Thank you for summarizing. That makes quoting easier.
I consider point 2 irrelevant for our discussion. It concerns the reliability of modern exegesis. I am not exegete and you neither, I suppose. Let us focus on arguments if you like.
On point 1: You make a difference between historical narrative in Antiquity and religious or mythical narrative. I had done some remark also: I think the difference implies we must to be more sceptical with mythical accounts. But this does not imply that we have to reject a priori all mythical narrative as irrelevant for the historical studies. Some interesting remarks about archaic societies have been extracted from mythical poems. Yes, there is a difference between general features of a society and particular events. Evidence about particular events, both in historical and mythical accounts, is more unsecure. In general, we must weigh the points to favour and counter. And yes, the mythical nature of a text is a counter point. I agree with you in that. The gospel stories about how Jesus confused the Pharisees or charmed the crowd are highly suspected to be hagiographic invention. The same objection is valid for passages about fulfilment of the Old Testament and so on. But in some points of the narrative there is something that squeaks. These discordances reveal items that escape to the intentional construct and refer to data that are resistant to harmonization of theological outlook. These are the cases of the failure in prophecy about imminence of God Kingdom, observance of the Law or the death on the cross, for example. This latter case refers to a difficult subject for the early Christians that points to an event against which they have to fight and painstakingly deform. Obviously an indication is not evidence in strong sense, but also matters.
Yes. I'm interested in your opinion about this concrete point. Thanks.
OK, well I’m happy to address your final question. But firstly,
point 2 was, and is, extremely and directly relevant here. So before answering anything else, you really must try to understand why that point-2 was so important. Here’s why (regarding Point 2) -
- it was claimed that there are other historical cases just like Jesus, where other figures in ancient history are believed by historians to be real, even though there is little or no evidence for their existence. And therefore it is claimed we should accept Jesus in the same way.
But any such other cases are emphatically NOT like that of Jesus. And such comparison is completely BOGUS.
To again spell out why that is -
- firstly, if you are talking about non-religious figures such as ancient philosophers, or ancient rulers, then the academics who have written about and researched those individuals, generally
are genuine “Historians” working in mainstream university secular history departments.
Whereas in contrast, the people being repeatedly described here as “historians” who write about Jesus, are in fact not “historians” of that same academic sort at all. They are actually bible-studies scholars. And that has been demonstrated over-&-over again in these threads, where for example every time that any so called “historian” has been named here, such as Bart Ehrman, Dominic Crossan, John Huddleston, Elaine Pagels, Bruce Metzger, EP Sanders, about 150 participants in a Jesus historicity conference-project that one poster here raised along with about 20 named critics of that conference project inc. none other than William Lane-Craig (!), every single time those people have been named, I have taken the trouble to check their academic qualifications, their background in religious beliefs, and their actual teaching posts in various institutions, and for every single one of them their qualifications are almost entirely in religious studies and never in mainstream non-religious history, their backgrounds are almost always steeped in fundamentalist religious beliefs, and they are invariably teaching from specifically religious departments and not from any mainstream secular university history departments. So those named individuals are most definitely NOT “Historians” … they are a mixture of bible studies scholars, theologians, and Christian theist writers in general.
Second point - although it may be true that genuine non-religious historians have identified some figures in ancient history as being supported by little or no evidence, and yet they still think they were probably real, in those cases it really does not matter if the named individual, say philosopher-X, was actually real or not, because such people are NOT famous or vitally important for their reality, instead they are famous/important for some non-supernatural theories of philosophy associated with their name. So whether this person X was actually real, and whether he was actually the person who first produced that particular philosophical theory, does not really matter … what matters in that case is that certainly some philosopher like Mr X did once produce that particular theory around that approximate time in antiquity. So what is vital in such cases is the philosophical theory or discovery (eg Pythagoras Theorem or Archimedes Principle), not whether the person of that name really existed and really was the one entirely responsible for the theory or discovery.
Also on that same point of a philosopher-X who may be barely supported by any real evidence - a crucial factor is that nobody outside a tiny group of academics who specialise in the history of that particular philosopher, is interested at all in whether that person X really did or did not exist. His existence is virtually completely irrelevant to anyone alive today. What is said to be relevant about X, is only that today we are still interested in a philosophical theory or discovery associated with that persons name. But nobody is going waste any time arguing much over whether X actually existed, because it’s totally irrelevant!
The Jesus case is the entire and total opposite of philosopher X. Jesus is like philosopher X only in so far as having virtually no actual evidence of his existence. But completely unlike X, Jesus is NOT known for some entirely non-supernatural theory. Jesus is known ONLY as a miraculous supernatural messiah of Yahweh, who was described 2000 years ago ONLY by religious preaching in the bible (and described nowhere else at all), and who’s very existence has since become the entire basis of what is now a worldwide Christian church influencing all manner of government laws all across the world.
That is why we DO ask for proper convincing evidence of Jesus, whereas we don’t care whether philosopher X is known from any evidence or not.
And just to add to that - the other point about any other figure X, is that they are NOT known for any claimed miracles they are supposed ever have done, and NOT known for any supposed supernatural deeds. They are known entirely and completely for the perfectly normal non-supernatural things associated with their name. Whether that is a philosophical theory such as stoicism or sarcasm, or where is a mathematical relation such a Pythagoras Theorem or Archimedes Principle etc. or whether indeed it’s the ruling actions of people like Roman Emperors known for sending their troops into all sorts of battles, for which we have museums all over the world stacked full of the irrefutable evidence of those military campaigns.
That is utterly and completely the very opposite of Jesus! Jesus is NOT known for any such normal non-supernatural deeds at all. Jesus is known ONLY for the supernatural and entirely fictional deeds claimed in the religious preaching which was grouped together to form the NT bible.
So when you try to compare Jesus to any poorly evidenced figure X in history, that comparison is wholly and completely BOGUS. There is no genuine comparison at all. And in fact as I emphasised before, that very act of trying to claim any such comparison is a well known and very common tactic employed by Christian apologists in virtually every dispute about the existence of Jesus, and where it should be obvious to any educated honestly objective person here that those apologists are trying a piece of pure unadulterated deceit when attempting to fool people with that dishonest argument.
Now, I am happy to answer the other question. But we really do have to get the above crystal clear first - there is absolutely no comparison at all between any other poorly evidenced figure X and the case of Jesus.
And if you disagree with that, then you need produce any other such hypothetic person X, who like Jesus is believed to be real, on the basis that they are known only as supernatural figures with not a shred of any supporting evidence, and known only from the anonymous writing of uneducated religious fanatics none of whom ever knew this person at all … who else in all history is like that? … and which other such person is even remotely as important and therefore as requiring of serious investigation as Jesus has become in the basis of worldwide Christianity and it's power & influence across governments and world affairs everywhere today? Who are these other poorly evidenced persons X who are even remotely anything like that?
