GoodK wrote:marg wrote:Where did you get that list from GoodK?
Also did you notice Ehrmans' comment in the debate between him and Craig that most scholars today dealing with the scholarship of Jesus are not historians and are religious. I'm too lazy to get his exact words. No wonder in scholar's writings addressing Jesus there is an automatic assumption he existed.
Yes I think I did see that, actually Nevo quoted his exact words, I believe, in the now dead Evidence for Jesus thread.
Ehrman was saying it is a theological issue, not a historical one - I think he was speaking specifically of the Resurrection, but I am too lazy to go through it again right now too. Such a long text to read on a computer screen...
Historians with neutral perspective who also understand modern science/physics, would be unlikely to support any of the miracle claims made
for Jesus by the pen of those who never saw a
Jesus, never heard a
Jesus, and who relied on story-telling for decades prior to the authoring of specifics and direct quotations which they attributed to a
Jesus.
Any individuals who are regarded as “
Christian historians” lack a neutral perspective, hence, they lack objectivity.
Certainly Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was an intellectual of his time and not that far removed from
our time as we think in terms of 2,000 years.
Thomas Jefferson in the cited reference was hardly a supporter of Christianity contrary to what many Christian fundamentalists believe today.
He appeared to recognize the invention of
God as he uses the word “his” in the first line of this quotation to the Danbury Baptist Association Jan. 1, 1802.
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802
GoodK,
What do you make of the regressive mentality today as many wish to impose
their religious fundamentalism in schools and in law?
Of course Jefferson was intent on the separation of church and state for good reason. He, along with others of his time and in positions to set the tone for
a new nation, clearly recognized the dangers of religion.
JAK