Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[dejudge]

Your claim is completely erroneous. You very well know that there is NO archaeological evidence, no artifacts and no pre 70 CE evidence for an HJ.

Richard Carrier an historian argues that Jesus is a figure of mythology.

Jesus is the probably the best attested MYTH character of all myths.

1. Ignatius claimed Jesus was God and born of a Ghost.

2. Aristides attests that Christians claimed Jesus was God from heaven.

3. Justin attests that Christians claimed Jesus was the Son of God born of a Ghost.

4. Irenaeus attests that Christians claimed Jesus was the Son of God and born of a Ghost.,

5. Tertullian attests that Christians claimed Jesus was the Son of God and born of a Ghost.

6. Origen attests that Christians claimed Jesus was God Incarnate born of a Ghost.

7. Hippolytus attests that Christians claimed Jesus was God Creator, the Logos.

8. Eusebius attests that Christians claimed Jesus was the Son of God born of a Ghost.

9. The author of gMatthew claims that Jesus was the Son of God and born of a Ghost.

10. A Pauline writer claimed that Jesus was the Last Adam--a Spirit.

This is all totally irrelevant.

This is not the kind of argument that shifts paradigms, dejudge.

Please get proper ones.

The paradigm has shifted already. The HJ argument has been exposed as a failure since its inception in the 18th century.

I am just exposing your absurd claim that "Jesus is as well, or better attested than many ancient people".

Your arguments are baseless or un-evidenced.

For hundreds of years , since the 2nd century Christian writers claimed Jesus, the Son of God, was born in Bethlehem of a Ghost and a Virgin, walked on the sea, transfigured, resurrected and ascended.

Today, such claims about Jesus are regarded as a Pack of Lies by Fake 1st century authors.

Lies and fiction are NOT accepted as attestation of historical events.

There is ZERO attestation of Jesus or the attestation of Jesus is like the attestation of the God of the Jews, Adam and Eve or Romulus and Achilles.


Jesus is by far the world's best attested Myth.

The Pauline writers documented their revelations from Jesus Son of God-the resurrected Spirit--the Last Adam.

 

[Brainache]

The paradigm has shifted already. The HJ argument has been exposed as a failure since its inception in the 18th century.

I am just exposing your absurd claim that "Jesus is as well, or better attested than many ancient people".

Your arguments are baseless or un-evidenced.

For hundreds of years , since the 2nd century Christian writers claimed Jesus, the Son of God, was born in Bethlehem of a Ghost and a Virgin, walked on the sea, transfigured, resurrected and ascended.

Today, such claims about Jesus are regarded as a Pack of Lies by Fake 1st century authors.

Lies and fiction are NOT accepted as attestation of historical events.

There is ZERO attestation of Jesus or the attestation of Jesus is like the attestation of the God of the Jews, Adam and Eve or Romulus and Achilles.


Jesus is by far the world's best attested Myth.

The Pauline writers documented their revelations from Jesus Son of God-the resurrected Spirit--the Last Adam.

It appears that this paradigm shift has happened, without actually shifting the paradigm as taught in Universities. How does that work?

It appears to be a lie that you are telling, dejudge, otherwise Historians around the world would be teaching this new paradigm, but they aren't.

Please stop lying.

 

[dejudge]

No but there is a larger body of literary evidence than many historical figures. That's Brainache's point, I believe.

You NEVER claimed to have had evidence for an HJ.

There is NO larger body of literary evidence for an HJ.

The Large body of evidence is about a character that was BORN of a Ghost

Your extremist views are preventing you from thinking about this topic dispassionately.

You NEVER claimed to have had evidence for an HJ.

Why can't you even remember what you wrote? You are not thinking about what you already said.

 

[Brainache]

You NEVER claimed to have had evidence for an HJ.

There is NO larger body of literary evidence for an HJ.

The Large body of evidence is about a character that was BORN of a Ghost



You NEVER claimed to have had evidence for an HJ.

Why can't you even remember what you wrote? You are not thinking about what you already said.

What makes you say these things?

Who put these ideas in your head?

Will you ever do a proper course of study to correct these errors?

 

[dejudge]

It appears that this paradigm shift has happened, without actually shifting the paradigm as taught in Universities. How does that work?

You must have forgotten that you yourself posted an article which states there is a DIVISION among historians.

You forgot that an Historian admitted NO-ONE has solved the HJ question.

You have forgotten that Harvard University is offering Courses on the On-Going Quest for an HJ.

It appears to be a lie that you are telling, dejudge, otherwise Historians around the world would be teaching this new paradigm, but they aren't.

Please stop lying.

Your argument is quite absurd. All Historians cannot be Lecturers or Professors.

The existence or non-existence of Jesus has absolutely nothing to do with the quantity of Universities.

Historians admit NO-ONE has EVER solve the HJ question or argue that Jesus was a figure of mythology.


The paradigm has already shifted. There are Historians willing to CONCEDE Agnosticism.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/4733

"There is a growing division, BTW, but it’s not yet wide…although I know other historians who privately confess they are willing to concede agnosticism about historicity but who won’t admit it in public, so the division is wider than we know–but until more go public, we can’t know how wide.

 

[Brainache]

You must have forgotten that you yourself posted an article which states there is a DIVISION among historians.

You forgot that an Historian admitted NO-ONE has solved the HJ question.

You have forgotten that Harvard University is offering Courses on the On-Going Quest for an HJ.



Your argument is quite absurd. All Historians cannot be Lecturers or Professors.

The existence or non-existence of Jesus has absolutely nothing to do with the quantity of Universities.

Historians admit NO-ONE has EVER solve the HJ question or argue that Jesus was a figure of mythology.


The paradigm has already shifted. There are Historians willing to CONCEDE Agnosticism.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/4733

Where is the evidence of this? All we have is an anecdote from Richard Carrier.

You still apparently are struggling with the concept of an Academic Consensus. That is not my problem.

The consensus exists, as Carrier points out there, and all your ranting to the contrary won't change it.

 

[Craig B]

There are Historians willing to CONCEDE Agnosticism.

According to you Ratzinger believes in a Historical Jesus!

Therefore according to you Ratzinger is a historian!

But Ratzinger was the Pope!

According to you Popes are AGNOSTIC!

According to you HJ atheists on this thread are Bible believers!

Therefore atheists BELIEVE in the Bible and the former Pope is AGNOSTIC!

So can I get his job? I like the outfits!

 

[maximara]

It really comes down to your definition of "Historical Fact".

Jesus is as well, or better attested than many ancient people that no one has any problem accepting as a fact. My favourite example is Pythagoras, look him up: No contemporary accounts. All writings about him are from centuries later and full of mystical religious nonsense.

Of course it’s true that the further we go back, eg to say 500BC, there are famous figures such as Pythagoras who we know little or nothing about except for what has been attributed to their name and made known through latter schools of philosophical ideas that were said to originate with a particular individual name such as Pythagoras.

Whether or not those ideas really did come from a single person named Pythagoras, we do not actually know, and afaik a lot of historians doubt that all the ideas were produced Pythagoras himself.

But we don’t bother to argue about whether Pythagoras was a real person who did indeed develop all (or any) of those ideas. Because what matters to history is not really whether this person Pythagoras was actually responsible for any of it , or even whether he was a real person of that name. What matters to history is that a group of philosophers around that time did quite definitely produce those particular philosophical ideas. And afaik, that is well known and indisputable from all sorts of early writing about the philosophical beliefs of the group known under the name Pythagoreans.

I would like to point out that Milo of Croton a documented six-time Olympic victor (540 BC-520 BCE) was a Pythagorean and is said to have personally saved Pythagoras life with his great strength (Poliakoff, Michael B. (1987). Combat Sports in the Ancient World. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp. 117–119, 182–183. ISBN 0-300-03768-6 (cloth); 0-300-06312-1 (pbk.)). So here we have unlike Paul regarding Jesus a contemporary who is said to have actually met the person in question.

So we have the old BS of there is more evidence for Jesus than for (insert famous ancient person here) and as usually it is shown to be unresearched twaddle.

 

[pakeha]

I would like to point out that Milo of Croton a documented six-time Olympic victor (540 BC-520 BCE) was a Pythagorean and is said to have personally saved Pythagoras life with his great strength (Poliakoff, Michael B. (1987). Combat Sports in the Ancient World. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp. 117–119, 182–183. ISBN 0-300-03768-6 (cloth); 0-300-06312-1 (pbk.)). So here we have unlike Paul regarding Jesus a contemporary who is said to have actually met the person in question.

So we have the old BS of there is more evidence for Jesus than for (insert famous ancient person here) and as usually it is shown to be unresearched twaddle.

I've never understood why HJ proponents try to make that argument fly.

 

[Belz...]

The paradigm has shifted already.

So now the majority of historians agree that Jesus was myth ? News to me. Do you have a link for that ?

There is NO larger body of literary evidence for an HJ.

Stop lying. I'm talking about the (possibly entirely fictional) new testament. It's evidence, whether you like it or not. Remember I said the evidence is terrible ? Well, terrible evidence is evidence.

Why can't you even remember what you wrote?

I remember what I wrote far better than you do.

 

[Brainache]

I would like to point out that Milo of Croton a documented six-time Olympic victor (540 BC-520 BCE) was a Pythagorean and is said to have personally saved Pythagoras life with his great strength (Poliakoff, Michael B. (1987). Combat Sports in the Ancient World. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp. 117–119, 182–183. ISBN 0-300-03768-6 (cloth); 0-300-06312-1 (pbk.)). So here we have unlike Paul regarding Jesus a contemporary who is said to have actually met the person in question.

So we have the old BS of there is more evidence for Jesus than for (insert famous ancient person here) and as usually it is shown to be unresearched twaddle.

What?

Who told this story of the Olympic Strongman saving Pythagoras' life?

Was it a contemporary tale? Or was it a folk story told generations later?

We have a story of Jesus being baptised by John The Baptist who was a real person. We have Josephus talking about the death of James the brother of Jesus. Josephus was contemporary with that event.

Once again Max, I don't think your argument is as good as you think it is.

 

[IanS]

I've never understood why HJ proponents try to make that argument fly.

Presumably they think it's true?

Another very similar argument often made in support of a HJ is the claim that many other people at the time were also said to have supernatural powers, e.g. most Roman emperors and various philosophers, and hence the miraculous nature of Jesus can be explained as being nothing particularly unusual and really just similar those other people. How convincing do you find that argument?

Perhaps a more interesting question is - why do you think people try to use arguments like that to propose a HJ?

 

[Brainache]

Presumably they think it's true?

Another very similar argument often made in support of a HJ is the claim that many other people at the time were also said to have supernatural powers, e.g. most Roman emperors and various philosophers, and hence the miraculous nature of Jesus can be explained as being nothing particularly unusual and really just similar those other people. How convincing do you find that argument?

Perhaps a more interesting question is - why do you think people try to use arguments like that to propose a HJ?

Perhaps, like you, they are unfamiliar with the historical Scholarship and Textual Analyses that lead professional Historians to conclude that there was an HJ.

Maybe that's it.

What leads you to disagree with all the world's experts in a subject you haven't studied?

 

[tsig]

I would like to point out that Milo of Croton a documented six-time Olympic victor (540 BC-520 BCE) was a Pythagorean and is said to have personally saved Pythagoras life with his great strength (Poliakoff, Michael B. (1987). Combat Sports in the Ancient World. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp. 117–119, 182–183. ISBN 0-300-03768-6 (cloth); 0-300-06312-1 (pbk.)). So here we have unlike Paul regarding Jesus a contemporary who is said to have actually met the person in question.

So we have the old BS of there is more evidence for Jesus than for (insert famous ancient person here) and as usually it is shown to be unresearched twaddle.

Odd how the HJers manage to parrot most of the Christian apologists talking points.

 

[Craig B]

Odd how the HJers manage to parrot most of the Christian apologists talking points.

Can you expand on that?

 

[tsig]

Can you expand on that?

JC better documented than Ceaser or Pythagoras or any other historical character. Check

Argument from authority-all Historians agree with the HJ. Check

Argument from embarrassment-no ancient Jew would believe in a crucified messiah. Check

Argument by ridicule-MJers are just like Holocaust deniers, 911 truthers........Check

 

[IanS]

JC better documented than Ceaser or Pythagoras or any other historical character. Check

Argument from authority-all Historians agree with the HJ. Check

Argument from embarrassment-no ancient Jew would believe in a crucified messiah. Check

Argument by ridicule-MJers are just like Holocaust deniers, 911 truthers........Check

Yep. And those are very similar points to the ones I posted before from G.A.Wells book (The Jesus Legend), where he lists about a dozen typical HJ claims that he often encounters and which almost all fall into the category of attempted character assassination trying to denigrate him or any other opponent instead of actually addressing the arguments. You can see all of that on almost every page here from the HJ people.

And through it all … still no reliable evidence of Jesus.

 

[Belz...]

JC better documented than Ceaser or Pythagoras or any other historical character.

I disagree about Caesar, but how is the argument wrong about Pythagoras or several (not any) other historical figures ? For many we have nary more than a single passage or paragraph.

Argument from authority-all Historians agree with the HJ.

Question: would you accept such an argument about relativity or the holocaust ? (just the argument, not the related evidence)

Argument from embarrassment-no ancient Jew would believe in a crucified messiah.

Is that really a Christian apologist argument, specifically ? Or do apologists just use it, too ?

Argument by ridicule-MJers are just like Holocaust deniers, 911 truthers........

There's a lot of that on both sides, tsig. HJers have been called closet christians, compared with creationists, etc.

 

[Craig B]

JC better documented than Ceaser or Pythagoras or any other historical character. Check

Argument from authority-all Historians agree with the HJ. Check

Argument from embarrassment-no ancient Jew would believe in a crucified messiah. Check

Argument by ridicule-MJers are just like Holocaust deniers, 911 truthers........Check

Argument by association. HJers are like Protocols of the Elders of Zion believers, or Bermuda Triangle nut cases .... check. I'll respond to the other categories later.

 

[dejudge]

According to you Ratzinger believes in a Historical Jesus!

Therefore according to you Ratzinger is a historian!

But Ratzinger was the Pope!

According to you Popes are AGNOSTIC!

According to you HJ atheists on this thread are Bible believers!

Therefore atheists BELIEVE in the Bible and the former Pope is AGNOSTIC!

So can I get his job? I like the outfits!

Bart Ehrman BELIEVES there certainly was an historical Jesus. See "Did Jesus Exist?"

Bart Ehrman is NOT an historian but claims he is.

Why does Bart Ehrman claim he is an historian when he is not?

See "Did Jesus Exist?" page 6 of the Introduction.

Bart Ehrman admits he BELIEVES the Bible, especially the Pauline writer who stated Jesus was NOT a man but was God's Son.

The Pauline writers are known LIARS based on Irenaeus, Aristides, Justin, Arnobius, Origen, Eusebius and Rufinus.

Why does Bart Ehrman believe known liars or known sources of fiction without a shred of corroboration?