Historical Jesus

[abaddon]

Do you have any evidence to support your belief that Jesus probably existed?

You have repeatedly claimed that "experts" who are "historians" have provided evidence to show that Jesus was real... can you provide the evidence to backup your claims about these "expert historians", where are they? ...

... it's your claim of having expert historians with the evidence, so the "burden of proof" is definitely upon you to tell us who those individuals are and tell us what they are claiming as the evidence for Jesus.

Your other excuses are all exhausted (long ago) -

Who are these expert historians, and what is their evidence?

IanS, The affirmative claim is that there once was some bloke in the Levant called Jesus.

What do you find to be extraordinary about such a claim?

 

[Belz...]

I think you guys are talking past each other. It appears that they are asking you to provide evidence that there is a consensus of historians who believe a HJ existed and to what that consensus is and why they believe it to be the case.

Ian's been asking me both: evidence of a consensus, and evidence for HJ. The latter's outside of what I want to discuss here, and the former has been defined out of existence.

This is where I struggle because the process does not seem in the least bit robust to me absent confirmation from extra-Biblical sources.

Well, there is some extra-biblical stuff, but not for Jesus directly. In any case, that we individually are convinced or not about the evidence that exists, weak as it is, is irrelevant to the larger point I'm trying to make.

 

[Belz...]

IanS, The affirmative claim is that there once was some bloke in the Levant called Jesus.

To me it's not even that. The name's irrelevant. To me the question is whether there is a person or persons who were the inspiration of the Jesus stories, or whether they were built wholecloth or from earlier mythologies. HJ vs MJ.

 

[Delvo]

Is there a post I've missed where you offered a survey or other such evidence about what the experts think, which was then objected to? Or have you been withholding such a post because those objections were pre-emptive? Or are you not aware of such a thing yet but just expressing that it's not worth finding if such objections will be automatic anyway?

I think I've made clear why I don't want to discuss the evidence at all.

A) I'm currently much more interested in what we consider authorities on the matter and what constitutes evidence.
B) Ian and the others are well aware of what's presented as arguments or evidence of HJ...

I ask about evidence for the claim that most experts think he was real, and you answer in reference to evidence for the claim that he was real. You're fleeing from the subject you claim to want to focus on, right back into the one you claim to want to avoid.

do you think that people who have spent decades studying and working professionally in a field know better than you or I what constitutes evidence in favour or against a hypothesis relating to that field?

Not necessarily, in a field with a known tendency for dogma (and even preconceptions that haven't been fully let go yet even by someone who has walked away from most of the dogma) to squash or constrain honest diligence.

Of course, any historian who chooses that particular place & time as the part of history to focus on has some chance that (s)he's primarily interested in it because of coming from a Christian background, so some degree of potential for bias can't be avoided. But if someone were to actually try to do a survey to support or refute the claim that most relevant experts think Jesus was real, they could at least avoid the deeper & more obvious bias-traps by only surveying secular university history departments, not Christian think tanks & seminaries and departments of Bible Studies or Theology. Have they? Does any kind of survey anywhere near any of this, no matter how flawed its methods might be, even exist yet? And if it does, then why do those whose argument is based on it keep avoiding that question instead of just saying "Yes; here it is"?

 

[Belz...]

I ask about evidence for the claim that most experts think he was real, and you answer in reference to evidence for the claim that he was real.

Sorry, I misread your question.

But as I've already said, participants in this thread have poisoned the well to the point where any source that claims that a consensus exists is dismissed out of hand. So I don't know where I would get the evidence you're asking for that would not be so dismissed. As I also said before, it's quite clever. Devious, but clever.

Not necessarily, in a field with a known tendency for dogma (and even preconceptions that haven't been fully let go yet even by someone who has walked away from most of the dogma) to squash or constrain honest diligence.

But has it demonstrated that tendency, or are we just assuming that these people are hopelessly biased because of our own biases against theists?

It's like when you go to a mechanic who identifies a problem with your car, and you dismiss his concerns because 'mechanics are there to make money' and you think he's just trying to con you.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Ian's been asking me both: evidence of a consensus, and evidence for HJ. The latter's outside of what I want to discuss here, and the former has been defined out of existence.



Well, there is some extra-biblical stuff, but not for Jesus directly. In any case, that we individually are convinced or not about the evidence that exists, weak as it is, is irrelevant to the larger point I'm trying to make.

as far as i can see you have not really provided what has been asked of you. or attempted to. you have pointed to a consensus but failed to substantiate it.

what is the larger point you are trying to make? because you dont seem to be making it very well.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

To me it's not even that. The name's irrelevant. To me the question is whether there is a person or persons who were the inspiration of the Jesus stories, or whether they were built wholecloth or from earlier mythologies. HJ vs MJ.

To me there is only a pedantic difference between an entirely fictional character or one based on a person that did or said nothing that the bible claims but i struggle to see any methodology that could distinguish the two without further contemporary evidence.

 

[Belz...]

as far as i can see you have not really provided what has been asked of you. or attempted to.

As I've stated before (and I don't know why I have to repeat myself over and over) other posters have made the task impossible even in principle. So why bother?

what is the larger point you are trying to make?

Primarily that despite the fact that laypeople can certainly view the evidence and arguments and draw their own conclusions, there's a reason why we have experts in various fields, and that's that these people are better equipped to determine what constitutes evidence in that field and how various pieces of evidence interact. And I think everyone kind of agrees with that larger point, but on this specific topic there's a persistent effort to discredit said experts, first because they're not "genuine" experts or not true historians, or because of their religion or, more circularily, because the evidence does not support their conclusions despite what I said above.

I'm trying to disentangle all that, but it hasn't been easy, in part, in my view, because there are posters here who find the very idea that anything in the bibble might be based on anything real to be so distasteful and unacceptable that their only possible response to that suggestion is total denial of everything that could lead to it.

 

[IanS]

Good, so let's move on.



Not this one (rephrased): do you think that people who have spent decades studying and working professionally in a field know better than you or I what constitutes evidence in favour or against a hypothesis relating to that field?



Ad hominem. I'm not interested in how one can characterise other people in order to ignore their conclusions.



Sure, but we're not talking about miracles. We're talking about what parts, if any, of the story have any historical merit. There are ways to determine that with some degree of confidence, but although the process is similar to that of science, it's not quite the same for reasons detailed at length in other threads in which you participated.



According to you. That's the reason I asked my question above.

If you do not accept that they are using sources that are inadmissible as reliably knowing bout Jesus, then what sources are they using?

Why don't you tell us what sources they are using?

Who are these people? (so we can check their background), what sources are they using (so we can check those sources for ourselves), and what are they claiming as evidence from those sources to conclude Jesus was real?

 

[Belz...]

If you do not accept that they are using sources that are inadmissible as reliably knowing bout Jesus, then what sources are they using?

First of all: inadmissible according to who?

Also:
Do you think that people who have spent decades studying and working professionally in a field know better than you or I what constitutes evidence in favour or against a hypothesis relating to that field?

 

[IanS]

IanS, The affirmative claim is that there once was some bloke in the Levant called Jesus.

What do you find to be extraordinary about such a claim?

I don't think it would be at all extraordinary if Jesus existed (although obviously not as the miraculous son of a supernatural creator of the universe).

If the question is "Is it possible that person X existed in the early first century?", then answer is that of course it's possible.

However, if the question is "Can Bible Scholars tell from the Bible that the figure known as Jesus certainly existed?", then I think the answer is "No!". But even if they just claimed it was likely that he existed (e.g., as Belz has put it at 60% likelihood), then we'd have to ask what sources they were using to determine it as likely? ... and the answer cannot be that their source is the Bible (because that's just not remotely credible).

 

[Belz...]

Belz has put it at 60% likelihood

I already said that 60% was NOT a hard figure arrived via calculations but just an expression of how my I leant towards that conclusion. Please don't give the impression that it means anything more. Hell, even acbytestla, who disagrees with me on this issue, is at 70%.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

As I've stated before (and I don't know why I have to repeat myself over and over) other posters have made the task impossible even in principle. So why bother?

Because there's no point going on and on if you won't move the conversation forward.

Primarily that despite the fact that laypeople can certainly view the evidence and arguments and draw their own conclusions, there's a reason why we have experts in various fields, and that's that these people are better equipped to determine what constitutes evidence in that field and how various pieces of evidence interact. And I think everyone kind of agrees with that larger point, but on this specific topic there's a persistent effort to discredit said experts, first because they're not "genuine" experts or not true historians, or because of their religion or, more circularily, because the evidence does not support their conclusions despite what I said above.

I'm trying to disentangle all that, but it hasn't been easy, in part, in my view, because there are posters here who find the very idea that anything in the bibble might be based on anything real to be so distasteful and unacceptable that their only possible response to that suggestion is total denial of everything that could lead to it.

But we don't just accept the word of experts in other fields. I can find you a consensus of CAM experts to tell you it works and you won't believe them either. I think it's legitimate in that case to ask 'hmm... what do actual doctors think rather than those with a vested interest in the conclusion?' so when it comes to HJ I think its also valid to ask 'what do actual historians think rather than Theologians?'

If the response to the enquiry on CAM was 'why are you ignoring the consensus of the CAM experts in the field? You are defining away their expertise' would you take it seriously as a legitimate counter?

 

[IanS]

Sorry, I misread your question.

But as I've already said, participants in this thread have poisoned the well to the point where any source that claims that a consensus exists is dismissed out of hand. So I don't know where I would get the evidence you're asking for that would not be so dismissed. As I also said before, it's quite clever. Devious, but clever.


But has it demonstrated that tendency, or are we just assuming that these people are hopelessly biased because of our own biases against theists?

It's like when you go to a mechanic who identifies a problem with your car, and you dismiss his concerns because 'mechanics are there to make money' and you think he's just trying to con you.

The highlight - No! Nobody here has poisoned any such well.

I'd instantly accept evidence showing that Jesus was probably a real person, providing any decent genuine evidence was produced.

But the problem is that the Biblical Scholars who are the ones pronouncing upon this subject, have never produced any such evidence. They have not produced anything remotely credible at all!

What they have produced is the Bible!

 

[Belz...]

Because there's no point going on and on if you won't move the conversation forward.

Yes, that's what I said.

But we don't just accept the word of experts in other fields.

No, but we do tend to accept their collective opinions. We also don't dismiss them out of hand because of their potential biases or financial considerations.

 

[Belz...]

I'd instantly accept evidence showing that Jesus was probably a real person, providing any decent genuine evidence was produced.

I'm sure you would. The question is what would you consider as evidence, or rather, why you disagree on what constitutes evidence with either myself or the (so-called) experts on the matter?

Nobody here has poisoned any such well.

I think I've made my case as to why I think it is the case.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I already said that 60% was NOT a hard figure arrived via calculations but just an expression of how my I leant towards that conclusion. Please don't give the impression that it means anything more. Hell, even acbytestla, who disagrees with me on this issue, is at 70%.

That's fair enough but you (and others) arrived at the conclusion that it is more likely than not. So it's a legitimate question to ask what sources of information you (and they) have used to reach that conclusion, true?

Correct me if I am wrong, but the whole thing seems to collapse down to the fact that we can be pretty sure Christians existed around the time of Christ and it seems unlikely that they would have existed had there not been some kind of person that sort of fits the bill of Jesus?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

No, but we do tend to accept their collective opinions.

No, we don't. And I just gave an example of where we don't. CAM. We dismiss the whole field and everyone who works in it. And you haven't taken that point on board it appears.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I'm sure you would. The question is what would you consider as evidence,

I think he has been clear - credible, reliable, non-Biblical corroboration.

 

[ahhell]

I haven't read them. But it's clear that the Gospels particularly Matthew were written so they fulfilled Jewish prophecies. The number of times I've heard Christians use as a reason that Jesus was the son of God because he fulfilled prophecies is too many to count. They never seem to take into account the that a work of fiction can be written to fulfill prophecies.

This is one of the lines of reasoning for why Jesus probably existed. The Gospels are so clearly written to make seem like Jesus was fulfilling prophecy. If he were just fictional, it would have been a lot more....cohesive story. Things like the trip to Bethleham and the Roman census are mean to shoe horn a Nazerene into the old testament prophecies. If you were just going to make it up, you'd start with a family from Bethleham. There's some other stuff like that off course.