Did Jesus exist, Part II

Brian,You touch on the what I consider the really relevant discussion and that is the developments in the early literature of the Church, say the first 500 years,the various factions and their fights and the way they used material.An official story was agreed on with the New Testament and creed but that story was something politically arrived at based on the standards of history and theology of those centuries. Since that time the focus of believers by their churches have been on the "official" story the church put together. The real story to me is the putting together of the official story and theology, but that is quite a tangle to untangle.lfen

Beyond confirmation BUT NOT BEYOND BELIEF! And this seems the crux of the debate and conflict at this forum. It's possible for people to write books, whether it be the Book of Mormon, the Koran, the Bible, on and on in which they narrate actions that we cannot scientifically substantiate in any way and yet, because the human brain can imagine them it can also believe them.I'm wondering if the brain's biggest challenge is its own imaginative powers and how to sort out a "reality" from all that it imagines?lfen

Robin,Here is a link to a website that gives a skeptical critical view of the historical claims regarding Tacitus, Josephus and others.Non-Christian Testimony for Jesus? – From the authentic pen of lying Christian scribes !!a sample quote so that it's not a bare link: I would like hear what you think of this site's arguments.lfen

Faith,As I see it persuasion and effective "argument" in the form of effective rhetoric can be used to change peoples feelings, attitudes, motivations, and beliefs. This is a major function of religions.Rhetorical arguments are not proofs in a mathematical, logical, rational, scientific sense. One way I'm understanding the problems between "creos" and "evos" on this forum is that the former have through their participation in churches and religion been largely exposed to rhetorical arguements, whereas those of us more interested in science have been more steeped in rational logical analysis. Different functions and I suspect even different parts of the brain are involved.Any given religion, mostly on this forum it's Christianity, will have been effective at satisifying most of it's adherents most of the time. That is the test of the NT and creed that it satisfys the needs, call them psychological or spiritual, of it's believers. The way it has created these satisfying emotional "convictions" has been through effective rhetorical arguments. These same arguments fail the tests of scientific logic.One conflict occurs when by exposure to science, evolution, or history in school believers feel their beliefs being attacked and then attempt a counterattack by attempting to "correct" the conclusions or invalidate the conclusions or processes of science and rationality.I just realized I need to be very explicit with you. I'm replying to you but not talking specifically about you. I actually see you working at sorting out the appropriate place for the differing approaches. I'm speaking more generally of the two approaches found on this forum.lfen

I'm running out of time this morning. I need to review this thread and what Robin wrote. I did post a link for Robin to a web site that gives some thoughtful critism to the apologists arguments from Tacitus among others.There is a yahoo group:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JesusMysteries/ It is from this group that I've gotten some inkling of the sources and the way they are used to understand the developments in Christianity over the early centuries.lfen

Jar,Yes, that is one of the arguments on the web site, the Romans wouldn't have been making a distinction between different Jewish sects. Gotta run, gotta do stuff that pays my bills now.lfen

Robin,There is the NT plus the few citations from Josephus and Tacitus. Faith accepts the witness of the NT as per church doctrine.I also pointed you towards the yahoo group JesusMysteries which focus exclusively on the early centuries of Christianity and what was going on largely based on the writings of Church Fathers such as Polycarp and Ingatius. It's dense textual analysis looking to see if they cite or seem to know, or quote, or even plagiarize from the Gospels.There is the official church story which the devout tend to believe without questioning and the skeptical like myself pretty much doubt unless prodded to question largely because I had to read Augustine once for a class and some of the early fathers and the prospect of having to read that kind of stuff again bores me solid.I'll put this forth as my opinion and impression because as far as I can tell it would take a lot of digging in musty scholarship for me to say I knew much of this. It's based on my common sense, what I know of history and the way people, societies, and religious hierarchies work.There was lots of intrigue, in fighting and politics going on in those early centuries. It's pretty clear that many early Christians didn't think of Jesus as a man of flesh. There have been some Christians here and as I understand the Jehovah Witnesses don't accept the notion of the trinity. Well that belief was in those times also.The winners of these political struggles wrote the history and often destroyed competing versions. The outcome of the struggle and Constantine's making Christianity the state religion has huge historical impact until right now and for a long time to come.What I am suggesting is that there is lot more going on and the doubts about Josephus and Tacitus point to this vast struggle to define the religion. Because of the dominance of the church there is not a lot of popular works written that study this history skeptically. I think most of the analysis is conducted in journals.I think Doherty's mythicist position is possible but it's not provable. Lots of people Jews and Greek were thinking apocalyptically. There was a lot of religious ferment going on. It was only when the Church became the state and Christian intolerance lead to vigorous suppression of competing beliefs did the variety of that time disappear. It's hard getting a picture of that time and the NT offers a very limited one sided picture.Jesus was a common name. And there were more than one Messiah in that time period. I think the origins of Christianity will always be shrouded because the documentation just doesn't exist. It doesn't matter whether or not Jesus existed. Christianity exists. That much we know. And others will argue if it was genuine why wasn't it quoted centuries earlier? They suspect that it is probably a Christian addition. And that's about all we can say. It probably .... and you takes yer choice.lfen

Well, I'm about 60/40 with you on that. Still, I'm 40 per cent tantalized by Doherty's almost compelling case that Paul was talking exclusively about a mystical metaphysical Christ.There were for certain a number of messiahs executed by the Romans. Palestine gave them all kinds of grief. There is also the visits of Buddhist missionaries to that area at about that time. It was a time of extraordinary tumult.lfen

Faith,It is disputed. I can't find the site I originally read it on but this site: Answers - The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life's Questionscites a number of historical claims such as the edicts of Asoka.This Catholic site rejects the notion of any verifiable claims prior to second century mention by Clement of Alexandria.CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: BuddhismIt's been long enough that I don't recall the basis of my initial source and I don't know the details of the dispute.I'll withdraw the claim regarding Buddhist missionaries as it isn't really neccesary to my point though it's an interesting possibility.lfenABE: Oops, I was replying to you while you were editing!This message has been edited by lfen, 01-11-2006 10:13 PM

Lyall Watson has written a very interesting book about resurrection and the definition of death called The Romeo Error.It seems that resurrections are well documented. Coming back to life after 3 days is very possible. Now the Mummy movies? No way. But a few days it's possible.lfen

Robin and Faith,This is where Korzbyski's General Semantics becomes important. "A Christian"? and which Christian and when is that? Christianity? Whose, when, and where? There will be different answers depending on which individual or group you are referencing.Also asking important in what way? How important. That will get you different estimates. As Faith pointed out in her post, her response and Jar's to these question are likely to be very different.There is the issues of the religious doctrine and faith. There are on the other hand the issues of the history of Christianity. Whether or not the church doctrine is correct or not doesn't seem to change the lives of believers whether Mormon, Baptist, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu on and on unless they begin to doubt. So if Jesus didn't exit won't change the lives of Christians as they are living it now. Christianity and their lives are happening.On the other hand if an individual Christian comes to question the doctrine of their church then the issue could become very significant.You didn't ask me specifically but I thought I'd toss my view in there.lfen

Robin,Paul Tillich was on to something. In Buddhism it would go something like this.1. Ultimate Reality exits.
2. Ultimate Reality does not exist.
3. Ultimate Reality both exists and doesn't exist.
4. Ultimate Reality neither exists nor doesn't exist.lfen

Eh, thanks Omni,I had to stare at it for a few seconds before I finally saw the typo. My brain was once again auto correcting visual input for me. But yeah, I could see myself wearing a black t-shirt with that printed in white on it.lfen

It's a tool to get the mind from meaning to direct perception. A thorn to remove a thorn and then to be thrown away.I'll try a different approach. Is God an object? Of what?
Are you an object? of what? Who is the subject for which you or God is the object?Everything that becomes offered becomes an object for the subject of consciousness. Can the subject then know itself? But if it could then it would be an object to itself.The conservative western religious tradition in effect asserts that it's language, it's linguist syntax is reality and this is the mechanism by which the ego is supported in a delusion of a separate existence.The attempt is to destroy the syntax to destroy the illusion and thus realize that the subject only imagined it was an object.Been decades since I've read "Loves Body". It's about time I reread it. The Fall is a metaphor that is a fall because the metaphor is taken literally. There was no Fall. There is no liberation because no one ever existed to fall and no one exists to be freed. It's all a dream. What lies outside the dream is awakening. It's a liberation in one sense but say you dreamed you were in jail. You wake up in your bed which is not for the sake of this example a bed in a prison. Can it be said then that you were freed from jail? You never were in jail! That was dreaming.Does it matter if Jesus existed or not? No, the only thing that matters is if you believe Jesus existed or didn't exist.lfen

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the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve; and,
like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are
such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a
sleep. -- Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act IV

"But that is to accept the assumptions of the eastern tradition."Faith,Well, I am heavily influenced by the eastern traditions true. However the west has those who have shared this, beginning with Heraclitus "You can't step in the same river twice", and I have lost the reference for the later thinker who noted that that being true then you can't step in the same river once.Benjamin Whorf in his studies of the Hopi language, and I am here drawing on decades old memories so there is most likely memory drift to some degree, pointed out that they didn't use nouns. Everything was a verb. So instead of saying "There is a man in the room" in Hopi the sentence would be like "there is manning in the rooming". This is a process oriented language which Korzbski and others point out is a much more accurate mapping of the world we live in. Nouns are referents that deceive us into thinking identity is concrete. A river is constantly changing, as are you. As Buckminister Fuller said in the title of his book, "I seem to be a verb".We can look at the universe, the planet earth, or ourselves. What we see is change from very slow to very rapid but nonetheless changing.
"River" is a sound/symbol that refers to a process extending in time and space. The water in the river is changing. The sides and bottoms of the channel is changing. River now and river a second later are different."I gave my love a cherry without a stone.
How can there be a cherry without a stone?
A cherry when it's blooming hath no stone."From bloom to fruit to seed to seedling. The process that is you can interact with the process of fruiting at a certain stage by eating. Cherry is a dynamic process that at one time looks like a blossom, another like a fruit. To make cherry a noun, a thing is to create a mental notation or category that if taken literally misrepresents the process of cherrying.I think I'm beginning to formulate my criticism of the fundamental mis assumptions of literalism. Literalism does confuse syntax with the world.lfenedit: once time to one time and added a space that should have been thereThis message has been edited by lfen, 01-12-2006 10:56 PM