Agreed. Superman without the superpowers, or perhaps the Non-Invisible Man. Or that novel about the time non-existent Martians never invaded the Earth. That was a classic. I remember the film that wasn't made about that; I remember not going to see it.

I just lost a lot of respect for Ehrman, here. He claims he never heard of Price and then admits that he has heard of him.... really, Bart?

Of significance is that Ehrman repeats over and over that you have to look at the evidence but then he never says what that evidence is. In one of his books he even fell back on the discredited Testimoniam Flavianum.

Nonetheless, what our new found fundie friend fails to realize is that Ehrman does not accept a miracle-working, back from the dead, jesus. When he talks about a historical jesus he means a person by that name not some fucking "god."

But jesus without the miracles is nothing more than some shlepper who may have gotten himself killed. In any case, it is distressing to hear someone of Ehrman's reputation fall back on the "how do we know Julius Caesar existed" line of shit. Unlike the probably illiterate godboy, Caesar wrote his own manuscripts, minted coins, was spoken of by his friends and enemies in their writings and is commemorated in statues and inscriptions all over the Roman world. Contrast this to some unknown jew from fucking Galilee that no one ever heard about during his own lifetime and it starts to look like Ehrman just wants to keep selling books to idiot xtians.

At that time, Jesus (whether Yeshu, Yeshua or any other ways it was rendered) would have been quite a common name anyway. You could probably throw a rock and have a reasonable chance of hitting someone with that name. I believe Josephus himself mentions four different Jesuses, all of them distinct and separate, and not one of which worked miracles and rose from the dead.

More like 20+... one who had a surprisingly similar run-in with a Roman governor to the bible bullshitter.

From The Jewish War, Book VI

Quote:"But, what is still more terrible, there was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple [Sukkot, autumn, 62 CE], began on a sudden to cry aloud, "A voice from the east,
a voice from the west,
a voice from the four winds,
a voice against Jerusalem and the Holy House,
a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides,
and a voice against this whole people!"

This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city. However, certain of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his, and took
up the man, and gave him a great number of severe stripes; yet did not he either say any thing for himself, or any thing peculiar to those that chastised him, but still went on with the same words which he cried before.

Hereupon the magistrates, supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was a sort of divine fury in the man, brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was whipped till his bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at
every stroke of the whip his answer was, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!"
And when Albinus (for he was then our procurator) asked him, Who he was? and whence he came? and why he uttered such words? he made no manner of reply to what he said, but still did not leave off his melancholy ditty, till Albinus took him to be a madman, and dismissed him.

Now, during all the time that passed before the war began, this man did not go near any of the citizens, nor was seen by them while he said so; but he every day uttered these lamentable words, as if it were his premeditated vow, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" Nor did he give ill words to any of those that beat him every day, nor good words to those that gave him food; but this was his reply to all men, and indeed no other than a melancholy presage of what was to come.

This cry of his was the loudest at the festivals; and he continued this ditty for seven years and five months, without growing hoarse, or being tired therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased; for as he was going round upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force,
"Woe, woe to the city again, and to the people, and to the Holy House!"

And just as he added at the last, "Woe, woe to myself also!" there came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately; and as he was uttering the very same presages he gave up the ghost."

I wonder where the xtians got their ideas for the "trial" of their boy before Pilate?

I knew Jesus was a common name but I didn't realise there were quite that many on record. So the Pythons were closer to the truth than I realised when everyone claimed to be called Brian ("and so's my wife!")

Coincidentally Jesus ben Ananius or however it's spelled was one of the four I could remember off the top of my head, without actually looking it up. Well, him, Jesus ben Phiabi, Jesus ben Gamaliel and Jesus ben Damneus, the High Priest.

(August 25, 2012 at 12:59 am)teaearlgreyhot Wrote: Well, historical Jesus of course means human teacher who had a small set of followers and maybe was a "miracle" worker (where miracle worker = magician). Not the same as biblical Jesus.

No, it's not and that's my point.

Say there really was a "mortal Superman", some guy named "Clark Kent" who was adopted as an orphan by a childless farming couple and he later went on to work for a newspaper in a big city. If you held up his true story and compared it to the comic, can we honestly say the comic is "based on a true story"? Does anything in the "real story", outside the data I just supplied to this hypothetical person, bear any resemblance to the tale told by DC comics?

The powers were so wrapped into the character and the story that was built around him (the super villains, the super accomplishments, etc) that to take them away would so fundamentally change him and his story as to make him a different person completely.

Same principle applies to Jesus. Would the Gospels really be "based on a true story"? How much would we have to remove off the bat because so many episodes are either dependent on a miracle or punctuated by one?

But it gets even shakier than that. OK, take away the miracles and what's left? The ministry? The ministry was clearly exaggerated to ridiculous proportions, since it had his fame at such a level that it spread far an wide, that rich and poor alike flocked to him If he really shook the political and religious foundations to the core, as the Gospels suggest, nobody at the time seemed to notice.

How about the teachings? What were they? What is reported in the Gospels and Epistles can't be corroborated. He wrote nothing down and nobody else copied any of his sayings either apart from the NT. If we discard the NT's accounts of his miracles as impossible and their accounts of his ministry as lies and exaggerations, why should we trust anything they report as to his teachings?

So what's left?

Some guy named Yeshua (common name) who was a doomcrier in 1st century Judea (one on every street corner) thought of by some as the Messiah (a hoard of claimants to that title) but we don't know anything about what he taught or the time and nature of his ministry.

Sounds to me like Ehrman is arguing for a Jesus-of-the-gaps.

The problem with Ehrman is that he correctly casts doubts on his sources for being the edited, forgery-ridden, piles of shit they are.... and then still concludes that there is some basic truth to them. Can't have it both ways, Bart.

(August 24, 2012 at 11:06 pm)Atom Wrote:

(August 24, 2012 at 10:26 pm)teaearlgreyhot Wrote: Fallacy of appeal to majority, authority, and consensus.

I think I'm on more solid ground appealing to a near unanimity of peer reviewed academic scholars on the testimony of Bart Ehrman as a hostile witness than you are citing yourself as your own authority....

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Jesus mythers and holocaust deniers and fake moon landing folk are interesting and quaint.

(August 25, 2012 at 5:57 pm)Lion IRC Wrote:

(August 24, 2012 at 11:06 pm)Atom Wrote: I think I'm on more solid ground appealing to a near unanimity of peer reviewed academic scholars on the testimony of Bart Ehrman as a hostile witness than you are citing yourself as your own authority....

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Jesus mythers and holocaust deniers and fake moon landing folk are interesting and quaint.

None of which are wrong because they disagree with majority opinion! They would be wrong because of bad arguments, bad evidence and bad interpretation. It's a very basic logical fallacy that isn't hard to understand that you two are gleefully committing here. If greater than 50 percent of scholars are agree on x, it does not follow at all that they are right about x!

Jesus mythers and holocaust deniers and fake moon landing folk.

One of these things is not like the others.