Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[clayflingythingy]

Having recently read Erhman, if this is the best the HJ advocates can do, they may as well fold up the tent and go home.

My impression was that Ehrman, like Tabor in The Jesus Dynasty, was pulling his "facts" out of his arse.

I realize the book was written for the masses but it did nothing to convince me my "we can't know" position is incorrect and I should move into the HJ camp.

In a really quick nutshell Ehrman placed great emphasis on Paul's knowing Cephas and James, the Lord's brother. He took it more or less as a given that Cephas was the chief flunky of HJ and James was his sibling. He also claimed each gospel was an independent witness to HJ, along with the yet to be proven Q, and the unique material to each gospel. I mean, really, John is an independent witness to an HJ?

Erhman also dated any Aramaic sayings, or those that are believed to have originally been in Aramaic as independent witness to HJ.

If this is really the best HJ advocates can do there is really no reason to continue to dismiss the MJ out of hand. And in the end we cannot know is my take.

YMMV

 

[tsig]

Having recently read Erhman, if this is the best the HJ advocates can do, they may as well fold up the tent and go home.

My impression was that Ehrman, like Tabor in The Jesus Dynasty, was pulling his "facts" out of his arse.

I realize the book was written for the masses but it did nothing to convince me my "we can't know" position is incorrect and I should move into the HJ camp.

In a really quick nutshell Ehrman placed great emphasis on Paul's knowing Cephas and James, the Lord's brother. He took it more or less as a given that Cephas was the chief flunky of HJ and James was his sibling. He also claimed each gospel was an independent witness to HJ, along with the yet to be proven Q, and the unique material to each gospel. I mean, really, John is an independent witness to an HJ?

Erhman also dated any Aramaic sayings, or those that are believed to have originally been in Aramaic as independent witness to HJ.

If this is really the best HJ advocates can do there is really no reason to continue to dismiss the MJ out of hand. And in the end we cannot know is my take.

YMMV

The fact that his book was treated as any kind of serious argument shows how threadbare the argument from Academic Authority is.

My take is that he discovered that if he jumped ship at this late date he would find himself up a creek without a paddle.

 

[dejudge]

Having recently read Erhman, if this is the best the HJ advocates can do, they may as well fold up the tent and go home.

My impression was that Ehrman, like Tabor in The Jesus Dynasty, was pulling his "facts" out of his arse.

But, why does Ehrman need to write such a disastrous book in the 21st century to argue for an historical Jesus of Nazareth?

It would appear that the HJ tents have folded up. If Ehrman cannot present any corroborative evidence from antiquity to argue for an HJ who can?

 

[maximara]

I don't think it's problematic at all. We know the Gospels lie already. And executing a common criminal doesn't mean he's well-known.

The Non sequitur of this should be obvious. If the Gospels lie then how can you trust anything they say? As I have said before there is nothing to show that Jesus isn't on par with John Frum.

 

[pakeha]

Why do you say that ? Because of the implausible elements ?

Here's another example: If I say "remember the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center using planes, in which 3000 people died ? President Bush made it happen to justify going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, using holograms and thermite !"

Someone could surmise that President Bush was a real person, and that such an attack probably occured (given a much larger text or context) even if the rest is ridiculous.

I don't think your example a good one, Belz...
It almostinvites us to suppose the gospels are as good a source of information as that of your memories of the 11 Sept. attack.

No, not for the implausible element, if you're referring to the supernatural and 'miraculous' elements. It's for the preaching and execution elements, which simply make no sense at all.

At the end of the day, is there any point in trying to read history into hagiography, especially when it goes counter to what we know about how things functioned back in the day?

 

[Brainache]

I don't think your example a good one, Belz...
It almostinvites us to suppose the gospels are as good a source of information as that of your memories of the 11 Sept. attack.

No, not for the implausible element, if you're referring to the supernatural and 'miraculous' elements. It's for the preaching and execution elements, which simply make no sense at all.

At the end of the day, is there any point in trying to read history into hagiography, especially when it goes counter to what we know about how things functioned back in the day?

But one thing we do know about "back in the day" is that people were following various "Messianic" figures and different "Schools" of Judaism, but none that we know of were following a "Celestial Messiah" who was martyred in Heaven and never walked the earth.

Unless Carrier has some evidence of such a group in his soon to be released blockbusting book...

 

[Belz...]

The Non sequitur of this should be obvious. If the Gospels lie then how can you trust anything they say?

I don't get how it's a non sequitur, but ok.

Do you ever lie ? How can I trust anything you say ?

 

[Belz...]

I don't think your example a good one, Belz...
It almostinvites us to suppose the gospels are as good a source of information as that of your memories of the 11 Sept. attack.

I have no idea how you reached this conclusion. Certainly not from anything I posted.

My point is that you _CAN_ glean information from texts without assuming that they are otherwise reliable. Do you at least acknowledge that ?

 

[pakeha]

I have no idea how you reached this conclusion. Certainly not from anything I posted.

My point is that you _CAN_ glean information from texts without assuming that they are otherwise reliable. Do you at least acknowledge that ?

Of course, Belz...! But whether that information is worth any serious consideration depends on its confirmation from outside sources, doesn't it?
Remember, we're dealing with hagiography, not texts with with historical pretensions.
ETA
It looks as though the celebrations will be in the Cybele's Fountain. 4-1.

 

[dejudge]

But one thing we do know about "back in the day" is that people were following various "Messianic" figures and different "Schools" of Judaism, but none that we know of were following a "Celestial Messiah" who was martyred in Heaven and never walked the earth.

Unless Carrier has some evidence of such a group in his soon to be released blockbusting book...

Bart Ehrman did not produce a BLOCKBUSTING book for the HJ of Nazareth argument. You must have forgotten that "back in the day" people were worshiping Myths as God and as figures of history.

Plutarch wrote c 75 CE that Romulus was the Son of a God and a Virgin.

Jesus was also the Son of a God and born of a Virgin like Romulus the Myth founder of Rome.

 

[proudfootz]

I don't think your example a good one, Belz...
It almost invites us to suppose the gospels are as good a source of information as that of your memories of the 11 Sept. attack.

No, not for the implausible element, if you're referring to the supernatural and 'miraculous' elements. It's for the preaching and execution elements, which simply make no sense at all.

At the end of the day, is there any point in trying to read history into hagiography, especially when it goes counter to what we know about how things functioned back in the day?

Unless the HJ hypothesis can come up with any group following anything like the 'historical Jesus' we'll probably be stuck with the messiah folks like Paul discovered through scriptural interpretation and the occasional vision.

That is the only Jesus that seems to have had any impact on history, anyway.

 

[IanS]

Ian

OK, but he wrote years afterwards. By that time, and so for the writings we actually have, Paul has three possible sources for any ideas or information he writes about: his visions, his scriptural take and his consultation and contacts with others.

There is no value in merely saying it’s “possible” that somebody told Paul that Jesus was the messiah. You could pick absolutely any words ever said by anyone, and just say it’s "possible" they got the ideas from something someone else once said.

That’s why you need evidence if you ever make a suggestion like that.

But in this case the factual evidence is that Paul’s own letters as P46 from c.200AD (which is almost certainly the earliest extant relatively complete and useable copy of any NT writing) specifically insists that no other human did tell Paul about Jesus.

If anyone wants to believe things without evidence (in this case, in complete contradiction to the actual evidence), then that's up to them, but that’s an approach called “faith”.

 

[zugzwang]

I have no idea how you reached this conclusion. Certainly not from anything I posted.

My point is that you _CAN_ glean information from texts without assuming that they are otherwise reliable. Do you at least acknowledge that ?

It's a very interesting point, since otherwise historians would only trust sources and documents that are known to be historically reliable. As you go back in time, or as you step outside historical writing itself, you would have less and less material to work with. Thus Josephus famously starts 'Antiquities of the Jews' with Adam and Eve! There are also suggestions that he skews his history of Jews in order to please a Greco-Roman audience. So should we abandon this document as a possible source of information?

In a sense, historians learn to read through ancient texts, which may be biased, fictional, supernaturalist, and so on, otherwise, they would have very little to go on! In fact, this may be true of modern texts - think of the diary of a Nazi general, which might be full of puffed-up grandiosity, boasting, and lies, yet which might also contain useful nuggets for the historian.

 

[pakeha]

Unless the HJ hypothesis can come up with any group following anything like the 'historical Jesus' we'll probably be stuck with the messiah folks like Paul discovered through scriptural interpretation and the occasional vision.

That is the only Jesus that seems to have had any impact on history, anyway.

Indeed.
At work I was reminded of yet another person which many consider to be historical, though he's as elusive a figure as Robin Hood or an HJ.
I refer to Till Eulenspiegel^WP, of course.

"According to the tradition, Eulenspiegel was born in Kneitlingen near Brunswick around 1300. He travelled through the Holy Roman Empire, especially Northern Germany, but also the Low Countries, Bohemia, and Italy. His mobility as a Landfahrer ("vagrant") allows him to be envisaged anywhere and everywhere in the late Middle Ages.

Since the early 19th century, many German scholars have made attempts to find historical evidence of Till Eulenspiegel's existence. In his 1980 book Till Eulenspiegel, historian Bernd Ulrich Hucker mentions that according to a contemporary legal register of the city of Brunswick one Till van Cletlinge ("Till from/of Kneitlingen") was incarcerated there in the year 1339, along with four of his accomplices, for highway robbery.[1]

While he is unlikely to have been based on a historic person, by the sixteenth century, Eulenspiegel was said to have died in Mölln, near Lübeck and Hamburg, of the Black Death in 1350, according to a gravestone attributed to him there, which was noted by Fynes Moryson in his Itinerary, 1591.[2] "Don't move this stone, let that be clear – Eulenspiegel's buried here"[3] is written on the stone in Low German. [ . . .] "General opinion now tends to regard Till Eulenspiegel as an entirely imaginary figure around whose name was gathered a cycle of tales popular in the Middle Ages," Ruth Michaelis-Jena observes.[5] "Yet legendary figures need a definite background to make them memorable and Till needed the reality of the Braunschweig landscape and real towns to which he could travel – Cologne, Rostock, Bremen and Marburg among them – and whose burghers become the victims of his pranks." "

Sound familiar?
I'd include a full recording of Til, but I couldn't find one I liked enough on youtube, except for this three minute soundbite featuring Barenboim and the boys from Berlin


I cavil at that gawdawful Armani suit Barenboim wears instead of proper evening attire and the insecure horn sound in the first solo, but it's the best recording I could find.

The celebrations will be in Cybele's Fountain after all.
The BBC commentators were ecstatic to report last night's match featured the very first goal made by a Welshman in the history of Champion's League finals.

 

[eight bits]

Ian

We have a routine inference problem about whence Paul wished his audience to conclude he got his biographical information about Jesus. It has been observed without controversy that Paul wrote that he had contact with people who had some interest in Jesus.

That textual observation is evidence about the uncertainty:

? Paul sought to impel all of his readers to conclude that he got none of his biogarphical information from any living informant.

? Paul tolerated that some of his readers would conclude otherwise.

Apart from Paul's uncertain intentions, some of his readers have, as a matter of accomplished fact, concluded otherwise. So, the only remaining uncertainty is whether Paul's intentions allowed for that conclusion. Paul's text is evidence on point, and general principles of effective advocacy furnish a priori or "background" information for the inferential task.

I estimate both the prior information, that having natural sources improves credibility when discussing natural facts, and the bearing of the evidence, that Paul reported ample contact with possible living informants, to favor the second hypothesis over the first. You disagree, for reasons that you have stated. That's an impasse, with nothing further for us to discuss about it.

 

[GDon]

It's a very interesting point, since otherwise historians would only trust sources and documents that are known to be historically reliable. As you go back in time, or as you step outside historical writing itself, you would have less and less material to work with. Thus Josephus famously starts 'Antiquities of the Jews' with Adam and Eve! There are also suggestions that he skews his history of Jews in order to please a Greco-Roman audience. So should we abandon this document as a possible source of information?

That's right, and it's a point that keeps coming up. ALL history is a reconstruction. Reconstructions are often little more than at their hearts guesses. Some may be good guesses, others not so good. But we can never know with certainty.

Even works by Tacitus have gone through many hands. Who knows whether they were editted by other hands after Tacitus? It may be even contemporary accounts by Tacitus of the Emperors of his day were editted or removed by Romans afterwards offended by those views. We don't know anything for certain. All we can do is analyse the texts and make our reconstructions.

 

[IanS]

Ian

We have a routine inference problem about whence Paul wished his audience to conclude he got his biographical information about Jesus. It has been observed without controversy that Paul wrote that he had contact with people who had some interest in Jesus.

That textual observation is evidence about the uncertainty:

? Paul sought to impel all of his readers to conclude that he got none of his biogarphical information from any living informant.

? Paul tolerated that some of his readers would conclude otherwise.

Apart from Paul's uncertain intentions, some of his readers have, as a matter of accomplished fact, concluded otherwise. So, the only remaining uncertainty is whether Paul's intentions allowed for that conclusion. Paul's text is evidence on point, and general principles of effective advocacy furnish a priori or "background" information for the inferential task..

Why are you assuming that whoever wrote Paul’s letters “wished his audience to conclude he got his biographical information about Jesus” from anywhere in particular? The writer does not need to have any wishes about what his readership think may be true or not … he just writes to say that Paul got his ideas from a divine revelation and thought they were confirmed in scripture.

The writer is just recording what he presents as a “fact”. There is not necessarily any “intention” about “wishing” anything about what his readers should conclude.

You are reading motives into the words, that simply are not, or are not necessarily, there

I estimate both the prior information, that having natural sources improves credibility when discussing natural facts, and the bearing of the evidence, that Paul reported ample contact with possible living informants, to favor the second hypothesis over the first. You disagree, for reasons that you have stated. That's an impasse, with nothing further for us to discuss about it.

Well you don’t know that Paul had any such “prior information” about Jesus!

Who wrote before Paul to claim they had any “prior information” about Jesus?

What Paul wrote was that he got no such “prior information” about Jesus from anyone!

The first time that Paul makes any mention of ever having heard anything about the name of Jesus, is when he describes the vision revealed to him by God and its confirmation in scripture. And for that he specifically says it came to him from no human person.

There is no other “hypothesis” of any earlier group knowing Jesus, except as your invention without evidence.

All sorts of earlier groups may have believed in a redeeming messiah. Because that had been Jewish religious belief for at least 1000 years prior to Paul. But there is no evidence that any such earlier 1st century group had identified any named individual, let alone named him “Jesus”, before Paul’s claimed revelation from God and scripture.

You are simply assuming, without evidence, that some earlier group actually did believe that Jesus was the messiah before Paul did. Though not a single person in that group, nor anyone else, ever wrote to claim that at all.

You are making an assumption, without any evidence, and in contradiction to the actual evidence specifically stated in the only, and earliest, written source known (P46). Why bother with inventing a scenario like that? … unless of course you want to believe in Jesus in the first place, and thereby wish to invent a scenario which suggests (as CraigB did repeatedly earlier in the thread) that some earlier group of people actually met and knew a living Jesus.

 

[eight bits]

Ian

Why are you assuming that whoever wrote Paul’s letters “wished his audience to conclude he got his biographical information about Jesus” from anywhere in particular? The writer does not need to have any wishes about what his readership think may be true or not … he just writes to say that Paul got his ideas from a divine revelation and thought they were confirmed in scripture.

I didn't assume that. The hypothesis which I estimate is the better supported reads:

? Paul tolerated that some of his readers would conclude otherwise.

If Paul had no intentions at all about what his audience concluded, then this hypothesis is true.

Well you don’t know that Paul had any such “prior information” about Jesus!

In the matter you quoted, I am the one making an estimate, not Paul. The prior information which I am using concerns how to write a business letter, not Jesus lore.

I didn't see anything in the rest of your post that responded to anything which I wrote. I think your post vigorously corroborates what I wrote earlier,

That's an impasse, with nothing further for us to discuss about it.

 

[IanS]

Ian


I didn't assume that. The hypothesis which I estimate is the better supported reads:


If Paul had no intentions at all about what his audience concluded, then this hypothesis is true.


In the matter you quoted, I am the one making an estimate, not Paul. The prior information which I am using concerns how to write a business letter, not Jesus lore.

I didn't see anything in the rest of your post that responded to anything which I wrote. I think your post vigorously corroborates what I wrote earlier,

Sure. As I said before; you are simply presenting an unsupported un-evidenced set of personally preferred assumptions in contradiction to the known factual evidence.

All that I am trying to emphasise for the sake of anyone reading this, is that where we have the fact of clearly written evidence from the time itself (i.e. the words in P46, in this case), then that must always be preferred to the opposite case of anyone wishing to propose a different explanation with no contemporary supporting evidence at all.

One case is supported by what is probably the clearest of all writing in any of the NT manuscripts. And the other case, which flatly contradicts that clear evidence, is a personal belief which is not supported by any written evidence from anyone at all.

 

[eight bits]

Ian

I'm looking for the part yet that contradicts

That's an impasse, with nothing further for us to discuss about it.

Are we there yet?