From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: The Historical Jesus I:  Introduction
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 92 05:58:02 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Followup-To: sci.skeptic,talk.religion.misc
Keywords: historical jesus, creation/evolution debate

My thanks to Mr. Kiledal for his response to my post.  Before I proceed to
utterly and conclusively destroy his assertions :), I need to say a few things.
(Even before that:  at the request of Mr. Salem I have reset all
followups to EXclude talk.origins.  Please respect this request.)

1)  I apologize if my original post was perceived as being hostile to
Christianity.  I really did not have this intent.  My original correspondent
also commented on the negativity of the post and I neglected to address this
in reposting it.  This series of posts hopefully will correct the problem.
I am not a Christian, but I regard myself as sympathetic to Christianity.
As I mentioned in a post to Mr. Holden, I will not participate in name-calling.
If the conversation degenerates into a flame war, I will terminate it.

2)  I have two purposes in responding to Mr. Kiledal.
The first is to attempt to loosen the ties that bind Christianity to a
literal interpretation of the Bible, that (as Mr. Salem argues) leads to
such false credos as Creationism.  Christianity needs to lighten up a bit.
It seems clear that Mr. Kiledal is unaware of modern biblical
research, and this is probably the case with the majority of Xtians.
Sunday school is a lousy place to learn about the Bible.

The second is to point out to Evolutionists an important line of argument
that perhaps is underestimated.  Creationists are always on the offensive
in arguing against the validity of evolution.  Evolutionists should also
carry the battle into the enemy's camp by attacking the literal interpretation
of the Bible by Creationists, citing not only the inerrencies of and historical
questions about the OT, but also that of the New Testament, which the Xtians
claim as their very own.  And they can do it by utilizing modern biblical
textual/form/source/critical/redaction/archaeological research.

3)  Concerning Sources...ah, Sources...
   a)  Mr. Kiledal questions my use of primary sources.  *Sigh*.  In my post, I
went far out of my way to give *explicit* references to *classical*, *primary*
authors, that I *have* *read* *myself*, and that are *independent* of
Christian influence.  I will repeat these references in the conclusion to
my series of posts.  I have read the NT, but in English only.  I assert that
it is impossible to make any kind of cogent study of the NT without a 
commanding knowledge of several dialects of Greek and Hebrew.  Even in English
it is possible to notice the disparities between Gen. 1 & 2, but it is not so
clear cut in the case of the NT.  Therefore the sources chosen in this kind
of an argument are of prime importance...

   b)  I am not a biblical scholar.  In looking at this
question of the historicity of Jesus, I have attempted to use the most
up to date sources I could find.  I am aware that there are plenty of books
out there that Mr. Kiledal could cite contradicting my own.  I have
made the decision that these books are in error, for the reason that they
conform to the Traditional Interpretation of the New Testament, which 
has the deliberate agenda of increasing the authority of the NT writings.
The Traditional Interpretation is a creation of the early Church Fathers,
and has been refuted so abundantly by modern research as to be almost a
laughingstock.  Citing such authors is comparable to quoting Lamarck and
Darwin in a critique of modern evolutionary theory.  I believe that this
decision of mine is a valid and reasonable one.  Comments from experts *please*?
I have also not used any sensational, GeeWhiz sorts of books as sources.
All my sources are listed in the Conclusion to my series of posts.

   c)  Mr. Kiledal's sources.
Mr. Kiledal mentions four sources in his post:
	The Bible
	Commentary by editors of his bible
	Ireneaus
	Tertullian
*Sigh*.  Having chided me about using primary sources, Mr. Kiledal blithely
turns around and cites 2nd and 3rd century Church Fathers as if this
strengthens his statements!!
Mr. Kiledal, these people are *not* reliable sources as to
who wrote the Bible!  They *are* *the* *ones* who created the Traditional
Interpretation in *the* *first *place*!  If you are going to argue about the
veracity of Biblical accounts, you *must* argue from internal evidence in
the Bible itself and from contemporaenous documentary and archaeological
evidence (which has been the entire thrust of modern Biblical scholarly
research), *not* from fifth-handed biased sources like the early Church
Fathers, who came along way after the fact.  My quotes in the following
posts will mention these people to hammer the point home.
Chapter 9, The Canonical Problem of the Four Gospels, in [5], has an excellent
introduction to historical attempts at "harmonization" of the Four Gospels.
I *highly* recommend it to Mr. Kiledal for his own edification.


The following posts will deal with each of the Gospels, with quotes
included from each of my sources.

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu