The bible

Cypress said:
I already wrote that the stories of miracles can be described as embellishments. There are embellishments about the life of Siddharth Gautama, The Buddha, but it curiously doesn't bother you.

If your advice were followed, we would have to throw out
almost everything we know about the ancient world if it's not written by eyewitness in real time as the events happened. Our knowledge of the Persian wars in Herodotus comes from sources and second hand testimony living decades after the events Herodotus describes.

Jesus is attested to independently by more sources than almost any other sage, prophet, or mystic of the ancient world. More than The Buddha, more than Confucius, more than Laozi, more than Zarathustra. James was the brother of Jesus, Mark was supposed to be a companion of Peter, and Paul met and intimately knew both James and Peter - and we have letters and Gospels from all of them. But even ignoring them there are at least two dozen other letters and epistles from the first century independently attesting to knowledge of the historicity of Jesus.

To me, it looks pretty foolish to claim that Paul or Mark made up Jesus from whole cloth, and all these other first century writers just picked up the lie and ran with it.


You would have to provide a list of these Jesus myth authors so I can confirm if they are actually prestigious scholars employed one the faculty of top tier universities.
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I'm going to stop replying to PostmodernProphet because she's clearly in the deep end. You seem somewhat reasonable.

That being said, I would like to see how you argue against my points about Philo and Mark's depiction of Mary. Also:

1. Buddha probably didn't exist, either. The earliest stories about him were at least two centuries after his death and they can't even agree on when he lived. (Interestingly, a lot of early Christian writers disagreed on when Jesus lived.)

2. For the second time, I never claimed that the NT writers invented Jesus from thin air. But there is clearly an evolution of the Jesus myth during the first century. There were oral traditions and various Christian groups had their own version of the Jesus story. There were a lot of conflicting beliefs about Jesus and about Christian doctrine in general, which is attested to by Celsus when he mocked Christians for being unable to agree on even the simplest teachings.

3. Being a scholar has nothing to do with being employed by a "top tier university."

But you want scholars?

Ok.

Robert Price, PhD in theology.

Wikipedia: A former Baptist minister, Price was a fellow of the Jesus Project, a group of 150 individuals who studied the historicity of Jesus and the Gospels, the organizer of a Web community for those interested in the history of Christianity,[4] and a member of the advisory board of the Secular Student Alliance.[3] He is a religious skeptic, especially of orthodox Christian beliefs, occasionally describing himself as a Christian atheist.[5] Price eventually moved to a maximalist (or rather minimalist, by analogy with biblical minimalism) position in favor of the Christ myth theory, believing that neither Jesus nor Nazareth itself existed in Roman Galilee.
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Richard Carrier, PhD in Ancient History:

Wikipedia Carrier describes the application of Bayes' theorem to historical inquiry in general, and the historicity of Jesus in particular.[56] According to Carrier, Bayes’ theorem is the standard to which all methodology for any historical study must adhere in order to be logically sound. In his Bayesian analysis, the ahistoricity of Jesus is "true": that is, the "most probable" Bayesian conclusion. By the same methodology, Carrier posits that Jesus originated in the realm of mythology, rather than as a historical person who was subsequently mythologized.
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Earl Doherty, BA in Classical Studies.
Wikipedia
Earl J. Doherty (born 1941)[1] is a Canadian author of The Jesus Puzzle (1999), Challenging the Verdict (2001), and Jesus: Neither God Nor Man (2009). Doherty argues for a version of the Christ myth theory, the thesis that Jesus did not exist as a historical figure. Doherty says that Paul thought of Jesus as a spiritual being executed in a spiritual realm.
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Thomas L. Thompson, PhD in Old Testament Studies
Wikipedia
In his 2007 book The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David, Thompson argues that the biblical accounts of both King David and Jesus of Nazareth are not historical accounts, but are mythical in nature and based on Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek and Roman literature.[331] Those accounts are based on the Messiah mytheme, a king anointed by God to restore the Divine order at Earth.[73] Thompson also argues that the resurrection of Jesus is taken directly from the story of the dying and rising god, Dionysus.
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I've taken the liberty of looking up the biographies of some noted Jesus myth authors.

None of the ones I reviewed were actually employed on the faculty of a prestigious American university.

One thing they seem to have in common is being former fundamentalist christians who became atheists. Like the attitude ex-smokers have towards smokers, former christians traumatized somehow by an association with fire and brimstone fundamentalists tend to evolve Into anti-Christian zealots.

I identify as agnostic, and I believe the miracles in the New Testament can easily be considered embelishments. But there is sufficient historical scholarship to convince me of the historicity of a Jewish mystic named Jesus from Galilee who was executed by Roman authorities
 
Cypress said:
I've taken the liberty of looking up the biographies of some noted Jesus myth authors.

None of the ones I reviewed were actually employed on the faculty of a prestigious American university.

One thing they seem to have in common is being former fundamentalist christians who became atheists. Like the attitude ex-smokers have towards smokers, former christians traumatized somehow by an association with fire and brimstone fundamentalists tend to evolve Into anti-Christian zealots.

I identify as agnostic, and I believe the miracles in the New Testament can easily be considered embelishments. But there is sufficient historical scholarship to convince me of the historicity of a Jewish mystic named Jesus from Galilee who was executed by Roman authorities
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Why do you think that being employed by a university is the defining qualification of a scholar? That makes no sense. Also, I think it's dishonest for you to engage in ad hominem attacks against a scholar for being a former Christian.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
laughter is not an argument......trot out one of your "scholars" and prove its not true......

here are the sources for my statements.....

Matthew
https://www.gotquestions.org/Matthew-in-the-Bible.html
https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/how-much-do-we-know-about-matthew-the-disciple.html
https://www.christianity.com/wiki/people/who-was-matthew-in-the-new-testament.html
Mark
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gospel-According-to-Mark
https://www.gotquestions.org/John-Mark-in-the-Bible.html
https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/bible-study/mark-from-young-follower-to-church-father.html

Luke
https://www.christianity.com/wiki/people/who-was-luke-in-the-new-testament.html
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Luke
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Lukehttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Luke

John
https://overviewbible.com/john-the-apostle/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-John-the-Apostle
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It is to dimwits
 
Phoenyx said:
So recently, a poster here who I'm not sure if I should mention the name of given Rule 1 sent me a private message. He reminded me to some extent of a group of friendly Jehova witnesses who spent some time trying to convert me to their religion back when I lived in the state of Yucatan, Mexico. So after a few messages, I find that I couldn't respond to him anymore because his mailbox was full. Perhaps he'll make some space in his mailbox soon and I'll be able to send him my response.

But in the meantime, I thought I'd basically give my take on the bible here. In essence, I consider it a mix of history and fiction. I doubt I'd ever be able to prove that any of it is fictional, but I also doubt that anyone would be able to prove that all of is the truth, at least to anyone who doesn't just take it on faith.

Ironically, until reading a book called "The Da Vinci Code", and later watching it as a film, I never really questioned a lot of things that the bible and Christianity said were true. The Da Vinci Code book got the wheels in my mind turning, but it bills itself as a book of fiction, and the movie does as well. What really got me going was when I picked up a copy of one of the books that it used as source material, namely Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Since reading it, I know that it's had its fair share of critics, and even while reading it, there were some passages that I found dubious. Nevertheless, I found it immensely more interesting then what I had previously thought of the bible and christianity as a whole.

As to my own religion, I've been Pantheist ever since I found out that it essentially mirrored beliefs I'd developed on my own before hearing about it.

Anyway, some reference links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Da_Vinci_Code

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Blood_and_the_Holy_Grail

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism
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You realize the Da Vinci Code is a work if fiction right?
 
America said:
I'm going to stop replying to PostmodernProphet because she's clearly in the deep end. You seem somewhat reasonable.

That being said, I would like to see how you argue against my points about Philo and Mark's depiction of Mary. Also:

1. Buddha probably didn't exist, either. The earliest stories about him were at least two centuries after his death and they can't even agree on when he lived. (Interestingly, a lot of early Christian writers disagreed on when Jesus lived.)

2. For the second time, I never claimed that the NT writers invented Jesus from thin air. But there is clearly an evolution of the Jesus myth during the first century. There were oral traditions and various Christian groups had their own version of the Jesus story. There were a lot of conflicting beliefs about Jesus and about Christian doctrine in general, which is attested to by Celsus when he mocked Christians for being unable to agree on even the simplest teachings.

3. Being a scholar has nothing to do with being employed by a "top tier university."

But you want scholars?

Ok.

Robert Price, PhD in theology.



Richard Carrier, PhD in Ancient History:



Earl Doherty, BA in Classical Studies.


Thomas L. Thompson, PhD in Old Testament Studies
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One of them only has a bachelor's degree, two of them aren't even employed at prestigious American universities (they seem to be editors of obscure journals or blogs), and the last is an Old Testament scholar, he's not an expert in the New Testament which is the basis of the historicity of Jesus.

Moral of the story: your list is not a selection of prestigious New Testament scholars
 
Cypress said:
One of them only has a bachelor's degree, two of them aren't even employed at prestigious American universities (they seem to be editors of obscure journals or blogs), and the last is an Old Testament scholar, he's not an expert in the New Testament which is the basis of the historicity of Jesus.

Moral of the story: your list is not a selection of prestigious New Testament scholars
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Degrees make you smart right? What degree do you possess that gives you the authority to question the intellectual bona fides of others? What "prestigious American university" are you employed by? BTW why does it matter if it's an American university?
 
Yakuda said:
Degrees make you smart right? What degree do you possess that gives you the authority to question the intellectual bona fides of others? What "prestigious American university" are you employed by? BTW why does it matter if it's an American university?
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The issue being discussed is subject matter expertise, not innate intelligence.

Do you get dental work done from someone with only a highschool degree?

Would you trust a delicate medical procedure to someone who is a college dropout?

Would you pay money to someone to do your taxes if they have no training in accounting or tax law?
 
Cypress said:
The issue being discussed is subject matter expertise, not innate intelligence.

Do you get dental work done from someone with only a highschool degree?

Would you trust a delicate medical procedure to someone who is a college dropout?

Would you pay money to someone to do your taxes if they have no training in accounting or tax law?
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That has nothing to do with what I said.
 
America said:
But you want scholars?

Ok.

Robert Price, PhD in theology.



Richard Carrier, PhD in Ancient History:



Earl Doherty, BA in Classical Studies.


Thomas L. Thompson, PhD in Old Testament Studies
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sweet.....names......now pick one, quote one of his claims and we'll test the waters to see if he knows what tgh fuck he's talking about.....
 
It's fair to say that this discussion is over. The believers can't address even the simplest arguments made and simply rehash evangelical talking points.
 
America said:
But you want scholars?

Ok.

Robert Price, PhD in theology.



Richard Carrier, PhD in Ancient History:



Earl Doherty, BA in Classical Studies.


Thomas L. Thompson, PhD in Old Testament Studies
Click to expand...
sweet.....names......now pick one, quote one of his claims and we'll test the waters to see if he knows what tgh fuck he's talking about.....

maybe this one.....

Thompson also argues that the resurrection of Jesus is taken directly from the story of the dying and rising god, Dionysus.
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gosh you may be right.....that's certainly the way I remember the Passion of Christ......

At the direction of Hera, the infant Zagreus/Dionysus was torn to pieces, cooked, and eaten by the evil Titans. But his heart was saved by Athena, and he (now Dionysus) was resurrected by Zeus through Semele. Zeus struck the Titans with lightning, and they were consumed by fire. From their ashes came the first humans, who thus possessed both the evil nature of the Titans and the divine nature of the gods.
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https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dionysus

or was it this version of the Dionysus myth you were referring to?......

In the second legend, the pregnant Semele was pestering Zeus to acknowledge his paternity. He got mad and killed her with a lightning bolt. Then he salvaged the fetus, sewed it to his own thigh in an early allograft procedure, and brought it to term.
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https://www.quora.com/How-was-the-resurrection-associated-with-Dionysus
 
America said:
It's fair to say that this discussion is over. The believers can't address even the simplest arguments made and simply rehash evangelical talking points.
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I generally don't have the inclination or interest to offer extensive refutations of Holly Rollers attempts to discredit evolution, or the attempts of militant atheists to deny the historicity of Jesus.

My only goal is to show that the Jesus myth is promoted by lower tier bloggers and authors who typically are not well thought of enough to have secured scholarly faculty positions at prestigious universities.

Reputable religious historians and New Testament scholars who actually have tenured faculty positions almost to a man and woman believe the documentary evidence is overwhelming for a historical Jewish mystic from Galilee named Jesus living in the first century CE.
 
Cypress said:
I generally don't have the inclination or interest to offer extensive refutations of Holly Rollers attempts to discredit evolution, or the attempts of militant atheists to deny the historicity of Jesus.

My only goal is to show that the Jesus myth is promoted by lower tier bloggers and authors who typically are not well thought of enough to have secured scholarly faculty positions at prestigious universities.

Reputable religious historians and New Testament scholars who actually have tenured faculty positions almost to a man and woman believe the documentary evidence is overwhelming for a historical Jewish mystic from Galilee named Jesus living in the first century CE.
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That is a bigoted term.
 
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