dartagnan wrote:And this statement is correct:
"The fact that nothing was written of Jesus until 30 to 110 years after his death is strong evidence that there never was an 'historical Jesus'."
Then prove it. You cannot seem to comprehend the fact that this is an argument from silence. It is about as meaningless as saying nobody within a century of Moses used leaves for toilet paper, and then as your evidence, mention the absence of any archeaological indication that they did. That is an argument from silence. You're basing an conclusion on what hasn't been found, without any educational background to understand that a lack of said evidence is precisely what we would expect if Jesus did exist. In this case, you think that just because no writings have been discovered dating to 30 AD., that this proves nothing was in fact written. This is so sophomoric and unsound.And we do know there is significant disagreement even among claiments for Jesus
You keep reiterating the same things as if they mean a hill of beans. None of this matters for historians. These are molehills made into mountains by the "unbiased" Christ mythers. They do not serve as a legitimate reason to reject the existence of Jesus.Historians are by no means limited to only those who endorse one of the many claims made about and for the alleged Jesus.
Why do you present a citation of what I say, and then don't address anything I said? When are you going to come to grips with the fact that you are arguing from silence? When are you going to retract your straw man and apologize for intellectual dishonesty? You lied about what I have claimed no less than twice within a week. Is your position so weak that you have to fall back on blatant misrepresentations to score quick straw man points?
All the filibustering diatribes and irrelevant hyperlinks aren't going to free you of this obligation. Unless of course, you have no intention of building your credibility back up.Verbal retelling of stories does not make for reliable information or reliable detail.
You're still avoiding the elephant in the room, while trying to make a big deal of these irrelevant and inconsequential anecdotes. Yes, there are some discrepancies in the gospel accounts, regarding the chronology of when things happened, how they happened, certain details are mentioned in one account while absent in the others, etc. Only to the untrained eye are these supposed to serve as evidence against the history therein. Historians understand these textual phenomena for what they are: perfectly expected. There are no real surprises here. None of these phenomena can be explained in a Christ myth model.To meet the burden of proof, we require exact quotations of the alleged Jesus from reliable
Who is "we"? Certainly not historians.impartial observes of those words quoted in the New Testament. We don’t have that.
Well geez, anything from a Christian will be considered "partial" and "biased" from a "skeptic." And anything from biased and rabid skeptics will be welcomed by other skeptics. That's because you have an agenda that you want to see through, evidence be damned. This says more about a said skeptics' familiarity with scholarship than it does the value of the evidence. You're no different when it comes to the objectivity factor, and you still haven't addressed the point that most non-Christian historians accept the historicity of Jesus. You have no leg to stand on here, so why are you even trying to maintain it? It is a dead argument.For support, we require strong evidence that reliable eye witnesses recorded at the time of events exactly what those events were. We don't have that.
This has nothing to do with establishing the existence of Jesus. Go ahead and keep pumping out web links written by idiot anti-religionists. Nothing changes the fact that you have not established any reasonable basis for rejecting the existence of Jesus.
Now, when do you plan on addressing that elephant JAK?
Will you please prove that I argued Paine was pro-Christian, or at least have the integrity to apologize and retract?
Will you at least accept the fact that Paine was brought here as a witness against the historicity of Jesus, and that nobody has been able to provide a scrap of evidence that this is what he believed?JAK:
In addition, it’s not terribly relevant what Paine believed since his focus was on the American colonies and the American Revolution.
It's tangent to the issue of GoodK's post: "not all historians..."
But where is the evidence that Paine rejected the existence of Jesus? Why is this such a horrid request? What was all that noble discoursing about? You said those who make claims have the burden of proof? It seems it took you only a day before you denounced one of your own principles.It does not matter that no quote is found by Paine which states [GoodK's] conclusion.
WHAT??????It’s not your/my obligation to find evidence to support Dart’s view, it’s his burden of proof.
WHAT????
Will you ever comprehend what's going on?
I'm not expecting you to find evidence to support my view. You have demonstrated that you're incapable of grasping what my view really is. What I'm expecting is for you to find evidence to support your view. The view initially expressed was that Thomas Paine rejected the existence of Jesus. My view is that this has not been demonstrated. I simply noted that no evidence has been presented to suggest this. You've responded with the usual defense mechanisms, by filibustering and misrepresentation. The two of you have been twisting and turning, throwing up smoke and mirrors with long-winded diatribes and flashing us hyperlinks, but nothing changes the fact that this is an unsubstantiated claim.
Well, we see that JAK is not being intellectually honest. For in one breath he says, "Burden of proof lies with one who makes the assertion," and in the next breath, after GoodK presents Thomas Paine as a historian who rejected the existence of Jesus, JAK says,"It does not matter that no quote is found by Paine which states [GoodK's] conclusion."
Now who here cannot see the contradiction here?
In other words, all of JAK's ranting about burden of proof and evidence was just for show. He never really believed it should apply to him and his cohorts. It is a double standard he applies only to those who believe something he doesn't. The "skeptics" are free to use whatever fallacy with reckless abandon, and JAK is there waiting to congratulate them for doing so. He is not interested in any scholarly standard because he doesn't know of any that he believes to be worth observing.
GoodK,Because we would know nothing of Jesus if it weren't for the New Testament, and Paine clearly states he does not trust the New Testament.
But you're jumping to an illicit conclusion. Many people, even some Christians, believe the New Testament has been tinkered with by biased scribes. This is a fact. Hell, the whole lot of Mormonism accepts that premise gladly. That doesn't mean that by extension, they reject it as evidence for historical events that it documents.
It is one thing to say it has been tinkered with, and it is another to say the entire thing is untrustworthy on that basis alone. It is an unreasonable leap that historians simply don't accept. The fact is the irrefutable examples of tinkering are relatively few, considering it is a religious text. There are only two or three clear examples of a doctrine being altered due to a scribal change, but this is not understood as evidence that the entire narrative was made up from thin air.
Thomas Paine:
“The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the Sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ, in the place of the Sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the Sun.”
It took a while, but I think I finally found the quote I was looking for. Paine rejected a historical Jesus.