How much of Christianity can be ahistorical?

[GoodGame]

I think if one is uncomfortable with appeals to authority, than I think much of the New Testament is hard to independently verify from other sources written in the same time period.

 

[Camikaze]

Then what is your criterion? I'm sure it's not the pope! That's why I've been using "my faith" in quotation marks - because I can't see why your faith should be called Christianity, rather than Camikaze-ianity or Kantianism or existentialism. It expressly denies recognizing the historical events or teaching of Jesus and the early Christians, if I understand you correctly.

Well, the base conditions I stated earlier hold as what I think the criteria should be. It's still based upon the Bible and 'conventional' Christianity, just in a looser way. I don't see a reason to seek a narrow definition, when you can differentiate along denominational lines. Why can't Camikaze-ianity be a denomination of Christianity? It's not like Christianity is very monolithic; it's terrifically diverse.

You said that the resurrection makes no difference. However, you are saying that "my religious community has a diverse array of beliefs." Some of those beliefs will be compatible with 'resurrection Christianity', others presumably will not. So whether you accept the resurrection makes a very significant difference. It is not irrelevant, which is what you seemed to be saying in #32.

There seems to be a contradiction in what you're saying here (or perhaps a misunderstanding of what I'm saying). My religious community having a diverse array of beliefs is evidence of the takes on the resurrection not being particularly relevant. Person A believes one thing regarding the resurrection, and Person B believes something completely different. Yet they are both still able to partake in the same religious community, working towards the same ends. It doesn't appear that the resurrection has much impact on Person A's or Person B's faith, as they're both able to co-exist in a unified religious community.

I'm going to a remote village with no Internet for a few days, so you will be able to have the last word

Enjoy your time in the remote village.

 

[Flying Pig]

Jesus was obviously not concerned with "enraging the establishment at the time." It seems like he sometimes went out of his way to do so.

After a fashion. While he wasn't shy about getting on the nerves of those at the top, to have alienated every single Jew in Judea wouldn't have been a good way of getting converts. He told them that they weren't following the existing laws correctly (specifically I'm talking about his outbursts against praying in public and money-lending in the temple) rather than openly telling them that everything they had been taught was wrong. Rather like how dissent was supposed to work in the USSR, actually.

 

[Narz]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...s-controversial-biblical-scholar-8870879.html

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Do I need to read 5 pages of a 6 year old thread before looking at that link?

 

[Gori the Grey]

Nope, just read this from the link:

Mr Atwill's theory is simply one of a number of what are known as Bible conspiracy theories.

 

[Narz]

Do I need to read 5 pages of a 6 year old thread before looking at that link?

There's an option to skip to the last post

 

[Synobun]

Moderator Action: Thread locked. Necroing a thread that hasn't had a reply made in five years to simply link dump is spam.
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