did jesus exist?

[logician]

Well since you put it that way, and you read The Jesus Mysteries, you must know what you are talking about.

Your insistence on the existence of something based upon nebulous evidence is nothing short of amazing. Or at least amazing persistence.

 

[Oberon]

Your insistence on the existence of something based upon nebulous evidence is nothing short of amazing. Or at least amazing persistence.

What is really amazing is reading one book filled with errors by a psychology major and a few blogs and thinking you know enough to judge. And it is also amazing that, knowing you aren't any kind of a specialist in ancient history, you nonetheless feel comfortable believing that all those idiots with the PhDs simply have NO idea what they are talking about because you are so much more informed.

Ignorance is easy, and I guess why some prefer it to actually putting in the effort to learn.

 

[dogsgod]

What's so intelligent about copying Greek, just to show off that you can read Greek?

 

[logician]

What is really amazing is reading one book filled with errors by a psychology major and a few blogs and thinking you know enough to judge. And it is also amazing that, knowing you aren't any kind of a specialist in ancient history, you nonetheless feel comfortable believing that all those idiots with the PhDs simply have NO idea what they are talking about because you are so much more informed.

Ignorance is easy, and I guess why some prefer it to actually putting in the effort to learn.

What is amazing is the continuous ignoring of the logic I present in my arguments. The "I have the experts on my side" argument is like the "bandwagon" argument, totally fallacious.

 

[dogsgod]

Your insistence on the existence of something based upon nebulous evidence is nothing short of amazing. Or at least amazing persistence.

I guess some people can't question what is ingrained into our culture.

 

[dogsgod]

What is amazing is the continuous ignoring of the logic I present in my arguments. The "I have the experts on my side" argument is like the "bandwagon" argument, totally fallacious.

Band wagon ad nauseum.

 

[Oberon]

What is amazing is the continuous ignoring of the logic I present in my arguments. The "I have the experts on my side" argument is like the "bandwagon" argument, totally fallacious.

There is no logic. Your latest argument has been "we can't point to a specific figure in the gospels and say this is jesus." Only we can. What we can't say is that everything said about him is accurate. But that makes him no different from even far more well known figures in history: Socrates, Pythagoras, Augustus, Julius Caesar, etc. Sources disagree, and the only time they completely agree is when they are copied.

It's not just a matter of "I'm write because the experts say so." I've documented in greater detail elsewhere why all the people who know what they are talking about reject your view. What is simply amazing is your unbridled arrogance that you, knowing virtually nothing about this field, and having read no scholarship whatsoever, are entirely comfortable with rejecting the arguments of all the people who know more and have actually studied this issue and ancient history, despite not being aware what their arguments are.

And let's not even get into your foolish notions about how somebody else should have written about Jesus, which just goes to show how little you know about the production of texts about persons in the ancient world. But then, I read The Jesus Mysteries too, so I know where you got that. Next time try reading something from someone who is actually a historian.

 

[Oberon]

Band wagon ad nauseum.

It's the same bandwagon you leap on when you state that Matthew, Mark, and Luke aren't independent, and that Q is behind Matthew and Luke. You have no problem leaping on consensus there though.

 

[dogsgod]

It's the same bandwagon you leap on when you state that Matthew, Mark, and Luke aren't independent, and that Q is behind Matthew and Luke. You have no problem leaping on consensus there though.

Consensus has absolutely zero to do with it. Consensus is for those of the sheep herd mentality.

 

[Oberon]

Consensus has absolutely zero to do with it. Consensus is for those of the sheep herd mentality.

So why posit Q or dependence of Matthew and Luke on Mark? You aren't even in a position to evaluate the arguments involved, because they are based on an analysis of the greek you can't read. There are and continue to be very serious scholars who have presented detailed arguments against Q and Markan priority. And once again, most of the work and scholarship which was used to build consensus is from german scholarship that isn't available in English.

So if you can't assess the strengths of the arguments for or against, because you lack the most necessary skill involved (reading greek), why do you follow the consensus?

 

[outhouse]

According to historian joseph hoffman, there has never been "a methodologically agnostic approach to the question of Jesus' historical existence

 

[dogsgod]

So why posit Q or dependence of Matthew and Luke on Mark? You aren't even in a position to evaluate the arguments involved, because they are based on an analysis of the greek you can't read. There are and continue to be very serious scholars who have presented detailed arguments against Q and Markan priority. And once again, most of the work and scholarship which was used to build consensus is from german scholarship that isn't available in English.

So if you can't assess the strengths of the arguments for or against, because you lack the most necessary skill involved (reading greek), why do you follow the consensus?

I read available arguments in English, besides that, I wouldn't trust you to have the good sense to judge in a pie bake competition, let alone to trust your judgment on what the best arguments are for and against Q.

 

[Oberon]

According to historian joseph hoffman, there has never been "a methodologically agnostic approach to the question of Jesus' historical existence

Actually his point was to advertise the project he was working on (The Jesus Project) by pretending it was something revolutionary. And it doesn't appear he buys into the Jesus myth hypothesis.

 

[Oberon]

I read available arguments in English

For example?

let alone to trust your judgment on what the best arguments are for and against Q.

You don't have to. The point is that you can't evaluate any of the arguments because you can't read greek. But being unable to evaluate the arguments doesn't stop you from leaping on the bandwagon when it suits you. I also seriously doubt you've read any scholarship devoted to showing that Q exists or demonstrating Markan priority. But by all means feel free to cite what you have read.

 

[dogsgod]

For example?

Who are you to ask? I don't value your judgment.

You don't have to. The point is that you can't evaluate any of the arguments because you can't read greek. But being unable to evaluate the arguments doesn't stop you from leaping on the bandwagon when it suits you. I also seriously doubt you've read any scholarship devoted to showing that Q exists or demonstrating Markan priority. But by all means feel free to cite what you have read.

You just demonstrated that you can't evaluate hearsay because you don't know the meaning of the word. You are not one to decide about evaluating anything. I've read the arguments for and against Q as well as the synoptic problem and that is how I make decisions. As I stated before, bandwagons are for the herd mentality.

 

[outhouse]

All the divine aspects of the Jesus figure are "stolen" from earlier similar dying and resurrected godmen, such as Dionysos, Osiris, Hercules, Attis, Mithra, Horus, Zarathustra and others. Actually there are few (if any) things about Jesus that are original at all. Jesus is just the Jewish version of this popular mythic Saviour- character in the Mystery-religions of Antiquity

 

[outhouse]

All the teachings of Jesus are "borrowed" from older sources, for example from the teachings of Buddha. Many of Jesus teachings are almost word for word identical with some of Buddhas sayings (400 years earlier). The so-called "Golden rule" can be found in several earlier pagan Greek (and Jewish) texts

 

[outhouse]

The "birthday" of Jesus is of course unknown, not even the year of his miraculous birth is known. The church just stole the already popular date of the 25th December, which in Antiquity was an immensely popular celebration of the birth of the sungod Mithra

 

[outhouse]

The story of Jesus was originally an allegorical story based partly on the Jewish exodus myth and Joshua/Jesus ben Nun, successor of Moses, the Jewish Messiah-myth and the widespread pagan myth of the dying and resurrected godman Dionysos-Osiris. Later uneducated Christians in Rome, people without the insight and understanding of the deeper meaning of the texts, started to take these allegorical stories for their face value, and Literary Christianity as we know it was born.

 

[outhouse]

Much of the writings and research on the Jesus figure is amazingly biased, vague, tendentious and pervaded with wishful thinking.

One should in general be a bit sceptical to Christian scholars who often (obviously) don't have the necessary distance to their subject and obviously seem to be on a mission to prove the statements in the Bible, no matter what the real evidence say. As Christians they are usually convinced that Jesus did once exist as a real person in the first place, and are just looking for a confirmation.