Historical Jesus

[abaddon]

<snip for brevity>

We have no documented evidence for the existence of the vast majority of the entire human population over it's entire existence.

According to dejudge's argument, they could not have existed either.

That is how absurd his argument is.

Have we documentary evidence and contemporaneous evidence for Abdul the goat herder who lived and died uneventfully in the Levant in 200 BC? No, but I am pretty certain that such an individual probably existed.

Over the course of it's existence, something in the region of 120 billion modern humans have existed. Under dejudge's weird rules, we are supposed to accept that none of them did. At all.

 

[IanS]

This is simply a bald assertion totally unsupported by fact. There are numerous competent biblical scholars. Their overwhelming consensus is that Jesus the man existed (as opposed to the miracle-working god/man). And of the thirteen books of the New Testament attributed to Paul, seven of them are authentic.

What is your problem facing facts?

Apart from religious leaders themselves (Popes, Archbishops, Cardinals. Bishops etc.), almost the very last people who can be trusted as impartial sources for belief about a real historical Jesus, are the academics known as "Bible Scholars".

Almost all bible scholars are practising Chrsitians. And even the very few who have since discarded their religious faith, such as Ehrman and Avalos, freely admit that they entered that profession of Biblical teaching, purely and entirely because they were at that time highly devout religious believers. That is not a profession composed of impartial investigators. In fact it is almost 100% the very opposite of impartial when it comes belief in Jesus.

As for it being a "Fact" that 7 of the epistles were were written by Paul ... afaik, the actual fact is that we have no idea if that is true at all. What we actually have (apparently) is, from a total of 13 letters, 6 or 7 that appear to be written in sufficiently similar style that they may well be from one single source/writer ... but who that writer was we have no idea! It could just as easily be that one of the "fake" 6 or 7 letters was the only written by anyone named "Paul" ... it could just as easily be that none of them were written by any biblical figure known as Paul.

We have precisely no original writing known to be from Paul. So it's impossible to say that the 6 or 7 "genuine" letters match his style of writing.

 

[dejudge]

Please note, I have never expressed certainty. I think he probably existed, I could be wrong. You are definitely wrong though. You go so far as to state with certainty that not only did Jesus not exist but neither did his apostles nor Paul. Something virtually no relevant scholars agree with. You also don't seem to demand the same level of evidence for the existence of various other folks from history. Did Boudica exist? How many Chinese Emperors do you believe in? Lao Tzu, Sun Tzu, Confucius, Buddha, Ragnar Lothbruk and his Sons?

What contradictory nonsense you post!!! You have just expressed certainty by claiming that I am definitely wrong that Jesus, the disciples and Paul never ever existed.

In addition you write fiction,

I have stated multiple times that based on the existing evidence I have no reasonable doubt that Jesus, the disciples and Paul never ever existed.

If you can find historical evidence for Jesus, the disciples and Paul then I may review my position.

A. We have a number of biographies of this Jesus character. That is more evidence of his existence than the vast majority of people that existed prior to about 200 years ago.

You must be joking!!! You believe stories about a water walking, transfiguring, resurrecting son of a Ghost are biographies!!!

What about the biography of the devil?? Satan was a contemporary of Jesus in his biographies. Both of them were at the Jewish Temple in the time of Pilate!!! We have more evidence that the devil existed than the vast amount of people who existed prior to about 200 years ago!!!

B. Get rid of the supernatural elements and the story is actually so mundane as to be boring. So, not at all unlikely. I didn't make anything up, I just deleted the obvious fantasy and whats left is totally possible. I think probable. But again, I admit, it can not truly be known.

Again you post contradictory nonsense!!!

Your Jesus is fake- a misrepresentation of the NT Jesus character.

Your Jesus never ever existed at all.

You are no different to the Gospel authors. You use known established fiction stories to fabricate another fictitious character.

Can you remove all the supernatural elements from the devil and make him human??

The devil would be a mundane boring character!!!

 

[dejudge]

Apart from religious leaders themselves (Popes, Archbishops, Cardinals. Bishops etc.), almost the very last people who can be trusted as impartial sources for belief about a real historical Jesus, are the academics known as "Bible Scholars".

Almost all bible scholars are practising Chrsitians. And even the very few who have since discarded their religious faith, such as Ehrman and Avalos, freely admit that they entered that profession of Biblical teaching, purely and entirely because they were at that time highly devout religious believers. That is not a profession composed of impartial investigators. In fact it is almost 100% the very opposite of impartial when it comes belief in Jesus.

The Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis, declared Faith necessary for Bible Scholarship.
http://www.archivioradiovaticana.va...necessary_for_biblical_scholarship/en-1106410

However, the Pope said, biblical scholarship cannot remain on the level of dry academic scholarship. Quoting Saint John Paul II, Pope Francis said Catholic exegesis “must help the Christian people more clearly perceive the Word of God in these texts so that they can better accept them in order to live in full communion with God.”

Therefore, he continued, “not only academic competence, but also and above all faith is required of the Catholic exegete — [faith] received and shared with the whole believing people.”

As for it being a "Fact" that 7 of the epistles were were written by Paul ... afaik, the actual fact is that we have no idea if that is true at all. What we actually have (apparently) is, from a total of 13 letters, 6 or 7 that appear to be written in sufficiently similar style that they may well be from one single source/writer ... but who that writer was we have no idea! It could just as easily be that one of the "fake" 6 or 7 letters was the only written by anyone named "Paul" ... it could just as easily be that none of them were written by any biblical figure known as Paul.

We have precisely no original writing known to be from Paul. So it's impossible to say that the 6 or 7 "genuine" letters match his style of writing.

Precisely, precisely, precisely!!!

It is a logical fallacy to assume any letter was written by Paul because some appear to be written by the same person.

 

[abaddon]

Apart from religious leaders themselves (Popes, Archbishops, Cardinals. Bishops etc.), almost the very last people who can be trusted as impartial sources for belief about a real historical Jesus, are the academics known as "Bible Scholars".

Almost all bible scholars are practising Chrsitians. And even the very few who have since discarded their religious faith, such as Ehrman and Avalos, freely admit that they entered that profession of Biblical teaching, purely and entirely because they were at that time highly devout religious believers. That is not a profession composed of impartial investigators. In fact it is almost 100% the very opposite of impartial when it comes belief in Jesus.

As for it being a "Fact" that 7 of the epistles were were written by Paul ... afaik, the actual fact is that we have no idea if that is true at all. What we actually have (apparently) is, from a total of 13 letters, 6 or 7 that appear to be written in sufficiently similar style that they may well be from one single source/writer ... but who that writer was we have no idea! It could just as easily be that one of the "fake" 6 or 7 letters was the only written by anyone named "Paul" ... it could just as easily be that none of them were written by any biblical figure known as Paul.

We have precisely no original writing known to be from Paul. So it's impossible to say that the 6 or 7 "genuine" letters match his style of writing.

No, no, no. There are plenty of genuine biblical scholars doing plenty of good research into ancient texts, history and so forth.

What you refer to are theologians. They start out with the conclusion and then set forth to make EVERYTHING fit with the conclusion.

I often wonder. What is it that provokes someone, anyone into pursuing such an entirely pointless endeavour as a doctorate in theology.

Ego, perhaps.

 

[abaddon]

The Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis, declared Faith necessary for Bible Scholarship.
http://www.archivioradiovaticana.va...necessary_for_biblical_scholarship/en-1106410

Exactly why should anyone care what a cross dressing pedo apologist declared out of nowhere?

ETA: Six years ago no less. The RCC is noted for not being current, but I would have thought you could do better.

 

[abaddon]

Precisely, precisely, precisely!!!

It is a logical fallacy to assume any letter was written by Paul because some appear to be written by the same person.

What contemporaneous documentary evidence have you for this "other" author you claim?

None. None at all. By your argument then this "other" author never existed.

Am I wrong, or can you demonstrate this mysterious "other" author?

Surely you can, right? Otherwise you would never have made such a spurious claim. Right?

 

[HansMustermann]

Precisely, precisely, precisely!!!

It is a logical fallacy to assume any letter was written by Paul because some appear to be written by the same person.

But, again, it's the argument from fallacy, which itself is a fallacy, to conclude that therefore they you know they were written by someone else.

Let's assume the following argument A presented to support a conclusion C:

P1: Atoms are not conscious.
P2: Mr Snuggles is made of atoms.
therefore
C: Mr Snuggles is not conscious.

The argument is obviously false, because it's a textbook case of the Fallacy Of Composition. So the conclusion C that "Mr Snuggles is not conscious" is not conscious is still unsupported at the end of the day.

But it's the argument from fallacy to conclude that therefore you know it's NOT C, i.e., that Mr Snuggles IS conscious.

As it happens, Mr Snuggles is a teddy bear, so he's most certainly not able to do any data processing, much less be conscious. So, yes, the conclusion was still true, coincidentally.

(Well, probably less obvious if you're an animist. Items or even places can have a spirit there. E.g., if you're a Shinto, you can literally have stuff like the spirit of a hot spring.)

 

[HansMustermann]

More to the point, the reason you can still fall back to a provisional "no, it doesn't" for claims of the form "X exists" or "Y happened" (which are trivially equivalent) is Occam, NOT the soundness of the argument.

E.g., let's say I claim that the door switch on my fridge is broken, and there are some invisible elves living in my fridge, and it's really them that turn the light on and off. The real reason why you can default to "no, there aren't" isn't that whatever support I come up with for them is broken, but that it's extra entities that aren't needed to explain anything. The simpler explanation -- as in, involving less entities -- is that the door's circuit is working after all.

And even then that's provisional, as in, if more evidence becomes available, we may actually need extra entities to explain it. Or not. We'll decide when we see the evidence and argument.

But when you have a sect that must have been founded by SOMEONE, postulating that no, it was some other guy than Paul who founded it AND some second guy later making up Paul, now it's you who are multiplying the entities without explaining anything extra. The Occam conform thing to do is to reject YOUR postulates, if you don't present evidence that actually can't be explained without the extra entities.

So, yes, you can help yourself to the burden of proof. You don't get to reverse it.

 

[Tassman]

Apart from religious leaders themselves (Popes, Archbishops, Cardinals. Bishops etc.), almost the very last people who can be trusted as impartial sources for belief about a real historical Jesus, are the academics known as "Bible Scholars".

Clerics obviously have a vested interest. But biblical/historical scholars can be assessed by the quality of their work.

We have precisely no original writing known to be from Paul. So it's impossible to say that the 6 or 7 "genuine" letters match his style of writing.

Well I guess one can argue that the seven “authentic” epistles are demonstrably by the same person and that there is no good reason to think it wasn’t Paul. Who else would they be from? I’m all for skepticism, but there is no point in skepticism for skepticism’s sake.

 

[HansMustermann]

There are plenty of people they could be from. That's not the problem. The problem is that it multiplies entities, including not just who wrote them, but also:
- so then WHO baptized the first people in Corinth
- since forgeries are in the name of people with more authority -- specifically the auctoritas kind in the classical roman empire -- so who was the "Paul" that these people thought had some authority, and/or
- so who made up that original Paul
- exactly who went around convincing people from churches totally not founded by Paul that they had been actually founded by Paul, and how would you even do that?

And it doesn't explain anything extra. What would be different? What would be unexplainable if some schizophrenic guy actually did hallucinate a ghostly Jesus, and went around preaching messages from his imaginary friend, and baptizing people in the name of his imaginary friend?

I'm all for accepting more complex explanations if they actually explain the evidence better. But otherwise it just fails Occam.

 

[dejudge]

But, again, it's the argument from fallacy, which itself is a fallacy, to conclude that therefore they you know they were written by someone else.

Let's assume the following argument A presented to support a conclusion C:

P1: Atoms are not conscious.
P2: Mr Snuggles is made of atoms.
therefore
C: Mr Snuggles is not conscious.

The argument is obviously false, because it's a textbook case of the Fallacy Of Composition. So the conclusion C that "Mr Snuggles is not conscious" is not conscious is still unsupported at the end of the day.

But it's the argument from fallacy to conclude that therefore you know it's NOT C, i.e., that Mr Snuggles IS conscious.

As it happens, Mr Snuggles is a teddy bear, so he's most certainly not able to do any data processing, much less be conscious. So, yes, the conclusion was still true, coincidentally.

(Well, probably less obvious if you're an animist. Items or even places can have a spirit there. E.g., if you're a Shinto, you can literally have stuff like the spirit of a hot spring.)

What absolute rubbish you post!!!

Scholars admit the so-called Pauline Epistles have multiple authors so it is an argument from fallacy for them to claim some of them were really authentic.

It is completely impossible to identify the true author of any NT writing when it cannot even be corroborated when any of them really lived.

And what is even more ridiculous some Scholars also admit that some Epistles that they claim are authentic have been manipulated which means that the existing Epistles are not really authentic and the original contents and author cannot ever be known.

 

[dejudge]

More to the point, the reason you can still fall back to a provisional "no, it doesn't" for claims of the form "X exists" or "Y happened" (which are trivially equivalent) is Occam, NOT the soundness of the argument.

E.g., let's say I claim that the door switch on my fridge is broken, and there are some invisible elves living in my fridge, and it's really them that turn the light on and off. The real reason why you can default to "no, there aren't" isn't that whatever support I come up with for them is broken, but that it's extra entities that aren't needed to explain anything. The simpler explanation -- as in, involving less entities -- is that the door's circuit is working after all.

And even then that's provisional, as in, if more evidence becomes available, we may actually need extra entities to explain it. Or not. We'll decide when we see the evidence and argument.

But when you have a sect that must have been founded by SOMEONE, postulating that no, it was some other guy than Paul who founded it AND some second guy later making up Paul, now it's you who are multiplying the entities without explaining anything extra. The Occam conform thing to do is to reject YOUR postulates, if you don't present evidence that actually can't be explained without the extra entities.

So, yes, you can help yourself to the burden of proof. You don't get to reverse it.

Again, your post is quite illogical.

In the NT itself the character called Paul was not the founder of the Jesus cult. In the NT the so-called author called Paul claimed he was the PERSECUTOR of the Jesus cult.

In the NT the faith was preached before his supposed conversion was fabricated.

Galatians 1:23

But they had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed.

1 Corinthians 15:9

For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

In the Epistle, the supposed Roman Church was already known throughout the whole world before the letter was written.

Romans 1:8

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.

There is no historical evidence anywhere that the Jesus cult existed and Epistles to Churches were written by anyone or Church before the Fall of the Jewish Temple c 70 CE.

 

[HansMustermann]

What absolute rubbish you post!!!

Scholars admit the so-called Pauline Epistles have multiple authors so it is an argument from fallacy for them to claim some of them were really authentic.

It was pretty obvious by now you're just doing the cargo cult thing, where you think just mindlessly repeating some words you don't understand makes you too a cool skeptic, but this is pretty much all the confirmation anyone needs. That doesn't mean what you think it does, silly. Bonus points for having been given a link and a detailed explanation for what that means TWICE. But no, you don't actually read it, you just appropriate one more "cool" phrase you don't understand.

But basically that's what best sums up your "logic" so far: cargo cult. You don't understand the burden of proof, you don't understand occam, etc, but seem to think that just repeating some phrases you don't understand is enough. It isn't.

So, you know, speaking of "What absolute rubbish you post!!!"... yep, that's all you contribute once again

It is completely impossible to identify the true author of any NT writing when it cannot even be corroborated when any of them really lived.

So, just repeating the same dumb criterion that doesn't even work, right? Just saying it one more time will obviously make it true, right?

And what is even more ridiculous some Scholars also admit that some Epistles that they claim are authentic have been manipulated which means that the existing Epistles are not really authentic and the original contents and author cannot ever be known.

That argument is so nonsensical, it's trivial to find a counter-example. E.g., we also know that Josephus's work contains later interpolations -- e.g., the Testimonium Flavianum in the "Antiquities of the Jews" -- but concluding that because you found an interpolation, it means the whole "Antiquities of the Jews" is not authentic and the author is unknown, would be terminally idiotic.

 

[HansMustermann]

Again, your post is quite illogical.

In the NT itself the character called Paul was not the founder of the Jesus cult. In the NT the so-called author called Paul claimed he was the PERSECUTOR of the Jesus cult.

In the NT the faith was preached before his supposed conversion was fabricated.

So, again, you ignore what was told to you repeatedly before, and think that just repeating the same nonsense assertion over and over again is gonna cut it. The claim never was that Paul founded Xianity as a whole, so you're chasing a strawman. As usual. The claim was that he founded the gentile-oriented sub-sect of it, and more specifically certain chapters of it, like the one in Corinth.

But yeah, by all means, do continue to post the same strawmen and assorted non-sequiturs. Wouldn't want you to actually bother reading stuff before jumping to post

 

[dejudge]

...Well I guess one can argue that the seven “authentic” epistles are demonstrably by the same person and that there is no good reason to think it wasn’t Paul. Who else would they be from? I’m all for skepticism, but there is no point in skepticism for skepticism’s sake.

You seem to forget that you have admitted you are guessing.

You have no good reason at all - just speculation.

 

[HansMustermann]

You seem to forget that you have admitted you are guessing.

You have no good reason at all - just speculation.

Projecting much?

 

[dejudge]

And what is even more ridiculous some Scholars also admit that some Epistles that they claim are authentic have been manipulated which means that the existing Epistles are not really authentic and the original contents and author cannot ever be known.

That argument is so nonsensical, it's trivial to find a counter-example. E.g., we also know that Josephus's work contains later interpolations -- e.g., the Testimonium Flavianum in the "Antiquities of the Jews" -- but concluding that because you found an interpolation, it means the whole "Antiquities of the Jews" is not authentic and the author is unknown, would be terminally idiotic.

How absurd can you be!!!

Josephus is an accepted figure of history whose life is documented and his writings have been found to be historically corroborated however Saul/Paul is found in the useless fiction called Acts of the Apostles and in letters associated with forgeries, false attribution or falsehood.

It is also claimed that the stories of Jesus in the Epistles are products of multiple hallucinations or perhaps multiple unknown hallucinators.

The so-called Pauline Epistles are completely without corroboration in or out the NT. Everything about Jesus in the Epistles are total lies.

 

[ahhell]

Clerics obviously have a vested interest. But biblical/historical scholars can be assessed by the quality of their work.



Well I guess one can argue that the seven “authentic” epistles are demonstrably by the same person and that there is no good reason to think it wasn’t Paul. Who else would they be from? I’m all for skepticism, but there is no point in skepticism for skepticism’s sake.

You seem to forget that you have admitted you are guessing.

You have no good reason at all - just speculation.

Also, demonstrates an inability to understand figures of speech.

I no longer have any doubt that Jesus existed, therefore, he must have existed. But wait, he can't have existed because dejudge has no doubt the he didn't.

Your certainty and faith does not make something true. If it did, then Jesus existed and was resurrected, after all, there are millions of people who are certain of that.

The so-called Pauline Epistles are completely without corroboration in or out the NT. Everything about Jesus in the Epistles are total lies.

Among the many words that dejudge uses without actually knowing what they mean, logic.

Without corroboration does not mean false or lies. I own a red car. You have no corroboration of that fact, I guess its a lie? Again, there are about half of the epistles attributed to Paul that the expert consensus agrees were written by the same person. As we don't know who, how do you know they weren't written by Paul? Who were the written by? All that can be said for certain is that they weren't all written by the same person. You can not say with certainty that they wern't written by Paul.

 

[dejudge]

Also, demonstrates an inability to understand figures of speech.

I no longer have any doubt that Jesus existed, therefore, he must have existed. But wait, he can't have existed because dejudge has no doubt the he didn't.

Your certainty and faith does not make something true. If it did, then Jesus existed and was resurrected, after all, there are millions of people who are certain of that.

Your post is just nonsense. You made up your un-important Jesus from fiction stories in the NT. Your Jesus never ever existed.

Among the many words that dejudge uses without actually knowing what they mean, logic.

Without corroboration does not mean false or lies. I own a red car. You have no corroboration of that fact, I guess its a lie? Again, there are about half of the epistles attributed to Paul that the expert consensus agrees were written by the same person. As we don't know who, how do you know they weren't written by Paul? Who were the written by? All that can be said for certain is that they weren't all written by the same person. You can not say with certainty that they wern't written by Paul.

Again, you don't make any sense. How ridiculous can you be!!!

If you claim to own a red car I would not claim that I have no reasonable doubt that you have a red car without corroboration.

How could NT Paul write Epistles when the character never ever existed?

Again, based on the existing evidence, the so-called Pauline Epistles were written, by unknown fraudsters, after c 175 CE or after "True Discourse" attributed to Celsus.