The Historical Jesus III

[Mcreal]

... The writings themselves constitute evidence. We have to ask "What is the reason for those writings?" ...

A reasonable explanation for the writings is an attempt to create another religion;

• a religion whose final drafts were used by the eastern Roman empire to standardise theocratic administration;
• a religion who tenets modeled those of previous religions (such as the cult of Serapis*)
  
  • an anthropomorphized god
  • provisions for salvation¹

* which was developed by Ptolemy Soter¹ to unify the Greek and Egyptian cultures after the death of Alexander the Great

¹ hence "soterology"

 

[Elagabalus]

A reasonable explanation for the writings is an attempt to create another religion;

• a religion whose final drafts were used by the eastern Roman empire to standardise theocratic administration;
• a religion who tenets modeled those of previous religions such as the cult of Serapis

[*]an anthropomorphized god
[*]provisions for salvation​

No. It is not a reasonable explanation. Now you've gone there and this is a full on Conspiracy Theory.

 

[Mcreal]

Originally Posted by Mcreal

Recent scholarship around Marcion, based on scholarship of Tertullian (and others), suggests these documents are mid-late 2nd-century, not 1st century...

A cite would be nice for this recent scholarship.

From a previous post; posted here so you don't have to go looking -

Recent texts and discussions around Marcion have included propositions that some or all of the synoptic gospels developed after Marcion's writings.

* Joseph B Tyson (2006) 'Marcion and Luke-Acts: a defining struggle' University of South Carolina Press.

makes a case for not only Luke but also Acts being a response to Marcion, rather than Marcion's gospel being a rewrite of Luke.​

.

* Vincent M (2014) 'Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels' Leuven: Peeters.

Summary: Are the Synoptic Gospels at odds with Early Christian art and archaeology? Art and archaeology cannot provide the material basis 'to secure the irrefutable inner continuity' of the Christian beginnings (Erich Dinkler); can the Synoptic Gospels step in? Their narratives, however, are as absent from the first hundred and fourty years of early Christianity as are their visual imageries. 'Many of the dates confidently assigned by modern experts to the New Testament documents', especially the Gospels, rest 'on presuppositions rather than facts' (J.A.T. Robinson, 1976). The present volume is the first systematic study of all available early evidence that we have about the first witness to our Gospel narratives, Marcion of Sinope. It evaluates our commonly known arguments for dating the Synoptic Gospels, elaborates on Marcion's crucial role in the Gospel making and argues for a re-dating of the Gospels to the years between 138 and 144 AD.

"One of the most important insights of my 'Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels' (2014) was the discovery that Marcion’s Gospel existed in two different versions, first as a pre-published, presumably stand-alone draft, and secondly as a published edition with the framing of the Antitheses and the 10 Pauline Letters ... The key text in this respect is Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem IV 4,2
http://markusvinzent.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/marcions-two-recensions-of-his-gospel.html​

.

* In 'Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century' (2015, Cambridge University Press), Judith Lieu is highly skeptical of any reconstructions of Marcion's text and basically concludes that Tertullian and others didn't actually have any Marcionite texts in front of them when writing.

" ... this volume offers insight into second-century Christian intellectual debate and traces heresiological development. Judith M. Lieu analyses accounts of Marcion by the major early Christian polemicists who shaped the idea of heresy, including Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Epiphanius of Salamis, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Ephraem Syrus. She examines Marcion's Gospel, Apostolikon, and Antitheses in detail and compares his principles to those of contemporary Christian and non-Christian thinkers, covering a wide range of controversial issues: the nature of God, the relation of the divine to creation, the person of Jesus, the interpretation of Scripture, the nature of salvation, and the appropriate lifestyle of adherents. In this innovative study, Marcion emerges as a distinctive, creative figure who addressed widespread concerns within second-century Christian diversity." - from Amazon​

 

[maximara]

IanS,

I'm sorry my last post was incomprehensible, I shall try again. This time I'll try some foundational statements. However, if this is going to be a case that entertaining a hypothetical is going to cause us hang-ups, best to stop now.

The main argument I am addressing is that the Jesus of the bible (Mythical Jesus, MJ) is a miracle performing demigod or god, and since demigods don't exist, the bible letters are dismissed as evidence to find a Historical Jesus.

My question concerns this dismissal.

Assume that a HJ existed. If we can't entertain this much hypothetical, then we are beyond discussion.

Assume that a HJ existed, a standard issue human, with no special powers, was able to convince followers that he was a demigod and could perform miracles. Again, in (hypothetical) reality he is a standard human. His worshippers when writing about him would attribute to him demigod or godly powers, because they were all fooled.

So, must we dismiss these accounts because the Jesus they portray was a demigod or god, even though he was (hypothetically) a standard issue human?

This goes back to the What counts as a historical Jesus? thread we had a while back.

Yes, as Carrier pointed out 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)" BUT (and this is the key problem) we run into the issue of the "a real event distorted and numberless legends attached until but a small residuum of truth remains and the narrative is essentially false" section of the historical myth.

I have suggested three "historical" Jesuses to show the problem:

1) In the time of Pontius Pilate some crazy ran into the Temple trashing the place and screaming "I am Jesus, King of the Jews" before some guard ran him through with a sword. Right place right time...and that is it. No preaching, no followers, no crucifixion, nothing but some nut doing the 1st century equivalent of suicide by cop.

2) Paul's teachings ala John Frum inspired others to take up the name "Jesus" and preach their spin on Paul's visions with one of them getting crucified by the Romans by his troubles whose teachings are time shifted so he is before Paul. (John Robertson actually came up with a variant of this in 1900 with this Jesus being inspired by Paul's writings rather then teachings; this also fits Irenaeus crucified 42-44 CE Jesus)

3) You could have a Jesus who was born c 12 BCE in the small town of Cana, who preached a few words of Jewish wisdom to small crowds of no more than 10 people at a time, and died due to being run over by a chariot at the age of 50.

You then have the other alternatives that have an ahistorical Jesus walking around (neither mythical or historical as Carrier defines the terms):

John Robertson's 1900 idea that the Gospel Jesus was a composite character or that a person inspired by Paul's writings took up the name Jesus, tried to preach his own version of Paul's teachings, and got killed for his troubles fails the criteria.

The idea expressed by Remsberg that there was a Jesus but his following wasn't an identifiable movement until Paul and later the writers of the Gospels got a hold of it also fails Carrier's criteria: "Jesus, if he existed, was a Jew, and his religion, with a few innovations, was Judaism. With his death, probably, his apotheosis began. During the first century the transformation was slow; but during the succeeding centuries rapid. The Judaic elements of his religion were, in time, nearly all eliminated, and the Pagan elements, one by one, were incorporated into the new faith."

G. A. Wells' Jesus Legend (1996) with its mythical Paul Jesus + 1st century teacher who was not executed fails point 2 (they are not the same Jesus) so by Carrier's criteria is NOT a "historical Jesus in any pertinent sense" (this does explain Carrier's classification of this work as 'ahistorical').

Dan Barker's "Other skeptics deny that the Jesus character portrayed in the New Testament existed, but that there could have been a first century personality after whom the exaggerated myth was pattered." (2006 Losing Faith in Faith pg 372) would also fail Carrier's criteria as Baker's first century personality need not be named "Jesus" or if he was his movement was not identifiable until much later.

Say Carrier's hypothetical killed by Herod the Great Jesus is the "true" historical Jesus then EVERYTHING we have talks about an ahistorical Jesus because the other sources we have put Jesus in a different time.

Another possibility is Paul latched on to the name of a small and not all that successful would be messiah, had his vision, and then met the remaining followers of this teacher after converting the remnants of various messiah cults to the Jesus "brand". Paul and these remaining followers die and some third sect picks up the pieces using the stories of the various messiah cults Paul had converted to flesh out a biography of the Jesus Paul had a vision of.

THAT was Remsburg whole point with The Christ; odds are Jesus was a historical person (in that he existed as a flesh and blood man) but Paul and the Gospels tell us NOTHING that can be confirmed about that man.

 

[Leumas]

... The writings themselves constitute evidence. We have to ask "What is the reason for those writings?" ...

The book of Mormon must be evidence for the angel Macaroni... We have to ask "What is the reason Joseph Smith faked and fabricated his hogwash?"

The Quran must be evidence for the angel Whatshisface... We have to ask "What is the reason Muhammad faked and fabricated his poppycock?"

The Vedas must be evidence for Ganesh and Kali et al... We have to ask "What is the reason whomever faked and fabricated their claptrap?"

The Iliad must be evidence for Athena and Zeus... We have to ask "What is the reason Homer composed her fables?"

Beowulf must be evidence for werewolves... We have to ask "What is the reason for that poem?"

The 1001 nights must be evidence for Sinbad and Ali Baba and Aladdin... We have to ask "What is the reason Scheherazade told those fairy tales?"

 

[Leumas]

Is that really your response to my observation that As I have indicated before:
<snip baffling disingenuous bafflement and vicious ad hominems and red herrings per usual>.

Whether one part of the Buybull is claptrap in your reckoning while others are taken as God given truths again in your reckoning is absolutely meaningless and utterly immaterial to any educated discussion based upon logic about the Buybull's sky daddy and his ill begotten son.

Your reckoning is your prerogative but what is in the NT is nothing but totally fabricated claptrap according to my reckoning as well as in the reckoning of many other people who do their thinking based upon 21st century scientific reasoning and rationality and unbiased objective logic and don't have invested wishful thinking in fairy tales written by charlatans millennia ago with the express purpose of bamboozling people who were sufficiently stupid to join their mystery cult.

The parody I use is meant to highlight the INSANITY of the Buybull's hogwash and is based upon EXACTLY what the Buybull says but presented from a different perspective so as to contrast the preposterous attempts that HJers are doing in trying to extrude and wring out a historic nothing of a pathetic meaningless nobody out of one of the most farcical fables and mythical fairy tales ever forged as reality.

HJ is nothing but a modern attempt at re-peddling what is now well understood to be nothing but utterly ludicrous myths and fables of the ancient Jesus mystery cult.... a modern fraud trying to bamboozle modern minds based upon an ancient fakery fabricated to huckster ancient fools.

It is a most humongous shame upon humanity that in the 21st century people are, without laughing their heads off, still even talking about a fable depicting a raping pedophiliac adulterer god who used to ask people to cut the tips of their genitals as a means of ratifying fraudulent real estate contracts and who split himself in three and sent one 1/3 to rape a little girl and put the other 1/3 inside her for 9 months all so that he can forgive a metaphorical misconduct of a metaphorical woman made out of the rib of a metaphorical man who got tricked by a walking talking snake into eating from the magic fruit of a magic tree.

And now that centuries upon centuries of torturing and killing and burning people alive have failed to keep the hoax going we get a modern REPACKAGING of the sky daddy and his pathetic sky son being imposed upon people.

And the modern version of torturing and burning at the stake of anyone who does not swallow the new hucksterism is to slander them with calling them conspiracy theorists and holocaust deniers and demented crazies in need of lobotomies.

 

[Craig B]

So no more evasions please - just post the evidence of anyone writing to say how they had known Jesus the mere human.

Can you prove with evidence that there was anyone who claimed in writing that they knew a human Jesus?

Instead of answering the questions you keep sophistically obfuscating and dodging by repeating that the questions are repeated instead of actually answering the questions.

This is nothing but arrant sophistry of the most banal kind in avoidance of answering the question.

So no more evasions please - just post the evidence of anyone writing to say how they had known Jesus who was not the son of a ghost.

Can you prove with evidence that there was anyone who claimed in writing that they knew a human Jesus who was not the son of a ghost who can walk on water?

Now, that's a fivefold repetition, and it's not only got an accusation of "evasion" in it, but an accusation of "sophistical obfuscation". By contrast, IanS has only ever scored a three.

Also, we've not merely to post evidence in writing of someone who knew Jesus, but this witness has to prove that Jesus wasn't the son of a ghost, and has to prove Jesus couldn't walk on water. That's quite hard, because you could say "I saw him not walking on water" but that doesn't prove he wasn't doing it when you weren't watching.

I bet you expect full marks for this post. Well, no way, cos it is IanS to whom we owe the elaboration of this theme, and he's been working on it very very diligently, and it's he who should get credit for it.

 

[David Mo]

You can go round to the subject again and again and never put an end to it. The problem is the rigid criterion of historical truth used by IanS and others.

There is all sorts of evidence than anyone might be able to produce for any such historical figure. E.g., any physical evidence of any kind? Any personal writing, a grave or skeletal remains, or any inscribed monuments from the time, or coins etc? Any such remains of personally known accompanying friends and "disciples"? Any writing contemporary with time of Jesus where the details can be independently checked? Any official ruling court records, or census records anything at all like, that? No? Nothing at all?

Neither Carrier nor any responsible mythicist can use these criteria of evidence because not only the books about historical Jesus but also almost all the history of Antiquity would be left empty. History is not a legal procedure.
(I am speaking about individuals).

This is not to say that we have the same historical evidence for Jesus than Pisistratus, for example. This is to say that using these criteria to discuss the existence of Jesus is not useful. It is a loss of time.

 

[Mcreal]

You can go round to the subject again and again and never put an end to it. The problem is the rigid criterion of historical truth used by IanS and others.

Originally Posted by IanS

There is all sorts of evidence than anyone might be able to produce for any such historical figure. E.g., any physical evidence of any kind? Any personal writing, a grave or skeletal remains, or any inscribed monuments from the time, or coins etc? Any such remains of personally known accompanying friends and "disciples"? Any writing contemporary with time of Jesus where the details can be independently checked? Any official ruling court records, or census records anything at all like, that? No? Nothing at all?
.

Neither Carrier nor any 'responsible mythicist' can use these criteria of evidence because not only the books about historical Jesus but also almost all the history of Antiquity would be left empty. History is not a legal procedure.

You invoke the fallacy of false equivalence, and a red-herring.

This is not about "all the history of antiquity".

Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence.

IanS is correct to outline those criteria^

 

[Craig B]

You invoke the fallacy of false equivalence, and a red-herring.

This is not about "all the history of antiquity".

Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence.

IanS is correct to outline those criteria^

What gibberish is this? Invoking a red herring? What does that mean? Why should the criteria of examination of ancient history not apply? What "extraordinary" claims? The point of the HJ is not to claim anything "extraordinary" about Jesus.

IanS has outlined his criteria. Fine. I still think he's going for a thousand repetitions. But will Leumas catch up? He's on a roll. It's soooo exciting!

 

[Craig B]

... The whole of the NT is about how god raped and impregnated a 13 years old married girl and committed adultery with this little girl from the progeny of a family of incestual pimps who pimped their wives who were their sisters and first cousins ... So go figure!!

I'm not sure that the whole of the NT is devoted to discussion of that topic. 2 Peter, for example, seems more interested in explaining the postponement of the parousia.

 

[GDon]

deleted

 

[dejudge]

For about the hundredth time, this passage is not by Paul. It is a free-standing hymn, called the kenosis hymn. Christians love it to bits, and say Paul found it and incorporated it into his Epistle; but even they don't say Paul wrote it. Most probably, it is a later intrusion, interpolated by a Christian hand.

What a bizarre statement!! Your statement is baseless. You have no evidence at all that an actual person named Paul wrote any letters in the Pauline Corpus c 50-60 CE.


You seem to have no idea that you are putting forward the notion that supposed letters under the name of Paul were manipulated by Christians.

It is most fascinating that you have been arguing that letters under the name of Paul are authentic and composed c 50-60 CE but now assert Philippians 2.5-11 was not written by Paul.

You forget to tell us who actually wrote Phillipians 2.5-11 and forgot to identify the manuscript.

Papyri 46 [parts of the Pauline Corpus] have been dated to c 175-225 CE.

No earlier manuscripts of the Pauline Corpus exist.

No manuscript with letters under the name of Paul will ever be found and dated to the 1st century pre 70 CE because NONE were composed before the Fall of the Jewish Temple.

 

[dejudge]

I think that if a writer about Jesus did not know that Jesus, it can still constitute evidence towards the historicity of that Jesus. The writings themselves constitute evidence. We have to ask "What is the reason for those writings?" Factors include the length of time from the death of Jesus to the time of writings, the situation in which the passages was written, etc.

You forgot that you have admitted that the Bible is nothing other than "a collection of myths and fables".

The Bible is evidence that Jesus was a figure of myth/fiction.

The Church has documented the nature and origin of THEIR JESUS in their Bible.

The Church has publicly declared that THEIR Jesus was God of God and born of a Ghost.

There is NO historical evidence from antiquity at all which can CONTRADICT the declaration of the Christian Church.

Jesus as documented by the Christian Church is a figure of Faith---Not history.

 

[Belz...]

You forgot that you have admitted that the Bible is nothing but myth and fables.

That really is obnoxious. Kindly stop telling people what they forget or admit or believe or think.

 

[Craig B]

It is most fascinating that you have been arguing that letters under the name of Paul are authentic and composed c 50-60 CE but now assert Philippians 2.5-11 was not written by Paul.

That passage has been raised in these threads umpteen times, and I have said every one of these times, it wasn't written by Paul.

You forget to tell us who actually wrote Phillipians 2.5-11 and forgot to identify the manuscript.

i didn't forget. I don't have a clue. Neither I nor anyone else has the least idea who wrote this passage.

Do you mean if we don't know who wrote it, it must have been written by Paul, in spite of textual indications to the contrary. See what nuttiness we fall into when we forget to look at texts! I've warned you about this many times, dejudge, but alas in vain.

The view that Paul was not the author of the Kenosis Hymn is almost universal, among Christians and atheists alike. If you want more info on this, Google it up.

 

[dejudge]

....From my perspective: What we have is a collection of documents which are the letters from Paul and the Gospel of Mark, which appear to be independent documents, but which tell of a man known as Jesus Christ who was crucified a short time before the writings were done (20 years and 50 years respectively.) And that, to me, is enough to show that there almost certainly was a historical Jesus at the heart of Christianity, and not much more than that. Now, the fact that we can't say much more than that means he might as well have not existed, since any reconstruction is almost certainly wrong. But that is a question for another day.

You have been caught mis-representing yourself!!!

You have openly admitted that the Bible is nothing other than "a collection myths and fables".

Jesus is nothing more than a myth character in the myth fables called the Bible.

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

It would appear that you NEVER thought the Bible was a collection of myths and fables.

Or, you NEVER thought Jesus was a myth in the supposed collection of myths and fables.

But, then an admitted Christian cannot say Jesus was a myth character.

 

[Craig B]

You have been caught mis-representing yourself!!!

You have openly admitted that the Bible Iliad Is nothing other than "a collection myths and fables".

Jesus Troy is nothing more than a myth character locality in the myth fables called the Bible Iliad.

So either Troy didn't exist, or the Iliad is not mythical, you tell us. But if the Iliad isn't mythical then Zeus exists! Wow!

 

[Porpoise of Life]

Let's see, you claimed this:

.
Primary sources - ie. sources from the times being accounted for - are the 'gold standard'.

These might be

• official records
• written accounts with evidence of facts
• other literature
  • poetry
  • religious texts
  • fiction, etc
• artifacts - art, furniture, tools, etc
• archaeological sites

Nobody is making the claim that authors of these accounts "need to have personally met all people involved".

That is a straw-man red-herring fallacy.​

And now you propose this:

A reasonable explanation for the writings is an attempt to create another religion;

• a religion whose final drafts were used by the eastern Roman empire to standardise theocratic administration;
• a religion who tenets modeled those of previous religions (such as the cult of Serapis*)
  
  • an anthropomorphized god
  • provisions for salvation¹

* which was developed by Ptolemy Soter¹ to unify the Greek and Egyptian cultures after the death of Alexander the Great

¹ hence "soterology"

Can you show your primary sources?
The evidence for your conspiracy theory is even more obscure, indirect and non-contemporaneous than the evidence for the theory that Christianity has its roots in the ministry of a guy called Jesus.
Why insist on primary sources for a historical Jesus, when inference and supposition are apparently enough for 'Jesus is Serapis, co-opted by the Romans to standardize religion'?

 

[dejudge]

That passage has been raised in these threads umpteen times, and I have said every one of these times, it wasn't written by Paul. i didn't forget. I don't have a clue. Neither I nor anyone else has the least idea who wrote this passage.

Your claims about authentic Pauline letters have been raised in these threads umpteen times.

I have said that there are NO authentic letters under the name of Paul.

No-one, including you, have the least idea who wrote the letter to the Philippians or any other letter or part of any letter under the name of Paul.

Since you argue that Paul lived in the time of Aretas c 37-41 then he did NOT write any of the HANDWRITTEN letters in the maunscripts called Papyri 46 dated to the 2nd-3rd century.

Do you mean if we don't know who wrote it, it must have been written by Paul, in spite of textual indications to the contrary. See what nuttiness we fall into when we forget to look at texts! I've warned you about this many times, dejudge, but alas in vain.

What absurdity! Please identify the number or designation of the manuscript that was supposedly written by Paul.

Papyri 46 was not!!!

You forgot that you openly declared that Paul did not use the Nomina Sacra.

If you had LOOKED at the Texts of Papyri 46 you would have noticed that ALL letters under the name of Paul use the Nomina Sacra almost a hundred times.

If Paul did NOT use the Nomina Sacra then ALL letters under the name of Paul are NOT authentic.