Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[Craig B]

Please quote the two completely different passages that you are now talking about, and please quote and recap the actual response as it was to the argument which Jayson was trying to make by proposing what is actually the physically impossible discovery of the bones of Jesus vs. how you are now trying to conflate that discussion with a different discussion I just had with you where I said that two entirely different passages in two of Paul’s letters were so clear that no “interpretation” from you was required. And indeed, they cannot be “interpreted”, as you keep claiming, to mean the complete opposite of what they clearly say.

What nonsense. Paul to you says different things depending on who you happen to be berating at any given moment. But whatever you decide is "clearly" there can't be disputed because it's not your take, and can't even be interpreted.

As always it's impossible to discuss with you because you make up your own rules and quotations as you go along, and deny one minute what you stated in the previous one.

I am really of the opinion that the most valuable thing you've said, is that you consider that any study of this subject is a waste of time. I don't think that, but if I did, I would cease to engage in it.

 

[dejudge]

Dejudge, some gospels have things in them that other gospels don't have. (Like the genealogies and the magic birth stories) To Mark Jesus was a person, who could be baptised by another person.

Your claim is a fallacy. Writers of antiquity who used gMark wrote that Jesus was the Son of God born of a Ghost.

It makes no sense for you in the 21st century to tell me what you think of gMark.

I examine the statements of the writers of antiquity-- the witnesses of antiquity.

It is the witnesses of antiquity that matters.

The author of gMatthew use gMark and declared Jesus was a Ghost like creature and so did the author of gLuke.

After all gMark's Jesus used to walk on WATER And Transfigure before he resurrected.

Virtually all Jesus cult writers of antiquity argued that Jesus was the Son of God and born of Ghost.

Logically, human beings cannot walk on water, transfigure and resurrected.

Myth characters do those things.

 

[dejudge]

Dejudge, some gospels have things in them that other gospels don't have. (Like the genealogies and the magic birth stories) To Mark Jesus was a person, who could be baptised by another person.

Your claim is a fallacy. Writers of antiquity who used gMark wrote that Jesus was the Son of God born of a Ghost.

It makes no sense for you in the 21st century to tell me what you imagine of gMark.

I examine the statements of the writers of antiquity-- the witnesses of antiquity.

It is the witnesses of antiquity that matters.

The author of gMatthew use gMark and declared Jesus was a Ghost like creature and so did the author of gLuke.

After all gMark's Jesus used to walk on WATER And Transfigure before he resurrected.

Virtually all Jesus cult writers of antiquity argued that Jesus was the Son of God and born of Ghost.

Logically, human beings cannot walk on water, transfigure and resurrected.

Myth characters do those things.

 

[IanS]

I'm not sure which phrase is being referred to here, but my memory (from when I used to discuss these things as a Christian), is that statements like 'flesh and blood shall not enter the kingdom of heaven', do not refer to a 'former earthly body'. Similarly, references to a 'spiritual body' and an 'imperishable body' do not refer to a purely spiritual body. Thus when Paul says 'you are not in the flesh, you are in the spirit', he is not saying that people are non-physical.

OK, well I think what you give above is an ” interpretation" that someone has made of that particular passage in Corinthians (I quoted it before, on page 184 iirc). Probably because they know that if they take what is actually said in that passage at face value, then it implies directly that Paul did not actually class Jesus as a normal human on earth.

Because, in that passage Paul very clearly says that the dead will not be raised in the same bodily form they had whilst they were living (i.e. what I called their "former earthly body"). Instead Paul says very clearly that they must be raised in a different spiritual form, because that is the only form allowed to enter the kingdom of God (the passages are quoted below).

But I'm not sure what IanS means by 'former earthly body'.

That phrasing I used, "former earthly body", was in reply to Jayson when he argued that discovery of the diseased bones of Jesus would prove that Jesus was not “physically” raised into heaven as he says the church has always maintained. The point being that further down in that same passage that Jayson was relying upon, Paul explicitly says that the dead are not raised in the same form they formerly had whilst living on earth ... they are instead raised in a spiritual form which is necessary to enter heaven.

If you want to say that spiritual form of resurrection only referred to humans and not to Jesus, then you have the immediate implication that Paul did not therefore think Jesus was actually a human person living on earth.


Here is that full post replying to Jayson, including the full quotes from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians -

Without going through all of this again, and explaining again why Christians today, and quite possibly also at the time of biblical writing, are being entirely flexible with their meaning of the word “physical” when they say “physically raised from the dead”, just look at your highlighted quote … I immediately wondered if in fact 1-Corinthinians 15:14 did actually say as your quote says that Paul used the words “physically raised from the dead” , so I checked that. And here is what 1-Corinthians 15:14 actually says -


http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1corinthians+15:14
1 Corinthians 15:14
New International Version (NIV)
14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.



Notice the sentence is very brief indeed. And it makes no mention of the words “physically raised”.

But notice also, that just a few paragraphs earlier in 1-Corinthians 15:3, Paul makes specifically clear that his entire belief in the resurrection of “Christ” is because he thinks it was stated in the ancient OT scripture, he is taking the entire idea from the OT -


http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1corinthians+15:14
1 Corinthians 15:14
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,...



But even more specifically, just a few paragraphs further on in 1-Corinthians 15, Paul spells it out with total clarity saying that the earthly body is perishable and mortal and that when it is raised up it is not any longer of the same mortal flesh but is instead specifically a spiritual body, and furthermore that “ that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable”. See all the very clear highlights below.


http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1corinthians 35:52
1 Corinthians 15:14
The Resurrection Body
35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”[f]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we[g] bear the image of the heavenly man.
50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.




The above with all it’s inescapable highlights is not just a matter of me picking out one quote from your above post and trying show why that quote you gave is totally misleading and actually falsely implies that Paul in Corinthians-15 had declared Christ “physically raised from the dead”, but we cannot keep going through completely fallacious arguments like this claiming that Paul’s letters say things where they manifestly say the actual opposite!

In which respect, please also note that those words of Paul in 1-Corinthians-15, would as I said before be immediately produced by the Christian church to explain away any discovery of diseased bones said to be from Jesus on earth.

 

[zugzwang]

Well, I am just making the point that for Paul, the idea of a spiritual body does not mean a non-physical one. He uses 'flesh' and 'spirit' to refer to something else; hence, the quote 'you are not in the flesh, you are in the spirit', does not mean you are ghosts! I would say that 'flesh' here means something like, 'the condition of humanity when it is opposed to God'. Some critics even see it as denoting an 'old age/new age' distinction, but at any rate, both flesh and spirit are physical realities.

 

[Craig B]

I examine the statements of the writers of antiquity-- the witnesses of antiquity.

It is the witnesses of antiquity that matters.

The author of gMatthew use gMark and declared Jesus was a Ghost like creature and so did the author of gLuke.

Yes, but that doesn't mean that Mark tells us that Jesus was born of the Holy Ghost and a virgin, or that Paul tells us that. They don't. Do you remember I warned you not to say a silly thing? What was the silly thing I warned you not to say, dejudge? Here it is:

event A and event B happen together in one gospel. Only event B is mentioned in another gospel. That means event A is really mentioned in the other gospel too, because they are mentioned together in the previous one.

Now dejudge you've said that silly thing I warned you about. Your reasoning is this:

gLuke says Jesus was begotten of a ghost and walked on water,
gMark says Jesus walked on water
Therefore, gMark must also be saying Jesus was begotten of a ghost.

That's wrong thinking dejudge and people who say things like that will never understand the gospels, and they will never solve the Synoptic Problem. See http://www.hypotyposeis.org/synoptic-problem/ because that site's got some interesting things to tell us about the differences among the first three gospels.

 

[Belz...]

Really?

The criterion of embarrassment is a critical analysis of historical accounts in which accounts embarrassing to the author are presumed to be true because the author would have no reason to invent an embarrassing account about himself. Some Biblical scholars have used this criterion in assessing whether the New Testament's accounts of Jesus' actions and words are historically probable.[1]



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment

Tsig, that's very different from what you said:

"We know it must be true because it's embarrassing to them"

 

[eight bits]

dejudge

It is observed that the author of gJohn stated that John the Baptist WITNESSED the Holy Ghost bird descending upon Jesus which is an event that occurred at the Baptism of Jesus.

John's Dunker John says nothing to tie that to a baptism of Jesus. That baptism is in other books, but not in John. There is no baptism of Jesus in John. There is no Berlin Wall in City of Angels.

It is interesting that in the synoptics, where there is a baptism of Jesus, one function of the scene is to motivate or explain the signature Christian adult swim. John, which has no such scene, accomplishes a similar explicative prupose by directly tying Jesus' surviving disciples to Dunker John (at 1: 35 ff.): two disciples of Dunker John join Jesus, plus the brother of one of them, our boy Simon-Cephas-Peter. Then Jesus or his disciples do some baptizing (at 3: 22, it appears Jesus himself was baptizing, but later on, at 4:2, only the disciples are).

So, where the synoptics explain Christian baptism as a re-enactment of something done to Jesus, John portrays it as something the disciples did from the beginning of the movement, apparently under Jesus' supervision, and possibly Jesus did a few himself, at least for a while. If it was also done to Jesus, that scene didn't make it into John.

 

[IanS]

Well, I am just making the point that for Paul, the idea of a spiritual body does not mean a non-physical one. He uses 'flesh' and 'spirit' to refer to something else; hence, the quote 'you are not in the flesh, you are in the spirit', does not mean you are ghosts! I would say that 'flesh' here means something like, 'the condition of humanity when it is opposed to God'. Some critics even see it as denoting an 'old age/new age' distinction, but at any rate, both flesh and spirit are physical realities.

Well I have not mentioned any "ghosts". I do not have any clear view on whether or not Paul thought resurrected people are in a form that should be called "ghosts".

But I think that in all honesty you will have to agree that in the Passage which I just quoted from Corinthians, Paul makes absolutely clear that when people are raised from the dead they will not be raised in the same body they previously/formerly had on earth. Instead Paul goes to great length with several rather odd analogies, saying that when alive on earth the person has a “perishable body“, but when resurrected after death they will be raised as what Paul called a quite different “imperishable", "spiritual body“.

Paul’s words in that passage are very very clear about that are they not?

You can’t really argue that the passage should be ” interpreted” to mean the entire opposite of what Paul’s words actually say there. But if you disagree, then by all means go ahead and tell us what Paul’s words mean when he very specifically says the earthly body is a "perishable" one, but when resurrected the persons body will no longer be that same perishable body but will be different "imperishable" "spiritual body" ... what do you say that means, if it does not mean what it very plainly says?

 

[pakeha]

Really?

The criterion of embarrassment is a critical analysis of historical accounts in which accounts embarrassing to the author are presumed to be true because the author would have no reason to invent an embarrassing account about himself. Some Biblical scholars have used this criterion in assessing whether the New Testament's accounts of Jesus' actions and words are historically probable.[1]



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment

Tsig, that's very different from what you said:

"We know it must be true because it's embarrassing to them"

Fair enough, Belz..., though I think it was clear tsig and I were simply amusing ourselves with the CoE.

That wiki article reads as though it were written by an apologist, IMO.


Anyway, I sieved information about mainstream scholarship's assessment of the CoE in the available via the Internet.

Helen Bond's summing up of a conference on the subject here
http://www.christianorigins.div.ed.ac.uk/2012/10/07/authenticity-criteria/

Mark Goodacre's comments here
http://ntweblog.blogspot.com.es/2012/05/criticizing-criterion-of-embarrassment.html

and Vridar's assessment of the scholarly usage of the CoE here
http://vridar.org/2010/12/25/embarrassing-failure-of-the-criterion-of-embarrassment/

were about the only things I came up with.
As usual, the comments are almost more interesting than the articles themselves.

"It seems to me that whatever establishes the historicity of an event/character has to be determined before using the criterion of embarrassment. For example, if I applied that criterion to a Spiderman comic, I could “prove” that Spiderman existed because certain editors were “embarrassed” by Peter Parker’s marriage to Mary Jane, and edited out his marriage from the comics.

This of course is absurd. Historians would rightly say this is a misapplication of the criterion of embarrassment because it’s a Spiderman comic book. So it’s at this level (knowing that it’s a comic book) that we determine the historicity of some event/person, not at the criterion level. In order to properly apply any criteriology to some text, we have to first do some sort of literary analysis on the text. To me, it seems that at this literary analysis level is where historicity is determined, not at the criteriology level."
http://vridar.org/2010/12/25/embarrassing-failure-of-the-criterion-of-embarrassment/#comment-7617

 

[tsig]

Tsig, that's very different from what you said:

It is possible to express the same concept using different words, most of us who are conversant with the English language are aware of this.

 

[dejudge]

I examine the statements of the writers of antiquity-- the witnesses of antiquity.

It is the witnesses of antiquity that matters.

The author of gMatthew use gMark and declared Jesus was a Ghost like creature and so did the author of gLuke.

Yes, but that doesn't mean that Mark tells us that Jesus was born of the Holy Ghost and a virgin, or that Paul tells us that.

Your argument is similar to weird fundie cults. The author of gMark does not tell us that Satan the Devil was born of the Holy Ghost and a Virgin.

You must believe Satan was really real because he was NOT depicted as a Myth.

Your argument is also a failure of Memory, logic and facts.

You forgot that Pauline writers did state the Lord Jesus was from heaven, was NOT a man, was God Incarnate, God Creator, the Son of God and a Spirit.

How come you have such a bad memory?

1 Corinthians 15:47 KJV

The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven

Colossians 1:16 KJV

For by him were all things created , that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.

gLuke says Jesus was begotten of a ghost and walked on water,
gMark says Jesus walked on water
Therefore, gMark must also be saying Jesus was begotten of a ghost.

Please, get familiar with gLuke. It does NOT state Jesus walked on water.

You have confirmed your HJ argument is a failure of facts.

The author of gLuke used gMark and gMatthew or similar sources and claimed Jesus was Born of a Ghost.

It is quite silly [ a failure of logic] to argue that Jesus in gMark was a human being when in the same book, he was in the company of Satan the Devil, he WALKED on water, transfigured, resurrected and people of antiquity who used almost all of gMark stated Jesus was born of a Ghost.

Why do you argue like weird fundie cults?

Why do make the silly argument that Jesus was really real in gMark even though he is depicted as an acquaintance of Satan the Devil, and a water walking, transfiguring resurrected being?

 

[maximara]

Yes, the 'criterion of embarrassment' is problematic.

Since the authors of the materials in question are presenting their stories to an audience which has no way to independently verify the claims, anything really 'embarrassing' could be dropped without consequence.

They certainly do not seem to be embarrassed to build anecdotes out of supposed 'prophecies' or to make a hash of Palestinian geography.

Heracles is rather stupid and has anger management issues, and that is 'embarrassing' - should we therefore conclude there must be an historical Heracles? Maybe it's just good writing.

Or it fits into the way the Greeks portrayed their heroes and gods--powerful but with mortal failings. When you get right down to it many of the Greek heroes and even the deities are not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

In one myth Hades is sent to collect a man who broke a pledge to Zeus and brings handcuffs to ensure the man will not run away. The man plays dumb and Hades demonstrates the handcuffs on himself and winds up in the man's dog kennel as a result until another deity is sent to sort the mess out (no one can die with Hades locket up)

In fact, this 'criterion of embarrassment' is nonsense as many times the deities of polytheistic religions are portrayed as being petty, not too bright, and major anger issues.

Take Thor in his journey to Utgard, a city of Jötunheim (the homeland of Giants). Why Thor is there in the first place is never explained but he doesn't come off in a good light. Throwing his hammer at a giant with force strong enough to kill just for the guy snoring too loud not one but twice is just one example.

 

[dejudge]

duplicated.

 

[JaysonR]

I will be jumping back in more properly later, but just a comment about embarrasment: Consider for a moment, Samson and Moses.

Are we, too, to assume that Samson was real because of his embarrassing folly, and are we to assume that Moses was real because he embarrassingly did not have faith and struck the rock not as his God commanded?

These are just quick examples, from where there are several.

The issue here is in ignoring a cultural style.
Hebrew culture, for one, only wrote of heroes with accounts of folly.
David is one of today's Judaism's primary heroes, and he is a figure of gross folly.

It is a form of literary art; you won't find a pure hero in their culture as a normality.

As such, embarrassment is not a good gauge in my opinion because we then assume we know what their embarrassment is and how it is shunned, and yet we clearly have evidence that even non-historical figures are given embarrassing conditions to humanize their strength of character.

Even their god errors and is argued against by Moses.

 

[dejudge]

dejudge


John's Dunker John says nothing to tie that to a baptism of Jesus. That baptism is in other books, but not in John. There is no baptism of Jesus in John.

Are you claiming Dunker John is infallible?

Dunker John is NOT a WITNESS of antiquity.

What does Tertullian say? what does Chrysostom say? what does Hippolytus say? What does Irenaeus say?

In gJohn, it is claimed John was BAPTIZING people when God Creator came to him.

Apologetic writers of antiquity who used gJohn's Baptism story claimed Jesus was baptized by John the BAPTIZER.

It is must be logical that John THE BAPTIZER is introduced in gJohn 1 to be a WITNESS of the supposed SIGN that Jesus was the Son of God.

The Holy Ghost Bird descended upon Jesus in gJohn which occurs ONLY at Baptism.

John the Baptizer was told by God Creator that whoever the Holy Ghost BirD descended on was the Son of God.

John 1

28 These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing .

 

[eight bits]

dejudge

There is nothing in your post that refutes the absence of Jesus' baptism from John. It is uncontroversial that other works report the incident. Nevertheless, the baptism of Jesus isn't in John.

 

[zugzwang]

I will be jumping back in more properly later, but just a comment about embarrasment: Consider for a moment, Samson and Moses.

Are we, too, to assume that Samson was real because of his embarrassing folly, and are we to assume that Moses was real because he embarrassingly did not have faith and struck the rock not as his God commanded?

These are just quick examples, from where there are several.

The issue here is in ignoring a cultural style.
Hebrew culture, for one, only wrote of heroes with accounts of folly.
David is one of today's Judaism's primary heroes, and he is a figure of gross folly.

It is a form of literary art; you won't find a pure hero in their culture as a normality.

As such, embarrassment is not a good gauge in my opinion because we then assume we know what their embarrassment is and how it is shunned, and yet we clearly have evidence that even non-historical figures are given embarrassing conditions to humanize their strength of character.

Even their god errors and is argued against by Moses.

Doesn't the criterion of dissimilarity, or whatever you call it, also (when applied to the gospels), point up the attempted air-brushing of various incidents? For example, with the baptism by John, it is often said that this is gradually softened, and then removed. Or the origin of Jesus in Nazareth is cross-hatched by the supposed tradition of birth in Bethlehem. Or the death of Jesus is gradually converted from ugly to magnificent. I suppose this kind of Technicolorization could be explained in other ways; maybe just a tendency towards narrative romanticism?

 

[Belz...]

It is possible to express the same concept using different words, most of us who are conversant with the English language are aware of this.

Tsig, the two meanings are VERY different. You KNOW that this is what I meant. Why do you persist in being impossible, here ?

You said: "We know it must be true because it's embarrassing to them"

Nobody said that the criterion of embarrassment implies that it's true. NOBODY. It's your strawman.

 

[GDon]

I hate it when people make a strawman version of the Criterion of Embarrassment. Fair enough to criticize it, but at least criticize it for what it is, not for some strawman version of it. It's like arguing "if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" Creationists misunderstanding evolution is not a problem for evolution.

From the Wiki entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment

This criterion is rarely used by itself, and is typically one of a number of criteria, such as the criterion of discontinuity and the criterion of multiple attestation, along with the historical method... The criterion of embarrassment has its limitations and must always be used in concert with the other criteria.​

Note that this criterion "must always be used in concert with the other criteria". So using examples where the criterion is NOT being used in concert with other criteria is using a strawman version of the criterion.

One reason it is used is that we have four Gospels, written over a period of probably 50 years, where we can see changes in material reflecting a changing mindset. An example is how the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist is treated in each Gospel.

Now, I'm not a fan of the criterion. I think the criticisms of it show it is problematic. But the criterion is NOT just "it is embarrassing therefore it is true". If you are giving examples of the Criterion of Embarrassment where it is not being used in concert with other criteria, then you are using a strawman version of it.