But why is that? Obviously the Gospel of Mark and the letters of Paul had to come out from somewhere. They didn't spontaneously spring into being. Why isn't the best explanation for their existence is that they were a reaction to a crucified Jew called Jesus, whom was later thought to be resurrected by God?
Of course some other explanation may cover this, but simply saying "maybe something else" doesn't make that "something else" the best explanation. To repeat the comment from Lowder:
http://infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/indconf.html
There simply is nothing epistemically improbable about the mere existence of a man named Jesus. (Just because Jesus existed does not mean that he was born of a virgin, that he rose from the dead, etc.) Although a discussion of the New Testament evidence is beyond the scope of this paper, I think that the New Testament does provide prima facie evidence for the historicity of Jesus. It is clear, then, that if we are going to apply to the New Testament "the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material," we should not require independent confirmation of the New Testament's claim that Jesus existed.
The comment that there is "nothing epistemically improbable about the mere existence of a man named Jesus" is to me the starting point. Dr Carrier seems to have the only peer-reviewed theory to explain the origins of Christianity, and I personally think his theory can be rejected. And that leaves me with the low bar of the mere existence of a man named Jesus. Is there a better explanation for the origins of Christianity, IYO?
Well the first thing to notice from the above, is that you have not actually answered the question of evidence at all. You have produced no genuine evidence of Jesus at all.
Instead what you have done is attempt to shift the burden of
proof evidence.
The burden is upon you to provide the evidence of Jesus being known to anyone as a human person. There is no such obligation on your opponents who simply ask
"what is the evidence of Jesus as a known human person?".
However, just to indulge you by responding to what you write above, in spite of what must now be at least 8 years of such indulgence posting on various forums, during which time amongst all the tens of thousands of pro-HJ posts, not a single shred of genuine credible evidence has ever been produced (that's "evidence" of
Jesus as a human person ever known to anyone at all ... not "evidence" of something else such as religious belief, but evidence of
Jesus as a known living person) -
But why is that? Obviously the Gospel of Mark and the letters of Paul had to come out from somewhere. They didn't spontaneously spring into being. Why isn't the best explanation for their existence is that they were a reaction to a crucified Jew called Jesus, whom was later thought to be resurrected by God?
You are seriously asking, how it could ever be possible that religious belief about a supernatural "god" (i.e. Jesus in this case) could ever be written about by 1st century totally ignorant superstitious religious fanatics, unless the "god" was real? You are seriously claiming to be incredulous as to how people in ancient history could ever have written about belief in gods unless the gods really did exist?
Quote:
“Why isn't the best explanation to believe what the gospels and letters say about Jesus?”. Well the answer is obvious and certainly very well known to you. Because it's the same answer that you have seen in every post from every HJ-sceptic who ever posted anything, and the same answer explained in vast detail by every author who has ever written books about why we should be sceptical about the existence of Jesus. So you must know very well indeed why the gospels and letters of the bible are not credible as reliable evidence for what they claim about belief in an unknown un-evidenced Jesus. In fact it should be obvious to anyone, and utterly undeniable, that bible is so far from being a credible source of evidence that you should embarrassed to offer it as if it was really honest evidence of Jesus.
But why is that? Obviously the Gospel of Mark and the letters of Paul had to come out from somewhere. They didn't spontaneously spring into being. Why isn't the best explanation for their existence is that they were a reaction to a crucified Jew called Jesus, whom was later thought to be resurrected by God?
Of course some other explanation may cover this, but simply saying "maybe something else" doesn't make that "something else" the best explanation. To repeat the comment from Lowder:
http://infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/indconf.html
There simply is nothing epistemically improbable about the mere existence of a man named Jesus. (Just because Jesus existed does not mean that he was born of a virgin, that he rose from the dead, etc.) Although a discussion of the New Testament evidence is beyond the scope of this paper, I think that the New Testament does provide prima facie evidence for the historicity of Jesus. It is clear, then, that if we are going to apply to the New Testament "the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material," we should not require independent confirmation of the New Testament's claim that Jesus existed.
The comment that there is "nothing epistemically improbable about the mere existence of a man named Jesus" is to me the starting point. Dr Carrier seems to have the only peer-reviewed theory to explain the origins of Christianity, and I personally think his theory can be rejected. And that leaves me with the low bar of the mere existence of a man named Jesus. Is there a better explanation for the origins of Christianity, IYO?
This is again shifting your own burden of
proof evidence onto others. You do not have any genuine reliable evidence of Jesus. But what you want to do, is to say that you nevertheless believe in Jesus and you want other people who ask for the evidence to stop asking for your evidence and to produce instead some specific myth theory as an alternative. But there is absolutely no need and no responsibility on any sceptic to dream-up any specific myth theory. It's you as a Christian who believes Jesus did exist (ditto "almost every properly trained scholar on the planet", according to Bart Ehrman), who has the responsibility to either produce reliable evidence of his actual existence, or else just admit that you operating by religious faith.
However (to indulge you further) - just because something is not
"epistemically improbable", such as the existence of all sorts of religious street preachers in 1st century Judea, that does not mean, and provides no evidence for, the specific supernatural individual described in the religious beliefs preached as the bible.
And before anyone says
"oh, we are not agreeing with the bible when it describes him as "supernatural"", the fact is that the bible does describe this figure as multiply and continuously supernatural on virtually every page! The entire reason why those biblical writers are claiming Jesus as the messiah, is that he was (according to them) certainly supernatural in the most astounding way ... that's the whole point of the biblical writing - they are not writing some believable story about an ordinary preacher who they later came to believe was the messiah ... they are writing about absolute beliefs (ie a certainty of faith) in a figure whose astounding endless miracles proved he was the messiah, inc. witnesses to his own self-resurrection from the dead etc.
The only reason why you, bible scholars, and Christian preachers/writers now (in the 21st century) wish to erase almost everything that was said about Jesus in the gospels, i.e. all the constant miracles etc., is because over the last 200 years or so, an increasing public education and awareness of science has made it impossible for educated people to believe all those descriptions of Jesus. If it were not for that advance in science, you would still be claiming, as everyone did before science, that the miracles of the gospels were absolute proof that Jesus must have been the messianic son of Yahweh!
You should ask yourself “what is the honest honourable justification for anyone simply erasing all those passages from the gospels and letters”? What is the honest justification for simply rubbing-out all the parts of the bible that show that the bible stories are certainly fictitious at almost every mention of Jesus, until you get to a tiny rump of remains of stories where nothing overtly miraculous or supernatural happens, and then claiming that the remains are not actually physically impossible? What is the justification for that? The justification is only that all the other parts (that's almost every significant thing said about Jesus) has been proved to be fictional writing. How much of it has to be proved as untrue fiction, before you start to admit that the source itself (the bible) is massively & completely unreliable?
Lastly, since you mentioned Carrier – it does not matter whether Carrier or anyone else proposes a specific myth theory, which might or might not be a valid explanation of anything. The fundamental issue is that question of whether or not the historic claims for Jesus can be supported by any actual evidence of Jesus as a living person ever known to anyone.
It must always come down to that same question of evidence -
“what is the actual, genuine, evidence of Jesus existing as a human person ever known to anyone?”.
And in fact, the answer which all bible scholars and all others rely on to claim belief in Jesus, all boils down to the biblical writing (letters and gospels) … that is actually the entirety of the claimed evidence – the Bible! Just the bible and really nothing else …
… because there is actually nothing else that is credibly independent of the bible and/or it's gospel preaching, as evidence of Jesus. That's it. That's actually the source of all claimed evidence – the Bible.
In order to believe in Jesus, you have to believe that the bible is a credible source of it's own utterly fantastic and quite impossible mythical stories of messiah belief.
But the gospels and letters of the bible are, as explained here many times before (and as should be unarguably obvious to any educated unbiased person in the 21st century), just about as far from being a reliable and credible source of historical fact, as it's possible ever to get.
IOW (the result of all the above is …) - we are back to the need for your evidence?
What actually is the evidence that you provide to show that Jesus was a human person known to anyone?
