The Historical Jesus II

[IanS]

OK IanS, none of that is evidence against a HJ, nor is it evidence for Carrier's ethereal sub-lunar Jesus (manufactured from David's sperm up in the sky!)...

And Kusche's Parrot squawks yet again. For those who don't know this is a phrase I coined based on David Kusche's comment about the Bermuda Triangle:

"Say I claim that a parrot has been kidnapped to teach aliens human language and I challenge you to prove that is not true. You can even use Einstein's Theory of Relativity if you like. There is simply no way to prove such a claim untrue. The burden of proof should be on the people who make these statements, to show where they got their information from, to see if their conclusions and interpretations are valid, and if they have left anything out."

Any "evidence against a HJ" point is a Kusche's Parrot. The burden of proof should have been on those who say Jesus is a meaningly historical person (opposed to Robin Hood and King Arthur who have "candidates" all over the place)

Indeed.

It‘s becoming like the example of "Russell's Teapot". Russell's point being that if something does not exist, then you cannot produce actual evidence of that non-existing thing to directly show that it does not really exist. The best you can do is to show why the claimed evidence for such existence is untrue.

And that is exactly what has happened in the HJ case - if Jesus did not exist then it's not possible to show direct evidence of that which does not even exist. But what has been shown against a HJ is a huge mass of evidence showing why the biblical stories are untrue, showing where those stories came from (they came from the OT), and showing why the claimed evidence of Jesus is certainly wrong.

And that has been done here many hundreds of times. That is - it has been repeatedly shown here, that the claimed evidence of Jesus is untrue.

 

[Brainache]

Indeed.

It‘s becoming like the example of "Russell's Teapot". Russell's point being that if something does not exist, then you cannot produce actual evidence of that non-existing thing to directly show that it does not really exist. The best you can do is to show why the claimed evidence for such existence is untrue.

And that is exactly what has happened in the HJ case - if Jesus did not exist then it's not possible to show direct evidence of that which does not even exist. But what has been shown against a HJ is a huge mass of evidence showing why the biblical stories are untrue, showing where those stories came from (they came from the OT), and showing why the claimed evidence of Jesus is certainly wrong.

And that has been done here many hundreds of times. That is - it has been repeatedly shown here, that the claimed evidence of Jesus is untrue.

The various parables and teachings of Jesus are not all from the OT. They reflect a particular idiosyncratic style of Second Temple Messianic Apocalyptic Judaism. That is where the evidence for Jesus is, it's in scholarly analysis of the texts; The critical analysis which identified and codified the various sources of the NT. It isn't in just one line of some "credible" source that says "I met Jesus".

Carrier has tried to show that Jesus was some kind of ethereal spirit who only inhabited the sub-lunar realm of heaven, but to do so he has to imagine that Paul thought that god kept tubs of King David's sperm on hand to manufacture his messiah in the sky... It's ludicrous.

It just doesn't fit what we know of second temple Judaism.

 

[dejudge]

By the way, there is NO birth narrative for Satan so you can argue that he was born through human parents.

Yes, OK. Did he have four brothers and more than one sister? Was he the son of a carpenter called Joseph, or was he originally a Son of God living with God and, like him, occasionally visiting the mortal earth?

Let me introduce you to Jesus of Nazareth the Transfiguring Water walker.

1. Mark 6. ....about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them.

2. Mark 9:2 And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them.

3. Mark 15:39 And when the centurion, which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God.

There is NO human father there!!!

There is NO Joseph there!!!

Jesus of Nazareth was ALWAYS claimed to be the Son of a God.

Let me introduce you to the Pauline Jesus--God Incarnate, God Creator, God's OWN Son and God from heaven.

1. Galatians 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law

2. Romans 8:3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh

3. 1 Corinthians 15:47 The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.

4. Colossians 1:16 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.

There is NO human father there.

There is NO Joseph there.

Jesus was GOD who came down from heaven and was made INCARNATE by a woman.

Let me introduce him to you. Where's the "human parents" there, dejudge, eh?

Let me introduce to you the birth narrative of Jesus--the Son of the Ghost.

Where's the human father, Craig B, DUH??

Where's Joseph, Craig B, DUH?

Matthew 1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

It was a Ghost that was there!!!

Jesus was the "SEED" of a Holy Ghost.

Jesus Acted as a Ghost and is documented as the Son of a Holy One.

Jesus of Nazareth is a most PURE Holy MYTH.

Jesus of Nazareth is ABSOLUTE mythology from conception to ascension.

 

[dejudge]

I have heard of adoption, and I have cited that and other verses to show that the original meaning of Son of God as applied to Jesus was that of messianic Davidic King. The mythical Holy Ghost as physical father stuff came later, and the divinisation of Jesus came later still.

Craig B you write FICTION.

Joseph came LATER.

Joseph ADOPTED the Son of the Holy Ghost

Joseph and the Holy Ghost birth Narratiive are found in the VERY SAME LATER gMatthew and gLuke.



There is NO human father of Jesus, there is NO Joseph in gMark and the Pauline Corpus.

In the Pauline Corpus Jesus is directly claimed to be the Son of a God and GOD CREATOR.

JOSEPH and the Holy Ghost birth narrative CAME LATER.

Jesus was GOD of God from the BEGINNING.

Jesus was ALWAYS mythology and fiction from the start.

 

[Craig B]

Where's the human father, Craig B, DUH??

Where's Joseph, Craig B, DUH?

Here he is!

Matthew 1:1 The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 2 Abraham begat Isaac ... 16 and Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

John 1:45 Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

John 6:42 And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?

DUH!!

 

[dejudge]

Where's the human father, Craig B, DUH??

Where's Joseph, Craig B, DUH?

Here he is! DUH!!

Matthew 1:1 The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 2 Abraham begat Isaac ... 16 and Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

What DUH you write!!!

The IRRECONCILABLE genealogies of Joseph were ADDED Later in the same stories with the LATER holy Ghost birth narratives.

Here he is! DUH!!

John 1:45 Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

John 6:42 And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?

You write MORE DUH!!!

Joseph was A LATER ADDITION in gJohn. The VERY FIRST verse of gJohn introduces Jesus as God from the beginning.

You argue that the Pauline Corpus was composed c 50-60 CE but JOSEPH is NOT in there, and the genealogy is NOT in there--those were added in LATER writings.

The IRRECONCILABLE genealogies of Joseph in gMatthew and gLuke are LATE monstrous fables.


Now, Jesus, the Transfiguring water walker has a question for you.

Why did people say Jesus was the Son of David??


Mark 12

35 And Jesus answered and said, while he taught in the temple, How say the scribes that Christ is the son of David?

36 For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool.

37 David therefore himself calleth him Lord; and whence is he then his son?...

Please, answer the question!!! Stop the DUH!!!

NEITHER Joseph nor his genealogy is in gMark and the Pauline Corpus.

The genealogies of Joseph in gMatthew and gLuke are IRRECONCILABLE Fiction and are LATER additions NOT found in gMark and the Pauline Corpus.

Jesus was the Son of God, the LORD from heaven, God's OWN Son--God of God from the start.

 

[Craig B]

Why did people say Jesus was the Son of David??

You quote Mk 12

35 And Jesus answered and said, while he taught in the temple, How say the scribes that Christ is the Son of David? 36 For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. 37 David therefore himself calleth him Lord; and whence is he then his son? And the common people heard him gladly.

Oh, dejudge, that is an interesting quote: it is beloved of HJ proponents.

Permit me to let you into a little secret. Jesus wasn't really a Son of David. He was a nondescript peripatetic Galilean preacher and exorcist. So why did later followers call him Son of David? Because they thought he had been sent by God, so they identified him with the Messiah. That meant he must be "Son of David" (or "Son of God"). Are you with me so far?

But what have we here in Mk 12? Duh!! We have a very early Jesus saying, you don't need to be a Son of David to be a messiah. Why is Jesus saying that? Probably because he had no genealogical claim to be of the seed of David.

Now, here is the big question: Why is that passage in the canonical scriptures? It doesn't represent later church thinking. It doesn't even represent Pauline Jesus in the Sky thinking, which itself is quite early. But we know it does represent the thinking of the people in Mark and Matthew who say, where is this guy getting all this fancy stuff? His family lives here, and he's the son of the village joiner or something of that kind. THEY didn't think he was a son of David or anything fancy like that at all.

So the Mk 12 utterance has all the hallmarks of a very early, and possibly authentic, note: In his preaching, Jesus made no claim to be of the house of David. Did the gospel writers invent that? No, it contradicts their doctrine. Did the Pauline canonists invent it? No, it contradicts their doctrine. Did the ante-Nicene fathers invent it? No, it contradicts their doctrine. Did the Nicene fathers invent it? No, it contradicts their doctrine. Did the post-Nicene fathers invent it? No, it contradicts their doctrine. Did the medieval .... but you get the idea.

Please, answer the question!!! Stop the DUH!!!

That's not fair! You started the DUH. Anyway I like the DUH, so there!

 

[maximara]

I would submit that what dejudge means by "fiction" and what most of us would mean by that term are quite apart from one another; that is where he becomes delusional. Serious scholars do not denigrate the entire corpus because of documented discrepancies; each manuscript presents a unique view and framework. Admittedly, the canonical gospels give radically varying accounts of events surrounding the start of Jesus' ministry, the entry into Jerusalem, the Passover meal & its preparations, the "trials," the actual day & hour of execution, etc. It's quite likely no more than a very flew scribes/chroniclers in the 1st Century had known or even had heard of one another. Historical writing as we think of it certainly varies by orders of magnitude from the aims of writers of the early Christian era. Were one of us in a time-bubble hovering over the Levant during biblical times, very, very little would appear as now reported.

Again, "fiction" as we see it and think of it is only a partially accurate measure of the poetic license regularly employed by ALL writers of the biblical period.

In short, canonical texts can in some degree reflect some events and some attitudes, even while not being squeakily accurate by our measure.

We also remember that propaganda is involved here and in its original sense ie to propagate the faith (or rather to propagate a particular view of the faith)

The problem there as I have said is propaganda runs the entire gambit from largely accurate to not accurate in the slightest. The Gospels tend to toward that not accurate in the slightest end in term of social-political factors.

 

[dejudge]

You quote Mk 12 Oh, dejudge, that is an interesting quote: it is beloved of HJ proponents.

Permit me to let you into a little secret. Jesus wasn't really a Son of David. He was a nondescript peripatetic Galilean preacher and exorcist. So why did later followers call him Son of David? Because they thought he had been sent by God, so they identified him with the Messiah. That meant he must be "Son of David" (or "Son of God"). Are you with me so far?

You just made up that "secret" story. DUH!!! Your "secret" is invented fiction.

Your claim that Jesus was not the Son of God is really useless because Jesus was a Transfiguring water walker who was raised from the dead.

1. Jesus could NOT have been the son of David if he [David] existed hundreds of years earlier.

2. Jesus could not actually be the son of a Myth God.

3. Jesus could not have been a man with human flesh when it is claimed he walked on water, transfigured and resurrected after he was dead.

Jesus in the NT was NOTHING but myth and fiction.

 

[IanS]

Just on the point of whether all the Jesus beliefs can be traced back to the OT or similar "scripture" of the time - we don't need to show that every mention of Jesus in the gospels can be traced to specific sentences in the OT. Once you discover that more than one or two minor mentions of Jesus were copied from a much earlier source like the OT, then the entire set of gospels stories has to come under increasing suspicion each time you find yet another part of the OT adapted to make a Jesus story.

One such example might be passed of as just coincidence. Two examples begins to get suspicious. Three is examples is getting very suspicious. But as Helms shows there are many more examples than that. And that's just no longer credible to continue claiming that gospel writers who had never known any such person as Jesus, and never as much as even mentioned anyone who gave them any of their stories of Jesus, were doing anything other than using sources like the OT for their Jesus beliefs.

Paul, who according to all HJ people, pre-dated the dated the gospels, even tells us repeatedly that he obtained his Jesus beliefs from what he thought was written in OT "scripture". So there really should be no doubt about that and no argument about it.

And if Paul wrote before the gospels then it's perfectly obvious that later gospel writers may have just been building upon what Paul wrote, and doing as Paul insists he did, and checking the OT prophecies to see which ones they could recast in the guise of Jesus. And as Helms books shows, they most definitely were doing exactly that.

It's no use pointing to specific examples, such as Jesus walking on water (say), and saying they have not been traced to specific parts of the OT or other "scripture" of the time, and hence we should believe those parts are actually true, because most of those stories are impossible miracle-fiction. Though in fact we had exactly that argument here a couple of years back concerning that particular story of Jesus walking on the sea, and where a HJ poster here named Grahbud (who is well known to some of us from years back) tried to argue that it was indeed a real incident but that the disciples were mistaken about what they saw Jesus doing ... but that excuse simply won't "wash", because in the stories Jesus actually gets into the small boat with the disciples and has a full conversation with them about how he could walk on water, and even got one of the disciples to get out of the boat and try walking on the sea as well!

The same thing has happened here with the story of the Lords Supper. For years people here have insisted that is clear evidence of a real Jesus, because they say only real human people could sit around eating bread and drinking wine etc. But as we have just shown - in the NT the first mention of that supper apparently comes from Paul's letter (assuming HJ people here claim that Paul pre-dated the gospels), but when Paul tells that story he specifically says he got it from the talking spirit of Christ in the heavens!

Once you find that many of the NT stories can be traced either to the OT or to the fanatical religious faith of divine spiritual revelation, it's no longer intellectually credible, or even intellectually "honest", to keep believing that the remaining mentions of Jesus should still be true ... even though none of those authors could possibly know that any such stories were true, because they never themselves knew anything about Jesus, and did not know anyone else who ever met Jesus either.

 

[Craig B]

Jesus could NOT have been the son of David if he [David] existed hundreds of years earlier.

"Son of David" was a messianic title, just like "Son of God". It implied descent from the lineage of David, not necessarily that David was Jesus' personal immediate parent. I'm surprised you don't realise that dejudge, and it makes me want to write DUH!

Jesus could not actually be the son of a Myth God.

That's right, dejudge. That's why I say it was another messianic title. It doesn't mean I think he was really the son of a god in whose existence I don't believe.

Jesus could not have been a man with human flesh when it is claimed he walked on water, transfigured and resurrected after he was dead.

Yes he could. Easily. If I claimed that Winston Churchill walked on water, transfigured, and rose from the dead, my claiming it doesn't mean that Churchill didn't exist. It simply means that my claims are not true. People claim Jesus did these things. But he didn't really do them, dejudge.

Jesus in the NT was NOTHING but myth and fiction.

I think he was a person to whom mythical and fictional stories were attached in later years.

 

[maximara]

If I claimed that Winston Churchill walked on water, transfigured, and rose from the dead, my claiming it doesn't mean that Churchill didn't exist. It simply means that my claims are not true. People claim Jesus did these things. But he didn't really do them, dejudge. I think he was a person to whom mythical and fictional stories were attached in later years.

This goes back to the Reductive vs Triumphalist issues that Carrier wrote about: Either side of the historicity debate will at times engage in a fallacy here, citing evidence supporting the reductive theory in defense of the triumphalist theory (as if that was valid), or citing the absurdity of the triumphalist theory as if this refuted the reductive theory (as if that were valid)" (sic; OHJ pg 30)

As I have previously pointed out dejudge is so wound up on the Triumphalist Jesus that any Reductive Jesus gets lost in the shuffle.

That said Paul doesn't really give us anything firm to work with and sometimes contradicts himself (Rulers of this age ie Romans vs Jews were responsable for Jesus crucifixion).

In Gal. 1:11-12 Paul clearly states the Gospel he is preaching is not from man but via revelation ie vision. So the teachings Paul is going on about are from his own head rather then any actual preacher in Galilee.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 is quite clear that the Last Supper he is talking about "I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you" ie it is a vision.

So the Jesus Paul is on about is in his head and things that Jesus does is also in his head. This means the connection to an actual preacher in Galilee is iffy at best.

 

[IanS]

If I claimed that Winston Churchill walked on water, transfigured, and rose from the dead, my claiming it doesn't mean that Churchill didn't exist. It simply means that my claims are not true. People claim Jesus did these things. But he didn't really do them, dejudge. I think he was a person to whom mythical and fictional stories were attached in later years.

Your analogy not remotely comparable, because Winston Churchill is universally agreed to be a real person. And there is a mountain of evidence to prove that (should anyone doubt it).

The complete opposite is true of Jesus. For Jesus there is no such evidence at all beyond 1st century superstitious belief in supernatural gods.

When people tell the story of Churchill sitting in discussion with Roosevelt and Stalin at the Livadia Palace in Crimea, the evidence shows they were all indeed there in February 1945 doing precisely that.

How did that story come to the press and others who wrote about it? They were all there at the time, took photos, made and reported copies of what had been agreed, etc. etc.

But in the case of the Last Supper, in the NT bible that story came from Paul, who said he got it from the talking spirit of a dead messiah in the sky.

Your analogy is 100% wrong. It’s not comparable in any sense at all. Churchill’s meeting definitely happened. Paul’s conversation with the airborne dead Christ definitely did not happen.

 

[Elagabalus]

This goes back to the Reductive vs Triumphalist issues that Carrier wrote about: Either side of the historicity debate will at times engage in a fallacy here, citing evidence supporting the reductive theory in defense of the triumphalist theory (as if that was valid), or citing the absurdity of the triumphalist theory as if this refuted the reductive theory (as if that were valid)" (sic; OHJ pg 30)

As I have previously pointed out dejudge is so wound up on the Triumphalist Jesus that any Reductive Jesus gets lost in the shuffle.

That said Paul doesn't really give us anything firm to work with and sometimes contradicts himself (Rulers of this age ie Romans vs Jews were responsable for Jesus crucifixion).

In Gal. 1:11-12 Paul clearly states the Gospel he is preaching is not from man but via revelation ie vision. So the teachings Paul is going on about are from his own head rather then any actual preacher in Galilee.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 is quite clear that the Last Supper he is talking about "I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you" ie it is a vision.

So the Jesus Paul is on about is in his head and things that Jesus does is also in his head. This means the connection to an actual preacher in Galilee is iffy at best.

And here I was thinking that the whole Reductive vs Triumphalist thing was just a way Carrier could control the message and elevate himself (who else?) as the final authority of all things Jesus.

Carrier: I said in Chapter one of my book OHJ that you can't do the Reductive vs Triumphalist thing.

HJ Scholar (of some import): Your terms are meaningless to me.

Carrier: OK, but you still can't do it!

HJ Scholar (of some import):Why?

Carrier: Because its written in chapter one that you can't do it!

HJ Scholar (of some import): But what if I don't agree with your rather arbitrary distinctions?

Carrier: Look, did you read chapter one of my book? Is it in there or isn't it?

 

[Brainache]

And here I was thinking that the whole Reductive vs Triumphalist thing was just a way Carrier could control the message and elevate himself (who else?) as the final authority of all things Jesus.

Carrier: I said in Chapter one of my book OHJ that you can't do the Reductive vs Triumphalist thing.

HJ Scholar (of some import): Your terms are meaningless to me.

Carrier: OK, but you still can't do it!

HJ Scholar (of some import):Why?

Carrier: Because its written in chapter one that you can't do it!

HJ Scholar (of some import): But what if I don't agree with your rather arbitrary distinctions?

Carrier: Look, did you read chapter one of my book? Is it in there or isn't it?

And this "Reductive vs Triumphalist" thing is what Maximara does a lot when he says things like the HJ is improbable because Nazareth didn't exist, or that Pilate wouldn't have had a trial as described in the gospels when neither of those things is essential for a HJ.

 

[dejudge]

"Son of David" was a messianic title, just like "Son of God". It implied descent from the lineage of David, not necessarily that David was Jesus' personal immediate parent.

Again, your argument makes no sense. You are actually arguing that gMark is not credible but you still use gMark as history.

In the same gMark it is claimed Jesus WALKED on water, Transfigured and was raised from the dead.

Jesus of Nazareth in gMark was not human.

gMark is not an historical account and was never intended to be.

gMark's Jesus the Transfiguring Water WALKING Son of a God is fiction and mythology.

 

[dejudge]

And here I was thinking that the whole Reductive vs Triumphalist thing was just a way Carrier could control the message and elevate himself (who else?) as the final authority of all things Jesus.

Carrier: I said in Chapter one of my book OHJ that you can't do the Reductive vs Triumphalist thing.

HJ Scholar (of some import): Your terms are meaningless to me.

Carrier: OK, but you still can't do it!

HJ Scholar (of some import):Why?

Carrier: Because its written in chapter one that you can't do it!

HJ Scholar (of some import): But what if I don't agree with your rather arbitrary distinctions?

Carrier: Look, did you read chapter one of my book? Is it in there or isn't it?

Your post is all futile speculation.

When will people who argue for an historical Jesus present credible historical evidence for their HJ?

It should have been a very simple task.

For over 250 years there has been a QUEST for an HJ so there should be a massive amount of evidence.

Please, somebody!!! Please Historicists!!!!

We have the writings of Christians of antiquity and they argued that Jesus was born of a Ghost or was GOD from the beginning.

What writings do the HISTORICISTS have??

They have NOTHING!!!

 

[dejudge]

And this "Reductive vs Triumphalist" thing is what Maximara does a lot when he says things like the HJ is improbable because Nazareth didn't exist, or that Pilate wouldn't have had a trial as described in the gospels when neither of those things is essential for a HJ.

Those who argue for an HJ have nothing that is essential for their HJ argument.

HJers have discredited their own sources and have essentially destroyed the HJ argument.

 

[Brainache]

Those who argue for an HJ have nothing that is essential for their HJ argument.

HJers have discredited their own sources and have essentially destroyed the HJ argument.

Here, watch this video, it's from a conference about HJ and "The life of Brian":


'Jesus and Brian' session one

 

[dejudge]

Here, watch this video, it's from a conference about HJ and "The life of Brian":


'Jesus and Brian' session one

Here read this. Get familiar with the writings of antiquity.

Julian's Against the Galileans

It is, I think, expedient to set forth to all mankind the reasons by which I was convinced that the fabrication of the Galilaeans is a fiction of men composed by wickedness.

Though it has in it nothing divine, by making full use of that part of the soul which loves fable and is childish and foolish, it has induced men to believe that the monstrous tale is truth.

The stories are Jesus are CHILDISH, FOOLISH MONSTROUS Fables--total nonsense.

There was NEVER any historical data for Jesus of Nazareth and that is precisely why CHRISTIANS themselves argued that Jesus came down from heaven WITHOUT BIRTH or was a PHANTOM or born of a Ghost.