Wrong. Here is
WLC putting the word "unbelievable" into Sherwin's mouth:
That's what quotation marks denote; that he is quoting Sherwin-White. He is
literally putting the word "unbelievable" into Sherwin-White's mouth
Well in that case Sherwin-White must have used the word "unbelievable".
And even that doesn't matter. Comparing legendary development for the Jesus myth to legendary development for, say, Julius Caesar is like comparing legendary development for Abraham Lincoln to legendary development for Paul Bunyan.
Really?
Caesar, Lincoln and Jesus seem to be in a somewhat different category to Paul Bunyan, Shrek, Pinocchio, Clark Kent.
When was the last time you found yourself arguing with a Paul Bunyan true believer?
Are there any threads here at TTF about the historical evidence for Luke Skywalker?
I'm serious. Paul Bunyan fits into the exact same mold.
As Jesus of Nazareth?
Exactly the same?
Hailing from Bimidji, Minnesota, Paul Bunyan would have been a contemporary of Abraham Lincoln. Bunyan was a giant lumberjack who managed to perform many incredible feats, but somehow left no evidence he ever actually existed.
...unlike Jesus
No historians wrote about him.
Unlike Jesus.
There is no contemporary witness to his actual existence.
Unlike Jesus.
Oral stories of his exploits circulated for at least 30 years before ever being written down in print.
Can you prove that claim?
No.
Besides, it's the format of historical claims but the content that we are interrogating. An oral claim is no more or less credible than the exact same claim made in writing.
The only way the development of the Paul Bunyan myth could be more like the development of the Jesus myth would be if there was some intangible reward offered for swallowing the Paul Bunyan stories.
Is that why there was so much State persecution of anyone found spreading rumours about Paul Bunyan?
Forget about intangible rewards. There were very strong disincentives to persist with legendary accretion in the case of Jesus.
Abraham Lincoln, on the other hand, hailed from Hodgenville, Kentucky. He became a lawyer, was politically active and eventually was elected president of the United States. There is a vast amount of evidence of his existence, from personal letters written to and from him, newspaper articles about him, artifacts he personally owned, houses in which he lived, and copious references in history books.
Sure. And Abraham Lincoln thought Jesus and Julius Caesar were real historical figures.
Once you start thinking about it the comparison is striking. Christian apologists want to have it both ways. They want a Jesus who was so unknown...
Jesus was not unknown.
...that they get a pass for there not being anything in the way of contemporary attestation or historians noting his existence.
If the bible wasn't called The Bible
TM it would be considered contemporary historical attestation.
To claim that nobody
noted Jesus' existence is a farcical claim.
But then they want a Jesus who was so well known as far away as Rome (1500 miles) that his established history protects him from legendary development in the same way that the well-known actual history of Julius Caesar protected his story from legendary development.
That's not the claim.
Sherwin-White and Strobel / William Lane Craig don't assert that there was no legendary accretion about Jesus. There was a LOT. But it came long after the earlier, original claims.
Gradual egendary accretion of mythology about Paul Bunyan wasn't in competition with earlier historical fact claims.
Abraham Lincoln, like Julius Caesar, had a well established historical record. Over the next 30 or so years after his death, about the biggest legendary development in his story was that he walked 5 miles to return six cents worth of change, earning him the nickname "Honest Abe."
So?
A lot of unflattering stuff was written about Jesus.
What's your point?
But Paul Bunyan, like Jesus, was a Tabula Rasa.
Rubbish.
Luke and Paul and John don't have a clean slate to construct whatever version of Jesus they like.
Anyone and everyone with a modicum of imagination could freely embellish the story
Amazingly, they got all the place names correct. And the people's names were correct in the contemporary context.
and if their stuff was good enough it would become part of the canonical story. In 30 years time many incredible tales were added to the life of Paul Bunyan. The extraordinary (and sometimes contradictory) tales of the legendary acts of Jesus strongly match up with this model. Paul the mystic communicated with Jesus beyond the grave and told people what he wanted of them. Paul's converts told others of Jesus and inevitably many of the elements of existing mythology (Poseidon, Dionysus, Zeus etc) were either absorbed or one-upped by developing stories of Jesus's exploits.
And this is exactly why Lee Strobel is a big fat liar with pants on fire. He tries to pass this bullshit off like it's "hard nosed investigation" when it's nothing but apologetic tripe without a moment's consideration of the many flaws in these arguments. But he's in good company. Pious Fraud has been a traditional part of Christian Apologetics since the discovery of the Holy Lance (and before, I'm sure).
Why don't you just stick to historical claims and counterclaims instead of all that flourish?
