Christians, as an interpolation. These things were invented later, and the resurrection was "retrofitted" into gMark by a later hand. But none of this makes the least impression on you.

You complained at me a while back in the same way saying I did not understand that the bible was not a single source.

But there is absolutely nothing useful to your HJ belief in any such argument about "synoptic problems".

First of all, everyone here knows that the NT bible is a selected compilation of least 4 gospels plus Paul's letters. In fact everyone knows it's a selection of late anonymous Christian copyist versions of such gospels and letters.

But now you mention the so-called "Synoptic Problem", which is actually even more damaging to any HJ case. Because what that term refers to is the fact that since about 1800 people began to realises that a direct side-by-side comparison of all the gospels, and particularly versions of g-Mark vs., g-Mathew, showed that those gospels were in many parts just verbatim copies of one-another ... they are not independent accounts at all.

That supposedly prompted people to say there must have been a missing source called "Q" from which the earliest gospels were all copied. And since then there have been countless arguments amongst scholars as to how many such missing written sources such as the hypothetical "Q" and/or unknown oral traditions were used to compose the extant gospels as they now appear in the bible.

IOW - there has never been, and still is not now, any lasting agreement amongst bible scholars and Christian writers as to where the extant gospels obtained their Jesus stories, except that the origin is unknown. Although thanks to writers like Helms ("Gospel Fictions") we do now know that all of those gospels were created by so-called "citation fulfilment", i.e. simply looking in the OT for anything the gospel writers could re-interpret and re-write as if it referred to Jesus.

None of which offers any evidence of Jesus whatsoever!

So "synoptic problem" or not, "Q", "M", "L" or not, the critical and lethal fact for the HJ case, remains that there is zero evidence of a human Jesus ever known to anyone in any of that writing of any gospels, in anything called "Q" or "M" or "L", or in any Christian speculation about unknown oral or missing sources etc. Whilst on the other hand there is now a mountain of evidence showing that all the gospels and letters were filled with complete fiction as the product of fanatical religious superstition in an age of almost unimaginable ignorance.



Footnote - if anyone is not familiar with this so-called “synoptic problem", and wants to see what a completely useless mess of speculation and desperate faith-based wishful thinking it is, then they can read all about it in the Wiki link below -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic_Gospels

 

[waters]

From dejudge's second post I have down arrowed his posts, why anyone responds to them is a mystery to me.

Let me help you with your mystery.

Are you unable to peel the banana, prior to enjoying the center?

I like Craig, and his posts are interesting, even fun to read, but if I walk away from the forum, at the end of the day, asking myself, which post, did I read today, that provided some insight, or offered a new way of thinking about the earliest foundations of christianity, or, challenged the prevailing view, with something more sturdy, than simple opinion, then I would often recall, that on that day, I learned the most, from reading what dejudge had written, particularly his citations from the gospels: first rate.

Maximara, and Ian, yes, both great, and genuine, real McCoy, lots to learn there. And the beauty of their posts, is, no need to peel the fruit, one can simply proceed, directly, without peeling. Their stuff is unburdened. They write with a succinctness that is enviable. Not so, dejudge, but there is nevertheless, instructive substance intermingled in his submissions, well worth my time, at least. His contribution to the forum is meritorious, and noteworthy.

You must remove the cork, to get the wine. When you do, if a bit of cork drops in the bottle, please don't discard a good vintage. Filter it, instead.