Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

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dejudge said:
Your post represents the sort of nonsense that is being regurgitated in an endless loop of unwarranted ad hominem attacks.

I never argued that the entire body of early Christian is forged but you seem not to care.
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That is a quite incredible response to
Originally Posted by jhunter1163 . Dejudge, your argument appears to be that the entire body of early Christian writing is forged.
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How can jhunter's observation about your attitude to early Christian writings be "ad hominem"? jhunter1163 was commenting on the content of your argument, not attacking your person. He didn't question your sincerity or assert that you are hiding your real beliefs, or disparage you in any way. So that wasn't ad hominem at all. One thing you have said is that the entirety of the NT canon was forged much later. Not merely was it written pseudonymously, it was forged consciously as deceptive fiction, either in the late second or early fourth century. Please justify that assertion with positive evidence.

Also please note, telling us that 1st century manuscripts are not extant is not good evidence, as it has been pointed out that for most known writers of the period the earliest documents are medieval copies. Also huge repetitive lists of people who allegedly didn't know of early Christians won't be accepted either as when others refute you, you simply say: these were not Christians (as for Pliny) or the notices in their works were themselves interpolated by later forgers (as for Irenaeus). So we need positive evidence for the second or fourth century forgery factories, such as Jean Hardouin was never able to give for his lunatic Severus Archontius forgery factory fantasy.
 
dejudge said:
Your statement is completely without logic. HJers use Galatians 1.19 like Fundamentalist to prove Jesus existed.

HJers and Fundamentalist must take the Bible at face value.
In the Bible it states Jesus existed, was in Galilee, was baptized by John and crucified under Pilate and HJers with Fundamentalists take the Bible at face value.

They must have forgotten to take at face value that the same Jesus was the Son of a Ghost--pure mythology.

HJers and Fundamentalists take pure unadulterated mythology as history at face value.

I cannot take the Bible as history at face value when it is open and blatant myth propagated by the illiterate in antiquity.
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The bolded statement is so ridiculous as to be laughable.
 
Belz... said:
Not to mention that attacking the person isn't an ad hominem, either. One has to construct an argument based on that attack in order for that to qualify.
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Very true, but best keep it simple in the circumstances. If there's no attack it can't be ad hominem. Even if there was an attack it might not be.
 
maximara said:
It is from a letter supposedly from Hadrian to Servianus, 134 CE (Quoted by Giles, Hebrew and Christian Records, vol. II, p86, 1877)

The only problem with the letter is it appears in Historia Augusta which "In modern times most scholars read the work as a piece of deliberate mystification written much later than its purported date, however the fundamentalist view still has distinguished support. (...) The Historia Augusta is also, unfortunately, the principal Latin source for a century of Roman history. The historian must make use of it, but only with extreme circumspection and caution." (The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Volume 2, Latin Literature, Part 5, The Later Principate, E. J. Kenney, Wendell Vernon Clausen, p43, 45, Cambridge University Press, 1983,ISBN 0521273714)


The passage is as follows:

Egypt, which you commended to me, my dearest Servianus, I have found to be wholly fickle and inconsistent, and continually wafted about by every breath of fame. The worshipers of Serapis (here) are called Christians, and those who are devoted to the god Serapis (I find), call themselves Bishops of Christ are, in fact, devotees of Serapis. There is no chief of the Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no Christian presbyter, who is not an astrologer, a soothsayer, or an anointer. Even the Patriarch himself, when he comes to Egypt, is forced by some to worship Serapis, by others to worship Christ. They are a folk most seditious, most deceitful, most given to injury; but their city is prosperous, rich, and fruitful, and in it no one is idle.

----

Serapis was connected with Osiris-Apis and was proclaimed Osiris in full rather then just the ka part of him. Early statues claimed to be of Serapis resemble those of Hades-Pluto while the later ones have Serapis with long curly hair and a long curly beard...a depiction of Jesus that would not become universal until nearly the 9th century.
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Thank you for this enlightening post. However, I find it hard to give much credence to a book most modern scholars reject (I took the liberty of hiliting that section, the first hilite in your quote). Thus, I tend toward seeing Chresitans in Tacitus as an example of what Tertullian was complaining about in Ad Nationes.

That said, it's undeniable that the Christian religion as it was developing in it early centuries was wildly syncretistic. It most likely took the image of the Madonna and child from that of Isis and Horus, the pieta from Isis with the body of Osiris, numerous literary tropes from Euripides The Bacchae, the winter solstice (at that time Dec. 25) as the birthdate of Jesus from the worship of Sol Invictus, etc. Co-opting the competition proved an excellent strategy.

As you note, depictions of Jesus originally were not of a guy with a curly beard. Rather, he was portrayed as beardless youth. Serapis as the source of his image, therefore, makes a great deal of sense. Thank you for that bit of information. What is particularly noteworthy is that Serapis, IIRC, was himself a somewhat manufactured god, created in the Hellenistic period.
 
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dejudge said:
HJers and Fundamentalist must take the Bible at face value.

In the Bible it states Jesus existed, was in Galilee, was baptized by John and crucified under Pilate and HJers with Fundamentalists take the Bible at face value.
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jhunter1163 said:
The bolded statement is so ridiculous as to be laughable.
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Are you denying that the people who take the literal existence of Jesus in the Bible at face value are Fundamentalists and HJers?

HJers and Fundamentalists use the Bible to argue that Jesus LITERALLY and really existed.

MJers do no such thing.
 
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dejudge said:
Are you denying that the people who take the literal existence of Jesus in the Bible at face value are Fundamentalists and HJers?
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Your weak attempt at a "gotcha" is noted and dismissed. I do not, nor does anyone else in this thread that I am aware of, accept the Bible "at face value". I accept that the itinerant preacher around whom the New Testament is centered probably existed and was crucified for sedition; beyond that, the accretion of myth makes accepting anything "at face value" a rather dubious proposition.
 
Dejudge said:
HJers and Fundamentalists use the Bible to argue that Jesus LITERALLY and really existed.

MJers do no such thing.
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The amount of times you have cited the Bible and argued the position that it speaks of a ghost and all such related material, or claimed a position of Paul not writing letters due to Acts never mentioning it, makes this defensive argument rather void.

I have seen more bible verses posted by yourself than any other.

So, yes, you do use the bible to argue your position.
In fact, you demand that the reader take the bible only at face value continually, and deny inference repeatedly.

Also, this argument is an example of an actual ad hom. because you created an argument about the opposition, not the arguments, as a reason to class their argument as wrong or invalid.
You also created a poor scarecrow representation of the opposition's arguments, for there have been no persons representing the idea of literalist take from the bible, nor claims of a miracle worker or god.

The opposition has, instead, questioned your proposition far more than it has offered its own proposition, and even then, that proposition is not of a literal biblical Jesus, but one inferred and proposed as possible and rather mundane and human.
 
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JaysonR said:
The amount of times you have cited the Bible and argued the position that it speaks of a ghost and all such related material, or claimed a position of Paul not writing letters due to Acts never mentioning it, makes this defensive argument rather void.

I have seen more bible verses posted by yourself than any other.

So, yes, you do use the bible to argue your position.
In fact, you demand that the reader take the bible only at face value continually, and deny inference repeatedly.
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You seem not to understand what "face value" means.

Christians and HJers take the Bible at face value and ague that a character called Jesus of Nazareth really existed.

I vehemently argue and use the Bible to show that it is a compilation of fiction, mythology, forgery and events that could not have happened.

The Bible cannot be taken at face value especially the NT accounts of Jesus, the 12 disciples and Paul--it is not history.

Do not take the baptism of Jesus at face value--it is fiction.

Do not take the crucifixion of Jesus at face value--it is myth.
 
Take someone or something at face value
to accept someone or something just as it appears; to believe that the way things appear is the way they really are.
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Inferring that a Jesus or Jesus-type individual existed mundanely, but not as is described in the Bible is not taking the Bible at face value.

Your position demands only a reading of the Bible at face value and you deny any reading which does not accept the entirety of what the Bible has in it.

For example, if someone speaks of a mundane human, you will cite all of the divine birth and holy ghost segments and insist these descriptions cannot be removed in the description of Jesus.
 
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JaysonR said:
Inferring that a Jesus or Jesus-type individual existed mundanely, but not as is described in the Bible is not taking the Bible at face value.

Your position demands only a reading of the Bible at face value and you deny any reading which does not accept the entirety of what the Bible has in it.

For example, if someone speaks of a mundane human, you will cite all of the divine birth and holy ghost segments and insist these descriptions cannot be removed in the description of Jesus.
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I am extremely happy you have now shown what "face value" means.

Now, this is my position on Jesus in the Bible.

1. Jesus was NOT born of a Ghost and a Virgin--he never existed.

2. Jesus was never baptized by John--he never existed.

3. Jesus was never tempted by the Devil--he never existed.

4. Jesus never had any disciples--he never existed.

5. Jesus never did any miracles in Galilee--he never existed.

6. Jesus was never on trial before the Sanhedrin--he never existed.

7. Jesus was never on trial under Pilate--he never existed.

8. Jesus was never crucified--he never existed.

9. Jesus never resurrected--he never existed.

10. Jesus never ascended--he never existed.

I hope you now understand that I do not accept the Bible stories of Jesus at face value because he never existed.

Now, in the Bible it is claimed Jesus existed---Christians and HJers take it as face value.

In the Bible it is claimed Jesus was from Nazareth, was baptized by John, had disciples,preached in Galilee, and was crucified under Pilate---Christians and HJers take those events at face value.
 
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dejudge said:
Are you denying that the people who take the literal existence of Jesus in the Bible at face value are Fundamentalists and HJers?
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Um, are you aware that people who believe that Peter Popoff heard the voice of God are faithful Christians. That doesn't make James Randi a faithful Christian simply because he acknowledges the existence of Peter Popoff, or offered an alternative explanation for his "spiritual revelations".
 
Foster Zygote said:
Um, are you aware that people who believe that Peter Popoff heard the voice of God are faithful Christians. That doesn't make James Randi a faithful Christian simply because he acknowledges the existence of Peter Popoff, or offered an alternative explanation for his "spiritual revelations".
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Are you claiming that stories about people who hear the voice of God in the Bible must mean those people are figures of history?
 
No.
He is saying that the condition of hearing those voices does not inherently mean the identity attributed to the voice never existed.
 
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