Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

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dejudge said:
It seems that it is not only your ears but also your eyes and mouth. You just can't say anything or see any evidence for your HJ--the supposed dead obscurity found in fiction and forgery.
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Why do you keep saying ''your HJ''?
 
dafydd said:
Why do you keep saying ''your HJ''?
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No assumed biography of an HJ is the same. Since HJ is a product of forgeries, fiction, guessing, imagination and without corroborative evidence each HJer will come up with their own personalised HJ.

Remember, according to Belz, it is agreed that the evidence for an HJ is Terrible and very weak.

Some HJers will claim their HJ was the Christ and another will claim he was an obscure preacher another will claim he was a Zealot.

Some will claim their HJ was born in Bethlehem while another claim he was not.

Some will claim his father was Joseph while another may say Panthera.

It is obvious that HJers are personally inventing their own HJ.

HJ is whoever an HJer wants him to be.

However, Christians of antiquity were clear. Their HJ was born of a Ghost and a Virgin and was God Creator.

In antiquity, Their HJ was a Myth.

In antiquity, THEIR HJ was God who came down from heaven.

Aristides' Apology
The Christians, then, trace the beginning of their religion from Jesus the Messiah; and he is named the Son of God Most High.

And it is said that God came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew virgin assumed and clothed himself with flesh; and the Son of God lived in a daughter of man. This is taught in the gospel, as it is called...
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Foster Zygote said:
Apocalypticism, in its various forms, was revolutionary by nature. The apocalyptic groups were predicting a return of the House of David to the throne of Israel and the expulsion of foreign occupiers. This was going to pave the way for a return to proper godly life. That sounds pretty revolutionary to me. I'm sure it did to the Romans as well.
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What makes you think the Romans ever heard about what Jesus taught?
Off to read more about the apocalyptism in the 1st century.
 
dejudge said:
No assumed biography of an HJ is the same. Since HJ is a product of forgeries, fiction, guessing, imagination and without corroborative evidence each HJer will come up with their own personalised HJ.
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I am neither an HJ'er or a JC'er. It's just another old story to me.
 
dejudge said:
No assumed biography of an HJ is the same. Since HJ is a product of forgeries, fiction, guessing, imagination and without corroborative evidence each HJer will come up with their own personalised HJ...
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pakeha said:
...Off to read more about the apocalyptism in the 1st century.
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To get my bearings on the apocalyptism question, my first stop was the extremely helpful Early Christian Writings site's page on modern scholars' takes on Jesus
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/jesus/bartehrman.html
My first impression is that dejudge has some validity in their observation I've quoted above. One HJ scholar even claims that the Roman execution only makes sense if gJohn's account of Jesus' ministry is used rather than that of the Synoptics.

Back to digging.
 
dejudge said:
There you go again with the known Chinese Whisper and Rumor. You have no statistics, no data, no polls for your rumor but repeat it over and over so that it would be believed to be a fact when you have no data and never ever had any.

1. Where is the survey, where is the poll?

2. Who did the poll of the Scholars on the HJ question?

3. What year was it done ?

4. What is the statistical margin of error for the poll?

5. In which country was it conducted?

6. How man Scholars participated?

You will not answer.
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Why do you even think that anyone would conduct a scientific study of the number of New Testament scholars who support the historicity of Jesus? No such study exists and your demand for such is merely a dodge of the issue that your claims run counter to those of virtually all of the experts.

Dejudge, I posted several examples of New Testament scholars stating that the vast majority of their ranks agree on the historicity of Jesus. If you are calling those people liars, then it is up to you to prove that they are. But it will be a challenge. You may have to actually compose a paragraph or two.

It seems that it is not only your ears but also your eyes and mouth. You just can't say anything or see any evidence for your HJ--the supposed dead obscurity found in fiction and forgery.

You say, hear and see no evidence for your preferred version of HJ.
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It's been presented to you, you've just ignored it. If there's no evidence, why is it that most university professors studying the subject disagree with you? How is it that you're so much smarter than them?
 
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dafydd said:
Why do you keep saying ''your HJ''?
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One reason is that he wants to distract from the fact that he is contradicted by the vast majority of scholars. Another reason is that he thinks that proposing multiple possibilities for details about Jesus' life means that it can't be true, because historians only deal in certainties. After all, we know everything about every other ancient historical figure and there aren't any questions at all about their lives.
 
Foster Zygote said:
Why do you even think that anyone would conduct a scientific study of the number of New Testament scholars who support the historicity of Jesus? No such study exists and your demand for such is merely a dodge of the issue that your claims run counter to those of virtually all of the experts.
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Well, exactly. You are promoting Chinese Whispers and Rumors when you make claims for which you have no data and knew in advance of posting that no such study exist.

You also know that the people who are making the same claims like you have no data because no such study exist but you still make reference to them.


Foster Zygote said:
Dejudge, I posted several examples of New Testament scholars stating that the vast majority of their ranks agree on the historicity of Jesus. If you are calling those people liars, then it is up to you to prove that they are. But it will be a challenge. You may have to actually compose a paragraph or two.
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It is your obligation to make sure that you had actual data to support your claim. After all you are the one who is posting here.

Why don't you want to take responsibility for what you post?

Now, that you have admitted that there is no study for your claims please desist from the Chineses Whispers and Rumors.

The Quest for HJ is still on-going and no HJ has ever been found after hundreds of years.

You will notice that the Quest for HJ was initiated because the Jesus in the NT was a figure of Faith--a Myth--an eschatological concept.

No HJ will ever be found.

Obscure HJ is not even plausible.
 
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pakeha said:
To get my bearings on the apocalyptism question, my first stop was the extremely helpful Early Christian Writings site's page on modern scholars' takes on Jesus
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/jesus/bartehrman.html
My first impression is that dejudge has some validity in their observation I've quoted above. One HJ scholar even claims that the Roman execution only makes sense if gJohn's account of Jesus' ministry is used rather than that of the Synoptics.

Back to digging.
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That raises an interesting point. Just because John was written later than the synoptics, it doesn't mean that it is necessarily less accurate regarding its portrayal of Jesus' ministry. Given how much Paul seems to have modified Jesus' teachings, how he had to resolve his differences with James by agreeing to preach only to gentiles, it seems very likely that Paul's message was quite different from the original. I noted before that it would be fascinating to read anything that Paul may have written about the Jesus movement while he was still persecuting it. I wonder how much he even knew about the original message. Perhaps, like many other critics of early Christianity, he actually had a lot of misconceptions.

Revelation is an extremely apocalyptic vision. I think it was Elaine Pagels who said that the author of Revelation would have hated Paul as an heretic, and that his book was much closer to the original message of Jesus than anything from Paul.
 
dejudge said:
The Quest for HJ is still on-going and no HJ has ever been found after hundreds of years.

You will notice that the Quest for HJ was initiated because the Jesus in the NT was a figure of Faith--a Myth--an eschatological concept.

No HJ will ever be found.

Obscure HJ is not even plausible.
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So what?
 
Foster Zygote said:
One reason is that he wants to distract from the fact that he is contradicted by the vast majority of scholars. Another reason is that he thinks that proposing multiple possibilities for details about Jesus' life means that it can't be true, because historians only deal in certainties. After all, we know everything about every other ancient historical figure and there aren't any questions at all about their lives.
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You just admitted that no study exist to support your claims about the "vast majority of Scholars". Please desist from your Chinese Whispers.

You have no evidence for standard HJ--the obscurity.

Please!! The HJ argument is dead.
 
pakeha said:
What makes you think the Romans ever heard about what Jesus taught?
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Well, they did nail him to a cross. I very much doubt that they'd heard anything about him prior to his arrest. But something made them think he was worth making an extreme example of. If they did write his crime as "Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum", then that would tell us that they regarded him as another apocalyptic revolutionary and dealt with him accordingly.

Off to read more about the apocalyptism in the 1st century.
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Cool. Lots of fascinating stuff to be found. I think I have some references stashed away in my bookmarks. I'll look for them when I have more time.
 
dafydd said:
I don't understand his obsession with this particular semi-historical figure.
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That's what I'm curious about. His evasion of the simple question of whether or not he used to be a Christian and his tendency to treat the Bible as a cohesive whole, rather than as a collection of independent works, causes me to speculate that he is an apostate with some measure of resentment toward his former faith. I suspect that he is reacting to his past belief that everything in the Bible was true by declaring that everything in it is false.

There may be a bit of monomania going on as well.
 
dejudge said:
Well, exactly. You are promoting Chinese Whispers and Rumors when you make claims for which you have no data and knew in advance of posting that no such study exist.

You also know that the people who are making the same claims like you have no data because no such study exist but you still make reference to them.
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For Christ's sake, dejudge (pun intended), they are academic New Testament scholars. If they are lying, then prove it. If there was some real controversy about their statements, don't you think that all those other scholars who think that Jesus was mythical would have spoken up?




It is your obligation to make sure that you had actual data to support your claim. After all you are the one who is posting here.

Why don't you want to take responsibility for what you post?

Now, that you have admitted that there is no study for your claims please desist from the Chineses Whispers and Rumors.

The Quest for HJ is still on-going and no HJ has ever been found after hundreds of years.

You will notice that the Quest for HJ was initiated because the Jesus in the NT was a figure of Faith--a Myth--an eschatological concept.

No HJ will ever be found.

Obscure HJ is not even plausible.
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That may be your most inept argument yet. If those scholars are lying, then prove it. It should be easy. After all, you are so much smarter than they are, right?
 
Foster Zygote said:
That's what I'm curious about. His evasion of the simple question of whether or not he used to be a Christian and his tendency to treat the Bible as a cohesive whole, rather than as a collection of independent works, causes me to speculate that he is an apostate with some measure of resentment toward his former faith. I suspect that he is reacting to his past belief that everything in the Bible was true by declaring that everything in it is false.

There may be a bit of monomania going on as well.
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You either believe in the holy Jesus or you don't. I have no idea what the bee in his bonnet is. Coming to a skeptic's site and telling us that the Synoptic Gospels are not eye witness accounts does seem a little redundant.
 
Foster Zygote said:
Well, they did nail him to a cross. I very much doubt that they'd heard anything about him prior to his arrest. But something made them think he was worth making an extreme example of. If they did write his crime as "Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum", then that would tell us that they regarded him as another apocalyptic revolutionary and dealt with him accordingly.
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The same story claimed Pilate found no fault with Jesus and that those who gave evidence were FALSE witnesses.

You are inventing your own story in the 21st century. Why can't you even repeat the story as it is written?


Luke 23:4 KJV
Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man.
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John 18:38 KJV
Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.
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Please, you are not doing history. You have no interest in what is found in the NT. You are just making stuff up.

Please, try and understand what is written in the NT--not what you imagine.
 
dejudge said:
You just admitted that no study exist to support your claims about the "vast majority of Scholars". Please desist from your Chinese Whispers.

You have no evidence for standard HJ--the obscurity.

Please!! The HJ argument is dead.
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Do you think that every true statement ever made is backed up by a published study? Seriously???

You're like a creationist insisting that there is some controversy regarding the theory of evolution at the research level, then demanding to see a "scientific study" of the numbers of biologists who still support it. Then when someone responds, "Who the hell would waste time on such a project?", crowing,

"See.

You admit the Study doesn't exist.

Evolution is just Chinese Whispers.

I Win."
 
Many of us would agree that the NT is a fairy story, I have no idea what dejudge's problem is.
 
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