- The student's uncle had experiences that are generally common among missionaries.
- The student's uncle claimed the experience of other missionaries as his own.
- The student attributed the experiences of other missionaries to his uncle.
- The student invented the missionary uncle for purposes of the essay.
In the debate over the existence of a historical Jesus, much time is spend arguing about parallels between stories about Jesus and the those found in the Old Testament or in pagan mythology. Sometimes, historicists like James McGrath feign puzzlement that mythicists consider the parallels significant at all:
[Thomas Thompson] points out, as he does in his book, that Jesus in the Gospels is depicted using motifs and echoes from literature about earlier royal figures. It is hard to imagine that anyone could make a claim to kingship in a Jewish context without doing so. And so it is not clear why anyone thinks that the points in Thompson's book have any bearing on the historicity of Jesus.It is hard for me to take McGrath's confusion seriously. It is of course possible that a historical Jesus existed even if his life was not the source of all the stories told about him just as it is possible that the student had a missionary uncle even if the stories about him were lifted from the internet. However if we have reason to believe that the source of the stories was not the actual life of the character, then we have less reason to think that the character in the story was an actual person than we would otherwise. Therefore, the parallels have a bearing on historicity even if they are not dispositive of historicity.
Posts
Vinny, I don't any missionary uncles but let's just have a look at the below account of a missionary's experience in Africa:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.candacecameronbure.net/mission-trip.php
I'm willing to bet you that given an hour with Google i could find convincing parallels to pretty much every part of Candace's story, either from accounts of the experiences of other missionaries or from the stories of other ex-pats, travelers etc.
Would this make it likely that Candace's story is invented? Or does it just show that missionaries and other travelers have similar experiences and/or think about them in a similar way? Myself, I would go for the latter.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteThe question I am posing is not whether the parallels make it likely that the the missionary uncle was invented. My question is whether the parallels make it more likely that he was invented than if the parallels didn't exist.
Actually I don’t think the existence of parallels necessarily makes it any more likely that the story has been invented.
ReplyDeleteThink of it another way – suppose you have two accounts:
In the first, our uncle missionary has a long, difficult journey, sings hymns, builds a church, encounters problems with the authorities, faces hostility from non-Christians, struggles to learn the language troubles or explaining the concept of justification by faith in Xhosa. Has amusing encounters with the locals or other missionaries. Prays a lot and comes away with changed perception on life or his faith renewed. All fairly typical experiences I’m sure, and I’m sure if you looked hard enough you could find quite close parallels for each of these in the travels of other missionaries, explorers, or ex-pats.
In the other, account, not only does none of this happen, but you are unable to find a single parallel between the account of the uncle and the experience of any other missionary or traveller to Africa. Wouldn’t that strike you as rather odd?
So which should we be more suspicious of, the first or the second? We might think that the second one has not been copied, but it there might still be good reasons for thinking it has been made up.
For me, if our first account seemed so similar to another account that we might well suspect direct copying, then clearly this would be significant. But I don’t think that hunting for broad parallels from disparate sources is necessarily a good way of detecting faking.
Gosh, were there really so many people who had similar life-stories to Jesus that we should be astonished to find there were no parallels between the stories of Jesus and the stories of other people walking on water and raising the dead and having 12 disciples?
ReplyDelete'For me, if our first account seemed so similar to another account that we might well suspect direct copying, then clearly this would be significant. '
I see. So you want direct copying do you....
Be careful what you ask for
Paul,
ReplyDeleteI guess it might be possible to imagine some scenario in which the absence of parallels would itself be suspicious. A person can’t meet the definition of “missionary” without doing some of the things that other missionaries do. Therefore, the existence of parallels wouldn't necessarily raise more red flags than their absence because their complete absence would itself be a problem. However, I think that I acknowledged the possibility that the uncle had experiences that were common among missionaries as being one explanation for the existence of parallels in my hypothetical.
However, I think the point of my hypothetical is that the parallels are such as to raise the possibility that the student's stories about his uncle were simply lifted from the internet, i.e.,, direct copying. If we have no reason to suspect direct copying, we would assess a lower probability for pure invention.
My objection was to McGrath’s claim that he didn’t understand why anyone would think that using motifs and echoes from earlier literature had any bearing on historicity. Clearly it matters whether the use of earlier literature rises to the level of direct copying. It also matters whether there is information from the gospels that isn’t drawn from earlier literature. Those are questions that scholars must hash out, but I cannot see how any scholar could pretend not to understand why those parallels might be significant to any conclusions we draw about historicity. Parallels may not be dispositive, but McGrath seems to be claiming that they’re not even relevant.
Vinny,
DeleteI don't think they are irrelevant. However, I would be interested to know if there are a set of rules or principles that tell us how and when the existence of parallels are a useful way of determining the historicity of an event or the existence of a person *outside* the debate about the existence of Jesus?
My own view is that for something like Jesus' miracles, the significance of parallels completely depends upon whether you think miracles are inherently likely.
I suspect that, like me, you think it rather unlikely that a historical Jesus could control the weather, walk on water, or raise the dead. In this case does the existence or non-existence of parallels make an given miracle any more or less likely? Nope... so there must be better arguments against the historicity of these events than the existence of parallels in the Bible or elsewhere.
On the other hand, if you do believe in God and think that God intervenes in the world in the form of miracles, then of course it's perfectly logical that Jesus' miracles (or equally, miracles in the Book or Mormon or the Quran) should relflect the miracles God has previously performed. In this case the existence of even very close parallels could harldly make you think that the miracles described are less likely to have happened: if anything they might be a confirmation that your particularly religious story is part of God's plan - which is why I strongly doubt that the examples Stephen cites would have converted many Mormons or Muslims.
So once we've *already* rejected the historicity of miracles, it might be interesting to speculate on where these stories originated from and whether they might have been inspired my stories from the OT or elsewhere. But they are hardly of central importance in showing whether a story is historical or not.
Stehphen and Hiero - just so you are absolutely clear on this: I am a fairly sceptical agnostic with a very good University degree in Religious Studies. Please don't think that I find your comments shocking, novel or even particularly interesting. Mainstream scholarship binned the miraculous in the story of Jesus a long time ago - but I'm encouraged to see that your particular brand of pseudohistory has at least made it into the nineteenth century.
I enjoy talking things through with Vinny - I doubt we'll ever quite agree on the historicity of Jesus, but his comments are always intelligent, thoughtful and polite. If either of you are ever able raise yourselves to such a level then I'll be happy to chat. Otherwise, perhaps you should go find yourselves a Christian to bully, or better still another Jesus denier to slap on the back?
PS: Whenever I've asked a Jesus denier for their opinion about the historicty of a non-Christian religious figure, I've always had an evasive reply: I've had one from Godfrey, BG, and now from Stephen.
DeleteInteresting...
Paul,
DeleteI’m not sure that believing in a God who intervenes in the world does make it is perfectly logical that Jesus' miracles should reflect the miracles God had previously performed. Why should we expect God to repeat himself? He certainly could if He wished to do so, but I cannot see how we would be justified in having any particular expectations that any miracle would resemble one previously performed. One of the problems I have with arguments for the historicity of miracles is that they always seem to depend on the dubious assumption that miracles conform to some pattern that is comprehensible to the human mind. I would think that parallels in miracle stories should raise the possibility of copying to the same extent that parallels in any other kind of story would regardless of one’s presuppositions about the possibility of miracles.
I don’t know if it is possible to define a precise level at which parallels become significant. There doesn’t seem to be much question that the parallels between Matthew, Mark, and Luke indicate that some copying was going, but establishing more subtle borrowing seems much trickier. Moreover, borrowing doesn’t directly disprove historicity. It just indicates a source other than a historical person for some of the material. However, as you can see possible borrowing in more and more of the material, I think you can start to question whether anything points clearly to a historical person.
That brings up another question which is how much you need in order to say that the character is historical. Suppose that the student in my hypothetical had an uncle with the same name as the character in the essay, but the uncle was atheist insurance salesman who was twenty years younger than the missionary was supposed to be. I think I would say that the character in the essay was fictional.
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DeleteVINNY
DeleteI’m not sure that believing in a God who intervenes in the world does make it is perfectly logical that Jesus' miracles should reflect the miracles God had previously performed. Why should we expect God to repeat himself?
CARR
Paul has explained to you how logical it is to expect parallels in miracles.
After all, the disciples who saw Jesus calm the storm would have known that they had to fear with great fear, because that is how people reacted when a storm was calmed in Jonah.
Similarly, the people who saw Jesus raise a child would have known that they had to be amazed with all amazement, because that is how people in 2 Kings 4 reacted when a child was raised.
They obviously had rushed after the miracle to the nearest synagogue, pulled out the relevant Old Testament scroll, and learned their lines appropriately and rushed back so they could produce the required emotion.
Only people who indulge in (I think Paul called it 'pseudohistory') regard these parallels as obvious fabrication and fraud, filling a gap in the life of Jesus , because there are a lot of gaps in the life of somebody who never existed.
Real scholars know better and think these sorts of parallels should be expected.
Get real! These parallels should be expected. What are you, some sort of pseudo-historian? :-)
Stephen,
DeleteI wonder... the people in the video below seem to think that this particular miracle is amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfRoJxv3nbY
One bloke even says "It's amazing". Was he only able to do that after getting out his copy of the Bhagavad Gita and reading the words "As memory recalls again and again the exceeding beauty of the Lord, I am filled with amazement and happiness"?
On second thoughts, seeing as how miracles aren't real and therefore all accounts of them must be entirely made up from pre-existing sources, presumably whoever invented this entirely fictious miracle with no historical basis lacked the imagination to identify amazement as an appropriate response to a manifestation of God and only wrote it into the story after cribbing that particular passage from the Gita?
Vinny, I don’t think the existence of parallels would raise any doubts or logical problems for somebody who actually believed in them in the first place. For example, in the case of the Toronto Blessing, the scriptural basis for the blessing is a key point of debate: Supporters of the blessing point to Biblical parallels for their experiences while Christian critics of the TB reject these similarities (and instead point to parallels with non-Christian religions).
Deletehttp://www.bible.ca/tongues-defend-manifestions.htm
I think the difficulty (where we’re talking about similarity rather than the type of direct literary influence) is determining what constitutes borrowing. So if our sources A and B are similar, how do we distinguish between:
1)A and B resembling each other because they deal with similar events, themes, etc
2)A and B resembling each other because they share a cultural/religious background
3)A and B sharing a common source
4)A being influenced by B in its description of an event which is nonetheless completely independent of B
5)A inventing a story on the basis of B
And of course, JDers are free to construct their patchwork Jesus out wide range Jewish and non-Jewish sources – everything from the Old Testament to Buddhist texts, so we’re not talking about the relationship between A and B, but between A and B,C,D,E,F,G etc. Not to say that it would always be impossible to do this, but how often do proper historians simply dig for parallels to fictional stories in disparate sources to work out whether a given event actually happened or not?
Incidentally, I seem to in a previous discussion we had about whether Paul uses Jesus’ sayings on divorce and about ministers being paid. In this case I seem to remember you thinking that the parallels weren’t so close as to suggest that Paul knew the words of a historical Jesus, but something more like options 1) or 2) was taking place. This is the other problem with parallels – sometimes they are in the eye of the beholder: it’s all too easy see a parallel as significant or not depending upon our existing ideas.
Paul,
DeleteNothing creates doubts for the true believer so I'm not whether looking at how they think about parallels is likely to get us anywhere.
I agree there are many possible reasons for parallels, including all the ones you mentioned. I'm just not convinced that the historicists have really grappled with the possibilities. It seems to me that they have a penchant for trying to sidestep the issue in the way that McGrath and Ehrman do. On the other hand, I don't think that mythicists have eliminated the possibility of a historicist explanation.
One of the problems with Paul's teachings is figuring out which way the borrowing went.
I can create a reductio ad absurdum argument of your agnostic principle by claiming that the application of your principle should lead to someone being agnostic about the possible myth that a jetliner flew into the World Trade Center (WTC) on 9/11/2001. Consider the following scenario:
ReplyDeleteI didn’t witness the alleged crash of the jetliner into the WTC or see the supposed damage after the crash. I did see footage and photos that were claimed to document this manmade disaster, however this “visual evidence” could have been easily faked using Hollywood special effects and computer aided editing. There were several people that claimed to be eyewitnesses but these people could just be propagating the myth of 9/11 by slightly altering some of the details of the July 28, 1945 crash of a B-25 bomber into the Empire State Building which burst into flames. All the people of the 9/11 myth cult had to do was alter the date, the type of plane; who was flying the plane; and which building in New York was hit. Since the two alleged events share so many similarities one of the stories must be false. Since the 1945 crash story happened first the 9/11 crash story must be a myth that grew out the 1945 incident. Therefore we should be agnostic about the 9/11 crash.
Of course I can take this even further. I can say that it’s possible that I am just a mind in a vat and that the world around me is just a lie that has been piped into my brain by an evil genius. Included in this lie is that a jetliner flew into the WTC on 9/11/2001. Of course there might not even be such things as planes, buildings or people. If I’m a brain in a vat I can’t trust my senses so I’ll never be able to prove that there is a world outside of my mind. For this reason I should not only be agnostic about the alleged 9/11 crash, but I should also be agnostic that there is a world outside of my mind.
If you let skepticism run wild you can doubt just about anything other than your own existence. For instance try to prove to me your fellow mythicist, Dr. Richard Carier, is not a fictitious character that is played by the New Jersey actor, Ron Smith. How did Ron pull off the debate with William Lane Craig? Well, for one he is a very talented actor. Two, he was clearly wearing the invisible ear piece, that Kim Jong Il designed to feed directions to the North Korean soccer coach, and he was getting his lines from team behind the Carier myth. What if the Carier character came to my house with Richard Carier’s ID and birth certificate and passed a lie detector test where he claimed to be Dr. Richard Carier? That doesn’t prove anything. The ID and birth certificate could be well made forgeries. Ron’s passing the lie detector test could be another testament to how great an actor he is; besides he could have received training on how to pass the test from psychologists and ex-Secret Service agents.
How can one rein in rampant skepticism? Some of the things that skeptics and conspiracy theorists claim can be as farfetched as the things that they criticize. They can be the polar opposite of the gullible person that believes everything.
Yes, you could do that Keith, but I haven't the slightest idea what the point would be. The fact that skepticism can run amok doesn't constitute much of an argument that it is doing so in this case.
DeleteAll we can do is apply the methodologies that Christians apply to the Book of Mormon and the Koran The Book of Mormon
ReplyDeleteAnd then leave it to Christians to explain why they can spot motes in other people's eyes, when they have beams in their own.
Stephen - why should Christians tactics in debating with other religions be relevant to the *secular* study of the life of Jesus?
ReplyDeleteBecause sometimes Christians use excellent methods ie when they are looking at other religions.
DeleteI hope you were suitably impressed by the plagiarism, indicating that the Gospel writers read the Old Testament and then created stories about their Jesus based on stories of non-existent people like Elijah, Elisha and Jonah
Paul, I'm going to to quote this comment of yours whenever this issue comes up on the internet from now on. It is the perfect example of a question which answers itself.
DeleteSane people keep pointing this out because Christians constantly apply one set of rules to everyone else's claims, but inconsistently apply a different methodology to their own.
It is absolutely textbook special-pleading. That you can't instantly and intuitively grasp this as an obvious epistemic failure bodes ill for the future of our species. One time I had an apologist cornered with the charge of special pleading, and he literally responded, "I don't see why special pleading is considered a fallacy, because my beliefs are special."
Hiero5ant,
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, whenever I'm looking for an example of a tedious internet troll who is incapable of intelligent or civil discussion, I'll be sure to remember you..
So... do I have you down tentatively in the "I don't understand why the fallacy of special pleading is considered a fallacy" column?
DeleteHiero5ant,
DeleteI'm assuming you mistakenly think I'm a Christian? Or should I put you down in the "I don't understand why the straw man is considered a fallacy" column?
I'm going to go ahead and take that as a "yes". Have a totes great weekend!
DeleteThe only time Jesus is depicted sleeping is when he is a boat just before a big storm is miraculously calmed.
ReplyDeleteJust before the big storm is miraculously calmed in the book of Jonah, Jonah is sleeping.
There are a lot of parallels between the life of Jesus and the life of fictional characters like Jonah....
Wonder if that means anything?
Stephen, before I answer your point, quick question for you - I assume you think that Jesus did not exist, but do you think that the prophet Muhammad existed historically?
ReplyDeleteWhat does that question have to do with your claim that 'For me, if our first account seemed so similar to another account that we might well suspect direct copying, then clearly this would be significant.'?
ReplyDeleteI thought you made a very good point when you wrote that and I was impressed at your open-mindedness.
Perhaps if you could give me an answer, I could explain the relevance to you?
DeleteIt's guessing games time is?
ReplyDeletePlease feel free to make any points you wish. Everybody is keen to hear your opinion.
Why do you think members of the Jesus fan club, just 30 years after Jesus lived, wrote entire books of theology without quoting anything Jesus did or anything Jesus said?
I think what Paul is trying to say is that he expects people to be experts on Muhammad, before they can think about Jesus.
ReplyDeleteOverlooking that not everybody is such an expert on Muhammad as he is. I, for one, don't know as much about that as I do about the way people in the Jesus fan club claim the Romans were god's agents, who not bear the sword for nothing....
After they had killed the Son of God!
Stephen,
DeleteIt's not a case of being an expert in Muhammad or anyone else, and to be frank I find your comment rather petulant. That said, I do find the lack of interest in non-classical, non-Christian religions something of a weakness in the mythicists I have engaged with.
I just find it genuinely baffling why mythicists are so keen to compare Jesus to the likes of Hercules but unwilling or unable to make a comparison between Jesus and religious figures of known historicity.
When I started my chats with JDers, one of the first things I did was to go back through some of my old University textbooks to check to see whether NT scholars were guilty of some methodological sloppiness that historians who study other religious figures did not commit. I really couldn't see any - people who study figures such as the Buddha, Confucius, or Muhammad note that their sources might be late, biased, and coloured with legendary elements, but they don't simply relegate these figures into the realm of myth.
I would argue that many of the processes that mainstream scholars of Christianity think happened in the case of Jesus (i.e. the accretion of legendary and theological elements around a historical figure) can also be seen in religious figures whose historical existence is either not widely challenged or more modern figures whose existence is surely beyond doubt.
The parallel to Islam is this:
DeleteMuhammad had revelations from a heavenly entity, the archangel Gabriel.
Paul and other apostles received revelations from a heavenly entity, the Son of God, Jesus.
Muhammad is NOT analogous to Jesus, he is analogous to Paul.
gbarrett,
DeleteThis is not comparing the evidence for Jesus with the evidence for Muhammad, or Jesus scholarship with Muhammad scholarship.
You are making a comparison between the two figures which is only possible once you have taken a certain position about the historicity of both - i.e. once you have rejected the historicity of Jesus and accepted it for Muhammad. Or alternatively, once you have agreed with the mainstream scholarly view about Muhammad but rejected such a position on Jesus.
So it doesn't seem to take us much further in our discussion - perhaps you could explain why the evidence for or scholarship on Muhammad is better than that of Jesus?
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ReplyDeleteWell, if Paul did some more research, he would find that people have questioned the existence of Buddha, Confuciuos and Muhammad.
ReplyDeleteBut he is still not saying anything at all relevant.
Why did Paul say God appointed apostles? Didn't Jesus do that?
And just why did Jews decide to symbolically eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus?
Does that happen to real people?
Mr. Regnier started off saying that it would be natural to find parallels between events in the life of Jesus and also of real people. (But he rapidly abandoned that when he was shown parallels of Jesus to fictional people, and resorted to throwing smoke bombs to hide his embarrasment)
So which real people have their body eaten and the blood drunk in a symbolic meal?
Name 3....
Stephen, like most mythicists you have very limited comprehension skills. Any of my year 7s could pick probably pick out that "religious whose historical existence is either not widely challenged" does not mean the same as "religious whose historical existence has never, ever been challenged".
DeleteAs I've said, the mainstream consensus view is that each of these people existed, and my point is that the mythicist claim that the methods of NT scholars are different to those of other historians looks problematic when we look at the way that these figures are studied and discussed.
Why is it irrelevant to suggest that we could compare Jesus (and the way that traditions and legends formed around them) to other figures whose historicity is not generally disputed? Perhaps you could explain?
"And just why did Jews decide to symbolically eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus?"
ReplyDeleteBecause they saw his death as a sacrifice and/or because he told them to (if Paul is reliable)?
I see Paul signally failed even to notice my question about which real people had followers who drank their blood and ate their body, in a cultic meal designed to conjure up the body of its founder.
ReplyDeleteNot that that reeks of mythicism , of course.
But Paul's inability to register questions which might disturb his world view is very telling.
And why would they eat his flesh and drink his blood to 'remember' him? Were they going to forget him? How did Jesus know he was about to be betrayed, and that his followers would not be killed, and would need to eat his body to remind themselves of who they had been following?
It all sounds so plausible doesn't it? I can imagine Regnier telling his students to eat his body so they don't forget what he had taught them....
REGNIER
I really couldn't see any - people who study figures such as the Buddha, Confucius, or Muhammad note that their sources might be late, biased, and coloured with legendary elements, but they don't simply relegate these figures into the realm of myth.
CARR
Now Regnier patiently explains , as though to a child, that there are indeed scholars who claim that these people didn't exist.
After patiently explaining, as though to a child , that there were no scholars who claimed that these people didn't exist....
Gosh, the comprehension skills of people like Carr... They can't understand what you are saying to them, even when you try to explain it to them in two totally different ways....
Neat bit of partial quoting Stephen. Sadly my full comment is above for anybody to read.
ReplyDeleteOn your question about the number of historical people who have had their body symbolically eaten etc(and ignoring for a second the leading nature of the question and the assumptions that it contains) - as far as I know the answer is one. Coincidentally, this is the same as the number of Catholics who have their bodies symbolically burned by English protestants on an annual basis, an answer which also has little bearing on the historicity of the person in question.
So since there's no harm in answering each other's questions,
1) What are your views on the historicity of the Buddha, Muhammad, or Confucius?
2) Why is it irrelevant to suggest that we could compare Jesus (and the way that traditions and legends formed around them) to other figures whose historicity is not generally disputed? Perhaps you could explain?
PAUL
DeleteOn your question about the number of historical people who have had their body symbolically eaten etc(and ignoring for a second the leading nature of the question and the assumptions that it contains) - as far as I know the answer is one. Coincidentally, this is the same as the number of Catholics who have their bodies symbolically burned by English protestants on an annual basis, an answer which also has little bearing on the historicity of the person in question.
CARR
Oh this is just sheer desperation.
We know for a fact that real people have been burned, and that effigies of real people are burned.
But cults only conjure up a body of their founder and partake of his body and drink his blood when there was no real body.
No Jew eats , even symbolically, the flesh and drinks the blood of a real person.
And Jesus would no more have given such a command than Guy Fawkes would have told people to burn his body so they could remember him.
The whole thing reeks of mythicism. It stinks of mythicism.
And the existence of Muhammad, Confucious and Buddha have been questioned just as the existence of William Tell, Romulus, Remus, Ned Ludd and Ebion have been questioned.
"the existence of Muhammad, Confucious and Buddha have been questioned just as the existence of William Tell, Romulus, Remus, Ned Ludd and Ebion have been questioned."
DeleteIs that supposed to represent an argument? Anybody with the most basic understanding of logic can tell that this is nothing more than the association fallacy.
The existence of Muhammad, Confucius, and the Buddha (and Jesus) is not widely questioned by those with recognised competence in relevant fields, whereas the existence of (say) William Tell is.
Let's pick Muhammad - do you actually have any evidence that he did not exist or a decent argument for his non-historicity?
PAUL
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, I seem to in a previous discussion we had about whether Paul uses Jesus’ sayings on divorce and about ministers being paid..
CARR
Let us do some real history.
Jesus sayings on a woman not being able to divorce.
When did that commandment from the Lord to Jews about women not being able to divorce their husband come into effect?
That will help us pin down when Jesus was born.
Once we know at what time in history Jews began to tell each other that woman could not divorce their husbands, we will be able to have definite proof of when Jesus lived to give that commandment.
Similarly, Paul says Jesus was the rock which accompanied the Israelites in the Exodus.
ReplyDeleteIf only we had a real expert here, we can find out when Paul thought the Exodus had happened, which means we can narrow down the time period that Paul thought Jesus was alive in.
Paul slams me for associating Jesus with people who did not exist and then demands that I answer the question of the historicity of Muhammad.
ReplyDeleteWhat a troll that guy is! A sheer total waste of time.
Muhammad? documents that Johannes J. G. (Hans) Jansen, an Arabist and a Professor of Modern Islamic Thought at the University of Utrecht doubts the story of Muhammad, as told by Islam.
ReplyDeleteAnd what makes Jansen right and most other people wrong? In other words (and I hate to repeat myself here)... do you actually have any evidence that he did not exist or a decent argument for his non-historicity?
DeletePaul claims people do not question the historicity of Muhammad, so it is obviously absurd to question the historicity of Jesus (an obvious non-sequitor, but he has little else to say, it seems)
ReplyDeleteWhen it is pointed out to him that some scholars do question the historicity of Muhammad, he moves the goalposts.
Stephen, as I've pointed out to you before - my original point was that in my view:
Delete"many of the processes that mainstream scholars of Christianity think happened in the case of Jesus (i.e. the accretion of legendary and theological elements around a historical figure) can also be seen in religious figures whose historical existence is either not widely challenged or more modern figures whose existence is surely beyond doubt."
Please note the important word here - "widely" (you may want to get a dictionary or ask a grown up to explain it if you don't know what it means). Naming the odd scholar who disagrees is not the same as providing actual evidence against the existence of Muhammad, any more than namedropping Enoch Powell is evidence against the existence of Shakespeare. You believe in him, right?
And why would Muslims drink the blood of Muhammad when they do not believe it was shed for them? You Jesus deniers do resort to some very odd arguments...
Paul,
DeleteThat similarity is a perfectly legitimate point.
However, a perfectly legitimate counterpoint is the difference that when we work our way back to the beginning of the chain of evidence for other figures we have reason to think that there is a historical person there. At the beginning of our chain of evidence for Jesus is Paul, who knows only a supernatural being whose coming ushers in the end times and reconciles God and man.
It is not enough to simply point to historical figures who have been mythologized without examining the possibility of a mythological figure who has been historicized.
Do we have members of Muhammad's fan club symbolically eating his flesh and drinking his blood - something that doesn't happen to real people?
ReplyDeleteDoes Paul have anything other to say than his often repeated tedious whines that Muhammad existed, so Jesus must also have existed?
The guy is just boring.
Paul can't even get my name right....
ReplyDeleteAnd the fact remains that I do not need to be an expert on Muhammad to become an expert on Jesus.
Paul's transparent attempts to claim that Jesus must have existed, because it is generally held that Muhammad existed, are as baffling as his claims that mythicists have to examine the historicity of Muhammad before they are allowed to talk about Jesus.
And Paul's confabulation that Jews drink blood and eat flesh 'shed for them' is bizarre.
What should we do with a martyr? Drink his blood.
If Paul believes that , he will believe anything.
Anything except , of course, the idea that there was a ritual meal whereby the cult could finally access their saviour physically, as their saviour had not been physically present in any other form.
That is just so obviously the case that Paul has to invent blood-drinking Jews - a foul calumny, that led to pogroms and anti-Semitism.
Hebrews claimed Jesus took his blood to Heaven to perform the act of atonement.
Which is weird , because we all know Jesus was killed in Jerusalem....