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Posted by David Anyhow ... I read the book and while I had problems with a number of different approaches that were presented (since he interviewed a number of different people who obviously had diverse views, including a universalist as I now understand it) I don't remember having a problem with how the Quirinius thing was presented. I should probably reread. I ended up reading both Case for Faith and Case for Christ after. And I became a believer, one that has changed quite a bit over the years. I think as we look at the body of work out there, such as Massey (who I waded through a great deal more than you folks apparently did with Strobel, lol) and Acharya S to this new work which is obviously in response to Strobel, I see what I would call a lot of weak inductive logic ... on both sides. Been reading up on the Dead Sea Scrolls idea Pope but not seeing what you have mentioned, although I'm still looking. Your view of what a historical Jesus was is pretty different than other views I've heard, and I'll bring up what appears to be a very progressive mindset amongst all of you as the only agreement appears to be that Christianity ain't right, lol. Your views of "what actually happened" however appear to be dramatically different. So not so unlike Christianity itself with it's many interpretations. As it is, I can appreciate the different views but some hold more weight than others, with me at least. At some point, I'll finish up my "walk with the apostles" article which will trace the timelines of the emergence of the different churches. The archeological evidence alone is enough, imo at this time, to make this Burton fellow's assertion that the apostles themselves are fictional ... really suspect. lol Dave
on 10/27/2007, 5:54 pm, in reply to "Burton Wolfe's "The Case Against Jesus""
A friend had the book given to him via a Christian acquaintance. At that time I was as you folks ... a theistic agnostic and 100% anti-Christian (not anti people, just anti religion, which is what I believe you folks are, which is a good thing I think). Anyhow, he read it, was skeptical and gave it to me to read, no doubt since we enjoyed sharing our skepticism, lol. I will mention that my friend has and does sleep with, no kidding, hundreds of women outside his marriage, so there isn't going to be the kind of openness to anything rule based that might exist in other circumstances. I do not claim to be a saint but wasn't carrying around that much baggage, I guess one might say mine was quite as current ... and I'm certainly not inferring that anyone who doesn't believe is a prolific sinner, lol. Quite the opposite here I perceive, if we could even define sin. That's another discussion though. 
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