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How would an Historical JC be Defined?

fallingblood

fallingblood

Agnostic Theist
Jonathan Hoffman said:
Rules of evidence govern common sense, and common sense should govern the search for accurate accounts of history. And alleged "historical accounts" of Jesus that contain numerous contradictions cannot be admitted into evidence. Therefore the gospels are a spurious source for both a mortal and/or immortal Jesus.

I asked for a definition of the Historical Jesus simply to be sure we are all on the same page.
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Then we can just rule out the entire discipline of history. If we must abide the rules you set down, we can not know anything about history as every event has contradictions in various sources.

If we are going to deal with history, we should use rules regarding history.
 
InvestigateTruth

InvestigateTruth

Veteran Member
Wiki defines History in these words:

"History (from Greek ἱστορία - historia, meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation"[2]) is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about these events."


I would say, it might be possible to say, there are Two types of History:
Verifiable and unverifiable History.

The unverifiable history is just based on sayings of people. the Chains of narrators. But no evidence at hand to verify it.
Suppose we hear from previous generations that 1000 year ago there was a extraordinary knowledgeable man. the news goes generation after generations and reaches us.
Now, if there are actually Books written by such a man, and by investigation into his Books can be seen there was truly such a knowledgeable man existed, then this is a verifiable history. But suppose there is no Book or anything else is left to verify that. Then in that case there is no reason to say certainly what was said about him is true.
It could be true or false.
 
J

Jonathan Hoffman

Active Member
fallingblood said:
Then we can just rule out the entire discipline of history. If we must abide the rules you set down, we can not know anything about history as every event has contradictions in various sources.

If we are going to deal with history, we should use rules regarding history.
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I notice you call yourself a Christian. How can you possibly be objective about history if your beliefs are based on faith?
 
roger1440

roger1440

I do stuff
Jonathan Hoffman said:
Even though many or even most modern scholars think JC was an historical person, few of them believe he performed miracles or was resurrected from the dead. If we strip away all of the hyperbolic content from the JC in the gospels, there is a possibility Jesus existed as a mortal man. Surely few or none among secular Xian scholars believe in the miracle-working JC.

So when scholars say they believe they believe in an historical JC, we must ask exactly what they mean by an historical JC.

Until we can properly define our terms, we shall have endless misunderstandings and ambiguities in our discussions.
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The "historical JC" would be defined as an account of the actual life of Jesus Christ. This account may or may not be in agreement with the canonical, non canonical gospels or other accounts.
 
J

Jonathan Hoffman

Active Member
roger1440 said:
The "historical JC" would be defined as an account of the actual life of Jesus Christ. This account may or may not be in agreement with the canonical, non canonical gospels or other accounts.
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But from your POV, would that account include his miracles, resurrection and ascent into heaven?
 
S

steeltoes

Junior member
fallingblood said:
Then we can just rule out the entire discipline of history. If we must abide the rules you set down, we can not know anything about history as every event has contradictions in various sources.

If we are going to deal with history, we should use rules regarding history.
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No need to rule out the entire discipline of history since there is no need to look to stories in religious texts for actual historical events.
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
steeltoes said:
No need to rule out the entire discipline of history since there is no need to look to stories in religious texts for actual historical events.
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It's always better to use our uninformed bias and call it a historical method (discipline).
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
steeltoes said:
No, I was commenting on the statement made by the poster.
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So who is the apologist? The poster said that Ehrman and others have refuted the Christ-myth. You then say that you're familiar with Christian apologists. Yet the poster and the scholars he refers to are not promoting anything that is even remotely related to Christian apologetics. :shrug:
 
fallingblood

fallingblood

Agnostic Theist
steeltoes said:
No need to rule out the entire discipline of history since there is no need to look to stories in religious texts for actual historical events.
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So we can rule out many of the ancient biographies of Augustus then too right? And many of the ancient biographies of other emperors too correct?

Or maybe, as historians do, we can look at the work as we would any other similar work. Also, it is worth noting that the Gospels were only placed in a "religious text," the Bible, long after they were written. Why should they be ruled out just because they were placed into a collection? There is really no logic there.
 
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