As I've said before Christian belief doesn't solely rest on this issue, though it is important and I think a good case can be made for the Christian position here.
Obviously the supernatural elements are unacceptable from a naturalist standpoint, but I don't think that should be allowed to bias judgement on historical questions.

I very rich, in-depth discussion on reason and faith can be had listening to this 'Teaching Company" course.


http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/ ... -ages.html


The intellectual grappling key figures in history dealt with are thought provoking and inspiring.
It's hard to grasp all of their arguments in depth, but those who are serious about informing themselves adequately will enjoy the course.
The bibliography provided with the outline is also a great starting point.

I need to listen to the course again, slowly. Some of it can be a bit confusing. It offers much more than the new atheist favorite scholarly "gotcha!" question "Do you believe in Zeus? No you don't. Then why should you believe in God??"

Also, this course is excellent:

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/ ... igion.html

The discussions include proper historical context, highlighting the primary motivations behind each "science vs religion" debate.

The common claim by the atheist is that he is aware of what the arguments are from the other side and how they originated when in fact they simply arent.
For instance, when I first mentioned "the warfare thesis" a couple of years ago, not one person here quite knew what that was or who the key players were.

For about the past year I've become a big science & religion history buff. The interaction between the two is rich and highly complex. Understanding historical context is key to preventing muddy, biased thinking. Which again is mostly what new atheists are only capable of because of a lack of interest.

Here is a great book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/022648 ... UTF8&psc=1

Even handed and rich in context.

And you're an excellent example of this.

I'm not a theist, Interbane.
I'm just rude to arrogant, pompous asses.









(present company excluded, of course)

I haven't read Carrier's thesis on the Jesus myth, but I suspect his claims fall into the realm of what is possible given the sparse historical record about Jesus. Jesus as myth is at least plausible. And, indeed, from what I've seen of Acharya S, that's generally her position as well. She's arguing that it's at least plausible that Jesus is completely mythical.

Here we have an interesting question. Where does the burden of proof fall? On those arguing for Jesus as myth or those who argue for Jesus as historical figure?

True believers are probably not very reliable when it comes to a neutral assessment of the historical record for Jesus. How do you separate the Jesus as historical figure from the Jesus as deity belief? It's an incoherent position.

Here we have an interesting question. Where does the burden of proof fall? On those arguing for Jesus as myth or those who argue for Jesus as historical figure?

LMAO!

This isn't EVEN a question.

But if one MUST entertain those that question the existence of the historical Jesus, the burden of proof is obviously on the mythicist, considering it's near UNANIMOUS among TRUE scholars in the field that the historical Jesus walked the earth.

But wait! There's a conspiracy in place to repress the evidence that Jesus was a myth! At least that's what Robert has mentioned in the past (people would be out of a job!)
The burden of proof is again on scholarship, regardless of their agreement!! That's logical!


JEZUZ

Once again we see a curious double standard in action.

EDITED

Here we go:
(my emphasis)

The historical analysis techniques used by Biblical scholars have been questioned.[4] However the majority viewpoint among those scholars of various disciplines who have commented on the subject is that Jesus existed, although biblical scholars differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the parts of his life that have been recorded in the Gospels.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Scholars who believe that Jesus existed differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts,[14] but most scholars agree that Jesus was a Galilean Jew who was born between 7-4 BC and died 30–36 AD,[15][16][17] that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, that he was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate[11][12][13] and that he lived in Galilee and Judea and did not preach or study elsewhere.[18][19][20] The theory that Jesus never existed at all has very little scholarly support.[

- Wiki


Of course those that resent Christianity and have attempted to do away its "poster boy" will always be willing to subject the historical jesus to "double jeopardy"


Here's were the argument is introduced that "biblical scholars would be out of a job if they didn't say Christ existed.
And yet, not all biblical scholars are Christians.

This isn't EVEN a question.

But if one MUST entertain those that question the existence of the historical Jesus, the burden of proof is obviously on the mythicist, considering the UNANIMOUS scholarly field is in that the historical Jesus walked the earth.

This is a bit mixed up. The burden is obviously on the side making the ontologically positive claim - which is that Jesus existed. In this case, you are saying the burden is fulfilled, as consensus is unanimous. It's a valid question. I'd also point out that Unanimous is not the same thing as a majority. Even a majority is not as strong as an overwhelming majority.

I'm not an all an expert here and am not on either side of the debate, but I was under the impression that criticisms against said consensus were valid because the actual methods of determining historicity were shown to be faulty. I could see how this would occur, with the historical field having bias towards sacred beliefs.

In trying to find a neutral source that was highly informative, I found this paper: http://www.academia.edu/1825948/Did_Jes ... cholarship

It is thorough and has many references, even if it is written by a self-proclaimed student. Have a read.

*edit - your copied text also shows that the methods are possibly faulty.

This is really a pathetic attempt to argue about "majority" and "unanimous" when it's clear that scholarship agrees and that there is very little scholarly support for anything else.

Geo's question was a fine example of being ignorant of what scholarship has to say about the historicity and agreement re Jesus' existence.

Interbane's post is a fine example of arguing simply for the sake of argument -
AND ignoring the fact that a short time ago he said he believed global warming was caused by man because the consensus agrees that that is the case, yet the consensus re the historicity of Jesus does not matter - it's a reasonable to doubt here.
But yet, there are experts that doubt global warming is caused by man. So what?


This is totally cheap and disingenuous talk.
The booktalk philosophical atheists have lowered themselves lower than I thought possible.


Excuse me while I go laugh my ass off.

This is really a pathetic attempt to argue about "majority" and "unanimous" when it's clear that scholarship agrees and that there is very little scholarly support for anything else.

You're speaking to me as if I've seen this survey, or whatever it is that shows evidence of a majority(show me what you're referencing). I'm going by the words in your post. Nothing else is obvious to me. And it's not splitting hairs to say that a majority doesn't mean unanimous.

Interbane's post is a fine example of arguing simply for the sake of argument -

And people play chess for the sake of playing chess. If you want to refine your worldview, you debate ideas. Is this wrong?

AND ignoring the fact that a short time ago he said he believed global warming was caused by man because the consensus agrees that that is the case, yet the consensus re the historicity of Jesus does not matter

The consensus is a small thing compared to the evidence with regards to climate change. If that's all we're left with is authority, even the 97% figure might not be enough to sway me. Is that the percentage of scholars that believes Jesus was historical? What do I make of the claims that methods regarding historicity are flawed?

Get bombastic and ascerbic all you want ant, but I'm asking legitimate questions.

This is totally cheap and disingenuous talk.

Ugh! From one of us at least.

ant wrote: Geo's question was a fine example of being ignorant of what scholarship has to say about the historicity and agreement re Jesus' existence.

Ant, you might want to try Xanax sometime.

I’m aware that historical scholars do accept Jesus as a historical figure as I’ve said on this forum before (and even on this very thread just a couple of pages back).

I’m simply asking from a philosophical perspective, why is the burden of proof in this case on those who are making the claim that Jesus is a mythical figure instead of those who argue that Jesus is a historical figure? Off the cuff I’d suggest that both are actually positive claims, and so both sides have the burden of proof. How’s that for the King Solomon touch?

Consensus of historical scholars is actually quite compelling except that I suspect most historical scholars would agree there’s no ironclad evidence either way. I’d like to see where any historian says that Jesus was definitely a historical person and here’s the evidence that supports it. I think there’s a general assumption that Jesus was historical, but without that absolute and ironclad evidence, it remains a fair question. Fortunately we don’t have to come down on one side or another unless we are somehow emotionally invested in one side being true (even if the evidence doesn’t fully support it). Here's where motivated reasoning can come into play. Inventing a truth if a definite answer is not available.

See here for some examples of motivated reasoning.

http://www.skepdic.com/motivatedreasoning.html

As the article says, motivated reasoning is confirmation bias taken to the next level. Motivated reasoning is also very much emotion-based.

Here's a sort of mind experiment using Robin Hood. Almost everything we know about Robin Hood is a myth. We know "Robin Hood" was a generic term for outlaws in the region for a couple of hundred years. But today scholars aren't sure if there was a real Robin Hood who actually inspired the legend or not. There simply isn't enough historical data to substantiate the Robin Hood legend one way or another.

No imagine, if you will, that folks believed Robin Hood was a god and not just a guy who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. This would likely change the historical perspective considerably, wouldn't it? You would expect there to be a lot of fanaticism around the Robin Hood figure and stories invented that demonstrate Robin Hood’s very godness. Maybe even a religion would spring forth from these beliefs in Robin as deity.

More importantly, the historical accounts of Robin Hood would become much more dubious.

Such is the case with Jesus. The case for Jesus-as-myth seems much more plausible when you consider that almost everything we know about the man comes from texts widely believed to be the sacred word of God—actuallythe predominant cultural belief for well over a thousand years. So the difficult task is now separating the fact from fiction as we do with Robin Hood. But unlike Robin Hood, the historical record for Jesus also says that he was the son of God and the saviour of all mankind. Hmm, good luck with that!