archibald wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

Very clover of you. You're in your hay day.

I can't believe it's not Boudicca?

Stein wrote:

The problem with your suggestions above is that all the figures have been named : Julius Caesar, Socrates, and others have been suggested as figures from history we will 'lose' if it turns out this Jesus didn't exist. The example of Socrates has been discussed on this very thread. Camillus has also been discussed. Hannibal, too. Paul the epistle-writer.

===================

So? They've been mentioned. So what? Are they comparable? No. If they've been mentioned by some idiots here, is that any of my concern? No. I asked for COMPARABLE figures. How #%^$#^*%^#&^$% convenient that you continue with your STRAW MEN like Caesar and totally avoid someone like Boudicca. Typical.

Stein

Proudfootz wrote:

Even if we can reasonably infer the existence or non-existence of a million other people that still changes nothing about the state of evidence for an 'historical Jesus' beneath the mountain of myth. Nor does the existence or non-existence of a human Jesus enhance or diminish the historicity of any other figure.

The whole exercise is reminiscent of christian apologists who claim Jesus is "better attested than ______________ (insert name of other totally unrelated person here)." It's like they're trying to hold Julius Caesar or Socrates hostage - 'give us Jesus or you'll lose Boudicca'.

dejuror wrote:

Blood wrote:

angelo wrote:I think the main problem here are the sources. The only source we have of a HJ are the discredited gospels which are chock of block full of supernatural trivia that no clear thinking person would ever accept unless the person has a hidden agenda. Like funding from a certain organisation for example. This third quest for a HJ will end up as the last two unless new evidence is presented, which I doubt exists.

Yes, this "attestation" idea is a canard of epic proportions. It is not the mere fact of a past figure's textual "attestation" that is a determinate to historicity, it is the nature of the sources of that attestation. Robin Hood is well-attested by textual sources, as is Hermes Trismegistus. But the nature of those sources do not give us much, if any, confidence that they are describing actual historical figures.

An historical Jesus cannot be defended and will NOT be found based on the state of the existing texts.

Ehrman ADMITS that Scholars cannot agree on the NT testament texts.

Listen to Ehrman DESTROY his own sources for an historical Jesus.

See http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2012 ... liability/

Cito di Pense wrote:

archibald wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

Very clover of you. You're in your hay day.

I can't believe it's not Boudicca?

Marginal, so I toast it out. Don't give me none of your lipid. Hope you were not looking for a pat on the back.

Dear Richard, please admit you screwed up with your review of Bart Ehrman’s latest book

April 26, 2012 at 10:54 am Chris Hallquist

So… before I get into the meat of this post, I want to say that for a long time, I was quite eager to read Richard Carrier’s books on the historicity of Jesus (actually I’ve just ordered the first one; the second one isn’t out yet). I hadn’t been impressed with most of the “mythicist” literature I’ve read, but my experience had been that Carrier is excellent whenever he writes on history, whether it’s rebutting Christian apologetics, or writing about the history of science, or writing about Hitler’s religious views, so I figured when his books on the historicity of Jesus finally came out they’d be excellent.

Indeed, if I didn’t hold Carrier in such high regard, I wouldn’t have bothered to read his responses to Ehrman, or write this or my previous post. But after reading Ehrman’s latest, most detailed response (thankfully not behind a paywall) to Carrier’s review of Ehrman’s book Did Jesus Exist?, I’m convinced Carrier screwed up badly...

...

...having read both blog posts, I’m convinced that on every point, Carrier’s accusations of incompetence etc. are unsupported. That’s really bad. This is true even if Carrier is right about some of the academic points at issue. For example, I suspect he may be right about the prefect/procurator issue, but the relevant journal articles just aren’t widely enough known even among experts. (By the way, the blog post at that link is really interesting, and a good example of one of the things I like about Carrier.)

It’s important to point out that there really are people out there parading as scholars who are incompetent, hacks, cranks, etc. This means I can’t adopt a policy of treating all such accusations as “overheated rhetoric” and ignoring them. Sometimes they’re true, and it’s important to know when they’re true, and in fields I don’t know very well it’s valuable to have someone who can point out to me who the incompetents, hacks, and cranks are.

Right now I can’t trust Carrier to fill that role. Hopefully he’ll demonstrate the good sense to admit he screwed up on this one. But if he doesn’t, it will be difficult in the future to trust him even on matters of history, for the reason Carrier often cites when warning people not to trust other writers: as a non-expert, it’s too difficult for me to sort out the correct information (book 10, not letter 10) from the hastily drawn inferences (Ehrman is incompetent)....


http://freethoughtblogs.com/hallq/2012/ ... test-book/

proudfootz wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

archibald wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

Very clover of you. You're in your hay day.

I can't believe it's not Boudicca?

Marginal, so I toast it out. Don't give me none of your lipid. Hope you were not looking for a pat on the back.

Was going to join in on this, but thought butter of it. It's margarine-al humor at best...

Stein wrote:

dejuror wrote:

IgnorantiaNescia wrote:

Erm, destroy?

We all know Ehrman is to some degree sceptical about our approximation of the original text of the NT and he's definitely more sceptical than conservative scholars, so how's this new?

It would be clever not to overuse such Matthean hyperboles, or we might just mistake it for literal and conclude it's myth.

As soon as Ehrman admitted that we don't know what the original text contained then the history of the supposed Jesus cannot be re-constructed using the New Testament.

Bart Ehrman used the NT to re-construct his Jesus WITHOUT knowing what the original contained. How illogical can Ehrman be!!!!

See http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2012 ... liability/

WARNING: Some wordpress links are apparently unsafe. They've sometimes been associated with "malware". If/When I know certain key words that are on some of those pages, I usually call them up via Google cache instead.

Good luck,

Stein

Blood wrote:

angelo wrote:I think the main problem here are the sources. The only source we have of a HJ are the discredited gospels which are chock of block full of supernatural trivia that no clear thinking person would ever accept unless the person has a hidden agenda. Like funding from a certain organisation for example. This third quest for a HJ will end up as the last two unless new evidence is presented, which I doubt exists.

Yes, this "attestation" idea is a canard of epic proportions. It is not the mere fact of a past figure's textual "attestation" that is a determinate to historicity, it is the nature of the sources of that attestation. Robin Hood is well-attested by textual sources, as is Hermes Trismegistus. But the nature of those sources do not give us much, if any, confidence that they are describing actual historical figures.

Cito di Pense wrote:

archibald wrote:
I've posted this before, but not lately:

...

Now that's philosophy for you.

Very clover of you. You're in your hay day.

dejuror wrote:

IgnorantiaNescia wrote:

Erm, destroy?

We all know Ehrman is to some degree sceptical about our approximation of the original text of the NT and he's definitely more sceptical than conservative scholars, so how's this new?

It would be clever not to overuse such Matthean hyperboles, or we might just mistake it for literal and conclude it's myth.

As soon as Ehrman admitted that we don't know what the original text contained then the history of the supposed Jesus cannot be re-constructed using the New Testament.

Bart Ehrman used the NT to re-construct his Jesus WITHOUT knowing what the original contained. How illogical can Ehrman be!!!!

See http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2012 ... liability/

angelo wrote:

Blood wrote:

angelo wrote:I think the main problem here are the sources. The only source we have of a HJ are the discredited gospels which are chock of block full of supernatural trivia that no clear thinking person would ever accept unless the person has a hidden agenda. Like funding from a certain organisation for example. This third quest for a HJ will end up as the last two unless new evidence is presented, which I doubt exists.

Yes, this "attestation" idea is a canard of epic proportions. It is not the mere fact of a past figure's textual "attestation" that is a determinate to historicity, it is the nature of the sources of that attestation. Robin Hood is well-attested by textual sources, as is Hermes Trismegistus. But the nature of those sources do not give us much, if any, confidence that they are describing actual historical figures.

Exactly. All the sources are suspect, therefore the figures they describe are also very suspect. There is textual sources about the gods of Mt Olympus as well, surely no historian in his/hers right mind would insist they existed.

proudfootz wrote:

Well of course, if the sources are in greek they must be trustworthy, since we know Zeus and Heracles spoke greek...

dejuror wrote:

Stein wrote:

dejuror wrote:

IgnorantiaNescia wrote:

Erm, destroy?

We all know Ehrman is to some degree sceptical about our approximation of the original text of the NT and he's definitely more sceptical than conservative scholars, so how's this new?

It would be clever not to overuse such Matthean hyperboles, or we might just mistake it for literal and conclude it's myth.

As soon as Ehrman admitted that we don't know what the original text contained then the history of the supposed Jesus cannot be re-constructed using the New Testament.

Bart Ehrman used the NT to re-construct his Jesus WITHOUT knowing what the original contained. How illogical can Ehrman be!!!!

See http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2012 ... liability/

WARNING: Some wordpress links are apparently unsafe. They've sometimes been associated with "malware". If/When I know certain key words that are on some of those pages, I usually call them up via Google cache instead.

Good luck,

Stein

Stein, what are you doing??? What "malware" are you talking about??? Stein, who told you give out such a warning??? You must identify the "malware".

Stein wrote:

dejuror wrote:

Stein, what are you doing??? What "malware" are you talking about??? Stein, who told you give out such a warning??? You must identify the "malware".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordpress#Vulnerabilities

Stein wrote:
WARNING: Some wordpress links are apparently unsafe.

Cito di Pense wrote:

Stein wrote:

dejuror wrote:

Stein, what are you doing??? What "malware" are you talking about??? Stein, who told you give out such a warning??? You must identify the "malware".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordpress#Vulnerabilities

So, do you believe these vulnerabilities have not been patched? You well could. After all, you believe Jesus is historical. Belief is not sufficient to produce 'evidence'. We've seen that, time and again. But then, the wordpress thing is a historical exploit. That means it really still exists. Yes! It really happened! Historically!

Stein wrote:
WARNING: Some wordpress links are apparently unsafe.

Because they were in 2007? Five years ago? Really? Sure, they were unsafe at one time. But, you never know. Today, other links are unsafe, and it is even thought that bible sites contain more unsafe links than porn sites, on a statistical basis. That's because porn-surfers know they have to be careful, and god-surfers believe they are protected. Gullibility usually happens by the bushel.

Yes, I'm questioning the objectivity of your opinions, Stein.

proudfootz wrote:Maybe that's why I've had no troubles - I'm living in 2012 and not time traveling into the distant past.

Cito di Pense wrote:

proudfootz wrote:Maybe that's why I've had no troubles - I'm living in 2012 and not time traveling into the distant past.

There's great danger lurking back there in 2007. You've got to go back there and help your mother fall in love with your father, or else you'll cease to exist. Then you've got to go back to the future, where you belong. Oh, wait. This isn't 2112, or 2055, or whatever it's supposed to be to help the plot line.

proudfootz wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

proudfootz wrote:Maybe that's why I've had no troubles - I'm living in 2012 and not time traveling into the distant past.

There's great danger lurking back there in 2007. You've got to go back there and help your mother fall in love with your father, or else you'll cease to exist. Then you've got to go back to the future, where you belong. Oh, wait. This isn't 2112, or 2055, or whatever it's supposed to be to help the plot line.

Me - I'd break up my parents and hope to be born of someone with more money...

angelo wrote:

proudfootz wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

proudfootz wrote:Maybe that's why I've had no troubles - I'm living in 2012 and not time traveling into the distant past.

There's great danger lurking back there in 2007. You've got to go back there and help your mother fall in love with your father, or else you'll cease to exist. Then you've got to go back to the future, where you belong. Oh, wait. This isn't 2112, or 2055, or whatever it's supposed to be to help the plot line.

Me - I'd break up my parents and hope to be born of someone with more money...

No, that wouldn't work. You would never be born again. The chances of you existing are in the order of millions to one.

angelo wrote:

proudfootz wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

proudfootz wrote:Maybe that's why I've had no troubles - I'm living in 2012 and not time traveling into the distant past.

There's great danger lurking back there in 2007. You've got to go back there and help your mother fall in love with your father, or else you'll cease to exist. Then you've got to go back to the future, where you belong. Oh, wait. This isn't 2112, or 2055, or whatever it's supposed to be to help the plot line.

Me - I'd break up my parents and hope to be born of someone with more money...

No, that wouldn't work. You would never be born again. The chances of you existing are in the order of millions to one.