Why Bart Ehrman Pisses Me Off..... sometimes

[Minimalist]

I could make a plausible story that aliens landed in Arizona 2 million years ago and carved the Grand Canyon with their lasers.  Should anyone believe any part of that?  No.

[Anomalocaris]

The degree to which any plausible parts of the jesus story actually had any factual basis is really impossible to assess from this remove.  

Which is a very strong argument -against- considering any of it a fact, particularly after demolishing most of it as fantasy.  

However, the more of the story one discard as implausible based on improbability, the more mundane would be the remaining parts of the story and therefore higher the probability that the remaining parts were based to some degree on actual, but mundane, occurrences.

That's not a valid implication, at all.  It's an assertion by fiat based upon probabilities that, just up above, you seemed to think were a black box.  Show me the math.

The sun stopped in the sky - No such occurrence has ever been demonstrated, and all known laws of physics that exhibited evidence of having operated continuously throughout history must be assumed to have been suspended for this to happen. Thus dismissed as implausible.

A carpenter was born to a self proclaimed virgin - such events probably occurs several times a day somewhere in the world. So no need to dismiss it as not based on actual occurrence.

Members of a malcontented, turmoil afflicted and ill-educated society with a messiahic tradition attributing messiahic status to some charismatic charalatan - frequently observed, no need to dismiss it as not based on actual occurance.

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I could make a plausible story that aliens landed in Arizona 2 million years ago and carved the Grand Canyon with their lasers.  Should anyone believe any part of that?  No.

No you can’t.

However, if the story has another part that says a pair of sisters came upon the canyon, one of them were afflicted with terror, prostrated herself, smoked some leafs and saw it was made by divine aliens, that part is plausible and can be based directly or indirectly, partially or in whole, on actual occurance. There is no need to deny the possibility that such a part of the story was based on a real pair of sisters.

[Minimalist]

But you are adding in facts which are not in evidence.

And Josephus mentions several would-be messiahs ( troublemakers, in his view ) who did exactly what you originally proposed and got themselves killed for their trouble.  Somehow, this "jesus" fucker did not make the cut.

[Anomalocaris]

But you are adding in facts which are not in evidence.

And Josephus mentions several would-be messiahs ( troublemakers, in his view ) who did exactly what you originally proposed and got themselves killed for their trouble.  Somehow, this "jesus" fucker did not make the cut.

A 1st century chronicaller of not necessarily the most serious and scrupulous intent is unlikely to have gone through the trouble of conducting and presenting an exhaustive survey, even just to the degree feasible in a fractured and largely illiterate society in turmoil.

[The Grand Nudger]

A carpenter was born to a self proclaimed virgin - such events probably occurs several times a day somewhere in the world.   So no need to dismiss it as not based on actual occurrence.

Members of a malcontented, turmoil afflicted and ill-educated society with a messiahic tradition attributing messiahic status to some charismatic charalatan - frequently observed, no need to dismiss it as not based on actual occurance.

So..no math, then...you're just rattling off a few pieces of a story that has already been found to be unreliable?  That is -exactly- the problem.

Why a carpenter? What about a virgin mary..that's not even in the oldest versions. Some malcontent named jesus crucified by the romans...says who? Not the romans. They don't seem to have noticed, despite being up to their testicles in judea.

[Minimalist]

He has a track record of commenting, favorably, on the harsh treatment the Romans delivered on similar troublemakers, but he ignores jesus.  Now there are two likely reasons for this.

A) He considered "jesus" too unimportant to waste ink on, even though he discussed Theudas and The Egyptian and Judas the Galilean and his sons, or,

B) He never heard of any fucking jesus.  ( It should be noted that Archbishop Photius read the work of Josephus' contemporary, Justus of Tiberias and dismissed it because he never heard of fucking jesus, either).

B seems more likely to me.

[Anomalocaris]

A carpenter was born to a self proclaimed virgin - such events probably occurs several times a day somewhere in the world.   So no need to dismiss it as not based on actual occurrence.

Members of a malcontented, turmoil afflicted and ill-educated society with a messiahic tradition attributing messiahic status to some charismatic charalatan - frequently observed, no need to dismiss it as not based on actual occurance.

So..no math, then...you're just rattling off a few pieces of a story that has already been found to be unreliable?  That is -exactly- the problem.

Why a carpenter?  What about a virgin mary..that's not even in the oldest versions.  Some malcontent named jesus crucified by the romans...says who?  Not the romans.  They don't seem to have noticed, despite being up to their testicles in judea.

Straw man about the math.

Why would you stake your larger position on asserting something to have not happened that is plausible, and who actual occurrence can not be verified one way or another because evidence that can conceivably gathered would be inconclusive one way or another?

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He has a track record of commenting, favorably, on the harsh treatment the Romans delivered on similar troublemakers, but he ignores jesus.  Now there are two likely reasons for this.

A) He considered "jesus" too unimportant to waste ink on, even though he discussed Theudas and The Egyptian and Judas the Galilean and his sons, or,

B) He never heard of any fucking jesus.  ( It should be noted that Archbishop Photius read the work of Josephus' contemporary, Justus of Tiberias and dismissed it because he never heard of fucking jesus, either).

B seems more likely to me.

Maybe jesus didn’t make as much trouble as his followers would credit him with then and later?

Why is it necessary for jesus to be significant in any manner to anyone but his own groupies for his existence to have not been completely made up?

[The Grand Nudger]

Straw man about the math.

Why would you stake your larger position on asserting something to have not happened that is plausible, and who actual occurrence can not be verified one way or another because evidence that can conceivably gathered would be inconclusive one way or another?

What larger position?  My position is simple.  Theres nothing in the story, and no valid means of implication..that would establish that any part of it were true..not the miracles, not the relatively mundane shit.  Nada.  There s..however, a massive and compelling set of arguments and evidence to the contrary.

"Inconclusive" is just where people retreat to. I;m not having any trouble at all reaching a conclusion. There's nothing about any jesus the man, in the NT, that's reliable...much of what is considered plausible..when you really look at it, is no less miraculous than raising the fucking dead. Tell me jesus so much as tipped some tables and castigated the jews..and I'll remind you that aint nobody gonna let some loon run through the mall knocking over stands...even that is a thematic story meant to support the fable. So is the carpenter bullshit. He was building his fathers house, you see. The claimed virgin birth..not an adulterous looking to cover her ass...a way to keep a god from being born of a man. The crucifixion by rome..lol, tell me more about the great beast that will swallow the earth and fling stars out of the heavens in a massive war.

[Anomalocaris]

Straw man about the math.

Why would you stake your larger position on asserting something to have not happened that is plausible, and who actual occurrence can not be verified one way or another because evidence that can conceivably gathered would be inconclusive one way or another?

What larger position?  My position is simple.  Theres nothing in the story, and no valid means of implication..that would establish that any part of it were true..not the miracles, not the relatively mundane shit.  Nada.  There s..however, a massive and compelling set of arguments and evidence to the contrary.

"Inconclusive" is just where people retreat to.  I;m not having any trouble at all reaching a conclusion.

The very salient attribute of mundane is acceptance of their plausibility do not demand special evidence, unlike extraordinary occurances whose very plausibility demand extraordinary evidence, isn’t it?   Not having special evidence does not lend weight to a particular instance of the mundane either having occurred or not, doesn’t it?

The larger position is there was no god or any jesus specially related to some god,  and no salvation to be gained though jesus, and no wisdom that really originated with jesus, and nothing extraordinarily respectable in the greater context of history in any plausible jesus.

Whether a real man bearing some of the more mundane attributes ascribed to jesus actually lived and was somehow related to the origin of the jesus cult is immaterial, and staking out a position one way is as baseless as another, and either position is totally inconsequential to the larger position stated above.

[Minimalist]

Maybe jesus didn’t make as much trouble as his followers would credit him with then and later?

Covered under "A."