That is the strawman! He never declared the 'truth' of the offered site. He merely offered it with his opinion.

Incorrect! My means of determining any accuracy, of anything, starts with my critically thoughtful examination of the contents.

You state the 'safe' obvious, yet avoid any response to the 'meat' offered.

The very structure of the post indicated this. He offered his opinion of the link, and asked for others. Simple, unless one feels the 'need' to defend 'Jesus', one can read the link and thoughtfuylly respond. What you offered is a classic Xtian ('believer's') diversion from an uncomfortable subject; not an uncommon 'symptom' of a 'believer'.

I assume nothing; this is a philosophy forum.
Philosophy is the critically thoughtful examination of whatever is presented.
I am on very firm ground in my comment.
I challenge you, though, to read the link, understand it, and logically, critically, rationally, offer your supported criticisms for us all to see and 'thoughtfully, critically examine'.
Otherwise, you have provided nothing but a 'smoke screen' for an intellectual and emotional 'safety zone' for 'believers'.

I wish I had more then an 8.9" Eee PC to type on...




You said this earlier: "This is a straw-man fallacy. Easy to defend against a 'flat earther', but that means nothing regarding the potential accuracy of the offered link."

You originally state my link to the "flat earth" as a straw man. Now I post something different and you state that "That" is the straw man as if to point out that I missed it the first time even though you are referring to 2 completely different things...

As I said later on: "By him posting it down and saying that he "begs to differ" i'm assuming he is leaning towards the accuracy of the article" Why would he say he begs to differ if he didn't believe the article? Your right in that he never said "this website is completely true". He wouldn't say that he begs to differ if he didn't think the site had some true to it unless he just merely disagreed on his own accord as to the factual evidence of Christ and then figured he'd throw a random website in there that does a botch job of it and doesn't represent how he would prove Christs non-existance That just wouldn't make any sense. So I'm probably correctly assuming that the OP agrees if ever so slightly with the link he posted.




I probably could have worded that better. Nonetheless once you examine a website with your own standards then it's ok for you in your opinion. Which doesn't matter here since just because you approve of a site doesn't mean that everyone else will. I'm stating that there is no ruler that you can draw up next to every website and determine the essence of the accuracy of the text. So bad wording on my part.



I don't care to answer the meat buddy. Let me give you an example. Pretend I know nothing about computers, technology but I'm browsing on some tech forum and someone posts a news link saying how there is this inventor that invented a time machine. They end up posting a link to a news site detailing this. I think things sound fishy so I ask the guy to check his sources with other sources. He gets mad at me for questioning him and then proceeds to demand I give him mathematical evidence that a time machine is impossible. Yet we'll say I can't do it. Shall I then feel obligated to break under their demands and attempt to do so anyway? I think not.




Oh really? I didn't know he was following a structure that can do nothing other then indicate he was looking for critical thought and examination. How do you know this?
The only thing stopping me from "reading the link and thoughtfully repsonding" is that I have no knowledge in this area as I depict in my above example.




You assume that his posting of the link was his way of saying "please critically and thoughtfully examine this"

You can do nothing other then assume this as he didn't state it. That is what you assume.

How firm would your ground be if he changed his OP to say: "Hey guys here is a link you can check out but do not critically and thoughtfully examine it" Then your assumption of him offering this up for thought as that is what you define philosophy as would be false as he doesn't and that would prove your assumption wrong. You would have assumed wrong in that situation.

So in summary: You still are assuming.

Also thank you for assesing my symptoms and giving me a diagnosis I just couldn't put a finger on it all these years.

I disagree with the article's conclusions for the same reason the vast majority of scholars, religious and otherwise, disagree with the article's conclusions. The most likely scenario is that a man named Jesus lived and taught and was then executed in a violent, tumultuous time. For history, that's about all we can say about Jesus.

That said, the article does bring up some great points: that Jesus existed historically can most certainly be questioned. The events conveyed in the Gospels are certainly not historical.

I'm not sure why this thread is in the "Philosophy of Religion" section. At best, this is a question of pure history. Jesus' historical existence has no spiritual significance that I can determine.

I'm not sure why this thread is in the "Philosophy of Religion" section. At best, this is a question of pure history.

Jesus' historical existence has no spiritual significance that I can determine.

I see what you're saying, but I have yet to find a scholar that had any good evidence for believing that Jesus was historical. It seems that the evidence for Jesus' existence is strictly based on hearsay, just like those who once believed that Hercules and Horus were historical.

I think that most scholars choose to accept the proposition that he was historical because of personal religious beliefs, or because it is hard for them to not accept the claim of historicity for a figure that is so highly exalted in their societies.

I see what you're saying, but I have yet to find a scholar that had any good evidence for believing that Jesus was historical. It seems that the evidence for Jesus' existence is strictly based on hearsay, just like those who once believed that Hercules and Horus were historical. I think that most scholars choose to accept the proposition that he was historical because of personal religious beliefs, or because it is hard for them to not accept the claim of historicity for a figure that is so highly exalted in their societies.

As for the similarities between the mythology of Jesus and the mythology of other figures: what's the point? The question here, as I understand it, is not "Did Jesus really live and do all that mythology claims he did?" but instead "Did Jesus live?" Those two questions are very different.

That the Jews borrowed elements of the Babylonian flood story is supported by the fact that Gilgamesh pre-dates any known Jewish account of such a flood story. It's not that Babylon pre-dates Israel, it's that the Babylonian accounts pre-date the Israelite accounts. At least as far as I know.

How are Biblical accounts somehow not mythology? We call Gilgamesh mythology; wouldn't the Noah story also, then, be mythology. Certainly has the elements of mythology. Are you familiar with Joseph Campbell's monomyth? The Noah story, the Jesus story: nearly every story in the Bible follows the pattern.

You think that most scholars accept that Jesus lived due to religious belief: but you have no evidence of such a claim. Even the famous atheist scholars, Dennett and so forth, agree that Jesus lived.

The Hercules and Horus analogy is a false one: as Reshna Caner points out, many historians contemporary to Jesus mention the man.

As for the similarities between the mythology of Jesus and the mythology of other figures: what's the point? The question here, as I understand it, is not "Did Jesus really live and do all that mythology claims he did?" but instead "Did Jesus live?" Those two questions are very different.

No offense, but I find it humorous that you have the audacity to lecture me about evidence.

As for Dennett accepting the claim of Jesus' historicity, I guess you didn't read the second reason for why I said some people just accept the claim that Jesus was historical.

The only historians that reference Jesus are those who lived after his supposed time on Earth. There are no documents that are contemporary with Jesus' supposed time on Earth that mention a man by that name. Also, at the time Jesus supposedly had lived there were a number of men (including Greeks) who claimed that they were messiahs.

You're absolutely right on that. Many of the bible myths are taken from earlier myths from the Middle East and Ancient Egypt.

That the Jews borrowed elements of the Babylonian flood story is supported by the fact that Gilgamesh pre-dates any known Jewish account of such a flood story. It's not that Babylon pre-dates Israel, it's that the Babylonian accounts pre-date the Israelite accounts.

You're absolutely right on that. Many of the bible myths are taken from earlier myths from the Middle East and Ancient Egypt.

The only historians that reference Jesus are those who lived after his supposed time on Earth. There are no documents that are contemporary with Jesus' supposed time on Earth that mention a man by that name. Also, at the time Jesus supposedly had lived there were a number of men (including Greeks) who claimed that they were messiahs.

There may have been A Jesus but we have no historical evidence for him

None at all? Hmm. That means you deny that the Gospels and Epistles contain any accurate historical statements about Jesus. If you intend to make such a claim, you need to support it.

So, I ask my question yet a third time: Was Paul historical?

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Footnote: I've been wondering where it would be appropriate to stick in a little info on historical method. Maybe I'll just put it here. You are correct, xris, that myth does accumulate around historical persons, and Jesus is no exception. There are many myths about him that Christians reject. But the process is not willy-nilly. It's not a reading of tea leaves or bones or such.

Within historical method there are three general categories used for people, places, and events: mythological, legendary, and historical. Mythological means there is no evidence to support a claim. Legendary means there is evidence to support that the person, place or event exists, but additional non-factual stories were added later. Historical means a rich, largely complete picture is supported by evidence. These are fuzzy definitions, but useful nonetheless.

I'll keep this brief, and save my examples for later, but history, like many other disciplines such as science, has a curious history of its own that is stocked with humorous arrogance. I could show you a debate among the famous German historians/philosophers of the nineteenth century over the historicity of Moses. Many pushed to categorize him as "mythological" with a very few stubbornly holding out that he was "legendary". After contemporary archaeologists embarassed these guys with find and find that refuted other unrelated claims, current historians largely try to avoid the subject. They don't want to make a claim that archaeology will later overturn (proof for the existence of Caiphas has only come in the last 20 years I believe). So, they couch their statements in clever passive phrases that don't really say anything.