Sup
Sorry, well overslept..
The crucial difference between these (forgive the oxymoron) authentically mythological characters and Jesus is that the stories of these people predate their having been written down by many centuries. The stories themselves invariably contain statements that the tale dates from "hundreds of years ago" at the time of writing.
I'm afraid I don't recall any of the stories concerning the listed people as stating the tale dates from hundreds of years ago. Maybe I just misunderstand your statement, (or have by and large forgotten the stories
), but to be honest would still fail to see a connection between style of writing and the existence or non-existence of a certain person.
It would be probably be accurate to state that the earlier stories would have first been handed down verbally - and thus the texts are more likely to contain errors, but it's probably also accurate to state that by the time of the alleged jesus, people had a greater ability to write and get creative.
Unfortunately we still have a complete lack of evidence, and as such jesus is right there along with robin hood.
As such he has I believe cast doubt on Jesus's existence by pointing to parallels between Jesus and other mythological characters from the past. But finding parallels between one person and another is never going to be difficult, be they real or the protagonists of narrative tales.
Might I ask, if the stories are not later changes to existing stories, why you would find parallels, (to the degree seen with jesus and other stories/the OT and Sumerian text etc)?
It seems to me that Jesus's being considered mythological is completely precluded by the short period that intervenes between his ministry, trial and death, and the first writings about it - in the case of letters of Paul, probably less than thirty years.
A) Where did the 30 years come from?
B) Is it not customary for an author to write a story from start to finish? (i.e a man was born, did some miracles, then got whacked). The later letters would come under story advertising.
We still await evidence.
Here we have a person of whom there are not one, but four full histories all of which were definitely written within a century of his death.
A) Let's not forget that those four histories do not agree with each other on most of the details - and if written up to 100 years after his supposed death, have no valid say on the matter. It would seem more likely that these people were familiar with the earlier jesus story and then did a later version of it. People are still doing it now. There's thousands of "christ books", written by people in the year 2006 attesting to the existence of jesus. What would they know?
It would perhaps help to explain the vast amount of differences in the stories.
{edit} There probably was a 'B', but I obviously forgot about it.
You don't create complete hoax characters when people around you are more than capable of saying "I was around in Jerusalem then, and I've never even heard of him". In other words, if they were creating a fictional character somewhere between 50 and 70CE, they would have fictionalised him to further back in time.
People still do it and still get away with it. Why, just the other day a ufo landed in North London.. apparently. Now imagine how hard it would be for me if someone said it was upto 100 years ago. The only person I know that would even be close to being there would be my gran, but her brains have gone funny in recent years, so she ain't much good for confirmation.
Were these texts open for sale in jerusalem at the time?
Documentarily, we have known of Caiaphas the high priest and of Pilate the procurator only through the accounts of them in the Gospels. But archaeological discoveries of recent years have confirmed their existence.
My apologies, but it's 1am.. Any chance you can link to the discoveries please? I'm not entirely awake yet. Thanks.
B Vaticanus, d 1, Rome, fourth cent.;
Sinaiticus, d 2, Saint Petersburg, fourth cent.;
C Ephræmus rescriptus, d 3, Paris, fifth cent.;
A Alexandrinus, d 4, London, fifth cent.;
D Cantabrigiensis (or Codex Bezæ) d 5, Cambridge, sixth cent.;
D 2 Claromontanus, a 1026, Paris, sixth cent.;
Laurensis, d 6, Mount Athos, eighth-ninth cent.;
E Basilcensis, e 55, Bâle, eighth cent.
By their dates, not one of these is of any value. It would be like using Interview with the Vampire to attest to the validity of 14th century vampire texts.
This is where the "departure from reason" comes in. You can't just dismiss the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul because they're devotional texts.
Their "devotional" status is not the reason. The word of a couple of people is just never really suitable to be convinced of the validity of a character written about. Even more so when they all disagree on the details, and even by your own submission - some of them wouldn't have even been there, (maybe even upto 100 years after his supposed death).
It's only been 96 years since Twain died, and yet there's already like 100 copies of Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court. Does that make Hank Morgan a real person? But who can argue otherwise?
at least one of which was by common consent written only 40 years after the events, or well within the living memories of many people around at the time
Purely out of interest, what was the life expectancy back then? (If you know).
which describe meetings between Paul and Peter and James, whose personal acquaintance with Jesus is not in doubt.
It isn't in doubt? Why not?
Testimony some 150/170 years after the supposed events. Who is to argue it? Not to mention that apparently Irenaeus was a bishop, (and thus in a position where bias would play a major part).
I have noticed posters who are declared atheists arguing quite vehemently against the existence of Jesus
Yeah, that happens a bit.
which leads me to suppose that their atheism is somehow bolstered if they believe there never was a Jesus.
I wouldn't go that far. By now we've probably all seen the arguments from both sides, and how they work. As a brief example: A christian will start off with the 'love speech', move on to the 'hell speech', then start with the 'evolution's bollocks' speech and then go right back to the 'hell speech'.
Debates between our kinds usually work in ongoing circles. First we perhaps argue for evidence, when that goes unanswered some move onto the 'god wouldnt do this, it's nasty' argument, (although I do personally try and avoid this one.. the bible clearly shows that god
would do nasty things). From there it is common to debate existence of characters and the understanding that these texts have their origins elsewhere.
With me it's not about "bolstering atheism", (I can't believe in gods any less than I do now), but simply - as it has always been - down to the evidence. Four dodgy texts that rarely even agree on the basics does not come under the 'evidence' classification as far as I see it.
It would by and large appear to be a political move against the jews. The god of the jews comes down in human form, goes against every jewish law and custom and the jews kill him for it. Throw some insults against the romans in for effect and you're left with an intriguing political device much like they still write on occasions. Less cross-dressers though.
Yeah baby!.. 2500
