did jesus exist?

[dogsgod]

they dont tone it down

they tear it apart down below the foundation to make it acceptable.

The historical Jesus extraction from the gospel story as Oberon describes it is analogous to skipping a stone across the water, it touches down to say we can know Jesus was baptized, goes up over some magic parts and touches down to say he was a Jewish itinerant preacher/teacher/miracle worker form Galilee, then skips over the magic again touching down to say we know he was executed by the Romans for whatever reason, skips over the impossible parts of the resurrection but touches down to say he was sited by devout followers just like Elvis was. Child's play.

 

[Oberon]

again this religion at that time was evolving, to some degree with creationism and ID it still is lol

How is this relevant?

I feel they and the early church were pleased with what they imagined and wrote down.

You can't get to the gospels and the early christian literature by borrowing. There simply isn't enough similar material out there.

 

[Oberon]

I don't know what point you are making by Robert M. Price being a Christian and at the same time not seeing Jesus Christ as historical.

I already referred to a tendency in christian historical Jesus scholarship to say we can know little or nothing about the historical Jesus. By saying that the historical Jesus is either impossible to reconstruct or (in Price's case) likely didn't exist, all that is left is the Christ of faith. They can protect Jesus from historical inquiry by saying he is inaccessible by historical means. Price states "For me the Christ of faith has all the more importance since I think it most probable that there was never any other."

I don't see a problem with that, neither did Paul, Peter, James, et al we read of in the epistles.

Paul certainly did. Central to his theology was Jesus' literal presence on earth, his death, and the resurrection. A purely spiritual christ made zero sense.

The literal Jesus can't possibly be historical because He defies the laws of physics,

Only if we imagine that a source can't be historical in ANY way if it contains miracles or magic. We know, however, that this isn't true. As R. M. Price puts it, when it comes to the historical method of the principal of analogy: "When we are looking at an ancient account, we must judge it according to the analogy of our experience and that of our trustworthy contemporaries...Regarding the Gospels for instance, this means that we will not reject out of hand stories in which Jesus heals the sick and casts out demons. We cannot do clinical follow-ups in these cases, but we do know such scenes may be found in our world today."

The question, as Price admits, then becomes whether or not our story resembles something more like the story of Herucles and Osiris, or a historical wonder-worker (of which there are many). Looking at the nature of the Jesus movement from a sociology or religion standpoint, it doesn't resemble the cults but a movement started by a founder. Looking at gospel genre, we see clear comparisons to graeco-roman biography (to the point where the consensus believes this the genre the gospels belong to), and NOT to texts belonging in the genre of myth. Finally, without even looking at the gospels, we have enough to determine mere historicity (with Josephus and Paul, and the other non-christian sources).

 

[angellous_evangellous]

What do you think about the scholarship on gospel genre? E.g. the ones I most frequently cite (both because I like there arguments and because I own most of them)

Bryan, C. (1993). Preface to Mark: Notes on the Gospel in Its Literary and Cultural Setting. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burridge, R. A. (2006). Gospels. In J. W. Rogerson & Judith M. Lieu (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 433
Stanton, G. N. (1974). Jesus of Nazareth in New Testament Preaching Society of New Testament Studies Monograph Series 27. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Talbert, C. H. (1977). What is a Gospel? The Genre of the Canonical Gospels. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
Aune, D. E. (1987). The New Testament in Its Literary Environment. Philadelphia: Westminster.
Frickenschmidt, D. (1997). Evangelium als Biographie: Die vier Evanelien im Rahmen antiker Erzählkunst. Tübingen: Francke Verlag.
Wills, L. M. (1997) Quest of the Historical Gospel : Mark, John and the Origins of the Gospel Genre. London: Routledge.
Incigneri, B. J. (2003). The Gospel to the Romans: The Setting and Rhetoric of Mark's Gospel. Leiden: Brill.

I've read most (if not all) these works, and unless memory fails, the "gospel genre" is a peicemeal genre that did not exist in the ancient world. In other words, the evolution of the scholarship on the "gospel genre" goes something like this:

1) Someone says that it's a biography of Jesus following ancient biography, someone later proves that it's much more.

2) Someone says that it's a novel. Well, there's only five ancient novels at the most, and only one Gospel fits this (I believe it's Luke). Of course, the ancient novel informs us quite a bit on the format of the Gospels, but the Gospels aren't novels.

3) Someone says it's a history. This is interesting, but we find some geographical errors in the gospels, and perhaps some historical errors as well. But that's not too bad because most (if not all) ancient historians have quite a few errors.

4) Some say it's a historical theology. I'm not sure if there are other historical theologies other than something like Pausanius telling us where mythological things happened in his geographical description of Greece. Pausanius came after the Gospels were written, but his genre almost certainly existed before him, we just don't have examples.

Now there are more, but there is nothing like a NT "Gospel" in ancient literature that has all the elements that are found in a NT Gospel: biography, novel, theological interpretation, and so on.

Now that's my limited knowledge - if you know of something that I'm leaving out, I'll be glad to know it.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

You can't get to the gospels and the early christian literature by borrowing. There simply isn't enough similar material out there.

I think we're on the same page?

Anyway, I agree this statement in a number of different ways.

 

[outhouse]

You can't get to the gospels and the early christian literature by borrowing. There simply isn't enough similar material out there.

I think you dont give enough credit to homo sapiens imagination

dont get confused with partial imagination and "all"

it would state that with the differences in historical jesus and biblical jesus. Imagination was running more then wild at the time.

 

[outhouse]

Christians evolved there religion from the jews, this makes it plausible during that during the evolution/formation of christianity that many other previous myths from pagan cults were used to make the religion appeal to everyone. that is the very reason christianity was invented, to appeal to more people then just the jews, at that time pagan cults ran wild.

 

[fallingblood]

Christians evolved there religion from the jews, this makes it plausible during that during the evolution/formation of christianity that many other previous myths from pagan cults were used to make the religion appeal to everyone. that is the very reason christianity was invented, to appeal to more people then just the jews, at that time pagan cults ran wild.

That isn't quite correct. Christianity, at its beginning, was a sect of Judaism. Paul himself was a Jew. The writers of the Gospels, accept for maybe Luke, most likely were Jews. There was no real intention that we can see that they were trying to create a new religion. Instead, we can see it as somewhat of a reform, if you will. The idea is similar to the reformation we saw a few hundred years back. The leaders, for the most part, were not trying to start new denominations or churches. They were simply trying to reform Catholicism.

This comparison works well also because we can see that it would be illogical to try to claim that Luther did so simply because he wanted power. Many of the reformers got exactly the opposite, to the point in which some were even killed.

Really, there is no evidence that Christianity was just invented to appeal to anyone. It started as just one more sect of Judaism, which later ended up having a separation from Judaism for theological reasons and possibly political reasons.

So you are resting your argument on very shaky ground.

 

[fallingblood]

I think you dont give enough credit to homo sapiens imagination

dont get confused with partial imagination and "all"

it would state that with the differences in historical jesus and biblical jesus. Imagination was running more then wild at the time.

Can you cite any evidence that imagination was running more than wild at the time? You are assuming something that has little if any evidence supporting it.

The Jesus ministry itself was nothing completely unique. More so, Jesus himself was not wholly unique either, and really, if he is something that humans imagined up, really does not give any credit to our imagination. Comparing Jesus to other historical figures, and his ministry to others that were circulation, it proves the opposite of what you're saying, that imagination was not running wild.

 

[fallingblood]

Not a few, there are many. I take them all with a grain of salt, theres only a handfull of proffesional's behind it. Wiki however has some great points pro and con and the discussions are great by a number of highly educated people.

Biblical scholars believe in a jesus that is vague at best and not much can be said with certainty
I feel the scholars as a whole are biased for a few different reasons, christianity and wrapped in the work with little negative research being looked into.

There are various scholars who are not Christian and are not biased by Christianity. I think you believe they are biased simply because they disagree with you, and thus you through out their testimonies.

There are only a handful of individuals who subscribe to the Jesus myth theory. In my opinion, Robert M. Price is by far the most knowledgeable, but even then, greatly fails. Especially by his dismissal of the accounts in Josephus.

Carrier particularly fails simply because of his lack of research. A good example of this is his denial of the existence of Nazareth in the first century. An immediate question arises, why would Jews invent such a desolate hamlet when they, and did, place Jesus in Bethlehem (as in the birth stories)? Bethlehem, or even Jerusalem would both have been very logical places in which to place a historical Jesus. Yet, Carrier and those who support the notion that Nazareth was an invention of the Jews, would have us believe that for some unknown reason, this city had to be made for really not theological or beneficial reasons. More so, the fact is we have more than enough physical evidence from archeological surveys that prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Nazareth did in fact exist.

I think this does prove one thing; those who believe in the Jesus myth do not care what evidence is provided. It wouldn't matter if we have physical evidence of Jesus, it still would be denied for illogical reasons.

you dont get it these are probably the ones burned. We know some of the original storys of the bible were taken from books and only small parts used the rest burned.

this could have happened at any time during the bibles contruction including the gospels, theres a reason why the authors are not known.

vigorous editing had been done, possibly from the start even in oral tradition

Does that makes sense at all? Why would they burn the same information that they worked to preserve? What has to be realized is that preserving texts was no easy task, and now you would have us believe that they did so for no reason at all.

More so, we know that some of these heretical texts were preserved by others for quite some time. Just looking at the Nag Hammadi library, it gives us certain evidence that there were a number of books that simply were not burned. It also shows us that it probably wasn't until later that a mass destruction of heretical texts were destroyed.

It has to be remembered that the Christians, many of which remained to be Jews up until at least the 4th century, had little power to begin with. The fact that they survived at all seemed to be remarkable to authors such as Josephus.

And yes, there is a reason why the authors aren't known. They simply did not make themselves known. There is no evidence that they tried to make themselves known.

As for your last statement, it holds no water unless you can provide some evidence. You simply stating that maybe this happened, simply doesn't cut it.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

They think we can't tell the difference, as if we haven't read the story.

The "Jesus" story does make an interesting read though. I think the myth is a great story. I suspect the "Jesus" we read in the bible is an amalgamation of various mythic god/men....Serapis comes to mind but still doing more research on that character and how he might have related (morphed) into the "Jesus" myth.....

 

[outhouse]

There was no real intention that we can see that they were trying to create a new religion. Instead, we can see it as somewhat of a reform

Call it what you will but they were trying to make the religion more appealing to the non jews, the non jews of which many were pagan

 

[outhouse]

I think you believe they are biased simply because they disagree with you,

no I do not discredit all there work and only disagree wuth where they draw the gray line.

 

[fallingblood]

Call it what you will but they were trying to make the religion more appealing to the non jews, the non jews of which many were pagan

Are you sure? From the look of Paul, I don't think he would have really cared if it was more appealing as he didn't think he was supporting a new religion. He also, most likely from what we can see, foresaw the end was very near.

L. Michael White has a great book on the birth of Christianity called From Jesus to Christianity. It explains in more detail than I provided why there is no reason to take the position you are supposing here.

Also, everyone who was not a Jew, for all purposes regarding this discussion, were pagans.

Finally, just one final point. The Jesus movement, which was centered in Jerusalem, actually had people convert to Judaism. It was a Jewish movement for Jews. As in, you had to be a Jew to be part of the Jesus movement at the beginning. Even to a certain extent, Paul was just widening the door in which one could be a Jew (or at least he thought so). The key point being that the idea was that (which Paul supports), the end was very near and soon the Kingdom of God would be present. It could also be argued that he believed it was already here.

 

[fallingblood]

no I do not discredit all there work and only disagree wuth where they draw the gray line.

What gray line? There is a large difference from arguing that Jesus did not exist and that he did. To argue that he didn't exist, you nearly have to ignore the majority of what these other scholars are producing.

 

[Oberon]

I've read most (if not all) these works, and unless memory fails, the "gospel genre" is a peicemeal genre that did not exist in the ancient world.

Most of those works would say the gospels fall into the category/genre of ancient lives.

1) Someone says that it's a biography of Jesus following ancient biography, someone later proves that it's much more.

Burridge argued as recently as 2006 that not only are the gospels biographies, but that this is the consensus position. Specifically, "The canonical gospels have as much in common with Graeco-Roman lives as they have with each other, and therefore belong to that genre."

The something more, which I agree makes the gospels different from other lives (but they are also different from each other) may be a matter of sub-genre.

3) Someone says it's a history. This is interesting, but we find some geographical errors in the gospels, and perhaps some historical errors as well. But that's not too bad because most (if not all) ancient historians have quite a few errors.

Historical yes. Part of a large genre of history in that the authors were, among other things, attempting to lay out events/persons/teachings/etc as they were believed to have happened historically, yes. But they are too focused on the missin of Jesus in my view to have much in common with what are generally considered histories as far the ancient world goes.

Now that's my limited knowledge - if you know of something that I'm leaving out, I'll be glad to know it.

There's the influence of Greek epic in the gospels. See for example Macdonald, Dennis R. (2006). "Imitations of Greek Epic in the Gospels." in Levine, Amy-Jill Allison, Dale C., Jr., & Crossan, John Dominic (Eds). Historical Jesus in Context. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 372-384. I don't find the argument particularly convincing though.

 

[Oberon]

Paul mentions a Lord's brother, nothing he says nor any epistle writer gives us the impression that James is a literal brother

Gal. 1.19 ἕτερον δε των αποστόλων ουκ εἶδον, ει μη ᾿Ιάκωβον τον αδελφον του Κυρίου/heteron de ton apostolon ouk eidon, ei me Iakobon ton adelphon tou kyrio/but I did not see [any] other of the apostle, except James the brother of the lord.

Iakobon ton adelphon tou kyrio
James.acc.sing. the.acc.sing. brother.acc.sing. the.gen.sing. lord.gen.sing.

From Wallace's Greek Grammar: Genitive of relationship- The substantive in the genitive indicates a familial relationship" pg. 83

There you go.

 

[dogsgod]

Gal. 1.19 ἕτερον δε των αποστόλων ουκ εἶδον, ει μη ᾿Ιάκωβον τον αδελφον του Κυρίου/heteron de ton apostolon ouk eidon, ei me Iakobon ton adelphon tou kyrio/but I did not see [any] other of the apostle, except James the brother of the lord.

Iakobon ton adelphon tou kyrio
James.acc.sing. the.acc.sing. brother.acc.sing. the.gen.sing. lord.gen.sing.

From Wallace's Greek Grammar: Genitive of relationship- The substantive in the genitive indicates a familial relationship" pg. 83

There you go.

It says it, you believe it, that settles it.

 

[dogsgod]

In context it makes no sense for James to be a literal brother as in sibling because Paul declares that he received his information from no man. It's inconceivable that he would not have picked James' brain for information of this Jesus if he was a brother or had actually met him.

 

[Oberon]

He says it, you believe it, that settles it.

You can't read greek and haven't studied the grammar, but I'm sure you are qualified to make a ruling here. It's not like any other grammar has comparable entries. Oh wait... Schweitzer, Smyth, Funk's translation/edition of Blass & Debrunner... ALL the big reference grammars recognize this use of the genitive.

So tell me, what exactly is the genitive doing here? Why does Paul use it? What parallels can you provide in greek to support your interpretation of Paul's use here?

In context it makes no sense for James to be a literal brother as in sibling because Paul declares that he received his information from no man. It's inconceivable that he would not have picked James' brain for information of this Jesus if he was a brother or had actually met him.

1) It is absolutely conceivable that Paul, who was vying for authority with people who knew the earthly Jesus, would a) try to make himself as important by stating he too had received a calling from Jesus and b) downplay the earthly Jesus he did not no.
2) There is no indication that Jesus' brothers, including James, were followers while Jesus was alived. In fact, the gospels state the opposite.
3) Paul does spend 2 weeks picking the brain of the head of Jesus' followers, Peter.