Historicity of Jesus. Now serving Atwil.

neemish

Bannasidhe wrote: »

LOL.

Oh - I study everyone's 'sources' and I ask a number of questions including

1. Who is the author.
2. Who is the audience/intended recipient?
3. What kind of source is it?
4. When was it written?
5. What was the purpose of it being written?
6. Is it intended for the public, a select few or private?

Now, would these 'Catholic' sources have any investment in 'proving' the authenticity of the Bible that may cause them to be a tad....biased.

There can be no 'Catholic' sources contemporary with Jesus as there was a) No Christianity - Jesus being Jewish and all.
b) No 'Catholic' church during Jesus' lifetime.

Genuine question - based on your study, where do you think the gospel of Mark, for example, comes from? Did it just appear in later centuries? would be interested in seeing your questions answered for one of the gospels (canonical or not)

Nodin

Pherekydes wrote: »

How did he know Mary was a virgin?

She only drank halves, never pints.

georgieporgy

Bannasidhe wrote: »

LOL.

Oh - I study everyone's 'sources' and I ask a number of questions including

1. Who is the author.
2. Who is the audience/intended recipient?
3. What kind of source is it?
4. When was it written?
5. What was the purpose of it being written?
6. Is it intended for the public, a select few or private?

Now, would these 'Catholic' sources have any investment in 'proving' the authenticity of the Bible that may cause them to be a tad....biased.

There can be no 'Catholic' sources contemporary with Jesus as there was a) No Christianity - Jesus being Jewish and all.
b) No 'Catholic' church during Jesus' lifetime.

I don't mind agreeing to disagree. I'm biased towards the catholic faith. Clearly you are unbiased? Or perhaps biased towards a nonchristian world view?

endacl

georgieporgy wrote: »

I don't mind agreeing to disagree. I'm biased towards the catholic faith. Clearly you are unbiased? Or perhaps biased towards a nonchristian world view?

Or is she biased towards empiricism, evidence and reason?

C'mon woman! Own up! Which is it? Get off the fence.

Sarky

This is turning out even better than I'd hoped. Bannasidhe, do you ever feel sorry for them, or has years of correcting student exams burned that out of you? :pac:

GCU Flexible Demeanour

neemish wrote: »

Q is most definitely earlier than Matthew and Luke, but may have been written at the same time/slightly after Mark. And is separate to all three.
http://web.archive.org/web/19990219224131/http://www.augustana.ab.ca/~bjors/q-english.htm

But, hang on, isn't the key point that the Q source isn't an actual lump of paper (or whatever) that someone can point to. It's just a view that some have of how the material may have developed.

Pherekydes wrote: »

How did he know Mary was a virgin?

Isn't there a bit of an issue around that? They'd have written the gospel to conform to the prophecy, but the bit about the birth being to a virgin is based on a Greek mistranslation of the book of Isaiah.

Its all a bit embarrassing, apparently, as the original statement just said the Messiah's mom would be a young woman - hardly a breathtaking act of foretelling, I know. But, if I remember correctly, the cognoscenti say that what Isaiah said was something like "the young woman will give birth", in a context where contemporaries would have known the young woman he had in mind. A modern equivalent might have been someone saying "yer wan who's da and ma worked for British Airways will give birth to an heir to the throne. "

Why am I posting? Its all bollocks. All of it. Horse**** on stilts.

As for the physical evidence of his body, have the Rosicrucians got him on ice, or something?

Turtwig

Nodin wrote: »

I'm a bollocks with no patience.

Posts like this give moderator me headaches. It's a personal attack but it's a personal attack by the poster on the poster? The Mod bible says nothing about this! Mod says I should just ban you for the headaches and heresy you've induced.

Sarky

As a cantankerous c*nt with a cheeky side, I'd report that :pac:

endacl

Feck it. If ye're half the prick I am, ye should all be banned.

Turtwig

Ok folks, point made Nodin found a loophole nothing to see here. Back to historicity of Jesus.

endacl

Jernal wrote: »

Ok folks, point made Nodin found a loophole nothing to see here. Back to historicity of Jesus.

Wasn't 'Dogma' based on a similar 'nothing to see here'?

Geomy

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Please link me a document contemporary with Jesus (i.e not a gospel) that proves he existed?

Otherwise, it is speculation based on second hand, noncontempornious accounts - aka hearsay.

Bannasidhe maybe you should have explained more about what kinda proof is good enough for you.

Do you want it carved in stone or on an old parchment of what ever they wrote on back in the day of Jesus ?

Sure there's a Sile ni Gig carved into a stone in an old church up the road from me, does that mean Sile existed ?

I recon there's a Sile in every village in Ireland....

TheChizler

Geomy wrote: »

Bannasidhe maybe you should have explained more about what kinda proof is good enough for you.

Do you want it carved in stone or on an old parchment of what ever they wrote on back in the day of Jesus ?

Not just her, any historian, or junior cert student for that matter, worth their salt should have the same idea of what a primary source is.

jank

Ban doesn't accept wiki sources....unless she is of course using them to rebuff an argument.

nagirrac

This thread is similar to the question "does a tree make a sound when it falls in a forest and there's no one there to hear it?".

Clearly there is no established primary historical sources for Jesus. The question is why would you believe in an historical Jesus, not what contemporary evidence there is of his existence. You look at all the handed down accounts that made it into the bible, and you compare them to accounts that were excluded from the bible very early on (Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi). What is he supposed to have said and is it consistent across the various accounts? There is, in my opinion, a constant theme there that was not orthodox Jewish thought at the time. The whole love your neighbor thing was quite novel for example. Assuming he existed, like most Christian and non-Christian scholars agree, then he was most surely a rebel and died like most rebels in history.

Sonics2k

jank wrote: »

Ban doesn't accept wiki sources....unless she is of course using them to rebuff an argument.

Get this through your head, all of you.

Bann is asking for a primary, contemporary source. On the occasions she has linked to Wikipedia, she has not claimed them as contemporary.

I knew what contemporary meant at the age of 11.

Maybe you should go off and Wiki what contemporary is if people can't understand it.

Bannasidhe

Hello Jank - Did I once eat your cake? It this why you like to pop up in threads just to have a little dig? Dude, you need to get a new hobby. Not even my top students pay as much attention to what I say as you do.

Since people seem to 'like' wikipedia I link them back at people who have linked them at me. Quite simple really. I believe I even made a comment in this thread along the lines of 'since you like wikipedia so much', I also pointed out that the wiki enthusiasts should perhaps wiki a bit more thoroughly given some of the posts made here *cough* Q *cough*.

Not much point in my linking 'academic' sites to people who can't understand very simple concepts like 'primary source' and 'contemporary' now is there..when you'all (you know who you are...) get to grips with those simple concepts I shall shower ye in links containing .edu and the like.

Anyhoo, I wasn't reading this last night as Bannasidhe was off watching back to back episodes of Deadwood, and it occurred to Bannasidhe that this damn fine TV series is very like the Bible.

(wait for it....)

Deadwood was launched amid a fanfare of praise for it's 'historical accuracy'. It was set in a real place, featuring real people, speaking as real people spoke, dressing how real people did c1870s in a specific and named frontier town. We have never seen anything before that really captured what it was like in that time and that place. But...(:D)

Was it really really historically accurate or was it tweaked for dramatic effect...

Just to give a few examples: Charlie Utter, Al Swerengen, and Seth Bullock were all real people - but were they the same as their characters in the 'historically accurate' Deadwood...not quite.

Charlie Utter always worked with his brother Steve who is not in the series - Charlie was also a small man known for his dandy style of dress and extensive collection of hair brushes which he used to keep his shoulder length tresses shiny and glossy. As anyone who has seen the series knows - their Charlie Utter is no dandy.

Al Swerengen wasn't a 'slimy limey' - he was from Chicago. Nor was the Gem Saloon the first brothel in Deadwood as the series implies - Swerengen opened the Gem in 1877 by which time there were several brothels up and running.

Seth Bullock did not marry his dead brother's wife and adopt his nephew- he married his own wife and she came to Deadwood to join him with their daughter. Also the actual Seth Bullock's facial hair was far more impressive than that produced by the actor who played him :P.

In series 2 we first encounter the concept of female brothel keepers (:eek:) - yet, female brothel keepers were active in Deadwood since 1874 - in 1876 Charlie and Steve Utter brought a 'shipment' of prostitutes some of whom were purchased existing brothel owner Dora DuFran (who was a limey...or at least a Scouser). Dora, who coined the phrase 'cathouse' was the most successful of Deadwood's brothel keepers - her main competitor was Mollie Johnson. Neither appear in the TV series.

Cy Tolliver who does appear in the TV series is made up - the Bella Union Saloon which he is depicted as opening as a rival to Swerengen's Gem was actually owned by Tom Miller was already in existence before Swerengen got to Deadwood.

Were we to apply the same standards of investigation used when looking at the Bible to the TV series Deadwood we would say yes- that TV series is 'historically accurate' as they were real people living in a real place and we can 'prove' it. After all, we have many primary sources for Utter, Swerengen and Bullock. Deadwood still exists - along with the Bullock Hotel founded by Seth and his partner Sol Star. Hickok's grave - paid for by Charlie Utter - is a tourist attraction. So we have archaeological artifacts. Case closed.

But, that is simply not good enough when it comes to actual historical accuracy - every single thing must be accurate with the sources to back it up , if one is conjecturing - one has to be clear it is conjecture and tweaking for dramatic effect is absolutely not allowed.

As for historians falling foul of personal bias - of course this is always a possibility - that is why the obsession with primary sources and citations exists as other historians check such details very carefully indeed and there are few people happier than a historian who has just found an error or can produce evidence which contradicts that which a fellow historian has written.

It happened to me when ,just prior to publication and unknown to me, a journal editor removed the words 'may have' from a sentence turning conjecture into a definitive statement - a definitive statement I could not support with evidence which was why I had written it as conjecture in the first place. That was in 2005 and I am still getting emails and letters pointed out 'my' error and asking for my 'proof'. I have done the same to other historians such as pointing out that Domhnaill Na Chogaidh Ua Flaithbhertaigh could not have been present at the Battle of Shrule in 1570 as was stated in a large tome written by a well respected professor at one of our universities on the grounds of him being already dead for some years - and I supplied the evidence to back it up.

So when I ask for primary sources for the existence of Jesus I mean texts dating to Jesus' lifetime (c0001 - c0033) which specifically refer to Jesus at the very least.

Personally, it makes not a whit of difference to me if Jesus existed or not - if he did exist (and he may well have) that does not mean he was divine or 'the Messiah' - just that he once lived as did Al Swerengen, Seth Bullock and Charlie Utter. I have no investment in whether he did exist or not so I fail to see how I could have any bias. I do have an investment in historical accuracy so I will respond when I see unsupported statements and conjecture being presented as history.

Corkfeen

That was amazing, we need a Deadwood thread.

Lelantos

Please don't ruin Deadwood for me
Its a lot more realistic than jebus & his posse

Sarky

Did I hear correctly that the swearing in Deadwood was modernised a bit because viewers would think the more twee language back then wasn't authentic enough, or was that a filthy lie?

I find the frequency of the word 'cocksucker' to be a bit, well, high at times.

tallaghtmick

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Please link me a document contemporary with Jesus (i.e not a gospel) that proves he existed?

Otherwise, it is speculation based on second hand, noncontempornious accounts - aka hearsay.

He was probably the Dynamo of his day :pac:

in a 1000 years Humans will be Dynamics

lazygal

Most important, what biscuits did they eat at the time and did the show portray that accurately?

Sulla Felix

Ooh, ooh, do Rome next!

tallaghtmick

I don't get why people argue over "Jesus" so much, Without a time machine no one can prove he did or did not exist. If you are religious fair play to you, you believe in what you do it doesn't affect me. If you are not religious fair play to you, you believe in what you do it doesn't affect me.

WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG!!:pac:

I don't have a go at my Liverpool supporting mates wrong for supporting a rival team.

Anyway Jesus was an Alien :pac::pac::p:p....... RUNS AWAY FROM THREAD.

tallaghtmick

Sulla Felix wrote: »

Ooh, ooh, do Rome next!

999 posts your next post better be good

Bannasidhe

Sarky wrote: »

Did I hear correctly that the swearing in Deadwood was modernised a bit because viewers would think the more twee language back then wasn't authentic enough, or was that a filthy lie?

I find the frequency of the word 'cocksucker' to be a bit, well, high at times.

I think they both toned it down and modernised it tbh. They have, and this is hard to believe sometimes, also toned down the sheer brutality and the racial hatred of the time period.

They have tried to keep the syntax accurate, and done a far more convincing job of it that the Anglo-latin used in Spartacus, hence the sometimes quite formal way people speak to each other but many of the 'cuss' words prevalent then would be lost on us now.

C**ksucker did become something of a catchphrase - but it was used at the time.

My personal favourite 'archaic' insult is Dandyprat - from which we get both dandy and prat. It refers to someone who is of small stature who dresses very well but is essentially useless. A Dandyprat was a small fancy looking coin introduced by Henry VIII which was worthless - the 16th century equivalent of a 1 cent coin but with extra bling.

tallaghtmick

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I think they both toned it down and modernised it tbh. They have, and this is hard to believe sometimes, also toned down the sheer brutality and the racial hatred of the time period.

They have tried to keep the syntax accurate, and done a far more convincing job of it that the Anglo-latin used in Spartacus, hence the sometimes quite formal way people speak to each other but many of the 'cuss' words prevalent then would be lost on us now.

C**ksucker did become something of a catchphrase - but it was used at the time.

My personal favourite 'archaic' insult is Dandyprat - from which we get both dandy and prat. It refers to someone who is of small stature who dresses very well but is essentially useless. A Dandyprat was a small fancy looking coin introduced by Henry VIII which was worthless - the 16th century equivalent of a 1 cent coin but with extra bling.

Cant wait to call a scumbag a Dandyprat and watch his reaction

smcgiff

'But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.'

Mary did the nasty? Poor Joseph, talk about performance anxiety from comparison to previous lovers.

Bannasidhe

tallaghtmick wrote: »

Cant wait to call a scumbag a Dandyprat and watch his reaction

Scumbags don't dress well enough - now Tom Cruise could in a certain light be seen as a dandyprat.

tallaghtmick

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Scumbags don't dress well enough - now Tom Cruise could in a certain light be seen as a dandyprat.

Damn ruined it for me :mad:

Well im off to find a useless Banker