Neue - Can you link to some articles that support what you're saying?

I saw the documentary "The God Who Wasn't There" who made statements about how Jesus was never meant to be interpreted literally and that his story fit classic heroic myth story patterns that were told then (or something to that effect). So this documentary mirrored what you're saying, though I've never seen this discussed outside of that documentary.

Is there a wiki article or website that one can go for a summary of this idea and where it is supported?

A lot of people still tout theories that have been thoroughly debunked, such as the "dieing and rising gods" theory.

you realize that, from my perspective, theists use the phrase "theories that have been debunked" very lightly. If a theory is interesting, I'm always interested in hearing both sides.

Great, I suggest that you do. I just hope that you differ (and I believe you do) from people like Neue who believe that some dude on the internet that happens to agree with him is the most authoritative source.

If you look into it objectively you will come to the conclusion that I have laid out here.

not sure what you are asking for specifically, but it is pretty easy to research secular opinions on the reliability of NT texts and authorship, starting with the synoptic problem. wiki has articles on each individual NT book.

obvioulsly this is OT so you can do this in another thread if you want, but i'd be interested if you can name a single working non-apologist scholar or scientist - that is one who does not have a demonstratable religious agenda - who considers NT texts and authorship historically reliable (even disregarding miraculous claims) on the basis of textual criticism or other anthropological evidence.

Don't some secular military academy's study biblical battles?

John P. Meier comes to mind. Raymond Brown is dead now, but he would qualify as well. N.T. Wright is a respected scholar who considers the NT texts reliable. I mean, none of these scholars are inerrantists, but that is certainly not the standard that is required for a text to be considered reliable.

errr... thanks but was looking for non-apologists.

my point was that the concensus among SECULAR scholars is that the evidence indicates the NT is not historically reliable (in any sense that would validate christian historical tradition). jib claims the opposite is true.

I'm asking specificially about the notion that the Jesus Story That is to say, I've been exposed to articles over the years about the historical accuracy of the Bible, debates about whether or not Jesus was a real person and such, but haven't seen (outside of the documentary I mentioned) an articles specifically about how Jesus fits a pattern of human mythology.

There are so many different ways to look at the Bible, that I figured I could spend a long time trying to find articles addressing this very specific type of textual analysis. (For instance, I've read Bart Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus" and he mentions nothing of the sort.)

i was referring to the reliability and authorship of NT books being a dubious mess that has come to be accepted as genuine and trustworthy by christians simply through tradition - for example the notion of the gospels being 1st-person accounts authored by their namesakes not appearing until the 2nd century fitting a pattern of myth-building.


as for determining if elements of jesus stories might have some historical basis i don't think that's relevant. "might have" does not equate to "historically reliable".

Please provide me any evidence that these scholars are not highly regarded Biblical scholars who use historical tools to interpret the Bible. Or, are you saying that it is impossible for Christians to be scholars without also being apologists? You do realize that many of the most highly regarded scholars who question the reliability of the Gospel accounts, scholars such as J.D Crossan and Marcus Borg, are also Christians?

I suspect you don't actually know what "secular" means...

it would be impossible not to incorporate bias, but that's not my point. if there were objective evidence that the NT is historically reliable in a sense that would validate christian historical tradition there would not be an opposite consensus among non-christian scholars. for purposes of this topic i'm not interested in the opinions of christian scholars.

there are presumably advantages from a professional standpoint precisely because there IS a consensus on that.

i'm sure you don't.

OP,

that seems most unlikely though certainly there have been prominent Christians/theologians who took a skeptical approach to God before defining themselves as Christians. C.S Lewis being one of the most well-known.

Okay, when you said there was a scholarly consensus that the Bible was historically unreliable, I thought you meant among Biblical scholars, but evidently you meant that there is a consensus among scholars who think the Bible is historically unreliable that the Bible is historically unreliable.

So what you're saying is that only Christian scholars are susceptible to bias?

I want to see Jib's answer.

hmm, to which question? I am sure it will be boring, I wouldn't get your hopes up

i'm just looking for a non-christian scholar or anthropologist who considers the NT historically reliable (to the point of validating christian historical tradition). someone, for example, who thinks the evidence indicates the authorship and author's motives in recounting history were genuine rather than contrived, but that the authors were simply mistaken about or fooled by miraculous claims due to superstitious preconceptions. if there is actual objective evidence that the people/places/non-miraculous events in the NT are reliably recounted there should be quite a few non-christians that take this position. that does not seem to be the case.

funny. i do think there is more of a dichotomy at work than you seem to be arguing for.

in any case in terms of the point i'm trying to make (against jib) it's a huge stretch to consider NT scholars who don't believe the NT was meant as literal history such as borg or crossan christians. jib presumably would not.


no, but in science consensus on this scale does not emerge from individual bias.

Let's flip the argument you guys are having, in light of the thread topic.

Would God be obvious from non-biblical history sources? Why?

if you had to rely on non-canonical books yahweh would probably come out looking a lot different than what christians derive from the NT.

No. The world is consistent with a universe without the biblical God. One requires some kind of internal mental state in order to believe in God beyond the objective evidence available.

An interesting look at the reliability and authorsip of Gospels and Jesus' words can be found in the group The Jesus Seminar.

"The Jesus Seminar is a group of about 150 individuals, including scholars with advanced degrees in biblical studies, religious studies or related fields as well as published authors who are notable in the field of religion"

They come to the conclusion that of statements attributed to Jesus in gospels, only around 18% were likely uttered by Jesus himself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_S...by_the_seminar

Bingo. That is all I personally ever try to get across. Your statement didn't seem true before people knew the laws of physics. The problem is that even nowadays most theists still invoke the "just look around you" argument for God because they haven't studied enough math and science to know that what you see is basically what science predicts.

What predicts science?

What does the question mean?