The Historical Jesus III

[dejudge]

Arg, the quote thing isn't working... again.

IanS, thanks again for the thoughtful reply.

Unfortunately, you got hung up on the hypothetical, and didn't address the actual point I was questioning. The hypothetical was only an attempt to illustrate why dismissing scripture in the search for HJ is flawed.

The point is that in the search (or anti-search) for a HJ, scripture is dismissed because it talks about a Mythical Jesus. I'm suggesting that dismissing scripture for this reason seems flawed.

HJ could have been a fakir, a charlatan, a 2000+ year old man (See: The Man from Earth), an alien, or the writers of scripture could have exaggerated, or could have made it up from whole cloth. Which is why historians looking for an HJ are not looking for a miracle working demigod, they are looking for a standard issue human. Accounts of miracles are not used as evidence (or shouldn't be), but there are other aspects that speak to the possibility of a standard issue human as the seed of the myth.

But, saying someone worked with the fleshy brother of Jesus specifically makes no claim about a Mythical James or Mythical Jesus. Why would this be dismissed because MJ couldn't exist? It seems to be throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Again, my claim is that dismissing all scripture because MJ could not exist is flawed. There are other, better reasons to dismiss scripture, not the least of which is they were not written when Jesus or James would have been alive.

I don't mean to sound argumentative, I'm trying to address the dismissal of a source of evidence for a poor reason. I don't know nor really care if there is a historical seed for MJ. It seems pointless. But I do care about good or rational argument.

Your statement shows that you are argumentative.

You constantly fail to understand or admit that there is ZERO historical data for Jesus of Nazareth.

The HJ argument is completely flawed [baseless] since the argument was initiated WITHOUT a shred of evidence from antiquity.

The NT is evidence of myth/fiction.

The documented statement by Christians of antiquity that Jesus was born of a Ghost is EVIDENCE which supports mythological/fictional Jesus.

 

[Belz...]

You constantly fail to understand or admit that there is ZERO historical data for Jesus of Nazareth.

I'd normally answer that you should tell all this to those stupid historians, but then they're closet Christians so who cares about their professional opinions, right?

 

[The Big Dog]

Not throwing out the event; but the persecution story is likely not true or way over-stated -

A. Not really the point.

B. I find your sources.... Lacking.

 

[The Big Dog]

Your statement shows that you are argumentative.

You constantly fail to understand or admit that there is ZERO historical data for Jesus of Nazareth.

The HJ argument is completely flawed [baseless] since the argument was initiated WITHOUT a shred of evidence from antiquity.

The NT is evidence of myth/fiction.

The documented statement by Christians of antiquity that Jesus was born of a Ghost is EVIDENCE which supports mythological/fictional Jesus.

Man, it is like a mantra. Just keep repeating the same thing over and over and over. Ooohhhhhhhhhmmmmmmm.

Let's not kid ourselves, dejudge's arguments are getting to the point of the least persuasive, most formulaic I have seen.

A couple of "you" comments, a bald conclusion, a repeated statement that Jesus/nt is a myth.

Just awful.

 

[GDon]

Except that is for your final remark in which you tried to claim that you have all of biblical scholars on your side and that I have nobody except perhaps a few sceptics like Richard Carrier.

Eh? My very point has been that you don't even have Richard Carrier on your side. He treats the texts in the same way as other scholars do. Weird that you got that twisted around so quickly. It's the kind of an attention span that even a goldfish might be embarrassed by.

So if you and 10,000 biblical scholars all wish to claim how certain you are upon such total lack of any such evidence at all (evidence of a human Jesus, that is ... not evidence of something else entirely, such as merely evidence of religious beliefs drawn from the OT), then as I said before that is entirely your choice, but belief like that, in the absence of genuine evidence, is what is actually called faith (in this case it’s religious faith).

I see. We really need a better "rolling eyes" icon.

But if you actually believe that in the bible there is some other genuine evidence of Jesus as a living person, then by all means quote whatever that evidence is from the bible ... but be sure that it is not just a quote of the authors un-evidenced belief in a figure they had never known, because that would only be evidence of their religious beliefs (un-evidenced beliefs in the supernatural, in fact).

So ... what evidence do you produce from the bible then?

The New Testament itself; see below. But we've gone over this before. There is an epistemological disagreement between us that can't be overcome. Time for both of us to acknowledge that and move on, I think.

The best short answer to your question is the one I've reproduced before from Internet Infidel co-founder Jeffery Jay Lowder:
http://infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/indconf.html

Second, independent confirmation is not necessary to establish the mere existence of the Jesus of the New Testament. There simply is nothing epistemically improbable about the mere existence of a man named Jesus. (Just because Jesus existed does not mean that he was born of a virgin, that he rose from the dead, etc.) Although a discussion of the New Testament evidence is beyond the scope of this paper, I think that the New Testament does provide prima facie evidence for the historicity of Jesus. It is clear, then, that if we are going to apply to the New Testament "the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material,"[19] we should not require independent confirmation of the New Testament's claim that Jesus existed.​

So you can count yet another skeptic on my side. You do have Mcreal, Leumas and dejudge on your side, if that means anything. But the idea that the NT itself is prima facie evidence for the historical existence of a Jesus Christ seems to be as well supported among skeptics. You may want to consider the implications of that.

 

[dejudge]

The best short answer to your question is the one I've reproduced before from Internet Infidel co-founder Jeffery Jay Lowder:
http://infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/indconf.html

Second, independent confirmation is not necessary to establish the mere existence of the Jesus of the New Testament. There simply is nothing epistemically improbable about the mere existence of a man named Jesus. (Just because Jesus existed does not mean that he was born of a virgin, that he rose from the dead, etc.) Although a discussion of the New Testament evidence is beyond the scope of this paper, I think that the New Testament does provide prima facie evidence for the historicity of Jesus. It is clear, then, that if we are going to apply to the New Testament "the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material,"[19] we should not require independent confirmation of the New Testament's claim that Jesus existed.​

What absurdity!!! You must present independent confirmation for the supposed Jesus of Nazareth outside the myths and fables called the Bible.

It can be argued based on the abundance of evidence from antiquity that it is probable that Jesus was a myth/fiction character like Romulus, Satan, or Adam since the Bible is nothing but "a collection of myths and fables".

Satan and Jesus were together with angels in a wilderness of Judea in the Bible and you don't want any independent confirmation for the historicity of Jesus.

Satan, Jesus and the angels are confirmed myth/fiction characters in the Bible.

 

[Mcreal]

So you can count yet another skeptic on my side. You do have Mcreal, Leumas and dejudge on your side, if that means anything. But the idea that the NT itself is prima facie evidence for the historical existence of a Jesus Christ seems to be as well supported among skeptics. You may want to consider the implications of that.

Eh? Well, one, anyway: Jeffery Jay Lowder

Yes, "We really need a better "rolling eyes" icon."

For what it's worth: I disagree with Lowder ie. I don't "that the New Testament does provide prima facie evidence for the historicity of Jesus", and I also think we do require " independent confirmation of the New Testament's claim that Jesus existed".

We can do that by investigating the development of so-called Christian literature through the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

The fact that 2nd century texts by so-called church Fathers, such as Apology to Autolycus, and Fragment of Papias, fail to mention Jesus is relevant.

 

[Leumas]

...the NT itself is prima facie evidence for the historical existence of a Jesus Christ...

• Is the book of Mormon a prima facie evidence for the angel Macaraoni?
  
• Is the Quran a prima facie evidence for Abraham?
  
• Is the Tanakh a prima facie evidence for Adam?
  
• Is the Tanakh a prima facie evidence for Moses?
  
• Is the Iliad a prima facie evidence for Athena?
  
• Is the Mahabharata a prima facie evidence for Ganesh?
  
• Is the Aeneid a prima facie evidence for Romulus?

And the list goes on and on of the same genre of claptrap as the NT with as much mythical hogwash and fairy tales as in the NT. You may want to consider the implications of that.

If you do not hold in high esteem the above prima facie insanity of extruding a normal human virago called Athena out of the classical collection of myths and fables why then the special pleading for the nothing but a collection of myths called the NT and its protagonist Jesus.

You yourself admitted that the Buybull is nothing but a collection of myths and fables.

Yet you want to use those myths and fables to extrude a normal human being out of the ill begotten son of a ghostly phantasmal manifestation of a 1/3rd of a magical sky daddy.

And what is even more astounding is that you then proceed to worship this rationalized downgraded nothing of a pathetic tragic nobody as a god all over again.

...There is an epistemological disagreement between us that can't be overcome. Time for both of us to acknowledge that and move on, I think.

You're not kidding!!

What would you think of an epistemology that induces one to worship Ali Baba after one has applied the most illogical process of rationalization and special pleading and cherry picking to the nothing but a collection of fairy tales called the 1001 Arabian Nights?

What do you think of an epistemology that enables one to worship Hercules after applying the same process to the nothing but a collection of myths and fables of classical writings as the HJers apply to the nothing but a collection of myths and fables called the Buybull?

... not long after I converted from agnosticism to theism, and then to a liberal Christianity (I won't go into reasons why here). Even though I'd never thought the Bible was anything other than a collection of myths and fables,...

 

[dejudge]

These posters here who argue for an HJ don't realise how awful their HJ baseless arguments are.

GDon seem to have no idea that he has discredited the Bible as a credible historical source when he admitted the Bible is nothing but "a collection of myths and fables."

 

[maximara]

There is no such thing as "historical truth" as you just called it. Or as other HJ posters here have often said or tried to imply, something called "historical evidence" or a special type or special standard of "truth" or "evidence" that is peculiar to biblical studies.

Evidence for anything, or the "truth" of anything, means the same thing in all subjects. "Fact" (i.e. "truth"), is "fact", whatever subject is under discussion.

What you, and all other HJ posters here seem to be claiming, is that in studies of ancient history, inc. studies about the bible as a source of writing about Jesus, we are forced to accept as "evidence" information which is, as one HJ poster of the past here (i.e. name “JaysonR”) put it himself, of a "truly awful standard" (though he still wanted to use that “truly awful standard” of evidence anyway)

A repost of the historical method is in order:

Regardless of classification (Social science or art) there are are techniques and guidelines modern historical research is supposed to follow.

First, all other things being equal the closer a piece of evidence is to event in question the better it is regarded. These levels of evidence are:

1) Contemporary evidence: Evidence that dates to the time the person or event actually happened -- documents, media accounts, eyewitness accounts, etc.

2) Derivative evidence: Evidence that uses contemporary evidence from the contemporary record that has since been lost, such as histories written in ancient times.

3) Comparative evidence: Evidence that gives details that can be checked against known phenomena of the time.

Historians evaluate this available evidence in two main ways:

Source criticism

This covers determining the reliability of a given source, procedures regarding contradictory evidence, and quality of possible eyewitness evidence including indirect witnesses and oral tradition.

Synthesis: historical reasoning

This covers argument to the best explanation (ie Which competing theory is more likely to explain a given bit of evidence?) sometimes using statistical inference and-or argument from analogy.

References

Garraghan, Gilbert J. (1946) A Guide to Historical Method, Fordham University Press: New York . ISBN 0-8371-7132-6)

Olden-Jørgensen, Sebastian (2001). Til Kilderne: Introduktion til Historisk Kildekritik (in Danish). [To the sources: Introduction to historical source criticism]. København: Gads Forlag. ISBN 978-87-12-03778-1.

Thurén, Torsten. (1997). Källkritik. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.

Howell, Martha & Prevenier, Walter (2001). From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8560-6.

Shafer, R. J. (1974) A Guide to Historical Method, The Dorsey Press: Illinois . ISBN 0-534-10825-3.)

McCullagh, C. Behan (1984) Justifying Historical Descriptions, Cambridge University Press: New York . ISBN 0-521-31830-0.

----

In terms of the standard historical method the evidence for Jesus is really poor.

When it comes to the Bible the historical method get squirrelly in how it is used.

With Jesus in particular the Derivative evidence is shaky and the Comparative evidence is a train wreck, 'procedures regarding contradictory evidence' seems to completely out to lunch as does 'argument to the best explanation'.

 

[Craig B]

There was NEVER EVER any historical Jesus and Paul.

You will NEVER EVER find a manuscript with stories of Jesus and Paul dated to the 1st century before the Fall of the Jewish Temple.

NEVER EVER.

No Paul either, Eh? Maybe you saw Paul transfiguring while he walked on WATER with his Virgin Mum, AND that's why you don't BELIEVE in his existence.

You will NEVER EVER EVER find a manuscript OF the Iliad from before a thousand years AFTER the trojan WAR, but scholars still think it happened.

The glorious and rich city Homer describes was believed to be Troy VI by many twentieth century authors, destroyed in 1275 BC, probably by an earthquake. Its follower Troy VIIa, destroyed by fire at some point during the 1180s BC, was long considered a poorer city, but since the excavation campaign of 1988 it has risen to the most likely candidate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War#Dates_of_the_Trojan_War

The earliest surviving example of Homeric papyri is from the third century BCE, about the time that scholars in Alexandria produced a relatively stable text that was subsequently used by scribes to produce copies.

http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/webexhibits/homerinprint/preprint.html

Today many scholars agree that the Trojan War is based on a historical core of a Greek expedition against the city of Troy, but few would argue that the Homeric poems faithfully represent the actual events of the war.
In November 2001, geologist John C. Kraft and classicist John V. Luce presented the results of investigations into the geology of the region that had started in 1977.[213][214][215] The geologists compared the present geology with the landscapes and coastal features described in the Iliad and other classical sources, notably Strabo's Geographia. Their conclusion was that there is regularly a consistency between the location of Troy as identified by Schliemann (and other locations such as the Greek camp), the geological evidence, and descriptions of the topography and accounts of the battle in the Iliad.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War#Dates_of_the_Trojan_War
That is to say, the scholars base their views on the text not on the date of the EARLIEST extant ms. The only PERSON who did that was Jean Hardouin and he was known to be off HIS nut.

 

[maximara]

I'd normally answer that you should tell all this to those stupid historians, but then they're closet Christians so who cares about their professional opinions, right?

Bible Studiers and theologian are NOT secular historians

Constantin-François Volney - historian
Bruno Bauer - philosopher and historian
Edwin Johnson - historian
Richard Carrier - historian

W. H. C. Frend is one of the few actual historians I could find for the other side and the only reason he shows up is due to his review of one of GA Wells earlier books.

R. Joseph Hoffmann is in the we simply don't know camp.

 

[maximara]

You will NEVER EVER EVER find a manuscript OF the Iliad from before a thousand years AFTER the trojan WAR, but scholars still think it happened

Bad example "Before Schliemann's excavations, the modern world had considered Troy for the most part a matter of myth, not reality."
(USU 1320: History and Civilization)

The Trojan War was considered a myth by scholars until what effectively amount to an amateur went out and dug Troy up (and destroyed a good part of the site in the process). The scholars needed hard PHYSICAL evidence that Troy existed before they even considered the Iliad as recounting a historical event rather then a fiction. Because you can't have a Trojan War if there wasn't any Troy

I have pointed this out several times so WHY would you use such a POOR example for your argument?

 

[Craig B]

Bad example "Before Schliemann's excavations, the modern world had considered Troy for the most part a matter of myth, not reality."
(USU 1320: History and Civilization)

The Trojan War was considered a myth by scholars until what effectively amount to an amateur went out and dug Troy up (and destroyed a good part of the site in the process). The scholars needed hard PHYSICAL evidence that Troy existed before they even considered the Iliad as recounting a historical event rather then a fiction. Because you can't have a Trojan War if there wasn't any Troy

I have pointed this out several times so WHY would you use such a POOR example for your argument?

Because you pointing something out doesn't make it right. Your argument here is preposterous. Scholars were aware of the Iliad long before any archaeological investigations had been initiated. When these were done, scholars discovered to a high degree of probability, that there was indeed a core of historical reality behind the Iliad. They thus showed that a source should not necessarily be dismissed because it contains, among other things, manifestly mythical or legendary material.

 

[Craig B]

theologian are NOT secular historians.

Yes, that's right. Theologians aren't secular historians. But what is Richard Carrier? Let's allow him to speak for himself in his own blog.

Richard Carrier is the renowned author of several books including Sense and Goodness without God and Proving History, as well as numerous articles online and in print. His avid readers span the world from Hong Kong to Poland. With a Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University, he specializes in the modern philosophy of naturalism and humanism, the origins of Christianity, and the intellectual history of Greece and Rome, with particular expertise in ancient philosophy, science and technology. He has also become a noted defender of scientific and moral realism, Bayesian reasoning, and the epistemology of history.

No wonder he feels entitled to our financial support!

 

[Belz...]

Bible Studiers and theologian are NOT secular historians

Clowns aren't either, but they don't have anything to do with my post, just like theologians.

 

[dejudge]

No Paul either, Eh? Maybe you saw Paul transfiguring while he walked on WATER with his Virgin Mum, AND that's why you don't BELIEVE in his existence.

You will NEVER EVER find any historical data for Jesus and Paul.

Jesus and Paul were fabricated.

Jesus and Paul were fiction.


Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus of the tribe of Benjamin NEVER EVER had any real existence.

You will NEVER EVER EVER find a manuscript OF the Iliad from before a thousand years AFTER the trojan WAR, but scholars still think it happened.

What STRAWMAN!!!!

 

[Craig B]

You will NEVER EVER find any historical data for Jesus and Paul.

Jesus and Paul were fabricated.

Jesus and Paul were fiction.


Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus of the tribe of Benjamin NEVER EVER had any real existence.



What STRAWMAN!!!!

Are you repeatedly posting the same thing by mistake? If you are doing it intentionally, what purpose do you think that will serve?

 

[maximara]

Because you pointing something out doesn't make it right. Your argument here is preposterous. Scholars were aware of the Iliad long before any archaeological investigations had been initiated. When these were done, scholars discovered to a high degree of probability, that there was indeed a core of historical reality behind the Iliad. They thus showed that a source should not necessarily be dismissed because it contains, among other things, manifestly mythical or legendary material.

I have provided scholarly sources to back up my claims.

"Before Schliemann's excavations, the modern world had considered Troy for the most part a matter of myth, not reality."
(USU 1320: History and Civilization)


"...when Schlemann made his discovery, Troy had relegated to myth and very few believed it had even existed except in the imagination of Homer and his Greek heirs

Before 1872, the majority of Europian scholarship treated Troy solely the subject of an epic poem, certainly among the world's greatest, but a place unlike to exist outside its myological subject" - Ten Discoveries That Rewrote History (2007) Patrick Hunt

As I said before the Trojan War was considered a myth by scholars until what effectively amount to an amateur went out and dug Troy up (and destroyed a good part of the site in the process). The scholars needed hard PHYSICAL evidence that Troy existed before they even considered the Iliad as recounting a historical event rather then a fiction. Because you can't have a Trojan War if there wasn't any Troy

Trying to claim otherwise is a delusional denial historical FACT; sort of akin to saying a certain German leader actions didn't leave some 6 to 10 million innocents dead in his wake. (Yes I went there. Goose and gander and all that.)

So why did you go off and use such a poor example unless you wanted to give us a first hand demonstration of how poor some of the HJ crowd are regarding research in the examples that they pop off?

 

[maximara]

Clowns aren't either, but they don't have anything to do with my post, just like theologians.

Strictly speaking there is a vast gulf between clowns and politicians too but it doesn't stop anyone from calling them clowns when they go off and do something insanely stupid. Your point?