RE: Damned Catholics
December 3, 2018 at 1:05 pm
(This post was last modified: December 3, 2018 at 1:11 pm by Cherub786.)
(December 3, 2018 at 1:02 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: What's the point? If Jesus the miracle man didn't exist, but Jesus the apocalyptic preacher did, why would we care? Nobody gives a shit about the historical Jesus. He's just a prop used to shore up crappy arguments about miracle Jesus. If Jesus was just a man, I'm happy to embrace that possibility. But that's not what I'm actually being asked to embrace. The historical Jesus argument is just a moronic bait and switch.
You don't have to care. The debate is about the historical existence of a figure we know as Jesus of Nazareth. Since the mythicists have denied this on a very weak foundation, I am citing actual qualified and accredited historians and scholars in the field who have debated and refuted those mythicists like Robert Price.
(December 3, 2018 at 1:01 pm)Minimalist Wrote:(December 3, 2018 at 12:49 pm)Cherub786 Wrote: I suppose you think the Assyrian captivity of the northern kingdom of Israel in the mid 8th century BCE under the historic Assyrian rulers Sargon II and then Sennacherib was a legend too?
And then the Babylonian captivity of the Jews in the late 6th century BCE under the historic Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzer was a legend?
And then the conquest of Babylon by the Persians under Cyrus the Great, and the subsequent return of the Jewish exiles to their homeland?
And then the rise of the Seleucids and Antiochus Epiphanes, then the Jewish revolt of the Maccabees which freed their country and restored the Jewish monarchy?
All of this was mythology and never happened?
I can't help but notice that all of your "examples" are relatively late.... late 8th century BC or later.
The difference between these 4 events and the supposed earlier exodus, patriarchs, conquest bullshit is that we have actual archaeological and or historical evidence for them.
So what you have are historical events but in one way or another the priest class of Judah who later cobbled all this folklore together embellished these events to give their fucking god a starring role. The "return of the exiles" is one in particular that does not stand up well to scrutiny. Perhaps when I get time I'll get back to this and tell you how. Even though you clearly do not want to hear anything that upsets your holy little apple cart. Sadly, your feelings on this matter of no concern to me.
I deliberately didn't mention the stories in Genesis and Exodus because as you rightly point out they lack sufficient historical evidence. But to dismiss the entire Bible and its narrative because some things in it are apparently "mythological" is simply an incorrect approach. The epistles of Paul were written within decades of Jesus's death. They are very early written source that is considered with regard to the existence of a historical Jesus. There is no evidence that a bunch of Jews decided to get together and fabricate the existence of someone named Jesus believing him to be the Messiah.
If so, they would never have agreed that he was crucified at the hands of the Romans (the Jewish Messiah is to be victorious not defeated), or that he came from Nazareth (and had to concoct an elaborate story to get his birth in Bethlehem). If you want to invent a Messiah out of thin air you wouldn't go about it this way. But if you wanted to turn a historical figure that really existed into a Messiah, you would have to concoct these elaborate stories about it. These are one of the strong proofs that there was an historic Jesus of Nazareth.