The Historical Jesus III

[Mcreal]

Mark 16

1 And when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome had bought spices, to come and anoint Jesus. 2 So they came to the tomb very early on the day after the sabbath, at sunrise. 3 And they began to question among themselves, 'Who is to roll the stone away for us from the door of the tomb?' 4 Then they looked up, and saw that the stone, great as it was, had been rolled away already.

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"Mary the mother of James" is not referred to as the mother of the dead Jesus they had come to "anoint"
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[Mcreal]

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In Mark 5:37, Mark 3:17, & Mark 1:19; James has a brother John

But, in Mark 6:3 or Mark 15:40, James does not have a brother John.

oh Dear; poor Mark was confused.

.

 

[Craig B]

Craig B, you have still failed to address the various passages in Mark that refer to 'James', besides Mark 3:33 ...


ie. Mark 1:19, Mark 3:17, Mark 5:37, Mark 6:3, and Mark 15:40.

Please explain to me how Mk 1:19 means that it is not true that, as I state, Mark and Matthew give us a James in a list of the names of Jesus' Brothers. If I read that you had a brother called James, would that stop you meeting another person called James?

When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets.

So he couldn't have a different James as a brother?

ETA In that case it would be perfectly in order for this other James to have a brother called John, but Jesus' brother James not to have a brother called John. Some Jameses have brothers called John, and others don't.

 

[tsig]

Hi GF ... ha ha (smiles) OK, I appreciate the Joke, I did smile at that, honestly! (i.e. the "beyond science bit) .

Yes, I'm just trying to highlight something to Craig about his reasoning when he makes an appeal to authority saying there is a consensus amongst expert academics who say that Jesus did exist.

It's all quite pointless of course because Craig is never going to admit anything no matter how many times it's shown in unmistakable terms.

Actually I don't dislike Bart Ehrman. I find his books to be far clearer and with a better standard of writing than the books of Carrier. But I think it was rather a give-away when in his 2013 book he repeatedly used the words "certainty" and "definitely" when talking of the existence of Jesus.

IOW - Craig and other HJ supporters here should understand that something is very seriously wrong with an academic profession (in this case it's biblical scholars), if a consensus amongst "practically every properly trained scholar on the planet", actually thinks that a book as unreliable as the bible is a credible source of reliable evidence sufficient to conclude that the existence of Jesus was a "definite" "certainty". A consensus amongst a group as un-objective and as partial as that, is probably worse than useless ("worse" because it leads huge numbers of people, such as Craig, to think that bible scholars surely must have some really good evidence ... when in fact, as Bart Ehrman's book shows, there actually is no good evidence).

So did Jesus exist? Dunno. But imho it needs something far better than the bible if any educated objective person is to conclude that the likelihood is greater than 50% (i.e. more likely than not, as distinctly from less likely).

The consensus of scholars (Christian) wills Jesus into existence.

It's a modern miracle.

 

[Mcreal]

... Jesus' brother James not to have a brother called John. Some Jameses have brothers called John, and others don't.

So which one is Jesus' brother?

and, What about Mark 3?

31 Then his mother and his brethren came and sent a message to him, calling him to them, while they stood without. 32 There was a multitude sitting round him when they told him: "Here are thy mother and thy brethren without, looking for thee." 33 And he answered them, "Who is a mother, who are brethren, to me?" 34 Then he looked about at those who were sitting around him, and said, "Here are my mother and my brethren! 35 If anyone does the will of God, he is my brother, and sister, and mother."

 

[Mcreal]

Mark 15

37 And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he [cried out and] breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was 'a son of God'/'the Son of God'!”

40 There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger, and of Joses, and Salome. 41 When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.

Jesus Is Buried
42 And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 44 Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died.[j] And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. 45 And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. 46 And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.

j Mark 15:44 or Pilate wondered whether he had already died

No alignment of that James or those Marys with Jesus ....

 

[Mcreal]

Mark 6 starts with Jesus being rejected at Nazareth

Mark 6 (ESV)

6 He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him.

2 And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying,

“Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands?

3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?”​

And they took offense at him.

4 And Jesus said to them,

“A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.”​

5 And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.

6 And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went about among the villages teaching.

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The question is asked about Jesus mother and siblings, but it is not answered, so the issue of who Jesus' siblings were and, specifically, if one of the James in the Synoptic gospels is, is not clarified.

and, cf. Mark 15, Judas is added to the alleged sibling mix; but neither passage alludes to those the Mary mentioned as being the mother of Jesus or their children as siblings of Jesus.

 

[GDon]

Those are my thoughts (the stuff above), plus the thought that I am overdue for reply to gDon in respect of what Carrier says about the book of Zechariah (something that will take up several hours, if not half a day).

Thanks IanS, but I have Carrier's book, so I do know what he says on this. I'd be more interested in your own analysis. That is, present the data but tell me what you think is correct, incorrect, speculative, etc.

Here is Earl Doherty's opinion on Carrier's use of Philo and Zechariah 6:
http://ntweblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/did-jesus-exist-with-richard-carrier.html

What he [Carrier] seems to have done is make a deduction about what was in Philo's mind, something that would have been dependent on an (uncertain) implication in Zechariah. Perhaps Carrier was right, but the difficulties in demonstrating that compromise his claim. Perhaps he should have made the uncertainty clear.​

I agree with Doherty here. The problem is that Carrier's point is highly speculative, but it leads people who read his book uncritically to make the claim as you did: that there are passages "in the book of Zechariah, describe a figure actually named there as “Jesus”, who is a celestial being and described as the Son of God." That's simply not true. The Jesus in Zech 6 is a man. Carrier's actual case is much more speculative, as it is based on Carrier's 'reading' Philo's mind on what Philo thought the Zech 6 text meant, as Doherty points out. But once you see that Zech 6 is about a man, it not only undermines Carrier's 'celestial Jesus' point, but it provides strength to the idea that Paul saw Jesus as a man with all those titles like "Son of God", etc.

 

[Craig B]

So which one is Jesus' brother?

Even if none of them was Jesus' brother, that doesn't mean that Mark and Matthew don't list a James as a brother of Jesus.

and, What about Mark 3?

I've said what I think about Mark 3. It was I who started the discussion about that.

 

[IanS]

Just for the record (and perhaps to help G.Fool and others who say they are not up to speed with all the details of arguments being presented in these HJ threads), though the following has already been explained literally at least 500 times in these HJ threads, the following are the reasons why writing from authors such as Tacitus and Josephus could never be regarded as credible evidence of a human Jesus -

1. We do not have any writing from Tacitus (or from Josephus, or any of the others).

2. All that we have are copies written by Christians themselves from the 11th century and later. I.e., a whopping 1000 years after people like Tacitus had all died.

3. Tacitus was not even born until decades after the supposed lifetime of Jesus. So it would be impossible for Tacitus (or Josephus) to know themselves about anything that happened to Jesus.

4. That means Tacitus (and Josephus) must have been relying on hearsay for what little they said about Jesus.

5. The hearsay sources were anonymous - neither Tacitus nor Josephus say where their mention of Jesus came from.

6. The only known earlier original source of any mention of Jesus from which Tacitus (and Josephus) could have got any ideas of anything about Jesus, was the biblical writing and biblical preaching from Christians themselves.


That could never be credible evidence of Jesus from Tacitus. The 1000 year time gap alone would be 100% fatal in any objective study.

 

[dejudge]

The last sentence is gibberish. This does NOT refer to members of a sect or cult.

Matthew 13:55 Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?

This is about a biological family. And in Mark 3 Jesus contrasts his brothers on the one hand with his followers on the other.

Mark 3:33. And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? 34 And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! 35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

What total REPETITIVE nonsense!!! What absolute ridiculous claims you make, Craig B!!!

Who are you trying to impress??

The author of gMatthew introduced Jesus as the Son of a Ghost without any questions!!!

gMatthew is a Ghost story of the Lord God called Jesus.

Jesus has the NOMINA SACRA for the LORD GOD in gMatthew.

Jesus and the Devil were in conversation in Jerusalem on the pinnacle of the Jewish Temple.


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.

Matthew 1.20

....the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

Is the Devil biological in gMatthew?


Matthew 4. 5

Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God

gMatthew is not history.

Not a single person directly associated with Jesus or his disciples/apostles have ever been seen or documented by non-apologetic writers.

How much longer can Craig B's absurd pathetic HJ argument continue?

 

[Craig B]

The question is asked about Jesus mother and siblings, but it is not answered, so the issue of who Jesus' siblings were and, specifically, if one of the James in the Synoptic gospels is, is not clarified.

No reading of the passage supports such a thesis. It is ridiculous. The passage is series of rhetorical questions of the "who does this guy think he is?" variety. Here it is again.

Mark 6:1 And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him. 2 And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

Are you really trying to tell me that "are not his sisters here with us?" Is a real rather than a rhetorical question? That the answer us not clarified? That the locals didn't know if the sisters were with them; and in the incredible event that they didn't, could they not have gone at once and found out?

These are evident rhetorical questions; not attempts to discover unknown information.

 

[GDon]

Just for the record (and perhaps to help G.Fool and others who say they are not up to speed with all the details of arguments being presented in these HJ threads), though the following has already been explained literally at least 500 times in these HJ threads, the following are the reasons why writing from authors such as Tacitus and Josephus could never be regarded as credible evidence of a human Jesus -

1. We do not have any writing from Tacitus (or from Josephus, or any of the others).

2. All that we have are copies written by Christians themselves from the 11th century and later. I.e., a whopping 1000 years after people like Tacitus had all died.

3. Tacitus was not even born until decades after the supposed lifetime of Jesus. So it would be impossible for Tacitus (or Josephus) to know themselves about anything that happened to Jesus.

4. That means Tacitus (and Josephus) must have been relying on hearsay for what little they said about Jesus.

5. The hearsay sources were anonymous - neither Tacitus nor Josephus say where their mention of Jesus came from.

6. The only known earlier original source of any mention of Jesus from which Tacitus (and Josephus) could have got any ideas of anything about Jesus, was the biblical writing and biblical preaching from Christians themselves.

That could never be credible evidence of Jesus from Tacitus. The 1000 year time gap alone would be 100% fatal in any objective study.

Probably worth giving the counter-point:

Scholars use sources like Tacitus and Suetonius to try to build a picture of what happened before those historians were born all the time. Often they have no choice: we only have available to us a small amount of literature from that period that is extant.

Nearly ALL literature -- pagan and Christian-- has come to us as copies of copies of copies. Most of the writings of Justin Martyr that are often used in mythicist debates today come from one source, in the year 1364:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/richardson/fathers.x.ii.ii.html

Justin would be known to us only by a few spasmodic quotations had not a Byzantine scribe copied an invaluable, if defective, MS., in the year 1364.​

But scholars of history accept this, because that is the reality of the situation. They understand the limitations. And that drives them to try to determine what corruptions and interpolations may have appeared within those texts over that long period. **

There is a hypocrisy among some mythicists that can be seen in this thread. Though they will eliminate texts as 'credible evidence' because the historian wasn't born at the time of the event they were recording, they are quite happy to use such texts to support mythicist readings, without pointing out that they are copies of copies.

If there is one thing that I think this thread demonstrates, it is that double-standard.

** Interestingly, mythicist scholars like Dr Richard Carrier and Dr Robert M Price also accept the limitations on the texts and use them in the same way as other scholars do. They don't make this point about 'the historian wasn't born then therefore it is hearsay' or 'we can't use copies of copies of copies'. Those anti-scholarly views are a feature of Internet forums. It is weird that Carrier and Price are not criticized for doing the same things. IanS, Mcreal: you need to teach Dr Carrier and Dr Price the truth about how to use those texts! Tell them where they are going wrong!

 

[dejudge]

"Confirms"? You mean, is required by religious prejudice to assert. Chrysostom and the others said that, because they had developed a dogma about the eternal virginity of Mary and the divinity of Jesus, and didn't want Jesus to be a Jewish human being.

Again, you write more logical fallacies and fiction, day after day--24-7.

Chrysostom claimed the JEWS KILLED Jesus.

gMatthew is no different to Chrysostom.

The author of gMatthew claimed Jesus was born AFTER his mother was found with child by a Ghost.

Chrysostom claimed his Ghost born Jesus did exist in the flesh and was in Jerusalem.


You use gMatthew as history when it is stated Jesus was a TRANSFIGURING WATER walking Son of a Ghost.

You are using a double standard.

One for gMatthew and another for Chrysostom.

Chrysostom used gMatthew and argued that Jesus was BORN of a Ghost and a woman.

Chrysostom's Commentary on MATTHEW

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200102.htm

Wherefore the birth was twofold, both made like us, and also surpassing ours. For to be born of a woman indeed was our lot, but to be born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of man, but of the Holy Ghost.......

Please, Craig B!!! Your HJ arguments are just total REPETITIVE absurdities.

Chrysostom's writings are in AGREEMENT with gMatthew that Jesus was Born of a Ghost and a woman.

 

[dejudge]

There is a hypocrisy among some mythicists that can be seen in this thread. Though they will eliminate texts as 'credible evidence' because the historian wasn't born at the time of the event they were recording, they are quite happy to use such texts to support mythicist readings, without pointing out that they are copies of copies.

Again, as a Christian you come on this thread spreading propaganda and established fallacies.

It is people who argue that Jesus was a figure of mythology who had to EXPOSE the fact that ALL existing writings about Jesus are NOT contemporary and are not historical accounts.

If there is one thing that I think this thread demonstrates, it is that double-standard.

If there is one thing your posts have demonstrated is you as a Christian will spread known propaganda about those who argue that Jesus was a figure of mythology.

You have already admitted the Bible is nothing but myth fables yet constantly use the very same Bible as a credible historical source.

You are in effect the flagship of "double standard".

...I'd never thought the Bible was anything other than a collection of myths and fables"

 

[Craig B]

Chrysostomos writings are in AGREEMENT with gMatthew that Jesus was Born of a Ghost and a woman.

who could argue with a combo like that, Eh?

 

[Elagabalus]

Just for the record (and perhaps to help G.Fool and others who say they are not up to speed with all the details of arguments being presented in these HJ threads), though the following has already been explained literally at least 500 times in these HJ threads, the following are the reasons why writing from authors such as Tacitus and Josephus could never be regarded as credible evidence of a human Jesus -

1. We do not have any writing from Tacitus (or from Josephus, or any of the others).

2. All that we have are copies written by Christians themselves from the 11th century and later. I.e., a whopping 1000 years after people like Tacitus had all died.

3. Tacitus was not even born until decades after the supposed lifetime of Jesus. So it would be impossible for Tacitus (or Josephus) to know themselves about anything that happened to Jesus.

4. That means Tacitus (and Josephus) must have been relying on hearsay for what little they said about Jesus.

5. The hearsay sources were anonymous - neither Tacitus nor Josephus say where their mention of Jesus came from.

6. The only known earlier original source of any mention of Jesus from which Tacitus (and Josephus) could have got any ideas of anything about Jesus, was the biblical writing and biblical preaching from Christians themselves.


That could never be credible evidence of Jesus from Tacitus. The 1000 year time gap alone would be 100% fatal in any objective study.

Yes, it is IanS. Welcome to the study of Ancient History. That mention in Josephus alone is enough to put him in the history books. And if a cult hadn't formed around Jesus you would have absolutely zero problem with it.

 

[dejudge]

These are evident rhetorical questions; not attempts to discover unknown information.

Your statement is already established to be fallacious for at least 1600 years.

In fact, the questions about James as a brother of Jesus have been answered in the NEGATIVE in writings attributed to Origen.

Origen admitted that in NONE of the Gospels in the Churches was Jesus EVER, EVER, EVER described as a carpenter.

Origen's "Against Celsus"

... in none of the Gospels current in the Churches is Jesus Himself ever described as being a carpenter.

Origen also admitted in Commentary on Matthew that Jesus had NO brother called James.

Origen's Commentary on Matthew X.17

They thought, then, that He was the son of Joseph and Mary. But some say, basing it on a tradition in the Gospel according to Peter, as it is entitled, or The Book of James, that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary.

Your statement that the questions were rhetorical have been destroyed.

Jesus was NEVER EVER described as a carpenter and NEVER EVER had a brother called James based on the very writings of Christians of antiquity.

Jesus was described as a Transfiguring Water walking Son of a God in gMark

When will Craig B stop his REPETITIVE debunked absurd fallacious HJ argument?

 

[dejudge]

That mention in Josephus alone is enough to put him in the history books.

What a ridiculous statement. You have no idea how history is done.

Historians do not just look for names in books to declare them figures of history.

 

[Craig B]

@dejudge

I see you're putting REPETITIVE in caps in case I don't notice this new repeated expression picked up by you from my criticism of your utterances. But I do. So be reassured.