neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Sat Feb 10, 2018 2:16 pm
gmx wrote: ↑Sat Feb 10, 2018 5:33 am
This theory requires that our NT has an alternative genesis and developmental history from the one described by the church and mainstream Christian scholarship. But doesn't the argument from silence apply equally well to this alternative history? That history (if it existed) has also left very few fingerprints for modern scholars to dust.
There is indeed evidence (not silence or absence of evidence) for the sources of the gospel narratives of Jesus' life and sayings. We can see the literary origins of many of the stories in the Old Testament. I think there is very little doubt that the miracles of Elijah, Elisha, Moses and others are the sources of many of the stories about Jesus. The evidence that the gospel Jesus was invented is on a par with the evidence that Rome's Aeneas was invented out of the stories of Homer.
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In the case of Jesus all our sources are arguably ultimately from "Christianity" itself -- they are not independent, they do not always corroborate each other even though not independent, and they are by unknown persons written for unknown reasons to unknown audiences.
Unknown persons, reasons and audiences does suggest a lot of silence / absence of evidence, does it not? Yet somehow, by the fourth century, Christianity is the state religion of the Roman Empire, but we can't get much of a read on it before that point in time. I think silence is a fair description. You obviously disagree.
And yes, I can definitely agree that the gospel writers found inspiration for their narrative in the OT, but that doesn't contradict historicity (in my view). It is compatible with the traditional view of a historical Jesus, whose followers believed him to be the messiah, and subsequent generations sought to evidence that claim via fullfilment of the scriptures.
And by way of disclosure, I haven't formed a view on historical vs myth. I'm just trying to understand the arguments, in my naive way.
Neil, I am interested in your view of one of the other points / questions in the OP.
If the epistles are unaware of Jesus' life of earth, because it hasn't been invented yet, then who wrote the deutero-Pauline epistles and why? What was the purpose of pretending to be Paul in the pre-historical-Jesus/pre-Gospel era? Or are we saying that there was genuine Paul, then Gospels, then deutero-Paul, and deutero-Paul was so expertly forged as to resist the temptation to include "evidence" from the gospels?
I think from your other reply, I can infer that your answer is "we don't know and we have no way of knowing", but anyway...
I saw a Naked girl ,Slowly emerge in front of me，Greek hairstyle，Very beautiful，She has a beautiful [fine] profile.; She is fine in profile. the view of profile,hard to tell.
