The character of Etzel in medieval German folklore is based on Attila the Hun. Did Etzel exist?
Etzel was reportedly last seen boarding the Ship of Theseus. 
This strikes me as a bit abusive and I should probably stay out of it but I have to say that your understanding of what Roy is saying here, and of the attitude on his part which it represents, is off by a mile.
Many of the people you are arguing with here accept none of the supernatural claims or miracle stories of the NT. I can’t speak for Roy on this but for myself, I regard the NT’s accounts of these things as patently, obviously false. Further, I think that there are substantial clues to their falsehood in the textual history; for example, the fact that a mistranslation of Hebrew texts into Greek led to the erroneous impression that there was a prophecy about the virgin birth, which in turn led to two wholly irreconcilable accounts of that virgin birth being put into two of the gospels tells us that the authors of these works cared nothing for truth. The inclusion of the ludicrous and bizarre fig tree episode, which is the sort of silliness usually confined to the infancy gospels, meanwhile, tells us that there’s just a good deal of silly folk-magic material included in these works.
Again, I can speak only for my own assessment of this and not for Roy’s, but I would say there is no single recoverable detail of the life of a real Jesus. I do not think we can accept any fact in the gospels – even the ordinary pedestrian ones (which, oddly, do not include the walking-on-water bit, which is literally but not figuratively pedestrian) – with confidence. And I acknowledge, as I think many others here would, that the form in which those documents come to us, with the hints of midrash and other odd conventions for the formulation of tales, does not speak well for their credibility.
But the assertion that there WAS NOT a Jesus is a good deal more difficult to back up than the assertion that there need not have been a Jesus, or that there is little that can be said about any historical Jesus with confidence. As I have said, I think the more probable situation is that there was some person whose story formed some part of the core of the gospel stories. But I wouldn’t guarantee anything about that person – not that he taught such-and-such, not that he did stage magic at weddings, not that he was crucified, nothing. Now, if you think that my reluctance to insist that there absolutely was no Jesus is based upon “a deeply held faith in Jesus,” as you seem to think in Roy’s case, you are mistaken. I am not, have not ever been, and, barring some sort of neural trauma, am not ever likely to be a Christian believer. I am completely receptive to, and willing to be convinced of, the idea that we can definitively say there was no Jesus. But I don’t think the evidence is there to make that definitive pronouncement.
I do think, however, that you might benefit from assuming less about the people you’re talking to. I am probably one of the nearest people in this crowd to being in your camp, but some others are not so terribly far from that, either. I think that if you would take the aggressive tone down a notch you might actually have some discussion that would be of value to you and to others. You might learn something, and you might teach something. Right now I think your method is in the way of your object.
8 Likes
@Boris_Badenoff, this is the point that keeps flying over your head.
Will you let it do so again, or will you acknowledge that you’ve been grossly misrepresenting the positions of those who are challenging yours?
I think I had an Etzel. Push-button transmission in the middle of the steering wheel! Ford never shoulda stopped making 'em.
1 Like
Misinterpreting the figure of Jesus as historical, as this search for the historical Jesus encourages, distorts the (your) reading of the texts. The modern quest for historicity is defining the Bible in terms not shared by its authors. You said, “The inclusion of the ludicrous and bizarre fig tree episode…” The cursing of the fig tree and the cleansing of the temple are interwoven with each story interpreting the other. Israel is compared to a fruitless fig tree by several OT prophets, Hosea, Joel, Jeremiah and Micah. In Luke 13: 6-9 we have a variation on this theme. So to you it’s a bizarre meaningless folk magic story that you don’t understand. But the ancients knew exactly what this story that has gone over your head was telling them. That’s pathetic.
My attitude is borne of frustration with the way you guys cherry-pick my posts looking for some kind of mistake and completely ignoring the important points I make like for just one of many examples, the similarities between the Hercules myths and the Jesus myth. You should really stop and think why you can’t answer those points.
There was no Jewish holy man named Jesus wandering around Judea in the First Century, nor is there any record of Christians living there at that time or shortly thereafter. Jesus or Ιησους is a Greek name, not a Jewish name and it is not derived from a Jewish name either. This is just one of the ways we can be sure no such person as Jesus Christ ever existed.
1 Like
OMH, I remember my junior high science teacher had a car with a push button transmission, but I think it was on the dashboard. He was a great teacher and a major influence on my fascination with science. He just passed a month ago, staying very active well into his 80’s.
Wait, where were we???
Next you’ll be telling us his last name wasn’t Christ and his middle initial wasn’t H.
1 Like
For the benefit of anyone still following this fringy thread…
Septuagint, Exodus 17:9
Moses said to Joshua
εἶπεν δὲ Μωυσῆς τῷ Ἰησοῦ
The name was Jewish and common in the time. By no means was it unique to the Jesus of the gospels.
5 Likes
I don’t know that story. But there’s a difference between a legendary character and a mythological one. The difference my be blurred for the unread and unwashed but it exists.
Let me repeat in case you didn’t see it or it went over your head: There was no Jewish holy man named Jesus wandering around Judea in the First Century, nor is there any record of Christians living there at that time or shortly thereafter. Jesus or Ιησους is a Greek name, not a Jewish name and it is not derived from a Jewish name either. This is just one of the ways we can be sure no such person as Jesus Christ ever existed.
Not really - it’s a loaded question. You don’t know that the stories first appeared in the second century, only that the extant versions date from then.
How could the Disney film “Pocahontas”, which appeared in the late 20th century, be based on a real person who lived in the 16th century? If you answer that, you might realise the answer to your own question.
No, I’m not. Desist.
1 Like
Do you know the difference between translation and transliteration? There are several Hebrew names represented in Greek by Ιησους: Abishua, and Yishwah, Yishwi and one or two others.
Apart from the already noted similarity to Joshua, there are two easy refutations of this claim:
- Flavius Josephus wrote about a Jerusalem farmer named Jesus ben Ananias, who lived circa 66AD.
- The Sirach, a Jewish work circa 200BC, was written by Yeshua ben Sira, translated into Greek as ᾿Ιησοῦς (Jesus) by his grandson circa 130BC.
So Yeshua is a Jewish name, and Jesus / ᾿Ιησοῦς is derived from it, as shown by these two non-Christian examples that predate the gospels. There are also three more Jewish people named Jesus mentioned in the NT.
4 Likes
I’ve learned a fair bit by checking his claims and finding information that contradicts them.
4 Likes
Please elucidate.
The extant versions date to the Third Century. The first mentions of anything in the NT date to the late Second Century, about 180CE.
1 Like
Josephus did not write his books in Hebrew.
For those unfamiliar with that era, the Etzel was the lesser-known Yiddish version of Ford’s ill-fated Edsel. (The dealership showroom models always had a pair of tiny yarmulkes hanging from the rearview mirror.)
Yes, as I recall it, the Edsel was the only Ford division to use the Teletouch™ transmission system. A similar push-button system (to the left of the steering wheel on the dash itself) was very common on a wide range of Chrysler models—and I remember that technology from my uncle’s Desoto, the last model year of 1961.
However, cars were far larger in first century Palestine. As the Bible describes, on the day of Pentecost all of the apostles were gathered in one Accord.
4 Likes
A legendary character is someone who existed in the past and writers and storytellers have exaggerated the details of their lives and deeds. There are usually a few facts about the character that can be verified. A mythological character is someone who never existed, there are no facts about them that can be verified and the stories about them almost always contain supernatural elements. Myths explain something that exists in natural world by using gods, metaphors and symbolism. Both can contain the elements of historical fiction which confuses people. While myths are usually set in a timeless past and legends in a particular place and time this is not always the case. Since the Bible mentions a few (very few) real people and real places many people believe there is some element of fact the stories are based on. The biblical narratives are part of the ancient Near Eastern story world of the gods, not history.
1 Like