(January 8, 2014 at 8:55 pm)Minimalist Wrote: And their evidence is ......................?

Hint: They always end up pointing to the bible itself as evidence of itself.

Roughly in the 150s AD a xtian writer named Justin wrote an apologia to Emperor Antoninus Pius. He never mentions anyone named "Paul." For that matter, he never mentions any gospels by matthew, mark, luke or john.

Think about that. We know the dates of Antoninus Pius' reign. 138 - 161 AD. That's a fairly short window as these things go.

Of course they're going to study the manuscripts themselves to determine their historicity. Does it work any other way for other ancient sources? I would point you to Erhman but there's plenty of secular scholars out there who find ample reason to believe the texts of Paul are first century. You seem to have a special set of rules for evaluating New Testament authorship and dating and I don't see how you can justify this. More importantly, it's not necessary, it wreaks of bias, and most scholars who have studied these texts will not take you seriously.

(January 2, 2014 at 11:22 am)rightcoaster Wrote:

(December 31, 2013 at 4:38 pm)The_Thinking_Theist Wrote: A god's resurrection from the dead is an ancient archetype found all over the world, so it wasn't borrowed from anyone, more likely it was just another expression of the human's innate fear of death. For the record, Osiris' "resemblances" to Jesus are really stretched.

The response to you is as to Mini: That Jesus was a god/God was not an early Jewish contribution to, and had nothing to do with the origin of, the resurrection myth. The origin of the myth was the original question posed by this thread. For the original Jewish followers, equating a mortal man with God was inconceivable and entirely unnecessary. Rather, the myth originated as the resurrection of a dead mortal man, for reasons Xpastor provided, and his view is entirely consistent with the "actual facts" as I set out in a miracle-free scenario that is consistent with Jewish law, the calendar, the clock, and the "technology". Hey, Jews had precedent: Elisha did it, so it could happen again. Only later did the conflation occur with the god-resurrection myths of the neighbors, and its absorption into Christology

Yeah. What you said.

(January 8, 2014 at 9:10 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:

(January 8, 2014 at 8:55 pm)Minimalist Wrote: And their evidence is ......................?

Hint: They always end up pointing to the bible itself as evidence of itself.

Roughly in the 150s AD a xtian writer named Justin wrote an apologia to Emperor Antoninus Pius. He never mentions anyone named "Paul." For that matter, he never mentions any gospels by matthew, mark, luke or john.

Think about that. We know the dates of Antoninus Pius' reign. 138 - 161 AD. That's a fairly short window as these things go.

Of course they're going to study the manuscripts themselves to determine their historicity. Does it work any other way for other ancient sources? I would point you to Erhman but there's plenty of secular scholars out there who find ample reason to believe the texts of Paul are first century. You seem to have a special set of rules for evaluating New Testament authorship and dating and I don't see how you can justify this. More importantly, it's not necessary, it wreaks of bias, and most scholars who have studied these texts will not take you seriously.

It works like this.

Some bible-thumping shithead says "No reputable scholar doubts the historical jesus."

Some one says "I doubt the historical jesus."

Bible-thumper says "Then you are not a reputable scholar."

The bible cannot be used to prove itself. Period.

(January 8, 2014 at 9:42 pm)Minimalist Wrote: It works like this.

Some bible-thumping shithead says "No reputable scholar doubts the historical jesus."

Some one says "I doubt the historical jesus."

Bible-thumper says "Then you are not a reputable scholar."

The bible cannot be used to prove itself. Period.

Look, I'm by no means a Bible-thumping shithead nor do I find there to be any credible evidence for the Resurrection. I'm merely stating the fact the overwhelming majority of biblical scholars, secular and non, do not doubt that a man named Paul wrote a handful of the New Testament letters in the first-century. Don't take my word for it though. Do textual criticism as others have. Of course there will always be crackpots, just as there are those who deny the Holocaust or evolution, but atheists who want to promote critical thinking should not fall for rubbish arguments simply because we find religious dogmas to be absurd.

Yes, and I agree with you but you have to look at who is defining the terms.
You have a bunch of theologians who try to define the debate along rigid terms. Anyone who tries to step outside of those boundaries is marginalized.

Fuck them. I agree with Dawkins about the relative value of theologians.

Quote:What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has theology ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? I have listened to theologians, read them, debated against them. I have never heard any of them ever say anything of the smallest use, anything that was not either platitudinously obvious or downright false. If all the achievements of scientists were wiped out tomorrow, there would be no doctors but witch doctors, no transport faster than horses, no computers, no printed books, no agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice the smallest difference? Even the bad achievements of scientists, the bombs, and sonar-guided whaling vessels work! The achievements of theologians don't do anything, don't affect anything, don't mean anything. What makes anyone think that "theology" is a subject at all?

Mankind would still be living in mud huts if it were up to theologians.

Bar Kokhba was definitely closer to the Jewish ideal of moshiach than the mealy-mouthed jesus.

"God" however never seemed to help them out when they fought a really capable empire.

(January 8, 2014 at 11:22 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:

(January 8, 2014 at 11:18 pm)rightcoaster Wrote: "Son of God or Messiah" is a nonsense conflation in the way you mean it, and would have been to the "apostles".

...

Good point. I probably should have said "Son of Man or Messiah."

Son of Man doesn't convey divinity, either.

(January 8, 2014 at 12:36 pm)Minimalist Wrote: ... we only have one original story. "Mark" (or whoever) that wrote the original tale. ...
Most of the early, fragmentary, manuscripts we have date to the 2d century. ... What if there are no first century "originals" because this shit started in the 2d century?

That requires a simple, charming faith that seems somehow alien to you, in the sense that you have to shelve your critical skills and just accept the assertion of utter, whole-cloth fabrication.

Asserting as evidence of absence that Justin does not mention other "authors" seems a stretch. There's too much stuff from the 2nd C to have all been invented just then. So there is something that goes back farther, and it seems far more more likely that something actually happened to somebody and to some people, than that several authors (all four gospels were supposedly composed in span of maybe 50 yrs, plus Acts, plus arguably those letters not asserted to be pseudepigraphic) not all in the same place came up with that much stuff from nothing at all -- now THAT's a creation myth!