(May 15, 2023 at 9:46 am)Kingpin Wrote: I may be completely obtuse, but Kerim I'm not following your point. Your subsequent posts are not adding to the clarity either. Others have claimed Jesus is a fictional person, which you accept and still stick to using Him and this good news. It would be no different than quoting what Gandalf said in Lord of the Rings.
If you want to make an argument about something, you need to build a base that can withstand some scrutiny. I of course would argue against Jesus being fictional as there are non-biblical references to Christ, like Tacitus, Mara Bar-Serapion and Phlegon (quoted by Julius Africanus).
If they were contemporaries of Jesus in a position to know about him first hand, I would find them much more convincing. I'm not committed to mythicism, but I guess the odds of a real, singular, historical Jesus on who's teachings Christianity was based, is around 3 in 7. The historical Jesus, the composite Jesus, and the mythical Jesus all seem about equally plausible to me.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
