Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[JaysonR]

Please, tell us about your hypothesis regarding the so-called Ebionite demographic? Do you have any actual evidence of Ebionites in Judea? How do you determine Ebionite demographic without evidence?

Where did you get Judea from?

 

[dejudge]

Dejudge,

I'm well aware that religious subjects were also taught in Alexandria.
That does not clearly point to an authorship by Egyptians.

The point being made wasn't that Alexandria did not teach such, but that Alexandria taught scores of subjects; not just religion.
Someone being taught by Egyptians doesn't indicate that Mark, Matthew, Luke and John were written by Egyptians.

There are all of the other issues still left to address aside from that one rather unrelated point.

Again, you are NOT familiar with the writings of antiquity. You have not done a proper inquiry into the question of the Jesus story and cult.

You do not understand what a theory is and how theories are developed.

Theories are developed using the EXISTING DATA--NOT imagination.
The ACTUAL EXISTING evidence from antiquity supports the THEORY that the Jesus story and cult ORIGINATED in EGYPT--NOT Judea as claimed by the Church.

Some of the earliest manuscripts, cults and churches were found in Egypt--NOT Judea.

 

[JaysonR]

Who said anything about them being written in Judea, Dejudge?

We have been working on them being composed in Egypt the whole time during this discussion.

My question to you has been how do you arrive at a conclusion of Egyptian authorship just by the texts being extant in Egypt, considering what Alexandria was and how Alexandria was used?

Instead, you have decided to attack my person repeatedly.
I am left with no answer at all for your conclusion.

More of value to me, however, is that I have no interest in requesting you to clarify your conclusions further since all that will happen is more of my points being taken out of context, ignored, misrepresented, and myself being personally attacked or insulted without warrant of such.

If you want to believe that Egyptians wrote these texts; OK.
I have satisfied my inquiry at this point; you don't have a full reasoning for your conclusions, but only a cursory glance and conclusions based on assumptions that negate several other considerations.

That does not mean that I am offering an historical Jesus, nor does that mean that I am proposing the texts were originated in Judea (though you seem to like to portray me as stating both repeatedly despite my several statements to the contrary).

So I will leave it as it is. Your proposition, a very unique proposition, very well unfinished and incomplete in its representation of itself.
If it is well enough for you, again, OK.

 

[dejudge]

Who said anything about them being written in Judea, Dejudge?

We have been working on them being composed in Egypt the whole time during this discussion.

We have been discussing that the Jesus story did NOT originate with Jews or in Judea.

You don't even remember that Paul was supposedly a Hebrew of Hebrews of the tribe of Benjamin and a Pharisee who wrote letters to Churches about Jesus, the Lord from heaven.

=JaysonR]My question to you has been how do you arrive at a conclusion of Egyptian authorship just by the texts being extant in Egypt, considering what Alexandria was and how Alexandria was used?

I have answered your questions already WITH the supporting evidence from antiquity.

Instead, you have decided to attack my person repeatedly.
I am left with no answer at all for your conclusion.

I have merely exposed your lack of famliarirty with writings of antiquity about the Jesus story and so-called Heresies.

If you want to believe that Egyptians wrote these texts; OK.

I never ever claimed Egyptians wrote ALL or any of the texts in the Canon but that the Jesus story most likely ORIGINATED in Egypt and NOT in Judea and NOT by Jews.

My theory is FULLY supported by the EXISTING EVIDENCE from antiquity.

 

[proudfootz]

It’s amazing isn’t it, that people think it’s impossible that any earlier cult could not have obtained their messiah beliefs in the same way that Paul did. I.e. by believing they had been blessed with insightful visions from God.

It seems like a rational approach, based on the evidence we do have.

Also of course it’s completely untrue for anyone to say this earlier “cult” had believed in Jesus before Paul did. Nowhere in any NT writing does anyone ever claim that. And Paul specifically says the opposite - he says that he obtained his Jesus messiah belief direct from God and according to scripture, and he absolutely insists (repeatedly) that no such other human people told him that.

If we take Paul to be the earliest extant exemplar of how Jesus 'facts' are generated.

With the caution that in the Philipian Hymn (aasuming this to represent a pre-Pauline fragment) the cosmic christ is given the name Jesus.

 

[proudfootz]

proudfootz


Paul reports that they had what Paul described as Jesus "seen by" them a few times apiece shortly after Jesus died. Surely it isn't news to anybody here that that kind of experience is a common feature of healthy human grief.

The first long conversation Paul reports having had with any of them was three years afterwards. Paul says nothing about them having or not having visionary experiences at that time.

So, you and I seem to be in agreement that Paul's letters cite reliance on three sources of ideas and information: the two you mentoned, his own visonary expereince (extent and quality unspecified), the scriptures and his interpretation of them (self-assessed as expert), and one that you neglected to include earlier, contacts with other members of the Jesus-following community.

Now period.

Okay.

As you and I have discussed, I don't find that reading supported by the text.

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

With luck, you will someday engage the other guy who posts on that passage sometimes. He thinks it's about the Roman Empire. You two should make beautiful music together.

As it happens I am a musician.

 

[proudfootz]

I guess we can leave it at that for now, then.

Cool!

What I mean is that it's not a historical explanation. It's a personal opinion. It's like saying "stars shine". It doesn't tell us much about stars, although it's true.

It's too early to expect an 'historical explanation' of a figure whose historical existence is dubious at best.

Sometimes historians just have to admit they don't know some things.

We must be careful not to confuse truth gleaned from the message, with truth gleaned from the text itself.

Yes, it's wise to be cautious.

 

[dejudge]

I'm just showing how - even with the assumption that Paul is the earliest writing - it does not do much to help an HJ hypothesis.

It is not a good idea to make assumptions like those who argue for an historical Jesus.

The Pauline Corpus was INVENTED for the very purpose to appear to be evidence of an HJ, the Lord God from heaven, who was raised from the dead after he was KILLED by the Jews.

There was NO historical Paul and No historical Jesus.

The Entire NT is a 2nd century or later invention.

All the NAMED authors of the NT are FAKES.

 

[IanS]

The first long conversation Paul reports having had with any of them was three years afterwards. Paul says nothing about them having or not having visionary experiences at that time.

So, you and I seem to be in agreement that Paul's letters cite reliance on three sources of ideas and information: the two you mentoned, his own visonary expereince (extent and quality unspecified), the scriptures and his interpretation of them (self-assessed as expert), and one that you neglected to include earlier, contacts with other members of the Jesus-following community.

Now period.

Well that is not actually correct, is it.

Paul does not cite reliance on three sources. He only cites the two sources that proudfootz and I have repeatedly stressed, i.e. visionary revelation and scripture. He specifically and very conspicuously does not cite “contacts with other members of the Jesus-following community“ as people who told him a single thing about Jesus. On the contrary, Paul insists he got no such Jesus belief from any other man.

proudfootz
Paul reports that they had what Paul described as Jesus "seen by" them a few times apiece shortly after Jesus died. Surely it isn't news to anybody here that that kind of experience is a common feature of healthy human grief.

As a religious visionary experience, which is what we are definitely talking about here (i.e. Paul thought Jesus was the promised messiah of God), it's vastly more common, not as grieving for any real human death, but as a delusion born of extreme religious belief.

In the famous sentence from 1 Cor. 15:3–8, Paul does not actually say the vision of these other people was that of Jesus. He says that the “Christ” died according to scripture and the rose from death according to scripture … and then his letter adds that this “Christ” appeared to various people, and last of all appeared to himself.

This is something I alluded to in an earlier post - the word “Christ” only means “messiah”. So strictly speaking, in that paragraph from 1 Cor. 15:3–8, Paul only says that others before him had claimed to see a vision of the long awaited messiah prophesised throughout the ancient OT. He does not say that any of these other people had called this visionary spirit “Jesus”.

If these others did ever say they had seen religious visions of the promised messiah, which would hardly be a surprise because religious people in their millions throughout history have always claimed to see visions of their religious deities, then they may have been saying no more than that. I.e., no more than claiming that they had once had religious visions of the promised messiah. But who they thought the messiah was, they don’t say. And in that passage from Corinthians, Paul only says it was the messiah (i.e. the “Christ”). He does not say that anyone except himself claimed to identify the messiah as Jesus.

In fact it seems to me that in Paul’s letters (and I have not checked every mention of the words “Christ”, "Jesus", “Lord”, in all of Paul’s 13 letters) he rarely seems to use the specific name/word “Jesus”. Instead far more often he seems just to call this visionary figure “Christ” or “the Lord”. I should note here that dejudge said above that Paul mentioned “Jesus” over 200 times in those letters … but I’m not sure that is correct, and dejudge may actually mean 200 mentions of the words “Christ”, “Lord” and only occasionally the specific word/name “Jesus”.

The point is, and this may seem like suggesting a conspiracy theory which will precipitate the usual abuse and childish remarks from certain HJ people here, that if it’s true that Paul’s letters hardly ever use the specific word “Jesus”, then I wonder if that name may have only been a later insertion by copyists who centuries later came to believe that the “Christ” who Paul referred to was actually a past preacher known as “Jesus”.

And the justification for considering that, is that as we know, around half of the 13 letters are now thought to be “fakes” and not written by “Paul” at all. Added to which, we have no idea what Paul ever really wrote in any of these letters (or indeed if anyone called “Paul” ever wrote any letters), because all we have is what copyists wrote under the name of “Paul” some centuries later.

 

[Belz...]

You don't seem to know what you are talking about.

Irony of the year.

 

[Belz...]

Yes, it's wise to be cautious.

Do you understand what I mean, though ? I think some people here have misunderstood what some HJ proponents have said when they claim some data can be gleaned from the text.

 

[eight bits]

Ian

Well that is not actually correct, is it.

Paul does not cite reliance on three sources.

The three are information sources, they are all spoken of by Paul as other users of information sources discuss their sources, and Paul depicts himself experiencing all three of them. So, yes, that is actually correct.

... as people who told him a single thing about Jesus.

Paul and Peter avoided the subject of Jesus for two weeks. Interesting theory. I hope you see why some sceptical people think it needs work, after your having been told about that so many times by sceptical people. If not, it's not my job to fix that now.

As a religious visionary experience, which is what we are definitely talking about here (i.e. Paul thought Jesus was the promised messiah of God), it's vastly more common, not as grieving for any real human death, but as a delusion born of extreme religious belief.

Please share your statistics to back that up.

In the famous sentence from 1 Cor. 15:3–8, Paul does not actually say the vision of these other people was that of Jesus. He says that the “Christ” died according to scripture and the rose from death according to scripture … and then his letter adds that this “Christ” appeared to various people, and last of all appeared to himself.

Actually, you'll find that the Greek construction is aorist indicative passive: he was seen. That was after his corpse was buried.

You are entitled to view Paul's Jesus, Lord and Christ as different men. I have nothing else to say about it, except that I read the letters differently.

If these others did ever say they had seen religious visions of the promised messiah, ...

Actually, Paul is the only one whose saying we have. Paul says two things: a dead man who was buried was later seen, and that the dead man who was buried and later seen is now the undead messiah. The second one sounds like an inference about the meaning of the first, and as such the second may be an opinion personal to Paul, regardless of how he learned about the first.

 

[IanS]

Ian


The three are information sources, they are all spoken of by Paul as other users of information sources discuss their sources, and Paul depicts himself experiencing all three of them. So, yes, that is actually correct.

No. That is not correct.

Paul’s letters do not say that he learned anything about Jesus from any of those people telling Paul about Jesus. And none of those people ever wrote to claim they had been the ones who told Paul anything about Jesus.

Please quote from Paul’s letters where he ever says he had learned about Jesus from other men who told him that Jesus was the messiah (or indeed anyone who told Paul anything about Jesus).

 

[IanS]

Ian,

I don't care about Jesus' historicity. As I've written before, take him out or leave him in - either way nets the same result of what happened because what happened occurred regardless of the figure.

Even if Jesus existed, clearly nothing that grew around the figure religiously had anything to do with that figure, but instead far more to do with cultural desires of ontological reasoning.

Well you may not care about Jesus historicity, but that is what this thread is about. It is not a discussion about anyone’s wider non-Jesus interests.

But as for the remainder of your above post; I really don’t know what you are talking about any longer.

For example - when you say that -

“Even if Jesus existed, clearly nothing that grew around the figure religiously had anything to do with that figure, but instead far more to do with cultural desires of ontological reasoning.”


- I don’t know what you mean by saying that. Because if Jesus was a real human figure who did many of things described in the NT writing, then clearly by definition “nothing everything that grew around the figure religiously had anything a great deal to do with the way people wrote about that figure, but instead far more to do we don’t known how much that had to do with cultural desires of ontological reasoning.” (whatever phrases like “cultural desires of ontological reasoning” and "corpus of orthodoxy" etc. are supposed to mean).

 

[eight bits]

Ian

Please quote from Paul’s letters where he ever says he had learned about Jesus from other men who told him that Jesus was the messiah (or indeed anyone who told Paul anything about Jesus).

I doubt that Paul did learn from other men that Jesus was the Messiah. As I said in my earlier post, that appears to be an inference on Paul's part, his Pharisaic explanation of why a dead man whose corpse had been buried was repeatedly seen by living people, Paul among them.

Paul does report meeting with Peter a few years later for two weeks. You would have me conslude that they avoided the subject of Jesus. I find that implausible. That you disagree is NTK, but not actually a problem.

 

[proudfootz]

proudfootz


Paul reports that they had what Paul described as Jesus "seen by" them a few times apiece shortly after Jesus died. Surely it isn't news to anybody here that that kind of experience is a common feature of healthy human grief.

On reflection, I'd like to see where Paul reports this occurred 'shortly after death' and that Paul or anyone else given to visions was 'grieving'.

We must be careful not to import ideas from other Jesus stories by other writers with other agendas into Paul.

Thanks in advance!

 

[dejudge]

IanI doubt that Paul did learn from other men that Jesus was the Messiah. As I said in my earlier post, that appears to be an inference on Paul's part, his Pharisaic explanation of why a dead man whose corpse had been buried was repeatedly seen by living people, Paul among them.

What?? Jesus was repeatedly seen by people after the resurrection? We know the Pauline Corpus is NOT a credible source.

Paul does report meeting with Peter a few years later for two weeks. You would have me conslude that they avoided the subject of Jesus. I find that implausible. That you disagree is NTK, but not actually a problem.

Paul does also report he consulted with characters WITHOUT Flesh and blood.

You would have me conclude that the Pauline writings are not credible.

In any event, it was concluded for hundreds of years that Paul was a Liar and grew up in atmosphere of Lying since at least the 4th century.


Eusebius' Against Hierocles

And this point is also worth noticing, that whereas the tales of Jesus have been vamped up by Peter and Paul and a few others of the kind,--men who were liars and devoid of education and wizards

Galatians 1

15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, 16 To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.

Macarius' Apocritus

We conclude then that he is a liar and manifestly brought up in an atmosphere of lying.

Essentially, the Pauline writings are historically and theologically worthless.

 

[proudfootz]

Do you understand what I mean, though ? I think some people here have misunderstood what some HJ proponents have said when they claim some data can be gleaned from the text.

I must admit I'm not sure I fully grasp what it meant.

Can you make this just a little more explicit?

Is it meant to apply to the ancient texts, or the texts produced by parties discussing the texts?

Thanks!

 

[proudfootz]

It is not a good idea to make assumptions like those who argue for an historical Jesus.

The Pauline Corpus was INVENTED for the very purpose to appear to be evidence of an HJ, the Lord God from heaven, who was raised from the dead after he was KILLED by the Jews.

There was NO historical Paul and No historical Jesus.

The Entire NT is a 2nd century or later invention.

All the NAMED authors of the NT are FAKES.

I appreciate your point.

No one knows when any of these texts were in fact written.

It is wise to be cautious and not become 'married' to any hypothesis about when exactly the Pauline corpus was composed.

That the majority of the Pauline epistles are already known to be forgeries pseudographs should always be kept in mind when relying on these texts to explore an hypothesis.

 

[Craig B]

No. That is not correct.

Paul’s letters do not say that he learned anything about Jesus from any of those people telling Paul about Jesus. And none of those people ever wrote to claim they had been the ones who told Paul anything about Jesus.

Please quote from Paul’s letters where he ever says he had learned about Jesus from other men who told him that Jesus was the messiah (or indeed anyone who told Paul anything about Jesus).

Well, as has been pointed out to you before, if we are to believe Paul's letters, here is one of his sources of information. 2 Cor 12

1 Boasting is necessary, though it is not profitable; but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago-- whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows-- such a man was caught up to the third heaven. 3 And I know how such a man-- whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows

But he received no information from this source. Acts 15

22 News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. 24 He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.

25 Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26 and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

Believe Paul if you can, about who taught him what.

Of course, we can't believe Barnabas told Paul anything because, as you will point out, we don't have a letter from Barnabas telling us: I taught that guy Paul all he knows.