interesting reply there,mlinssen wrote: ↑Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:04 am[emphasis mine]davidmartin wrote: ↑Tue Nov 17, 2020 4:18 am True, if it there's no historical basis there (the mythologist view) any digging into these texts would only be of value to the myth making process and identifying external sources of inspiration (scriptural, pagan, whatever).
but the early writings of the NT sure sound like they are responding to an ongoing process of historical events, one doesn't need to be a biblical apologist to think so. the line between myth and accounts of historical events is blurry as hell
It doesn't have to be a direct witness, a generation or two later would still work
That's not how the mind works; that's not how humans work - that's not how the world works. Myth can be as true as reality, and vice versa
We don't need reality, or Reality - all we need is to blieve that something is true, or True.
Remember Santa? It was real as long as you believed in it.
Remember the first crush you had on your first girl (or boy)? That Love was real, Real, REAL! You thought, perhaps even knew, that you would die if it would go unanswered for very long (or something)
I could go on for many pages, but all we need to presuppose about the whole Jesus-thang is that people believed (parts of) it to be true (enough).
Like a (not so) fun experiment?
Everyone who responds to me here takes me seriously - but what if I have played you all from the beginning, lied about everything, just debated along with you in order to keep you busy, at bay, fooled?
It would change everything, wouldn't it? But that would be awkward, as it couldn't change anything at all about reality, that which happened - all it changes is the perception in your mind about something that occurred as it occurred when it occurred, and now you're frantically trying to change your opinion on all of it.
Because we all live by Truth, and truth alone - reality never comes into play. So historicity of anything? It matters nowt (sic)
don't we all share the same reality though? that same old clodden earth