Posted: May 08, 2012 4:47 pm
proudfootz wrote:archibald wrote:proudfootz wrote:.......which means that even though experts in the study of the historical Jesus (and Christian origins, and classics, and ancient history, etc etc.) have known in the back of their minds all sorts of powerful reasons for simply assuming that Jesus existed, no one had ever tried to prove it.
I suspect the phrase 'powerful reasons for simply assuming' says it all.
Yes, like children who assume Santa Claus exists because that's what they were told can consider themselves 'Santa experts' without ever realizing there's no basis in fact for their 'knowledge'...
Nothing like Santa Claus at all. This is one of those puerile comparisons that convinces me that disinterested objectivity is not a fundamental motive of many skeptics! The point Ehrmann seems to be making is a much fairer point, that all those who study ancient history tend to be optimistic about evidence that the more hard headed might wish to question more radically.As has been pointed out time after time here, if you were to apply the myther's version of Occam's razor to most of the evidence we have for personalities of the ancient world, they would not make the cut, because most of it is to be found in texts copied over centuries by monks!Sappho, for example one of my favourite poets, is manily known through texts that date to 900 years after her death!Aparently found in the same rubbish dump that gave us the earliest gospels etc!
Those of us drawn to study a subject often are predisposed to care about it, which means that asking more interesting questions than 'Is there unquestionable evidence that he or she existed?' tends to get the better of us.