Add to this point Paul's dismissal of the role of miracles and it is further clear that he is not talking about anyone who could even be morphed into the gospel Jesus.
For Kapyong: Defending a historical Jesus
- Thread starter GDon
- Start date
-
- Tags
- historical jesus jesus
Add to this point Paul's dismissal of the role of miracles and it is further clear that he is not talking about anyone who could even be morphed into the gospel Jesus.
I simply mean normal birth, and that Paul, whatever else he may have believed, accepted that Jesus had been an earthly human being prior to his resurrection.
Even if Paul did think of Jesus as a human being, that does NOT require him to have been interested in the detail of the gospel narrative, if indeed that detail had been fully elaborated in Paul's time, which seems improbable to me.
This of course is the point in dispute. It is one thing to be a human or a "man" and another to be an "earthly human" or "earthly man". Second Temple Judaism and beyond had no difficulty with either a heavenly man or a heavenly 'son of man'.
If Gal 4:4 is the strongest case we have for Paul's belief in Jesus being an earthly man then I think we have to concede the strongest case is tainted with ambiguity and potential anomaly.
(I am not in principle opposed to the idea that Paul or earliest Christianity believed in Jesus appearing on earth as a man, either for a few hours or days or for a lifetime and I sometimes suspect Paul/earliest Christianity had some such idea, but I am not sure the evidence for this view is decisive.)
Higher standard of proof?
Being new here I do not know the details of earlier discussions on comparing standards of proof for persons like Pythagoras, Socrates, etc. with the standards used or expected for Jesus.
So if the following is out of line I expect someone will point to what I need to know.
I believe that the historicity of Jesus should be assessed by the same standards that allow us to assess the historicity of any other person, ancient or modern. Much of the problem and debate surrounding the question, it seems to me, lies in the way it is so difficult to fully recognize what grounds do give us confidence in a figure's historicity.
Take Socrates. The first reason we can have some confidence in his historicity is that we have what appear to be independent contemporary records of Socrates. We have writings of several who claim to have been his students and these writings about Socrates contain elements of biographical genre.
By itself that still leaves Socrates as a historical figure open to debate, so it these writings are not decisive. Is their Socrates figure a literary mouthpiece? We can't be sure because we know ancient writings sometimes did produce literary creations to be the mouthpieces of authors.
But what tilts the scales heavily towards confidence in Socrates' historicity is that we also have a playwright mocking Socrates.
So we appear to have quite independent testimonies for Socrates, some reverential, another scoffing. We know a little about the authors of these testimonies and the nature of their works to give us additional confidence that they are addressing a real person in their society or personal lives.
Now none of that is 100% decisive in favour of Socrates' historicity but it does come together to give us reasonable confidence that he was historical.
Yet as Albert Schweitzer himself pointed out, all the earliest references to Jesus derive from the one tradition, Christianity itself. So we have no independent sources for Jesus. Moreover, the genre and contents of the sources we do have present Jesus as an unnatural human to say the least, and even the historical context in which he is set is problematic (cf the timid Pilate of the gospels). Moreover, we do not know who the authors of these earliest accounts were beyond the self-witness of the writings themselves, or in the case of the gospels, not even that. Nor do we have clear ideas about their dates of composition nor their original audiences. And their sources appear often to be literary (or mystical visions in the case of Paul).
So we do not have the quality or type of evidence in the case of Jesus that gives us grounds for confidence in the historicity of Socrates.
If the above argument is valid then I think we can say that if we assess the historicity of Socrates and Jesus by the same standards then we have to conclude we have good reasons to be confident in Socrates' historicity but nothing comparable for Jesus' historicity.
A very strong case can also be made for the evidence for Pythagoras in comparison with the evidence for Jesus.
Being new here I do not know the details of earlier discussions on comparing standards of proof for persons like Pythagoras, Socrates, etc. with the standards used or expected for Jesus.
So if the following is out of line I expect someone will point to what I need to know.
I believe that the historicity of Jesus should be assessed by the same standards that allow us to assess the historicity of any other person, ancient or modern. Much of the problem and debate surrounding the question, it seems to me, lies in the way it is so difficult to fully recognize what grounds do give us confidence in a figure's historicity.
Take Socrates. The first reason we can have some confidence in his historicity is that we have what appear to be independent contemporary records of Socrates. We have writings of several who claim to have been his students and these writings about Socrates contain elements of biographical genre.
By itself that still leaves Socrates as a historical figure open to debate, so it these writings are not decisive. Is their Socrates figure a literary mouthpiece? We can't be sure because we know ancient writings sometimes did produce literary creations to be the mouthpieces of authors.
But what tilts the scales heavily towards confidence in Socrates' historicity is that we also have a playwright mocking Socrates.
So we appear to have quite independent testimonies for Socrates, some reverential, another scoffing. We know a little about the authors of these testimonies and the nature of their works to give us additional confidence that they are addressing a real person in their society or personal lives.
Now none of that is 100% decisive in favour of Socrates' historicity but it does come together to give us reasonable confidence that he was historical.
Yet as Albert Schweitzer himself pointed out, all the earliest references to Jesus derive from the one tradition, Christianity itself. So we have no independent sources for Jesus. Moreover, the genre and contents of the sources we do have present Jesus as an unnatural human to say the least, and even the historical context in which he is set is problematic (cf the timid Pilate of the gospels). Moreover, we do not know who the authors of these earliest accounts were beyond the self-witness of the writings themselves, or in the case of the gospels, not even that. Nor do we have clear ideas about their dates of composition nor their original audiences. And their sources appear often to be literary (or mystical visions in the case of Paul).
So we do not have the quality or type of evidence in the case of Jesus that gives us grounds for confidence in the historicity of Socrates.
If the above argument is valid then I think we can say that if we assess the historicity of Socrates and Jesus by the same standards then we have to conclude we have good reasons to be confident in Socrates' historicity but nothing comparable for Jesus' historicity.
A very strong case can also be made for the evidence for Pythagoras in comparison with the evidence for Jesus.
Belz...
Fiend God
It was a typo, but thanks for your support.
Nobody knows what we should expect in this case. By all rational measures Jesus, if he existed, wasn't worth even a footnote in his lifetime, and only became important long after any solid evidence of his existence would vanish.
HansMustermann
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2009
- Messages
- 23,741
Galatians 4:4 is the contested point, so it can't be evidence for itself.
And let's look at Romans 1:4. Well, same deal, really. It reads just as natural as Jesus becoming a descendant of David, which, really is even more in-line with the mainstream theology of Jesus being some ever-existing aspect of God, that BECAME a mortal descendant of David. It doesn't really say to me that it says birth, and sure enough most translations don't actually put "birth" in Romans 1:4.
And that brings me to a point about these things. It's a lot of work to try to untagle the Greek meaning. Just looking at the front page for that word doesn't even begin to cut it.
GDon
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2013
- Messages
- 1,567
This topic has been argued a lot on the Biblical Criticism & History forum, which contains people with expertise in ancient Greek, alongside amateurs with little to no knowledge of ancient languages (like me!)
Ben C Smith, one such expert, writes: http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2451
Doherty made that same mistake. In truth, both γεννάω and γί(γ)νομαι were used of ordinary births from human women. Here are a couple of examples of the latter in Josephus:
Josephus, Antiquities 1.12.2 §214: For Ishmael, the founder of their nation, who was born [γενόμενος] to Abraham from the concubine, was circumcised at that age.
Josephus, Antiquities 16.11.5 §382: "Will you slay these two young men, born [γενομένους] of a queenly woman, who are accomplished with every virtue in the highest degree, and leave yourself destitute in your old age, but exposed to one son who has very ill managed the hopes you have given him, and to relations whose death you have so often resolved on yourself?"
The exact word for "born" was not not all that important in such expressions; sometimes the word was "produced" or some other synonym. What mattered is that it was a human female who was doing the birthing, the producing, or the making or what have you.
One may well imagine ancient scribes and theologians changing "made" into "born" just to be as clear as possible in closely contested doctrinal disputes, but in practice ancient authors do not seem to have necessarily preferred one or the other for the simple purpose of denoting a human birth...
The word by itself does not point to birth from a woman, true...
But, in my quotation of you above, you did mention the woman, and that is what I was responding to: "Paul avoided to use a word alluding to Jesus' origin as a human birth. Instead he used made/came/became (ginomai) of a woman...." This makes it sound as if this particular verb is less fit to signify a human birth in such an expression, which is not true. The verb γίγνομαι is less fit on its own, but in an expression involving origin from a woman it performs the exactly the same function as γεννάω.
So "made" by itself can be used in various ways, but "made from a woman" was used by ancient writers to mean "born". It's like the difference in "had" between "the woman had dinner" and "the woman had a baby". Could the latter mean the woman ate a baby? Yes! But no-one reading it would see it that way, unless the context strongly suggested it.Josephus, Antiquities 1.12.2 §214: For Ishmael, the founder of their nation, who was born [γενόμενος] to Abraham from the concubine, was circumcised at that age.
Josephus, Antiquities 16.11.5 §382: "Will you slay these two young men, born [γενομένους] of a queenly woman, who are accomplished with every virtue in the highest degree, and leave yourself destitute in your old age, but exposed to one son who has very ill managed the hopes you have given him, and to relations whose death you have so often resolved on yourself?"
The exact word for "born" was not not all that important in such expressions; sometimes the word was "produced" or some other synonym. What mattered is that it was a human female who was doing the birthing, the producing, or the making or what have you.
One may well imagine ancient scribes and theologians changing "made" into "born" just to be as clear as possible in closely contested doctrinal disputes, but in practice ancient authors do not seem to have necessarily preferred one or the other for the simple purpose of denoting a human birth...
The word by itself does not point to birth from a woman, true...
But, in my quotation of you above, you did mention the woman, and that is what I was responding to: "Paul avoided to use a word alluding to Jesus' origin as a human birth. Instead he used made/came/became (ginomai) of a woman...." This makes it sound as if this particular verb is less fit to signify a human birth in such an expression, which is not true. The verb γίγνομαι is less fit on its own, but in an expression involving origin from a woman it performs the exactly the same function as γεννάω.
As Ben wrote above, that it was a woman doing the 'making' is the important part. Given all the other references by Paul to "seeds of" and "man" (anthropos) and Christ coming from the Israelites, the context strongly suggests "born of a woman".
Last edited:
HansMustermann
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2009
- Messages
- 23,741
I'm ok with that idea, but what many don't realize is that it cuts both ways. One can't have a totally unnoticed Jesus while he lived, yet have PLENTY of witnesses some 50 years later (well past the life expectancy at the time, for an average adult witness), and all the way across the Mediterranean at that, to confirm or deny that yeah, specifically THAT Jesus did this or said that.
One can't have BOTH. One or the other. Either he was so well known that you couldn't swing a cat without having hostile witnesses, like a lot of the HJ camp likes to claim, OR he really was that unimportant that even people writing about sects and theology at the time never even heard of him. He can't be BOTH completely unknown, when it's convenient to have a stealth-Jesus, but at the same time super-known when that's convenient.
Well, let's say we decide on a stealth Jesus after all, and stay consistent on that idea. That's not so much better, actually.
A totally stealth Jesus just leaves you with even less support for the idea that there was anyone who had the foggiest whether there's any connection between something that went in the gospels and anything that itinerant nutcase preacher actually said or did. Claiming historicity for any detail or attribute or opinion cherry-picked from the gospels just became more problematic.
So stealth Jesus is basically just a big question mark. And definitely not someone you can reliably cherry-pick from the gospels.
Kapyong
Graduate Poster
Gday David Mo and all 
I agreed long ago that Paul saw Jesus as a 'man'.
(He also saw him as a Son Of God, remember ?)
I argue that Paul saw Jesus Christ as a heavenly man - a MAN, but not on Earth.
WHERE do you think Paul places the man Jesus Christ on EARTH ?
Does he give an Earthly PLACE ? Like Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Judea ? No.
Does he give any Earthly NAMES ? Like Mary, Joseph, Lazaraus, Nicodemus, Pilate ? No.
Does he give any Earthly DATES ? Like Jesus' birth, speeches, death ? No.
No, No, and No.
But for some reason, some people believe a 'man' (who is also the Son of God) MUST be on earth - why ?
Enoch was in heaven - and the heavens are full of beings and actions and punishments.
OF COURSE Jesus could have been heavenly, and Paul's many heavenly and spiritual descriptions support that view.
Kapyong
I agreed long ago that Paul saw Jesus as a 'man'.
(He also saw him as a Son Of God, remember ?)
I argue that Paul saw Jesus Christ as a heavenly man - a MAN, but not on Earth.
WHERE do you think Paul places the man Jesus Christ on EARTH ?
Does he give an Earthly PLACE ? Like Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Judea ? No.
Does he give any Earthly NAMES ? Like Mary, Joseph, Lazaraus, Nicodemus, Pilate ? No.
Does he give any Earthly DATES ? Like Jesus' birth, speeches, death ? No.
No, No, and No.
But for some reason, some people believe a 'man' (who is also the Son of God) MUST be on earth - why ?
Enoch was in heaven - and the heavens are full of beings and actions and punishments.
OF COURSE Jesus could have been heavenly, and Paul's many heavenly and spiritual descriptions support that view.
Kapyong
Kapyong
Graduate Poster
Gday David Mo and all
It makes perfect sense, as Mcreal's post demonstrated :
Also consider Hebrews discussing the term 'brother' :
Kapyong
It makes perfect sense, as Mcreal's post demonstrated :
OTHER than apostles, I saw Brother James
There ARE other passages that refer to 'Brothers of the Lord' in Paul e.g. 1 Cor. 9:5.Also consider Hebrews discussing the term 'brother' :
2:11-12 ' For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.” '
Kapyong
Belz...
Fiend God
I think you'll find very few people here who are trying to have that cake and eat it, too.
Kapyong
Graduate Poster
Kapyong
Graduate Poster
Gday David Mo and all
Pardon ?
We all know Paul believed Jesus was a MAN - so what ?
Paul also thought Jesus Christ was the Son Of GOD - and GOD lives in heaven, therefore Jesus Christ MUST be heavenly !
QED !
Sorry David Mo -
What matters here IS EXACTLY whether Paul thought that :
Kapyong
Pardon ?
We all know Paul believed Jesus was a MAN - so what ?
Paul also thought Jesus Christ was the Son Of GOD - and GOD lives in heaven, therefore Jesus Christ MUST be heavenly !
QED !
Sorry David Mo -
What matters here IS EXACTLY whether Paul thought that :
- Jesus was of Earth, or
- Jesus was of Heaven.
Kapyong
Kapyong
Graduate Poster
Gday David Mo and all
Like the woman who gave birth in Rev. ?
Were she and her child physical historical humans ?
Kapyong
Like the woman who gave birth in Rev. ?
Were she and her child physical historical humans ?
Kapyong
Contra Ben we have Bart Ehrman writing the following:
Clearly the early readers of the passage interpreted it to mean having come through the body of Mary or having been made -- surely in the sense of coming out of Mary's body but nonetheless not a synonym for "born" as was generally understood.
If it were indeed a natural synonym for "born" as some argue here then we would not expect to find in the manuscript history attempts to change the word into the clearly more direct and natural word for "born".
The manuscript history pretty much tells us that the word was not normally understood as naturally interchangeable with the usual word for "born". If it were there would have been no tendency to change the word.
Last edited:
Thank you. I have argued exactly that point already, using as my example the simple expression "I took a cup of tea". Unless I positively indicate some other meaning, that will be understood to mean that I consumed the tea in the normal way. So it is beside the point to argue other possible significations of the word "took": e.g. received the tea as an enema, or put it in a bottle and included it in my baggage on a flight to Montevideo. As long as the word is capable of meaning that I consumed the tea in the normal way, that is what it must mean; for if I had meant something different, and therefore unusual, I would have said that thing unambiguously.
GDon
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2013
- Messages
- 1,567
I don't see how Ben's point is anything other than complementary to Dr Ehrman's.
Ben's points:
- both γεννάω and γί(γ)νομαι were used of ordinary births from human women. Ben gives a couple of examples from Josephus
- What mattered is that it was a woman who was "doing the birthing, the producing, or the making or what have you." So we need to look at the phrase "made from a woman" rather than just the word "made"
- "One may well imagine ancient scribes and theologians changing "made" into "born" just to be as clear as possible in closely contested doctrinal disputes, but in practice ancient authors do not seem to have necessarily preferred one or the other for the simple purpose of denoting a human birth"
Ehrman's points (let me know if I get any of them wrong):
- Jesus' nativity was "a major bone of contention between orthodox Christians and their docetic opponents"
- "Irenaeus also uses the text against docetists to show that Christ was actually a man, in that he came ('made') from a woman"
- It is "odd that Tertullian never quotes the verse against Marcion... This can scarcely be attributed to oversight, and so is more likely due to the circumstance that the generally received Latin text of the verse does not speak of Christ’s birth per se, but of his “having been made (factum ex muliere)." So, according to Ehrman, the Latin text has "made from a woman", as a translation of the Greek text.
- Ehrman writes "it is no surprise to see that the verse was changed on occasion, and in precisely the direction one might expect", i.e. from "made" to "born". This happened in the Greek text also. Ben hints at this in his comment above.
How is this not complementary to what Ben has written? (I'm not arguing that they are saying the same thing, just that the two views don't appear to be in conflict)
We are still left with Ben's comment "in practice ancient authors do not seem to have necessarily preferred one or the other for the simple purpose of denoting a human birth" This is either true or it isn't.
Or it is the same situation we see with bad apologetics, where inerrantists use any possible ambiguity to try to resolve contradictions in the NT. The manuscript history can also be explained by docetists trying to use ambiguity to press their case, so documents were changed to remove that linguistic loophole. If it was really such a concern, it is surprising that most manuscripts left it as "made".
At the end of the day, the expression "made from a woman" seems to have been used to mean born of a woman. But even if it meant "made" -- whatever that meant to the docetists -- it is still "made from a woman". Focusing (as some have) on the word "made" rather than the whole expression is pointless. This is where some mythicists come across as bad apologists rather than good analysts.
So where do you see Ben and Ehrman disagreeing?
Last edited:
Yes there would have been, given the circumstance you refer to: the docetist position that Jesus never had any physical existence, either in his mother's womb or on the cross. Orthodox teachers would obviously strive to counteract such teachings. But the fact that they felt obliged to resort to textual manipulation in opposing the docetists doesn't mean that the docetist interpretation of the original passages was ever legitimate. The reason why it is not has already been indicated here.
Ben is quoted as saying:
That is clearly not so given the manuscript evidence of Galatians.
I don't think the docetists knew of the passage. The passage is anti-docetic whichever way one interprets it or whatever verb was used. Even without the implication of "birth" and taking the word in its normal sense it is still arguing against the docetic view that Jesus was uncontaminated by flesh.
It is saying that Jesus came in some manner out of the flesh of a woman.
(And that point of Christ being from flesh adds nothing to the surrounding argument and in fact flies in the face of everything else inferred of the Christ in that letter.)