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The Sacrifice of Jesus from a Non-Religious Perspective.
- Thread starter fallingblood
- Start date
fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
Again, the article was by a computer programmer. That was what you linked to.
Really, if I wanted to, I could find reviews, by actual scholars, that were rave reviews. I can find many scholars who support Sanders. Big deal. Why not deal with the points I posted instead of running around them?
fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
How about you read the article. As that is what this thread is about, you should be familiar with the article. At least enough to argue against it.
fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
Still refusing to address the points I brought up huh? I
I have her works. I'm familiar with her ideas. I bolded the interesting point.
Also, the moneychangers, and traders paid taxes. As in, they were taxed. They paid the money out of what they made. They, themselves, weren't taxing people.
So again, why not actually address the points that I made, instead of running from them?
fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
I addressed that here:http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/2788638-post159.html
Why not finally address those points?
fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
We are not talking about family at all. Jesus is only said to be the cousin of John in one Gospel, in a birth narrative. Birth narratives, if we look at other historical works, hardly ever relate historical ideas, but instead convey a meaning, an overview of who that person is. That is standard historical scholarship.
So no, I didn't ignore it. I just know there is no reason to accept it. More so, it doesn't take away from what I said anyway. Because Jesus still wouldn't have gone to John, family or not, if he didn't accept the ideas that John was proposing. A great example of this is how the family of Jesus is said to have not followed him while he was alive.
Oh, and why not address these points: http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/2788638-post159.html
outhouse
Atheistically
again levied is not up for debate
they had to pay.
but your twisting words again
were talking about the fee the money changers did charge to exchange money
that is a exchange rate! in which part of the fee was the tax romans charged the money changers.
you didnt refute that for beans
outhouse
Atheistically
the only historicity that can be dug from this, is that John baptized jesus. Beyond that your getting away from historicity and debating probabilities.
While I do agree that he did preach of the coming kingdom of god, your reaching for much more
and I agree about the birth gospels not being accurate, its still a possibility they were cousins. We dont know.
outhouse
Atheistically
What a crock
levied needs no interpretation. they were forced to pay and he is probably the only one who would make such a claim.
and second, jesus did not pay the tax. he sent peter fishing [facepalm] to find magic coins inside fish.
Ive caught over thousand fish in my life, not one had a coin in him in a 45 year period of fishing LOL
outhouse
Atheistically
this sums up your scholarships and puts them into context. especially when trying to use one biased view on a area you know is biased.
Conclusion
Five main weaknesses in Sanders' approach have been demonstrated in this review. The first one is treating the existence of a historical Jesus as an axiom. Second is approaching the Gospels with a preconception that Jesus was an eschatological prophet and not a revolutionary, a reformer, an itinerant teacher, or a cynic. His preoccupation with supporting his portrait and refuting the other portraits of Jesus limits his perspective and undermines his objectivity. Third is his failure to give due regard to redaction, tendenz, and literary criticism, and relying largely on historical criticism. The fourth one is his failure to consider the Pauline Christ, which anteceded the Gospel Jesus that had been embellished through historicization and scripturalization. Fifth is the lack of a reliable methodology. "Common sense" and a "good feel for sources" are not methods, but purely subjective approaches that are doomed to yield invalid results.
As noted earlier, Sanders' book is otherwise useful for anyone interested in New Testament scholarship. But it must be approached carefully with the above weaknesses in mind.[78]
Historical Jesus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The linguist Alvar Ellegård argued that theologians have failed to question Jesus' existence because of a lack of communication between them and other scholars, causing some of the basic assumptions of Christianity to remain insulated from general scholarly debate
According to the historian of religion Joseph Hoffman, there has never been "a methodologically agnostic approach to the question of Jesus' historical existence.
Donald Akenson, Professor of Irish Studies, in the department of history at Queen's University, has argued that, with very few exceptions, the historians of Yeshua have not followed sound historical practices. He has stated that there is an unhealthy reliance on consensus, for propositions, which should otherwise be based on primary sources, or rigorous interpretation. He also identifies a peculiar downward dating creep, and holds that some of the criteria being used are faulty. He says that, the overwhelming majority of biblical scholars are employed in institutions whose roots are in religious beliefs. Because of this, more than any other group in present day academia, biblical historians are under immense pressure to theologize their historical work.
John Meier, Professor of theology at University of Notre Dame, has also said "...I think a lot of the confusion comes from the fact that people claim they are doing a quest for the historical Jesus when de facto they’re doing theology, albeit a theology that is indeed historically informed..."
Dale Allison, Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Early Christianity at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, too says, "...We wield our criteria to get what we want..."
Albert Schweitzer accused early scholars of religious bias. Rudolf Bultmann argued that historical research could reveal very little about the historical Jesus. Some have argued that modern biblical scholarship is insufficiently critical and sometimes amounts to covert apologetics
Conclusion
Five main weaknesses in Sanders' approach have been demonstrated in this review. The first one is treating the existence of a historical Jesus as an axiom. Second is approaching the Gospels with a preconception that Jesus was an eschatological prophet and not a revolutionary, a reformer, an itinerant teacher, or a cynic. His preoccupation with supporting his portrait and refuting the other portraits of Jesus limits his perspective and undermines his objectivity. Third is his failure to give due regard to redaction, tendenz, and literary criticism, and relying largely on historical criticism. The fourth one is his failure to consider the Pauline Christ, which anteceded the Gospel Jesus that had been embellished through historicization and scripturalization. Fifth is the lack of a reliable methodology. "Common sense" and a "good feel for sources" are not methods, but purely subjective approaches that are doomed to yield invalid results.
As noted earlier, Sanders' book is otherwise useful for anyone interested in New Testament scholarship. But it must be approached carefully with the above weaknesses in mind.[78]
Historical Jesus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The linguist Alvar Ellegård argued that theologians have failed to question Jesus' existence because of a lack of communication between them and other scholars, causing some of the basic assumptions of Christianity to remain insulated from general scholarly debate
According to the historian of religion Joseph Hoffman, there has never been "a methodologically agnostic approach to the question of Jesus' historical existence.
Donald Akenson, Professor of Irish Studies, in the department of history at Queen's University, has argued that, with very few exceptions, the historians of Yeshua have not followed sound historical practices. He has stated that there is an unhealthy reliance on consensus, for propositions, which should otherwise be based on primary sources, or rigorous interpretation. He also identifies a peculiar downward dating creep, and holds that some of the criteria being used are faulty. He says that, the overwhelming majority of biblical scholars are employed in institutions whose roots are in religious beliefs. Because of this, more than any other group in present day academia, biblical historians are under immense pressure to theologize their historical work.
John Meier, Professor of theology at University of Notre Dame, has also said "...I think a lot of the confusion comes from the fact that people claim they are doing a quest for the historical Jesus when de facto they’re doing theology, albeit a theology that is indeed historically informed..."
Dale Allison, Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Early Christianity at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, too says, "...We wield our criteria to get what we want..."
Albert Schweitzer accused early scholars of religious bias. Rudolf Bultmann argued that historical research could reveal very little about the historical Jesus. Some have argued that modern biblical scholarship is insufficiently critical and sometimes amounts to covert apologetics
waitasec
Veteran Member
that is funny
fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
History is about probabilities. So yes, I'm debating probabilities, as that is what history is about. Any critical history class will tell you that. We can't show for sure exactly what happened in the past, as we weren't there. Instead, we figure out what most likely happened, based on the information we have. That is what I'm doing.
John baptized Jesus. We then have to think of why. Why would Jesus go to John to be baptized? We know that John worked in the "wilderness," near the Jordan, so that means that Jesus had to go out of his way to find John, and be baptized by him. It wasn't a mere coincidence, there is a reason behind that. The logical reason is that Jesus agreed with what John was teaching, and thus sought to be baptized by him.
fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
So instead of debating the points I make, you're just going to attack all of the scholarship I use? Nice try, but that is an ad hominem. As in, a logical fallacy.
Now, instead of working so hard to try to just discredit my scholarship, why not actually address it? I mean, if my scholarship is so bad, it shouldn't be hard to argue against it.
fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
You didn't address any of those points. You tried to discredit Sanders by posting an article from a computer programmer. An article that really doesn't mention anything I was saying. You also ignored the points in which I explained the verses about tax collectors, as well as the work of Crossan and Borg. You didn't address any of it. Instead, you ran away from it.
fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
You almost got there. Why not actually address all of the issues now?again levied is not up for debate
they had to pay.
but your twisting words again
were talking about the fee the money changers did charge to exchange money
that is a exchange rate! in which part of the fee was the tax romans charged the money changers.
you didnt refute that for beans
I'm not twisting words. If I am, you should be able to show me where, instead of using a ridiculous copout.
And no, we are not talking about the fee the money changers charged. We were talking about taxes, not an exchange rate. An exchange rate, and a tax, are two different things. Taxes were collected by tax collectors. An exchange rate is the money paid to a money changer in order to compensate them for their work on procuring all of the correct money. The money changer would be taxed later on, but that is a different issue.
More so, as I showed with Sanders, we have no record of anyone having a problem with the money changers. So why not try to actually deal with all of the issues for one? Stop running away from them and making up excuses.
outhouse
Atheistically
agreed that john was the foundation for what jesus was preaching.
nothing wrong there for what little I know
fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
Magic coin? And you say I'm twisting words. The point of the story was that Jesus paid the taxes. When asked, his disciples said yes. He also said that to keep up appearance, he would do it anyway. And really, this happened in Capernaum, not Jerusalem, not in the Temple.
Now lets actually look at the Temple tax. We have what E.P. Sanders said (and I'm keeping that until you can show why he is wrong. Attacking his credibility isn't showing he's wrong. It is a cop out, and a tactic that suggests that you have no real argument). Here are some other scholars who state along the same lines:
"Older halakah seems to have held priests exempt from the tax..." So we know that not all Jews had to pay them.
"The Essene community, alienated as it was from the priesthood at Jerusalem, whose sacrificial calendar and sacrifices the Essenes rejected, developed their own restrictive exegesis of Ex 30:11-16 and declared that the Temple tax was to be paid only once in a man's lifetime." And now we see that another group only paid them once in a man's lifetime, and not annually.
Both quotes come from:
McEleney, Neil J. 1976. "Mt 17:24-27 - who paid the temple tax : a lesson in avoidance of scandal." Catholic Biblical Quarterly 38, no. 2: 181
"There is at least one rabbinic text (Mek. Exod 19:1) that shows that not all Jews had paid the Temple Tax." That is quite straightforward.
"More* over, the assumption that even among the circumcised all regarded the Temple Tax as an obligation incumbent on them or their sect is not based on fact." So the idea that all Jews paid Temple tax is not based on fact.
"The Samaritans, for example, were circumcised, but had separated themselves from the cult of the Jerusalem Temple." This continues from the previous statement. It suggests Samaritans, who were Jews as well, or identified themselves as such, didn't pay Temple Taxes.
These quotes come from here:
Mandell, S. 1984. "Who Paid the Temple Tax When the Jews Were under Roman Rule?." Harvard Theological Review 77, no. 2: 223-232
The basic argument was that not all Jews paid the Temple tax. If one did not see an obligation in doing it, they didn't have to. As in, it was voluntary. It also discusses how there is no historical evidence that all Jews paid the Temple tax.
As we see here, it is a little more than just E.P. Sanders stating this.