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...Mythic elements, hyperbole, and allegory permeate early so-called secular and historical texts. It is a symptom of the times and mindsets of the ancients.
And so you admit that they are unreliable in terms of ascertaining any real historical fact.
Dude, you just finished responding to multiple sources, giving your reasons why you don't think they're good. And those aren't even all of them, just the ones I could think of.
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Which is BS.
Seriously? It's pretty common knowledge that the passion narrative is more consistently interconnected and chronological. One event leads logically after another, from Jesus enters Jerusalem to the crowd’s acclaim to his tomb being found empty.
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An assertion that ignores the large number make it unlikely to be an accident.
Responsible historians generally go by the documentation and try to keep purported events in their proper context.
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Your excuse ignores what it properly means, to see in visions or dreams.
It's no excuse, just a fact that the word has many different meanings. And all you're doing to justify your preferred meaning is reasserting that this is the meaning we should take from it.
I don't dispute that you have a basis. I dispute that it is a legitimate basis. It is created by your rhetoricians specifically to delegitimize religious texts because they are claimed to be religious texts. Mythic elements, hyperbole, and allegory permeate early so-called secular and historical texts. It is a symptom of the times and mindsets of the ancients.
Which is just another excuse from you to dismiss the evidence (and even ignores the evidence I gave, such as an author writing about something he can not know). Even an early Christian admitted the gospels were allegory, not historical.
And to call historians 'rhetoricians' and to misrepresent why they treat religious texts differently just shows you have no actual counter argument.
You are also asserting secular and historical texts use as much supernatural myth as the gospels (or equating myth with supernatural myth), except 1) this is not the case, and 2) the historians of that time would often comment on them, stating their sources for the claim. This is not the case with the gospels.
Dude, you just finished responding to multiple sources, giving your reasons why you don't think they're good. And those aren't even all of them, just the ones I could think of.
So something interpolated by Christians into a secular text is a secular source?
And how many do we actually have that are not too late? Josephus, Tacitus and the Talmud. Neither Pliny, Seutonius, or Phlegon mention Jesus, and it is doubtful Thallus does as well.
Have I missed anyone else?
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Originally Posted by Vic 2.0
Seriously? It's pretty common knowledge that the passion narrative is more consistently interconnected and chronological. One event leads logically after another, from Jesus enters Jerusalem to the crowd’s acclaim to his tomb being found empty.
No, Mark is well structured at at the start as well. The passion narrative is merely longer, it is not more consist. And it is not "the reason most scholars think Mark got this narrative from an earlier source".
Responsible historians would argue coincidences DO have an impact on the probability. Your one example merely demonstrates this is not always the case. Which is why it is always this example used to dismiss the improbability of coincidences. Because it is an exception. It also ignores where Robertson said the similarities were explained by his extensive knowledge of ship building and maritime trends.
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Originally Posted by Vic 2.0
Responsible historians generally go by the documentation and try to keep purported events in their proper context.
That is your arguments in the refuse, then. Paul, Revelations, Hebrews, usw.
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Originally Posted by Vic 2.0
It's no excuse, just a fact that the word has many different meanings. And all you're doing to justify your preferred meaning is reasserting that this is the meaning we should take from it.
Your need to misrepresent means you still have no credible argument. I am not justifying or asserting anything, I am pointing out what the word actually means, and how it is normally used. The fact that it can (and is) used in other ways does not refute the fact that it properly means to see in visions or dreams, or 'with the minds eye'.
I still remember how I felt when I finally realized/deduced/whatever that Santa was just something adults make up to tell kids. My first reaction was being angry about being lied to: "How could they do that?!? They always tell me not to lie!" That was the first time I remember feeling like fool for believing something a grownup said. I was an only child so it wasn't a scenario where my parents could play the "You're big enough now to share in the secret but your sister/brother is still a little kid who believes in Santa" card...
I skipped right by the "How could they do that?" and simply accepted the fact that what I had been told was a lie. My primary question was "If they lied to me about *this*, then what *else* of what I have been told, is actually a lie?"
And thus, my skepticism was born. I had been taught that [some] people who held positions of 'authority' would/could/did tell lies to cause others to believe things that were not true, therefore, nothing that was told to me could be taken at face value without some sort of evidence that there were facts and reasoning to support it.
I began to examine everything in a new light- what sort of evidence or rational basis is there to believe 'X' is true/correct? Within a couple of years, many previously wondrous possibilities were discarded for having no evidence of a factual, rational basis for believing them.
So if you weren't born anything in particular, you are a more likely candidate to be born again? I see the logic, but I've also never seen the matter quantified. It would be interesting to find out.
It's quite possible that some are. Atheists who arrived at that position after having been indoctrinated into religious beliefs tend to have done so by questioning their [previously held] beliefs, using logical and rational thought processes to arrive at the conclusion that, lacking any evidence of being true, it is not reasonable to [continue to] hold such beliefs.
On the other hand, *some* who have not been indoctrinated into any particular religious belief, and who also have not been taught to use reason and logic, may not have had any reason to question the validity of such beliefs and therefore may be susceptible to being 'converted' because they have not been through the process of using rational thought to evaluate propositions which are presented to them.
And how many do we actually have that are not too late? Josephus, Tacitus and the Talmud. Neither Pliny, Seutonius, or Phlegon mention Jesus, and it is doubtful Thallus does as well.
Have I missed anyone else?
Well I suppose you could give your take on Lucian and Mara Bar-Serapion while you're at it. But again, this is the whole point; there are so many sources or purported sources to explain/explain away. And what positive evidence do we have to doubt that Jesus at least existed? Is this standard skepticism in doing history responsibly, or does it find its motivation purely in anti-theism?
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No, Mark is well structured at at the start as well. The passion narrative is merely longer, it is not more consist.
Quite a bit longer! So as to get a better impression of its consistency at a style of writing rather than a relatively brief similarity with the passion narrative.
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Responsible historians would argue coincidences DO have an impact on the probability. Your one example merely demonstrates this is not always the case.
No, it demonstrates they do not have the degree of impact necessary to dismiss early, independent attestations. And the parallels between the passion story and things like Greek mythology are far less solid than those between the Titan and the Titanic. Going from "gods having sexual intercourse with humans" to "Jesus being god's son but born of a virgin", for example.
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I am not justifying or asserting anything, I am pointing out what the word actually means, and how it is normally used. The fact that it can (and is) used in other ways does not refute the fact that it properly means to see in visions or dreams, or 'with the minds eye'.
Then from where do we get this un-Jewish idea of Jesus being risen from the dead? And how does it gel with the empty tomb, etc.? Understand that I'm not arguing for the resurrection hypothesis here, just asking how the idea that it was just a dream fits with these other points?
Well I suppose you could give your take on Lucian and Mara Bar-Serapion while you're at it.
Well you are really scraping the Christian apologist barrel now Vic old chap. Putting forward these guys as evidence for your Jesus is what apologists do when they have nothing else left!
From Serapian we have a fragment which includes - "... What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King?", in the context of ancient leaders like Socrates. It is NOT at all clear WHEN this manuscript was written, nor exactly who it is referring too, but there is no evidence it is Jesus.
Lucian. Nearly 150 years after the alleged events, Lucian satirised Christians, but does not mention any Jesus or Christ by name. So Lucian is no evidence for a historical Jesus, merely late 2nd century lampooning of Christians.
What's next chap? Polycarp? Valentinus? Ignatius? Phlegon? Galen. Really Vic! You are clearly clutching at straws now.
Well you are really scraping the Christian apologist barrel now Vic old chap. Putting forward these guys as evidence for your Jesus is what apologists do when they have nothing else left!
From Serapian we have a fragment which includes - "... What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King?", in the context of ancient leaders like Socrates. It is NOT at all clear WHEN this manuscript was written, nor exactly who it is referring too, but there is no evidence it is Jesus.
Lucian. Nearly 150 years after the alleged events, Lucian satirised Christians, but does not mention any Jesus or Christ by name. So Lucian is no evidence for a historical Jesus, merely late 2nd century lampooning of Christians.
What's next chap? Polycarp? Valentinus? Ignatius? Phlegon? Galen. Really Vic! You are clearly clutching at straws now.
You're proving my point for me, despite all the posturing and condescending nicknames. There's a ton of content written about or at least possibly about the historical Jesus. Skepticism of his existence far exceeds the standard historical method.
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