The Historical Jesus III

[Craig B]

... It is known already that Historians could NOT have come to a consensus that Jesus Christ existed as a mere man with a human father WITHOUT historical data.

What data do historians require in order to conclude that any given person had a human father, even if mythology gives that person a supernatural father?

Consider another religious belief. Muslim apologists are in consensus that the Quran was given to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel. In spite of that consensus, secular scholars are entitled to propose that the Quran is a collection of sayings of Muhammad, compiled following his death.

 

[maximara]

Albert Schweitzer stated Jesus of Nazareth NEVER had any existence.


http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/schweitzer/chapter20.html

Uhh, not quite.

"In either case, He will not be a Jesus Christ to whom the religion of the present can ascribe, according to its long-cherished custom, its own thoughts and ideas, as it did with the Jesus of its own making. Nor will He be a figure which can be made by a popular historical treatment so sympathetic and universally intelligible to the multitude. The historical Jesus will be to our time a stranger and an enigma."

Schweitzer's point was the same as Price's:

"The "historical Jesus" reconstructed by New Testament scholars is always a reflection of the individual scholars who reconstruct him. Albert Schweitzer was perhaps the single exception, and he made it painfully clear that previous questers for the historical Jesus had merely drawn self-portraits. All unconsciously used the historical Jesus as a ventriloquist dummy. Jesus must have taught the truth, and their own beliefs must have been true, so Jesus must have taught those beliefs."

 

[dejudge]

What data do historians require in order to conclude that any given person had a human father, even if mythology gives that person a supernatural father?

You must have never heard of historical data??

Historians would require historical data--not mythology and fiction.

Consider another religious belief. Muslim apologists are in consensus that the Quran was given to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel. In spite of that consensus, secular scholars are entitled to propose that the Quran is a collection of sayings of Muhammad, compiled following his death.

Secular Scholars do not rely on mythology and fiction. Surely, you could not be putting out the notion that the history of Muhammad is only a product of myth fables.

 

[dejudge]

Uhh, not quite.

"In either case, He will not be a Jesus Christ to whom the religion of the present can ascribe, according to its long-cherished custom, its own thoughts and ideas, as it did with the Jesus of its own making. Nor will He be a figure which can be made by a popular historical treatment so sympathetic and universally intelligible to the multitude. The historical Jesus will be to our time a stranger and an enigma."

You seem to think that only you can understand Schweitzer.

The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, and died to give His work its final consecration, never had any existence.

Schweitzer did conclude Jesus of Nazareth NEVER had any existence.

Schweitzer also conclude that Jesus is either literary fiction or a purely escathological concept.

Schweitzer's Jesus is a Spiritual force and INDEPENDENT of history.

But the truth is, it is not Jesus as historically known, but Jesus as spiritually arisen within men, who is significant for our time and can help it.

Schweitzer's Jesus is one of FAITH--Not history.

 

[IanS]

Pretty funny.

I'm quite clearly saying that this is how it comes across to me, on one hand you extole the virtues of Carrier's work, while on the other hand tell me that it's only Christian scholars, not secular scholars of history, who hold this view in a consensus position. You reference him all the time.

I'm quoting you here...

There it is in plain language. We know because of the work of Carrier. You read his work, you say we know it's untrue because of it, why don't you look into his claim that there is a secular consensus against his position? You're simply being pedantic.

Here's more of you talking up Carrier



Whether or not you said those exact words, I think most people reading this know I wasn't claiming you said them, and was simply making a point.

What a horrid waste of time over pedantic nonsense....

Manufacturer of falsehoods was my favorite line in this thread, there's lots more gold here though...

Have fun trying to expose the fraud and crush your opponents arguments everyone!

NO! Completely untrue (yet again!). If you are going to keep on making accusations like this I want you to quote where I ever said -


1. That "Carrier was great source"

And at the same time also said that -

2. He was/is a "fool" for believing something or other.


Quote it! Where the hell did I ever say any such thing???

And by the way, I don't think I have ever said anything in any of these HJ threads about any "consensus". If you think I have said anything about "consensus" to you, then you are deluded (again!).

 

[Joey McGee]

NO! Completely untrue (yet again!). If you are going to keep on making accusations like this I want you to quote where I ever said -


1. That "Carrier was great source"

And at the same time also said that -

2. He was/is a "fool" for believing something or other.


Quote it! Where the hell did I ever say any such thing???

And by the way, I don't think I have ever said anything in any of these HJ threads about any "consensus". If you think I have said anything about "consensus" to you, then you are deluded (again!).

This thread is one of the battier threads I've seen going on here in a long time.

I quoted "There is no scholar in any college or university in the Western world who teaches classics, ancient history, new testament, early christianity, any related field, who doubts that Jesus existed" and said "That's who I'm talking about."

Then you said "you are definitely talking about bible scholars and theologians for 99% of what is being quoted here as coming from "scholars of history"

And this is clearly false.

I see that you're incapable of subtlety. You think that Carrier is a good source, or you wouldn't be talking him up. You clearly think he is also wrong about the secular consensus, or you wouldn't be telling me that I was wrong about his statements on the subject.

Are you that pedantic, incapable of subtlety, and obsessed with winning an argument?

 

[Joey McGee]

Carrier:

He concludes, for example, that until “secular historians…at least become widely divided over” the matter of historicity (emphasis on widely and the minimal benchmark of divided), atheists who are not themselves experts in the field should not be “advocating for one side or the other routinely and prominently.” (There is a growing division, BTW, but it’s not yet wide…although I know other historians who privately confess they are willing to concede agnosticism about historicity but who won’t admit it in public, so the division is wider than we know–but until more go public, we can’t know how wide.)

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/4733

So, for people who go around using Carrier's work as part of their arguments, this should be good enough reason to accept that yes, there really is a consensus amongst secular historians that can't be handwaved away as bible scholars and theologians. This is just common sense. It's also common sense that Carrier would throw in some babble about how it's probably wider than we know because the agnostics are afraid to "go public"

 

[IanS]

This thread is one of the battier threads I've seen going on here in a long time.

I quoted "There is no scholar in any college or university in the Western world who teaches classics, ancient history, new testament, early christianity, any related field, who doubts that Jesus existed" and said "That's who I'm talking about."

Then you said "you are definitely talking about bible scholars and theologians for 99% of what is being quoted here as coming from "scholars of history"

And this is clearly false.

I see that you're incapable of subtlety. You think that Carrier is a good source, or you wouldn't be talking him up. You clearly think he is also wrong about the secular consensus, or you wouldn't be telling me that I was wrong about his statements on the subject.

Are you that pedantic, incapable of subtlety, and obsessed with winning an argument?

Well this has just descended into blatant dishonesty from you in full public view of everyone. Where are the claimed quotes please? You have been asked at least three times now and you have totally failed to produce any such quotes from me whatsoever!

Where did I ever say -


1. That "Carrier was a great source"

And at the same time also say that -

2. He was/is a "fool" for believing something or other.


Quote it! Produce the dammed quotes please!

Where the hell did I ever say any such thing???


And the argument that you have been pursuing with dejudge about the meaning of the word “consensus”, is not one that I have ever replied to or made any comment on whatsoever. I have not said anything here, ever, about what “consensus” may or may not mean when it comes to what bible scholars like Bart Ehrman believe about Jesus.

 

[maximara]

Carrier:So, for people who go around using Carrier's work as part of their arguments, this should be good enough reason to accept that yes, there really is a consensus amongst secular historians that can't be handwaved away as bible scholars and theologians. This is just common sense. It's also common sense that Carrier would throw in some babble about how it's probably wider than we know because the agnostics are afraid to "go public"

Well the United States one professor was fired (Steven C. Bitterman) and another forced to retire (John Schneider) for claiming the story of Adam of Eve was a myth. Since that is happening then wouldn't you be afraid for your job by saying Jesus was a myth?

As James Burke point out in Day the Universe Changed there is this tendency in science to hold on to outdated or even obsolete models like grim death long after their shelf life should have expired.

As Carrier points out BOTH sides of the historical Jesus debate are in serious need of house cleaning.

Yes, the Christ myth side does need to dump the conspiracy theory nonsense and throw out all the material based on a small subsection of Christianity (virgin birth) as well as the material added in later centuries (December 25, three wisemen, etc) but the historical Jesus side needs to stop repeating factually inaccurate or simply untrue statements from previous scholars like a freaking parrot.

 

[Belz...]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consensus

Stop linking to things that disprove your own claims, dejudge:

b : the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned <the consensus was to go ahead>

 

[Craig B]

You must have never heard of historical data??

Historians would require historical data--not mythology and fiction.

Therefore we shouldn't believe the myth that Jesus had a Holy Ghost father. Now, all non fictional accounts of people that we have show that they had human parents. We may therefore accept that Jesus had human parents. Moreover, the gospel of John gives him human parents. The gospel of Mark says nothing, therefore permitting us to suppose that its author believed that Jesus was begotten normally. Our only sources of the Ghost story (which disagree on the details of the story) also contain sources that give Jesus a human ancestry. Paul gives him a human ancestry as well. The NT data are as abundant that he had human ancestry as they are that he had divine paternity.

In any case if we have two sets of information about a person, one magical and the other natural, which do we accept? You accept the magical one, but that is because you are immersed in error and are therefore spouting torrents of balderdash. More reasonable people accept the natural one.

Secular Scholars do not rely on mythology and fiction. Surely, you could not be putting out the notion that the history of Muhammad is only a product of myth fables.

No I'm not putting out that notion. Islamophobe propagandists are the people who put it out, as may be seen in this review of a work by Robert Spencer. We read in Spencer's wiki bio that

He has also co-founded Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) and the Freedom Defense Initiative with blogger Pamela Geller, with whom he also co-authored a book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America. His viewpoints have been described as anti-Islamic or Islamophobic. The UK Home Office has barred Spencer and Geller from travel to the UK for "making statements that may foster hatred that might lead to inter-community violence".

 

[IanS]

Therefore we shouldn't believe the myth that Jesus had a Holy Ghost father. Now, all non fictional accounts of people that we have show that they had human parents. We may therefore accept that Jesus had human parents.

You can't assume that at all lol!

When you make that assumption you are actually assuming "A Priori" (ie "before the fact") that Jesus was indeed a real person regardless of any argument or evidence to the contrary.

You are just trying to parachute Jesus into existence by the utterly daft piece of reasoning that says because real people always have real parents, hence Jesus must have had real parents! ... you are assuming a priori that he did indeed exist, even though that is the very thing which is in dispute!!

The only way that Jesus would have had real parents is if he was indeed a real person himself. So when you say, as jut did above that "we may therefore accept that Jesus had human parents", you are actually trying to make the totally fallacious claim of saying that Jesus must have been real simply because you say he was.

Instead of offering stupid erroneous claims like that, when are you ever going to produce any genuine evidence at all of anyone ever credibly writing to say they had ever met a human Jesus?

You have had all these years with all your hundreds of thousands of words posted here, and still you have never been able to post any evidence whatsoever of anyone at all ever writing to say they had met Jesus.

None of the biblical writers (inc. Paul) had ever met or known a human Jesus in any way at all. And none of them even as much as tried ever to claim any such thing. By definition that means that when those biblical authors wrote about Jesus, the most they could ever write about him was to state their religious beliefs in him as someone that none of them had ever known. In which case what they were writing could not possibly be evidence of Jesus himself ever known to any of them, but instead only evidence of the writers beliefs (beliefs in a supernatural messiah of ancient scriptural prophecy).

That's not evidence of a human Jesus. That's only evidence of un-evidenced religious beliefs about Jesus!

And that's actually all the evidence that exists. Just evidence of religious beliefs written in the holy bible.

There is no other evidence of any kind. No physical artefacts or remains of any sort. No official written Roman records of any kind, such as any mention of Jesus in trial records or census records or any such official records of the time. And no independent non-biblical writing from any authors who could ever have met Jesus, or who ever claimed to have met Jesus either!

What is being claimed as evidence is purely and entirely evidence only the biblical writers un-evidenced religious beliefs.

So when are you going to produce the required evidence?

 

[Belz...]

You are just trying to parachute Jesus into existence

What an interesting visual!

 

[Mcreal]

You are just trying to parachute Jesus into existence

What an interesting visual!

'e humor us

 

[Elagabalus]

What an interesting visual!

Indeed. It's extremely telling. I'm afraid it's always the way IanS thinks of ancient historical figures. Nobody has any relationship with anybody else. Flavius Josephus just parachutes into Jerusalem never discussing recent past events with, say, his High Priest father or seeing Jesus' brother James in the streets. No one is allowed to speak to or speak of anyone else. Everyone is just an observer.

 

[Craig B]

Indeed. It's extremely telling. I'm afraid it's always the way IanS thinks of ancient historical figures. Nobody has any relationship with anybody else. Flavius Josephus just parachutes into Jerusalem never discussing recent past events with, say, his High Priest father or seeing Jesus' brother James in the streets. No one is allowed to speak to or speak of anyone else. Everyone is just an observer.

They're not even that, according to IanS! They're mere believers.

What is being claimed as evidence is purely and entirely evidence only the biblical writers un-evidenced religious beliefs.

And as regards non-biblical evidence, it is demanded that we produce witnesses who knew Jesus personally, as if that was the only criterion of acceptability. I've tried to point out it's not, but in response merely get obviously provocative, disingenuous repetition. It's best left alone, I think.

Dealing with dejudge is much more rewarding.

 

[Belz...]

I ate pork yesterday. Is that evidence that I did? No, it's just a claim, and at best evidence that I believe that I ate pork. What if I have the receipt of the purchase? Nope, it's just evidence of the cashier's belief that I bought it at the time. It's a very useful way to look at evidence, for sure.

Seriously, though, IanS isn't wrong. He's just, in my view, looking for a much higher standard of evidence for this sort of historical figure than even historians would expect, simply because Jesus, as a figure of myth, is important historically. Obviously Ian and I will have to agree to disagree on this.

 

[dejudge]

Stop linking to things that disprove your own claims, dejudge:

What absolute nonsense!!!

It is the dictionary which gives the definition of 'consensus'.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consensus

consensus ---a general agreement about something : an idea or opinion that is shared by all the people in a group.

It is the dictionary which CONTRADICTS you.

You don't know the difference betweeen 'majority' and 'consensus'.

The MAJORITY of people who claim Jesus existed believe he existed as the Son of a Ghost, a Son of a God, God Creator, the Logos and a Transfiguring Water Walker.

There was a Consensus by the Roman Government and Jesus cults at Nicaea and also Constantinople since the 4th century that Jesus was God of God from heaven and born of a Ghost.

There is NO and NEVER was a consensus Jesus existed as a mere man with a human father in the ENTIRE history of mankind by the Roman Government and Jesus cults.

There is NO and NEVER was a consensus that Jesus existed as a mere man with a human father by Atheists, Jews, Historians, Agnostics, Christians, Fundamentalists, Theologians, Heretics or any other group in any country of the whole world.

Joey Mcgee's consensus is a product of Chinese whispers--un-evidence propaganda.

It is most hilarious that Joey Mcgee mentions Carrier an Historian who has conceded Jesus most likely was mythical to show there is a consensus.

What absurd illogical nonsense!!!

Joey Mcgee cannot ever present the names of a 100 secular historians in the whole world who have conceded that Jesus Christ did exist as a mere man with a human father.

 

[Joey McGee]

Where did I ever say

You obviously didn't say those exact words, I was making a point. I'm worried about your health here, please, just let it go...

And the argument that you have been pursuing with dejudge about the meaning of the word “consensus”, is not one that I have ever replied to or made any comment on whatsoever. I have not said anything here, ever, about what “consensus” may or may not mean when it comes to what bible scholars like Bart Ehrman believe about Jesus.

I've already explained to you what the problem I had with what you said, twice. I really can't help you anymore, sorry, maybe calm down and read each word slowly one at a time?

 

[Joey McGee]

Well the United States one professor was fired (Steven C. Bitterman) and another forced to retire (John Schneider) for claiming the story of Adam of Eve was a myth. Since that is happening then wouldn't you be afraid for your job by saying Jesus was a myth?

No... Bitterman was working at a *********** community college in *********** Iowa, and won his case when he sued them. Cry me a river...

As James Burke point out in Day the Universe Changed there is this tendency in science to hold on to outdated or even obsolete models like grim death long after their shelf life should have expired.

Yeah there's a high chance that Carrier is the next Semmelweis here.

As Carrier points out BOTH sides of the historical Jesus debate are in serious need of house cleaning.

Yes, the Christ myth side does need to dump the conspiracy theory nonsense and throw out all the material based on a small subsection of Christianity (virgin birth) as well as the material added in later centuries (December 25, three wisemen, etc) but the historical Jesus side needs to stop repeating factually inaccurate or simply untrue statements from previous scholars like a freaking parrot.

There's always imperfections on both sides. Still you can't bring them closer in respect by merely mentioning the history of science and trying to insinuate they are both equally flawed.