[Buddha-l] it's not about belief

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Tue, 2006-01-10 at 16:27 +0100, Espen S. Ore wrote:

> Now Socrates (the person) is better documented by his contemporaries 
> than Jesus not only did Xenophon in addition to Plato write about him, 
> but even more important in my eyes is that in his (Socrates') living 
> time he was used in Aristophanes' comedy The Clouds. On the other hand I 
> agree: was Socrates the person described in Plato's dialogues or in 
> Xenephon's, or was he the swindler running his school in the Clouds? 

It would be interesting to know a little more about the legal case in
Italia. Surely the answer to the question "Did Jesus exist?" is not in
itself very interesting. As one of my professors used to say, "Most
biblical scholars now agree that Jesus did not exist, but they think it
likely that somebody else by the same name did exist." 

A slightly more interesting question might be "Is the depiction of Jesus
given in the Bible more accurate that the depiction given in the gnostic
writings or the Qur'an? And is it even possible to answer such a
question on the basis of evidence now available?" Years ago I made the
mistake of raising just that question in a public lecture that was part
of a job interview, and I later learned it caused deep offense to a key
member of the hiring committee, who happened to be a devout Catholic. I
did not get the job. 

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico