Any Evidence For A Historical Jesus?

[radorth]

Bart Ehrman is better trained than I am to comment on which were the earliest manuscripts and why they were chosen. There was a hoard of different gospels, epistles and apocalypses, and while I can comment on the order in which the books of the NT were written, I can't on the others that were rejected.

Well then you are only further confusing the issue, which is that because people disagree or other "gospels" came later, what does that tell us about whether the actual ms listed contradict each other? The answer to that is nothing, and the logical fallacy problem remains

And he doesn't seem to think, based on Lost Christianities, that the books are as unchanged as fundies today like to think. The Ebionites, according to Ehrman, had their version of Matthew which dropped the part about his virgin birth. The Marcionites had a their version of Luke.

It doesn't matter what scholars on either side think. That is an argument by authority fallacy. Does Ehrman ever point out that you can reconstruct 90 % the NT from the writings of second century Christians? I doubt it because that simple truth blows big holes in the"oh gosh, too many versions to know anythng" theory. The missing or changed items are carefully documented in serious study Bibles, and are based on the earliest manuscripts known back to he second century, which in the world of ancient ms, is a small miracle. We buy off on all kinds of ms which only go back to the 5th and 6th centuries. You imply something is being hidden which is simply false.

I can only assume with Paul, the poster-boy for the Marcionite faith, that his epistles read much differently than the ones we have today. Or else Marion would have been promoting him as his primary prophet hoping no one would actually read what he wrote!

Presumed facts don't impress me- maybe some of the readers looking for the contradictions the non-Christian Durant called "minutae" for a reason. But as Jesus said, we all find what we are looking for.

OK, first of all, are you under the delusion that there was a published NT for the early Christians to reference to know that the Marionites were wrong, that Jesus was born of a woman or that the Ebionites were wrong, that Jesus did claim to be god? If this had been the case, the wouldn't have been such a big problem.

My turn to roll on the floor laughing perhaps. Are you suggesting that this second presumed fact (they had nothing written) means they did not hear the Gospel? BTW doesn't your statement contradict the "Q" Gospel theory, you know the one Gospel writers copied? When was that written? I imagine as well that some people who had seen Jesus work a miracle took a lot of notes. We would. But of course that is an argument from silence, like your own. "We have no proof anything was written early on, so it must not have been, and so the Christians didn't know the Gospel" Your faith in what the lack of something means, is inspiring.

Second of all, the books of the NT are not as unchanged as you might like to believe. Ehrman has commented on how the story of Jesus and "cast the first stone" wasn't added to the story until hundreds of years later.

Yes, but not hundreds, and this fact is duely noted in all serious study Bibles. You did know that "false in one part therefore false in all" is a logical fallacy, no?

The change to Mark 16, with the inclusion of the resurrection, was a later addition (a point not in dispute by Christian scholars).

No the majority says he wrote to verse 16:8, but you no doubt have a preferred list of "Christian" scholars.

You still have a case only if there are disagreements and contradictions within these manuscripts. Can we fairly assume you can't really find any, so you have to talk about disagreements among sects?

There are vast disagreements with the modern books of the NT. Search the synoptic gospels in vain for any reference to Jesus calling himself God.

That's just not true. The Pharisees had no doubt whatsoever he had made that claim.

The closest you can come is Matthews mangled misquote of Isaiah 7:14.

I don't know what you mean Are you saying Immanuel does not mean "God with us"? The verses match BTW and Matthew is clearly commenting that Immanuel means God with us, not translating Isaiah.

These books clearly depict a Jesus separate from and completely subordinate to Yahweh.

"I and the father are one," and "he who has seen me has seen the Father," makes it entirely unclear I'm afraid. I'm surprised he said that much, give how it enraged religious quite people willing to knock him off early.

Echoes of the Ebionite belief of salvation through keeping the Law is found in Matthew, a stark contrast to the Pauline epistles.

There is nothing in Matthew that says you have to keep the law to be saved. As a matter of fact, the Sermon on the Mount makes it entirely impossible for anyone to obey it. James says "we all make many mistakes" currently, so was he not saved then? Can you be a Christian and not show some fruit? No you can't and Jesus says so. But he saved a thief who never kept the law, and only called him "Lord" so obviously there are holes in your logic. Why should he bother going to the cross if we had to obey "every jot and tittle" of the law? That makes no sense, and it is not Christians who are creating the confusion here except fundy legalists which you ironically seem to agree with.

To say Jesus was telling us we are only saved by keeping the law is an ultra-simplistic interpretation. You can call it a contradiction. I call it a clear warning nobody can fudge. Either you become a believer at some point or you obey every single jot and tittle. (And by the way, the thief story proves what I am saying and gives me hope for well meaning but spiritually ignorant folks like yourself.

Echoes of the struggle with the Docetic Christians is found in the epistles of John, which argue for Christians to have faith that Jesus came in the flesh (the Docetics believed that Jesus was a purely spiritual being).

Echoes, assumptions, vague "guilt by association" arguments are no help here. Actually, it is. Modern Christians and Muslims would agree that:

1. Jesus was a physical being (Docetics would disagree)

But not the savior, which means they disagree entirely with just that problem

2. Jesus was born an had a childhood

Thin evidence of anything

3. Jesus' mother was a virgin (Ebionites would disagree)
4. Jesus preached about the faith of the Abrahamic god (Marionites would disagree) [/quote]

Well yes, and how does that prove God has not spoken to us in different forms, as an omnipotent God is entirely capable of doing you must agree. This is hardly convincing when you have Muslims saying Jesus did not even go to the cross!

5. Jesus preached that there was one god (Marcionites would disagree).

So I guess that proves he was God then.

Was there one god, two, several, hundreds? Was Jesus a physical being? If he was, was he a god, an angel, or a mortal man? How do we gain salvation? Did Jesus preach to keep the Law or discard it? These are serious theological differences and yet they are all part of "Christianity" in the first few centuries.

These are mostly rhetorical questions. You still haven't answered my question: What are the contradictions in the documents listed? You are still resorting to disagreements among sects as some sort of evidence there are contradictions. That is simply not logical. If you can't find and point out the contradictions yourself, you are simply going by what some guy says. I thought unbelievers were against such mindless faith.

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Is it not ironic that the typical atheist will call one a scholar up to the very minute s/he realizes the story is true, and then the atheist decides they were wrong?

The number of no-longer-scholars-because-they-believed is frighteningly long I would say