The Jesus Myth, and it's failures

[pakeha]

At the end of the day, HansMustermann, isn't that actually the essence of the historical Jesus hypothesis, pace eight bits and Stone, two posters who have best explained the bases of that stance, IMO.

I'm not saying it's not a futile exercise by any means, but rather that as of today, the Feast of the Assumption of the BVM, we don't really have the means to determine decisively one way or another whether Jesus was a mythicised man or a humanised myth.

One thing that I DO find puzzling is the lack of Christian inscriptions, neither dedicatory not funerary nor nothing until after the mid third century, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[tsig]

pakeha

Thank you for the kind words.


tsig

Thank you for not accusing me of bibical literalism. However, you lost me


What does anybody not knowing something have to do with what the facts are? Or that Jesus would figure out what to do before his staff grasps the situation? There must be some reason why they work for him, and not the other way around.


IanS


Where were we going otherwise? I ask again, if you and I are in agreement that it is impossible for a writer to describe a natural person's activities in such a way that no imaginable supernatural being could do the same things, and we are further in agreement that either natural or supernatural characterization is possible for literary Jesuses, then aren't we done yet?


I haven't subtracted from the Marcan incident of the Feeding of the Five Thousand. I refrain from adding elements which are nowhere in the text and which are nonsensical.

Jesus played with some food that was in fact found onsite. He gives just that food, divided up, to the disciples for them to pass on. Blank space. People have eaten.

I am not the one saying that Blank space means that Jesus suspended the conversation of mass and energy. Mark didn't say he did, either. Mark didn't say anything about what happened during the blank-space interval. It's all on the reader who wants to read something into it.

All that's on the page is a description of a small troupe of people miming for a crowd the acts of dividing up a modest amount of food among themselves, and passing on pieces of that food to those around them. Really, that's all that's on the page. What's on the page suffices for the problem to be solved, with all physical laws safely intact.

And, if it hadn't worked, then there is no chance whatsoever that we would have heard about the failure. Assuming, of course, it wasn't just fiction anyway (but fiction about human characters).

So we can just insert the words "blank space" where ever we want and ignore all the context and put what we want in the "blank space".

 

[eight bits]

Hans

Most recently we've been discussing the Feeding of the Five Thousand pericope, according to Mark. That's 6: 34-44.

You're taking what the story actually says, and adding and removing parts to get your own story.

I am describing what is on the page. If you disagree, then you need only cite and recite the verses in that pericope which describe any violation of the conservation of mass or energy, or of any other principle of science. It shouldn't be any harder that working out, say, whether Mark says that Jesus wore a purple outfit to his crucifixion. You did a fine job with that one.

There are only 11 verses to check, any unambiguous violation should be easy to find.

Here, let me help you.

6:34 When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

Nope.

6:35 By now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already very late.

Nope.

6:36 Dismiss them so that they can go to the surrounding farms and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”

Nope.

6:37 He said to them in reply, “Give them some food yourselves.” But they said to him, “Are we to buy two hundred days’ wages worth of food and give it to them to eat?”

Nope. (Their math might be a little shaky, though. That famous bottle of oil cost more than that, see 14:5. Maybe it's understatement.)

6:38 He asked them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out they said, “Five loaves and two fish.”

Nope.

6:39 So he gave orders to have them sit down in groups on the green grass.

Nope. (Interesting pronoun reference confusion, though, both here and at 37. Mark is notoroious for that.)

6:40 The people took their places in rows by hundreds and by fifties.

Nope.

6:41 Then, taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to [his] disciples to set before the people; he also divided the two fish among them all.

Nope. But here's the blank space.

6:42 They all ate and were satisfied.

Nope.

6:43 And they picked up twelve wicker baskets full of fragments and what was left of the fish.

Nope. (I wonder where the baskets came from. Why did people bring at least a dozen empty baskets to a deserted place? Or was there something in them, and then they were emptied, and now they're being filled again? Mark doesn't say. There's a lot of that in this pericope.)

6:44 Those who ate [of the loaves] were five thousand men.

And nope.

That's a wrap.

tsig

Yes, it is permissible to describe what is on the page. In this case there was some urgency, since you had quoted the juicier bit of Mark's pericope and apparently hadn't noticed what came between Jesus' perfectly possible special business and the routine end of the meal. Blank space.

 

[IanS]

IanS


Where were we going otherwise? I ask again, if you and I are in agreement that it is impossible for a writer to describe a natural person's activities in such a way that no imaginable supernatural being could do the same things, and we are further in agreement that either natural or supernatural characterization is possible for literary Jesuses, then aren't we done yet?

No, obviously I do not agree that the biblical description of Jesus can be thought of as that of a normal human person. It most definitely is not.

The Jesus described in Paul and the Gospels, is a supernatural messiah sent from a supernatural God in heaven who created the universe and created man etc. That is not a natural description of anything.

When I say that there may have course have once been a preacher who in some sense served as the basis of proto-Christian ideas that a long awaited messiah had already visited the earth but had passed largely unrecognised and persecuted by his own Jewish society, I am merely stating the “bleeding obvious” …. there might have been any number of such preachers long before the time of Paul.

But all we have from Paul is him preaching that people should believe in a messiah prophesised in his interpretation of what he thought the OT proclaimed about the necessary coming of the messiah.

The only minor mysteries in any of that are (a)why people came to believe that the messiah had already appeared in the past but gone largely unnoticed and unappreciated in his own time. And (b)where the name “Yehoshua (Jesus)” actually came from, ie why that particular name?

I have previously suggested possible answers to both those questions. But the essential fact remains that Paul appears only to be insisting upon the truth of OT scripture when he preaches about “Christ” the prophesised messiah.

 

[eight bits]

IanS

No, obviously I do not agree that the biblical description of Jesus can be thought of as that of a normal human person. It most definitely is not.

Then we disagree. For one thing, there is no "the biblical description of Jesus." There are plural Biblical descriptions of Jesus, many incompatible literary Jesuses.

John's description cannot be of a normal human person (he brought into being the matter that his mother comprised). The descriptions of a generation or two earlier, however, Paul's and Mark's, say outright that what woo things Jesus did, so will or did other folks. Since surviving orignal Mark only describes Jesus' acts performed before his crucuifixion, those things occurred during an ordinary human life, ended by death. Whatever this early Jesus did that was extraordinary was a teachable and learnable skill set that got results not because of who he was, but because of when he was. In fact, the actual capabilities are always available.

Within those diverse writings which would later be bound together in the NT, both natural and supernatural characterizations of Jesus occur. Koranic Jesus is different still, both less divine and also less natural than John, and modern literary Jesuses are cranked out by the yard: gay, married with kids, zealot, magician, nobody, ... whatever you like, we have at least two in stock.

I see you have some other questions about Paul, which appear to be addressed to the community at large, so I'll let you go to ponder those questions with whoever has your answers.

 

[HansMustermann]

At the end of the day, HansMustermann, isn't that actually the essence of the historical Jesus hypothesis, pace eight bits and Stone, two posters who have best explained the bases of that stance, IMO.

Well, yes, it is. I'm just still not impressed, since it works from the wrong direction. You don't get evidence to support that Jesus was a real person, but actually need to first assume that there is stuff in there based on <insert personal flavour of Jesus> and then based on that, remove or change anything that contradicts that. Doing that for a mundane non-miraculous Jesus is no different from a logical standpoint from when DOC does it to find a Son Of God. Both assume a certain Jesus and then use the parts of the text that are compatible with the initial assumption.

Now in all fairness, historians do use that process all the time, but usually have other criteria to support the initial assumption.

Something that appears in just one text, and at that to make the author's point, is routinely not taken for real and there is no trying to filter the text from there to find the compatible bits. See Timaeus. Precisely because such a supposedly great philosopher seems to have left no other traces than starring in Plato as a character that talks at length about Plato's viewpoint, he's generally taken to not have existed.

One thing that I DO find puzzling is the lack of Christian inscriptions, neither dedicatory not funerary nor nothing until after the mid third century, correct me if I'm wrong.

AFAIK that's actually incorrect, but at the same time, kinda correct. Early Christians used other symbols, like for example the fish. So you're not going to find a tomb with a big ol' cross. They also routinely called themselves "chrestians" (basically the good people, the useful, or also used for servants of an oracle or such) instead of "christians".

You have to also realize though that

A) the growth of Christianity was nowhere near as explosive as apologists claim, and even modern church-affiliated historians will say it was actually in line with the growth of other religions. In the first two centuries, it was barely in the thousands of people, if even that. Paul's congregations in some city or another fit in someone's living room, for example. So, yeah, you won't find whole cemeteries full of Christians back then.

B) after Nero, they were a bit more circumspect about being in-your-face Christian.

 

[pakeha]

The descriptions of a generation or two earlier, however, Paul's and Mark's, say outright that what woo things Jesus did, so will or did other folks. Since surviving orignal Mark only describes Jesus' acts performed before his crucuifixion, those things occurred during an ordinary human life, ended by death. Whatever this early Jesus did that was extraordinary was a teachable and learnable skill set that got results not because of who he was, but because of when he was. In fact, the actual capabilities are always available. ...

Something like Reiki or firewalking?

Well, yes, it is. I'm just still not impressed, since it works from the wrong direction. You don't get evidence to support that Jesus was a real person, but actually need to first assume that there is stuff in there based on <insert personal flavour of Jesus> and then based on that, remove or change anything that contradicts that. Doing that for a mundane non-miraculous Jesus is no different from a logical standpoint from when DOC does it to find a Son Of God. Both assume a certain Jesus and then use the parts of the text that are compatible with the initial assumption.

Thanks for expressing my thought so much more eloquently. There's only one exception to that, one Davefoc reminded me of in another thread.
I refer to Paul's relation with Cephas.
Still, we're concentrating on the Markan passage here and I don't mean to veer off-course.

AFAIK that's actually incorrect, but at the same time, kinda correct. Early Christians used other symbols, like for example the fish. So you're not going to find a tomb with a big ol' cross. They also routinely called themselves "chrestians" (basically the good people, the useful, or also used for servants of an oracle or such) instead of "christians".

You have to also realize though that

A) the growth of Christianity was nowhere near as explosive as apologists claim, and even modern church-affiliated historians will say it was actually in line with the growth of other religions. In the first two centuries, it was barely in the thousands of people, if even that. Paul's congregations in some city or another fit in someone's living room, for example. So, yeah, you won't find whole cemeteries full of Christians back then. ...

Do you have any examples of those early inscriptions?
I couldn't find any earlier than the ones mentioned here
http://www.livescience.com/16319-earliest-christian-inscription-pagan-artifacts.html
or here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inscription_of_Abercius

Nero?
Don't tell me you believe that Tacitus propaganda!

 

[Ketyk]

I'm going to subscribe to this thread, but only to gather knowledge.

 

[eight bits]

Hans

... and then based on that, remove or change anything that contradicts that.

Many other half-way interesting information-fusion problems involve uncertain inference informed by contradictory, possibly inaccurate and.provably incomplete sources. So what?

Contradictory, possibly inaccurate and provably incomplete sources are the only kind that will ever be discussed here. You know that, so does everybody else. Get over it.

Doing that for a mundane non-miraculous Jesus ...

That's not a "flavor" of Jesus, "non-miraculous" is part of what the word historical means. If a historical Jesus was anything other than mundane, then we wouldn't be spending so much time discussing whether he existed at all.


pakeha

If you're looking for something in stone, then inscriptions are hard to date. You read about the problems surrounding what may be the earliest confident Christian inscription (repeating your link):

http://www.livescience.com/16319-earliest-christian-inscription-pagan-artifacts.html

Maybe it's Second Century; maybe it's later but using a faux-antique lettering style.

(I don't see a huge problem in the "bridal chamber" motif being "pagan," since that figure of speech has attested Christian usage as well, as the article points out.)

Something like Reiki or firewalking?

Yes. Especially Reiki. The founder, Mikao Usui, got his start as an adult while having an epiphany after repentant fasting, very possibly while under a waterfall. It's the same basic image as Jesus' first day in his new job, including the hardly-worth-mentioning career before that moment:

http://www.reiki.org/faq/historyofreiki.html

As the same source notes in passing, commenting about Usui's "Saint Paul," Mrs Takata, quasi-apostle to the non-Japanese:

In the course of researching the origins of Reiki, I learned that Mrs. Takata took liberties with the history of its development.

Mikao Usui is a handy canonical example of the difficulties of recovering the biographical details of even a recent and undisputedly real spiritual leader, across cultural barriers and where some of the principal sources are his surviving admirers. There is also an interesting Christian "hijacking" of his movement, discussed here:

http://reikiinmedicine.org/popular/mikao-usui-reiki-healing/

 

[pakeha]

^
I confess I used the Reiki example with full knowledge of its chicanery-swaddled origins. Yesterday, by a pleasing co-incidence, was dr. Usui's birthday, as testified by his burial stele.

In any case, the parallels of the Reiki movement with the early church are striking, to say the least.

Firewalking is another technique used by godmen around the world to wow the paying public/filigreses.

I see your point about the stone inscriptions, of course. Even so, I find that absence of Christian inscriptions interesting.
Just as I'm intrigued by the earliest Christian church found, one catering to Christian legionnaires.
http://tatumweb.com/blog/2005/11/08/megiddo-church-prison/

A more sober account of this remarkable archeological find is, of course, at wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megiddo_church_(Israel)

Anyway, off to learn more about Mark's story of the multiplication of the fish!

 

[eight bits]

Anyway, off to learn more about Mark's story of the multiplication of the fish!

In that case, I ought to tell you that the multiplication business is only in John 6: 1-15.

 

[pakeha]

Very true, O eight bits!

Still learning, here.

 

[HansMustermann]

Something like Reiki or firewalking?

The idea that Jesus was basically doing conjurer tricks is as old as the NT, but it still is MUCH less Occam-conform than assuming they were made up.

I mean, imagine that I were to tell you that my sister Maxine Mustermann bends spoons with her mind, and levitates, and walks on water, and generally is quite the paranormal miracle. Now you're a skeptic and all, so you probably won't believe that she can perform actual magic. But that still leaves you with two possibilities, not just one. And which would you say is more likely out of those two?

A) that my sister is some super-conjurer that nobody else ever heard of?

or

B) I'm making it up?

Now A involves a lot of study and instances of those tricks actually being performed, i.e., a bunch more entities than B. B just requires me to have an imagination, and maybe the chutzpah to lie to your face. If you don't have any data that requires explanation A and for which B is insufficient (e.g., you have corroborating sources that Maxine ever did that), Occam says: go with B.

And just for the record, it actually IS variant B. I made it all up. I don't even have a sister.

Do you have any examples of those early inscriptions?
I couldn't find any earlier than the ones mentioned here
http://www.livescience.com/16319-earliest-christian-inscription-pagan-artifacts.html
or here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inscription_of_Abercius

Not whole inscriptions, no. There may be a fragment from a 1st century tomb in Jerusalem, but otherwise we have mostly fish symbols and such for a while.

Nero?
Don't tell me you believe that Tacitus propaganda!

Well, I've said it before myself that libel was perfectly normal in Rome, if you could get away with it, so, yes, a lot of the imputations to various emperors and officials may well be propaganda. Still, there is the fact that apparently nobody really liked Nero, so he does at the very least seem to be the nasty kind of guy who might execute a bunch of people do divert attention from himself. Attention not meaning he set the fire, but people did seem to turn such major misfortunes into dissatisfaction and worry about the people in charge.

 

[HansMustermann]

That's not a "flavor" of Jesus, "non-miraculous" is part of what the word historical means. If a historical Jesus was anything other than mundane, then we wouldn't be spending so much time discussing whether he existed at all.

Yes, but my point is that the key word is: "part".

For something to count as the historical Jesus, it must be a dude that actually did exist, not only could exist. Ditto for the events or deeds surrounding him. Just that you can build a version that could have happened, doesn't really say much, since, again, we can do that for any other story.

E.g., if we remove the parts about talking to demons or being killed by them in Damascus, we have a very plausible and possible history of Abdul Alhazred, but that still doesn't mean he's historical.

Or about the event, assuming it IS based on Lovecraft's mom, sure, she could have gone and died in Damascus, but in reality she didn't.

That's my problem with such attempts at reconstructing what might have actually happened in one pericope or another, before having any valid or Occam-conform reason to assume anything at all actually happened there.

 

[pakeha]

The idea that Jesus was basically doing conjurer tricks is as old as the NT, but it still is MUCH less Occam-conform than assuming they were made up.

I mean, imagine that I were to tell you that my sister Maxine Mustermann bends spoons with her mind, and levitates, and walks on water, and generally is quite the paranormal miracle. Now you're a skeptic and all, so you probably won't believe that she can perform actual magic. But that still leaves you with two possibilities, not just one. And which would you say is more likely out of those two?

A) that my sister is some super-conjurer that nobody else ever heard of?

or

B) I'm making it up?

Now A involves a lot of study and instances of those tricks actually being performed, i.e., a bunch more entities than B. B just requires me to have an imagination, and maybe the chutzpah to lie to your face. If you don't have any data that requires explanation A and for which B is insufficient (e.g., you have corroborating sources that Maxine ever did that), Occam says: go with B.

And just for the record, it actually IS variant B. I made it all up. I don't even have a sister.

Hans, as you said, the charge of conjuring is as old NT itself, as is the charge of making it all up, IIRC.
In any case, almost any explanation is more likely than a supernatural one.

Not whole inscriptions, no. There may be a fragment from a 1st century tomb in Jerusalem, but otherwise we have mostly fish symbols and such for a while.

That's what I've been looking for, with no joy.
Can you point me towards some?

Well, I've said it before myself that libel was perfectly normal in Rome, if you could get away with it, so, yes, a lot of the imputations to various emperors and officials may well be propaganda. Still, there is the fact that apparently nobody really liked Nero, so he does at the very least seem to be the nasty kind of guy who might execute a bunch of people do divert attention from himself. Attention not meaning he set the fire, but people did seem to turn such major misfortunes into dissatisfaction and worry about the people in charge.

hiliting in that crassly humdrum yellow mine
An artist, a true artist like Nero had to endure so much.


Say hi to Maxine for me.

 

[eight bits]

Hans

For something to count as the historical Jesus, it must be a dude that actually did exist, not only could exist.

Really? We have a test for possibility which works sometimes, but we have no test at all for actuality in a case like this. So, either something counts as a historical Jesus based on serious possibility and satisfactory probability (always personal subjective judgments about which reasonable people may differ), or else there can be no historical count-worthy Jesus whom we can identify as such.

Ditto for the events or deeds surrounding him.

Is "events or deeds surrounding him" Hans-speak for the stories told about him? If so, then what do later developments in storytelling have to do with whether there was ever a factual basis for the characters who appear in the stories? Jesus' mother is "surrounded" by the event or deed of visiting Portugal in the early Twentieth Century. How does this help or hinder our inquiry into whether or not Jesus had a mother in the First Centuries?

we can do that for any other story.

Yes, for any story we can ask whether or not there was a factual basis. Kumbaya.

That's my problem with such attempts at reconstructing what might have actually happened in one pericope or another, before having any valid or Occam-conform reason to assume anything at all actually happened there.

OK, your problem is acknowledged.

Many of us happily settle for an interesting question having been well-posed. What a world-famous work of literature asserts, for instance, is well-posed even if the genre of the work hasn't yet been established. And you and I have already agreed that for any story we can ask whether or not there was a factual basis. Either question might interest some people.

 

[IanS]

IanS
Then we disagree. For one thing, there is no "the biblical description of Jesus." There are plural Biblical descriptions of Jesus, many incompatible literary Jesuses.

Just because different anonymous gospel writers at different dates, described Jesus doing different things, does not mean they are talking about a completely different person. That's surely obvious.

If you are suggesting that the four gospels are talking about four different messiahs, then I think that’s an absurd suggestion which afaik is not claimed by either biblical scholars or sceptical writers.

John's description cannot be of a normal human person (he brought into being the matter that his mother comprised).

None of the gospels, or Paul's letters, describe Jesus as a normal human person.

The descriptions of a generation or two earlier, however, Paul's and Mark's, say outright that what woo things Jesus did, so will or did other folks.

Here is a simple link to Wikipedia listing various miracles described in the gospels, inc. a table with 22 different miracles in Mark

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracles_of_Jesus

Since surviving orignal Mark only describes Jesus' acts performed before his crucuifixion, those things occurred during an ordinary human life, ended by death.

No. That does not follow at all lol. I can't imagine what sort of logic is in your mind when you write things like that.

Look, first of all we don't have any "original copy of g-Mark". However, whatever copies may or may not be available, just because g-Mark stops abruptly at the crucifixion, does not mean that before his crucifixion Jesus must have been only a normal human person. We have been through all that numerous times before (see the link and table of miracles above).

Whatever this early Jesus did that was extraordinary was a teachable and learnable skill set that got results not because of who he was, but because of when he was. In fact, the actual capabilities are always available.

Again, No. What you are trying to do is to create your own real human Jesus out of the biblical accounts, by hypothesising that the numerous miracles described throughout the bible were not in fact being claimed in the bible as miracles at all. But that is complete nonsense. The events are being described as miracles.

You might have a theory that such events really happened, but that none of them were actually the miracles that biblical writers believed them to be. But that is not what the bible says about those events, the bible does present them as miracles.

Of course, like you I also don’t believe any of the miracles actually happened. But I think the reason they never happened is because there was never any messiah or his disciples there to see or do any such things in the first place. Or, at least, the biblical writers were never getting those miracle accounts from real events.

So am I guilty of similarly offering just a personal theory or hypothesis there? A theory in which I say the biblical writing is not reporting factual events? Actually, no! For example, if you read the short book by Randel Helms (I’ve referenced it before several times), his entire 200 pages is devoted to showing where, how, and why, the various sayings and acts attributed to Jesus, were actually taken from all sorts of passages written centuries before in the OT.

That is not a personal hypothesis or theory from me. To repeat that - authors like Helms have shown very clearly that the gospel authors took their stories of Jesus from what they thought had already been written in the OT.

 

[eight bits]

IanS

That's surely obvious.

Yes, as obvious as that your argument has nothing to do with whether there is a single Biblical description of Jesus or whether there are several incompatible descriptions.

None of the gospels, or Paul's letters, describe Jesus as a normal human person.

Well, OK, wandering around preaching the end of the world isn't normal. But it is within the capability of odrinary people.

Paul depicts Jesus doing nothing unusual until after he died, which is the limit of historical interest in his deeds. Mark shows Jesus teaching his disciples to do what he does, and at least one guy figures it out on his own. Then Jesus dies.

No. That does not follow at all lol.

Really? Where do you think surviving original Mark ends? Where does the last appeareance by Jesus occur in it?

These are questions of fact, Ian. Whether you follow the "logic" or not is irrelevant. The "logic" is to look it up.

Look, first of all we don't have any "original copy of g-Mark".

Fascinating. What does that have to do with what of the original Mark does survive?

What you are trying to do is to create your own real human Jesus out of the biblical accounts

Is that Ian-speak for actually reading Mark, rather than a Wikipedia article about Mark? That really does explaim a great deal of the controversy between us.

Of course, like you I also don’t believe any of the miracles actually happened.

You muight also read the posts you're commenting on. I believe that real events happened that correspond with most of the "miracles" in Mark. The correspondence may be loose. For example, it would be a miracle if Jesus ever drew five thousand men in one place during his lifetime. It isn't a miracle that the biggest and second-biggest crowds he ever did draw brought enough food with them that, if they shared, nobody missed a meal.

As to your final point, maybe you can help me. Where's the Old Testament passage where a Jew told a group of fellow Jews to pretend to drink human blood and eat human flesh, whether in jest or in earnest? Is that in Helms? Must be, if he showed it. A cite would be nice. Thank you in advance.

 

[tsig]

IanS


Yes, as obvious as that your argument has nothing to do with whether there is a single Biblical description of Jesus or whether there are several incompatible descriptions.


Well, OK, wandering around preaching the end of the world isn't normal. But it is within the capability of odrinary people.

Paul depicts Jesus doing nothing unusual until after he died, which is the limit of historical interest in his deeds. Mark shows Jesus teaching his disciples to do what he does, and at least one guy figures it out on his own. Then Jesus dies.


Really? Where do you think surviving original Mark ends? Where does the last appeareance by Jesus occur in it?

These are questions of fact, Ian. Whether you follow the "logic" or not is irrelevant. The "logic" is to look it up.


Fascinating. What does that have to do with what of the original Mark does survive?


Is that Ian-speak for actually reading Mark, rather than a Wikipedia article about Mark? That really does explaim a great deal of the controversy between us.


You muight also read the posts you're commenting on. I believe that real events happened that correspond with most of the "miracles" in Mark. The correspondence may be loose. For example, it would be a miracle if Jesus ever drew five thousand men in one place during his lifetime. It isn't a miracle that the biggest and second-biggest crowds he ever did draw brought enough food with them that, if they shared, nobody missed a meal.

As to your final point, maybe you can help me. Where's the Old Testament passage where a Jew told a group of fellow Jews to pretend to drink human blood and eat human flesh, whether in jest or in earnest? Is that in Helms? Must be, if he showed it. A cite would be nice. Thank you in advance.

All that drinking blood and eating flesh was added by Christians centuries later.


Jesus just wanted them to "take a cup 'o kindness" to remember him by when they next got together for a meal.

 

[IanS]

At the end of the day, HansMustermann, isn't that actually the essence of the historical Jesus hypothesis, pace eight bits and Stone, two posters who have best explained the bases of that stance, IMO.

I'm not saying it's not a futile exercise by any means, but rather that as of today, the Feast of the Assumption of the BVM, we don't really have the means to determine decisively one way or another whether Jesus was a mythicised man or a humanised myth.

One thing that I DO find puzzling is the lack of Christian inscriptions, neither dedicatory not funerary nor nothing until after the mid third century, correct me if I'm wrong.

Well re, the highlight - that is why it boils down a question of evidence. And that's why in all these threads the sceptic side has repeatedly asked what this claimed "abundant evidence" is actually supposed to be ... ie claimed as "abundant" by religious scholars such as Bart Ehrman who are constantly being held up as the unassailable experts on the issue.

So where is that evidence? Well ... in all these recent threads on the historical Jesus, the plain fact of the matter is that nobody has been able to produce even one single scrap of "evidence" which could be reasonably called reliable or objective in any measure at all.

That's the problem with the HJ claim.

Just as an illustration of how absurd the "scholarly" claim of evidence is - having now read through the first 90 pages of Ehrman’s recent book Did Jesus Exist, he says that there is more evidence for Jesus than for any other comparable figure in all ancient history, and that the evidence is so overwhelming that he can repeatedly and emphatically say "Jesus definitely existed", which is of course a statement of absolute certain fact from Ehrman.

So what is this evidence that Ehrman says is so utterly overwhelming as to make Jesus an absolute certainty? OK, he says the four canonical gospels provide the direct evidence of Jesus and they comprise no less than SEVEN INDEPENDENT attestations to the real Jesus.

Hmm, ... so how does Ehrman assert that the 4 gospels are truly "independent". Well he says that each of them contain at least some stories which are not in any of the other three ... so that makes them all "independent" sources of true evidence for attesting the true existence of Jesus!

Brilliant, huh!?

And, how did Ehrman turn those 4 canonical gospels into no less that 7 independent sources? Well he says that since each of the 4 gospels must have been getting their information from some unknown earlier written and oral sources on Jesus, that means that not only must there have been a written source Q which was used by Mark, but also a written source M used by Mathew, and a written source L used by Luke. Simple huh? So now he has no less than 7 completely independent sources of evidence for Jesus.

Obviously given a case so unassailable and brilliant as that, you will no doubt all now agree that Ehrman has thereby demonstrated such overwhelming abundance of "attested gospel evidence" that as he himself concludes it is therefore an absolutely certain fact that "Jesus definitely existed!", …. right?