Historical Jesus
- Thread starter Ricardo
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Well that's enough for me. I know people get a kick out of constantly debating, I don't. I came to this thread to learn, and I have to say the knowledge here is exceptionall. Overall it means nothing but I am now totally not on the HJ side. The only evidence for HJ,is no evidence. As people have said I think we just grew up believing it was axiomatic that there was a Jesus. Evidence wise, the HJ people have actually shown me nothing that would make me think that way. Basically I'm a lurker here, learning from people with more knowledge than me. The thing is though it's not quantum physics, I can understand if someone points me in the right direction. The HJ argument here amounts to "well I think it might have been like this, or it makes sense like this etc. Ian and dejudge have given reasons why they believe what they do. I have done a full 180 degree turn, from thinking obviously Jesus existed, to now thinking nahh, he probably didn't
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Kapyong
Graduate Poster
Yup.
Many of us here would say the same - at first I believed the claims that the existence of Jesus was certain and proven.
Until looking at the evidence for myself and finding out there wasn't any good evidence at all.
Here is the real central argument of the Jesus believers :
Kapyong
The realization that there is no evidence of an HJ is just the beginning.
Once there was no HJ then, based on the evidence, the character had no chosen disciples/apostles, the so-called Paul was a figure of fiction and the Epistles are work of deception composed no earlier than the 2nd century.
Tassman
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And here you quote my comment that "it is reasonable to assume that some sort of charismatic figure existed who attracted followers". Conversely you seem to think that it is unreasonable to "assume that some sort of charismatic figure existed who attracted followers." I can only disagree.
Tassman
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But L Ron Hubbard, the founder of Dianetics existed which is the point.
We shall alert the Academy! Dejudge and IanS's opinions outweigh those of professional scholars and Historians from all around the world. Give up your studies, forget about all that complicated textual analysis and years of research into ancient history, because Dejudge and IanS disagree...
Seems legit.
Excellent, then maybe you will tell me the evidence for HJ, I am here to learn, so please educate me
OK. Lesson One:
Research Messianic beliefs in Second Temple Judaism.
Lesson Two:
Apply the knowledge from lesson one to textual analysis of ancient texts including the Pauline corpus.
Lesson Two-A:
Learn textual analysis.
Lesson Three:
Apply standard Historical methodology of determining the historicity of individuals in the ancient world to the question at hand.
If after completion of the course the student still finds the arguments of IanS and Dejudge convincing, the course has failed.
You can't condense this evidence? Pretend you're a teacher, like they don't just tell students to go study it, they explain. I mean what do you post here for if not to explain your viewpoint to people like me? Your mind is set, so is dejudge et al, so why post if not to educate mere mortals like me? just like hearing your own thoughts?
The problem is that to learn this stuff you need to research it yourself. Why would you take my word for anything? I'm just an anonymous bloke on the internet.
Having said that, a few years ago I started a thread laying out my thoughts on the subject: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=267096
Basically I follow Robert Eisenman's hypothesis about James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls. He posits that Paul was a member of Herod's royal family and that Paul's version of Messianism (Christ Jesus) was a deliberate attempt to hijack the growing Jewish Messianism which was a revolutionary movement.
It's a bit complicated, but he makes more sense to me than Richard Carrier.
But the "god" in his religion (Xenu) doesn't.
Jesus is the Christian god not the founder like Hubbard. The issue with a HJ is there is simply no evidence of a non-god Jesus starting a religion outside the texts of the religion, and as can be seen here no one believes they are factual!
The nearest character we get to a founder of Christianity i.e. its Hubbard is "Paul" and as you'll have seen here there are huge problems with him and his apparent evidence.
clayflingythingy
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I have always found it odd how you champion the consensus regarding HJ but have latched onto Robert Eisenman which the consensus rejects. Doherty/ Carrier present a straightforward explanation of MJ. Eisenmen not so much for his ideas.
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Carrier's MJ raises more questions than it answers. He doesn't convince me.
Eisenman's research is thorough, his arguments convincing and the academic criticism of his work, that I've seen, always seems to be arguing against a strawman or basic misunderstanding. Either that, or they criticise the man himself, classic ad-hom. and ignore his hypothesis and the volumes of evidence he uses to support it.
Just because I agree that a HJ is more likely than not, does not mean I blindly follow whatever "The Consensus" dictates.
No, you added that, it’s pure projection. It is reasonable to assume that.
It’s just that a reasonable assumption is not evidence.
It’s reasonable to assume your kid took the last cookie. But there are other people in the house who could have done it. Your reasonable assumption is neither evidence nor proof.
Your basis here would be ‘I know my kid likes cookies.’ Inference, I think? But you have no crumbs on the fingers.
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Please, stop wasting time. It is already known that there is no historical evidence to support an HJ argument.
Those who argue for an HJ, Scholar or not, simply use the NT to invent their own Jesus.
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/julian_apostate_galileans_1_text.htm
Julian "Against Galileans"
The stories of Jesus, the disciples and Paul are monstrous fables [fiction of men].
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It is always unreasonable to make assumptions especially without evidence.
Delvo
Дэлво Δε&#
The post that originally brought up the "assume" issue used the wrong word. It was actually referring to an inference.
An appeal to authority is a well known fallacious argument … unless of course the authority can produce genuine credible evidence to support his/her conclusions.
The problem in the case of Jesus is that biblical scholars have not produced any evidence of a living Jesus ever known to anyone at all.
Instead the biblical scholars rely almost entirely on the gospels and letters as their source of evidence, but in the gospels and letters none of the authors had ever known or witnessed any such real person as Jesus.
In fact if you take biblical scholars as your guiding authority, they all say that Paul's letters pre-date any of the gospels, so that the description of Jesus in those letters is the earliest description of Jesus. But in those letters, the only people who ever witnessed Jesus, witnessed him as a religious spirit in the heavens. Neither Paul nor anyone else named in the letters ever claimed to have witnessed Jesus as a real person walking about on the Earth.
The bottom line in all of this, is that despite the fact that biblical scholars, Christians, and theologians claim that there is abundant evidence of Jesus, it turns out that when asked, none of them can actually produce any genuine credible evidence at all. There simply is no genuine evidence of Jesus ever known to anyone.
But against that, whilst it was not known or understood in biblical times, and in fact not known or understood by most people until about 100 years ago with increasing education in modern science, there is now quite unarguable scientific evidence to show that such stories of miracles and the supernatural are fiction and superstitious make-believe … the Jesus stories are packed with untrue invention.
That is very strong evidence against the veracity of the biblical authors.
On top of that we now know from authors like Randel Helms that the earliest gospel writers, g.Mark and g.Mathew, were using the OT as a source for creating Jesus stories.
Whether Jesus was real or not, I do not know. But the evidence for his existence is really non existent. And the evidence showing all of the writing about him was myth-making, is overwhelming.
The problem in the case of Jesus is that biblical scholars have not produced any evidence of a living Jesus ever known to anyone at all.
Instead the biblical scholars rely almost entirely on the gospels and letters as their source of evidence, but in the gospels and letters none of the authors had ever known or witnessed any such real person as Jesus.
In fact if you take biblical scholars as your guiding authority, they all say that Paul's letters pre-date any of the gospels, so that the description of Jesus in those letters is the earliest description of Jesus. But in those letters, the only people who ever witnessed Jesus, witnessed him as a religious spirit in the heavens. Neither Paul nor anyone else named in the letters ever claimed to have witnessed Jesus as a real person walking about on the Earth.
The bottom line in all of this, is that despite the fact that biblical scholars, Christians, and theologians claim that there is abundant evidence of Jesus, it turns out that when asked, none of them can actually produce any genuine credible evidence at all. There simply is no genuine evidence of Jesus ever known to anyone.
But against that, whilst it was not known or understood in biblical times, and in fact not known or understood by most people until about 100 years ago with increasing education in modern science, there is now quite unarguable scientific evidence to show that such stories of miracles and the supernatural are fiction and superstitious make-believe … the Jesus stories are packed with untrue invention.
That is very strong evidence against the veracity of the biblical authors.
On top of that we now know from authors like Randel Helms that the earliest gospel writers, g.Mark and g.Mathew, were using the OT as a source for creating Jesus stories.
Whether Jesus was real or not, I do not know. But the evidence for his existence is really non existent. And the evidence showing all of the writing about him was myth-making, is overwhelming.
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