Greg Matthews said

maryhelena said 

You can make ‘monotonous repetitions’ about the NT Paul until kingdom come and they will do nothing for your assumptions about a historical Jesus. Nothing.  No different, so it seems to me, than any mythicist; they want to use Paul to discredit the gospel story  –  you want to use Paul to prove the gospel story. Well   –  bad luck to both of your arguments. For both of your arguments, the mythicist and the historicist, Paul is a diversion that leads to a cul-du-sac. I’m not about to play any games with Paul as the trump card.

I had to leave earlier before I could say everything I wanted to say.  You told gavriel that Paul was a diversion, but you told me you had no problem with Paul.  Which is it?

I have no problem with Paul. I view Paul as a diversion when Paul is brought into a discussion of the gospel story. Outside of that context I have no problem with Paul.

 Paul wrote that he knew the disciples and family of Jesus.  Why would he lie?  He was writing to churches that were not simply his to do with as he chose, they were also visited by missionaries from both Jerusalem and Antioch.  See 2 Corinthians where he complains about traveling missionaries teaching things he didn’t agree with.  If he was going to lie about knowing the disciples and family of Jesus he would eventually get caught.  Why take that chance?  Ergo, it makes no sense to think he was making it up.  The only option you’ve got then is to say he was telling the truth about a made up person who had a real family.

I suggest you would benefit from reading the NT scholar Thomas Brodie….

Your insistence that Paul is untrustworthy at worst and a secondary source at best goes against every historian and theologian who ever lived, trained professionals.  All for the sake of being part of some small crowd led by Richard Carrier that likes being on the outside looking in thinking they’ve discovered some great truth that everyone else has missed for 2,000 years.  You’re no different than holocaust deniers, 9/11 truthers and birthers.

All I can do in response to that rant is to shake my head in dismay…….

I have said that I don’t buy Richard Carrier’s version of the ahistoricist/mythicist position  –  so why throw Richard Carrier at me?

Whatever are the ‘sins’ of the mythicists  –  the historicists, so it seems, are not far behind at all…

What does that mean, Maryhelena?  Is this just another example of a NUHT UH defense?  Apparently your folks never gave the you if your friends jump off a bridge would you logic. See it’s not a question of sins, it’s a question of do you know what the heck your talking about and can you present an intelligent and thoughtful case. To date no mythicist has. 

Does it have any bearing on the evidence? Do you have any evidence? 

Let me point out one thing here  –  historicists do not lay the ground rules for the debate over the historicity of the gospel Jesus. Neither, of course do the mythicists. The debate is open and will not be stifled by either side seeking to lay down rules for the debate…

What debate, Maryhelena? All you’ve done is complain about undercurrents etc. None of that is germane to “the debate”

1.) There is no debate. T When I say that ,I don’t mean that well      Chuck and Larry aren’t arguing on some obscure website or that people aren’t writing books. As a matter for experts, there’s no debate. It’s really that simple. This means that people who are in the minority have an uphill battle to start a debate. A debate doesn’t start   just cuz someone goes NUHT UH. Richard Carrier has come the closest to starting a debate. Fortunately he was more interested in blowing his own foot off .

2.) As to who sets the rules. Yes historicists are in a much better position to do so since mythicists, in the main, are busy     swinging from tree to tree and tossing feces. So far your argument amounts to well you guys are being mean cuz of some imaginary undercurrent and that proves my point. Come now, maryhelena is this all you’ve got!? more bellyaching?  You have a tendency to miss the point because your so busy trying to contradict what’s being said. Are you just a poser or do you have an argument? But this wasn’t a question of what the rules of a debate are or who sets them. Instead the issue, again, is do you know what the heck your talking about?

As the philosopher Clara Peller used to ask,  where’s the beef?

This thread has hopeless got of track. If there is anything else to be said on the OP then hopefully people will say it instead of allowing their personal, deep-seated, animosity to opposing views to stifle the discussion.

Boltonian said
This is also off-topic but you have brought to mind an author I read much of many years ago: Hans Kung. I first became interested in the origins of Christianity when I was in my teens in the early 1970s and have read bits and pieces over the years. I read a lot of Kung’s work during the 1970s and 1980s: I still have three of his books on my shelf: ‘On Being a Christian,’ ‘Eternal Life,’ and ‘Christianity and the World Religions.’ There is much good scholarship here but in the end I became dissatisfied that his unerring conclusion was the same and I couldn’t help but notice, as I learned more about the subject, that ‘Facts’ were shamelessly cherry-picked to support his thesis (not that this is entirely unknown in academia). At one point he said something to the effect that the resurrection happened because Paul said it did and that was good enough for him. I lost a bit of interest after that. Some years later I tried to engage with him and at first he was very enthusiastic so I sent him a list of questions which he said he was too busy to answer.That, therefore, was that. Notwithstanding his support for the party line I would suggest that he is worth reading at least to show that one can examine the same evidence and reach a different conclusion, let’s say from Vermes, Sanders, Ehrman and, indeed, maryhelena. 

I also went through a stage of reading Hans Kung. I think I must have had all his books at one time but fairly recently, moving from one country to another, I had to make decisions regarding books (yep, it felt like ones life was walking out the door when 200 odd books went to charity…..). All I have on my shelve now are: The Church, Christianity and World Religions, Does God Exist, and Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic. I also had some correspondence with him at one time (I’d have to think now what it was about…..time runs on…) but when one reply came back in German I called it quits….

As to his ideas in general  –  I don’t think I ever learnt anything that has stayed with me (though the quotes re heresy are very often useful…..) I do like his attempt to be in ‘loyal opposition’ to the Church  –  however wasted that opposition might appear to be. He is obviously a man of principle however theologically constrained he might be.

Oh, by the way  –  welcome to posting on the forum.