Belz...
Fiend God
Translation: "I disagree."
Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus
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Translation: "I disagree."
You seem to have no idea that there is an ON-GOING Quest for an HJ by those who use the historical method.
You seem to have no idea of the history of the Quest for an HJ.
The historical method has not helped the HJ Questers because all they have are Multiple irreconcilable versions of the Jesus character and no evidence from antiquity.
The Multiple irreconcilable versions of the Jesus character is PROOF that HJ must have been a Hoax.
If HJ was NOT a Hoax it would not have consumed hundreds of years and multiple failures.
Don't you think 250 years was enough time to QUEST for HJ?
Belz...
Fiend God
There's also an ongoing quest for dark matter, you know.
Translation: 'I don't know what the hell I'm talking about really, but if I keep repeating 'hoax', 'worthless', 'ghost', 'on-going quest', and 'multiple irreconcilable versions' enough times, somebody somewhere might actually think I'm saying something'.
Belz...
Fiend God
My pith beats yours.
Foster Zygote
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Indeed. In his ignorance of critical thinking methodologies, dejudge seems to think that researchers and academics can only speak in certainties; that any idea that has open questions is a complete failure. Ironically, it's much the same objection that is also raised by anti-science religious fundamentalists. They think that saying something like, "There is an ON-GOING quest for the origin of life", somehow invalidates the idea of abiogenesis and the evolution of life. It's not enough to simply stop believing the claims of religious institutions. One has to stop thinking in the ways in which he/she was indoctrinated to think by said institution.
Foster Zygote
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Ooh! Forum pithing contest!
Belz...
Fiend God
Well he only speaks in certainties.
Well, let us examine writings of antiquity. The Jesus character was just a Ghost or a Hoax propagated by the illiterate.
1. Ignatius' Ephesians--- For our God, [Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Ghost..
2. 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..
3. Justin's Apology---we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union.
4. Irenaeus' Against Heresies---To this effect they testify, [saying, ] that before Joseph had come together with Mary, while she therefore remained in virginity, "she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
5. Tertullian's On the Flesh of Christ---A word of caution, however, must be addressed to all who refuse to believe that our flesh was in Christ on the ground that it came not of the seed of a human father, let them remember that Adam himself received this flesh of ours without the seed of a human father.
6. Origen's De Principiis---He assumed a body like to our own, differing in this respect only, that it was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit.
7. Hippolytus' Refutation of Heresies---- The Logos alone of this God is from God himself; wherefore also the Logos is God, being the substance of God.
There are several reasons why I think the above is a mistake.
Firstly, 1 - keep in mind that it is really not relevant what date we have for the oldest extant copy of anyone such as Justyn Martyr using the Septuagint (or any other copy of the OT) to reproduce a passage using the words “pierced” or “dug” or any other such word or sentence. Because what I am suggesting is not that Paul could find any such specific words or sentences actually originally written in the OT.
What I am saying is that Paul believed that the prophecies in the OT meant that a messiah named Jesus, the one and only true messiah, would be crucified by his own people.
Paul did not need to find any such specific written passage in any version of the OT. He simply believed that God had revealed to him that that was indeed what OT messiah prophecy actually meant.
2. The fact that the oldest surviving mention of that passage with those words may come from Justin Martyr c.150AD, by no means precludes the copyist writer of our oldest copy of any of Paul’s letters from c.200AD, using any pre-200AD source of those words to include the mention of Jesus being crucified.
That is - although you may wish to say that 150AD is too late for Paul to have known such OT words or sentences in 50-60AD, that is not necessarily relevant because (apart from other quite obvious reasons, see 3 below), we actually do not know precisely what Paul originally wrote c.50-60AD. What we have as the writing of Paul is not from 50-60AD but in fact from c.200AD, i.e. 50 years (and possibly much more) after that passage in Justyn Martyr.
3. If by c.150AD Justyn Martyr was supposed to have taken that passage from existing copies of the Septuagint or from any of the other Greek translations of the time, then clearly the passage must have already existed in those written Greek translations from a date prior to 150AD.
And afaik, the Septuagint and half a dozen or more similar Greek translations of the OT supposedly date back not to 150AD and the time of Justyn Martyr, but actually back to 300BC anyway! So if any of those Greek translations had anything at all like the “pierced” passage in Justyn Martyr, then obviously Jews in that region would have known that version of the passage from centuries before Paul was even born!
I don’t have to “believe” or guess anything about any such meeting. The fact of the matter is that afaik, Paul’s letters make no mention of any of those people telling him anything at all about Jesus. And nor for that matter does it seem Paul ever asked any of them anything about Jesus.
But on the contrary, what Paul’s letters do very clearly say is that he consulted no man about his Jesus beliefs, that his knowledge of Jesus was not of human origin, and that he believed Jesus had died and been raised according to scripture. He believed God had revealed that to him.
And when you say that James or Cephas or John could have told Paul about the crucifixion of Jesus, you are of course assuming that James, Cephas and John did in fact know that Jesus was crucified! They could not tell Paul about any such crucifixion unless they actually did know about a crucifixion, could they! So how did you conclude that any of those people really did already know that Jesus had been crucified? Because afaik, none of those people ever credibly wrote to say or show how they knew of the crucifixion, except as "knowing" it through their religious belief. You appear to be simply assuming that Jesus was indeed crucified and that that James, Cephas and John had known all about it.
Of course it is possible that others had believed in Jesus before Paul. But the fact of that matter is again (afaik) that before Paul nobody else is ever known to have claimed any belief in Jesus (crucified or otherwise) … Paul is the first person we know of ever even to mention Jesus as the messiah let alone claim he was crucified (assuming of course that we accept that Paul really did write about it c.50-60AD … if his letters actual post date the gospels, then the gospel writers would be the first to have mentioned Jesus).
I am not rejecting the methods used by historians in general. No doubt they do the best they can with what may often be very poor or highly dubious material.
What I am disputing is that bible scholars and theologians (who are the academics who write about Jesus) use methods which are objective enough, precise enough, and independent enough of the religious devotional biblical writing, to be regarded as comparable in their accuracy, reliability and trustworthiness to the research of other typical university academics, inc. for that matter mainstream historians researching other non-religious aspects of history in general.
IOW - I am not distrusting historians in general, I am distrusting bible scholars, theologians and Christian writers in general as impartial properly objective sources in the particular case of Jesus historicity/belief.
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eight bits
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David
In my earlier post today, I passed over the issue you raised at the bottom of in #4702.
But he was wounded for our sins, crushed for our iniquity. He bore the punishment that makes us whole, by his wounds we were healed.
(Note that Christians frequently translate the first "wound-" as "pierced," and the second as "stripes." As can happen with prophecy, something was found in the translation, instead of lost.)
So far as I know, it is uncontroversial that when Paul says "according to scriptures," there reliably is some formally matching Jewish scripture. Paul's brag about being good with the scriptures pans out. However, neither Hosea 6 nor Isaiah 53 are "necessarily" prophesies about the Messiah. Making that connection is Paul's exercise of his information-synthetic capacity; other Jews saw it differently than Paul did (and, of course, many still do).
In my earlier post today, I passed over the issue you raised at the bottom of in #4702.
You lost me. This case is different from what? Which case is this case? Hosea 6: 1-2 is an exact match of being raised on the third day. Do you mean "for our sins" in 1 Coritnthians 15? That's the "Suffering Servant" from Isaiah 53 at verse 5:
But he was wounded for our sins, crushed for our iniquity. He bore the punishment that makes us whole, by his wounds we were healed.
(Note that Christians frequently translate the first "wound-" as "pierced," and the second as "stripes." As can happen with prophecy, something was found in the translation, instead of lost.)
So far as I know, it is uncontroversial that when Paul says "according to scriptures," there reliably is some formally matching Jewish scripture. Paul's brag about being good with the scriptures pans out. However, neither Hosea 6 nor Isaiah 53 are "necessarily" prophesies about the Messiah. Making that connection is Paul's exercise of his information-synthetic capacity; other Jews saw it differently than Paul did (and, of course, many still do).
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Belz...
Fiend God
Just those you disagree with on religion-based grounds.
Serious scientists in core sciences like Physics, Chemistry, Maths, may not want to waste their time in worthless disputes about claims of the supernatural (inc. disputes about religious issues), but I can tell you from decades of personal research experience that except for certain religious scientists who do claim to believe in God (which cannot of course be reconciled with their own scientific understanding of anything), genuine sane scientists most certainly do reject claims of the supernatural (there are of course a few scientists who are either rather nutty and not actually completely “sane“, or else more often perhaps they are people who enjoy saying things which are irrational, insane, sensationalist, or just plain daft).
That is of course not the same as saying those sort of scientists in core sciences ever like to say anything is known as a matter of certainty. In fact, in theoretical physics we now believe that it's probably not the case that anything can ever be known literally as absolutely certain. Which is why, for example, you will never find any posts from me anywhere on the entire internet (or anywhere else) seriously making a considered statement to say that anything at all is truly "certain". But that is not to say that I would not reject claims of the supernatural.
The whole point of all known scientific discovery, inc. all known theories of chemistry and physics, is that there really is no room at all in any of those discoveries and explanations for the so-called "supernatural".
IOW - not only is it the case that science has never discovered any hint that the supernatural is even possible in any way at all. But more than that, every discovered theory in science, which now includes an explanation of almost everything imaginable, is actually incompatible with claims of the supernatural.
So whilst it may be true that "
Belief in the supernatural short circuits any actually explanation of the world as you can just say "a wizard did it". That is why science tries to avoid invoking the supernatural when perfectly mundane explanations are available.
The problem with much of the HJ theory is people try to prove too much--from trying to make Matthew and Luke agree, to saying the 3 hours of darkness was an actual event, to Jesus actually rose from the dead. Even if they use mundane explanations you still wind up with ad hoc theories--theories as untestable as anything out of the MJ camp.
This is why the minimal Jesus theory IMHO comes off as a last desperate attempt to salvage something out of the mess--make Jesus so minor no one of his time noticed him and have Paul and his followers via visions create an elaborate mythology around the man.
The issue with that idea is you effectively made the whole question of a HJ moot as if he was that minor he might as well not existed as the existence of Christianity as a major religion is due to Paul not Jesus. Also this theory makes Jesus even more of a Tabula Rasa then he is now as you can't tell what came from Jesus and what came out of Paul and company.
But, that is precisely what did not happen in the NT. Paul did not create an elaborate myth.
There is virtually nothing in the Pauline Corpus of the Life of Jesus.
Paul merely claimed he was a persecutor of the Faith, that Jesus was the Son of God and that he was a witness of the resurrection.
It was those before Paul who preached the Elaborate Myth.
If you use the NT or Apologetic writings then you will see that Paul was ALWAYS Last.
Paul ALWAYS comes AFTER Peter/Cephas, After James, after the Twelve, after Over 500 Persons.
1 Corinthians 15:8 KJV
The Pauline chronology in the NT is extremely important.
Why would that matter to you? You say Paul was an invention of 2nd Century Hoaxers.
Or has that changed again?
dejudge said:
What is your point?
I am merely giving an accurate reference of what is found written in the 2nd century or later writings.
The statements in the NT cannot be altered regardless of when they were fabricated. Paul claimed to be the LAST to be seen of the resurrected Jesus and that he Persecuted the Church.
1 Corinthians 15
In the NT, The Church of God was already established BEFORE Paul.
There is NO evidence of the Church of God pre 70 CE.
"Paul" persecuted the Church of God in the 2nd century or later.
The earliest actual recovered Pauline writings are dated to the 2nd century or later.
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No, Paul was persecuting and then Preaching while Jerusalem and the Temple were still standing.
James and Co were the Apostles of Jesus. Paul met them.
This is pretty basic stuff you are getting wrong here.
Very wrong.
You have NO actual recovered dated evidence --no recovered dated manuscript or Codex--that Paul was persecuting and preaching while the Temple was still standing.
You just assume the Bible is source of history for Paul--that's all.
Again, look at the actual list of recovered NT manuscripts.
I no longer accept assumptions and Chinese Whispers as evidence for the Pauline Corpus.
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