2. Lunatics? Maybe that was J. Smith too, there have been other men, many others, who claimed divinity from Pharoahs to Krishnas to Christs, how do you tell a lunatic from a god? They also had huge followings, being a lunatic doesn't stop you from being calm, rational and polite. Not all insane people foam at the mouth.

3. Legends happen all the time, King Arthur is a great example, legends can take centuries to gain traction, legends also can be created overnight with the right publicity team. When Rome glommed on to Jesus, he had the best legend creating organization in the history of mankind.

4. Lord? Jesus told his disciples to worship God only, Jesus only worshiped God, you can be Lord without being God, you can have disciples without being God. You can speak as God and act as God without being God, prophets are known for this, Christ only needed to be God for the purposes of atonement, he was a substitute anyway.

5. While we're on the subject, countless men in history have gone to their death for lies, misunderstandings and self-deception, Hitler commanded an army of these, finding multitudes who will rush headlong into hell for completely evil or misguided passions is sickeningly simple, seven virgins is enough. That his disciples might have been persecuted or killed, though not scriptural, would prove nothing about Christ.

There is only one reason that I decided to believe in a God at about age seven, I could. I felt pressured into deciding and realized that it was entirely up to me, if I liked believing there was a God, I could. It felt nicer thinking I had someone to talk to when I was alone, feeling nicer is the one unassailable argument for the existence of God. It is also a perfect argument for atheism, if that makes you feel nicer, it's absolutely true too, none of these arguments are any better.

Liar, lunatic, lord, legend or monster or all of them or none, there is no proof of anything, all have existed in every age and always will.

People of faith just demean themselves by attempting to find logical proofs, if religion could be proved, faith would be unnecessary. When obviously flawed "proofs" of a religion are proposed and they can be proven wrong, the faith only suffers. Faith is free and available in unlimited quantities, faith needs no proof, if it makes you feel nice, believe it, but don't fantasize about proving it.

Hi Brandon.

There are three points in yours to which I'd like to respond. (My apologies for responding at this very late date; yours just slipped through the proverbial cracks.)

First, you write: "this statements [sic] presumes, a priori, that the Gospels are untrustworthy sources on the life and death of Jesus. You've just dismissed them as historical sources of knowledge."

Actually, no. I didn't presume anything. I simply reported what appears to be as close to a scholarly consensus as it seems possible to reach, at this point two millennia removed from the historical events, among scholars in the historical-critical school on that particular question.

I recognize that you, as a devout believer and apologist for Catholicism, subscribe to orthodox teachings by the Catholic Church, Church fathers and the Magisterium and privilege those teachings over other scholarly views that don't hew strictly to Catholic teachings, dogma and doctrine.

But, that's not the same thing as establishing, to the satisfaction of non-believers, that the orthodox Catholic teachings you accept stand on sound historical footing.

Second, one of the least attractive features, to my way of thinking, of any dogmatic tradition -- including but certainly not limited to Catholicism -- is the tendency on the part of some of its adherents to label those who think differently than they do as being "ignorant" (or less moral, another favorite charge). While I might disagree with your views, I would never accuse you of being ignorant on a specific subject without knowing you personally and lacking pertinent knowledge of what you had studied, read and otherwise been taught on a specific subject.

Third, I wonder if you personally are as open-minded and if you yourself are as willing to explore "what the other side [of the conversation] says" as you urge non-Catholic commenters to Strange Notions to be and to consider?

For example, when you pick up a work by Hume, Voltaire, Nietzsche, or Bertrand Russell, or a work by any of the scholars in the historical critical school not bearing a Nihil Obstat or Imprimatur on behalf of the Catholic Church (or any work by any of the prominent or influential atheist writers of the past couple decades, for that matter), would you have us understand that you read with a truly open mind and honestly seek to engage with what they have to say? Or, in those instances, might it be more accurate to say that you are bringing your own a priori beliefs -- among them that the God portrayed in the Christian Bible exists; that the Bible is the inspired and revealed word of that God; that the theological Christ portrayed in the New Testament is true; and that the Catholic Church was established by an incarnate Christ to transmit and interpret God's revelation in Christ's name -- through which you filter their thoughts, analysis and arguments?

Every person of reasonable intelligence and education surely comes over the course of their life to develop certain habits of mind by which they process information and their experiences to form their consciences, develop their character and moral code, and seek to live a meaningful life. Over time, those habits of mind, our individual characters, and the cumulative weight of all that we've processed and experienced of course lead most of us to form views and opinions on a variety of matters which tend to require, as our lives continue to unfold, more evidence to cause us to rethink and perhaps change views and opinions once firmly established. (Jonathan Haidt has done some interesting social psychology research and written on the kinds of habits of mind and weltanschauung that he contends tend to distinguish between those holding conservative religious, social and political values and beliefs from those holding more liberal and progressive political and social values.)

So, for example, I don't harbor any illusions, based on your own a priori beliefs and your acceptance of the claims of Catholicism, that you would abandon your Catholic beliefs and "come over to the non-believing side" if only you were to read, with an "open mind," Hume's "Natural History of Religion" and "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion," Feuerbach's "The Essence of Christianity," Nietzsche's "The Gay Science," "Thus Spake Zarathustra," "On the Genealogy of Morals," and "The Antichrist," Bertrand Russell's "Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion," Michel Onfray's "Atheist Manifesto," or various essays by Steven Weinberg, Richard Feynman and Carl Sagan that I'd be happy to recommend to you if you have genuine interest in reading them.

As for me, it is certainly the case that scholarship that seeks to examine as objectively as possible the development of religion generally and of particular religious sects, doctrines and dogmas in the context of the historical, political and social contexts in which they arose is likely to receive a more receptive audience with me than are catechisms telling believers what they must believe and polemical apologetics seeking to strengthen the beliefs of the faithful.

So, while I haven't read either of the books you recommend, I suspect I would be no more likely to be persuaded by them than I suspect you would be likely to be persuaded by books like Richard Elliott Friedman's "Who Wrote the Bible?" John Shelby Spong's "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism," and Robert Wright's "The Evolution of God." But, if you'd care to lend your copies of either or both of those books to me, I'd certainly be willing to give them due consideration.

I've also heard it argued that Mark was likely the "rich young man" who dialogued with Jesus in all three synoptic Gospels and was dismayed to learn that he ought to give up all that he had. Luke was probably not one of the seventy, but was a Greek converted by Paul around Ephesus or some such place. Note how the book of Acts (written by Luke) switches from "they" to "we" somewhere around that part of Paul's journeys.

You could... if I were Christian. ;-)

Can I ask what it was that made you chose Christianity instead?

It would seem that the Japanese (except the tiny minority of Christians and Muslims) do not really have a concept of gods like westerners do. There is a great deal of spirituality and superstition but no concept of all powerful universe creators. Even these may not be taken too seriously. Religious worship is prevalent and serious, but seems to be more of an exercise in getting good fortune from the spiritual world. That said, the Bhudda is treated with reverence, beloved to have supernatural powers and have left behind "gods" or saints who are here to help the remaining on the path to Nirvana. Similarly Shinto beliefs see spirits in animal forms, waterfalls and so on. So why are these beliefs delusional? Because they don't have a number of ancient texts that actually say these things are gods? Are the Japanese not being entirely reasonable in rejecting western religions?

Why do you say Mohammed was delusional, but Jesus was not?

I'm not sure why skeptics make much ado about 35 years.

Because 35 years after the fact means it is not a contemporary account. It means that anyone the author may have spoken to that was around the same age as Jesus, and a follower, would have been around 68 years old. My mum is 69 years old and can't remember stuff in any detail, recent or aged. Given that life expectancy was a lot less than 68 in first century Palestine, well, ya get the picture.

,blockquote>It's almost as if all who knew Jesus fell off the face of the Earth at precisely 35 AD and the rest of the Xians were left bumbling in the dark, making up stories to suit their particular theological fancies.

It's as if everyone who allegedly knew the alleged Jesus fell off the face of the Earth, before, during and after his alleged life. The only person writing anything about Jesus during the whole time during the period up to the first gospel, was Paul, who admits only to revelation. If Paul is read without the context of the gospels written decades later, a spiritual Jesus is all there is. No biographical details of a human being. Why is that? Why were their Docetic Christian groups in these early times of Christianity if a live, walking the world, Jesus was so fresh in all the people you assert knew Jesus were around to verify the contrary? How did such gnostic and Docetic cults thrive alongside the orthodox views until being made heretical and stamped out in the fourth century if a man Jesus was as obvious to on and all as you infer?

Your comments have been assumptions and conjectures that appear to come off the top of your head. Presumably Blomberg and/or Bauckham show evidence in their books that what most scholars believe comes from oral tradition instead comes from eyewitness testimony. But you have given no evidence, instead relying on 21st-century assumptions and examples.

You are perfectly free to make any conjectures and "commonsense" assumptions you like, but I don't see why anyone should accept them as evidence.

Your constant strawmen are wearing my patience. Every comment I've posted, you've misrepresented.

I apologize if I have misinterpreted or misrepresented your comments, but here is the heart of my position vis a vis your apparent position:

I accept the majority view of mainstream contemporary New Testament scholarship on such matters as Markan priority, oral tradition as opposed to eyewitness testimony, the belief that the parable of the woman taken in adultery was not originally in John's Gospel, and other
such matters that are within the realm of historical, textual, and literary criticism rather than matters of religious doctrine.

It does not seem to me to be an unusual or controversial position to take. It also doesn't seem to me to be a position I need to defend. Anyone who wants to look deeper can find more information using Google or by consulting basic reference books.

David, did you even read my comment? "I'd guess" refers to how many disciples the apostles had -- is there a scholarly consensus on that -- if so, please show me.

Your constant strawmen are wearing my patience. Every comment I've posted, you've misrepresented.

Who knows, right? I'd guess

You are free to trust your guesses over the work of thousands of New Testament scholars over the past two centuries, but I accept the majority view of mainstream contemporary New Testament scholarship on such matters as Markan priority, oral tradition as opposed to eyewitness testimony, the belief that the parable of the woman taken in adultery was not originally in John's Gospel, and other such matters that are within the realm of historical, textual, and literary criticism rather than matters of religious doctrine.