(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.
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
