Pleasure

[Ouroboros]

Paul was accepted by the 12. They sent him out to the Gentiles. Peter praised him in one of his two epistles. Yes, there were differences among them, but Paul was not spreading blasphemy or untrue doctrines, as far as the apostles were concerned. He was as far as many others (Romans, religious leaders of Judah, etc.) were concerned, of course.

Haha, I wanted a reaction. Good.

 

But you do agree that Paul himself admits that he didn't confer with the apostles after his experience and he spent at least 3 (or maybe up to 13) years in studies in Persia (Tarsus?) before he came back and saw the other apostles? At least that's what I recall what Paul supposedly said himself. And he was even proud over these "facts".

 

When it comes to what is true or not, I think the problem lies in that the Gospels and most letters were written after Paul started to preach his gospel. So who friggen know what the first "apostles" really did see or believe. And also, scholars still debate if the real Peter wrote those letters. And they're dated to have been written after Paul's letters. Why didn't God save some of Peters letters from before Paul wrote his? Why did all the apostles wait to write letters and gospels until after Paul had his revelations and told the apostles and the world about the divinity and atonement of Christ? God did a crappy job putting his book together to be fool proof. And I always come back to Philo, why the heck God didn't use him instead, since he actually was interested in new views of Jewish religion and would have made a great writer for God. But Philo doesn't even mention Jesus...

 

Anyway, my belief (if you so want) is that the Gospels and most non-Pauline letters are influenced by Paul's writings and teachings, and by that I mean that what we know and think of being Christianity today is heavily influenced by Paul and not Jesus. So if Jesus didn't preach the things he's said to have preached, then Paul is at fault and is guilty of heretic teachings. But we wouldn't know what the true teachings would be.

[Mythra]

And I always come back to Philo

 

Hey senor solo.

 

I came across something else in my internet plunking lately - and I was wondering if you were aware of this... In Josephus' "Life of Josephus", he tells us of his family. His father was named Matthias. And Matthias was a priest. In Jerusalem.

 

Now, let's see. Josephus was born in 37 C.E. And his father was a priest. In Jerusalem.

 

What are the chances... that the gospel events actually occurred - and Matthias - who was there and would have heard the rumors, or even personally witnessed the Jerusalem events - but never mentioned any of it to his little tyke Josephus?

 

I probably don't need to say much more. Josephus' silence may speak even louder than Philo's.

[Ouroboros]

Nice Mythra, that's a very good one.

 

Matthias must've had stories to tell, especially about the dead walking the streets. But I guess it was so common back then it wasn't worth mentioning. Oh, yeah, forgot, it was worth mentioning 30 years later, by people that never saw it.

[currentchristian]

...

 

Anyway, my belief (if you so want) is that the Gospels and most non-Pauline letters are influenced by Paul's writings and teachings, and by that I mean that what we know and think of being Christianity today is heavily influenced by Paul and not Jesus. So if Jesus didn't preach the things he's said to have preached, then Paul is at fault and is guilty of heretic teachings. But we wouldn't know what the true teachings would be.

 

It may be this complex and complicated.

 

I take a more simple approach, to wit:

 

Jesus appeared as the Ambassador of Heaven. He performed many wonderful deeds. He taught exciting things. He told exciting stories. Those in power feared for their power and had him assassinated. Heaven reversed their decree and breathed new life into his dead body.

 

His followers began telling this story. Paul encountered him in a vision. He started telling this story. As with most new movements there was no archivist, no official historian, no attempt at preserving the primary documents, until many years later. Paul wrote some letters. Peter wrote some letters. Others wrote letters. These letters interpreted the Jesus event.

 

Many wanted more information about the person Jesus. The gospels were the response.

 

Some things were lost. Some were not. Some were overlooked. Some were ignored. At some point, those deemed leaders of the legacy of the Jesus event, put together what seemed right to them.

 

It all very human in so many ways. Very confusing. Some good things likely were lost. Some not-so-good things were canonized. Like all of life, there is no perfection.

 

End of story, for me.

 

-CC in MA

[currentchristian]

And I always come back to Philo

 

Hey senor solo.

 

I came across something else in my internet plunking lately - and I was wondering if you were aware of this... In Josephus' "Life of Josephus", he tells us of his family. His father was named Matthias. And Matthias was a priest. In Jerusalem.

 

Now, let's see. Josephus was born in 37 C.E. And his father was a priest. In Jerusalem.

 

What are the chances... that the gospel events actually occurred - and Matthias - who was there and would have heard the rumors, or even personally witnessed the Jerusalem events - but never mentioned any of it to his little tyke Josephus?

 

I probably don't need to say much more. Josephus' silence may speak even louder than Philo's.

Josephus lived until about 100 C.E.

 

I think most everyone agrees that by 100 C.E. the Jesus movement was well on its way to being firmly established. So why did Josephus not mention what we know was well established? If he did not mention the spit among Jews and Messianic Jews and between Jews and Gentiles and all the rest that we know is more established fact by 100 C.E., why should he have mentioned much of the early history of the Jesus movement? Josephus, perhaps, simply had no interest in this burgeoning movement. Perhaps it was so nonsensical to him that to mention it would be meaningless. There might have even been an aversion to the story. I know of (older) Jews who will not say the name "Jesus," but refer to Jesus as "you know who."

 

Let's not forget that there are references in Josephus that, interpolations excised, do tend to show that Josephus was at the very least aware of a "Jesus" and of the "Christian" movement by about 90 C.E.

 

-CC in MA

[Mythra]

I think most everyone agrees that by 100 C.E. the Jesus movement was well on its way to being firmly established. So why did Josephus not mention what we know was well established? If he did not mention the spit among Jews and Messianic Jews and between Jews and Gentiles and all the rest that we know is more established fact by 100 C.E.

 

Show me where this is an established fact. Outside of the Big Book of Answers, I mean. Show me a shred of evidence of a burgeoning christian movement in the first century.

 

Good luck.

 

The Eusebian big bang theory doesn't square up with the facts.

[Mythra]

Let's not forget that there are references in Josephus that, interpolations excised, do tend to show that Josephus was at the very least aware of a "Jesus" and of the "Christian" movement by about 90 C.E.

 

And that all depends on the girth of the interpolation. This passage of Antiquities reads quite well and makes the most sense with the TF snipped completely:

 

 

So he bid the Jews himself go away; but they boldly casting reproaches upon him, he gave the soldiers that signal which had been beforehand agreed on; who laid upon them much greater blows than Pilate had commanded them, and equally punished those that were tumultuous, and those that were not; nor did they spare them in the least: and since the people were unarmed, and were caught by men prepared for what they were about, there were a great number of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded. And thus an end was put to this sedition. ***About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder, and certain shameful practices happened about the temple of Isis that was at Rome.

 

*** Insert TF

 

Leave the TF in, and what do we get? We get "the prophets foretold 10,000 wonderful things about him - and the tribe of christians are not extinct to this day. About the same time, another sad calamity..

 

CC - just in case you haven't read all sides of the Testimonium discussion - here is a link to further examine the opinions: Testimonium Flavianum

[currentchristian]

...

CC - just in case you haven't read all sides of the Testimonium discussion - here is a link to further examine the opinions: Testimonium Flavianum

 

Thank you for the link, Mythra. I have much to learn, but am familiar with the TF.

 

However, and it's a very big however, there are 249 posts to the topic DID JESUS EXIST? found here, and I would kill myself before I rejoined that debate!!

 

He existed. Get over it. IMHO.

 

 

-CC in MA

[Mythra]

He existed. Get over it. IMHO.

 

I'll go for the IMO. But, I'm not buying the H.

 

I'm pretty sure Jesus is still working on you in the humility department.

 

[currentchristian]

He existed. Get over it. IMHO.

 

I'll go for the IMO. But, I'm not buying the H.

 

I'm pretty sure Jesus is still working on you in the humility department.

 

 

You are right about that, friend. And in many other departments.

 

-CC in MA

[mwc]

I'm going to point out where I have a few problems with this...

 

Jesus appeared as the Ambassador of Heaven. He performed many wonderful deeds. He taught exciting things. He told exciting stories. Those in power feared for their power and had him assassinated. Heaven reversed their decree and breathed new life into his dead body.

Invoking the supernatural. Lots of writings have the supernatural. We either include all of them as valid or we exclude all of them as invalid. To simply point to one or two and say those supernatural things are real and those are not is not very honest since how can that be decided? There's no way to test.

 

The "exciting" aspect is subjective. Controversial might be a better word but then only slightly. His teachings were very close to what the Pharisees already believed and what an unknown "fourth" belief system based in Galilee taught as well. The Essenes were similar as well. So he was an amalgamation of several things (not counting any "outside" ideas of the Hellenized world).

 

In the end jesus is the proto-resurrection. In addition to being analogous to Israel they needed someone to have died and resurrected BUT if that had happened to someone in their thirties he would have still been alive for people to see. Where was he? Oh...um...he flew up to heaven. Problem solved. Now believe in the religion and you will do what he did. Promise.

 

His followers began telling this story. Paul encountered him in a vision. He started telling this story. As with most new movements there was no archivist, no official historian, no attempt at preserving the primary documents, until many years later. Paul wrote some letters. Peter wrote some letters. Others wrote letters. These letters interpreted the Jesus event.

Paul could have had a vision. It is thought he had epilepsy and there is one kind where you have "religious" visions. I've stated before that I think he was heading off to see an Essene colony as opposed to a xian church though. It's known the Essenes had people in Damascus being persecuted, by the temple, during this time. The xians "borrowed" the story.

 

If Peter wrote letters then is the Gospel of Peter his too? Some date it earlier than Mark. I doubt it is but it reads nicer and more along the lines of what someone would expect as a first person witness (although the giant heads and talking cross is odd). Peter seemed, according to the oral tradition, uninterested in writing anything at all. That's why we have Mark.

 

Many wanted more information about the person Jesus. The gospels were the response.

I said this in the prophecy thread...I think the gospels are something else entirely. They are a "message" explaining why Israel suffered so badly and how their forefathers could have prevented this whole mess. It was then a way to sell the replacement religion to the people in the aftermath of the tragedy. Brand new stories designed to look old to explain events that just took place. Of course familiar names and places were all used to give people that sense that they might have heard it before. So it would ring true.

 

They did this for the same reasons people do it today. Power. Money. Fear. To find a purpose. Etc. Etc. All that stuff.

 

mwc

[currentchristian]

...

Invoking the supernatural. Lots of writings have the supernatural. We either include all of them as valid or we exclude all of them as invalid. To simply point to one or two and say those supernatural things are real and those are not is not very honest since how can that be decided? There's no way to test.

 

I don't think it's that black and white, actually. It's not, to me, an issue of including them all or excluding them all. I neither believe in nor disbelieve in the revelation of the Qur'an, for example. I neither include it nor exclude it. I do "include" the general outline of Hebrew-Israelite-Jewish-Christian history as preserved in the archive we call the Bible. But there's no need to exclude other miracles or gods or scriptures. I read them for what I might learn and am inspired when they inspire me, and that's it.

 

The "exciting" aspect is subjective. Controversial might be a better word but then only slightly. His teachings were very close to what the Pharisees already believed and what an unknown "fourth" belief system based in Galilee taught as well. The Essenes were similar as well. So he was an amalgamation of several things (not counting any "outside" ideas of the Hellenized world).

 

In the end jesus is the proto-resurrection. In addition to being analogous to Israel they needed someone to have died and resurrected BUT if that had happened to someone in their thirties he would have still been alive for people to see. Where was he? Oh...um...he flew up to heaven. Problem solved. Now believe in the religion and you will do what he did. Promise.

 

This could be. Anything could be. The story as preserved in the anthology called the Bible could be, too.

 

Paul could have had a vision. It is thought he had epilepsy and there is one kind where you have "religious" visions. I've stated before that I think he was heading off to see an Essene colony as opposed to a xian church though. It's known the Essenes had people in Damascus being persecuted, by the temple, during this time. The xians "borrowed" the story.

 

If Peter wrote letters then is the Gospel of Peter his too? Some date it earlier than Mark. I doubt it is but it reads nicer and more along the lines of what someone would expect as a first person witness (although the giant heads and talking cross is odd). Peter seemed, according to the oral tradition, uninterested in writing anything at all. That's why we have Mark.

 

Paul may have had epilepsy. He may also have encountered the resurrected Jesus. We don't know. I embrace the latter story.

 

I said this in the prophecy thread...I think the gospels are something else entirely. They are a "message" explaining why Israel suffered so badly and how their forefathers could have prevented this whole mess. It was then a way to sell the replacement religion to the people in the aftermath of the tragedy. Brand new stories designed to look old to explain events that just took place. Of course familiar names and places were all used to give people that sense that they might have heard it before. So it would ring true.

 

They did this for the same reasons people do it today. Power. Money. Fear. To find a purpose. Etc. Etc. All that stuff.

 

mwc

 

It's a theory. But these theories can be very complicated. It's easier for me to see the gospels as a case of early Christians wanting more information about the flesh-and-blood Jesus they have come to believe in/on as a cosmic Christ. Seems to me.

 

-CC in MA

[Ouroboros]

It may be this complex and complicated.

 

I take a more simple approach, to wit:

Hmm... Well, I don't know if a supernatural explanation is simpler than a natural and almost obvious.

 

Jesus appeared as the Ambassador of Heaven. He performed many wonderful deeds. He taught exciting things. He told exciting stories. Those in power feared for their power and had him assassinated. Heaven reversed their decree and breathed new life into his dead body.

Have you ever thought about why God would need a human sacrifice to atone sin? Religions that believe in human sacrifices in the OT were condemned and persecuted by the same people that supposedly were called by God.

 

His followers began telling this story. Paul encountered him in a vision. He started telling this story. As with most new movements there was no archivist, no official historian, no attempt at preserving the primary documents, until many years later. Paul wrote some letters. Peter wrote some letters. Others wrote letters. These letters interpreted the Jesus event.

And with the older text, less details and less miracles and fabulous claims about Jesus, and the newer texts, Jesus get additional stories.

 

Many wanted more information about the person Jesus. The gospels were the response.

And the stories were embellished.

 

Some things were lost. Some were not. Some were overlooked. Some were ignored. At some point, those deemed leaders of the legacy of the Jesus event, put together what seemed right to them.

From the sequence of the documents, it's more like things got added than lost. The story gets more fabulous with each story teller.

 

It all very human in so many ways. Very confusing. Some good things likely were lost. Some not-so-good things were canonized. Like all of life, there is no perfection.

True. Confusing, inaccurate and imperfect.

 

 

Josephus lived until about 100 C.E.

I think you missed the point.

 

Imagine that your dad had seen and witnessed Jesus and then participated in killing him and seeing miracles and dead people walking the streets, mysterious earthquakes etc... are you telling me that he would not tell you, or that he would tell you but you wouldn't tell anyone else, not even hint, that you have almost a firsthand information to all these events? Honestly, you write more and believe more about Jesus and the stories than Josephus did who had a dad that saw it all. Isn't that amazing? You believe an author (Paul) you have never met, who's been dead for 2000 years, who's name was changed for whatever reasons (his explanation maybe wasn't the truth!) and so one. You believe this person easily, while you never would in your life believe your dad's stories? You have to admit, you would believe your dad, right? So why didn't Josephus? Or maybe the simple answer is that Matthias never saw any miracle worker? (Not saying Jesus didn't exist, but that he wasn't this fantastic magician from God that he's portrayed to be.)

[Legion]

Uh oh, someone mentioned the supernatural.

 

CC I know that you rarely and only mistakenly leave this particular forum, so I guess I'll have to bring my questions to you huh?

 

Why should I believe that the supernatural, if it exists, has any bearing or influence on the natural world?

[currentchristian]

...

I think you missed the point.

 

Imagine that your dad had seen and witnessed Jesus and then participated in killing him and seeing miracles and dead people walking the streets, mysterious earthquakes etc... are you telling me that he would not tell you, or that he would tell you but you wouldn't tell anyone else, not even hint, that you have almost a firsthand information to all these events? Honestly, you write more and believe more about Jesus and the stories than Josephus did who had a dad that saw it all. Isn't that amazing? You believe an author (Paul) you have never met, who's been dead for 2000 years, who's name was changed for whatever reasons (his explanation maybe wasn't the truth!) and so one. You believe this person easily, while you never would in your life believe your dad's stories? You have to admit, you would believe your dad, right? So why didn't Josephus? Or maybe the simple answer is that Matthias never saw any miracle worker? (Not saying Jesus didn't exist, but that he wasn't this fantastic magician from God that he's portrayed to be.)

 

Is there extra-Josephus evidence that Matthias was indeed the father of Josephus and a priest in Jerusalem? (Remember, Josephus was a shady and, some contend, traitorous character.)

 

Is there any evidence anywhere that Matthias, if he was his father and a priest in Jerusalem, remained alive long enough to transmit any Jesus stories to his son? Josephus was born in 37 C.E., so Jesus was "gone" for a few years before Josephus was born. Perhaps his father died when Josephus was ten or fifteen? Do we know? And would a father in fact tell his son of his involvement in the death of another man?

 

Josephus was 30 years old when he pulled what some describe as a Benedict Arnold and was taken to Rome. This was after a long war against the Romans, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, and what must have been great turmoil for Josephus. Perhaps he was more interested in driving the Romans out (and later, aiding the Romans) than in researching this backwoods Nazarene who deluded so many Judeans?

 

Josephus has been dead the same length of time (well, 35 fewer years) as Paul. The length of time a person has been dead neither adds to nor detracts from their credibility. In my view, Josephus and Jesus and Paul were all flesh-and-blood men, Jews, of the 1st century C.E. Literal human beings, whom we know of still only because of the transmission of their written (Josephus and Paul) and spoken (Jesus) words.

 

But everyone has a right to their own view, of course!

 

-CC in MA

[mwc]

I don't think it's that black and white, actually. It's not, to me, an issue of including them all or excluding them all. I neither believe in nor disbelieve in the revelation of the Qur'an, for example. I neither include it nor exclude it. I do "include" the general outline of Hebrew-Israelite-Jewish-Christian history as preserved in the archive we call the Bible. But there's no need to exclude other miracles or gods or scriptures. I read them for what I might learn and am inspired when they inspire me, and that's it.

Well, yes, ignoring it might be considered an option but that's just passively excluding it. The same goes for the Greeks and their supernatural tales. You passively ignore them. To put it another way, you discard the supernatural aspects of the stories. You might re-interpret them or any number of other things but you don't take them literally. Zeus is not a supernatural being but he might be a metaphor, or the like, if he is granted a status greater than just a character in some stories.

 

This, of course, ignores the fact that to countless people he was real and his supernatural deeds were as well. Now you come along and pick and choose which supernatural events are real events and which ones are not. As I said before, there is no test and so this becomes entirely subjective. The honest approach, it seems, is that all supernatural events, like natural events, are equal. So they all happen or they all do not happen. Since we have no evidence for the supernatural it is safe to discard all supernatural events. Perhaps this will change at some point but to date all signs point to no supernatural.

 

This could be. Anything could be. The story as preserved in the anthology called the Bible could be, too.

It could be but it relies on the supernatural which then makes it highly unlikely unless some evidence for the supernatural can be presented. To date there has been nothing. This means a more natural explanation is more likely.

 

Paul may have had epilepsy. He may also have encountered the resurrected Jesus. We don't know. I embrace the latter story.

The problem with Paul is exactly the vision. Lets, for a moment, assume I accept the story of the gospels as absolutely true. The entire point is to resurrect in the flesh. To see visions really speaks to a spiritual nature instead of a physical nature. While the two concepts have been merged they really are two separate things. Paul saw something "different" than what he needed to see for the theologies to be truly the same. He needed to see a body and not a spirit.

 

It's a theory. But these theories can be very complicated. It's easier for me to see the gospels as a case of early Christians wanting more information about the flesh-and-blood Jesus they have come to believe in/on as a cosmic Christ. Seems to me.

Of course it's a theory. Xianity is really a theory...it's just more popular than mine . No one can get all these people together in a room and ask them what the point of all this was. No one can even prove the people named even existed. We might be looking for the wrong people.

 

So, I know we've touched on this before, but I'll hit it again here really quick (I'll assume a standard xian time line). Something happens in the thirties. Time passes. Stories are written. Time passes. Papias supposedly writes the names of the authors of those unnamed stories (but he knows them because he knew John the Presbyter personally...as I recall). Time passes. Iraneous (I might be wrong on this) quotes Papias and that's how we know the names. It looks like this isn't a nice straight time line after all.

 

So Papias via Iraneous names the gospels after two gaps. Papias also states that Judas lived and became so fat that he couldn't fit where chariots drove, was crushed by a chariot and his guts came out. Of course he's wrong if we believe the canon, which has two other versions of this same death. It's second or third hand and obviously not as easy to believe as you make it sound. The person is either quite reliable, and Judas died this way and so the info is correct about the other things too, or he's unreliable and his info on the other items is questionable. But if he's reliable then the gospels/Acts become a little less reliable since they are wrong about Judas.

 

Now I realize I chose a convoluted issue to make my point, and that was intentional, because it's not really as easy as you're making it sound except for the fact that most of us grew up around this stuff so it's second nature to us.

 

mwc

[Ouroboros]

Good points. It also means that you do have some doubt of Josephus' sincerity and/or credibility, and also the historicity of people and events. So doubting Josephus heritage is not harder than to doubt the story about Jesus.

[currentchristian]

Uh oh, someone mentioned the supernatural.

Shall we him or her?

CC I know that you rarely and only mistakenly leave this particular forum, so I guess I'll have to bring my questions to you huh?

 

Why should I believe that the supernatural, if it exists, has any bearing or influence on the natural world?

I don't think you should believe that the supernatural (if it exists) has any bearing or influence on the natural world. You may believe this, if you would like to. Let me think about this for a bit....

 

Okay...

 

I suppose it depends on what you mean by supernatural. If by that you mean G-O-D, then the answer is easy: This natural universe is God's creation and, therefore, God tends to it and its creatures from time to time. If by that you mean an entity that is "out there" but did not involve him/her/itself in the establishment of this particuar planet, then that force might simply be curious or interested to see what's going down here.

 

There is a concern, of course, when we assume that our characteristics (curiosity, need for meaning, creativity) are shared by God. However, I do think that it is probable that, if there is a creator and we are made in that creator's "image," that some of who we are innately is a reflection of that entity. Therefore, just as we might travel to the Moon or Mars, the Creator might want to travel down in this neck of the woods.

 

???

 

Remember I don't live in Rome. And my name isn't Pope. So I'm just speaking off the top of my head!

 

-CC in MA

[currentchristian]

Good points. It also means that you do have some doubt of Josephus' sincerity and/or credibility, and also the historicity of people and events. So doubting Josephus heritage is not harder than to doubt the story about Jesus.

 

Actually, I don't doubt Josephus' sincerity or credibility. I haven't studied him enough, truthfully. (I just went to amazon.com and put his complete works and those of Philo in my "cart" for later.) But some do doubt him. I take his histories, more or less, on face value. I have no reason to doubt that Josephus did a good job recording the history of his people. Likewise, with the writers of the gospels: They did a good job recording the history of the Jesus event and I take the

 

Did they do it as I would have? No. But we'd all do things differently, one from another. To doubt a point in the gospels is not a problem for me. The overall storyline, however, is quite reasonable, IMO.

 

-CC in MA

[currentchristian]

Well, yes, ignoring it might be considered an option but that's just passively excluding it. The same goes for the Greeks and their supernatural tales. You passively ignore them. To put it another way, you discard the supernatural aspects of the stories. You might re-interpret them or any number of other things but you don't take them literally. Zeus is not a supernatural being but he might be a metaphor, or the like, if he is granted a status greater than just a character in some stories.

 

This, of course, ignores the fact that to countless people he was real and his supernatural deeds were as well. Now you come along and pick and choose which supernatural events are real events and which ones are not. As I said before, there is no test and so this becomes entirely subjective. The honest approach, it seems, is that all supernatural events, like natural events, are equal. So they all happen or they all do not happen. Since we have no evidence for the supernatural it is safe to discard all supernatural events. Perhaps this will change at some point but to date all signs point to no supernatural.

Your last two sentences are the crux of the matter. Those who believe in a Supernatural may allow for supernatural events in the natural world and see them, even if they are not really there. Those who do not believe in a Supernatural, obviously, will not see supernatural events, even if they are there.

 

-CC in MA

[currentchristian]

The problem with Paul is exactly the vision. Lets, for a moment, assume I accept the story of the gospels as absolutely true. The entire point is to resurrect in the flesh. To see visions really speaks to a spiritual nature instead of a physical nature. While the two concepts have been merged they really are two separate things. Paul saw something "different" than what he needed to see for the theologies to be truly the same. He needed to see a body and not a spirit.

 

I'd have to look back, but my memory is that Saul-Paul saw a "bright light" and heard a "voice." I don't recall that he saw any form -- spiritual or physical.

 

-CC in MA

[mwc]

Your last two sentences are the crux of the matter. Those who believe in a Supernatural may allow for supernatural events in the natural world and see them, even if they are not really there. Those who do not believe in a Supernatural, obviously, will not see supernatural events, even if they are there.

Which is why I noted that some form of testability would be needed. Even a single, testable, supernatural event would be enough to raise the number from its current count of zero. It doesn't have to come from any particular group either. Any testable supernatural item will do.

 

Of course, not to ignore what you said, lets quickly touch on those who do believe in the supernatural. Whose supernatural are we speaking of? There are many "camps" and so at any given moment any supernatural event that is witnessed would be attributed to that "camp" (a personal or group bias...this could be a religion or something like a psychic). Over history those camps have changed considerably. It might be argued that there is only one supernatural and the attribution, no matter the "camp," is to that one but that still does not establish which supernatural "camp" is the correct one. So until that is established it could be said they are all correct. This isn't very satisfying though.

 

So it seems we have a choice between allowing no supernatural events or allowing all supernatural events...which is basically what I said earlier.

 

When it comes to the scholarly discussion of these things, I'm sure you've noticed, that historians (for example) simply drop the supernatural. Jesus, for instance, did not perform "miracles," even though he was a healer. The same rule applies to all ancient texts. The supernatural cannot be proven, but more importantly, it cannot be studied, and is left to other disciplines. This is one reason I have a problem studying the human jesus problem. I see three answers. No jesus (myth). Human jesus of some sort. Human jesus (supernatural god-man). Many people confuse the latter two in the discussion and it becomes difficult at best when the argument is normally the former two (myth versus man). But I'm on another tangent.

 

mwc

[mwc]

I'd have to look back, but my memory is that Saul-Paul saw a "bright light" and heard a "voice." I don't recall that he saw any form -- spiritual or physical.

Well, lets call this close enough since there's a couple of different tellings as I recall. But there was no physical presence of jesus. No body. This kind of thing does sound like a seizure, but that aside, does not align with seeing the resurrected body. Just a light/voice...which is more in line with a spiritual encounter. No matter how you slice it you couldn't call it a physical encounter. If this happened to me right now I sure wouldn't. I might describe it as aliens nowadays...a "close encounter."

 

mwc

[currentchristian]

Your last two sentences are the crux of the matter. Those who believe in a Supernatural may allow for supernatural events in the natural world and see them, even if they are not really there. Those who do not believe in a Supernatural, obviously, will not see supernatural events, even if they are there.

Which is why I noted that some form of testability would be needed. Even a single, testable, supernatural event would be enough to raise the number from its current count of zero. It doesn't have to come from any particular group either. Any testable supernatural item will do.

 

There are many, of course, who claim to have had a supernatural contact or experience or encounter. I have not. Well, there's one event that I have had that seemed "odd," and it was "confirmed" by a dream another person had (my mother) and I had. But I won't know if that was supernatural and accurate (i.e., from God) until 2020. I'll let you know in 13 years.

 

What form would this test take? It would have to be public, live on CNN, and even then there would of course (and rightly so) be many skeptics. I hear Michael Shermer already! (I actually like Shermer, so not dishing him.)

 

Of course, there is the prophecy that Jesus will return "on the clouds" and "every eye will see him" (via television, I assume). If this ever happens, would that be accepted as a valid demonstration of supernatural power? It would for me, but then some might suggest this is an encounter with an advanced alien race?

 

-CC in MA

[currentchristian]

...

When it comes to the scholarly discussion of these things, I'm sure you've noticed, that historians (for example) simply drop the supernatural. Jesus, for instance, did not perform "miracles," even though he was a healer. The same rule applies to all ancient texts. The supernatural cannot be proven, but more importantly, it cannot be studied, and is left to other disciplines. This is one reason I have a problem studying the human jesus problem. I see three answers. No jesus (myth). Human jesus of some sort. Human jesus (supernatural god-man). Many people confuse the latter two in the discussion and it becomes difficult at best when the argument is normally the former two (myth versus man). But I'm on another tangent.

 

mwc

 

When I speak as a teacher of history, I would not say, "Three days later, Jesus was resurrected....blah, blah, blah." I would say, "Three days later, if the gospels are accepted, Jesus disciples believed blah, blah, blah..." One can wear many hats in his life. In the lab, the scientist might have one view and the next Sunday morning as he sits in church or Saturday morning as he sits in Temple he might have quite another.

 

-CC in MA