Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[dejudge]

The HJ argument has NOTHING whatsoever to do with Carrier or Doherty.

Whether or NOT Carrier or Doherty even existed the HJ argument had ALREADY started and Failed multiple times.


The HJ argument was initiated in the 18th century and is argument AGAINST the NT Jesus.

No HJ has ever been found due to lack of evidence for hundreds of years.

In fact, Today there is an On-Going Quest for an HJ which is PROOF that NO HJ and NO evidence has ever been found since the 18th century.

The HJ QUESTERS are now on their THIRD attempt which recently started about 30 years ago--Nothing has changed.

HJ is still a dead end argument.

The ridiculousness of this argument should be apparent to anyone following this thread.

It is still as useless as it ever was and your constant repetition of it is doing it no favours.

Education is the answer to your problems. Give it a go.

You are wasting your time because you have no evidence for YOUR dead un-evidence HJ argument.

It does not matter one bit what you post about me.

The history of the Failed HJ QUEST has been exposed.

The QUEST for HJ is a total failure after hundreds years.

No HJ has ever been found.

The HJ argument has fallen to pieces.

The HJ QUESTERS do not have any idea who they are looking for and are inventing multiple irreconcilable un-evidenced characters from their own imagination.

 

[Brainache]

You are wasting your time because you have no evidence for YOUR dead un-evidence HJ argument.

It does not matter one bit what you post about me.

The history of the Failed HJ QUEST has been exposed.

The QUEST for HJ is a total failure after hundreds years.

No HJ has ever been found.

The HJ argument has fallen to pieces.

The HJ QUESTERS do not have any idea who they are looking for and are inventing multiple irreconcilable un-evidenced characters from their own imagination.

No.

You are dead wrong. Sorry.

 

[dejudge]

You are wasting your time because you have no evidence for YOUR dead un-evidence HJ argument.

It does not matter one bit what you post about me.

The history of the Failed HJ QUEST has been exposed.

The QUEST for HJ is a total failure after hundreds years.

No HJ has ever been found.

The HJ argument has fallen to pieces.

The HJ QUESTERS do not have any idea who they are looking for and are inventing multiple irreconcilable un-evidenced characters from their own imagination.

No.

You are dead wrong. Sorry.

You don't know what you are talking about. You have nothing to offer on this thread but fallacies.

I am right. You have NO evidence from antiquity for Your HJ--the assumed obscure criminal.

Your HJ is NOT Plausible.

Your HJ is far worse than a Myth--it is unknown.

It is highly illogical that the Jesus cult of Christians and potential converts knew that Jesus of Nazareth was really a man who did not do anything in the NT yet worshiped him as a God.

HJ the obscure criminal does NOT make sense.

 

[Craig B]

... It is highly illogical that the Jesus cult of Christians and potential converts knew that Jesus of Nazareth was really a man who did not do anything in the NT yet worshiped him as a God.

Mmm. Well I think it might be possible to argue that these Christians did believe in the truth of the miracle stories, and that's why they worshipped Jesus. I must say I don't follow your argument--wait a minute, yes I do! To you the HJ people are Bible believers; Christians are Bible believers, ergo Christians are the same as HJers. It would be illogical for HJers to worship a non-miraculous Jesus; therefore it would be illogical for Christians to so so. Is that what's been going on in your brain? If it's something else, please enlighten me.

 

[dejudge]

You don't know what you are talking about. You have nothing to offer on this thread but fallacies.

I am right. You have NO evidence from antiquity for Your HJ--the assumed obscure criminal.

Your HJ is NOT Plausible.

Your HJ is far worse than a Myth--it is unknown.

It is highly illogical that the Jesus cult of Christians and potential converts knew that Jesus of Nazareth was really a man who did not do anything in the NT yet worshiped him as a God.

HJ the obscure criminal does NOT make sense.

Mmm. Well I think it might be possible to argue that these Christians did believe in the truth of the miracle stories, and that's why they worshipped Jesus. I must say I don't follow your argument--wait a minute, yes I do! To you the HJ people are Bible believers; Christians are Bible believers, ergo Christians are the same as HJers. It would be illogical for HJers to worship a non-miraculous Jesus; therefore it would be illogical for Christians to so so. Is that what's been going on in your brain? If it's something else, please enlighten me.

You have no evidence for your HJ. That is what is in my brain. I can't forget.

Now, Christians are typically HJers--they believe Jesus existed WITHOUT a shred of corroborative evidence and rely on forgeries in Tacitus and Josephus.

May I remind you of that the former Pope is a Christian Scholar and believes Jesus existed without any evidence.

Do you not believe Jesus existed?

Maybe you are the Pope!!

 

[Brainache]

You have no evidence for your HJ. That is what is in my brain. I can't forget.

Now, Christians are typically HJers--they believe Jesus existed WITHOUT a shred of corroborative evidence and rely on forgeries in Tacitus and Josephus.

May I remind you of that the former Pope is a Christian Scholar and believes Jesus existed without any evidence.

Do you not believe Jesus existed?

Maybe you are the Pope!!

You can't argue with logic like that Craig B.

Only dejudge can do that.

 

[Craig B]

May I remind you of that the former Pope is a Christian Scholar and believes Jesus existed without any evidence.

Do you not believe Jesus existed?

Maybe you are the Pope!!

Indeed. You may find the Pope's beliefs in his declaration Dominus Jesus, published in 2000.

... the full and complete revelation of the salvific mystery of God is given in Jesus Christ. Therefore, the words, deeds, and entire historical event of Jesus, though limited as human realities, have nevertheless the divine Person of the Incarnate Word, “true God and true man” as their subject. For this reason, they possess in themselves the definitiveness and completeness of the revelation of God's salvific ways, even if the depth of the divine mystery in itself remains transcendent and inexhaustible.

And that's what HJers believe, isn't it?

 

[pakeha]

...
You seem not to realize or have forgotten that there are Christians posting on these threads.

. ...

And?

 

[dejudge]

...
You seem not to realize or have forgotten that there are Christians posting on these threads.

And?

And?...you can't remember anything you posted?

You are going to need a good memory.

"You suspect Jesus Christ, the Son of God was based on a real Christ and real Son of God?"

No way. I think you'll find there's no one here who does, dejudge.

You seem to have forgotten that Christians post here and argue that Jesus was really as described in the NT.

 

[dejudge]

May I remind you of that the former Pope is a Christian Scholar and believes Jesus existed without any evidence.

Do you not believe Jesus existed?

Maybe you are the Pope!!

Indeed. You may find the Pope's beliefs in his declaration Dominus Jesus, published in 2000. And that's what HJers believe, isn't it?

Are you denying that people who argue that Jesus existed are NOT HJers?

Do not HJers believe Jesus existed?

Why are you giving the erroneous impression that all HJers believe the same HJ existed.

Please, please, please!!!

There are Multiple versions of HJ if you believe the wrong one existed then you may go to hell and burn forever according some other kind of HJers.

 

[Brainache]

Are you denying that people who argue that Jesus existed are NOT HJers?

Do not HJers believe Jesus existed?

Why are you giving the erroneous impression that all HJers believe the same HJ existed.

Please, please, please!!!

There are Multiple versions of HJ if you believe the wrong one existed then you may go to hell and burn forever according some other kind of HJers.

If I tell you that all apples are fruit.
And: All oranges are fruit.
Does it therefore follow that all apples are oranges?

Of course not.

Please educate yourself.

 

[Craig B]

Are you denying that people who argue that Jesus existed are NOT HJers?

I need to think about that. It's a bit convoluted.

Do not HJers believe Jesus existed?

Yes they do.

Why are you giving the erroneous impression that all HJers believe the same HJ existed.

I don't think they do. I'm the one who says I'm different from the Pope. You are the one who says we're the same person.

There are Multiple versions of HJ if you believe the wrong one existed then you may go to hell and burn forever according some other kind of HJers.

So you really can't distinguish atheists from the Pope? That's a real disadvantage in a discussion of this kind.

Muslims are HM believers. So is Sam Harris. Therefore Sam Harris is a Muslim.

 

[David Mo]

David

Well, it is tricky to report your own view along with a survey of opposing views all in one dish. The view you attribute to others is not supported by the facts, as used in the reasons you cite to explain their conclusion. This raises a suspicion that your best-equipped opponents don't actually argue that way.

It is a problem with the "HJ scholarly consensus" that it comprises a mixed bag of "scholars." It is possible that some of them do advance the view you report for the reasons you cite. But if the reason is faulty, then one of us needs to point that out, and a search should begin for why other scholars, who don't make these mistakes, nevertheless draw the same conclusion (if they do).

It seems that the deficiencies of my English are creating some misunderstandings between you and me.

What you asked me to do is exactly what I did. First, I explained the reasons for the consensus on the relationship between John and Jesus -some non believer experts also support it-, and then I criticized them. Among the points of my criticism were some that I have read in the mythicists authors. So I do not know why ask me to do exactly what I've done. I suppose I didn't explain it clearly.

Another thing is if you want to deny that consensus exists. Sorry, that four or five scholars deny it does not mean that there is no consensus. Another thing is that it is valid or not.

Of course, Josephus doesn't comment on Christian thinking about baptism. We know that the idea of sacramental efficacy (that the Christian baptism ritual mitigates previous sins), is prevalent in the first few centuries of the Christian Era, long before any "evangelicals" show up. Jews do indeed wash for a variety of reasons, but the Christian movement was a largely Gentile affair even when Josephus was writing, and has not much looked back to its roots since then.

Perhaps I also failed to explain correctly this point. I was not matching the Johannine and Christian baptisms. Everybody remark some differences between them. I was starting with the idea that Christians had of the baptism of John in order to present a difficulty argument that I was intending to criticise. Not an inexistent assimilation between John's baptism and Christians' baptism.

 

[David Mo]

Except for the MJ theories that say Jesus was a c100 BCE Jewish preacher (Mead 1903)

Except for the MJ theories that are regarding the story of Jesus are having no more validity that the stories of Robin Hood and King Arthur rather then the man himself not existing (Doherty 1999, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J 1982, 1995)

Except for the MJ theories that were about Jesus as a historical myth (Remsburg 1909; Frazer per Schweitzer 1913, 1931)

Except for the MJ theories that are about a Jesus in the 1st century CE that doesn't fit the requirements of "taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded" (Robertson, John 1900, Wells, GA 1996 to present day)

Except for the MJ theories that are about "an historical but insignificant figure" (Wood 1934)

ALL of these have been called MJ at one time or another. You can't go Daffy Duck and shove the genie back into the lamp.

MJ as a whole does NOT mean what you claim it means and no amount of pulling your hat over your eyes and going 'la la la I can't hear you' is going to change that FACT.

To rephase Marshall 'We shall land in considerable confusion if we embark on an inquiry about the mythical Jesus position if we do not pause to ask ourselves exactly what is being talked about.'

I think you ougt to see this page: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Jesus_myth_theory#David_Strauss

You will see as you are quoting certain mythicists that aren't, in the sense given to the word mythicist in this forum and that you use.

 

[Brainache]

...
To rephase Marshall 'We shall land in considerable confusion if we embark on an inquiry about the mythical Jesus position if we do not pause to ask ourselves exactly what is being talked about.'

Why is it only you who is having this problem?

Everyone else decided years ago that for the purposes of these threads "Mythical Jesus" refers specifically to Carrier and Doherty's (etc) theories of a purely "Celestial Jesus".

Everybody else seems to know what we are talking about (except the occasional pop-in), why not you?

It's almost as if you think by defining the mainstream "HJ" as "MJ", you have made some point about something. Weird.

 

[pakeha]

Why is it only you who is having this problem?

Everyone else decided years ago that for the purposes of these threads "Mythical Jesus" refers specifically to Carrier and Doherty's (etc) theories of a purely "Celestial Jesus".

Everybody else seems to know what we are talking about (except the occasional pop-in), why not you?

It's almost as if you think by defining the mainstream "HJ" as "MJ", you have made some point about something. Weird.

Your post took me aback, Brainache, as I had no idea the HJ proponents had the license not only to define their own position and that of the MJ proponents, but to confine the discussion to an us vs. them format as well.

Speaking for the pop-ins, or at least, for this poster, when was this decision made?
And in the case such a decision was made, how it binding on us in this particular thread, or any other current thread here at JREF?

 

[IanS]

Well this is the same nonsense yet again from you, trying to claim I said all sorts of things which I never said at all. Why do you keep doing that?

Please quote where I ever said that I "agree with dejudge that the entire corpus of NT writings is a "hoax" ".
Where did I ever say any such thing at all in any HJ threads anywhere on this entire website?

Quote it please!

Where is it?

I inferred it from your statements. Either you don't agree with dejudge or you do agree with dejudge. But you're saying neither. Is that your version of the reductio ad absurdum reasoning?

You "inferred" it!? Right, so IOW - despite all your constant personalised accusations of all sorts of things (it‘s dozens of things now), if fact you can’t back up a single one of them with me saying anything of the kind at all, ever.

And by the way, these bogus and untrue diversionary accusations keep taking the discussion away from the glaringly obvious fact that in all of these threads (inc. the previous long Piggy thread), still not a single shred of any reliable credible evidence has even been produced outside of the biblical writing, which itself is only evidence of the 1st century fanatical religious beliefs of people who never knew anyone called Jesus and who themselves could never have possibly had any evidence that they could give of a Jesus unknown to all of them except through their religious faith in the prophecies of their Old Testament.

There is still no genuine evidence at all of anyone knowing Jesus.

And that position of completely zero credible or reliable evidence from anyone, has persisted from the very first post in all these HJ threads.

 

[Craig B]

Your post took me aback, Brainache, as I had no idea the HJ proponents had the license not only to define their own position and that of the MJ proponents, but to confine the discussion to an us vs. them format as well.

Speaking for the pop-ins, or at least, for this poster, when was this decision made?
And in the case such a decision was made, how it binding on us in this particular thread, or any other current thread here at JREF?

Of course anyone is free to use any definition they want, as long as they make known what it is. But confusion has arisen. Some people simply mean that Jesus didn't exist, therefore he was, by default, a "myth" in the sense of something that is said to exist, but doesn't. Others use the word in a stronger sense, that a pre-existing mystery story about a spiritual saviour developed prior to the gospels, and inspired them. These are two very different positions.

 

[Brainache]

Your post took me aback, Brainache, as I had no idea the HJ proponents had the license not only to define their own position and that of the MJ proponents, but to confine the discussion to an us vs. them format as well.

Speaking for the pop-ins, or at least, for this poster, when was this decision made?
And in the case such a decision was made, how it binding on us in this particular thread, or any other current thread here at JREF?

It just happens to be what the debate is about.

If you want to debate someone about the historical accuracy of the Gospel Stories, talk to DOC.

You want to debate the relative merits of HJ v MJ, come here.

The only alternative to the mainstream HJ that I know of is Carrier's MJ. If someone else has a MJ theory, I'd like to see it.

But Maximara wants to call all mainstream secular Historians MJ supporters, because they don't accept the Bible at face value. Then he conflates them with advocates of Carrier and Doherty's ideas, which they aren't. It is blatant dishonesty once again.

 

[zugzwang]

Of course anyone is free to use any definition they want, as long as they make known what it is. But confusion has arisen. Some people simply mean that Jesus didn't exist, therefore he was, by default, a "myth" in the sense of something that is said to exist, but doesn't. Others use the word in a stronger sense, that a pre-existing mystery story about a spiritual saviour developed prior to the gospels, and inspired them. These are two very different positions.

Yes, very different. I suppose one consequence of the two positions is that in the second case, early Christians would not have believed in a human Jesus, but explicitly in a transcendent and non-human one, crucified somewhere in the 'layered universe', but not on earth; whereas those in the first case, might have (mistakenly) believed in a human figure, who didn't actually exist. The word 'myth' is taking a bit of a battering.