Freethought Nation

it's alive in that it's death is starting to be discussed. i'm not sure that even the popular jesus seminar can save it.

the problem with this statement is that it speciously postulates that there is any sort of consensus on q. it's so speculative that it's nearly impossible to say what is or what it contains. That's probably a big reason why it's disintegrating. It's now unparsimonious.

i never said it's history. It's a popular outworking of ridiculous jesus seminar arguments.

it's not that his conclusions side him against the consensus. It's his problematic historiography that leads to the conclusions that has caused the lack of respect.

Did you even listen to a thing I just said? It's being taught and debated at Universities and even Society of Biblical Literature still supports. It's even apart of Modern Study Bible's and it's one of the primary things you just start to learn about in classes in the field of Textual Criticism... I'm sorry but to say that the Q Document Source is dying out, is similar to saying that the Crocaduck disproves Evolution; it's nothing short but absurd.



Did you read a single thing I stated? I said that 2 Gospels have been identified as the Q source and one has been identified as either a source for Q or L. This statement is very relevant today and it is not speculated. To say that whole 4 Source Hypothesis within regards to Q, L and then the new emerging J (source for John) is dying out and being debated on it's relevancy is pretty much ignoring biblical scholarship.



I'm sorry, did you even bother reading or even watching the film? The Da Vinci Code simply puts forth a conspiracy by a Secret Council of the Vatican to kill and destroy not only the Priory of Sion but also the last remaining descendants of Jesus in order to consolidate power. This has literally NOTHING to do at all with the Jesus Seminar.



Do you even know the thesis of arguments towards the historical Jesus and the Gospels? His entire thesis is this: the Gospels are not reconcilable with history and were not composed to tell the tale of an actual historical being and that the entire New Testament is made up of theological works, not of history. Thus the New Testament CANNOT be used to gather information about an historical Jesus.

Almost every single Historian agrees with this thesis, Dart D. Ehrman, Robert M. Price, G. A. Wells, Earl Doherty, Geza Vermes, etc, etc, etc....

You sir, have not even bothered to read the literature you are trying to critique let alone even understand the basic thesis of the people you wish to label as being "fringe scholars."

I’m not sure what you are asking of them to have recorded. In a sense, Jesus was pointing to Himself as the fulfillment of God’s promises. In that way, they did record it.

first, there is no Hellenistic element to christianity. That’s what the third quest is showing over against the jesus seminar. Jesus and His followers were thoroughgoing jews. Later Christians from Macedonia and other parts of asia minor certainly did come from Hellenistic cultures but christianity had already been established by that point. There is no evidence that simple galilean men had any knowledge of things Hellenistic. Educated, wealthy people like the saducees had exposure to Hellenism but that was about it in Judea. Second, I’m not sure where the connection is between alleged Hellenism in Judea and Buddhism. Third, Jesus isn’t both the father and son. Fourth, He wasn’t unharmed. He died a physical death. I’m just not seeing the connections you’re making.

the language you are using (god, creator, devil) are not terms that work within buddhism. Those are theistic terms. Buddhists say they are nontheistic. I even quoted Buddha himself as denying the concept of god. Buddha wasn’t superhuman. He was an example of the path to enlightenment. If there are Mahayana schools that differ from this then that further proves my point that the incidental similarities you continue to refer to are just evidential ways to describe religion, not that christianity stole from Buddhism.

while this is mildly interesting, it still doesn’t explain the chasm between Jesus asking for people to glorify and worship God and Buddhist beliefs to the contrary.

now you’re backpeddling into sophistry. You’ve been adamant that Jesus was a Buddhist and now you’re saying that Jesus would have to “appear” to be Hebrew/jewish in order to accomplish Buddhist goals. What’s the difference between living and acting jewish and actually being jewish? If Jesus were a Buddhist, He would be so foreign to jews, they would have taken Him for a pagan and rejected His teachings altogether. How can you say the ten commandments are barbaric? They’re some of the most profound ethical statements ever made.

while this is interesting and not capable of being substantiated at this time (there is no Hellenistic equivalent of this occurrence), this doesn’t make Jesus look any more Buddhist or any less jewish.

kids come out of the womb knowing how to lie. No one has to teach a child to steal. They’re definitely not as pure as this person is making them out to be.

regeneration is a spiritual concept. It doesn’t mean that people are always going to be able to evidentially live up to it.

it’s interesting that even in this day and age, thousands of brilliant scholars continue to study the Bible and have a completely different experience; that it is confirmatory and harmonious. That it doesn’t conflict with empiricism. Staunch atheists get converted to christianity. Why is that? compartmentalization?

nothing you said here contradicts what I said. Q can certainly still be found in textbooks and taught in classrooms but, that doesn’t mean that you won’t find other references questioning it’s existence in books, lectures and debates. Usually, what happens in textbooks and in the classrooms will eventually follow what is happening with the historians on the forefront of the issue

while there may be some scholars who believe this, it doesn’t establish anything near a consensus on q. that’s the main problem with the idea.

every single iota of information about q is speculative. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this but, no person has a q document sitting on their shelf. There is nothing to refer to except theories. If people are identifying books they think represent or are q, that is speculation. It’s not brute fact. It doesn’t even prove that those documents are q. the synoptic "problem" doesn't have to be solved by a q document.

I was referring to the conversation with teabing at his house surrounding Constantine. This line of thinking is certainly an outworking of jesus seminar conclusions; that the gospels are more a reflection of later political dynamics than earlier Judean history.

that is not what I’ve read from him. he posits Jesus as a Mediterranean peasant (hence the book title). I’ve seen him speak in person and he believes Jesus to be an itinerant sage who endeavored to overthrow the system of client/patronage using hellenistic cynic style philosophy. But, this doesn’t respond to the point that I made about the methods he employs to make such conclusions.

first, I don’t think you have accurately captured what crossan believes. You said that he doesn’t believe Jesus existed when he has actually written and continues to speak about the historical person; what he said and did. It’s not that he believes the gospels are irreconcilable with history. It’s just that he has weeded out what he believes to be theological and thus, ahistorical. He says that the cross became a metaphor, a theological symbol for what Jesus represented. Furthermore, ehrman also believes that Jesus existed when he says “we must remember who he was: a radical millenarian Jew.” As I stated elsewhere, even Michael martin has shown that wells’ case lacks scholarship. Geza vermes says “he was a totally eschatologically inspired person, very charismatic, who fitted very well into the world in which he lived." The existence of Jesus has been all but an academic certainty over the last 200 years, even among historical experts who have no prior commitment to christianity. Even the historians in your short list don’t agree with crossan on many issues, much less “almost every single historian”.

I love how you simply make statements and then contradict yourself. Justin Martyr, Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch, and the rest of the apostolic fathers all came from the hellenic backgrounds. You say at one moment that "there is Helenistic element to Christianity" then the next moment you say "there is no evidence that simple Galilean men had any knowledge of things Hellenistic." Well I am sorry to say this, but the culture of Hellenism was NOT a mystery; also even if these men existed, they would have lived in a time where the entire Jewish community was in a revolt BECAUSE of Jews becoming Hellenized. Why do you think the Maccabean Revolt happened? Why do you think the Zealots and Sicarii existed to begin with? To say that they wouldn't have in any known about anything Hellenistic is to pretty much say that the holocaust never happened.

As far as the idea that Christianity was impervious to the efforts of Hellenism:



Here is what Philo of Alexandria (a Hellenized Jew from first century BCE and CE) had to say about the Logos:



What was that about Christianity being impervious to Hellenistic culture?

As far as the whole Buddhist parallels to Jesus... might I implore to check out a copy called Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings by Marcus Borg and Jack Kornfield.

Did you forget the part about when I said that "It's being taught and debated at Universities and even Society of Biblical Literature still supports?" I would think that if the Society of Biblical Literature is debating as to whether or not the Q source is valid would kinda raise up red flags. But since we are discussing this... what exactly is your proposal in regards to filling the gap about the Q source eh?



Do you even know what the Q document is supposed to be? According to the German Scholars, the document of Q is supposed to be a collection of just sayings without any narratives about Jesus and guess what? We already have two documents like that! It seems to me you don't even understand what the Q Hypothesis is about to begin with!



Oh... you mean how he described that at the council of Nicaea they voted on everything about Christianity from the trinity to the divinity of Christ to what books were considered canonical? Well I'm sorry but I really do not think that Jesus Seminar has said anything about this. Your just making things up apparently. Can you provide proof?



Ok then, tell me what your problems are with his methods then. Because all your doing is claiming "HE IS DOING IT WRONG" without showing why.



I never said ANYTHING about that Historians deny the existence of Jesus I said that all historians are in agreement within regards the fact that "he Gospels are not reconcilable with history and were not composed to tell the tale of an actual historical being and that the entire New Testament is made up of theological works, not of history. Thus the New Testament CANNOT be used to gather information about an historical Jesus." That was it. Your entire statement is nothing more than a strawman.

So far you have ignored what I said, strawmanned me and have provided clear actual reason other than some unambiguous concern.

Dear Trae,

When I mentioned that Jesus states that he has told his father that he has spread his name among men and asked why the so called eyewitnesses have left this out you wrote” I’m not sure what you are asking of them to have recorded”
-HIS (Jesus’ Father) NAME?

You wrote: “If Jesus were a Buddhist, He would be so foreign to jews, they would have taken Him for a pagan and rejected His teachings altogether.”
- So you admit that if he was a Buddhist he would have to conceal his sources. I informed you of this several posts ago.

You wrote “How can you say the ten commandments are barbaric? They’re some of the most profound ethical statements ever made.”

"Do not long for your neighbor's slave" "Let your slave rest on the sabbath" from the Jealous slave master God, I understand why you wrote "some of the most profound ethical statements".

You wrote : “the language you are using (god, creator, devil) are not terms that work within buddhism”

I never used the word “creator” and you also write “Buddha wasn’t superhuman” – I never said that he was, I wrote that Buddhists believed that he was. Do you believe that the Jesus figure was superhuman? Our word ‘God’ was used to translate Greek ‘Theus’, both of the figures of Gutan (God) and Zeus (Theus)has more in common with Buddha. I call the Buddhist tempter (Mara) the Devil because I think it is actually an accurate translation.

"The first two quests for the historical Jesus ended in failure because, like an onion, once the gospel material was successively peeled away and discarded there was nothing left of Jesus. There is room for pessimism in the third quest as well."
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... earch.html

As I've already demonstrated to you many times now, the JS doesn't question the existence of Jesus and they never have because as you always love to proclaim, "IT'S ON SOLID GROUND," remember? They examine the texts prior to the 4th century for authenticity as I've made categorically clear to you repeatedly. You simply refuse utterly to recognize the difference. I have read their books apparently you have not.

The Jesus Seminar aren't questioning Jesus' existence (wish they did), they are questioning the AUTHENTICITY OF THE TEXTS. I'm sure you'll respond with more apologist crap denying the facts once again as you have throughout this thread.

W.L. Craig also said:

This merely proves my point by demonstrating how little scholars (and Christian apologists) actually know about the comparative religion mythology &/or the level they will stoop in offering hand-waving dismissals because the facts and evidence are inconvenient. I have read Mettinger's book and Acharya cited it a great many times throughout her book Christ in Egypt. Mettinger's research and conclusions are diametrically opposed to the quote provided by W.L. Craig. So, either Craig is just quote mining like I've seen other Christian apologists do with Dr. Mettinger's book or he hasn't read the book or he's just not being honest. I'll share some quotes from Dr. Mettinger as found in CIE in response to Osiris' own resurrection:



Really? Here are some Christian scholars who disagree:

Here's a video clip of modern Egyptologist Dr. Bojana Mojsov admitting parallels between Osiris &/or Horus with Jesus.



And that is why the claim that the case for mythicism was debunked long ago fails utterly. This claim tends to get repeated by those who either don't know any better or they have a blatant disregard for the facts and evidence. The last quest will finally present the case for mythicism that has so obviously been consistently poo-pooed or omitted entirely by academia. I'll put in a request for Acharya to write an article responding to the nonsense by W.L. Craig found here - Subject: Jesus and Pagan Mythology when she has time. BTW, he should've titled it "Shoring up the faith at all costs."

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

I was referring to Jesus and his followers, not people afterwards who were from different parts of the world

I don’t recall saying this. if I did, then I’m sorry for the confusion.

rebelling against pagan roman overlords is quite different than fishermen from galilee becoming cynic sages.

again, what you are pointing out is miniscule compared to what the jesus seminar is implying. John plucking a word from another culture to relate to them is totally different than Jesus being an itinerant social commentator using Mediterranean sapiential philosophy.

I’ve already gone over this with dan Hopkins. If Jesus was a Buddhist, then He was the worst one ever. I’ve given quite a few specific reasons why this is the case.

I never said it has disappeared.

just another discussion on a message board

yet, there is still anything but a consensus on what constitutes q. in fact, some scholars are now suggesting that is can be dismissed altogether. Why is that?

as I said before, it’s 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. this is certainly one of the hallmarks of the jesus seminar

you must have missed this statement:

crossan selectively chooses certain ancient documents and then invents "layers" by artificially reordering the historical "priority" of certain documents, effectively cooking the evidence. thus, his manufactured "cross gospel".

you implied it in this statement: “the Gospels are not reconcilable with history and were not composed to tell the tale of an actual historical being and that the entire New Testament is made up of theological works, not of history.”

in what way do you think this was not recorded? I’ve already pointed out that jews did not speak the words YHWH or Jehovah commonly. We wouldn’t even know these names had they not been recorded. Furthermore, I also added that Jesus is the fulfillment of those names on earth which was also recorded by the NT authors. I’m not understanding what your point is.

He apparently concealed it so well that He was indistinguishable from a common jew. He concealed it so well that whatever Buddhist purposes He had are completely lost and He looks just like an orthodox jew trying to achieve orthodox jewish aims. I’ve provided several specific examples of how His teachings were completely at odds with Buddhist teachings.

do not covet. A good example. It seems that you are now agreeing that barbaric is not a good description of God’s commandments from the OT.

creation implies a creator. From what I understand, Buddhists don’t believe that the world was “created”, that there was a period of “creation”.

not in any way relevant to Buddhism. Jesus claimed to be divine and to atone for the sins of mankind. These concepts have no meaning in Buddhism.

You are not getting it obviously. Let me go ahead and explain it... Roman influences over Jewish thought is one of the primary reasons for these revolts. Especially when the Romans began to start and force their religion into Judea. What you are not also getting here is something very basic, Galilee was a hotbed of a melting pot between the Hellenic Jewish Culture and the Orthodox Zealot Jews. This being the case, they would have certainly been well aware of this fact and Jesus would have lived among it for the better his 18 years since he lived in Egypt (if you know ANYTHING AT ALL about history then you would know that Egypt was basically one of the primary states for the Hellenic Revival Period of which Jesus was apparently in). Jesus lived in a time of great controversy when the Hellenic Judaism and the Roman influences over Israel would have been a major problem. To claim he and his disciples didn't know this at all especially when they lived in the time and the places where such talk would have been the daily norm when talking about politics is basically the same as saying that Holocaust did not exist.

You need to understand history a lot better if your going to make such bold claims.



Again... what is the evidence that you have that suggests otherwise? What kind of reconstruction effort of Jesus have you done?



I was talking about the Parallel sayings, I really don't buy into the whole idea that Jesus was a Buddhist, i am just saying that their are parallel sayings as is denoted in the title of the book.

And how is this not the modern consensus? Since you seem to be so adept could you please tell me what the position or the "consensus" really is?



You need to be more specific about this other than an ambiguous "selectively chooses certain ancient documents and then invents "layers" by artificially reordering the historical "priority" of certain documents, effectively cooking the evidence."



You have got to be kidding me! How can I imply something that was never said?! Also the New Testament not being written as history and not being able to be reconcilable as history is a completely separate issue with historians as the idea that Jesus never existed.

As far as the Q Document, I am basically done debating you over this. Could you please just answer the following questions:

1. What Theory do you have or are you aware of that can replace and is much more significant in filling the gaps than the Q Hypothesis? You also need 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. I also WILL NOT accept a website from Christian Apologists.

2. You need to give a more detailed point by point about what your problem is with the Q Hypothesis and why the documents we have now that fit the criteria of the Q source cannot be attributed to the Hypothesis.

3. DON'T BE AMBIGUOUS!

Please don't feed the trolls. trae has no intention of honest debate here. His only interest is to shore up his faith at all costs.

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

we’ll have to agree to disagree that the jesus seminar doesn’t question Jesus’ existence. I think it’s implied in their thesis. regardless, any of them are free to deny Jesus’ existence at any time yet, we don’t see that happening.

i don't think wlc was using mettinger's quote to misrepresent her. I think he was using the quote as an assessment of the current state of the issue. It just so happens to have come from mettinger. Actually, the quote is pretty accurate.

i would not have characterized the djed in this way. The first problem is that the djed has been a symbol for several things among which are the backbone of osiris, the tamarisk tree, the cycle of the nile and therefore crops or something as simple as a pillar holding up heaven or the sky. In each case, the djed represents stability or fertility. Furthermore, osiris didn't commit any sacrifice for people. He was killed by set. The atonement concept does not exist in the osiris/ma'at legend. Osiris judges a person against the standard of ma'at which is little more than a code. Christianity can't be more different from this. The 42 confessions of ma'at are closer to nontheistic daoism or confucianism than christianity. With the proper machinations, undesirable acts committed by the individual can be stricken from the record which is not at all how christian grace and atonement work. Early on, the ability to influence osiris for the purposes of avoiding annihilation could only happen through a royal intermediary. This later changed so that osiris was a representative adjudicator for all people. This has never been the case with God/YHWH. He has always valued all creatures equally.

resurrection is a highly questionable interpretation of this enactment. First, ptah/seker was originally equated with reincarnation, not osiris. Second, osiris did not come back on his own. Isis revivified him with a spell primarily for conception, not atonement. Third, his role as ruler of the duat can't be classified as resurrection since he never enters the abode of the living. As craig says, he is inextricably bound to the nether world. Fourth, the osiris legend eventually becomes a metaphor representing the cycle of vegetation, not a resurrection of atonement.

the festivals are an outworking of beliefs about osiris and reveal great differences with christian thought on Jesus. In contrast with easter, sacrifices to Osiris were "gloomy, solemn, and mournful..." according to plutarch.

this is not exactly true either. Horus fulfilled a completely different role within ancient egyptian mythology than osiris.

what we see from these quotes is what i have been saying. While there are some incidental similarities, such as in the literary form, the actual meaning of the story couldn't be more different. In this way, christianity truly is unique among belief systems.