My Take On Jesus

[Apollonius]

This Bruce guy has wasted 4 pages and not really said shit yet.

I'm out..

Boring!

[Tomi]

Regarding the objective and rational prong of my argument, I have established that there are two eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus - that of Paul and that of John. For the third installment of my argument I will examine some of the statements of Paul, contemporary of Jesus who knew Jesus personally (albeit and admittedly before Paul's conversion). I reference the following historical statements of the eyewitness Paul which are contained in his essentially uncontroverted epistles (these are not the only such statements, but they are the only ones upon which I will rely in this argument)

I don't think you have been able to establish that Paul did provide an eyewitness account of the life of Jesus. All that you have been able to provide is one sentence which you believe suggests that Paul claimed to know the physical Jesus. Others have already provided reasonable alternative explanations for the meaning of this line (including the interpretations accepted in various bibles), and I do find it extraordinary that if Paul did know Jesus in the flesh there is no clearer evidence for this in his writing. This seems to be a very weak premise from which you plan to build your argument. As far as I can see you have provided no evidence to support the claim that Paul knew Jesus in the flesh beyond one translation of an ambiguous sentence.

Kind regards,
Tomi

[Bruce Burleson]

I think I will have to agree with the good Mr Paine, as quoted above, on this one. I would expect that Duckphup might still have the piece of paper - but what would that prove? I would be choosing between believing the word of somebody that i don't know, or trusting my own experience of the world, in which I personally have experienced nothing similar.

Let's explore this for a moment. Assume that something like this did happen to you. Would that not, at the very least, give you some personal evidence that information can be transmitted to the brain by means other than the normal deductive process or through the five senses? As with Duckphup, such an experience would not necessarily create faith in God. But if Duckphup is telling the truth (and I see no reason to suspect that he is not), then there is a method of transmitting information that we cannot explain with the current state of scientific knowledge.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I think I will have to agree with the good Mr Paine, as quoted above, on this one. I would expect that Duckphup might still have the piece of paper - but what would that prove? I would be choosing between believing the word of somebody that i don't know, or trusting my own experience of the world, in which I personally have experienced nothing similar.

Let's explore this for a moment. Assume that something like this did happen to you. Would that not, at the very least, give you some personal evidence that information can be transmitted to the brain by means other than the normal deductive process or through the five senses? As with Duckphup, such an experience would not necessarily create faith in God. But if Duckphup is telling the truth (and I see no reason to suspect that he is not), then there is a method of transmitting information that we cannot explain with the current state of scientific knowledge.

No. It would give me an experience of which one possible explanation might be that information can be transmitted to the brain by means other than the normal deductive process or through the five senses.

That you chose to interpret it that way, and claim that that is the only possibility, says more about your thought-process and cognitive bias than anything else. I, and I suspect Duckphup, would most likely attribute it to a huge coincidence.

I have, from time to time, had eerie feelings that people close to me have been injured, or even died. Happily, I have always been wrong in these 'revelations'. I have also had eerie feelings about certain numbers when watching the lottery draw. Sadly, I have been wrong here too! Everyone has these kinds of mental flashes and they mean nothing - they are brainfarts. But someone wins the lottery most weeks, despite odds of millions to one. Similarly, people think about someone out of the blue and then find that they have died, or they ring, or they get a letter from that person, or they see them on the TV.

Coincidences happen. Even incredibly rare ones. I used to be a croupier and I have spun the same number on a roulette wheel 4 times in a row on occasion - odds of 1.67 million to 1. I have seen someone spin a number 5 times in a row - odds of over 60 million to 1. Does that show the hand of God as well?

[Bruce Burleson]

Regarding the objective and rational prong of my argument, I have established that there are two eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus - that of Paul and that of John.

No you haven't - you have asserted it.

Paul, by his own account, had no first-hand knowledge of the human Jesus, merely a "spiritual revelation" in which he "saw" the "risen Jesus". If this happened in any other walk of life than of your own religion, you would be happy to dismiss this as a delusion.

There is no objective evidence that anything written under the name "John" was actually first hand witness evidence, merely a Church tradition that the gospel under that name was, perhaps, written by a disciple.

And of course the evidence given by believers is less reliable than that of disinterested observers. We know that people can fool themselves about what has happened when they are interested in the outcome - just look at the home crowd at any sporting occasion.

I think I have established it. Where did Paul say he had no first-hand knowledge of the human Jesus?

The objective evidence is that the gospel of John was written by an eyewitness. I gave you the passages and that is the best evidence that we have. That is objective evidence. Historical and legal evidence are different than scientific evidence. Historical evidence cannot be subjected to repeated experiment like a chemist can do in a laboratory. You have to rely on the available testimonial and archeological evidence. I've given you the best evidence that exists and you have provided no contrary evidence from a contemporary source. Therefore, by a preponderance of the evidence, I have established my first two points.

[Bruce Burleson]

Regarding the objective and rational prong of my argument, I have established that there are two eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus - that of Paul and that of John. For the third installment of my argument I will examine some of the statements of Paul, contemporary of Jesus who knew Jesus personally (albeit and admittedly before Paul's conversion). I reference the following historical statements of the eyewitness Paul which are contained in his essentially uncontroverted epistles (these are not the only such statements, but they are the only ones upon which I will rely in this argument)

I don't think you have been able to establish that Paul did provide an eyewitness account of the life of Jesus. All that you have been able to provide is one sentence which you believe suggests that Paul claimed to know the physical Jesus. Others have already provided reasonable alternative explanations for the meaning of this line (including the interpretations accepted in various bibles), and I do find it extraordinary that if Paul did know Jesus in the flesh there is no clearer evidence for this in his writing. This seems to be a very weak premise from which you plan to build your argument. As far as I can see you have provided no evidence to support the claim that Paul knew Jesus in the flesh beyond one translation of an ambiguous sentence.

Kind regards,
Tomi

You go with the best evidence you have, which is what I have done. The New International Version is not a literal translation, which is what is needed when doing serious analysis. That's why I just go to the Greek itself. Paul's knowledge of Jesus did not have to be extensive for him to have acquired some significant information about him. For example, it is reasonable to assume that Paul was at the Passover when Jesus was allegedly tried and crucified. If Paul had heard Jesus teach, asked him one question, and then been there when the crucifixion occurred, he would have acquired significant knowledge about him. His encounter with Jesus may have only been for a relatively short time, but it was enough for him to state that he had known Jesus "according to the flesh," meaning physically.

[Bruce Burleson]

I think I will have to agree with the good Mr Paine, as quoted above, on this one. I would expect that Duckphup might still have the piece of paper - but what would that prove? I would be choosing between believing the word of somebody that i don't know, or trusting my own experience of the world, in which I personally have experienced nothing similar.

Let's explore this for a moment. Assume that something like this did happen to you. Would that not, at the very least, give you some personal evidence that information can be transmitted to the brain by means other than the normal deductive process or through the five senses? As with Duckphup, such an experience would not necessarily create faith in God. But if Duckphup is telling the truth (and I see no reason to suspect that he is not), then there is a method of transmitting information that we cannot explain with the current state of scientific knowledge.

No. It would give me an experience of which one possible explanation might be that information can be transmitted to the brain by means other than the normal deductive process or through the five senses.

That you chose to interpret it that way, and claim that that is the only possibility, says more about your thought-process and cognitive bias than anything else. I, and I suspect Duckphup, would most likely attribute it to a huge coincidence.

I have, from time to time, had eerie feelings that people close to me have been injured, or even died. Happily, I have always been wrong in these 'revelations'. I have also had eerie feelings about certain numbers when watching the lottery draw. Sadly, I have been wrong here too! Everyone has these kinds of mental flashes and they mean nothing - they are brainfarts. But someone wins the lottery most weeks, despite odds of millions to one. Similarly, people think about someone out of the blue and then find that they have died, or they ring, or they get a letter from that person, or they see them on the TV.

Coincidences happen. Even incredibly rare ones. I used to be a croupier and I have spun the same number on a roulette wheel 4 times in a row on occasion - odds of 1.67 million to 1. I have seen someone spin a number 5 times in a row - odds of over 60 million to 1. Does that show the hand of God as well?

Coincidences with numbers and knowing the minute when one's father has unexpectedly died thousands of miles away are two separate categories. If you had known beforehand that you were going to spin the same number 4 times in a row, then that would be a example of the Duckphup Effect. Information would have been transmitted to you. Interpreting Duckphup's experience as I have is no reflection of cognitive bias. It is simply an observation of what happened. Somehow, he knew something. That we cannot explain it simply shows that we don't know everything yet.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Coincidences with numbers and knowing the minute when one's father has unexpectedly died thousands of miles away are two separate categories. If you had known beforehand that you were going to spin the same number 4 times in a row, then that would be a example of the Duckphup Effect. Information would have been transmitted to you. Interpreting Duckphup's experience as I have is no reflection of cognitive bias. It is simply an observation of what happened. Somehow, he knew something. That we cannot explain it simply shows that we don't know everything yet.

No. I must correct you again. Information would NOT necessarily have been passed to me. One explanation for 'knowing' that the number would come up 4 times in a row would be that information was passed to me. Another would be a coincidence. Another would be a 'false memory' of having known it would happen, when in fact I had had no such feeling before the event. I would have no way of choosing between these possibilities based upon the facts. (Although I would consider the last explanation the most likely.)

Again, I have no way of judging the veracity of Duckphup's account. Even if he makes himself available for cross-examination, I would still only have his word that the events happened as described.

I did ask you for a personal account of such information transfer. You have not provided one. Can it be that your ideas are based solely on hearsay evidence? Please share it if you have it.

[nonverbal]

Speculation about the likelihood vs. impossibility of psychic forces takes us off track, doesn't it? Much over-inference is needed to extrapolate such an event (though it seems likely to me to have been a matter of coincidence) into miracles that inspire religions. Bruce, I think you were using DuckPhup's anecdote to explain what you meant by arational, weren't you? Sounds like intuition to me. We often have no access to the types of data we need to make truly informed decisions in matters, and we're at times compelled to rely on intuition alone. But in the case of religion, an intuitive "insight" or vision can be examined afterwards and light shined on the matter. In former times, ordinary people had little-to-no access to information gathering that might have assisted them in spiritual or religious decision making. They must have needed to rely on intuition alone. Today, ordinary people have comparatively profound access to an amazing fount of information by way of books and online sources. I have a feeling, Bruce, that you're somewhat bifurcated in your faith, with part of you adhering to it and part of you recognizing the tentativeness and weaknesses of certain of its claims.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Speculation about the likelihood vs. impossibility of psychic forces takes us off track, doesn't it?

Not if it forms a basic part of Bruce's argument. Allowing someone to continue to present their case with fundamental assumptions in dispute is fruitless. However sound the logic that follows, any conclusions will perforce be equally disputed.

There are some incredible mathematical proofs that can be generated if one begins with the premise that 3 is an odd number, or that pi = 7. Some of them may even be true, but their being based on a false premise invalidates the proof, so they cannot be said to be true or false, merely unproven.

And I agree with you very much that Bruce appears to be describing intuition.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Actually, using patently false statements in my mathematical analogy was a bad comparison, as it has not been shown that Bruce's claim about knowledge transfer is false. It is merely not agreed upon.

A better example would be something such as the Goldbach conjecture, or the Riemann hypothesis. Unproven mathematical problems. There is much mathematical theory that is based upon the assumption that one or the other of these is true - all of it would be invalidated (not necessarily disproved, just not proved) should the theory upon which it is based turns out to be false. (In the case of these two problems, unlike Bruce's arational transfer of knowledge, it is thought that the chances of them being wrong is incredibly unlikely, however, no formal proof has yet been found for either and thousands of conjectures based upon these could either come crashing down, or be formally proved, if one should be discovered.)

[StrawberryJam]

Bruce,

A vision of Jesus is not a personal eyewitness of Jesus in the flesh. It was a vision. You as a beleiver, would call it a spiritual event.

He never saw Jesus, never touched him, never got that close. Interesting, because Paul would have been able to, as his contemporary. He apparently was too busy killing christians to care about Jesus at all. Some zealot.

Bruce, your 2 pronged argument falls flat, because you claim Paul as an eyewitness to Jesus.

Get any scholar, or for that matter anyone to back you up on that, and can I ask you how long you have actually read the bible?

[jd]

He [Paul]never saw Jesus, never touched him, never got that close.

Bruce is asserting, against all academic consensus (and even Church tradition) that Paul did meet Jesus, on the basis of his own (ahem!) individual reading of the bible, and asking us to prove that he didn't (which is, of course, impossible in this context. He takes a similar tack on John, although many churches (though few scholars) do consider this to be eyewitness. Basically, Bruce's argument boils down to "it's eye-witness because I have faith in it and I have faith in it because it's eye-witness".

Or:

"guys, guys! never mind that any other religion might have similar claims that you must ignore, the claims of mine are true!".

[Razor]

Bruce Burleson Wrote

"I think I have established it. Where did Paul say he had no first-hand knowledge of the human Jesus?

The objective evidence is that the gospel of John was written by an eyewitness. I gave you the passages and that is the best evidence that we have. That is objective evidence. Historical and legal evidence are different than scientific evidence. Historical evidence cannot be subjected to repeated experiment like a chemist can do in a laboratory. You have to rely on the available testimonial and archeological evidence. I've given you the best evidence that exists and you have provided no contrary evidence from a contemporary source. Therefore, by a preponderance of the evidence, I have established my first two points"

Not to this observer you haven't. You imply that merely because something is written and not contradicted by other writing, it is therefore "objective evidence" for it to be taken as historical fact. As any scholar will tell you, such an approach ignores the crucial aspects of context and logical reasoning. I could provide several examples from other areas of historical analysis, but hopefully the point is self-evident.

In this instance, application of those areas would lead to the inevitable question that if Paul had indeed met Jesus in the flesh, why did he leave no written account of such a meeting within his extensive writings? In the context withing which he was writing, as a messanger of the lord and self-proclaimed "expert" on such matters, it is inexplicable and utterly remarkable that such an account would be withheld. The fact that it was is reason enough, in context, to highly doubt the veracity of such a claim. At the very best therefore, the "objective" conclusion would be that it could be deemed possible but unlikely. About as far from "established" as scholarly work can be. Unless you can provide any credible biblical scholar who says otherwise?

As for John, again reasoning and context are crucial. You've already made the point about the life expectancy in that era. "John" would have been a very very old man indeed in AD90. That point in itself reduces the probability of a direct eye-witness acount (although does not rule it out entirely of course). Then we have the gap of 60 years before such writings were made. Why, if you have just personally witnessed the son of god perform literal miracles, would you wait 60 years to document it? I suppose you could argue he could not write and had to learn first? 60 years to learn though? The variations in style of writing in the orignal langauges? I could go on.

Bottom line is that your assertions are not remotely "established". They are merely your own subjective interpretations.

[Surendra Darathy]

I, too, have attempted the technique of "opening myself to the indwelling presence". I use it on a daily basis. Discretion forbids that I embellish this with too many details.