Simply, this:
[qimg]https://live.staticflickr.com/5451/8902184360_7d8e6b08f5_n.jpg[/qimg]
Anyone who cares about the truth (as they see it) must confront untruth. It's a noble aspiration.
Most people on this board act in good faith. The problem is the assumption that the other party is not acting in good faith. It makes good conversation difficult. And there is nothing better to stimulate curiosity than good conversation.
Add to that the unfortunate reality that very few things in history are clear-cut. We are looking at shades of probabilities in most cases. The topics are usually very important, but the ability to meaningfully discuss them usually doesn't exist. But discuss them we must! My shade of probability is more true than your shade of probabiliy! Though sometimes it's good to step back and take a break.
A lot of what goes on in this board (including my contributions) falls under the heading of what we called in my day "intellectual masturbation". Sometimes it is good to clear the pipes, though it becomes painful if you overdo it.
OK, good. Because there's hardly anything there I would disagree with.
And I appreciate that as a sort of post to make amends and to accept that we are (almost all of us), on either side, debating this in good in faith, ie honestly according to what we each regard as the best evidence. So, if that's how you meant it, then thanks for that.
But of course there is one glaring problem which is at the heart of what you say, and it's at the heart of all these HJ disputes.
That is – when you say that we always have to deal with probability and not with any firm facts in the case of Jesus; that's true, but it's true for anything, not just for Jesus … for anything in this universe, we can only determine it as a matter of probability, but never literally as 100% certainty. However, what we have learned from science is that the only valid way to determine such probability, is from genuine valid
evidence.
But the problem in the case of HJ, is that what is offered as the “evidence”, is never actually evidence of Jesus himself. It's only ever evidence of peoples 1st century religious beliefs about Jesus …
… and the problem with that is, wherever it's humanly possible to check or test their religious beliefs, it always turns out that the beliefs are untrue.
If you take the biblical writing as a source, then that is indeed evidence of something … but it's only evidence of what people believed about their religion in the 1st century. None of it is actually evidence of a real human Jesus ever known to any of those biblical writers (or ever known to anyone else).
So when, for example, the biblical writing (NT or OT) says things like “born of a woman” or says “the WORD made Flesh” or “From the Seed of David” etc., is that evidence for a real Jesus? The answer is most definitely, No! …. no, that is only evidence of what people
believed about Jesus … there is zero evidence there to show that such beliefs were ever true.
Is it possible to have actual evidence of someone such as Jesus? The answer is “Yes”, of course it would have been possible. What sort of evidence is that? Well it would be the sort of evidence that we have for many other well known figures in ancient history, Roman emperors, kings and queens and such like.
Of course people on the HJ side then argue that Jesus was not famous enough for such evidence to exist or to still survive today. But that does not change the fact that there is no such genuine evidence of him. That still leaves you with zero genuine evidence for him
Should we believe what was said about him despite the lack of evidence? Well, yes, providing what was said about him was normal human activities and details of a normal human life. But that is not the case for Jesus … unlike all those emperors, king & queens, philosophers etc., Jesus is known for (famous for) things which we now know to have been entirely impossible … whereas all of those other figures from ancient history are known for (famous for .. remembered for) the entirely human things that were said for them – wars, erecting vast monuments, having all sort of other people executed, inventing various philosophical movements etc. … those are all things supported by actual tangible evidence, and where we actually have museums all over the world that are stuffed full of that evidence. So their existence is believable as a matter of “Probability”, because we have abundant undeniable evidence for it …
… but none of that is true for Jesus. In his case, we have precisely zero actual genuine evidence. All that exists as the evidence, is evidence of peoples religious beliefs. And those are beliefs that, whenever tested, turn out to be untrue (no genuine evidence to support them). And that evidence is vital if you are ever to arrive at a credible objective estimate of “probability” (as you called it) … if there is no really genuine evidence then you cannot honestly arrive at a probability of 50 % or more, which is what HJ supporters here say they have deduced.
