What counts as a historical Jesus?

[Belz...]

It is stated in the Iliad that the gods intervened to ensure a Greek victory in the Trojan War.
There are no such gods
Therefore there was no such war.

Like DDT said, you're simply not applying the same logic as you are with Jesus. As many have said, including me, Jesus is given a pass where others would not in the same situation. There's plenty of non-magical stuff in the Illiad, so all you need to do is remove the magical events and you're left with a much more likely story, right ?

Or are you ?

 

[Craig B]

Jesus is described as a divine being. That means - a supernatural scion of a supernatural god in heaven.

He is not described as divine in the Synoptics, but as the son of God. He is a being of flesh from the house of David, and one of their titles is son of God.

And by the way, iirc, in his supposed trial, Jesus does in fact answer to say that he is the messiah of God.

Which is not a divine title. It is another of the titles ("anointed") of the Davidic kings. And the messianic figures like Bar Kochba who arose in Judaea did not claim to be divine.

The fact that anyone else may at earlier times have also been called the "son of god" is not relevant here.

Oh yes it is! Jesus is hailed as son of David. These were "anointed" kings. They were sons of God. They were not divine beings. How can it not be relevant to refer to texts relating to the house of David when considering claims made on behalf of a person who is stated to be of that lineage? How can that possibly be irrelevant? You jest, Sir.

What it means is that he is described in the category of a god-like supernatural figure from heaven. That's what it means!

Ah, the category again.

And as you must well know, in Paul's letters Jesus is said to have appeared after death to more than 500 people at once!

As a vision, yes.

I don't care whether Mark mentions "heaven" or not.

Well, you should care.

It's not arguable ...

Yes it is.

It is certainly a commonly employed old canard of HJ believers to trot out ...

Please! not again.

If you attempt to make that same argument for a real Jesus, as you in fact have, then you are following that well worn formula for creating a different Jesus from the supernatural figure we have from the bible … and that is our only source for any Jesus figure - that IS Jesus.

Which is exactly what I have said you have been arguing and you said nobody in this thread has been. That is, the supernatural Jesus is impossible. There is no other Jesus. Therefore The HJ is impossible.

 

[eight bits]

Stone

If you photoshop Jesus the rabbi out of history ...

Then history looks very nearly the same. Everything that leaves a mark was done by somebody else, in his name, or in reaction to what somebody did in his name. The first unusual and enduring thing that Jesus was said to accomplish happened a few days after he died. Even that was done by somebody else. Somebody thought they saw him.

The man himself did nothing that lasted. He is famous for speaking, but not writing his speeches or debates down, drawing a crowd when he was handing out free food, but having few followers, and dying miserably, but his followers apparently lost track of his corpse. This is a comedy routine, not a resume.

So, there's a puzzle. And it is to be solved without the cheat codes used by about half the human race, Christians and Muslims who teach that this one historical question can be resolved based on information which was transmitted to them supernaturally.

Of course, other things aren't puzzles. For example, DOC's perennial

Then why does well known skeptic Bart Ehrman say "Jesus certainly existed" in his latest book, ...

Because writing and talking about a historical Jesus is how Bart makes his living, and he has a lock on the paying audience who share Ehrman's ignorance about what the word certainly means. It is the secret sign by which members of that group recognize one another.

And on a point arising, Belz

I was under the impression that they described a human person with divine powers.

No, the New Testament depicts ordinary human beings, including people loosely coupled to Jesus, mediating many of the "power" things, even raising the dead. Jesus is portayed as aware of this situation.

The powers are "divine" only in the interpretation of some of the observers. Other observers are depicted as considering them as demonic, the product of insanity, etc. Acts even raises the now-staple "Which divinity?" question, in connection with regular people doing a healing "miracle." Jesus doesn't refer to himself as divine in the early Gospels; the more pressing issue is whether he's the Messiah. Jesus cites signs and wonders in his cryptic answer to the Baptizer's direct query about Jesus' messiahship. (It wouldn't even occur, probably, to a historical Jew that any man could be God.)

The New Testament depicts many people as "supernaturally" talented. This stance appears to reflect an expectation (or retrospective Gentile spin) that at the Jewish end of days, what was formerly supernatural will then be natural, since "natural" is only whatever God says anyway. Jesus-in-life is not distinguished from natural human beings in this text. He is credited with priority in realizing that the times are at hand, but not even in his own estimation is he the all-time best at miracle performances.

 

[IanS]

That reasoning is valid. But it is in effect being stated that the supernatural elements make Jesus a divine figure residing in Heaven. Such a person could not have existed in the sense in which a historical Jesus might be defined. Therefore no Jesus existed. That is being argued. And the suggestion that Jesus could have existed as a non supernatural being is dismissed as an old canard being trotted it by the HJ believers. That is being said too. ETA In for example the last para of your #4256. If, for "old canard", we may read "well known formula".

What I am saying about it is this -

- the reason it's an "old canard" is that this line is trotted out by the real HJ side in every discussion on this subject. But those who make that argument never add any extra sentence to acknowledge the fact that by stripping Jesus of all his essential supernatural character, they are actually creating a new Jesus figure who is very different from the messiah that comes to us from the biblical writing.

Of course it IS possible that the biblical writers were mistaken about all their miracle beliefs (though there are rather a lot of them, repeated over & over again), and that some real preacher figure actually did exist in earlier times (someone that none of the biblical writers ever met, and someone they really knew nothing about at all). But in that case, we are straight back to the question of evidence which the sceptics here have now been asking for over 100+ pages without any credible answer …

…. what is the evidence for the actual existence of this earlier preacher that the biblical writers really knew nothing about and later mistakenly described as a miraculous supernatural scion of God?

 

[IanS]

He is not described as divine in the Synoptics, but as the son of God.

He is a being of flesh from the house of David, and one of their titles is son of God. Which is not a divine title. It is another of the titles ("anointed") of the Davidic kings. And the messianic figures like Bar Kochba who arose in Judaea did not claim to be divine.


Oh yes it is! Jesus is hailed as son of David. These were "anointed" kings. They were sons of God. They were not divine beings. How can it not be relevant to refer to texts relating to the house of David when considering claims made on behalf of a person who is stated to be of that lineage? How can that possibly be irrelevant? You jest, Sir. Ah, the category again. As a vision, yes. Well, you should care. Yes it is. Please! not again. Which is exactly what I have said you have been arguing and you said nobody in this thread has been. That is, the supernatural Jesus is impossible. There is no other Jesus. Therefore The HJ is impossible.

I don’t know what you think a “divine being” is, but I think it means a scion of God himself in heaven. Here is the very first dictionary definition which appears if you Google “divine being” -


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/divine
di·vine
[dih-vahyn] Show IPA adjective, di·vin·er, di·vin·est, noun, verb, di·vined, di·vin·ing.
adjective
1. of or pertaining to a god, especially the Supreme Being.
2. addressed, appropriated, or devoted to God or a god; religious; sacred: divine worship.
3. proceeding from God or a god: divine laws.
4. godlike; characteristic of or befitting a deity: divine magnanimity.
5. heavenly; celestial: the divine kingdom.

Oh yes it is! Jesus is hailed as son of David. These were "anointed" kings. They were sons of God. They were not divine beings. How can it not be relevant to refer to texts relating to the house of David when considering claims made on behalf of a person who is stated to be of that lineage? How can that possibly be irrelevant? You jest, Sir.

Nope. Look again at the definitions of “divine beings”. It means a scion of God as a heavenly or celestial being. And in the case of Jesus, a completely and continuously supernatural being throughout all the biblical writing about him. The biblical Jesus most definitely IS a supernatural divine being from heaven.

Ah, the category again. As a vision, yes. Well, you should care. Yes it is. Please! not again.

Quote:
If you attempt to make that same argument for a real Jesus, as you in fact have, then you are following that well worn formula for creating a different Jesus from the supernatural figure we have from the bible … and that is our only source for any Jesus figure - that IS Jesus.

Which is exactly what I have said you have been arguing and you said nobody in this thread has been. That is, the supernatural Jesus is impossible. There is no other Jesus. Therefore The HJ is impossible.

Nope. Your conclusion is again false, namely - “Therefore The HJ is impossible“. That is NOT what the argument says (as was already pointed out you above). What the argument says is that a supernatural biblical Jesus is false, because supernatural heavenly scions of God are imaginary.

A quite different real HJ of some earlier time (before any gospel writers ever met him or knew anything about him), might be possible. But in that case, that is a very different Jesus, and not the one who the biblical writers were repeatedly and insistently describing as the supernatural divine son of God from heaven … and one for which, as this thread has repeatedly shown, there appears to be no credible evidence at all.

 

[maximara]

You've just thrown out half of ancient history. If you had your way, a photoshop den would be busy 24/7 painting out everyone from Leukippos to Thales to Hillel to Hannibal to Boadicca to Pythagoras to Confucius to Apollonius to Sun Tzu to Brhaspati to Ajita to Narayana to hundreds more. The sheer ignorance of ancient history shown in your virtual screed here is utterly appalling.

Stone, you tried this claim once before and I totally trounced it in Post 3039

All you have added is a few more names for me to play with.

Thales: It is accepted that even the written accounts before before 320 BCE are likely exaggerations and those are part with other Milesian philosophers such as Anaximander and Anaximenes. After 320 BCE the myth machine went into overdrive.

Pythagoras: other then founding Pythagoreanism (a way of life rather than religion) which thanks to it secretive nature we know little about there isn't much regarding him until the 4th century when the myth machine kicks in.

Confucius (Kong Qiu): the Records of the Grand Historian used archives and imperial records as source material (which themselves have not survive). Its author Sima Qian noted the problems with incomplete, fragmentary, and contradictory sources stating in the 18 volume of the 180 volume work "I have set down only what is certain, and in doubtful cases left a blank." Moreover, Kong Qiu was the governor of a town in Lu and ultimately held the positions of Minister of Public Works and then Minister of Crime for the whole Lu state not exactly minor potions one could create a fictionous person to fill.

Apollonius: Fragments of Apollonius' own writings are part of the Harvard University Press edition of The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (1912) ISBN-13: 978-0674990180 as documented in Carrier's Kook article.

Sun Tzu (Sun Wu): some questioning of his very existence in scholarly circles (Sawyer, Ralph D. (2005), The Essential Art of War, Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-07204-6) despite reference in the Records of the Grand Historian and Spring and Autumn Annals which used earlier official records that haven't survived.

Brhaspati: Uh, what is a Hindu god and a Vedic deity doing in this list?

Ajita: I have no idea of the state of Indian records of the 6th century BCE so I am not going to tackle this one.

Narayana: what is the Vedic Supreme God doing in this list?

 

[maximara]

There is not any of that for umpteen historic figures throughout the ancient world either. Name all those figures, please, or admit you're bigoted and know nothing of ancient history. And make an argument why each and every one of those figures is also not historical.

Stone, you have tried this twice and it has been an exercise in ridiculous each time. So far we have gotten a what looks like wild grabs for something anything that will stick to the wall.

Inter mixed with people who had known contemporary people comment on them we have gotten a shadowy figure whose very existence was questioned roughly 200 years after he supposedly lived, a governmental official, philosophers whose importance didn't get the Euhemerism treatment for centuries (if at all), and two Vedic/Hindu deities.

One get less the impression of a serious dialog and more the one of wild thrashing about in search of someone, anyone on par with both the level of importance Jesus has and also has the as bad or worst evidence for their existence. Quite frankly we have more evidence for Imhotep's existence of c2650-2600 BCE then we do for Jesus at 6 BCE - 36 CE.

 

[Stone]

Stone, you tried this claim once before and I totally trounced it in Post 3039

All you have added is a few more names for me to play with.

Thales: It is accepted that even the written accounts before before 320 BCE are likely exaggerations and those are part with other Milesian philosophers such as Anaximander and Anaximenes. After 320 BCE the myth machine went into overdrive.

==================

So how is the documentation any more or less sparse for him than for Jesus the rabbi?

===================

Pythagoras: other then founding Pythagoreanism (a way of life rather than religion) which thanks to it secretive nature we know little about there isn't much regarding him until the 4th century when the myth machine kicks in.

=====================

So how is the documentation any more or less sparse for him than for Jesus the rabbi?

======================

Confucius (Kong Qiu): the Records of the Grand Historian used archives and imperial records as source material (which themselves have not survive). Its author Sima Qian noted the problems with incomplete, fragmentary, and contradictory sources stating in the 18 volume of the 180 volume work "I have set down only what is certain, and in doubtful cases left a blank." Moreover, Kong Qiu was the governor of a town in Lu and ultimately held the positions of Minister of Public Works and then Minister of Crime for the whole Lu state not exactly minor potions one could create a fictionous person to fill.

=======================

Some recent scholarship casts serious doubt on Kung-fut-zu's ever being a Minister of Crime, positing that the truest picture of him may simply have been the itinerant tutor of Chaps. 3 - 9 of the Analects.

========================

Apollonius: Fragments of Apollonius' own writings are part of the Harvard University Press edition of The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (1912) ISBN-13: 978-0674990180 as documented in Carrier's Kook article.

=========================

So how is the documentation any more or less sparse for him than for Jesus the rabbi?

=========================

Sun Tzu (Sun Wu): some questioning of his very existence in scholarly circles (Sawyer, Ralph D. (2005), The Essential Art of War, Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-07204-6) despite reference in the Records of the Grand Historian and Spring and Autumn Annals which used earlier official records that haven't survived.

==========================

So how is the documentation any more or less sparse for him than for Jesus the rabbi?

==========================

Brhaspati: Uh, what is a Hindu god and a Vedic deity doing in this list?

==========================

LOL!! This is not Brhaspati the Vedic deity! This is Brhaspati, the pioneer in the ancient Indian Lokayata doctrine, the earliest entirely materialist school of thought that has survived. His reflections are preserved in Sarvasiddhantasamgraha (by Samkara); Sad-Darsana-Samuccaya (by Haribhadra Suri); Sarvadarsanasangraha (by Madhavacarya)

==========================

Ajita: I have no idea of the state of Indian records of the 6th century BCE so I am not going to tackle this one.

===========================

Wise choice. Ajita is a later adherent of Lokayata doctrine. If you're curious about this school, Carvaka is generally reckoned the most celebrated adherent of this doctrine, although even he is little less shadowy than its founder, Brhaspati

============================

Narayana: what is the Vedic Supreme God doing in this list?

============================

Touche: I should have simply said the author of the Purusha Sukta, traditionally ascribed to Narayana, which gives the first "divine" imprimatur to the vicious hereditary caste system. A minority view supposes that there was a real Narayana who was later deified, but the jury -- academe -- is still out on that one.

Stone

=============================

 

[Stone]

Stone


Then history looks very nearly the same. Everything that leaves a mark was done by somebody else, in his name, or in reaction to what somebody did in his name. The first unusual and enduring thing that Jesus was said to accomplish happened a few days after he died.

Wrong. In fact, I'm engaged in a colloquy with Pakeha (sp.?) right now on those Jesus sayings that A) seem entirely original to Jesus the rabbi and B) have had long-term consequences. Ground-breaking Dicta like "Love your enemies" and "Lose your life to others to save it" have grown long legs and even been the inspiration for certain laws, both civilian and military (the protocols surrounding the Red Cross, for instance). Without such sayings, much of the network of human rights protocols associated with institutions like the UN or the Hague would look very different. I'm not saying they wouldn't exist; but they would look very different, and that's because of the cultural impact of a tiny nexus of social commentary that survives in the very earliest textual strata of the Jesus material. This is a classic example of the so-called butterfly effect. Those sayings did change history, to a degree.

Stone

 

[davefoc]

...
==================

So how is the documentation any more or less sparse for him than for Jesus the rabbi?

===================

...

Where the documentation is similar to that for the HJ it is reasonable to be uncertain as to whether the individual was real or not. Where the documentation is more reliable than for the HJ it is reasonable to hold a stronger view that the individual existed.

The documentation for the HJ is unreliable because:
1. It is not written by contemporaneous observers
2. It is written by people to promote a religion
3. It is self contradictory
4. It is contains geographical and historical errors
5. The sources are not identified
6. The number of independent sources is not clear. It is possible that there is only one, Paul, and it is possible that there may be one or two other independent sources.
7. It is not possible to corroborate most of the writings with any other sources. The closest possibility that there might be non-biblical corroboration are the writings of Josephus and very good evidence has been put forth that these do not actually refer to the HJ. In addition, even if they did the Josephus references to the HJ are second hand at best.
8. The Gospels are written in the style of fiction. There are no apparent sources for much of the narrative and there is a supernatural element integrally embedded into them.
9. A specific individual is not required to explain the effects of an HJ. This differs completely from the situation with many ancient individuals we are aware of. For instance, if Cleopatra didn't exist then somebody still existed that was the leader of the Egyptians in the battle of Actium.

So, the challenge for you if you continue to want to make this point is to find an ancient historical individual for whom the documentation of his existence is similar to that for the HJ and yet he is generally believed to have existed. If you find such an individual, perhaps we should start a thread about why historians would not question his existence given the low quality of the evidence available.

 

[Stone]

I'm reading up on the stratum approach to Mark and the Q sources.
I'm a bit puzzled by the 'dark agenda' reference, though.

That's a reference to your quoted writer's supposition that deliberate anti-Semitism of the classic Jew-vs.-Gentile sort is in the original DNA of Jesus the rabbi's social commentary. I don't think it is because the notion of engaging the whole Gentile "community" comes with Paul and GJohn (the latter generally reckoned one of the latest and least historically valid Jesus texts out there).

"...you made a good-faith effort to acquire this information, which was undercut by the rules of this forum referencing "information overload". ..."

How was I undercut?

When I submitted the Q sayings at your request, the mods decided it was too much of a text wall and "disappeared" it. But this time, I've given instead a list of the Q passages as they are in Luke. I also found on-line a readout of all of them. But that readout was a bitter compromise for me: Instead of keying the order of the sayings to analogous sequences in GMark, as I had done -- sweating quite a ways through that -- this on-line page simply gives the sayings in the order they appear in Luke, hardly as useful a sequence.

Anyway, you're quite right about the later addition of the passage I quoted, of course.

Do you think those references I quoted here to 'their ancestors' and 'them'
are later additions to Jesus original meaning?

"Luke 6:22-23 NIV
Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

Luke 6:26
Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

Actually, I suspect they aren't in the case of Luke -- with all the implications that undoubtedly entails. As I say, Jesus most certainly did have an animus against certain Jewish communities. No question. But it was just as much an animus against the authorities only, not against Jews as a whole. The latter dynamic only comes in when Gentiles are "uplifted" as the "real" Christians in Paul and GJohn.

Matthew 5:11-12
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. "

Scholars tend not to trust the Matthew versions of the Q sayings as much. In this case, it's interesting that the Luke version reads --

"Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets."

This doesn't palliate the degree of animus against Jewish authorities, of course. But it's striking that Jesus in Matthew blames the same individuals for past behavior and for persecuting his followers, while in Luke he speaks of their fathers' persecutions in the past instead.

Do the Pauline Epistles have priority over Q?

Excellent question! In fact, scholars disagree on that very point. One detail related to chronological priority is fascinating (although it doesn't involve the Q sayings): Even though Luke is apparently written later than Matthew, its account of the Last Supper is actually closer to Paul's 1 Corinthians account than to the one in Matthew! This is surprising, since Matthew is uniformly judged as later than any of the authentic Paulines (like 1 Corinthians) and closer to the time of Luke, though slightly earlier than Luke, and it's striking that Luke, a later text than Matthew, actually goes back to an (apparently) earlier source for its Last Supper account. It suggests that Luke, with all his superstition, was at least conscientious enough to try and make some kind of an attempt to use the earliest sources to the best of his (limited) ability.

Some scholars guess that the earliest versions of the Q sayings circulated orally, roughly during the same period that Paul was writing his seven authentic letters. Matthew may have been the first attempt to get them down in written form.

Does the Gospel of Thomas have priority over Q?

No. Widely varied as estimates of GThomas are (all the way from the '60s to the '90s), no one has supposed that Q was anything other than the very earliest collection of sayings of all. For those who date GThomas in the 60s, though, GThomas is important as the earliest extant Gospel of all, even earlier than GMark. But that is a minority view, and many scholars view GThomas as around the GMark date or maybe a bit later. To suggest there is any consensus around this is misleading. There is none, although the latest thinking tends to hug the latter decades of the 1st century rather than the 60s. It's all very fluid.

Stone

 

[IanS]

How many humans can you list who have been witnessed to walk on water and rise from the dead into the sky in front of hundreds of people?

The biblical writing is not describing a human person.

I was under the impression that they described a human person with divine powers.

Well a person cannot be both an ordinary human and also supernatural.

If a figure is described as having supernatural powers (as Jesus most certainly was/is), then that cannot possibly be a human person (humans do not have supernatural powers ... gods have supernatural powers, but then again, gods don't actually exist!).

 

[eight bits]

This is a classic example of the so-called butterfly effect.

Evidently, applied mathematics isn't your metier.

Wrong. In fact, I'm engaged in a colloquy with Pakeha (sp.?) right now on those Jesus sayings

If the sayings are true or useful, then what difference does it make who said them?

In making that reply, I do not concede that remarks attributed to Jesus, like that you should love your enemies (Matthew 5: 43-48), are unprecedented. The Buddha, or his early followership, is credited with

Even if thieves carve you limb from limb with a saw, if you make your mind hostile you are not following my teaching. ~ Majjhima-Nikkaya 21

This seems close enough for government work.

There is no secular consequence if we lost track of it. International law, your "example," does not regulate the emotional lives of belligerents. It permits reciprocity and reprisal as the means of enforcement. Love has nothing, really nothing, to do with it.

Finally, the saying prescribes the adoption of an unverifiable interior mental state, without addressing whether it is possible to elicit an ordinarily involuntary reaction by conscious resolution. (Compare Buddhism, which does address achieving the psychological states it prescribes.)

It is not a secular historical concern whether anybody has ever succeeded in taking the purported advice. As you will recall, the stated purpose of the exercise is supernatural, to be perfect as God is perfect. The objective for doing that, in turn, is supernatural reward - oddly, to have more supernatural reward than a list of enemies (tax collectors, pagans).

Love your enemies, that'll show 'em. Uh, huh. Fron God's lips to our ears, unmistakably.

 

[Craig B]

Well a person cannot be both an ordinary human and also supernatural.

If a figure is described as having supernatural powers (as Jesus most certainly was/is), then that cannot possibly be a human person (humans do not have supernatural powers ... gods have supernatural powers, but then again, gods don't actually exist!).

Indeed. That's what you say. If Midas is described as being able to turn things into gold by touching them, since humans have no such powers then Midas could not have existed as a real person.

 

[Belz...]

The documentation for the HJ is unreliable because:
1. It is not written by contemporaneous observers
2. It is written by people to promote a religion
3. It is self contradictory
4. It is contains geographical and historical errors
5. The sources are not identified
6. The number of independent sources is not clear.
7. It is not possible to corroborate most of the writings with any other sources.
8. The Gospels are written in the style of fiction.
9. A specific individual is not required to explain the effects of an HJ.

Fantastic summary, Dave.

 

[Belz...]

Well a person cannot be both an ordinary human and also supernatural.

But you are moving the goalposts, now. You said "human" not "ordinary". Many fictional and historical figures are given supernatural powers in various stories. It does not make them not human. It does make the powers, and the story written around them, unbelievable.

humans do not have supernatural powers

You are confusing reality with belief. That person's followers may believe that he or she has supernatural powers. It doesn't follow that, because said powers don't exist in reality, that the person they are associated with also did not exist.

 

[smartcooky]

<polite snip>

One get less the impression of a serious dialog and more the one of wild thrashing about in search of someone, anyone on par with both the level of importance Jesus has and also has the as bad or worst evidence for their existence. Quite frankly we have more evidence for Imhotep's existence of c2650-2600 BCE then we do for Jesus at 6 BCE - 36 CE.

Yep, and the distinction that Stone cannot acknowledge (or will not acknowledge) is that Jesus was supposedly famous far and wide in his own time. The historical characters he mentions would not likely have been widely known public figures; would the average "Joe Public" of that time have really cared about mathematics or science. Did thousands of people gather in great crowds to hear Pythagos talk about the the properties of a 3-4-5- triangle?. Did Leukippos or Democritus hold great gatherings numbering in the tens of thousands while they spoke about their theory of Atomism?

I doubt it, but many thousands are supposed to have cared about Jesus and attended his meetings.

► Matthew 14:19-21 - "And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children."

Such an occurrence as feeding what I estimate to be 10,000 people, with only five loaves of bread and two fishes would have been reported all over the region, yet outside the NT, not one single mention is made anywhere. This event goes unreported, even though the followers were expected to spread the word

► Mark 16:15-16 - And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

► Matthew 28:19 - Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Well, judging by the amount of hard evidence outside of the NT, which is none, they cannot have done a very good job of it.

 

[IanS]

Well a person cannot be both an ordinary human and also supernatural.

If a figure is described as having supernatural powers (as Jesus most certainly was/is), then that cannot possibly be a human person (humans do not have supernatural powers ... gods have supernatural powers, but then again, gods don't actually exist!).

Indeed. That's what you say. If Midas is described as being able to turn things into gold by touching them, since humans have no such powers then Midas could not have existed as a real person.

No. This is the same incorrect conclusion that you have just tried twice before. It does not become any better for repeating it a third time.

I’ll explain it again -

- Midas (or Jesus) could have existed as a real human person, but not as the legendary figure who miraculously turns everything into gold …

... he could have been a different figure, who never did turn anything to gold. But, in that case we immediately have to ask “what is the evidence for this different figure?" ….

… in the case of Jesus the answer is that no such evidence of this different non-miraculous figure of Jesus has been produced.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Indeed. That's what you say. If Midas is described as being able to turn things into gold by touching them, since humans have no such powers then Midas could not have existed as a real person.

I would say, rather, that the Midas who turned things into gold by touching them did not exist as a real person.

Ninja-ed by Ian S!

 

[Craig B]

I would say, rather, that the Midas who turned things into gold by touching them did not exist as a real person.

Ninja-ed by Ian S!

Dear me! I can only agree that such a gold touch Midas didn't exist. Therefore no Midas could possibly exist.