Who are happier -- Christians or Atheists?

Quote: FrGamble

What were the numbers some 10,000 texts and coming in at a distant second was the Illiad with 683?!? The sheer volume of texts from that early time period is again evidence something amazing happened.

This I would call the respectable version of "Aliens!"

A sect of Jews following Jewish practices is not remarkable in any way. Jews have long since kept at least one copy of the Torah in each temple.

A group of fanatics, or enthusiasts if you will, intent on spreading a message to nothing less than half the world (they ignored a whole hemisphere), would perforce produce large numbers of copies of their book, even if not in vellum scrolls.

Had the Iliad been a holy book supported by enthusiastic converts and followers of Homer, you'd have seen similar numbers for that manuscript.

And Egypt's pyramids were built by grandiose and stubborn kings trying to outdo their ancestors and impress the gods, in a land with abundant labor, wealth and stone. Not by aliens.

Quote: FrGamble

Another thing I learned is that besides Josephus and Tacitus there is also the Mishnah and Talmud as external texts referencing the reality of Jesus and His ministry. Obviously these two Jewish texts are critical of Jesus, but it is how they are critical of Jesus that gives us more food for thought. They claim He was a sorcerer or magician. Why would these early century Jewish texts criticize Jesus in this way if the miracles attributed to Him were not true?

Accusing someone of being a witch doesn't prove that they are a witch. Same thing for accusing someone of being a magician or a sorcerer.

I'm sure you are aware of the implications at the time for supporting someone who has been accused of these things. That was, after all, the reason to make these accusations in the first place - to remove social support and have an excuse to go after the accused.

I haven't been able to find the texts that make the accusations. Do they document the sorcery, and does that correspond to the miracles, or are they just accusations, or worse the things he is accused of doing have nothing to do with the miracles?

Quote: FrGamble

They claim He was a sorcerer or magician.

Of course. They hear a rumor that he
raises the dead and walks on water,
what else would they label him. Today
we would say he's a charleton or a
con man. 2000 years ago superstition
was the rule, so he was a sorcerer.

I did find someone who did his Phd thesis on the subject. http://wasjesusamagician.blogspot.com/?m=1

Quote: Dalex64

I did find someone who did his Phd thesis on the subject. http://wasjesusamagician.blogspot.com/?m=1

Wow, what a greatly written treatise on
the possibility that Jesus was an magician.
It will take hours to read. It makes a heck
of lot more sense that he was the David
Copperfield of his day, rather than the son
of a deity.

'Finally, Jesus displays the quintessential attitude of a magician: a coercive approach to the gods. Although the absence of an appeal to God before a healing or exorcism may indicate that Jesus has achieved a relationship with God that was typical of a charismatic healer, it is also reminiscent of the magician’s arrogant attitude towards his god and the self-assured guarantee that his god will respond to his immediate demands. This arrogant conviction is evident in Jesus’ reckless cursing of the fig tree in Mk. 11:12-24//Mt. 21:18-22. Jesus not only uses a magical cursing technique in this passage, but he also demonstrates that his power can be used for destructive purposes and teaches that the strength of an individual’s own will can produce miracles. By teaching that others can recreate the same miracles if they have sufficient faith in their own actions, Jesus thereby implies that his abilities are not God-given, but that they are acquired techniques that can be taught to others.'

This seems to strike me as choosing the second option in C.S. Lewis' famous, "Lunatic, Liar, or Lord" scenario.

Quote: C.S. Lewis

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”


― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Quote:

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice.

The Jesus Seminar clearly showed he didn't
say even half the things the Bible attributes
to him. There are more choices than the two
Lewis gives us. He leaves out the most obvious
choice, that Jesus is mostly a myth. It a trick
lawyers use in court. "Do you still beat your
wife, yes or no." Lewis takes the gigantic leap
that we was all assume every word in the NT is
absolute truth. You can't do that and be taken
seriously.

I don't see what the false conclusions of the Jesus Seminar have to do with this, nor do I see the evidence behind thinking of Jesus as mostly a myth. There is no trick behind your argument it is just terrible. The quote from C.S. Lewis and the quote you posted earlier are both looking at Jesus as He is presented in the Gospels so why don't we stay there. If you read the quote you posted again you will see that it is clearly pointing towards the second option that Jesus is a fraud, a liar, and an arrogant trickster. You can't say that and be taken seriously.

Quote: FrGamble

If you read the quote you posted again you will see that it is clearly pointing towards the second option that Jesus is a fraud, a liar, and an arrogant trickster. You can't say that and be taken seriously.

Not many people say Jesus was a fraud.
What they say is what was written about
him is the fraud. Taking the NT as absolute
truth is folly. As the Jesus Seminar pointed
out, it's unlikely Jesus actually said most of
what is attributed to him.

Buddha is mostly myth also. Maybe he lived,
maybe he didn't, but he's mostly legend
and myth now, just like Jesus. You can learn
from the Jesus myth, as long as you don't
take it too seriously.

Quote: Evenbob

. As the Jesus Seminar pointed
out, it's unlikely Jesus actually said most of
what is attributed to him.

I don't know what your love affair with the Jesus Seminar is all about, but you should know it is an example of poorly done research and its conclusions and works are widely criticized. You no doubt like it because it resonates with you, but you should be careful about latching onto such flawed scholarship.

Quote:

You can learn
from the Jesus myth, as long as you don't
take it too seriously.

As C.S. Lewis reminds us, what you are suggesting is exactly what you can't do with Jesus. Even if you regard Him as a myth, the myth is all about His reality. Trying to see Jesus as just a myth is like "shoplifting the pootie".