How certain are we that Jesus was historical?

[Sapiens]

No, it does not change it.

It stands on its own merit.

The man is historical, and those in dissent, can stomp their feet all they want and kick and cry, but at the end of the day, the man has historicity.

There are a few, minor, questionable references to a Jesus and to Christians and even those are open to question of their authenticity. If I were to come back from the field claiming a new species on the sort of information that y'all want to claim a historical Jesus on (I a met a witchdoctor who told me that his blood brother's aunt's step son saw a creature that looked like this ...) they'd laugh me out of the museum.

 

[outhouse]

There are a few, minor, questionable references to a Jesus and to Christians and even those are open to question of their authenticity. If I were to come back from the field claiming a new species on the sort of information that y'all want to claim a historical Jesus on (I a met a witchdoctor who told me that his blood brother's aunt's step son saw a creature that looked like this ...) they'd laugh me out of the museum.

Your talking about a time period for study though.


This time period has different methodology more focused on anthropology to place the different subjects into context.


But really, Paul epistles do fine job of describing the early movement in many detail's.

All the rhetorical content and mythology and fiction all point to a Galilean man. These details are up for debate due to limited knowledge. But a Galilean most certainly did exist and died at Passover.

 

[Ingledsva]

p1, p2, p3, p4...p76 (this isn't strictly arithmetic as e.g., p7 doesn't exist); Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Epharaemi Resciptus, Vaticanus, Basel, Vercellensis, Curiensis, Aurseus, et cetera.

There are thousands upon thousands of such manuscripts. Granted, they are at best copies of some originals, but when one is truly invested in evaluating and understanding evidence one doesn't dismiss the fact that we have a handful of medieval copies known to be corrupt for virtually all authors from antiquity, compared to many thousands in this case.

Presumably, you didn't intend textual critical evidence to count here, as you aren't even aware of what this is. However, not only is you ignorance here telling, but so too is your general evaluation of evidence. For 10 authors that refute your claim simply look to Papias, the 4 canonical gospels, The author of Thomas, Paul, Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, Mara bar Serapion, Thallos, Pliny, Lucian, Celsus, etc. These represent more than 10 authors, and thus meet your requirement. However, the question is how we might evaluate these authors and their texts?

We could use Bunyip's method, which is to refer to a set number of historians that he refuses to name and rely on claims to self-authority (which vary over time) and a refusal to do more than to define historical methods idiomatically, or we could look to historical scholarship that Bunyip writes off as "arguments to authority" so that he can appeal to the various "authorities" he has claimed to be.

Alternatively, we could stop attempting to evaluating Jesus' historicity in terms of mistaken understandings of historical research, your appeal to an anonymous friend and Bunyip's various (and differing) claims to expertise, and simply look at historical research, methods, and findings.

That, however, would require the actual application of historical methods and real research. You have repeatedly shown your reluctance to do either.

Later manuscripts repeating what earlier manuscripts said - do not count.


Also - we are not going to dig through thousands of pages looking for the "Jesus" info.


Please post the author, or text, AND the actual Jesus verses, and a link to the material if possible, so we can check it out.


Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus are COPIES of the Greek Bible. Cross them off the list.


Codex Curiensis also a 6-7th Century COPY.


You cannot count copies, or people writing about what OTHER people said happened.



*

 

[Sapiens]

It's like me trying to get new species status with nothing more than a cast if a print. Insufficient for the purpose. You choose to believe all the pompous hand waving and humanities based "analysis." I'm a scientist and a bit more hard headed. As I've observed before, the field of Biblical Whatever (scholarship, archeology, anthropology, etc.) finds its roots in Christian Apologetics and as a result has a long way to go to begin to approach the rigor that we demand of things like the age of an object or the ancestry of a species.

 

[Sapiens]

p1, p2, p3, p4...p76 (this isn't strictly arithmetic as e.g., p7 doesn't exist); Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Epharaemi Resciptus, Vaticanus, Basel, Vercellensis, Curiensis, Aurseus, et cetera.

...

Well answered by Ingledsva

That, however, would require the actual application of historical methods and real research. You have repeatedly shown your reluctance to do either.

No, not really, that goes back to our original conversation. Where I started out was by asking for the same sort of dispensation from precision and rigor and demonstrable evidence that the Bibilcal types get fin return for their whines concerning inadequate data and sources. I've tried that, I've complained mighty how cold the Arctic Ocean is, how far away it is, how expensive ship time is, how dangerous it is to dive or use subs under the ice pack, and all I want it to be able to prove things with a 15% probability rather than a 95% probability. My colleagues think I'm nuts.

 

[outhouse]

It's like me trying to get new species status with nothing more than a cast if a print. Insufficient for the purpose. You choose to believe all the pompous hand waving and humanities based "analysis." I'm a scientist and a bit more hard headed. As I've observed before, the field of Biblical Whatever (scholarship, archeology, anthropology, etc.) finds its roots in Christian Apologetics and as a result has a long way to go to begin to approach the rigor that we demand of things like the age of an object or the ancestry of a species.

We all wish there was more to go on.

No one likes the incomplete picture were left with, but use any other method and you can throw any plausibility out the window.

 

[Ingledsva]

It's like me trying to get new species status with nothing more than a cast if a print. Insufficient for the purpose. You choose to believe all the pompous hand waving and humanities based "analysis." I'm a scientist and a bit more hard headed. As I've observed before, the field of Biblical Whatever (scholarship, archeology, anthropology, etc.) finds its roots in Christian Apologetics and as a result has a long way to go to begin to approach the rigor that we demand of things like the age of an object or the ancestry of a species.

And you know what is horrifying to me - as someone that studied archaeology?


Almost ALL of the archaeologists in the past several hundred years, were from the religions of Abraham.


Slanted history - anyone?


There are books written on anomalous materials hidden in the basements of museums. When the find didn't fit the preconceived ideas of the Abrahamic archaeologists, they shoved them aside, or noted them in a separate notebook, Leaving them out of the conclusion arrived at, by the "material."


This is why, with new archaeological digs, the ideas about ancient cultures are being turned around.


*

 

[Sapiens]

And you know what is horrifying to me - as someone that studied archaeology?

Glad to find someone else who is bothered by it.

Almost ALL of the archaeologists in the past several hundred years, were from the religions of Abraham.

That is rather painfully obvious.

Slanted history - anyone?

Naw ... really?

There are books written on anomalous materials hidden in the basements of museums. When the find didn't fit the preconceived ideas of the Abrahamic archaeologists, they shoved them aside, or noted them in a separate notebook, Leaving them out of the conclusion arrived at, by the "material."

Why does that not surprise me?

This is why, with new archaeological digs, the ideas about ancient cultures are being turned around.

I was first exposed to Biblical Scholarship (and at a pretty high level, I was at Berkeley) during my undergraduate years. I thought, at the time, that my dislike and disdain for the field and it's practitioners was due to my atheist views, so I compensated and gave them the benefit of the doubt. Later on, when I had reached middle management at a major state land-grant university I came to realize that what I had been reacting to was the stench of intellectual laziness augmented by the rot of complacency and the smugness of belief. I'm glad to hear that that is changing.

 

[Bunyip]

A qualified historian who lacks the credentials to be one and whose field is espionage and who majored in history but also didn't major in history but double majored in "history and politics" and in counter-terrorism.

Yeah. You're a "qualified" something. Just not a qualified historian, academic, or scholar.

Still, I can't but laugh at the ways you tried to climb out of the pit you dug by claiming BOTH of he following:



You can launch into yet another defense as to how this blatant contradiction is really you saying that when you clearly said Paul wasn't Jesus' contemporary, what you meant was some other nonsense, but the fact remains you blatantly contradicted yourself factually. I say factually because your various claims of expertise are also contradictory, but here you are merely obviously misrepresenting yourself, not the evidence or the ways in which historians evaluate it.

Legion, you have repeated those same pathetic attacks and accusations ad naseum. *edit*. I have made no false claims about my education, *edit*. Your infantile attacks against me do not constitute evidence for the historicity of Jesus- *edit*.

 

[Bunyip]

Just as fundamentalist Christian advocates for intelligent design must explain away many, many more than one fossil copy of most species to continue to hold their fragile worldviews, so also must fundamentalist atheists like Bunyip explain away multiple manuscript copies, many of which are hostile sources, who never even THINK to question whether Jesus existed as a human being. They all just assumed he was human and, if hostile, attacked Jesus' personage on other grounds, such as calling him the son of a prostitute.



Again, belting this out for the cheap seats: PAUL MET JESUS' BROTHER. I am not holding my breath for any rational explanation for how one can have a human brother without being human himself because none exists. Bunyip's intellectual dishonesty knows no bounds.

ROLFMAO.

"I am not holding my breath for any rational explanation for how one can have a brother without being human himself"

LOL! Funniest comment ever. I LOVE that you think somebody was arguing that Jesus wasn't human.

 

[Prophet]

ROLFMAO.

"I am not holding my breath for any rational explanation for how one can have a brother without being human himself"

LOL! Funniest comment ever. I LOVE that you think somebody was arguing that Jesus wasn't human.

Funny, hey? Bunyip has been arguing for a mythical and thus not human Jesus for hundreds of pages across three threads which I know of. The intellectual dishonesty, lies, and blatant contradictions are a near constant from Bunyip in every debate I've seen him encounter disagreement, including this very thread which he started with a disingenuous promise to avoid these dysfunctional behaviors and actually engage in thoughtful rational inquiry. Bunyip has continually proven his magnanimous notions were nothing but hypocrisy.

 

[Bunyip]

Funny, hey? Bunyip has been arguing for a mythical and thus not human Jesus for hundreds of pages across three threads which I know of.

LOL No I haven't little fella. I told you that I am not a mythicist several times.

The intellectual dishonesty, lies, and blatant contradictions are a near constant from Bunyip in every debate I've seen him encounter disagreement, including this very thread which he started with a disingenuous promise to avoid these dysfunctional behaviors and actually engage in thoughtful rational inquiry. Bunyip has continually proven his magnanimous notions were nothing but hypocrisy.

 

[Prophet]

Later manuscripts repeating what earlier manuscripts said - do not count.

This would be like an intelligent design advocate who says that he needs only to explain away the first fossil of a species. The rest are just copies and they do not "count". It is typical of all fundamentalist worldviews to bureaucratically rule out evidence which it comes into conflict with.

Also - we are not going to dig through thousands of pages looking for the "Jesus" info.

This is not a surprise. For this same reason, fundamentalist Christian intelligent design advocates are highly unlikely to devote their lives to study of science.

It is common amongst fundamentalists to spout off wrecklessly regarding subjects for which they also demonstrate willful ignorance. This makes fundamentalists unqualified judges of what is true, likely, unlikely, or false.

 

[Prophet]

LOL No I haven't little fella. I told you that I am not a mythicist several times.

And I have replied to this "point" that Bunyip is a mythicist regardless of what he calls himself.

The only difference in the propositions here between the mythicist and denialist positions is the former is the intellectually honest position between the two. Denying the historicity of Jesus without submitting an alternative to mainstream interpretation of the evidence is a rather transparent attempt to recruit the strength of all possible mythicist positions without having to demonstrate the plausibility of even one. In this way, a denialist is able to gain all the the appearance of strength of submission of an alternate interpretation with none of its responsibility.

Luckily, I never expect Bunyip to remember beyond the current post he is writing. Bunyip has acclimated me to low standards.

I'm quite aware Bunyip doesn't own up that he is a denialist. I'm not saying Bunyip is even THAT honest to admit his dishonest position. I ARGUED that Bunyip is a denialist. I'm not misremembering. There's no path for Bunyip to just tell me "you forgot, I'm not a denialist" and me to take him at face value, because I've seen Bunyip's arguments. I'm using what he has said against him.

Anytime Bunyip wants to ARGUE that he isn't a mere denialist as I ARGUE, he is certainly welcome to... but Bunyip's merely denying he is a denialist makes my point for me.

REMEMBER: ANY TIME I WANT.

 

[Ingledsva]

This would be like an intelligent design advocate who says that he needs only to explain away the first fossil of a species. The rest are just copies and they do not "count". It is typical of all fundamentalist worldviews to bureaucratically rule out evidence which it comes into conflict with.



This is not a surprise. For this same reason, fundamentalist Christian intelligent design advocates are highly unlikely to devote their lives to study of science.

It is common amongst fundamentalists to spout off wrecklessly regarding subjects for which they also demonstrate willful ignorance. This makes fundamentalists unqualified judges of what is true, likely, unlikely, or false.

Dude - these are not fossils.


We are discussing how many writings, that give legitimacy, - remember?


You can not count copies, and later repeated myth.



*

 

[Bunyip]

And I have replied to this "point" that Bunyip is a mythicist regardless of what he calls himself.

LOL Indeed. You know that I have stated outright that I am not a mythicist, but claim that I am one anyway.

And you apparently think that is 'owning'. ROFL

 

[Sapiens]

We all wish there was more to go on.

No one likes the incomplete picture were left with, but use any other method and you can throw any plausibility out the window.

And if that is the most reasonable thing to do then what is the problem with that solution?

 

[oldbadger]

This would be like an intelligent design advocate who says that he needs only to explain away the first fossil of a species. The rest are just copies and they do not "count".

What a wonderfully scatterbrained idea! Prophet uses an analogy about Direct Evidence from the fossil-record D) to somehow win a debate about a misty image of a person which needs secondary or primary witness accounts!

I would love to read a Statement by Prophet after a car-accident that he had been involved in....... that would be truly stupifying, I expect....

It is typical of all fundamentalist worldviews to bureaucratically rule out evidence which it comes into conflict with.

Prophet wriggles! Wriggling! When he cannot produce any witnesses he writes waffle. bureaucratically = :biglaugh:

Prophet just needs to write a simple sentence, and then he can relax and take deep breaths...... it will be over.... Here it is.
'We cannot be certain about the existence of an Historic Jesus'.

 

[Prophet]

Dude - these are not fossils.


We are discussing how many writings, that give legitimacy, - remember?

How many? This is truly nonsense line of questioning. There is no specific number of references that can confer legitimacy of history. There is only the number of originals we have and the predictable magical moving goalpost you'll set just beyond whatever number we find.

Legitimacy of historical theory..... hell, ANY kind of theory is, was, and always will be conferred by being the only explanation for the evidence available with no competing theory which explains the evidence as well or nearly as well. And there aren't any.

 

[Sapiens]

... ANY kind of theory is, was, and always will be conferred by being the only explanation for the evidence available with no competing theory which explains the evidence as well or nearly as well. And there aren't any.

That is know as an argument from ignorance, nothing more.

Does having a million xeroxes of a lie make the original any more true? Of course not.