Is this in error or is it your position?

Some of his subjects are both sensitive and controversial, including the paternity of Jesus. As he said during his lecture, “As a historian, I have to believe that all humans have a human father.”

If so, you have no credibility as researcher of anything supernatural or spiritual claim.

By definition the supernatural and spiritual transcends the natural, thus the laws governing the natural.

By definition you cannot pre-judge Christ to have been conceived by sexual intercourse.

Researching such in unbiased manner requires one sets aside making findings before the research even begins. You violated a fundamental rule of research.

The supernatural cannot be proved or dismissed directly by science. It must be examined peripherally.

You jump to assumptions unsupported by history that Christ was trying to establish a dynasty. He really ticked off the Pharisees and such by not coming to establish a dynasty.

But you disregard the evidence presented in the Bible, by the contemporary enemies of Christ, and Christians, and so on, that show he did heal and did so much more that defied science.

Can his virgin birth be proven directly? Of course not! But can it by proven probable beyond statistical doubt? Yes!

A statistical analysis was run on the OT prophecies concerning him. Statistically it is impossible to be chance.

When you put all the manuscript and other evidence together, the sum does not prove the divinity of Christ. But, it most assuredly says he defied science and did do the things claimed.

That achieves the point where one must decide to make the leap of faith on the rest.

Throw in other issues, besides Christ, and the evidence builds and builds and build.

Bottom line is how much evidence do you need to make the leap of faith? There is a point after which demanding more becomes absurd.

Having studied historical and other finds for over 40 years, I have seen many such proposals to explain away Jesus. But, as with yours, they are based on assumptions, not actual facts.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

Mr. Tabor is correct: I have not read the book.

Nor have I actually read Allegro's "Sacred Mushroom and the Cross."

Nor have I read a book that I have on my shelves, titled, "I Have Found an Elephant in the Bible." The author's thesis is that the symbol of the elephant is the key that unlocks one's understanding of the Bible and the world itself. The trained observer can see that all of the continents of the earth are shaped like elephants. Indeed, we are very much mistaken in thinking that there is a "man in the moon." It is the "elephants in the moon." Don't believe me? Have a peek on the next full moon. The trained eye can also see that the pattern of the Israelites' encampments in their wanderings was perfectly in the shape of an elephant.

Why not give such books a thorough study and *then* offer a refutation? Because of a thing called the context of plausibility. Some theses are plausible even if they turn out to be false. They deserve the attention of thinking people. Others are not and do not.

I take a naturalistic worldview seriously. I'll read Dennett and Dawkins and other naturalistic scientists and philosophers and try to manage a reply from my theistic perspective. I do not take the Raelian religion seriously (a sort of UFO cult that is advocating cloning so that people can live forever by uploading their psyches into a progression of human bodies). I would stand a better chance of turning into a pheasant than becoming a Raelian--or a Scientologist. Do I need to explore the details of either before I am in a position to say something intelligent about it? No. The thesis itself is too wildly implausible given what I already know.

The same goes for Mr. Tabor's book. Assuming that the editorial here accurately described his thesis, then I am safe in assuming that it should be categorized with its cousins, the mushroom and elephant theses.

you simply don't understand the man! The one who refutes the author of "Dynasty."

He said Jesus would have let us know what we don't know if he had wanted us to know!

I take that to mean that any questioning or debating or arguing any situation about Jesus is wrong. If you don't fully understand it then you aren't supposed to understand it!

I know you "discuss" it a lot, maybe not mentioning any names, and so do I. Now I'm afraid to say very much.
Knowledge known that one hasn't known before is either a lie or knowledge you weren't supposed to know!

As Don Rumsfeld once said, "there are the knowns, and the unknowns," and the unknowns we don't know, and the unknowns they know but we don't know, and of course those things not known by either side as to a fact or even if they exist!

It does seem a waste of time to want to know more.

Muddle,

Read this one. Assumptions and conjecture build on no facts.

http://www.jesusdynasty.com/

What I suspect is happening is that he has been taking Gnostic writings seriously. You have to go to them to find anything along the lines of what he is saying.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

PTC Guy--

Are you familiar with Wright's work? He's a marvel. He is to New Testament studies what Alvin Plantinga is to philosophy. (And Plantinga is to philosophy what Clapton is to guitar). In fact, my own mentor, a well-known Christian philosopher, paid Wright the highest compliment he could think of: "He's so good he could have been a philosopher!"

Great critical thinker, no nonsense, elegant writing style. Check out this site with a number of his papers and lectures (some on audio):

http://www.ntwrightpage.com/

I have not read his work in-depth.

On the link I read:

Jesus’ Resurrection and Christian Origins

Well said article.

I have had so many debates with those not understanding the distinction of raising from the dead, as with Lazarus, and resurrection. That they are not the same thing.

Or the meanings of 1st and 2nd Resurrections in the significance of the meaning of Day of the Lord (what an abused term!).

I skimmed another. Part company with him over Calvinism. I totally reject Calvinism (Secure Arminianism).

What many of these revisionists do not consider, beyond rejecting actual historical evidence, is that Judaism and Christianity did not rise out of Paganism and other such beliefs. But that Paganism and other such beliefs was a distortion and perversion of knowledge that existed Pre-Bible. And the Bible restored it.

As he points out, while there are similarities, Judaism and Christianity are fully distinct from other religions, both ancient and modern.

We talk about stuff like this on the CTZ Forum. Way to much material to go into here.

But that article, alone, shreds the thinking of such as the 'Jesus Dyanasty.'

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

I did some reading there in the library link I found.

Yep. Gnostic books were included in the materials on the beginning of Christianity.

Also, the attempts to declare the resurrection and other core Bible teachings as mythos that developed over time to explain how they came to be without being actual facts, literally.

As said by Muddle, this requires the dismissal of so much evidence and statements. Requires discrediting early writing via assumption and theories that are held superior to the manuscript and other histories.

Kind of like those trying to deny the Holocaust happened.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.