Alas, if only it was justified.

All the breathless reaction to Saint Ehrman's hastily-written e-book is being met with healthy skepticism in thinking quarters.

--See, for example, the book by Robert Price, "Jesus is Dead," in which he argues that there is no compelling evidence that Jesus ever lived.

Price is a U.S theologian and author who teaches philosophy and religion at Johnnie Coleman Theological Seminary. He is also a professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute, was a fellow in the Jesus Seminar and has published such books as "Deconstructing Jesus' and "The Case Against the Case for Christ."

Price's biography in more detail:

"rmp Biography, at: http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/bio.htm
_____


--See, for example, Price's reason-and-evidence-based refutation of the non-historical nonsense purporting to prove that Jesus actually existed, wherein he explains the nature of establishing historical fact as it applies to the Jesus myth::

"Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot," at: http://ia700209.us.archive.org/6/items/ConversationsFromThePaleBlueDot034-RobertPrice/034-RobertPrice.mp3
_____


--See, for example, the case also made by Price against the supposedly historicity of Jesus, as dissected through what Price calls the "the dying and rising God thing":

"rmp," video, under "The Bible Geek: Robert M. Price Presents Theology with a Twist but Without the Spin," at: http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/
_____


--See, for example, the point-by-historical point dismantling of the Jesus-was-historical myth by David Fitzgerald, author of "Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed."

Fitzgerald debunks the "historical Jesus" by knocking down from a microphone this supposed preacher of Palestine who allegedly made a name for himself by sermonizing from a hill:

"David Fitzgerald Debunks Historical Jesus at Skepticon 3," video, at:
http://www.holyblasphemy.net/david-fitzgerald-debunks-historical-jesus-at-skepticon-3/christmyththeory
_____


--See, for example, the quickly-emerging skeptical dissection of Ehrman's less-than-rock-solid premise that Jesus actually was a living human being::

"Bart Ehrman''s 'Did Jesus Exist?," at: "Freethought Nation," http://truthbeknown.com/freethought/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3923 and http://www.freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3923&start=150: as well as "Bart Ehrman: Did Jesus Exist? Is There Evidence for a Historical Jesus?," on "Holy Blasemphy," under "Is Jesus a Myth?," at: http://www.holyblasphemy.net/bart-ehrman-did-jesus-exist-is-there-evidence-for-a-historical-jesus/christmyththeor
_____


Saint Ehrman is not God; Jesus wasn't, either; and Ehrman's Errors are proof that Bart is as human as Jesus was--with the notable exception that Ehrman is an historical person and Jesus wasn't.

If you don't believe that, I've got an empty tomb in Jerusalem to sell you--one, by the way, that was never filled (except by tourists, myself included).



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2012 02:34AM by steve benson.

It's possible the author of the "Q" document that became the source material for the gospel of Mark and likely Matthew, used his knowledge of the history of his youth, say 20 years before, to write a fictional account of a man named Jesus and his followers. After being read, some people began to believe it was an account of an actual person, formed a group, and others wrote accounts to supplement the story.

The existence of the "Q" document is as speculative as the existence of the Jesus character.

heftmyplates Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's possible the author of the "Q" document that
> became the source material for the gospel of Mark
> and likely Matthew, used his knowledge of the
> history of his youth, say 20 years before, to
> write a fictional account of a man named Jesus and
> his followers. After being read, some people began
> to believe it was an account of an actual person,
> formed a group, and others wrote accounts to
> supplement the story.


Page73 shows Bart explaining the errors in the books of gospel through his belief in a document called the Q document. He believes that this document was held by the gospel writers and explains why there were similarities and errors. Bart says the Q document was lost, but must have held clues to explain the entire error problems.

This is assuming there was a Q document that was lost in the first place. The Q document is a creation of a professor from the 1800’s trying to make sense of the problematic new testament and trying to make it correct at any cost. I will review this Q document as Bart is not forthcoming whatsoever in detailing the precarious creation of this Q document.

The fact is that Bart is one of the many people who insist on stretching information to fit it into his hypothesis that the new testament was an account to testify of Jesus. The Q document was never lost – it was never found in the first place. No copies of it have been recovered and no definitive notices of it have been recorded in antiquity and none of the gospel writers mention such a document.

The concept of a document was theorized by Herbert Marsh in 1801. Marsh was the first person to hypothesize a Q-like source in an extremely complicated and unsubstantiated solution to the synoptic problem that his contemporaries ignored. Marsh labeled this source with the Hebrew letter beth (ב).

The next person to advance the Q hypothesis was the German, Schleiermacher in 1832, who interpreted an enigmatic statement by the early Christian writer Papias of Hierapolis, circa 125ce: >>quote:, "Matthew compiled the oracles (Greek: logia) of the Lord in a Hebrew manner of speech.” >>end quote.

Rather than the traditional interpretation that Papias was referring to the writing of Matthew in Hebrew, Schleiermacher believed that Papias was actually giving witness to a sayings collection that was available to the Evangelists.

In 1838, another German, Christian Hermann Weisse, took Schleiermacher's suggestion of a sayings source and combined it with the idea of Markan priority to formulate what is now called the Two-Source Hypothesis, in which both Matthew and Luke used Mark and the sayings source. Heinrich Julius Holtzmann endorsed this approach in an influential treatment of the synoptic problem in 1863, and the Two-Source Hypothesis has maintained its dominance ever since.

At this time, Q was usually called “the Logia” on account of the Papias statement, and Holtzmann gave it the symbol Lambda (Λ). Toward the end of the nineteenth century, however, doubts began to grow on the propriety of anchoring the existence of the collection of sayings in the testimony of Papias, so a neutral symbol Q (which was devised by Johannes Weiss based on the German Quelle, meaning source) was adopted to remain neutrally independent of the collection of sayings and its connection to Papias.

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, more than a dozen reconstructions of Q were made. However, these reconstructions differed so much from each other that not a single verse of Matthew was present in all of them. As a result, interest in Q subsided and it was neglected for many decades.

This state of affairs changed in the 1960’s after translations of a newly discovered and analogous sayings collection, the Gospel of Thomas, became available. James M. Robinson and Helmut Koester proposed that collections of sayings such as Q and Thomas represented the earliest Christian materials at an early point in a trajectory that eventually resulted in the canonical gospels.

This burst of interest led to increasingly more sophisticated literary and redactional reconstructions of Q, notably the work of John S. Kloppenborg. Kloppenborg, by analyzing certain literary phenomena, argued that Q was composed in three stages. The earliest stage was a collection of wisdom sayings involving such issues as poverty and discipleship. Then this collection was expanded by including a layer of judgmental sayings directed against "this generation." The final stage included the Temptation of Jesus.

Although Kloppenborg cautioned against assuming that the composition history of Q is the same as the history of the Jesus tradition (i.e. that the oldest layer of Q is necessarily the oldest and pure-layer Jesus tradition), some recent seekers of the Historical Jesus, including the members of the Jesus Seminar, have done just that. Basing their reconstructions primarily on the Gospel of Thomas and the oldest layer of Q, they propose that Jesus functioned as a wisdom sage, rather than a Jewish rabbi, though not all members affirm the two-source hypothesis. Kloppenborg, it should be noted, is now a fellow of the Jesus Seminar himself.

Skeptical of Kloppenborg's tripartite division of Q, Bruce Griffin writes: >>quote: “This division of Q has received extensive support from some scholars specializing in Q. But it has received serious criticism from others, and outside the circle of Q specialists it has frequently been seen as evidence that some Q specialists have lost touch with essential scholarly rigor. The idea that we can reconstruct the history of a text which does not exist, and that must itself be reconstructed from Matthew and Luke, comes across as something other than cautious scholarship. But the most serious objection to the proposed revisions of Q is that any attempt to trace the history of revisions of Q undermines the credibility of the whole Q hypothesis itself. For despite the fact that we can identify numerous sayings that Matthew and Luke have in common, we cannot prove that these sayings come from a single unified source; Q may be nothing but a convenient term for a variety of sources shared by Matthew and Luke. Therefore any evidence of revision of Q counts as evidence for disunity in Q, and hence for a variety of sources used by Matthew and Luke. Conversely, any evidence for unity in Q—which must be established in order to see Q as a single document—counts as evidence against the proposed revisions. In order to hold to a threefold revision of Q, one must pull off an intellectual tight-rope act: one must imagine both that there is enough unity to establish a single document and that there is enough disunity to establish revisions. In the absence of any independent attestation of Q, it is an illusion to believe that scholars can walk this tightrope without falling off.” >>end quote.(Bruce Griffin: WAS JESUS A PHILOSOPHICAL CYNIC? )

The book of Thomas is a very unlikely validation source for a Q document. The book of Thomas was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945. It is part of the papers refered to as the Nag Hammadi texts.
I’ve already discussed these texts earlier in my research, but I'll look more closely at Thomas for a moment. Eusebius included it among a group of books that he believed to be not only spurious, but "the fictions of heretics". (Church History (Book III), Chapter 25:7 and Eusebius)

Who were the heretics?

They were the writers of the 2nd century who had no details prior and decided to fill in gaps. (Clement of Alexandria, Bassilides, borrowing from Valentinus.) These writers were considered heretics because they weren’t sanctioned by Rome and were branching off, unwilling to be led by the Roman clergy. As a result these documents aren’t capable of supporting a story that came prior to the 2nd century, but are only able to support a story written in conconfusion in an extremely confusing era of contradicting stories by 2nd and 3rd century writers who did NOT have a clue. Again, in this context the question arises: why didn’t the disciples correct the erroneous stories? Why did the stories have no Jewish foundation (disciples or other) and arose essentially out of thin air and whole cloth in the 2nd century by Grecco-Roman writers? The book of Thomas was written in Coptic. This was the language of the writers Clement2 and the other Egyptian writers.

When a person begins to write a story they usually start with a rough overview. This overview includes various things they wish to include in the storyline; various topics pertinent to the characters. If the 2nd century writers recorded an overview summary, or a rough draft of pertinent ideas, this STILL WOULDN’T provide evidence that there was an original story BECAUSE this story was connected to the group of rudderless writers who needed to provide details.

Can Bart or his followers understand this connection? I don’t know how to spell it out any more clearly.

A “Q” document would support the idea that the 2nd century writers made a rough summary to refer to when they wrote the other character stories. Let’s say you’re going to write about a number of different characters from an event. You would create a summary to provide an easier reference base and enable some sort of continuity through easy access to the specific details. It is quite likely that writers like Basilides, Valentinus, Origin and Clement2 wrote summaries for their stories.
It doesn’t mean the stories are accurate or were based on authentic happenings. It only means that they wrote the stories in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
The fact that the Roman clergy denounced the book of Thomas as canon in Eusebius era indicates that it was a later written canon. The clergy had already set the canon in place. How could they accept a story written by heretics who wrote about something from their own creation?

If anything, a Q document would validate what we already know; that it came in a century that had massive confusion…… that the Roman clergy had to have control of all that was created and they put their stamp of approval on it as was evident by their enlistment of Justin Martyr to preach a specific doctrine approved by them. It shows that the era from which it was written and the lack of any correct information based on the inability for Rome to use the story creation of the Thomas document.
There are a number of scenarios that could be drawn, any of which would be far more probable than Bart’s theory of a Q document supporting an authentic origin from an era that was massively confused yet didn’t gain clarity from Jesus disciples.

Bart tries desperately not to rock his boat of beliefs but at this point the Q document completely tips his boat over. How can Bart defend his position by saying this Q document was lost while using such a mythical document that is only supported by apologists looking for a way to explain the errors?
As you read you’ll discover that the answer is he doesn’t explain any further than he has to. What kind of historian is this agnostic man, Bart Ehrman? Even Bona Dea, this forums High School history teacher, uses Bart Ehrman and the Q document as a validating and viable explanation to the problems! I recall recently reading a defense by Bona Dea that the Q document is validation of a historical Jesus. Now I can see that Bona Dea got his idea from Ehrman, as I’ve already mentioned previously Bona Dea goes to Ehrman for all his apologetic needs and refered people to him for years – myself included. As I read Ehrman for the first time I am dumbfounded as to the kind of teachers we have in the education system. I am being honest about this, not to slam Bona Dea or others on this forum, but in making a realistic statement. How can children be educated with any kind of accuracy when the educators are using Ehrman and the Q document to support their own belief in Jesus?

Theologians such as Bart are willing to create and assume all kinds of experiences and texts that have no record of existing and the Q document is only one such example. The Q document is not, I repeat is not, an extant text. To base your entire thesis on a text that doesn’t exist is extremely unscholarly, but teaching children to engage in this same manner of justification is the reason I’m coming forward in the hope that this egregious practice is brought to people’s awareness. Bart denounces the Jewish text because it was from the 2nd century, while embracing a Q source which didn’t even exist? He is only looking for information that will support his belief and hope that Jesus was real while turning away from glaring information that indicates to the contrary.

Again, these people will not look at the most obvious explanations which is that the confusion has more information pointing to it being a result of the proven and known Roman desire to Romanize Jews and Roman backed storylines that were implemented to make that possible. Hence there are no stories of Jesus during the Jesus era, those stories and archaeologies came anywhere from 7 decades to a century and more later, often as obvious later inserts and obvious confused stories because there was no original cohesive story. We certainly have proof that as confusing as the stories were, and are, the stories did eventually take hold and although Rome didn’t Romanize the Jews they did get a super power religion out of it up unto this very day and Catholicized many parts of the world.
People like Bart will only look at a few of the problems and then explain them by using information that was created by others to explain and excuse it, which information cannot be found.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2014 05:13PM by MyTempleNameIsJoan.

See also the book by Freke and Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "original Jesus" a Pagan God?

See also the classic study by Christian Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, who concludes that even if Jesus existed we can't know anything about him.

See also Doherty, Earl, The Jesus Puzzle: Did Jesus Exist?, http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/ (answer: no)

See also Wells, G. A., Did Jesus Exist? (revised edition), Pemberton, London, 1986 (answer: no)

And Kenneth Humphreys' website http://www.jesusneverexisted.com

"See also the classic study by Christian Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, who concludes that even if Jesus existed we can't know anything about him."

That's not actually the conclusion of Schweitzer's seminal "The Quest for the Historical Jesus." Schweitzer reviewed 19th century portrayals of Jesus and concluded that liberal theologians had remade Jesus in their own image. He then concluded by calling for a renewed considered of the apocalyptic elements of Jesus's message. As Wikipedia summarizes, "Schweitzer himself also argued that all the 19th century presentations of Jesus had either minimized or neglected the apocalyptic message of Jesus, and he developed his own version of the profile of Jesus in the Jewish apocalyptic context.[2]"

Also, "The 1913 second edition of Quest included a rebuttal to the "mythicists" of his day, those scholars who maintain that no historical Jesus ever existed.[1]"

Criticism of mythicists

Erhman, a former fundamentalist Christian turned agnostic, has written numerous books challenging literalist views of the Bible himself.[3] Did Jesus Exist?, however, contains scathing criticism of the "writers, bloggers and Internet junkies who call themselves mythicists".[2] Ehrman says that they do not define what they mean by "myth" and maintains they are really motivated by a desire to denounce religion rather than examine historical evidence.[1] He discusses leading contemporary mythicists by name and dismisses their arguments as "amateurish", "wrong-headed", and "outlandish".[1][3]

The words "amateurish" and "Internet junkies" seem relevant here.

Wow, this is the 3rd or 4th thread I've stumbled on attacking people who dare believe in Jesus, Historical or Religious. This is still Recovery From Mormonism and NOT Delusional Atheist Outbursts is it not? Guess what, it takes all kinds and some people choose to believe in different things. Get over it.

so it's OK for you to be a delusional theist.

You have no argument.

>>>See, for example, the book by Robert Price, "Jesus is Dead," in which he argues that there is no compelling evidence that Jesus ever lived.

So, if he never lived, then the title of the book, "Jesus is dead" is no more than "click bait."

It's about as relevant as a book entitled: "Peter Rabbit" is dead.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2014 11:14PM by matt.

A few years ago I did a review on Ehrman and put it on this board. A number of RFM posters referred his work as the answer to all my questions.

For starters, he is a very sad historian who appeals to people based on his erroneous admittance that he is an agnostic.
He isn't an agnostic. All his perspectives come from a point of knowing that there had to be a Jesus.

His reasons are scarey sad weird and pathetic to come out of a historians pen.

He believes that Jesus was kept secret because of a secrecy clause. He has a word or phrase for it, but I researched it and it's ridiculous.
This he claims in absence of any explanation as to why thousands of people, followers and non-followers alike, would keep silence under conditions of healings and miracles.

He believes in the Q documentation to support missing data.
The Q documentation is a made up mythological apologists dream and upon analysis it cannot hold up at all.

He blurs dates and times by enmeshing "later" christians that are dated in the 2nd and 3rd century as witnesses to prove Christ.

He speaks nothing of the project to Romanize and Hellenize the Jews.

He gives half answers and omits whole chunks of information that might discount his theory that Jesus existed....strikingly similar to the mormon essays actually.

http://www.caesarsmessiah.com/

Anti-intellectualism.

Just curious,

I see that most of this seems to argue for some 1st century fraud or creation by Rome.

While many of the links you copied above are dead, the ones I followed seem to argue without use of ancient documents to support their specific theories. Are there primary sources from the 1-3rd centuries detailing this specific fraud or myth creation by Rome? I'd like to look at those.

I love Robert M Price (The Bible Geek podcast is great).

I wonder, however, if we have enough evidence to not remain uncertain about whether there was an actual historical character named Yeshua who became Jesus Christ.

How can we say, with any degree of certainty, one way or the other?

Well jump to jesus on a toasted tortilla!

These threads do get heated. So as I was cookin supper I was thinkin bout our shibboleths of self security.

Can we not agree that Horny Joe never met real Jesus?

So what if some of us have met said Jesus in our own private version of a vision . . . . notwithstanding HJ's that is.

So what about how many disco angels can dance on the head of a pin?

well whadda ya know boner?

Who knew you wuz a jeezus freak?

jk

mental masturbation feels soo good... how can I ever stop?

Well hopefully not a freak, but I am a Boner! And, I could be wrong...keep posting, Shummy!

Yes, Bart's books are enjoyable to read--I say this as a Christian. Bart's early background as a literal-thinking evangelical shows up in his writings where he takes on Biblical literalism. However, I have read scholarly works by others who certainly don't share his conclusions. Bart does have the advantage of being the Chapel Hill bad boy writing as though he's discovering things that generations of Biblical scholars never knew.

And the Jesus Seminar folks did have their 15 minutes of fame with their colored cubes voting which saying of Jesus they thought were genuine (a small handful) and those that were not. It seems that other than a Time magazine cover their work has mostly been forgotten as the methodology in their investigations was and remains highly controversial.

The so-called Gospel of Thomas is readily available online. Try reading these pithy saying and see if they shed any light on the historicity of the man Jesus or the New Testament. No, the most interesting parts are the sexist statements about women having to become men.

Sorry folks, trying to find the historical Jesus is pure mental masturbation.

The Boner.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2014 02:26AM by byuboner.

The gospel of Thomas dates toward Clement of Alexandria, Bassilides writing info.
They were important in setting up the Jesus story.
Rome used their work and cut them off.

That's an interesting view but I doubt that Rome c.200 CE was in much of a position to use and then discard...Gnostic teaching are about the hidden secret gnosis (truths) only available to a select few. Sounds like some sort of weird modern day temple stuff. Just saying...

byuboner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That's an interesting view but I doubt that Rome
> c.200 CE was in much of a position to use and then
> discard...Gnostic teaching are about the hidden
> secret gnosis (truths) only available to a select
> few. Sounds like some sort of weird modern day
> temple stuff. Just saying...



Actually, Rome 200ce was indeed in a position to use info and discard it. That era was rife with denouncing certain writers as heretics and supporting others.
Clement of Alexandria, Valentinus, Bassilides are all examples of the denounced heretic writers. That's why Rome picked and chose what they'd cannonize and what wouldn't make the scriptural cut. The book of Thomas never made the cut because a denounced heretic wrote it. Anyone who didn't write approved of the Roman core approval committee, lol, were axed.

I respect and understand your argument about the conflicts between proto-orthodoxy and hetero-orthodoxy and who the eventual winner was.

The concern I have is with the timing. The Petrine idea of Peter being the first pope doesn't come about until much later(Innocent I). There were three power centers--Jerusalem, Rome, and Antioch. In the early 300s, St. Augustine was a Manichee before his conversion, there hadn't yet been a council at Nicea, and St. Clement hadn't written his history of heretics.

None of this sheds light on whether or not the man Jesus existed. It does, however, show the history of early Christianity and what eventually will be the core of catholic belief. Boner.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2014 06:14PM by byuboner.

byuboner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> None of this sheds light on whether or not the man
> Jesus existed. It does, however, show the history
> of early Christianity and what eventually will be
> the core of catholic belief. Boner.


Likewise I respect your ideas; even if we don't agree with each other. :)

I think it does shed light.
When I discover that there was no pre 33ce Jewish record of Jesus messiah, but there was a Roman record of people like Caesar and Calligual and Vespasian -- all Roman emperors who heard of the Jewish messiah story and wanted to usurp it, I realize that none of them have ever heard of anyone resembling Jesus, not as a messiah or a politician or radical or anything. Actually, Jesus/Yeshu was a fairly common name in that era, which was a clever tactic in my opinion...use a name like John when other John's are spoken of and it's sure that you'll have one person who remembers a John -- even if the story isn't the same.

But, during the Emperor Vespasian and his son Titus emperorship, after the 70ce 2nd war, a man named Paul pops up, who had never seen Jesus and his story is swept along with Vespasians crew of Josephus, Pliny elder, younger and Tacitus, Suetonius and Clement 1 (many argue that he was the first pope depending on which record you're reading) all connected with each other.

There wasn't a Jewish data base pre-Vespasian 70ce to corroborate a man Jesus. That's why the Jews thought that he was a complilation amalagamation of many different people wrapped into one person - the Roman Jesus.

I've seen JS do this technique....compile a lot of stories together and the faithful take hold of some info from one of the stories, which result in believing that the entire thing is true.

This provides a link to my belief that the history of Jesus, as written in the 2nd century, shows that it was compiled out of thin air. Writers had nothing real to draw on from 70ce or earlier.

This is my point.

(I hope these words don't come off sounding rude because that couldn't be further from the truth. I luv you BYUBoner! and don't want to sound bad.)

That's why there were so many stories rise up in the 2nd century and why Rome had to squash the one's they didn't like as heretics. It speaks to, and explains, the absence of real stories from 0 - 40 ce with the made up ones from the 2nd century that popped out of nowhere.

I'm in the process of editing a research project I did on Jesus in the Talmud and Mishnah.
I'll hopefully have it done this week and put it on the forum for your critique. Stay tuned for it. I'm sure it will aggitate a lot of people tho.

I can't find anything in the Mishnah/Talmud that supports Jesus in the pre 90ce era.
When I reviewed the history of the Roman commanded Jewish Talmud redactions during 70ce (after the war) and in the 2nd century, specifically after the 3rd war of Simon Bar Kosiba, it became increasingly clear to me why the Talmud couldn't even try to write an actual cohesive presentation about Jesus - because it wasn't there from 70ce, when Rabi Yachonen worked a deal with Emperor Vespasian after the war.(in an attempt to keep some of his Jewish beliefs alive after the 70ce war/slaughter.)

There wasn't ever any cohesive story early on in the 1st century, as it was hobbled together in the 2nd century. That's my point. The 2nd century stuff could have been corrected earlier by Jesus disciples, but they weren't around. Which is no surprise as I have checked every record and can't see christianity in any location of the alleged disciples until the late 2nd century and in some places the 3rd century. That applies to India as well.



But, my story, and oh yes I have one, is that way back in 2004ish I landed here as a Christian.
I only want the truth.
As I read and researched I soon discovered that the truth was something I was never taught, either through JS Mormonism or through the new testament or religion.

I finally decided to research it myself in 2011, and for me the absence and presence of data in the 1st century, along with the absence and presence of data in the 2nd and 3rd century tells the whole picture.

I stopped caring if it were true; so I had nothing to lose at that point.



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2014 08:14PM by MyTempleNameIsJoan.

Thank you Joan! I misunderstood what you meant by Roman! Thanks for a thoughtful post! The Boner.

You are the best boner.
I just don't care What you believe -- you're number one no matter what!

I'd be interested in reading more of Price's arguments. Certainly his shadowy affiliation with "Johnnie Coleman [sic] Theological Seminary" carries no authority whatsoever.

There are a few scary parts of Bart Ehrman's book "Did Jesus Exist:

1. Ehrman says "If Paul says trust me, I am inclined to believe him." How does he know that Paul was not a con-man? He went around sharing visions of how the world was about to end. I don't see a huge difference between Paul and Joseph Smith.

2. Ehrman sees Jesus where Jesus was never mentioned. For example, Titus' reference to a man called Christus (or Chrestus?) MUST be Jesus, even though Jesus was never referred to as Christus in any other text. Maybe Christus was a different person? No chance according to Ehrman.

3. Ehrman admits that he is reluctantly writing the book. He would much rather rush ahead with his next book (now published) about how an itinerant preacher of little or no consequence came to be known as God.

4. The itinerant preacher of little or no consequence is not described in any text. It is derived from texts that talk of Jesus' miraculous deeds. There is a fine balancing act between keeping Jesus inconsequential enough to explain the lack of contemporary writings, but at the same time Jesus must have been important enough for the miraculous myths to be built around him. No ancient author described such a person.

5. Ehrman basically trusts that the gospel authors faithfully put together what they knew about Jesus from other sources. That leaves open the possibility that ANYTHING from the gospels COULD be true. How can a non-scholar tell which parts were historical truths and which were not?

6. Anything that was originally written in Aramaic definitely came from Judea just a few years after Jesus' death. How does Ehrman know that it doesn't date from a few years BEFORE Jesus' death?

I am not necessarily saying that Ehrman is wrong about the points that I have made, just that if he is right then it has consequences that are a bit scary to a non-scholar like me, especially point 5. I prefer to believe that Ehrman is wrong.

Hmmm, and not a word about "the oral" tradition--which, as they say, is not worth the paper it's written on. Paul's only basis for JC is that he had a vision; then he had discussions with JC's witnesses/followers ( Peter, James, et al) from whom he doesn't come out thinking "they are following and illusion", or something like it. It's all very interesting. Eisenman details a great deal of tradition (development of Nazareth, for instance) and it appears that JC's existence is really irrelevant: we all know he was shaped by later writers and that's the tradition that became "Christianity."

Dave,

I am not sure what "delusion" I would be holding, you act as if I believe some bullshit story about my first ancestors being Chimps flinging their shit against rocks, and that we are all just talking apes. Fact is you don't know a single thing about my Beliefs.

See dude, I could care less what bullshit you believe, or anyone else. I am not the one shoving my Beliefs down anyone's throats here, it's your ilk, the Militant Atheist clowns doing that garbage. Of course it is, because your types are NO DIFFERENT THAN MORMON MISHIES. Everyone HAS TO believe your delusions and everyone MUST disbelieve anything Spiritual, Supernatural, Metaphysical ect. You're just as Authoritarian and it is disgusting.

News flash, people are allowed to believe whatever they want, including on this board. This board is SUPPOSED to be a help and recovery board for people leaving a dangerous Cult, NOT one huge Atheist circle jerk.

Anon777, you are free to believe whatever you want to. The debate about the historical Jesus assumes that miracles are not possible. If you believe in miracles then you have no place in the debate. There are plenty of other threads to read.

Ex-Mormons are people who were fooled once. They believed in the Mormon church, and then found out it was not true. Boy did it hurt!

So now there are a great number of ex-Mormon who never want to be fooled again. Who never want to be hurt like they were hurt before. They use their new skeptical attitudes to look for truth and falsehood in every aspect of their lives.

They do not just reject the historical Jesus out of hand. They look at the evidence with the same skepticism they focused on the Mormon church. And as it turns out, many of them arrive at a different answer about whether the historical Jesus existed than True Believing Christians do. At this point, many ex-Mormons are all about truth. What they want to be true is irrelevant. They seek the truth whatever it happens to be.

Can you blame people for preaching the truth after they learn it? They feel that it benefits them having the truth, and they wish that other people could enjoy the same benefit.

Bingo! Which is why there needs to be less name calling and more sharing of source information.

In another thread I shared actual source information about Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger and Tacitus writing, but Bona Dea (a highschool history teacher) denounced the actual sourced information as a conspiracy theory!

If a person wants to refute something out of hand they just call the information a conspiracy theory and hope that insult is enough to negate the information.

I missed that post. What was the gist of it? I have looked at the Josephus primary source material about Jesus and it is pretty weak. What does the evidence from Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, and Tacitus seem to indicate about whether there was a historical Jesus?

The thread is called to Heretic 2 and answers your question in the previous thread. It is on the front page

Bona Dea, I care very much about you although I think that sentiment might not come through in my responses. I'm sure it doesn't matter to you if I care about you or not, but I needed to convey it none-the-less.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2014 07:14PM by MyTempleNameIsJoan.

Don't forget to read a bit of Richard Carrier. A younger scholar's view. I follow his stuff "religiously."

As for me, l really don't care if Jesus was an actual guy or not. All the stuff he supposedly said and did was totally made up anyway.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2014 07:43PM by rationalist01.