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Originally Posted by Cheese
To suggest there is a great deal of historicity on many of the famous peoples of that time, why is it that the record shows little/nothing on one of the most important people of that time?
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Quite simply because Jesus registered no political/social significance whatsoever. He was a peasant preacher in a backwater of a hinterland Roman province.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheese
Are you/we basing his existence on the gospels alone? Is it the writings of Josephus or gnostic documents that lead you to your beliefs?
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Yes, because this is all we have. I have conceded that the record is irreparably flawed, and that cannot be helped. But an enormous number of scholars have quite effectively managed to come to a considerable level of consensus regarding what we can plausibly claim about the historical Jesus. Only the most ardent and idiotic apologists will continue to beat the drum for the strength of the sources, and that is absolutely not what I am doing. What I am saying is that Jesus existence is immanently plausible, and should not be so casually dismissed on the basis of the mythic claims that grew up around him. I see no good reason to deny this whatsoever.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheese
I still have GREAT difficulty coming to any assertion that there was a "historical" Jesus, and if there was such a man he surely was no more than the "man on the bus" who had great swagger (so to speak) and the ability to sway people with his words, but certainly not to the position and esteem he is held to today.
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You get it, and I agree with you more than you realize. Yes, absolutely Jesus was an unimpressive man by the standards of the day. In many respects, this is precisely the point: Paul himself is emphatic in his assertion that by conventional standards Jesus was nothing special. Christian tradition adopted the servant songs of Deutero-Isaiah as expressions of who Jesus was precisely for this point—He was painfully ordinary. This paradox would be explained by the traditional church as a facet of the great mystery: that despite his very unassuming station, he WAS preeminently significant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheese
What exactly are you basing your theory on, because outside of faith I still do not see that proof in a substantive manner.
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As I already stated, it requires an exceptional amount of faith to even affirm Jesus's historicity. The historical record is poor, but I rest on exceptionally plausible reasons to affirm his existence, which is entirely different from affirming the claims made within the sources themselves.
In the end, even though I am a highly rational person, and despite my dependence upon my own rational sensibilities, I am quite certain that they fail me, and they always will. I simply cannot be purely rational, and I do not believe that anyone actually is so. So yes, I exercise "faith" all the time. This is not a flaw; this is reality.