No it isn't evidence.
Says who, you?
That you do not understand what constitutes evidence is unfortunate, but what’s even worse is your continued misuse of scholars who do not support your thesis.
It is a dubious collection of early writings that contradict eachother, promote ideas that were popular at the time, and that don't have a clear author or date.
No historian views the New Testament as simply that. That is how the uneducated hate bloggers view it. It shows ignorance, nothing more. The New Testament is precisely what modern historians would expect it to be, even with its variations and evidences of redaction.
Parroting "The New Testament" seems insufficient, lazy, and false.
Parroting? You asked for evidence, and we presented. Now you’re rejecting it on your own authority. Who can argue with someone like that? You are not interested in what real historians say. You’ve so far provided two scholars as if they support your claim, but they in fact reject it. It helps to actually read the people you intend to use as support.
Like you, I do not read JAKS posts often and haven't read his post regarding the New Testament(nothing personal, just far too long), so perhaps you should rethink that statement.
Then where else are you getting your information? You pretend to have read historians. Which ones?
Bart Ehrman does a much better job of making this argument, and I believe I posted plenty of his stuff in the beginning pages of this thread.
I already told you Bart Ehrman has never made your argument. In fact, the irony here is that Bart Ehrman relied on the “unreliable” New Testament when he wrote his book which focused on Jesus and several scholarly papers which tried to reconstruct the historical Jesus as an apocolyptic prophet. This seems to fly in the face of your repeated claim that the New Testament is entirely unreliable as history. Ehrman’s focus is on theological changes, he doesn’t argue the evidence suggests Jesus never really existed.
I don't know what JAK's theory is about historians... maybe you could sum it up in a hundred words or less for me... lol... I'll comment.
JAK only knows what he comes across from bigoted anti-religion blogs. That is why he is so limited in real debate.
How does your view of JAK address the point I make which you are addressing? JAK has nothing to do with that statement.
It isn’t my view of JAK that I’m asserting. His argument in this thread is pertinent. JAK has provided several ignorant comments that have been feeding yours and GoodK’s ignorance up to this point. Don’t pretend his presence and dramatic departure has nothing to do with your attempt to finish what he started.
It is no wonder that JAK ignores much of your attacks and strawmen, kevin because that is what most of your posts are. Your posts are filled for the most part with fallacious reasoning and tactics.
JAK left because he embarrassed himself by insisting your ridiculous claim was true, when in fact it wasn’t. This has been demonstrates more times than I can count, and it doesn’t seem anyone believes you anymore. Stop making excuses for him and stop trying to pretend he ignores me. When he thinks he has an opening to score an easy layup, he leaps in for the kill with all sorts of nonsensical posts. But then he crawls away as usual once it has been shown he can’t hold his own.
Look this equivocating of yours is rather tiresome. Your argument has been all along we should all accept that Jesus existed based on your non-demonstrated point by the way that virtually all historians say that he did.
Now you’re just telling lies. And yes, I can say this because it is true. That has never been my argument.
How many lies will you entertain?
Does the word integrity mean nothing to you?
With regards the word "all" which you say I falsely accused you of, sure a few times, you state in different words that you allow for a slight possibility that an historian may be found to not accept Jesus's existence, but you make it clear if so, they should be discounted, they are on the fringe.
Even if true, how does this change the fact that you repeatedly lied, and you continue to do so now, with regards to my stated argument? It doesn’t. YOU have no business even thinking you can participate in the celestial forum. I have managed it without problems for more than a year. But then, I was never attacked and misrepresented so much as was the case when you entered.
So the net effect is, that for all practical intents and purposes what your argument boils down to is that Jesus' existence should be accepted because if one takes the pool of all historians in the world, any historian who may not believe Jesus' existed or who might argue against Jesus' existence should be ignored.
No, that isn’t my argument, nor has it ever been. I know you’re frustrated because you’re unable to do two things: 1) show where I ever said such a stupid thing and 2) admit being wrong.
You simply don’t understand what an argument is, the same as GoodK doesn’t know what evidence is. GoodK started this by making a claim about historians. I simply asked her to produce. She eventually offered a weak attempt at a tiny list of people, most of whom were not historians or didn’t fall into the Christ-myther category anyway.
If we throw out those discounted historians then the pool of "all historians" shrinks and is composed of only historians who accept Jesus's existence. So it's rather mute for you to argue that you weren’t referring to all historians when your argument boils down to that anyhow for all intents and purposes. I don’t care if you mean “virtually all” as opposed to “all”. But you are equivocating here when you argue that’s not exactly what you said.
Stop pretending to understand big words when you don’t even understand simple terms like “all” and overwhelming. There is no equivocation here, at least not on my part. You simply don’t understand English well.
But my main point has never been about the word “all”
Then stop trying to defend it. You said “all,” not me. I said I never said “all” and you have been pulling your hair out ever since trying to recreate the history of this thread to suggest I “implied” it. Oh, but “all” was never an important point for you, right? Then prove it – shut up about it.
Your posts are becoming redundant and boring. Do you really think that by pursuing this rationalization nonsense, that you’re honoring the memory of your fallen comrade?
Even if every single historian talks about a Jesus that doesn't mean they are saying by the fact they talk about him, that Jesus must necessarily have existed.
And I suppose that in your corner of the universe, historians frequently write books about fictitious individuals. Good one!
Obviously historical evidence varies with degrees of reliability on whether that evidence reveals historical truth.
But neither you nor GoodK are prepared to speak on this reliability because you haven’t read the relevant scholarship. The two of you rely heavily on Ehrman sound bites, but appear to be oblivious to the fact that Ehrman doesn’t reject the historicity of Jesus. You guys snag snippets from him out of context that appear to be speaking about the unreliability of certain texts, and you recognize a familiar theme from the hate blogs so you automatically assume Ehrman reaches the same conclusions. This is what you call intellectual laziness. You pretend to be interested in scholarship, but really all you are interested in is googling any negative piece you can find. Any author is a “scholar” in your book, and any scholar must be a “historian.”
Had Christianity not evolved as it did there would be no need to even talk about Jesus as far as history goes.
That is an entirely ignorant comment based in no education whatsoever.
Jesus, whether he existed or if he was just a model used by a few to create a cult doesn't matter, as far as the development of Christianity.
Another bald assertion.
Jesus' existence is a critical point to a believer, religious organizations, theology but not to an historian.
His existence was important to the early first century authors as well.
An historian can discuss Jesus without it being a statement on their position of probability of Jesus’ existence.
And scientists talk about gravity, cosmic rays and solar systems, without necessarily acknowledging that these things really exist?
Again, you’re being disingenuous if you think historians generally talk about the historicity of Jesus, and do so while saying he didn’t really have to exist for them to be studying him. If he didn’t exist the historians wouldn’t be studying him at all. Hell, nobody has to exist. But historians talk about him because the historical evidence suggests he did exist.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein