Freethought Nation

The Jesus Seminar did deny that JC ever existed though.

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Mriana

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none of what you say here is enough to overturn the long held belief that simple country people from galilee would not have known the intricacies of Hellenistic philosophy. Of course they were aware that romans were beginning to do things like the raising of the eagle incident. it is well known that the romans allowed their conquered territories to continue their own beliefs provided it didn’t stir up rebellion, which they monitored very closely. You are conflating roman occupation with the influx of Hellenistic philosophy, which are two totally different things. No documents from antiquity that I am aware of portray the average Judean as being anything other than totally immersed in orthodox Judaism. The Sadducees dabbled in Hellenistic thought and that was about it. however, they were reviled by the other Judaic groups for that. so, it’s not just a question of access. It’s also an issue of rejection. Jews were vehemently opposed to pagan beliefs and practices so when the jesus seminar tries to manufacture Jesus being a wandering cynic sage is just absolutely ludicrous. The same goes for contriving that a Jesus legend has pagan mythological roots. It’s absolutely anathema to jews and contrary to the milieu of first century Judea. If Christians were borrowing, they were complete failures.

what kind of reconstruction is needed to know that Jesus and His followers were thoroughgoing jews or that john borrowed a greek word to relate a concept to whatever gentiles might read his book?

the parallels merely reflect human conventions of telling stories. They don’t explain the tremendous differences that lie at the core of worldviews such as polytheism vs monotheism or nontheism vs theism or jew vs pagan gentile.

Mriana, If you're going to make that claim you need to provide a quote and source citation directly from the JS. I have read their books. You need to read through this thread.

trae insists on contradicting himself repeatedly throughout this thread by claiming in his first post here:

"the scholarly community is in almost unanimous agreement that there was a historical Jesus. even the liberal critics of the jesus seminar (second quest for the historical Jesus) agree that Jesus existed."

Below trae claims that the HJ is on such solid ground that it's not even up for debate:

"the existence of the historical christ is on very solid ground. this point isn't even debated among the leading ancient historians. i myself have seen all of these people in scholastic and debate settings and there isn't mention of Jesus not existing."

So, why then, would the Jesus Seminar, a group originally of around 200 scholars (mostly Christian), question the existence of Jesus if they already believe it to be "on solid ground?" It's trae's contradiction that he absolutely refuses to acknowledge.

The fact is that only around 3 JS members questioned the existence of Jesus or 1.5% and their views on Jesus' existence weren't given any attention. trae refuses to recognize the difference between examining the authenticity of the texts prior to the 4th century for historical accuracy and questioning Jesus' existence.

_________________
2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

the existence and corpus of the third quest establishes that the ridiculous conclusions of the jesus seminar are not anywhere near a consensus. The majority of scholars realize the foolishness in trying to make Jesus into a hellenic philosopher so that's about as close to a consensus as there is in academia.

if you've read crossan then you know that he invents 4 chronological groupings for two purposes; proximity to the events and multiple attestation. This, in and of itself, suggests that crossan is about to lob himself a softball. The earliest grouping contains gospel of thomas which is highly suspect. This just isn't accepted by serious historical experts (like koester or tuckett) because it's pretty clear that thomas is a later, gnostic reimagining of the gospels. Francis fallon and ron cameron made a definitive case on that subject in 1988. He puts the problematic q in this stratum and i'll answer your questions about q later. The cross gospel, allegedly embedded in the gospel of peter is pure fiction. As if that weren't bad enough, he then states on p. 429 that "it is the single source of the intracanonical passion accounts" which is like putting icing on an imaginary cake. Additionally, picking which documents constitute the best attestation is a blatant case of smuggled in authority. That's just the first stratum. Let me know if there is a need to keep going.

i'm not sure what you are referring to when you say gaps. Q was speculated to address the synoptic problem - similarities in content and arrangement between the synoptics (temptations, beatitudes, lord's prayer). This prompted the invention of an even earlier document from which the synoptics drew. Hence, quelle. You might not be aware that support for q started to crumble with the return to the griesbach matthean priority in the 60's (farmer, sanders, dungan, stoldt brings it to continental scholarship).

People like the jesus seminar approach q with their preconceptions leading the way. For wrede, the messianic secret was prominent and that prompted mark to interject this thinking into the already existing jewish/roman zeitgeist. For bultmann, it was the melding of two streams; jewish praxis and an alleged hellenisitic Jesus movement. For mack, mark merged judaism with apocalyptic judgment. Mack then pronounces that the social aphorisms were orginal to q where as the apocalyptic sayings were not. This leads to unfounded speculation such as "the invitation would have been to something like the cynic's 'kingdom', that is, to assume the cynic's stance of confidence in the midst of confused and contrary social circumstances". Anyone who knows anything about first century judaism would consider this mangling of "kingdom" absolutely confounding. This kind of dishonest, unscholarly, biased conjecture leads people to invent fanciful q stories. It should not go unnoticed that the jesus seminar showed signs of anti-reaganism, anti-conservativism and anti-zionism. What better way to substantiate your specious agenda than to apocalyptically emasculate the person who seems to be the root cause of evil american imperialism; Jesus. Reduce Him to an aphoristic social reformer and the alliance with Israel disintegrates. America then has no reason to impose it's will in the middle east or possibly even anywhere else.

To drive a wedge between Jesus' sayings (social reformatory aphorisms and later, invented apocalyptic predictions which authorize political agendas) is to not understand the first century jewish milieu. Jews, based on their scriptures, were expecting the overthrow of the pagans and control of the holy land returned to them through the actions of the predicted messiah, which would vindicate YHWH. This is clear from many aspects, most notably the intertestimental rebellions. The jesus seminar's manufactured revisionism is looking at the situation with smudged and anachronistic glasses. Are we going to treat q as a gospel? Stripping out the expectations of the jews hardly constitutes "good news". In a two source paradigm, how can it be proven that mark and q are independent when q is nothing but a mist instead of a real anchor? What about paul's corpus? It is clearly an outworking of Jesus' ministry but, a sapiential q makes it irrelevant and based on a fiction. This requires a great deal of explaining and conspiracy theorizing. In the end, q is more a phenomenal representation of the interpreter than real, actual positivist history. This is just as true of q being identified with thomas or peter, or even any kind of genre (sayings, wisdom literature, narrative or full blown eschatological theodicy). the most informed historical experts see q as unparsimonious and don't adhere to any one totalitarian synoptic theory. instead, they recognize the virtues of multiple theories including an ongoing oral tradition.

aluva says that they didn't. they claim they impartially examined the relevant documents and they don't deny the existence of Jesus.

i can't imagine why you are quibbling over this. in order for you to be correct, you would have to prove that ALL historical experts are operating with a bias and are uninformed.

Still not answering the question... how is "the idea that the gospels are more a reflection of later political dynamics than earlier Judean history. That later Christians retrojected church issues from their own time(s) by putting words into Jesus’ mouth so that He solved their issue. thus, the Jesus of history was lost in a wash of theological contrivances" not the consensus? Also you have not answered my other question which was "could you please tell me what the position or the "consensus" really is?" Since you seem a master at dodging my questions I am going to assume you don't have an answer you're making it up as you go



Great job on pleading to authority. I asked you "how is he wrong" and "can you provide an alternative?" All you just did is "here are some problems with what I see and I am going to not bother putting forth an alternative to you cause I am just going to appeal to authority by naming people without naming their works!" This is not how you answer a question.



Gaps usually refers to our knowledge on a particular text that is wanting. However I did tell you that I wanted you "to name the theory, you need to name the scholars and/or societies that are advocates of such theories and you need to give a detailed description of how it works or you could just give me a link on a credible scholarly source that discusses such a thing." You failed to this as well. All you just gave me was an account of first names; which help me in nothing. Now if you named their scholarly works and named their hypothesis at all then that would help, but you didn't. You sidestepped what I asked of you and you only barely fulfilled 1/4 of what I asked.



What the f##k are you even talking about? Where the hell did this political rant come from in regards to the Jesus seminar, I asked you to provide a point by point basis on what these theories entail and instead you give me some kind of "the Jesus Seminar has a political agenda" rant. Also, what the f##k do you mean by "anti-reaganism, anti-conservativism and anti-zionism?" You throw out these terms as if they mean anything and accuse them of even having a view that Anti-Jesus without elaborating on the reasons why. I find these labels to be nothing more than a red herring and they do not answer the question but for the sake of argument and curiosity what the hell do you even by this rant and can you provide sources for your claims?

As far as Anti-Reaganism goes... I am pretty much Anti-Reagan on the grounds that if it wasn't for that asshole we would have had solar and renewable energy and would have had far more advanced technology along with the fact that our dependency on oil would be gone by now. Hell, the technology we have now would have been available in 2002 as well as the fact that if Reagan didn't support Saddam we wouldn't have had 911; along with a plethora of other reasons. Oh and one more thing about good old Ronald Reagan... f##k REAGANOMICS!

As far Anti-conservatism and Anti-Zionism... you are gonna have to elaborate on that. I don't support Zionism and I say they should support themselves and their own state; considering the inhumane bullshit that they have done. It sure looks like the Jewish people were taking notes during the Inquisition that is for sure. Do these views make me Anti-Zionist?

Also I like the idea of humanity changing and outgrowing old social taboos and pretty much advancing ourselves, technologically, spiritually and even socially. I also have a huge hatred for people wanting to go back to "the old ways" or to "good old America" because most of the time when they say that I begin to picture segregation sectors of society... does this make me Anti-Conservative?

So you see the problem with throwing out these labels without even defining them? So please define for the sake of curiosity.



Actually no, you are the only one utilizing "conspiracy theorizing" when you accuse the Jesus Seminar of being "anti-reaganism, anti-conservativism and anti-zionism" without even defining what the f##k they even mean to begin with! As far as your view of the first century, yes I agree, this has mainly been happening but can you please provide sources instead of baseless assertions? I mean f##k! This is getting frustrating and your next post will determine whether or not I should consider you a troll.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)



Let's see shall we...

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

I asked Acharya to e-mail Dr. Price on the Jesus Seminar issue since he is a Jesus Seminar fellow i.e. he was there. Below is his response to her.

"they were essentially pursuing the historical Jesus paradigm as far as it could be taken: on the assumption that there was such a figure" is another way of saying "they had an a priori assumption" as I've been saying all along.

Now, will trae concede or will he continue on remaining consistent with his delusions and red herring fallacies as he has throughout this thread?

Trae, what are your credentials and what university do you or did you attend? Your repeated use of distraction fallacies rather than addressing the issues at hand makes me wonder if you're an alumni of Liberty University created by Jerry Falwell and bunch?

_________________
2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

The very existence of the substantial work of the third quest is enough to show that the second quest conclusions are not the consensus on the matter.

I did answer the question. the consensus in the sensationalized, shock value mainstream media is the renewed second quest. The stronger position in academia is the third quest.

Appeals to authority are not always a bad thing. plus, it’s not like I dodged your question or didn’t provide details.

That’s not exactly an accurate characterization of my response. First, those aren’t problems that “I see”. They are problems that many in historiography see. Second, the alternative should be clear. Stop revising history and your conclusions won’t be ridiculed. Third, work with me a little here. I can’t recount the entire history of the world for you. be adventurous enough to do a LITTLE leg work. I’m pretty sure you’re not so helpless that you need for me to go that far. Fourth, I answered your question in detail, offered the potential for more and you didn’t even respond to one iota of the information. You just complained about it and asked for even more. If this is going to be interesting, let’s at least discuss the issue without the genetic fallacies and histrionics.

That part I knew. I’m just not sure how gaps relates to q. for streeter, it was really more about interdependence, not gaps.

It’s not like I didn’t provide you with any information. In addition to what I have already cited, here’s an article that just barely scratches the surface of the synoptic problem for a quick reference. Of particular note is the conclusion section where the existence of q is questioned, contrary to what you have asserted about q being a foregone conclusion. Feel free to supplement that with works on the subject by any of the aforementioned authors.

http://bible.org/article/synoptic-problem

They were last names, not first names.

Several things; primarily how the scientific maxim “all observation is theory laden” is also true of things like textual criticism, particularly q. I was showing how the existence of q can proceed from people’s preconceived notions about the earliest stages of christianity. I was also showing how there is a whole world of scholarship outside of the one sbl quote you referenced and classroom discussion. The scholarship on q meant different things to different people and I was tracing the history of that in the second quest.

It’s just an observation.

First, I did provide several points, of which you are ignoring them all except for one. second, I showed how it’s possible that political motives had a strong influence on the conclusions of the jesus seminar which played right into the hands of an eager and waiting media.

You agree and then say they’re baseless assertions. Which is it? Provide sources for what? For what I just stated, read any works by any of the third quest scholars. Start with n. t. wright’s Christian origins series.

You know, I am just going to write you off as a total troll because of your ambiguous statements that have no grounding in actually conveying to me what I asked for. I asked for the name of said hypothesis/theory and if possible the names of the scholars. Instead you keep referring me to this ambiguous "Third Quest for the Historical Jesus." The First and Second question lead to a variety of different theories and hypothesis on how to find the historical Jesus and what to look for. The same can be said of the third quest... but since you cannot be more specific than an ambiguous "LOOK AT THE THIRD QUEST" statement, all I can say is that you are a troll.

I also love how you think that giving me last names of scholars is really going to help me at all, if that is their last names then how the f**k am I supposed to find them when I don't have their works or even their damn first listed. Kinda makes the whole thing pretty damn hard to do. Also in regards to appeal to authority, yes appeal to authority is bad BECAUSE IT IS A LOGICAL FALLACY!

I am just giving up at this point, because you are illogical, you refuse to answer questions and just dodge around them or just barely give me 1/4 of what I asked for. YOU CANNOT BEAR THE BURDEN OF PROOF and you refuse too when asked for evidence so I am just going to say troll and be done with it.

Aluva, i'll ask the same question again that you won't answer. Why aren't the fellows of the jesus seminar in the public square denouncing the existence of Jesus? Ditto for other historical experts?

I have already answered that question many times throughout this thread - the JS were examining the historical authenticity of the TEXTS prior to the 4th century, not questioning Jesus' existence because they already assumed a priori that Jesus existed and worked from there without ever substantiating the claim first. Now, why are you using another distraction fallacy to ask me a question I've been consistent on from the very beginning, rather than answer my question? I think it's blatantly obvious that it's time for you to concede that you have been wrong on this issue. It's time for you to make the necessary adjustment and get over it.

"they were essentially pursuing the historical Jesus paradigm as far as it could be taken: on the assumption that there was such a figure" is another way of saying "they had an a priori assumption" as I've been saying all along.

Now, will trae concede or will he continue on remaining consistent with his delusions and red herring fallacies as he has throughout this thread?

Trae, what are your credentials and what university do you or did you attend? Your repeated use of distraction fallacies rather than addressing the issues at hand makes me wonder if you're an alumni of Liberty University created by Jerry Falwell and bunch?

_________________
2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

i'm not sure why you don't understand:
griesbach matthean priority
streeter
farmer
sanders
dungan
stoldt
wrede (i included a comment on his conclusions)
bultmann (i included a comment on his conclusions)
mack (i included a comment on his conclusions)
crossan (i included a paragraph on his method and offered to discuss further)

would you like more?

perhaps if you would read about it, it wouldn't be ambiguous to you and would answer some of your questions.

www.google.com

i even provided an amazon link to n. t. wright's books. you only needed to click on it.

again, it's not always a bad thing. it's not like my case is made of "because x said so". i've made many points that you COULD have responded to.

when you are ready to discuss the subject beyond "this is what the textbook says and what i heard in class", let me know.

do you really not realize that this doesn't answer the question?

why aren't the fellows of the jesus seminar willing to stake their careers and reputations denying the existence of Jesus in the public square?

i'm not talking about the meetings during the 80's. i'm talking about the personal beliefs and writings of the individual fellows over the last 20 years? if funk is right, then they should all be absolutely certain as opposed to the hesitant, unsure response from dr. price.

any of those people have been, and are, free to substantiate the claim and come to the conclusion that Jesus didn't exist. why hasn't that happened despite funk's statement? it should be a foregone conclusion that Jesus didn't exist in light of the jesus seminar's findings.