Again, this equates scientists and those who adhere to a scientific worldview with aggressive warmongers that require great courage and sacrifice to resist. Do you not see how that’s offensive?
I’m pretty sure Catholics don’t consider the Pontifical Biblical Commission to be prophets either. Why the double standard?
Actually you did say exactly that. “all the events portrayed in life via the gospels can be found in Old Testament stories”. But it looks like you’re acknowledging now that that’s not true, so let’s move on.
This is incorrect. I am quite willing to read and learn from scholarly books and articles, or even non-scholarly ones, that are not written by Christians, if they are honest and well-written. I’ve read scores of such books and articles. However what you’re saying about the three that you named is flatly untrue.
First of all, the three books that you’ve cited provide don’t justify your claims about gospel stories being copied from pagan mythology. Since others in this thread have already informed you of this fact, I won’t post anything further on that, other than suggesting that you should probably read books before you cite them as sources. It’s always highly embarrassing when you cite a book and it says the exact opposite of what you claim it says.
Second, when you say that those three authors are “well respected historians in the scholarly community”, you’re flat wrong. What’s your source for this claim? I find it likely that you have no clue about the credentials of any of these three individuals. (Or perhaps you just don’t know what the words “historian” and “scholarly community” mean.)
Earl Doherty is not a historian or a scholar. He has never written a single scholarly article or book, nor held any academic post, nor done anything at all with any connection to the scholarly community that I know of. I’ve read part of his book and like others have found it to be absurdly dishonest and dumb. Can you name a single instance in which any actual scholar has cited Doherty, except perhaps to debunk him? If not, then what’s your basis for the claims he’s a “well respected historian in the scholarly community”?
Richard Carrier has a degree in history, which puts him a little closer to credibility to Doherty but not much. As far as I know he’s never held an academic post. Since he makes no effort to hide the fact that he’s motivated by hatred of Christians, it’s not surpising that most other historians aren’t impressed by him.
Robert Price is actually an academic, but not in the field of history. As best I can tell, he’s written more about Cthulu than about anything related to history.
Look, you’ve made specific claims about stories being found in ancient mythology. For instance, you said that the story of Jesus walking on water can be found in the Odyssey. You said that there’s a pagan mythological story about Dionysius/Bacchus turning water into wine. If such things were true, then citing the precise ancient texts which contain them would be easy. Since you’re totally unable to cite even one ancient mythological text that supports your case, the most likely explanation is that no such texts exists.
Let’s look at one simple example. You say that the Odyssey contains the story of Jesus walking on water. I’ve read the Odyssey and I don’t recall it making any mention of Jesus, or any mention of anyone walking on water. Based on that, the obvious conclusion is that you’re just making %#$& up. However, it’s possible that I merely don’t remember the incident; after all, it’s been more than 10 years since I read the Odyssey. So if you’re actually telling the truth, it would be extremely easy for you to prove it. Simply tell me which book of the Odyssey contains the story in question, and give the numbers of the lines at which it occurs. I could then look it up in my copy of the Odyssey and see whether or not you’re telling the truth. What’s stopping you from doing so?
My, how convenient. That’s kind of like what I’d expect you to say if there wasn’t any church father who had ever said any such thing.
Nonsense. Such claims have been handily discredited for many years (note I did not say “disproved”) – more than a century, in fact. Even if the forged interpolations forced into Josephus were actually the product of his own hand – which is a truly ridiculous notion – and even as a newly adopted Roman citizen, he was still a very important Jew and something of an apologist as well (and one who couldn’t stop writing endlessly about the Jewish historical period in question). As such, Josephus ***would ***have told us in his very clear language of this ostensibly “corrupt” Jewish “establishment” and what it’s crimes were. But he wrote no such thing!
Forgive me, Stringbean, but that comment represents an extremely raggedy and hopelessly bogus trope. There’s always some kind of ostensibly “good” motive to “make up any whole story”! Have you never read Conan Doyle, for example? What “motive” was there to “make up” all those wonderful Sherlock Holmes stories? Do you imagine he had none??
And then what about **huge **religious literary monstrosities such as The Urantia Book and the Book of Mormon? No serious, critical researcher actually believes both works works were not deceptively manufactured out of ludicrous whole cloth and a vast amount of plagiarism from other religious texts, so your argument falls flat on it’s face.
so, basically, what you’re saying is jesus was a real historical figure?
Hello again, Christian apologist Sage Rat. You may not remember me, but I’m one of the many who have debated this topic with you here at the Dope in the past. (see: here, for example).
I’d like to re-present myself as an increasingly cautious & forensically restrained advocate of the ahistoricist/mythicist position; one who utterly rejects all the sloppy and poorly-evidenced bulldada (not a synonym of “bullshit”) of the crackpot mythicists such as “Acharya S” and the rest of those nattering idiots with their Mithras fixations and their silly Gnostic notions with those alleged mystery schools and dying/rising gods and earth worship and all that gibberish plays any non-trivial role in the accretion of the Jesus Myth over the course of at least two centuries.
No, as I explained above in my first reply to the OP here, I reject such ludicrously improbable assertions and hold to a position for which there’s actually considerably more reliable (and ‘more reliable’) evidence to justify: That the Jesus myth began not as a purely fictional invention but rather as an accretion of legend and hype and over-devotion to an idealized messiah figure loosely based on the “first messiah” figure who was actually a rebellious Rabbi/Teacher, probably named Jeremias, who lived approximately 100 BCE and who strongly preached that the prevailing Jewish leaders of his day were insufficiently pious. Jeremias’ strident attacks on this leadership stirred up fully understandable anger and eventually outrage among the rest of the Jewish community, which eventually retaliated and killed him. (Sound at all familiar? You can read more historical and related archaeological research on this fascinating topic in Michael Wise’s trenchant book: The First Messiah: Investigating the Savior Before Christ)
Allow me now to address the rest of your post…
Yes, indeed! But as the hackneyed trope goes: I do not think that means what *you *think it means! Because Paul also adamantly demanded that he **NEVER **learned ***anything ***of Christianity from ***ANY HISTORICAL PERSONS! ***
Not from a living Jesus, not from the other Apostles, NO ONE! So we must ask ourselves the mind-bogglingly CRUCIAL question: Where did Paul – the very FIRST alleged “Christian” writer – learn of this otherwise unknown thing we today know as Christianity? And the answer is: In a reportedly mystical ‘REVELATION’!! From an invisible magic person!
— Interruption —
Sorry, I’ve been having a lot of demands for my time in the last several weeks, so I’m afraid I must depart again. I will definitely return, however…
So rather than considering these author’s arguments, you’d rather attack them personally as unqualified?
Many users have asked you to defend your statements in this thread with logic and reliable citations. You have failed to do so, 100% of the time. On the few occasions where you’ve referenced books or linked to articles, others who have actually read the books and articles in question have quickly pointed out that they say nothing like what you claim they say. In most cases, when asked to provide a citation, you’ve just ignored the request entirely. Instead you offer us a steady diet of common bad debating tactics:
[ul]
[li]Saying that something is “obvious” when it isn’t obvious.[/li][li]Insults. (Insane, deluded, …)[/li][li]Accusations against anyone who questions you.[/li][li]Changing the subject. (I ask you specific questions regarding your claims about Romulus, the Odyssey, and Bacchus. You reply with a post that doesn’t mention Romulus, the Odyssey, or Bacchus, but instead accuses the church of being motivated by money.)[/li][/ul]
These are the tactics we expect from someone who knows that he can’t win with citations or logical arguments.
do you have any reliable citation that jesus existed?
Poster A: My position is supported by these three eminent scholars. It has legs.
Poster B. Those people aren’t scholars. One is a circus clown and another is a plumber. The best of them is a kindergarten teacher. You can’t possibly use them to support your argument.
Musicat: Why are you attacking these authors and ignoring their arguments.
Nah, that’s not valid. SeekerofTruth was attempting an argument from authority. He never spelled out the argument of those authors, all he said was that they belived the same thing he believed.
The only valid way to refute such an argument is pointing out that the sources are not authorities. Attacking their arguments is neither required not appropriate.
None of that is proof, not Tacitus, not Josephus, not the Talmud. They are simply reports of what someone heard after the fact, not eyewitness accounts, not actual historical records of the day.
Sigh.
In previous threads, such as Frylock’ s thread from last year, I’ve presented a great deal of evidence showing that things which Doherty and Carrier say are false.
In this thread, SeekerofTruth cited those two along with Price as a source for his far-reaching claims that gospel stories were copied from pagan mythology. SeekerofTruth also claimed that all three were historians with wide respect among scholars.
Now in fact none of these three say what SeekerofTruth claimed they say. Other posters pointed this out, and I reiterated it. So that was that, as far as the claim in question. But since the purpose of this board is to fight ignorance, it seemed worth correcting the claim that those three are historians. When having a debate, the credentials of sources is surely worth knowing.
saying that jesus was a fabricated myth or a conglomeration of already existing stories or a false figure head made up by religious leaders are all sound - possibilities - they don’t need verification from an “authority”. to say for sure that any one of these theories is the definite answer would take some “proof” but as far as attempts to give possible explorations, they all valid for the sake of inquiry.
I don’t think that you understand how History works.
Simple question: Do you believe that Alexander the Great existed? Then provide eyewitness accounts and/or actual historical records of the day that establishes his fact.
Of course you can not because “The primary sources written by people who actually knew Alexander or who gathered information from men who served with Alexander, are all lost, apart from a few inscriptions and fragments”
And this is from the most powerful and famous man alive on Earth at the time.
Nonetheless nobody disputes that Alexander existed. That’s because actual historians do not require eyewitness accounts of ancient figures to be certain of their existence.
Do you see where this is going?
that is very interesting about Alexander. I don’t understand how they can know specific battle tactics and maneuvers he used and say there is no historical record of him. still, an interesting piece of trivia.
now,if Josephus says that James the brother of jesus was stoned to death does that mean, factually, that:
I’m with Christopher Hitchens on this - the clumsiness of trying to make the story line up with Old Testament prophecy suggests there was somebody, rather than a complete fabrication which could have casually matched the prophecy completely.
:rolleyes:
Do you really not get this?
Nobody but you uses a definition of “historical record” that mandates eyewitness accounts. NOBODY. You made that up. It isn’t real.
Actual historical records, as used by actual historians, are almost entirely made of second and third hand accounts. Actual historians are quite happy to accept that. The fact that you do not accept that puts you at odds with actual historians.
Do you think that maybe you should consider whether you standard of “historical record” is valid?
Regardless of whether you do or not, Cecil is not incorrect when he says that there are historical records of Jesus. He is using that term the way that everybody but you uses it.
While a case can be made that there WAS no Paul or Saul or 12 apostles (the two epistles of Peter of forgeries, the Book of Acts is riddled with historic inaccuracies and was likely written a few centuries after the events, half of the Pauline epistles are forgeries or pseudepigraphical (same thing, really), if one starts at the beginning with 1st Thessolonians about 25 years after Jesus’ death one sees the rudiments of what was later to be Christianity being laid out. In this first writing ever from the canon Paul or someone who later came to be regarded as Paul is writing out. Most significant, there is no hint at all of justification by faith alone, a cornerstone of Christian theology. Such a cornerstone would have been the first thing Paul would have supposedly “got from the Lord” and written about if Christianity were true. That’s just one issue among literally thousands in dealing with all the forgeries, interpolations, mistakes, contradictions et al that emerge in analyzing the New Testament from the lens of 2000 years into the future. 
We seem to be at odds. I’ve always thought that when there were just a few (less than five, a number I selected myself) references to a historical figure, Historians believed it was PROBABLE that said figure existed, but that without extensive, independent, cross verification, it was still a reference, and not actual proof of existence.
So let’s go to Josephus’ own words on this one (Testimonium Flavium):
*
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. *
Who were the “principal men among us” if not the Jewish high priests?
Money and literary fame. Paul allegedly gave up his material wealth to spread the gospel of another man’s glory.
So because a book was written in recent times and can be discredited means a book written in ancient times with no existing means of factual discreditation is also completely fabricated?
Not a leap I’m willing to take.