Min, I'm going to drop this controversy now. (Just a few more jabs. 
)
From my perspective you are clutching at straws to deny the historical existence of JC. I suppose from your perspective, I am clutching at straws to affirm his historical existence.
My only interest in the topic is determining what is most plausible historically.
I certainly have no sentimental attachment to JC. I regularly present him as an apocalyptic preacher who thought the world was going to end in his time. I reject the historicity of all the miracles. They were added later by the church, as were any assertions that he was giving his life as a ransom. I don't think much of his moral teaching, which was eloquently expressed but utterly impractical as it was based on the premise that the world would end any day now—take no thought for the morrow, etc., etc. I also agree that the mythological elements were added on, e.g., the dying and rising god.
It is interesting that with all this taken out we still know a lot about his teaching and have pretty accurate summaries of his actual words, which is remarkable for a backwoods preacher in that era. What I regard as authentic are the apocalyptic pronouncements and all the parables, which most people do not realize are apocalyptic too, all about the imminence of the kingdom of heaven.
In fact, the mixture of the apocalyptic teaching with all the other material which convinces me that there is a historical kernel. I can understand how a failed apocalyptic prophet could be transformed into a miracle-working savior god who rises from the dead. I can't see why people in the second century creating the figure of a savior god would toss in the failed prophecies of the end. The apocalyptic material is there because he really uttered those words and they were preserved in his followers' memory and eventually written down, simply because they were from a collection of Jesus sayings.
)From my perspective you are clutching at straws to deny the historical existence of JC. I suppose from your perspective, I am clutching at straws to affirm his historical existence.
My only interest in the topic is determining what is most plausible historically.
I certainly have no sentimental attachment to JC. I regularly present him as an apocalyptic preacher who thought the world was going to end in his time. I reject the historicity of all the miracles. They were added later by the church, as were any assertions that he was giving his life as a ransom. I don't think much of his moral teaching, which was eloquently expressed but utterly impractical as it was based on the premise that the world would end any day now—take no thought for the morrow, etc., etc. I also agree that the mythological elements were added on, e.g., the dying and rising god.
It is interesting that with all this taken out we still know a lot about his teaching and have pretty accurate summaries of his actual words, which is remarkable for a backwoods preacher in that era. What I regard as authentic are the apocalyptic pronouncements and all the parables, which most people do not realize are apocalyptic too, all about the imminence of the kingdom of heaven.
In fact, the mixture of the apocalyptic teaching with all the other material which convinces me that there is a historical kernel. I can understand how a failed apocalyptic prophet could be transformed into a miracle-working savior god who rises from the dead. I can't see why people in the second century creating the figure of a savior god would toss in the failed prophecies of the end. The apocalyptic material is there because he really uttered those words and they were preserved in his followers' memory and eventually written down, simply because they were from a collection of Jesus sayings.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people — House
