Ducktown wrote:

MS2 wrote:

Ducktown wrote:

MS2 wrote:
Thanks. I thought that's what you meant, but wanted to check, bearing in mind how this thread sometimes goes!

So, taking Mark as the example, I agree that it is not anything like a modern historical account, but why is it obvious that the author intended fiction, rather than, say, giving a 'spiritual account' of events that he believed had taken place?

How are the spiritual accounts of what happened to Jesus any different than the spiritual accounts of what happened to Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel in the first chapters of Genesis? How is the dialogue any different for example?

If you think that's a silly example then explain how you see it as different.

That isn't an answer to why it is obvious that the author of Mark intended fiction. It is your claim, so you need to provide the reasons.

It's apparently not the answer you wanted.

The difficulty was you phrased it as a question. That's fine, now you have clarified the reason you think Mark is fiction is that 'the dialogue is identical':

I understand your perspective, which is one widely shared. My point was simply that the dialogue is identical.

Have to say I'm struggling to thing of much that is identical. But there are definitely literary echoes of and references to the Jewish scriptures in Mark, say. Is that what you mean, or do you really mean 'identical'?

And if you meant to say that such literary references show that there was a strong element of creativity in the writing, then I absolutely agree. What I'm not getting is why this makes it obvious that the whole thing is entirely fictional. Why can it not be an attempt by the author to show that events he believed had happened were fulfilment of the Jewish scriptures?

If you wish to compose a list of historical vs non-historical, we can discuss your points. Otherwise I can only assume you take as historical any piece of literature that has people and events and other rather common features about our lives.

I have never said anything remotely like that. It's a straw man. You make unwarranted assumptions if you think I'm unaware of the literary nature of writing.

Free wrote:

proudfootz wrote:

Free wrote:

proudfootz wrote:

Yes, Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham, et al did seem to get their alleged lives embellished by their adoring followers.

And the logical fallacies just keeping coming from your impoverished of education. Again, an apples to oranges fallacy is being attempted by you.

I'm picking all these fruit from the same apple barrel you're using as your 'historical record' - the bible. Oops! Looks like your knowledge base isn't broad enough to recognize what is obvious to any disinterested observer.

Opps! look at how your lack of knowledge again becomes glaringly obvious.

You do of course understand that the "bible" consists of numerous books which at one time were all separate books, right? And you do of course understand that all your examples are from the Torah, right? And you do understand that no one is arguing whether or not your examples existed, right?

That's rather the point. Only Jesus is 'special' of all these bible heroes. any rational person would have to wonder whether 1000 years of christian hegemony has anything to do with the 'tradition' of belief that Jesus was here.

BTW - it's also been a longstanding 'tradition' to accept all these other bible heroes as every bit as 'real' as Jesus.

Yet again, apples and apples comparison is valid. That you're in denial that apples are apples tells us more about you than it does about real life events.

And lastly, just to keep you on focus ONCE AGAIN, since you have attempted to use the Apples and Oranges Fallacy by comparing your invalid list to Jesus of Nazareth, then I am calling you out to demonstrate any kind of evidence that anyone on your list actually existed so that you can validate your positive claim.

As I pointed out above, the list is quite valid, the stories about Jesus self-consciously ape the stories about Adam and Moses and Joshua and all the other old myths. They stem from the same tradition of fantastical story telling for religious purposes.

Deny it all you want.

What's the point of 'calling me out' to prove mythical persons really existed? Have you already forgotten that in order to doubt the alleged historic existence of a figure from literature your demand that someone from the times the stories began circulating must write down that they are myths?

Let's see the evidence myther. Come on, let's see you qualify what is currently your logical fallacy.

The fallacies are all yours, as has been demonstrated time and time again.

Your statement above is an example of the logical fallacy known as Apples and Oranges, for the simple fact that this discussion is all about actual evidence that you can be used to demonstrate the historicity of people such as Jesus, Muhammad, and other figures of which some actual historical data exists. This the Apples part of the situation.

Since your main source for alleged 'historical data' appears to be the bible, you're just engaging in a red herring by trying to drag the dubious existence of Mohammed (PTUI) into this.

DENIALISM!

Since the discussion is all about religious figures who have had their lives embellished by their followers, Muhammad is an excellent and reasonable/logical example to compare to Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, your claim of a red herring has, in fact, been exposed as a red herring itself since you are attempting to digress from that particular comparison.

It's not up to you to decide what the discussion is all about. If you are having a hard time keeping up with the conversation, perhaps you should try reading the posts more carefully and refrain from posting when you've lost the thread.

If you want to preach, take your soap box out to the park and deliver your monotonous monologues there.

Let me explain the Red Herring Fallacy: whenever you foolishly commit an error of fact or logic and get caught red-handed, you try to change the subject. This is the problem with your approach. You continue to embarrass yourself time and time again and apparently hope people will be diverted when you lay a false trail to lead the discussion away from your jaw droppingly stupid claims being exposed for the shit they are.

Let me explain the Red Herring Fallacy, since you obviously don't have a clue what it is:

"A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue.[1] It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences towards a false conclusion. A red herring might be intentionally used, such as in mystery fiction or as part of a rhetorical strategy (e.g. in politics), or it could be inadvertently used during argumentation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring

Since this part of the discussion was all about how people in the past- Muhammad in particular- had their lives embellished by their followers, it is dead on the mark in relation to a comparison to Jesus having his life embellished by his followers.

This is one more place where you are wrong.

This is not a thread that assumes Jesus was a person in the past whose life was embellished later on.

Get it? Got it?

If you're going to assume that Jesus existed as evidence that Jesus existed that is mere circular reasoning. Something you should have been learning to avoid in your decades long study of the bible.

Therefore, since you are trying to claim that comparison to be some kind of red herring when it has clearly been demonstrated that it is not, then YOU are guilty of attempting to mislead and detract from that relevant and important issue, and are in fact committing the Red Herring Fallacy yourself.

How fucking easy it is to expose your lack of the application of reasoning and logic. This MUST be embarrassing for you?

It's embarrassingly easy to show you haven't a fucking clue what this thread is about.

It's embarrassingly easy to see that you contradict your own arguments every other post.

It's embarrassingly obvious that if you did read this thread that you didn't do so with a view of comprehending any of the content.

Yet, here you go with a list of figures such as Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham et al, of which this is not a shred of evidence in existence. This is the Oranges part of your fallacy.

As I explained - and you seem to be utterly unaware - Jesus is a character in the bible, the same book from which these other characters are drawn. Perhaps you should spend twenty more years studying the bible to see if you can't get the context straight.

And it has already been explained to you that since you have attempted to use the Apples and Oranges Fallacy by comparing your invalid list from the Torah to Jesus of Nazareth, then I am calling you out to demonstrate any kind of evidence that anyone on your list actually existed so that you can validate your positive claim.

Again, you seem to forget which 'side' of this issue you are on, and seem to not have the least fucking clue why comparing bible characters to bible characters is a valid comparison, or the tiniest glimmer as to why the comparison is being made.

Again, if you can't follow the conversation don't draw attention to your lack of understanding.

After all, what EVIDENCE exterior to the Torah can you provide to demonstrate the existence of anyone on your list to validate your claim?

Why would I need 'evidence' from outside the Torah to consider Adam or Noah to be figures of myth?

Or do you want a contemporary statement on a clay tablet from some Assyrian stating that they are myths?

Your demands just started out stupid, but you keep doubling down on the same losing argument.

You are attempting to use figures of which there is no evidence demonstrating their existence, and fallaciously comparing them to other figures of which there is evidence to support their existence. Hell, we don't even have a religion being attributed to Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham, so there is no comparison in that respect either.

Jesus is called the Second Adam in some of the fantastical tales you mistake for 'historical records' - which seems to show your twenty years of research are shockingly inadequate.

Who cares about who referred to Jesus as a second Adam? What does that have to do with you validating your claim that you can actually compare Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham to Jesus of Nazareth? Since you have attempted to use the Apples and Oranges Fallacy by comparing your invalid list from the Torah to Jesus of Nazareth, then can you provide exterior examples of the people on that list to validate your claim?

Not only are you entirely missing the point, but you are tiresomely repetitive.

You haven't even got the least comprehension of what claim I'm making, let alone have any handle on how to cope with it on any intellectual level.

You try to make up for it in belligerence, but that dog won't hunt either.

Can you provide records attesting to their existence, myther?

Still making this weird and inexplicable demand just underscores how far out in left field you've wandered.

No? Well then, perhaps your shouldn't be in this discussion since you haven't a fucking clue how to argue, right?

I'm making very reasonable and pretty simple arguments.

That you seem utterly incapable of understanding them is something you should think about.

Since you seem to be using the existence of stories in the bible as 'evidence' for Jesus, you should be aware there are many characters whose stories are told in this same 'historical record'.

Since I am also using data exterior to the GOSPEL record to validate my position- and you are NOT AND CANNOT FIND ANY DATA TO QUALIFY YOUR COMPARISON of Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham to Jesus of Nazareth, then your claim above is nothing but another attempt to divert and detract, which is yet another red herring fallacy.

Keep going myther, I am enjoying this immensely.

Yes, I shall keep going along making valid points and presenting logical arguments supported by evidence.

Meanwhile you will go on missing the point.

The attribution of a cult to any of these figures being some sort of requirement for historicity is an appallingly idiotic requirement. Perhaps you should re-think the necessity of 'founded a religion' for a person's having existed...

This silly little assertion is invalid, since it is perfectly reasonable and logical to expect some kind of religion to be attributed to your list of people since you are fallaciously comparing those people to Jesus, who in fact has a cult following of over 2 billion people.

Yes, and so many Jesus believers can't be wrong! [/sarcasm]

And yet another example of your fallacious reasoning being so so SO ... easily exposed.

Historians have largely freed themselves from believing the bible is a historical record.

You haven't the first clue what historians think, or how they view the gospel records.

That's a very nice claim you have there.

Sadly, it lacks the least bit of support. Another unfounded and baseless claim on your record.

Hey YOU made the positive claim that historians have somehow freed themselves from believing the bible can be excavated for historical data, so therefore YOU need to prove your claim.

Let's see your list of historians who support your claim. I want at least 20.

Last time I was in school, not a single one of my history courses assigned the bible as a source book.

Maybe the school you attended had lower standards.

But of course, I realize any crime against reason is 'legit' when you do it, because... well, just because.

I have NOT been unreasonable here, but rather have easily exposed your consistent lack of reasoning all through this discussion. You are a typical myther, with illogical, unreasonable, and easily exposed fallacious arguments.

That's not my problem. That is your problem.

Deal with it.

Oh, I deal with your entirely missing the point of just about everything posted here quite well.

The fact that you seem to refute your own arguments every other page is a tremendous help, though.

Which is why when you come to a skeptic's forum thumping on the bible as your source material you run into trouble.

I am a skeptic myself, and a 7.0 on the Dawkins scale of atheism. But I know where to draw the line on skepticism and atheism, and unlike virtually every last Jesus Mythicist I have ever encountered, I do not cross the line so that my positions and opinions make a mockery out of rational skepticism insomuch as to regress into the obvious dishonesty that is denialism.

Nice word salad - do we get a choice of dressing?

So you can't find a decent response to my statement, and run away in typical myther fashion by claiming "word salad" on a statement that can be easily understood by a 10 year old? Here, myther, is the definition of "word salad:"

"Word salad is a "confused or unintelligible mixture of seemingly random words and phrases"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_salad

Exactly my point.

In fact, your posts in general seem to tend towards that in their utter confusion as to what this thread is about, and what other posters write. Thus you seem to run off on tangents to attack the attractive strawmen you see away over there.

So what part of my statement was so so so difficult to understand, myther?

For one, what it has to do with anything I posted...

Virtually every Jesus Mythicist is a dishonest denialist, and not an actual skeptic at all.

Another baseless and unsupported claim.

That seems to be your go-to position.

I suppose if you had any real argument or rebuttal, you wouldn't have to live there.

If it's so baseless, then how is it that I am easily exposing your position as being a denialist by merely pointing out your long list of logical fallacies and constantly correcting you on them?

Funny - when I applied your 'list of logical fallacies' to HJ arguments, you made a long, rambling post defending those very fallacies.

Like I wrote - these kind of double standards might work for you, but won't get you far on a skeptic's forum like this.

dejuror wrote:

Owdhat wrote:Hercules - external reference from well known historian - well yes, Tacitus refers to him, as a myth (shame)
Jesus - both Tacitus and josephus reference him as a human who lived a very short while ago (fancy that)

Your claims are well established fallacies.

Your posts are consistently riddled with fallacies and baseless assertions.

These are the facts.

1. Tacitus' Annals does NOT identify any character called Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified.

Apart from Christus

2. Tacitus' Histories 5 states clearly that the Jews expected their Prophesied Messianic rulers around c 70 CE.

So, thats their business.

3. There is ZERO Provenance for Tacitus' Annals with Christus--

In your opinion.

4. NO Christian writer who was familiar with the writings of Tacitus claimed he wrote about Jesus of Nazareth.

Why on earth would they want to air a piece calling themselves scum.

5. It is a logical fallacy to assume the word "Christus" in antiquity refers ONLY to Jesus.

I don't care if it refers to a lawnmower, it also refers to Jesus who was called Christ.

6. It is a logical fallacy to assume all persons called Jesus in Josephus refer to Bible Jesus.

Very true, good job nobodies doing it.

7. It is a logical fallacy that all persons called Christians were followers or believers of the Jesus story.

Its a logical fallacy not to.

8. Jesus the Anointed [Christus] in Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1 is Jesus the son of Damneus the High Priest. High Priest were called Christus by Jews AFTER they were PHYSICALLY ANOINTED with OIL.

I suppose the name came from somewhere. Josephus's naming policy was fairly consistent

9. Jesus the Christus in Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1 was ALIVE when Albinus was Governor of Judea.

Which one are we talking about ,I've lost track

10. Christian writers have admitted their Jesus had NO brother called James the Apostle.

Yes, they don't tend to like jesus having a brother - kinda cocks up the virgin bit.

11. Christian writers have also claimed their JAMES the Apostle was ALIVE long AFTER James in Josephus was DEAD.

Christian writers have claimed allsorts.

12. Josephus claimed that the Prophesied Jewish Messiah was Vespasian--NOT Jesus of Nazareth.

So?

Jesus of Nazareth is NOT identified in all contemporary sources of antiquity.

Not all of them no.

Jesus of Nazareth NEVER had any historical data.

Except for the data that does exist.

Jesus of Nazareth was GOD Creator from heaven--a Myth.

[/quote]
So claims by the Christian Faith, we know that.

dejuror wrote:1. Tacitus' Annals does NOT identify any character called Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified.

Owdhat wrote:Apart from Christus

Owdhat wrote:

5. It is a logical fallacy to assume the word "Christus" in antiquity refers ONLY to Jesus.

I don't care if it refers to a lawnmower, it also refers to Jesus who was called Christ.

It is highly unlikely all references to 'Christ', especially in the 1st or 2nd centuries, or earlier, refer to the later, more-widely-publicized, alleged Jesus-the-Christ-of Nazaret.

There are indications that pagan gods such as Orisis, Isis, Horus, and Serapis were also called Christ or Chrestus, and their followers were called Chrestrians (or Greek or Latin variations of those words).

MS2 wrote:

Ducktown wrote:

If you wish to compose a list of historical vs non-historical, we can discuss your points. Otherwise I can only assume you take as historical any piece of literature that has people and events and other rather common features about our lives.

I have never said anything remotely like that. It's a straw man. You make unwarranted assumptions if you think I'm unaware of the literary nature of writing.

Of course, you're entirely right about that, MS2. But it's typical of mythers like Ducktown to straw-man like this all the time. So you can't expect them to stop now. Straw-man-ning and misrepresentation of other posters is the mythers' stock in trade. It's become so frigging typical by now that it's become obvious that it's quite deliberate as well. Heck, it's practically in the myther handbook! Mythers here know they can get away with it because the mods no longer enforce 1.2.m. in the FUA, which is an explicit rule against misrepresentation. It's past time for the mods to either remove 1.2.m. altogether as the pathetic joke it's become, or start enforcing it NOW.

I challenge anyone here to cite the last time that any mod issued a warning for violating 1.2.m.

Stein

RealityRules wrote:

dejuror wrote:1. Tacitus' Annals does NOT identify any character called Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified.

Owdhat wrote:Apart from Christus

Owdhat wrote:

5. It is a logical fallacy to assume the word "Christus" in antiquity refers ONLY to Jesus.

I don't care if it refers to a lawnmower, it also refers to Jesus who was called Christ.

It is highly unlikely all references to 'Christ', especially in the 1st or 2nd centuries, or earlier, refer to the later, more-widely-publicized, alleged Jesus-the-Christ-of Nazaret.

There are indications that pagan gods such as Orisis, Isis, Horus, and Serapis were also called Christ or Chrestus, and their followers were called Chrestrians (or Greek or Latin variations of those words).

It's confirmation bias all the way down...

Stein wrote:

MS2 wrote:

Ducktown wrote:

If you wish to compose a list of historical vs non-historical, we can discuss your points. Otherwise I can only assume you take as historical any piece of literature that has people and events and other rather common features about our lives.

I have never said anything remotely like that. It's a straw man. You make unwarranted assumptions if you think I'm unaware of the literary nature of writing.

Of course, you're entirely right about that, MS2. But it's typical of mythers like Ducktown to straw-man like this all the time. So you can't expect them to stop now. Straw-man-ning and misrepresentation of other posters is the mythers' stock in trade. It's become so frigging typical by now that it's become obvious that it's quite deliberate as well. Heck, it's practically in the myther handbook! Mythers here know they can get away with it because the mods no longer enforce 1.2.m. in the FUA, which is an explicit rule against misrepresentation. It's past time for the mods to either remove 1.2.m. altogether as the pathetic joke it's become, or start enforcing it NOW.

I challenge anyone here to cite the last time that any mod issued a warning for violating 1.2.m.

Stein

Why not take this off topic post to some other thread?

Owdhat wrote:

Hercules - referred to as an earthly human - nope

Hercules - text that refer to his activities as if they were real - nope

Nope.

Actually, Heracles is referred to as an Earthly human with many perfectly plausible adventures, and ends up dying a shameful death even though he was half-god, like Jesus.

He was educated by the father of Odysseus, so it was shortly before the Trojan War.

You're welcome!

proudfootz wrote:

Free wrote:

proudfootz wrote:

Free wrote:

And the logical fallacies just keeping coming from your impoverished of education. Again, an apples to oranges fallacy is being attempted by you.

I'm picking all these fruit from the same apple barrel you're using as your 'historical record' - the bible. Oops! Looks like your knowledge base isn't broad enough to recognize what is obvious to any disinterested observer.

Opps! look at how your lack of knowledge again becomes glaringly obvious.

You do of course understand that the "bible" consists of numerous books which at one time were all separate books, right? And you do of course understand that all your examples are from the Torah, right? And you do understand that no one is arguing whether or not your examples existed, right?

Thta's rather the point. Only Jesus is 'special' of all these bible heroes. any rational person would have to wonder whether 1000 years of christian hegemony has anything to do with the 'tradition' of belief that Jesus was here.

BTW - it's also been a longstanding 'tradition' to accept all these other bible heroes as every bit as 'real' as Jesus.

You don't seem to get that the bible is a compilation of various books beginning with the Torah, and that before it was assembled the gospel records and letters of Paul and the others were separate documents. Therefore, using your reasoning, we would also have to assume that Paul did not exist, nor any other writers of any of the other letters.

Am I right or am I right?

In addition to that, if some idiot came along in the future and decided to all the bible to the Koran, should we then assume that Muhammad did not exist just because of Adam, Abraham, and a few others have no evidence for their existence?

How is it that cannot see that fallacy of your corrupt line of reasoning here? Is it because you don't want to see it, or is it because you prefer to look like someone who is clearly deficient in reasoning?

Do you have any idea how much you embarrass yourself?

Yet again, apples and apples comparison is valid. That you're in denial that apples are apples tells us more about you than it does about real life events.

And yet again, you have been evenhandedly put in your place as someone cannot effectively reason.

And lastly, just to keep you on focus ONCE AGAIN, since you have attempted to use the Apples and Oranges Fallacy by comparing your invalid list to Jesus of Nazareth, then I am calling you out to demonstrate any kind of evidence that anyone on your list actually existed so that you can validate your positive claim.

As I pointed out above, the list is quite valid, the stories about Jesus self-consciously ape the stories about Adam and Moses and Joshua and all the other old myths. They stem from the same tradition of fantastical story telling for religious purposes.

Deny it all you want.

What's the point of 'calling me out' to prove mythical persons really existed? Have you already forgotten that in order to doubt the alleged historic existence of a figure from literature your demand that someone from the times the stories began circulating must write down that they are myths?

Since you have been demonstrated as to be left wanting in the reasoning department, denying your list as being valid is the product of effective reasoning. You do not seem to be capable of thinking your arguments through clearly enough, as it requires only minimal reasoning abilities to effectively dismantle your fallacious arguments.

Let's see the evidence myther. Come on, let's see you qualify what is currently your logical fallacy.

The fallacies are all yours, as has been demonstrated time and time again.

It's such a shame that you cannot see your shortcomings in the reasoning department. Again, using your fallacious reasoning, we would then need to claim that Paul never existed either, all because he's also in this book we call the bible.

Pontius Pilate would also be rendered as not existing, and so would John the Baptist, despite the fact that both are mentioned in external texts such as Josephus, Tacitus, and also with the Pilate Inscription.

So how's that for clearly and effectively demonstrating how ineffectual your reasoning actually is, myther? This was so easy to do that it if it wasn't so entertaining, it could actually be boring.

Your statement above is an example of the logical fallacy known as Apples and Oranges, for the simple fact that this discussion is all about actual evidence that you can be used to demonstrate the historicity of people such as Jesus, Muhammad, and other figures of which some actual historical data exists. This the Apples part of the situation.

Since your main source for alleged 'historical data' appears to be the bible, you're just engaging in a red herring by trying to drag the dubious existence of Mohammed (PTUI) into this.

DENIALISM!

Since the discussion is all about religious figures who have had their lives embellished by their followers, Muhammad is an excellent and reasonable/logical example to compare to Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, your claim of a red herring has, in fact, been exposed as a red herring itself since you are attempting to digress from that particular comparison.

It's not up to you to decide what the discussion is all about. If you are having a hard time keeping up with the conversation, perhaps you should try reading the posts more carefully and refrain from posting when you've lost the thread.

So what is this? More red herring fallacies? Do we need to go back a few pages to where this part of the discussion began, and embarrass you once again by proving with your own words that this part of the discussion is indeed about the embellishment of the historical Jesus?

Do we really need to do that, myther? Seriously, are you THAT desperate?

If you want to preach, take your soap box out to the park and deliver your monotonous monologues there.

Calm down, I am only here to correct your long list of fallacies, and not to preach about anything. Relax, it's only a discussion.

Let me explain the Red Herring Fallacy: whenever you foolishly commit an error of fact or logic and get caught red-handed, you try to change the subject. This is the problem with your approach. You continue to embarrass yourself time and time again and apparently hope people will be diverted when you lay a false trail to lead the discussion away from your jaw droppingly stupid claims being exposed for the shit they are.

Let me explain the Red Herring Fallacy, since you obviously don't have a clue what it is:

"A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue.[1] It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences towards a false conclusion. A red herring might be intentionally used, such as in mystery fiction or as part of a rhetorical strategy (e.g. in politics), or it could be inadvertently used during argumentation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring

Since this part of the discussion was all about how people in the past- Muhammad in particular- had their lives embellished by their followers, it is dead on the mark in relation to a comparison to Jesus having his life embellished by his followers.

This is one more place where you are wrong.

This is not a thread that assumes Jesus was a person in the past whose life was embellished later on.

Get it? Got it?

If you're going to assume that Jesus existed as evidence that Jesus existed that is mere circular reasoning. Something you should have been learning to avoid in your decades long study of the bible.

This thread is all about the historical Jesus and the arguments used to establish historicity. Since we historicists have been saying all along that the historical Jesus had his life embellished by his followers, then damn straight we are on topic, and dead on the mark here.

Get it? Got it? Not likely, eh?

Therefore, since you are trying to claim that comparison to be some kind of red herring when it has clearly been demonstrated that it is not, then YOU are guilty of attempting to mislead and detract from that relevant and important issue, and are in fact committing the Red Herring Fallacy yourself.

How fucking easy it is to expose your lack of the application of reasoning and logic. This MUST be embarrassing for you?

It's embarrassingly easy to show you haven't a fucking clue what this thread is about.

It's embarrassingly easy to see that you contradict your own arguments every other post.

It's embarrassingly obvious that if you did read this thread that you didn't do so with a view of comprehending any of the content.

Now you are digressing this thread and going off topic by miserably failing to demonstrate that what you and I are talking about is indeed consistent with the subject of Jesus Historicity. The embellishment of his life is part of the historicity argument, and has been since the beginning of this thread over 1900 pages ago. In fact, the discussion about embellishment was first introduced into this thread by TimONeil back in page 3, post 48, when he said the following:

"So some of the "miracles" probably attached themselves to him in his lifetime. Others were probably attached later as a result of these. We can see examples of both of these processes today. See Sai Baba for example."

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/chris ... html#p6016

So ... you were saying?

Fuck this is too damn easy.

Yet, here you go with a list of figures such as Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham et al, of which this is not a shred of evidence in existence. This is the Oranges part of your fallacy.

As I explained - and you seem to be utterly unaware - Jesus is a character in the bible, the same book from which these other characters are drawn. Perhaps you should spend twenty more years studying the bible to see if you can't get the context straight.

You've been set straight on this already. See above. Or don't, it won't matter because the chances of you acknowledging your shortcomings on this subject are likely less than zero, right myther?

And it has already been explained to you that since you have attempted to use the Apples and Oranges Fallacy by comparing your invalid list from the Torah to Jesus of Nazareth, then I am calling you out to demonstrate any kind of evidence that anyone on your list actually existed so that you can validate your positive claim.

Again, you seem to forget which 'side' of this issue you are on, and seem to not have the least fucking clue why comparing bible characters to bible characters is a valid comparison, or the tiniest glimmer as to why the comparison is being made.

Again, if you can't follow the conversation don't draw attention to your lack of understanding.

Again you don't seem to get how fallacious your comparison actually is since you so utterly failed to consider Paul and John the Baptist- two persons listed in the bible- are also considered to be historical persons, and those are just two from several we can establish as being historical persons.

I wonder if I prayed to the Flying Spaghetti Monster to help you gain a greater grasp on proper reasoning if my prayers would be answers?

What do you think, myther?

After all, what EVIDENCE exterior to the Torah can you provide to demonstrate the existence of anyone on your list to validate your claim?

Why would I need 'evidence' from outside the Torah to consider Adam or Noah to be figures of myth?


Or do you want a contemporary statement on a clay tablet from some Assyrian stating that they are myths?

Your demands just started out stupid, but you keep doubling down on the same losing argument.

Ho ho ho ... nice try, myther, but its so easy to see right through your obvious bullshit. You must be desperate to attempt the old bait and switch tactic here, since the issue was never about establishing them as a "myth" but rather I clearly asked for exterior evidence from you to establish any kind of historical validation so that you can validate your comparison pof them to Jesus.

Nice try, but I consider this tactic of yours to be atypical of myther denialism, and quite frankly, intellectually dishonest.

You are attempting to use figures of which there is no evidence demonstrating their existence, and fallaciously comparing them to other figures of which there is evidence to support their existence. Hell, we don't even have a religion being attributed to Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham, so there is no comparison in that respect either.

Jesus is called the Second Adam in some of the fantastical tales you mistake for 'historical records' - which seems to show your twenty years of research are shockingly inadequate.

Who cares about who referred to Jesus as a second Adam? What does that have to do with you validating your claim that you can actually compare Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham to Jesus of Nazareth? Since you have attempted to use the Apples and Oranges Fallacy by comparing your invalid list from the Torah to Jesus of Nazareth, then can you provide exterior examples of the people on that list to validate your claim?

Not only are you entirely missing the point, but you are tiresomely repetitive.

You haven't even got the least comprehension of what claim I'm making, let alone have any handle on how to cope with it on any intellectual level.

You try to make up for it in belligerence, but that dog won't hunt either.

I haven't missed any point here, or if I have, then you appear to be so confused that any point you are so desperately trying to make is actually unintelligible.

Again, what does this Second Adam reference to Jesus have to do with you validating your claim that you can actually compare Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham to Jesus of Nazareth? Obviously you have missed my point here, which is pointing out that you have committed yet another non sequitur fallacy, and in doing so, are attempting to shy away from the question of validating your claim that you can actually compare Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham to Jesus of Nazareth.

Obviously you cannot validate your positive claim, and your only response is to avoid the question to save face.

Can you provide records attesting to their existence, myther?

Still making this weird and inexplicable demand just underscores how far out in left field you've wandered.

Nope, still on topic. Since you made the positive claim that you can compare Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham to Jesus of Nazareth just because they are all listed in the bible, then the task is still upon you to provide any evidence exterior to the bible that demonstrates any possible degree of historicity to those persons, such as what we have with Jesus from several sources exterior to the bible.

And you don't seem to get that my point is ... you do not have a valid comparison whatsoever. And also, just to drive the point home again, what about Paul, King Herod, John the Baptist,and Pontius Pilate? Using your reasoning (lack thereof?) we must conclude that they also do not exist. Or ...

Why can't we say that because Paul, King Herod, John the Baptist,and Pontius Pilate have been demonstrated as having existed, then why not Jesus of Nazareth also? I mean, after all, Paul, King Herod, John the Baptist,and Pontius Pilate are all persons in the "bible" also, right?

I can't believe I am starting to feel embarrassed for you.

No? Well then, perhaps your shouldn't be in this discussion since you haven't a fucking clue how to argue, right?

I'm making very reasonable and pretty simple arguments.

That you seem utterly incapable of understanding them is something you should think about.

You keep repeating this broken record scenario, and convincing yourself that it's true, but the reality is that any arguments you appear to be making is quite easily systematically disassembled and exposed for the fallacies they actually are.

From fallacious comparisons, to non sequitors, from Apples and Oranges, to invalid arguments from silence, the logical fallacies that you so desperately employ are an embarrassment to human intellect, and completely devoid of the most basic applications of logic and reasoning.

Since the rest of what you said is just more of the same, not much more needs to be said about your obvious lack of reasoning abilities.

Oh,. and one more thing, just to make myself clear, myther:

Should we make the positive claim that Paul, King Herod, John the Baptist and Pontius Pilate did not exist and were also all myths just because they are mentioned in the bible along with Jesus of Nazareth?

Just a little kick in the ass on the way out the door.

Free wrote:... the bible is a compilation of various books beginning with the Torah, and that before it was assembled the gospel records and letters of Paul and the others were separate documents.

Exactly. That was the conclusion of the Dutch Radicals AD Loman; +/- other Dutch Radicals.

Free wrote:... we would also have to assume that Paul did not exist, nor any other writers of any of the other letters.

AD Loman concluded Paul did not exist. Obviously there were writers of the letters attributed to Paul. AD Loman concluded they were written by a Gnostic-Messianic community; whereas the gospels were written by a Jewish-Messianic sect. He determined those separate communities were adversarial until a peace was brokered at some stage, eventually resulting in the NT.

AD Loman concluded both Jesus and Paul were fictitious characters (he thought the Jewish-Messianic community initially had Simon/Peter as its central figure).

RealityRules wrote:

Free wrote:... the bible is a compilation of various books beginning with the Torah, and that before it was assembled the gospel records and letters of Paul and the others were separate documents.

Exactly. That was the conclusion of the Dutch Radicals such as AD Loman.

Free wrote:... we would also have to assume that Paul did not exist, nor any other writers of any of the other letters.

AD Loman concluded Paul did not exist. Obviously there were writers of the letters attributed to Paul. AD Loman concluded they were written by a Gnostic-Messianic community; whereas the gospels were written by a Jewish-Messianic sect. He determined they were adversarial until a peace was brokered at some stage, eventually resulting in the NT.

AD Loman was a discredited radical cleric. No one takes him seriously, and you are reaching to the very bottom of the barrel to fish this out for an argument.

I suggest you simply leave that nutcase where he belongs; in the abyss of utter stupidity.

RealityRules wrote:

Free wrote:... the bible is a compilation of various books beginning with the Torah, and that before it was assembled the gospel records and letters of Paul and the others were separate documents.

Exactly. That was the conclusion of the Dutch Radicals such as AD Loman.

Free wrote:... we would also have to assume that Paul did not exist, nor any other writers of any of the other letters.

AD Loman concluded Paul did not exist. Obviously there were writers of the letters attributed to Paul. AD Loman concluded they were written by a Gnostic-Messianic community; whereas the gospels were written by a Jewish-Messianic sect. He determined they were adversarial until a peace was brokered at some stage, eventually resulting in the NT.

Free wrote:AD Loman was a discredited radical cleric. No one takes him seriously, and you are reaching to the very bottom of the barrel to fish this out for an argument.

I suggest you simply leave that nutcase where he belongs; in the abyss of utter stupidity.

"radical cleric" ... LOL. He spent his life as a theologian. "When his colleague Allard Pierson in 1878 denied the authenticity of Galatians, Loman wrote a fierce condemnation", but Loman changed his mind, over the next couple of years, to agree with Pierson.

Abraham Dirk Loman (16 September 1823, The Hague – 17 April 1897, Amsterdam) was a Dutch theologian. He was a professor from 1856 till 1893.[1] In his later period he belonged to the Dutch radical critics.[2]

Life
Loman was the son of a minister in the Dutch Lutheran church. He started studying theology in 1840 and became a minister in 1846. In 1856 he became a professor at the Lutheran seminary in Amsterdam. Loman gradually lost his eyesight in the beginning of the 1870s, but continued working [with considerable help from his daughter and students]. From 1877 he also was a theology professor at the University of Amsterdam until his retirement in 1893.[3]

Work
Loman introduced modern theology in the Dutch Lutheran Church. He taught almost all disciplines of theology, but concentrated after 1867 on the New Testament and early Christian literature. He wrote a book about the Muratorian fragment, but published mostly in journals. His opinions mostly agreed with the Tübingen school. When his colleague Allard Pierson in 1878 denied the authenticity of Galatians, Loman wrote a fierce condemnation.

But after 1880 his views changed. He caused great consternation by a public lecture on 13 December 1881 in the building of the Vrije Gemeente where he stated that Jesus is not a figure of history2 and that all we know about him is second-century fiction.[2] In his Quaestiones Paulinae (1882, 1883, 1886)* he abandoned Pauline authorship of Galatians.[3] His arguments were that the Pauline epistles are not quoted by Justin Martyr and that the first datable references are by Marcion.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Dirk_Loman

* Theologische Zeitschrift or Theologisch tijdschrift

in 1882 Quaestiones Paulinae. Research into the authenticity of the letter to the Galatians, 1st chapter ...
in 1882. Quaestiones Paulinae. Continued. The external evidence etc.. ib.
in 1882. Quaestiones Paulinae. Verdediging en verduidelijking Naar Defense and clarification, ib. 593
in 1883. Quaestiones Paulinae. Second and final sequel of the first chapter, ib.
in 1884. Theologisch tijdschrift, Volume 18
in 1886.

2 http://www.radikalkritik.de/A_forgotten_chapter.htm

4 http://www.radikalkritik.de/vbve_survey.htm (in English)

Free wrote:

proudfootz wrote:

Free wrote:

proudfootz wrote:

I'm picking all these fruit from the same apple barrel you're using as your 'historical record' - the bible. Oops! Looks like your knowledge base isn't broad enough to recognize what is obvious to any disinterested observer.

Opps! look at how your lack of knowledge again becomes glaringly obvious.

You do of course understand that the "bible" consists of numerous books which at one time were all separate books, right? And you do of course understand that all your examples are from the Torah, right? And you do understand that no one is arguing whether or not your examples existed, right?

That's rather the point. Only Jesus is 'special' of all these bible heroes. any rational person would have to wonder whether 1000 years of christian hegemony has anything to do with the 'tradition' of belief that Jesus was here.

BTW - it's also been a longstanding 'tradition' to accept all these other bible heroes as every bit as 'real' as Jesus.

You don't seem to get that the bible is a compilation of various books beginning with the Torah, and that before it was assembled the gospel records and letters of Paul and the others were separate documents. Therefore, using your reasoning, we would also have to assume that Paul did not exist, nor any other writers of any of the other letters.

Am I right or am I right?

No, you're wrong. But don't stop digging yourself in deeper.

In addition to that, if some idiot came along in the future and decided to all the bible to the Koran, should we then assume that Muhammad did not exist just because of Adam, Abraham, and a few others have no evidence for their existence?

The dubiousness of Mohammed's existence has already been discussed a few pages back.

How is it that cannot see that fallacy of your corrupt line of reasoning here? Is it because you don't want to see it, or is it because you prefer to look like someone who is clearly deficient in reasoning?

Since there is no fallacy or corruption in my reasoning, it must be the case that you're attacking a strawman you only imagined.

Do you have any idea how much you embarrass yourself?

Believe me, if I ever embarrassed myself they way you've done in the few posts you've made in this thread I'd change my name.

But alas! You seem incapable of embarrassment.

Yet again, apples and apples comparison is valid. That you're in denial that apples are apples tells us more about you than it does about real life events.

And yet again, you have been evenhandedly put in your place as someone cannot effectively reason.

Keep up the denial of reality. Comparing bible characters to bible characters is perfectly valid.

And lastly, just to keep you on focus ONCE AGAIN, since you have attempted to use the Apples and Oranges Fallacy by comparing your invalid list to Jesus of Nazareth, then I am calling you out to demonstrate any kind of evidence that anyone on your list actually existed so that you can validate your positive claim.

As I pointed out above, the list is quite valid, the stories about Jesus self-consciously ape the stories about Adam and Moses and Joshua and all the other old myths. They stem from the same tradition of fantastical story telling for religious purposes.

Deny it all you want.

What's the point of 'calling me out' to prove mythical persons really existed? Have you already forgotten that in order to doubt the alleged historic existence of a figure from literature your demand that someone from the times the stories began circulating must write down that they are myths?

Since you have been demonstrated as to be left wanting in the reasoning department, denying your list as being valid is the product of effective reasoning. You do not seem to be capable of thinking your arguments through clearly enough, as it requires only minimal reasoning abilities to effectively dismantle your fallacious arguments.

You don't even seem to be remotely aware of what this thread is about, let alone what anyone's arguments are.

Let's see the evidence myther. Come on, let's see you qualify what is currently your logical fallacy.

The fallacies are all yours, as has been demonstrated time and time again.

It's such a shame that you cannot see your shortcomings in the reasoning department. Again, using your fallacious reasoning, we would then need to claim that Paul never existed either, all because he's also in this book we call the bible.

Yet another strawman. Where's Stein to call you on this one?

Pontius Pilate would also be rendered as not existing, and so would John the Baptist, despite the fact that both are mentioned in external texts such as Josephus, Tacitus, and also with the Pilate Inscription.

It's really quite astonishing the amount of time you're wasting on constructing this strawman rather than meeting my actual arguments, logic, and evidence honestly.

But it's been apparent from your first post you only came here to troll.

So how's that for clearly and effectively demonstrating how ineffectual your reasoning actually is, myther? This was so easy to do that it if it wasn't so entertaining, it could actually be boring.

While you do seem to enjoy arguing with yourself, your misunderstanding of this thread and my arguments are basically meaningless in the context of any discussion of intellectual value.

Since your main source for alleged 'historical data' appears to be the bible, you're just engaging in a red herring by trying to drag the dubious existence of Mohammed (PTUI) into this.

DENIALISM!

Since the discussion is all about religious figures who have had their lives embellished by their followers, Muhammad is an excellent and reasonable/logical example to compare to Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, your claim of a red herring has, in fact, been exposed as a red herring itself since you are attempting to digress from that particular comparison.

It's not up to you to decide what the discussion is all about. If you are having a hard time keeping up with the conversation, perhaps you should try reading the posts more carefully and refrain from posting when you've lost the thread.

So what is this? More red herring fallacies? Do we need to go back a few pages to where this part of the discussion began, and embarrass you once again by proving with your own words that this part of the discussion is indeed about the embellishment of the historical Jesus?

Do we really need to do that, myther? Seriously, are you THAT desperate?

If you're going to continue to argue that assuming Jesus existed, therefore Jesus existed, it only goes to show you have nothing of value to add.

If you want to preach, take your soap box out to the park and deliver your monotonous monologues there.

Calm down, I am only here to correct your long list of fallacies, and not to preach about anything. Relax, it's only a discussion.

That list of fallacies you were defending a few pages back?

Let me explain the Red Herring Fallacy: whenever you foolishly commit an error of fact or logic and get caught red-handed, you try to change the subject. This is the problem with your approach. You continue to embarrass yourself time and time again and apparently hope people will be diverted when you lay a false trail to lead the discussion away from your jaw droppingly stupid claims being exposed for the shit they are.

Let me explain the Red Herring Fallacy, since you obviously don't have a clue what it is:

"A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue.[1] It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences towards a false conclusion. A red herring might be intentionally used, such as in mystery fiction or as part of a rhetorical strategy (e.g. in politics), or it could be inadvertently used during argumentation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring

Since this part of the discussion was all about how people in the past- Muhammad in particular- had their lives embellished by their followers, it is dead on the mark in relation to a comparison to Jesus having his life embellished by his followers.

This is one more place where you are wrong.

This is not a thread that assumes Jesus was a person in the past whose life was embellished later on.

Get it? Got it?

If you're going to assume that Jesus existed as evidence that Jesus existed that is mere circular reasoning. Something you should have been learning to avoid in your decades long study of the bible.

This thread is all about the historical Jesus and the arguments used to establish historicity. Since we historicists have been saying all along that the historical Jesus had his life embellished by his followers, then damn straight we are on topic, and dead on the mark here.

You're free to imagine whatever you like. But it hardly bodes well that in the few weeks you've been visiting that you're in any position to tell us what the thread 'should' be about.

Again, this is not a thread where we must assume Jesus existed and then use that assumption as 'evidence' that Jesus existed.

This is not a thread for you to preach in.

Therefore, since you are trying to claim that comparison to be some kind of red herring when it has clearly been demonstrated that it is not, then YOU are guilty of attempting to mislead and detract from that relevant and important issue, and are in fact committing the Red Herring Fallacy yourself.

How fucking easy it is to expose your lack of the application of reasoning and logic. This MUST be embarrassing for you?

It's embarrassingly easy to show you haven't a fucking clue what this thread is about.

It's embarrassingly easy to see that you contradict your own arguments every other post.

It's embarrassingly obvious that if you did read this thread that you didn't do so with a view of comprehending any of the content.

Now you are digressing this thread and going off topic by miserably failing to demonstrate that what you and I are talking about is indeed consistent with the subject of Jesus Historicity. The embellishment of his life is part of the historicity argument, and has been since the beginning of this thread over 1900 pages ago. In fact, the discussion about embellishment was first introduced into this thread by TimONeil back in page 3, post 48, when he said the following:

"So some of the "miracles" probably attached themselves to him in his lifetime. Others were probably attached later as a result of these. We can see examples of both of these processes today. See Sai Baba for example."

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/chris ... html#p6016

So ... you were saying?

Fuck this is too damn easy.

So what? TimO'Neill assumes the conclusion he wants to arrive at. It's called circular reasoning and it's a well known fallacy.

Yet, here you go with a list of figures such as Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham et al, of which this is not a shred of evidence in existence. This is the Oranges part of your fallacy.

As I explained - and you seem to be utterly unaware - Jesus is a character in the bible, the same book from which these other characters are drawn. Perhaps you should spend twenty more years studying the bible to see if you can't get the context straight.

You've been set straight on this already. See above. Or don't, it won't matter because the chances of you acknowledging your shortcomings on this subject are likely less than zero, right myther?

I'm always ready to admit my shortcomings.

I take no responsibility for what your strawman is accused of - that's all on you.

And it has already been explained to you that since you have attempted to use the Apples and Oranges Fallacy by comparing your invalid list from the Torah to Jesus of Nazareth, then I am calling you out to demonstrate any kind of evidence that anyone on your list actually existed so that you can validate your positive claim.

Again, you seem to forget which 'side' of this issue you are on, and seem to not have the least fucking clue why comparing bible characters to bible characters is a valid comparison, or the tiniest glimmer as to why the comparison is being made.

Again, if you can't follow the conversation don't draw attention to your lack of understanding.

Again you don't seem to get how fallacious your comparison actually is since you so utterly failed to consider Paul and John the Baptist- two persons listed in the bible- are also considered to be historical persons, and those are just two from several we can establish as being historical persons.

Not sure why exactly you're digging yourself in deeper. I suppose you think somehow that there are some historical people that that quality 'rubs off' on Jesus somehow?

I wonder if I prayed to the Flying Spaghetti Monster to help you gain a greater grasp on proper reasoning if my prayers would be answers?

That would probably be as effective as your harangues in this thread have been. Try it!

What do you think, myther?

I think you are way out of your depth here. Your hostility to 'mythers' makes it impossible to understand what is posted in this thread. You're much more concerned with 'winning' than you are with comprehending what anyone else is posting. I think you are treating this like a game where you can score some points and go running back to your usual haunts and brag about how you really gave it to the heretics 'mythers'.

After all, what EVIDENCE exterior to the Torah can you provide to demonstrate the existence of anyone on your list to validate your claim?

Why would I need 'evidence' from outside the Torah to consider Adam or Noah to be figures of myth?

Or do you want a contemporary statement on a clay tablet from some Assyrian stating that they are myths?

Your demands just started out stupid, but you keep doubling down on the same losing argument.

Ho ho ho ... nice try, myther, but its so easy to see right through your obvious bullshit. You must be desperate to attempt the old bait and switch tactic here, since the issue was never about establishing them as a "myth" but rather I clearly asked for exterior evidence from you to establish any kind of historical validation so that you can validate your comparison pof them to Jesus.

That went completely over your head. More evidence you haven't got a clue.

Nice try, but I consider this tactic of yours to be atypical of myther denialism, and quite frankly, intellectually dishonest.

Nothing dishonest about considering Noah mythical.

Jesus is called the Second Adam in some of the fantastical tales you mistake for 'historical records' - which seems to show your twenty years of research are shockingly inadequate.

Who cares about who referred to Jesus as a second Adam? What does that have to do with you validating your claim that you can actually compare Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham to Jesus of Nazareth? Since you have attempted to use the Apples and Oranges Fallacy by comparing your invalid list from the Torah to Jesus of Nazareth, then can you provide exterior examples of the people on that list to validate your claim?

Not only are you entirely missing the point, but you are tiresomely repetitive.

You haven't even got the least comprehension of what claim I'm making, let alone have any handle on how to cope with it on any intellectual level.

You try to make up for it in belligerence, but that dog won't hunt either.

I haven't missed any point here, or if I have, then you appear to be so confused that any point you are so desperately trying to make is actually unintelligible.

Again, what does this Second Adam reference to Jesus have to do with you validating your claim that you can actually compare Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham to Jesus of Nazareth?

The people writing stories about god-man Jesus made the comparison.

Don't kill the messenger just because the message is you're posting shit.

Obviously you have missed my point here, which is pointing out that you have committed yet another non sequitur fallacy, and in doing so, are attempting to shy away from the question of validating your claim that you can actually compare Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham to Jesus of Nazareth.

I can do as I like. Comparing bible characters to other bible characters is perfectly valid. If you don't like it, go troll a different thread.

Obviously you cannot validate your positive claim, and your only response is to avoid the question to save face.

Even your eleven-year old should be able to figure out Jesus is a character in the bible. Why can't you?

Can you provide records attesting to their existence, myther?

Still making this weird and inexplicable demand just underscores how far out in left field you've wandered.

Nope, still on topic. Since you made the positive claim that you can compare Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham to Jesus of Nazareth just because they are all listed in the bible, then the task is still upon you to provide any evidence exterior to the bible that demonstrates any possible degree of historicity to those persons, such as what we have with Jesus from several sources exterior to the bible.

My task is to point and laugh at trolling posts like yours.

I never claimed any of these figures was historical - that is your bizarre strawman version.

And you don't seem to get that my point is ... you do not have a valid comparison whatsoever. And also, just to drive the point home again, what about Paul, King Herod, John the Baptist,and Pontius Pilate? Using your reasoning (lack thereof?) we must conclude that they also do not exist. Or ...

Every figure must stand on their own. If you'd read the thread you'd know this has been my argument for ages now.

But it seems you're married to the strawman version.

Why can't we say that because Paul, King Herod, John the Baptist,and Pontius Pilate have been demonstrated as having existed, then why not Jesus of Nazareth also? I mean, after all, Paul, King Herod, John the Baptist,and Pontius Pilate are all persons in the "bible" also, right?

Yep. And the ones that are likely historical persons have better evidence than a few verses cherry picked form the bible as support. Each has to stand on his own. Jesus cannot 'borrow' historicity from anyone else.

I can't believe I am starting to feel embarrassed for you.

Awww! How sweet!

No? Well then, perhaps your shouldn't be in this discussion since you haven't a fucking clue how to argue, right?

I'm making very reasonable and pretty simple arguments.

That you seem utterly incapable of understanding them is something you should think about.

You keep repeating this broken record scenario, and convincing yourself that it's true, but the reality is that any arguments you appear to be making is quite easily systematically disassembled and exposed for the fallacies they actually are.

You may need to link me to the place where that's happening, because it sure as hell isn't in this thread.

From fallacious comparisons, to non sequitors, from Apples and Oranges, to invalid arguments from silence, the logical fallacies that you so desperately employ are an embarrassment to human intellect, and completely devoid of the most basic applications of logic and reasoning.

In a few pages I expect you'll be defending each and every one of these 'fallacies' like you did the last time you made a list...

Since the rest of what you said is just more of the same, not much more needs to be said about your obvious lack of reasoning abilities.

The less you say, the better.

Oh,. and one more thing, just to make myself clear, myther:

Should we make the positive claim that Paul, King Herod, John the Baptist and Pontius Pilate did not exist and were also all myths just because they are mentioned in the bible along with Jesus of Nazareth?

Just a little kick in the ass on the way out the door.

If you'd read my posts you'd know the answer to these questions that puzzle you.

And you'd know I'm an agnostic and not a 'myther'.

RealityRules wrote:

Free wrote:... the bible is a compilation of various books beginning with the Torah, and that before it was assembled the gospel records and letters of Paul and the others were separate documents.

Exactly. That was the conclusion of the Dutch Radicals AD Loman; +/- other Dutch Radicals.

Free wrote:... we would also have to assume that Paul did not exist, nor any other writers of any of the other letters.

AD Loman concluded Paul did not exist. Obviously there were writers of the letters attributed to Paul. AD Loman concluded they were written by a Gnostic-Messianic community; whereas the gospels were written by a Jewish-Messianic sect. He determined those separate communities were adversarial until a peace was brokered at some stage, eventually resulting in the NT.

I'm open to either interpretation.

That everything we know about 'Jesus' is myth is pretty much undeniable.

Paul I'm rather on the fence about. But I haven't done much by way of research into the question.

RealityRules wrote:

RealityRules wrote:

Free wrote:... the bible is a compilation of various books beginning with the Torah, and that before it was assembled the gospel records and letters of Paul and the others were separate documents.

Exactly. That was the conclusion of the Dutch Radicals such as AD Loman.

Free wrote:... we would also have to assume that Paul did not exist, nor any other writers of any of the other letters.

AD Loman concluded Paul did not exist. Obviously there were writers of the letters attributed to Paul. AD Loman concluded they were written by a Gnostic-Messianic community; whereas the gospels were written by a Jewish-Messianic sect. He determined they were adversarial until a peace was brokered at some stage, eventually resulting in the NT.

Free wrote:AD Loman was a discredited radical cleric. No one takes him seriously, and you are reaching to the very bottom of the barrel to fish this out for an argument.

I suggest you simply leave that nutcase where he belongs; in the abyss of utter stupidity.

"radical cleric" ... LOL. He spent his life as a theologian. "When his colleague Allard Pierson in 1878 denied the authenticity of Galatians, Loman wrote a fierce condemnation", but Loman changed his mind, over the next couple of years, to agree with Pierson.

Abraham Dirk Loman (16 September 1823, The Hague – 17 April 1897, Amsterdam) was a Dutch theologian. He was a professor from 1856 till 1893.[1] In his later period he belonged to the Dutch radical critics.[2]

Life
Loman was the son of a minister in the Dutch Lutheran church. He started studying theology in 1840 and became a minister in 1846. In 1856 he became a professor at the Lutheran seminary in Amsterdam. Loman gradually lost his eyesight in the beginning of the 1870s, but continued working [with considerable help from his daughter and students]. From 1877 he also was a theology professor at the University of Amsterdam until his retirement in 1893.[3]

Work
Loman introduced modern theology in the Dutch Lutheran Church. He taught almost all disciplines of theology, but concentrated after 1867 on the New Testament and early Christian literature. He wrote a book about the Muratorian fragment, but published mostly in journals. His opinions mostly agreed with the Tübingen school. When his colleague Allard Pierson in 1878 denied the authenticity of Galatians, Loman wrote a fierce condemnation.

But after 1880 his views changed. He caused great consternation by a public lecture on 13 December 1881 in the building of the Vrije Gemeente where he stated that Jesus is not a figure of history2 and that all we know about him is second-century fiction.[2] In his Quaestiones Paulinae (1882, 1883, 1886)* he abandoned Pauline authorship of Galatians.[3] His arguments were that the Pauline epistles are not quoted by Justin Martyr and that the first datable references are by Marcion.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Dirk_Loman

* Theologische Zeitschrift or Theologisch tijdschrift

in 1882 Quaestiones Paulinae. Research into the authenticity of the letter to the Galatians, 1st chapter ...
in 1882. Quaestiones Paulinae. Continued. The external evidence etc.. ib.
in 1882. Quaestiones Paulinae. Verdediging en verduidelijking Naar Defense and clarification, ib. 593
in 1883. Quaestiones Paulinae. Second and final sequel of the first chapter, ib.
in 1884. Theologisch tijdschrift, Volume 18
in 1886.

2 http://www.radikalkritik.de/A_forgotten_chapter.htm

4 http://www.radikalkritik.de/vbve_survey.htm (in English)

It's always good for a chuckle when the worshipers of 'qualified scholars' have to throw a qualified scholar onto the fire because they reached the 'wrong' conclusion.

proudfootz wrote:It's always good for a chuckle when the worshipers of 'qualified scholars' have to throw a qualified scholar onto the fire because they reached the 'wrong' conclusion.

They do it Freely

dejuror wrote:

8. Jesus the Anointed [Christus] in Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1 is Jesus the son of Damneus the High Priest. High Priest were called Christus by Jews AFTER they were PHYSICALLY ANOINTED with OIL.

The only reason to deny that Josephus was talking about two separate men called Jesus is that this passage is one of the historical pieces of evidence that dejuror and his buddies say does not exist.

When I first saw the claim that this entire passage was talking about Jesus, the son of Damneus I couldn't believe that someone could be that stupid. Now I realize it isn't stupidity it's dishonesty.

1. AND now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, (23) who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without his consent. (24) Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest.

How many times must it be pointed out to dejuror and his accomplices that there are two Jesus' mentioned in that paragraph?

From searching this thread with the word "Damneus" it seems even fifty or sixty times over something like 4 1/2 years isn't enough. No wonder this thread is so fucking long. Dejuror and his fellow travelers simply keep repeating the same nonsense and pretending that it hasn't been thoroughly rebutted.

They're so emotionally invested in this notion of there not having been a real man called Jesus at the beginning of Christianity that they are willing to use all the same tactics that are employed by creationist, 911 conspiracy theorists, and UFO abduction loons.

Just as with creationists tactics are what matters to dejuror and friends not evidence. In one post they will argue that Josephus was talking about Jesus, the son of Damneus then turn around and in another claim ""Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1 is NOT authentic." and if that doesn't work then "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ" was added by Christian scribes. And when really backed into a corner a super secret conspiracy was formed by Roman elites to create Christianity.

Oldskeptic wrote:
Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1 -

1. AND now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, (23) who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he [Ananus ben Ananus] assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without his consent. (24) Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest.

How many times must it be pointed out to dejuror and his accomplices that there are two Jesus' mentioned in that paragraph?

I agree. That passage is mostly about Ananus/Ananias [ben Ananus/Ananias], and his conduct, and removal from the priesthood; and to a certain extent about Albinus. The reference to Jesus ben Damneus is incidental. Yet, the reference to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ" is out of context, ie. dubious; so it may not be, as OldSkeptic asserts, that "Josephus was talking about two separate men called Jesus".

add: Carrier R (2012) “Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental *Interpolation* in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200”

the Journal of Early Christian Studies 
vol. 20, no. 4; 
pp. 489-514.
Abstract:
Analysis of the evidence from the works of Origen, Eusebius, and Hegesippus concludes that the reference to "Christ" in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200 is probably an accidental interpolation or scribal emendation and that the passage was never originally about Christ or Christians. It referred not to James the brother of [the] Jesus-Christ, but probably to James the brother of the Jewish high priest Jesus ben Damneus.

There is some view, somewhere, it was an emendation based on a scribal notation in the margins of a work by Origen.

RealityRules wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:
Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1 -

1. AND now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, (23) who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he [Ananus ben Ananus] assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without his consent. (24) Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest.

How many times must it be pointed out to dejuror and his accomplices that there are two Jesus' mentioned in that paragraph?

I agree. That passage is mostly about Ananus/Ananias [ben Ananus/Ananias], and his conduct, and removal from the priesthood; and to a certain extent about Albinus. The reference to Jesus ben Damneus is incidental. Yet, the reference to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ" is out of context, ie. dubious; so it may not be, as OldSkeptic asserts, that "Josephus was talking about two separate men called Jesus".

add: Carrier R (2012) “Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental *Interpolation* in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200”

the Journal of Early Christian Studies 
vol. 20, no. 4; 
pp. 489-514.
Abstract:
Analysis of the evidence from the works of Origen, Eusebius, and Hegesippus concludes that the reference to "Christ" in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200 is probably an accidental interpolation or scribal emendation and that the passage was never originally about Christ or Christians. It referred not to James the brother of [the] Jesus-Christ, but probably to James the brother of the Jewish high priest Jesus ben Damneus.

There is some view, somewhere, it was an emendation based on a scribal notation in the margins of a work by Origen.

Same shit, different day.