Raf

I suspected as much.

Not exactly what I meant there, Oldies. Scripture absolutely exists. And it is the authority ON DOCTRINE. I cannot say the Bible teaches Jesus sinned, for example, because the Bible says he did not sin. Once you eliminate the Bible AS AN AUTHORITY, you STILL have a Bible that says Jesus never sinned. But you also have every right to view that claim with the tiniest hint of "Yeah right." ESPECIALLY because the Bible's Jesus practically equates temptation with sin and goes on to say he was tempted in all points like as we are. On topic, the Bible does indeed teach that Paul had that Damascus experience and that he really did receive his Revelation of the gospel from visions of the risen Jesus and not his followers. I'm just calling bs on the notion that Jesus' followers would ever have gone along with it... unless Jesus was never an earthly being in the first place and people like Peter, James and others Paul named had no more credibility than Paul as his followers. We need the Bible, in other words, to know and understand the claims. But when evaluating the credibility of those claims, the Bible cannot serve as its own authority. That would be circular reasoning: it's true because the Bible says it's true and what the Bible says is true because the Bible says what the Bible says is true. You would not accept the authority of any other holy book on that logic. All I ask in THIS subforum as that you treat the Bible with the same skepticism that you treat the Quran, the Book of Mormon and the autobiography of Elon Musk.

Please do not take a quote out of context and use it to challenge my knowledge of the gospel. My comment was about what Josephus wrote [more to the point, what he implausible left out]. If you would like me to pick apart the gospel to demonstrate how petty, vindictive, arbitrary and stupid the whole house of cards is, I suggest you buckle up. Unlike you, I've asked those questions and considered them. So if you really want to go there, I'll be more than happy to be your guide. Or we can continue discussing the topic instead of trying to make it about me.

So I decided not to reproduce Carrier's work on the TF because I cannot copy and paste it, and it's too long to type out. Suffice it to say that he does not agree with Steve Mason. The highlights: Carrier does not believe the TF inspired a passage in Luke, but that the passage in Luke inspired the TF. That's a huge "which came first" issue, but he bases his conclusion on a line by line examination of the TF. "If indeed ne ought to call him a man." Josephus didn't write that. Someone who believes Jesus is the Messiah, or God Himself, wrote that. Josephus was also not one to remark on "surprising deeds" without getting specific. "Won over many Jews and Greeks..." to what? In context, the TF is part of a list of things Pilate did that got the Jews angry. Why include something, the execution of a heretic, that would not have angered the Jews? The resurrection is treated with no explanation whatsoever. Did he escape the crucifixion? Or did he die and get up? He states neither, and HE WOULD HAVE. "The prophets of God foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him"? Who other than a devout Christian would have written such a thing? A thousand other marvels? Come now. Josephus was not a Christian, devout or otherwise. The TF, beginning to end, is a credal statement, not a historical one. I am inclined to accept Carrier's explanation over Mason's on this one, the scholarly consensus against Carrier notwithstanding. Eusebius made it up. Ah, Tacitus. I actually reached my conclusion about Tacitus before I read Carrier, my only exposure to the controversy being Ehrman's pro-historicity book. Tacitus writes in 116 AD. After describing the great fire of Rome (64 AD) and Nero's attempt to blame it on Christians. Tacitus writes: I believe this passage is authentic. I do not believe it proves the history of the crucifixion, for a number of reasons. Primarily, the crucifixion is an aside to the point being made, which is that Nero blamed Christians for the great fire. So Tacitus had to define who Christians were. Well, by that time, the gospels were likely circulating by most accounts. It is doubtful that Tacitus independently sought out the records of Pilate's crucifixion to verify the execution of Jesus. It is far more likely, given the content and context of this passage, that Tacitus was merely relaying what Christians believed. He may have even believed it himself! But he cites no records and gives no indication that he is vouching for the accuracy of the account. It would be very much like me citing the date that Joseph Smith found the gold plates from which he translated the book of Mormon, knowing full well a. when it was alleged to have happened and b. that it did not. Tacitus tells us what Christians believed in the early second century, not what actually transpired in the early first. He does tell us that by 64 AD one could distinguish in the Roman empire those who called themselves Christians and those who called themselves Jews. But that was not in dispute. We know that from Paul. Carrier, if I am not mistaken, is open to the possibility that the Tacitus passage on Christ (note: not "Jesus) was a later interpolation. I don't think that position is worth considering. I think it is far more likely that Tacitus was reflecting what Christians believed, not what he had independently confirmed.

Most learned people believe there was some historical figure at the core of the founding of Christianity. I am inclined to believe they are incorrect, but I do not have their qualifications. Seeing as my vote really doesn't matter, and changing my mind would not change my [lack of] religious beliefs, I am entertained by the debate. No more, no less. I should say that IF Acts is correct about Paul and the apostles, it makes sense that they would accept his testimony because God told them to. On what you would call a "flesh" level, that explanation is not even remotely plausible to me. They would have eaten Paul for breakfast, acting like he was an authority on the legacy of a man he never met but they did.

Don't let me forget to get back to Tacitus.

Huge can of worms here. I find this debate riddled with people who falsely claim to have no vested interest in "who's ultimately right." Carrier acts as if it doesn't matter to him one way or another. Methinks he doth protest too much. Ehrman says it makes no difference to him either. That's almost certainly a lie. Mythicists are ostracized in his field. To come out as one would be attempted career suicide. The majority of Bible scholars are practicing Christians [duh], so they have a religious interest in maintaining historicity as the default view. I would like to think I'm not biased here because whether I believe is unaffected by whether there was a historical figure at the outset of Christianity. But my interest in the subject betrays at least some bias. But bias has many meanings, only few of which lead to the conclusion that a person holding the bias cannot be trusted. I trust you guys to be honest and hope I've earned your trust in that regard as well, even if we disagree about... everything.

We had all been saying that was the scholarly consensus. Myself included.

Imagine someone claiming to have had such an experience and then bragging that he never confirmed his doctrine with the people who knew Jesus best. A reminder that in this particular subforum, the testimony of the scripture is not authoritative. The claim of a Damascus conversion is a claim, not a documented fact. Long way of saying I'm atheist. Scripture is a claim, not proof.

Ah of course. This was Michael Dick, who saw Moby Dick. Just kidding. It was Michael Bounty who saw Mutiny on the Bounty. No? Wrong Mutiny? Fine. Michael Caine.

I've always been partial to tea leaves, although this one time, at Delphi...

I don't expect anyone to take my word for anything, Rocky. I cited my broad sources in my opening post [Bart Ehrman: Did Jesus Exist , and Richard Carrier: On tge Historicity of Jesus] and I made it clear I would not treat this thread as a doctoral dissertation service. Honestly for the sake of a casual conversation I'm satisfied with the Wikipedia entry on the TF which neatly summarizes the various viewpoints without really taking sides.

He doesn't think the whole TF is authentic, does he? Most scholars stop at partial authenticity. I found Carrier's argument, that it's all phony, more convincing because it better explains the lack of citations from people who would have been very excited to quote it.

Was it the head clue?

Thank you for pointing out that the author of the epistles to Timothy, who was pretending to be Paul, identified himself as Paul in the letter he wrote pretending to be Paul. I was starting to question his competence.

actually, I said that wrong. My comment on the scholarly consensus is limited to the authorship of the Pauline epistles.

Oh they are not mine. They are the scholarly consensus.

Luke did not write the gospel or the book of Acts. Authorship of the gospel was attributed to him decades after it was written. And the history invented in the book of Acts is refuted by Paul. One can be true or the other, but not both. Paul verifies very little of the account of Acts and nothing of the gospel of Luke other than the death and resurrection, which he portrays as a celestial event. The crucifixion to Paul is not at the hands of the Romans or the Jews, but at the hands of "the princes of this world," which was by no stretch of the imagination a description of Pilate or the Sanhedrin. Paul also did not write I Timothy or II Timothy, since we're having fun.

Add that the cold open refers to the Daily Planet as a great metropolitan newspaper and Perry White later refers to Clark as a mild-mannered reporter. Well done. Superman was my guess, but I couldn't fit all the "tagline" references together (and, for the record, Superman himself says he's here to fight for Truth, Justice and the American Way, something Dean Cain's incarnation NEVER SAID).

explain the tagine clue?

Did they all have heads?

He's a red something. I can't remember. Not a household name. Dagnabit. Can't remember.

I look at Paul like Chris Geer showing up at HQ four years after Wierwille's death, scolding everyone like he's Wierwille's true heir, 'cept he never met Wierwille and spent three years as a deprogrammer. And the Trustees were like, he must be Wierwille's heir. God told him! Like, no one would ever believe it, and rightly so.

The thought did cross my mind

Does he though? Never met him. Saw him in visions. Swore up and down he never learned from those later alleged to be his closest friends and family? Never referenced the empty tomb. Never talked about his disciples. Is Paul REALLY useful?