For Kapyong: Defending a historical Jesus

[vridar]

Bart is overlooking the full content of the discussions he cites as evidence for his argument1

¹ Where does Ehrman make that argument?

I was thinking of his argument that Paul believed Jesus was an angel. He sets that argument out in How Jesus Became God. Bart adds the bit "before he became human" but I don't think Paul anywhere says Jesus became human. He does say he took on the form or likeness of human flesh (Phil. 2:7)

Galatians 4:4 actually says Jesus "came from/was made from" a woman, not "born". So Ehrman's case that Paul was trying to stress Jesus' birth as a man is simply not supported by the Greek -- and Ehrman himself made that Greek meaning clear in his Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.

Ehrman also pointed out in the same book that the verse was found to be very useful for heresiologists combatting the gnostic claim that Jesus had slipped through Mary's womb like water through a pipe and not taking on any form of flesh at all. (But it was somehow overlooked by Tertullian when he needed it most in his attack on Marcion!)

Ehrman is losing his gloss with his newer arguments that appear to be forgetting his earlier much better work.

 

[David Mo]

Pardon me, you didn't apparently read post #112 where the argument is laid out.

I did, but this comment doesn't answer my questions and objections. The main problem is not "other than apostles", nor "brother" but "brother of the Lord". The context is important. “Brother” in Paul usually means a spiritual community, that is to say Christian. James the Christian has not sense in the context of Galatians 1:18-9. I don’t know any Pauls’s passage that implies that a specific community of “Brothers of the Lord” exist. This is pure invention ad hoc.
See:

He does, but the contexts of those other Pauline passages are distinct from the type of communication he is expressing in Galatians. One can pull on many passages to argue that a brother of the Lord technically means a spiritual brother. But the context of Galatians 1:19 suggests to me that we have a straightforward identifier of an individual within the context of explaining contacts with "Christian" leaders. It seems odd to me that Paul would need to remind readers that one of the persons he met was a "Christian".

I agree.

A heavenly divine being is not an 'angel-man' ? Are you complaining about the term 'angel' ? Or the combination with 'man' ? (…)
How does your comment 'First heavenly, after human' fit with Paul's 'became a life-giving spirit' ?

Your list doesn’t tell us anything about Paul’s statement of a divine entity that becomes human in Philippians 2:6-11 where Jesus Christ, having the form (substance) of a divinity adopts the appearance of a man until the death in the cross. We are not discussing here the particular Christology of Paul with one or two Christ’s natures. Let us this to the theologians. We are discussing if Paul believed that Jesus has lived as a man and this is what he says in this passage. This is not an occasional human appearance as the angels in the empty tomb that appear and disappear in a moment. This is a life as a man that Paul interprets according his particular Christology. Paul believed that Jesus has lived as a man. This is all we need to our discussion.

 

[Craig B]

I Galatians 4:4 actually says Jesus "came from/was made from" a woman, not "born". So Ehrman's case that Paul was trying to stress Jesus' birth as a man is simply not supported by the Greek -- and Ehrman himself made that Greek meaning clear in his Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.

The AV says "made" but other versions say "born".
Galatians 4:4 V-APM-AMS
GRK: ἐκ γυναικός γενόμενον ὑπὸ νόμον
NAS: born of a woman, born under the Law,
KJV: of a woman, made under the law,
INT: of woman having been born under law.
What do you think the original Greek word γενόμενον implies?

ETA Strong's Concordance has no problem in context here with "born".
1. to become, i. e. to come into existence, begin to be, receive being: absolutely, John 1:15, 30 (ἔμπροσθεν μου γέγονεν); John 8:58 (πρίν Ἀβραάμ γενέσθαι); 1 Corinthians 15:37 (τό σῶμα τό γενησόμενον); ἐκ τίνος, to be born, Romans 1:3 (ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυίδ); Galatians 4:4 (ἐκ γυναικός).

Romans 1:3 is also relevant to this question, of course.

 

[David Mo]

I think the Vridar blog posts have in the main agreed (... they have disagreed with Carrier and Doherty). It most likely was meant to indicate a blood brother of the one who became the Lord.

Whether such a line lends any support to historicity of Jesus is another question entirely. Some people seem to naively read the Bible as if it really is divinely inspired and can be used to arbitrate in debates by means of simple proof-texting.

The historicity of Jesus of Galilee is a very complex question with many conjectural arguments in both sides. I tend to believe that a certain Jesus lived in Palestine in the first century and was crucified by the Romans. The rest of his life vanishes in the darkness of legend, mythe and doctrinal battles between his followers. But the fact that some relatively contemporary texts (if they are) as the Pauline epistles spoke of him as a living human is a (slight) argument in favour of my belief.

I suppose that my position can be called (hard) minimalism.

 

[David Mo]

I was thinking of his argument that Paul believed Jesus was an angel. He sets that argument out in How Jesus Became God. Bart adds the bit "before he became human" but I don't think Paul anywhere says Jesus became human. He does say he took on the form or likeness of human flesh (Phil. 2:7)

See my comment #162. What matters here is not if Paul believed that Jesus Christ was a real man or a heavenly creature with the appearance of a man, but if he believed that Jesus has lived as a man. He did.

 

[IanS]

Look, lets try this, because I think you are an honest poster here - try to give me an honest answer to the following question -

- have you been under the impression (e.g. when you made that first post, if not still now), that my reasons for saying that I do think we need a higher standard of evidence in the case of Jesus is because I was thinking that Jesus should have been well known enough in his own time that some sort of evidence of his fame should still be found today?

No, I just told you that I didn't!

Here's my clarification again:

I didn't think you said that the evidence would be expected to occur, but wanted pointed out that requiring a higher standard of evidence because of his historical importance was misguided, given what we know of the period and what we suspect of his relative obscurity. In other words, I simply don't think requiring a higher standard of evidence in Jesus' case is useful.

Look - there is absolutely no doubt that you are simply wrong in what you have been saying here. I will explain it again as clearly as possible (this will be the 6th or 7th time). The error (a simple mistake by you, which should have been no big deal when I first pointed it out to you) is what you said in the first post that you made which began our dispute, where you said that I was a making the mistake of not realising that Jesus may not have been very well known outside of his own followers. Here is that first post where you undoubtedly said that -

In short, Jesus is a hugely important man in the foundation of Christianity, yet there is not one single, verified mention of him anywhere before GMark which most scholars agree was not written before AD 70. .

Indeed, though we must be careful not to confuse "important to Christianity" with "important to history at the time". He could have been hugely important to his illiterate followers but largelu obscure otherwise. This is a mistake that I think IanS is making, for instance.

It's unarguably true that in your above quote you very clearly said that I have been making the "mistake" of failing to appreciate that Jesus could have been largely obscure in his time, i.e. not widely known beyond his own group of what you called "his illiterate followers".

But I have explained to you at least 6 times now that it was NOT a mistake I have ever made. I have not ever disputed that Jesus may have been largely unknown in his own time. That has never been any part of any argument that I have ever made here about Jesus.

So your very first accusation was entirely wrong to say that it was my "mistake" to assume he would have been very widely known. I have never claimed that. And that has never been any part of any argument that I have made in respect of the need for evidence about Jesus.

So we absolutely must get that point straight first before we proceed from there to discuss any other issues arising from the above post of yours. Because you cannot continue repeating that sort of thing here, attributing to me things that I have never said at all (in fact they are entirely the opposite of what I have said!).

So let's get that straight - are you willing to admit that you were wrong to say that I had been making the mistake of failing to realise that Jesus may indeed have been little known outside of his own group of followers?

Summary - please retract that comment in your first post where you say that my mistake has been a failure to appreciate or accept that Jesus may indeed have been little known outside of his own group of followers.

Yes. I didn't think you said that the evidence would be expected to occur, but wanted pointed out that requiring a higher standard of evidence because of his historical importance was misguided, given what we know of the period and what we suspect of his relative obscurity. In other words, I simply don't think requiring a higher standard of evidence in Jesus' case is useful.

Please look very carefully at you own first post which I quoted at the top of the page - in that first post of yours (which is what we are arguing about), you did not say "his historical importance" as if that might mean his historical importance now in 2016, what you originally said in that first post was "important to history at the time" ... so you were very definitely talking about whether or not I appreciated or realised that Jesus may not have been "important to history at the time" ... and I just explained to you above (for the 6th or 7th time), that I had not, and never had, made the "mistake" of arguing that Jesus was in fact "important to history at the time". It has never been any part of any argument that I have made, for me to claim that Jesus would have been "important to history at the time".

As I have explained to you countless times now - I don't know whether he would, or would not, have been "important to history at the time", and I have never based any argument on a claim like that. Other so-called "mythicists" have very often claimed that Jesus was said to have been very famous in his own time, but I have never claimed that! And that sort of claim has never been any part of any argument that I have ever made about the lack of evidence for Jesus or about what I say is the need for better evidence of him now.

Can you please just acknowledge that you were completely wrong to say that I had made the mistake of thinking that he would have been widely known at the time, such that he would have been "important to history at the time"; because I have never made that argument at all, and you are completely wrong to say that I had been making that "mistake" of assuming that Jesus would have been "important to history at the time".

 

[vridar]

The AV says "made" but other versions say "born".
Galatians 4:4 V-APM-AMS
GRK: ἐκ γυναικός γενόμενον ὑπὸ νόμον
NAS: born of a woman, born under the Law,
KJV: of a woman, made under the law,
INT: of woman having been born under law.
What do you think the original Greek word γενόμενον implies?

Galatians 4:4 uses a form of the word ginomai which means "to become, to arise, to occur, to come into existence, to be created." Depending on the context it can imply a normal birth, but it is not the common word for being born. Gennao is the root of the normal word meaning to give birth -- the word Paul does not use in Galatians.

A small book could be written about Galatians 4:4, or certainly a lengthy chapter. If one goes through the longer argument of which 4:4 is a part, setting out point by point the argument being made, one does find a blip around the 4:4 section. The intrusion of Jesus being made in flesh and under the law adds nothing to the larger argument. And the first time we find external testimony to a knowledge of 4:4 we find it is used to combat docetic heretics.

That's not proof of interpolation, but it does give us enough reason to pause before using as the bed-rock foundation of any argument.

 

[Craig B]

The historicity of Jesus of Galilee is a very complex question with many conjectural arguments in both sides. I tend to believe that a certain Jesus lived in Palestine in the first century and was crucified by the Romans. The rest of his life vanishes in the darkness of legend, mythe and doctrinal battles between his followers. But the fact that some relatively contemporary texts (if they are) as the Pauline epistles spoke of him as a living human is a (slight) argument in favour of my belief.

I suppose that my position can be called (hard) minimalism.

That is my view too; to which I will add the following: the appearance of the Christ movement at the time it did come into existence, as well as the character of the contradictory statements made about Jesus in the NT sources, are more economically accounted for by Jesus' personal existence than by any other reasonable hypothesis.

 

[vridar]

. . . the Pauline epistles spoke of him as a living human . . . .

I think the closest any Pauline text comes to describing him as such actually say he took on the "form" or "appearance" of a man. I don't know of any Pauline text that says Jesus was a real living man.

Galatians 4:4 says he was "made" from a woman, but I don't know exactly what is meant by that, and the passage appears to conflict with the more general message of Galatians anyway.

 

[Craig B]

I think the closest any Pauline text comes to describing him as such actually say he took on the "form" or "appearance" of a man. I don't know of any Pauline text that says Jesus was a real living man.

Galatians 4:4 says he was "made" from a woman, but I don't know exactly what is meant by that, and the passage appears to conflict with the more general message of Galatians anyway.

That's rather different from your previous statement, which was much more assertive than your present "don't know exactly what is meant". Here is is again. My bold.

Galatians 4:4 actually says Jesus "came from/was made from" a woman, not "born". So Ehrman's case that Paul was trying to stress Jesus' birth as a man is simply not supported by the Greek​

 

[David Mo]

I don't know of any Pauline text that says Jesus was a real living man.

Galatians 4:4 says he was "made" from a woman, but I don't know exactly what is meant by that, and the passage appears to conflict with the more general message of Galatians anyway.

"Real" is one thing; to live as a man is another. To be made from a woman and to take de appearance of a man until the death in the cross is to have a human life. If apparent or real is irrelevant to our discussion.

 

[IanS]

No, I just told you that I didn't!

Here's my clarification again:

I didn't think you said that the evidence would be expected to occur, but wanted pointed out that requiring a higher standard of evidence because of his historical importance was misguided, given what we know of the period and what we suspect of his relative obscurity. In other words, I simply don't think requiring a higher standard of evidence in Jesus' case is useful.

I think the issue is not necessarily that a higher 'standard' of evidence should be expected per se, but that some level of reasonable non-biblical 1st century information about a human Jesus is what one would hope for to justify the claims about (or of) such a supposedly highly-regarded 'human', early first-century entity.

Given the paucity in commentary from the 1st century, when the first texts are supposed to have been written, and the vague discussions in 2nd century texts about those first century texts, we have good reason to doubt.

Precisely! It is not necessarily that a "higher" standard of evidence is needed for Jesus, as if saying that a higher standard must be applied to Jesus than is applied in the case of any other figure from ancient history.

When in the past I have picked up the words "higher standard" which other people put to me (e.g. in the earlier HJ threads), what I should have said is not so much that Jesus needs a much "higher standard", but that the "standard" or "level" or "extent" of evidence for other figures, does not really matter to anyone except for a tiny number of specialising historians. E.g., if they are arguing about (say) Apollonius of Tyana ("who he?" ...see this Wiki link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_Tyana), then although those few specialist historians may care about what "standard" of evidence is good enough, nobody else today cares at all or has any interest whatsoever in Apollonius of Tyana, because he is utterly irrelevant to the lives of anyone living today ... people in general cannot be bothered to argue about whether the evidence is good enough for Apollonius.

But that is certainly not the case with Jesus. Unlike Apollonius, Jesus has become the most important figure in all of human history. A figure whose existence is extremely important not just to 2 billion Christians around the world, but actually also quite vital to everyone on the planet (inc. atheists), because of the huge influence that the Christian church has on all western governments, upon their policy making and their laws etc.

So I would argue that Jesus is a completely different case to all of those other figures of ancient history (all the figures that people list when they ask "would you demand the same "standard" of evidence for X, Y or Z?"). None of those figures X, Y, or Z are remotely comparable to Jesus. And for someone of the enormous importance that Jesus has now assumed as the basis of worldwide Christianity, we certainly should require some genuine credible evidence at least for the most basic minimal fact of his mere existence ... but it seems there actually is no such evidence! None at all! And that is despite Bart Ehrman and his thousands of bible scholar colleagues insisting that the evidence for Jesus is so enormous that it amounts to literal "certainty".

IOW - if those other figures X, Y, Z, were as important today as Jesus is, then they too would require a very good standard of evidence at least for their actual existence (you have to show that they at least existed!)

 

[vridar]

That's rather different from your previous statement, which was much more assertive than your present "don't know exactly what is meant". Here is is again. My bold.

Galatians 4:4 actually says Jesus "came from/was made from" a woman, not "born". So Ehrman's case that Paul was trying to stress Jesus' birth as a man is simply not supported by the Greek​

Ehrman himself stressed the meaning of the Greek as being "made" or having "come" from a woman in Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. Why he in a recent publication reverts to the common English yet misleading translation of "born" I do not know.

 

[Craig B]

Precisely! It is not necessarily that a "higher" standard of evidence is needed for Jesus, as if saying that a higher standard must be applied to Jesus than is applied in the case of any other figure from ancient history ... nobody else today cares at all or has any interest whatsoever in Apollonius of Tyana, because he is utterly irrelevant to the lives of anyone living today ... people in general cannot be bothered to argue about whether the evidence is good enough for Apollonius.

But that is certainly not the case with Jesus. Unlike Apollonius, Jesus has become the most important figure in all of human history. A figure whose existence is extremely important not just to 2 billion Christians around the world, but actually also quite vital to everyone on the planet (inc. atheists), because of the huge influence that the Christian church has on all western governments, upon their policy making and their laws etc.

So I would argue that Jesus is a completely different case to all of those other figures of ancient history (all the figures that people list when they ask "would you demand the same "standard" of evidence for X, Y or Z?"). None of those figures X, Y, or Z are remotely comparable to Jesus. And for someone of the enormous importance that Jesus has now assumed as the basis of worldwide Christianity, we certainly should require some genuine credible evidence at least for the most basic minimal fact of his mere existence ... but it seems there actually is no such evidence! None at all! And that is despite Bart Ehrman and his thousands of bible scholar colleagues insisting that the evidence for Jesus is so enormous that it amounts to literal "certainty".

IOW - if those other figures X, Y, Z, were as important today as Jesus is, then they too would require a very good standard of evidence at least for their actual existence (you have to show that they at least existed!)

The problem seems to me that the two sections I have bolded above completely and formally contradict each other. We're no further forward.

 

[vridar]

"Real" is one thing; to live as a man is another. To be made from a woman and to take de appearance of a man until the death in the cross is to have a human life. If apparent or real is irrelevant to our discussion.

If we are talking about a "historical Jesus" then does it not matter that we read about a figure who is set in a clear historical context as distinct from one who is "in the form of a man" without any historical context?

Certainly Paul might believe either or both were "historical" but the difference is important to us, yes?

 

[vridar]

That's rather different from your previous statement, which was much more assertive than your present "don't know exactly what is meant". Here is is again. My bold.

Galatians 4:4 actually says Jesus "came from/was made from" a woman, not "born". So Ehrman's case that Paul was trying to stress Jesus' birth as a man is simply not supported by the Greek​

Sorry if I sound inconsistent. Is this the previous statement of mine that you feel is "rather different" from my more recent one:

Galatians 4:4 actually says Jesus "came from/was made from" a woman, not "born". So Ehrman's case that Paul was trying to stress Jesus' birth as a man is simply not supported by the Greek -- and Ehrman himself made that Greek meaning clear in his Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.

I don't know "exactly" what Gal 4:4 means but one thing I think is certain: it does not use the usual Greek word for "born". That does not preclude the possibility that the passage means a literal "birth" but it does preclude the right of either side using this passage as a bed-rock certainty that can establish for fact any particular argument.

Gal 4:4 means anything from Jesus somehow in a mysterious way emerging from or appearing out of a woman to being literally born of a woman. We cannot pin it down on any particular point within that range as an absolute fact.

 

[Craig B]

Sorry if I sound inconsistent. Is this the previous statement of mine that you feel is "rather different" from my more recent one:



I don't know "exactly" what Gal 4:4 means but one thing I think is certain: it does not use the usual Greek word for "born". That does not preclude the possibility that the passage means a literal "birth" but it does preclude the right of either side using this passage as a bed-rock certainty that can establish for fact any particular argument.

Gal 4:4 means anything from Jesus somehow in a mysterious way emerging from or appearing out of a woman to being literally born of a woman. We cannot pin it down on any particular point within that range as an absolute fact.

I think the suggestions in your last para are untenable. If a writer says that a person came from a woman, using a word that has as one of its meanings the normal process of birth, then the writer is implying that normal process, and nothing else.

If Paul wanted to suggest something other than the normal order of things, he would have chosen words that explicitly excluded it. If I say, I "took" a cup of tea with my dinner, then you will understand me to mean that I drank it normally, even if the word has other meanings. If I wanted you to understand something out of the normal course of events, I would have made my meaning clear. That principle of textual analysis must surely be applied in this case.

 

[David Mo]

If we are talking about a "historical Jesus" then does it not matter that we read about a figure who is set in a clear historical context as distinct from one who is "in the form of a man" without any historical context?

Certainly Paul might believe either or both were "historical" but the difference is important to us, yes?

I don't like the expression "historical Jesus". It seems to imply a lot of things.
I pose a more circumscript question:
"Was there a certain Jesus who was crucified by the Romans in Palestine in the first century?".
It doesn't matter if Paul knew or not about the life and miracles of the evangelical Jesus (it seems he didn't know or he was not interested in), but only if he beleived in a living Jesus (whatever his substance was) and if he say he had spoken with some brother of this Jesus and other people that knew him (he said it).

If the evangelical Jesus (as a whole) is the same that the Romans killed my answer is "he is not".
If some features of the evangelical Jesus were those of the Jesus killed by the Romans, my answer is "Who know?" (except two or three... perhaps).

NOte that other Pauline passages where he speaks of a flesh Jesus can be added.

 

[David Mo]

Precisely! It is not necessarily that a "higher" standard of evidence is needed for Jesus, as if saying that a higher standard must be applied to Jesus than is applied in the case of any other figure from ancient history. (...)

But that is certainly not the case with Jesus. Unlike Apollonius, Jesus has become the most important figure in all of human history. A figure whose existence is extremely important not just to 2 billion Christians around the world, but actually also quite vital to everyone on the planet (inc. atheists), because of the huge influence that the Christian church has on all western governments, upon their policy making and their laws etc. (...)
None of those figures X, Y, or Z are remotely comparable to Jesus. And for someone of the enormous importance that Jesus has now assumed as the basis of worldwide Christianity, we certainly should require some genuine credible evidence at least for the most basic minimal fact of his mere existence ...

This is to say, either we behave as historians or as anti-believers propagandists. Sorry, this is not a true alternative.

 

[David Mo]

I don't know "exactly" what Gal 4:4 means but one thing I think is certain: it does not use the usual Greek word for "born".

Are you sure? In my Ancient Greek dictionary γενόμενος , η, ον means “birth". And also here: http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/morph.pl?id=4427674&next=true&lang=greek