Gamaliel Never Existed

[Minimalist]

a story which no positive evidence for it whatsoever,

Nor any against for that matter, except the rantings of believers who had an obvious agenda.

[Nimzo]

Nor any against for that matter, except the rantings of believers who had an obvious agenda.

The fact that you deem them to be "rantings" displays your obvious agenda, Minimalist.

[Minimalist]

Yes...but then I'm not the one professing "belief" in a dead jew coming back to life on the basis of them, am I?

[Nimzo]

Yes...but then I'm not the one professing "belief" in a dead jew coming back to life on the basis of them, am I?

No, you are the one professing belief that someone did not exist, and that every ancient Christian source is a "rant". Why the need to put belief in scare quotes? It is just a normal word that means "assent to a view". Or do you not have "beliefs", Minimalist?

[Minimalist]

Because in my experience dead people do not come back to life 3 days letter and then fly off to fucking "heaven."

The idea is preposterous superstition and you will need actual evidence not just the delusional rants ( or worse.... intentional lies ) of so called "believers" to convince me otherwise.

In my opinion, people who believe anything without evidence are fucking fools.

You can decide if you want to join that club or not. Makes no difference to me.

Notwithstanding...you came up with a good example of xtian wishful thinking with "Gamaliel." Perhaps you came closer to the mark than you intended? That would be ironic.

[DeistPaladin]

I maintain that there are different standards of evidence to establish demigods and epic heroes of folklore as real people of history as opposed to otherwise ordinary people who were accomplished generals, leaders, poets, philosophers, etc.

With the former, there is a known process by which flights of fancy and parables are transformed into "true stories". Even in today's information age, where debunking urban legends is as easy as accessing snopes, glurge stories still circulate about the very same information highway. With a religious icon in particular, you have a powerful organization with a strong vested interest in manufacturing relics and reworking history to their advantage. Furthermore, the Catholic Church, which dominated Rome in her last century, had the means, motive and opportunity to forge and has an established history of deception. Additionally, problems of interpolation and pseudo-epigraphy abounded with religious texts during that time.

This is why "oh yeah, well what about Socrates, do you deny him too?" argument fall flat. The same process of folklore isn't at work to conjure an "epic" philosopher.