3 Questions...
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1. I believe I have found a misquote in "The God Who Wasn't There":
Brian Flemming quotes Hebrews 8:4 as saying, "If Jesus had been on earth, he would not even be a priest". However, the NIV renders this passage as "If Jesus were on earth, he would not be a priest". As in, if he were on earth now. The context is referring to the fact that the Jews chose a high priest to act as a mediator between god and man; And that that mediator is now Jesus. So I do not believe that this passage implies that Jesus did not exist on earth.
2. I am now having doubts about the "Mythic Hero Archetype". I once considered it a strong argument for Jesus Mythicism, but JP Holding (who, let it be known, I detest yet think he is right on this particular issue) has written about how Abe Lincoln fits the archetype:
http://www.tektonics.org/af/abemyth.html
And so does Czar Nicholas II:
http://department.monm.edu/classics/courses/Clas230/MythDocuments/HeroPattern/NicholasII%20Pattern.htm
Do these arguments stand up?
3. Has Rook or anyone else written a referenced article about Christianity's ties to pagan religions?
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1. Flemming's quote is correct in the New Living Translation and The Message.
2. Lincoln and Czar Nicholas only fit the archetype if you S-T-R-E-T-C-H the archetpye out ot proportion. The actual scores for them is much lower (as it is for most beings that actually existed.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
"I've yet to witness circumstance successfully manipulated through the babbling of ritualistic nonsense to an imaginary deity." -- me (josh)
If god can do anything, can he make a hot dog so big even he can't eat all of it?
The fact that it needed this disclaimer seems to be testament to the intellect of the audience reading it.
UNLESS...
Wait for it. Wait for it.
There is contemporary evidence debunking the myth.
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well actually Hebrews 8:4 says "if He had been on earth, he would not be a preist". However, I am amused that Flemming actually thinks that Paul wrote the epistle to the Hebrews because even the most radical conservatives reject this thesis. This however does not equate to a denial of Jesus' existence. however, I could also appeal to radical conservative scholarship and say that 1 Timothy was written by Paul
(BTW, Dr. Wallace has actually written an extensive article defending Pauline authorship of 1 Timothy http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=1337)
as you should. The "mythic hero archetype" is nothing more than circular reasoning because the person promoting this idea is the person who decides which properties are important and which are not important. Secondly, historical figures can also fit into this "archetype" even more neatly than mythical heros. third, in order to establish this "hero pattern", as is true with all cases of Parallelomania, you have to flat-out ignore the differences between these figures. lastly, in order to create these neat little patterns, one has to dramatically, even criminally oversimplify the data.
yes, actually Holding's arguments are air tight (dont' think that Holding was the first person to put historical figures into these parallel patterns, quite a few scholars did this in the early to mid 20th century. one scholar even proved that Kummel, a legendary Jesus theorist, did not exist via patterns with mythic characters)
"If you can make any religion of the world look ridiculous, chances are you haven't understood it"-Ravi Zacharias