Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Forgive me for belaboring this point. However, I think it is pertinent to determining if there was a historical Jesus. Can anyone provide a clear-cut example of an ancient author that asserted that Jesus never, ever existed? Not to be confused with someone who wrote they did not believe in the mira...

Hypotheses that provide avenues for investigation come from speculation That's it, of course. Some of these speculations can cause us to look at the evidence we do have in a new light, or can make sense of new discoveries. The application of historical method does not entail the relinquishing of im...

to cienfuegos, The question though is what does Paul mean when he uses the term? One point, and I do think I was wrong on my initial reaction, but I think "stumbling stone" refers to the Law (for Paul, not the OT). "But Israel, pursuing after a law of righteousness, has not attained ...

to cienfuegos, I am not sure how we can conclude (note I said "not sure") that "Zion" in Isaiah 28:16 doesn't refer to "Israel" as a community of people, just as the Suffering Servant is thought to be an allegory for Israel. Isn't the stumbling block the gospel that fr...

Is he logically flawed in such a way that it changes the output? Perhaps so. Well that is my point here. It is subjective. His lack of biblical education, to me is a serious flaw for one to input that ignorance into a math equation. I would bet it is easy to use that same methodology on a historica...

Strangely enough, on that forum, I often provided the link for my blog post on "Paul indicated Jesus was crucified on earth", but I never got any reaction. Here is the blog post in question, its title and its introduction: http://historical-jesus.info/19.html >> Is there evidence in Paul'...

to cienfuegos, I don't see where you have proposed different probabilities. How do these points change the numbers in the Bayesian calculations? A lot of people have criticized the Rank-Raglan prior, including me at first, but I think ultimately Carrier made his case on that(and a lot of critics ju...

It seems to be amenable to statistical probability, and if so, would be more explicit, rigorous and testable in such a form. I guess one would need to associate various probabilities to the matching of low/medium/high words/phrases and start crunching. Have you tried that? You'd have to find a comp...

to cienfuegos, So instead of making vacuous assertions about the flaws in Carrier's theory, show us why you are right, he is wrong and how that changes the calculations. Maybe it will? I did that (proving him wrong on many points). And you will find my criticism of Carrier if you click here http://...

examine each point in a Bayesian way To me, it fails miserably. When interpretation of evidence is subjective, math is not a useful tool. Carriers attempt and results proved this beyond a shadow of doubt. What is the rationale for an argument of "cumulative weight"? It is everything in to...