Historical Jesus

[IanS]

Also – re. my previous post on the Dead Sea Scrolls as a quite obvious source from which Paul & the members of the Church of God at Jerusalem (see Paul's letter for all that) could easily have been forming a religious belief around the idea of a spiritual messiah of the distant past (up to 250 years before Paul), ie an Apocalyptic Messiah belief which afaik everyone agrees that Paul was preaching - below are some links and quotes on the Dead Sea Scrolls where the Scrolls certainly do talk about their belief in an apocalyptic messiah.

But just to recap what I said in that previous post - Afaik, everyone agrees that Paul was preaching an apocalyptic message of messiah belief. Afaik, there are no dissenting voices on that. However, what the quotes below show, is that the Dead Sea Scrolls were also preaching an apocalyptic messiah. But note that the Scrolls were written as much as 250 years or more before Paul was even born ... although experts all agree that those Scrolls continued to be written all through the lifetime of Paul and up until about 100AD (see the dating links & quotes below) ... and the writers of those scrolls were preaching and writing in the exact same few square-miles as Paul ... and not only that but, the Letters of Paul make very clear that Paul himself says that before his vision Paul was preaching the traditional OT version of Judaism and he was vehemently persecuting on the streets others who were preaching some different version of Jewish messiah belief (such as the Essenes were doing with their Dead Sea Scrolls) ... but then Paul had his vision and the sudden conversion where he say's that he suddenly realised that he had been wrong in his traditional messiah beliefs, and that God had now revealed to him the true messaih meaning "hidden so long" in scripture, after which Paul instantly began to preach the same belief as those he'd been persecuting, and where that new preaching from Paul was now of an apocalyptic messiah (just as they had in the Scrolls) ...

OK, some of the quotes below are quite long (just for context), but I've highlighted the relevant bits to show (a) the dates, and (b) the apocalyptic nature of the Scroll beliefs -



Apocalyptic Nature of the Messiah Belief in the Dead Sea Scrolls

https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/featured-scrolls?locale=en_US

4Q Apocryphon of Daniel*
Date:*50–1 bce, Herodian Period*
Language: Aramaic

The Dead Sea Scrolls contain extensive apocalyptic literature relating to the final messianic battle at the End of Days. The Aramaic Apocryphon of Daniel describes either a messianic figure or a boastful ruler that will arise as “Son of God” or “Son of the Most High”, like the apocalyptic redeemer in the biblical book of Daniel. The text calls to mind the New Testament proclamation of the angel Gabriel concerning the new-born Jesus: “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High… ” (Luke 1:32)



https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/emwl/dss_rowley.pdf

In chapters vi-xxxvi we have the expectation of a world judgement, followed by the establishment of the kingdom of God, with Jerusalem and the Temple at its centre.38 There is no thought of the Messiah as the head of the kingdom. This is closely similar to what we find in the book of Daniel. It does not mean that either the author of Daniel or the author of these chapters thought of the kingdom as without a leader, but that the person of the leader was not in the focus of their thought. The Apocalypse of Weeks thought of history as divided into periods, the seventh being marked by apostasy, the eighth being marked by righteousness, the ninth by the destruction of the wicked, and the tenth by the bringing in of a period of eternal bliss[/B]. The remainder of chapters xci-civ show us the wicked apostatizing and following idolatry,39 and promised torment hereafter, while the righteous are promised bliss.40 There is 28 Cf. The Book of Enoch, 2nd ed., 1912, pp. lii f., 1 f., and Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, ii, 1913, pp. 170 f. On p. 171, however, he says the date of the latter section is wholly doubtful. 29 Cf. The Relevance of Apocalyptic, 2nd ed., 1947, pp. 78 ff. F. Martin, Le livre d’Hénoch,’ 1906, dates the Apocalypse of Weeks before 170 B.C., and chapters vi-xxxvi circa 166 B.C. M.-J. Lagrange, Le Messianisme chez les Juifs, 1909, p. 62, took a similar view, but in Le Judaisme avant Jésus-Christ, 1931, pp. 113 f., he assigns chapters vi-xxxvi to a date anterior to 125 B.C., and the Apocalypse of Weeks to circa 152 B.C. J. B. Frey, in Pirot’s Supplément an Dictionnaire de la Bible, i, 1928, cols. 358, 366, dated the former section in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, and the latter during the early Maccabaean period. A. Weiser, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 2nd ed., 1949, p. 311, assigns the origin of both of these sections to the Maccabaean period. O. Eissfeldt, Einleitung in das A1te Testament, 2nd ed., 1956, p. 765, assigns the Apocalypse of Weeks to circa 170 B.C.

For some scholars who prefer later dates cf. The Relevance of Apocalyptic, pp. 79 f. To these may be added, R. H. Pfeiffer, History of New Testament Times, 1949, where chapters vi-xxxvi are assigned to circa 100 B.C., and the Apocalypse of Weeks to circa 163 B.C. 30 Cf. The Book of Enoch, 2nd ed., pp. liii f., and Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, ii, p. 171. 31 Loc. cit., col. 367. 32 Cf. The Relevance of the Apocalyptic, 2nd ed., p. 56. 33 Cf. The Book of Enoch, 2nd ed., p. liv, and Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, ii, p. 171. 34 Cf. The Book of Enoch, p. liii, and Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, loc. cit. 35 Loc. cit., cols. 361 f. 36 Ibid., col. 364 37 Ibid., col. 368. 38 I Enoch x. 6, xvi. 1, xix. 1, xxv. 4 f. 39 I Enoch xci. 7, 9, xcvii. 7 ff. 40 I Enoch xcix. 11, ciii. 3 f, 7 f., civ. 2 ff. H.H. Rowley, Jewish Apocalyptic and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Ethel M. Wood Lecture delivered before the University of London on 12 March 1957. London: The Athlone Press, 1957. pp.36. no suggestion of the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth, or of any resurrection on earth. In chapters lxxxiii-xc the history of Israel is depicted symbolically under the figure of sheep. The history culminates in a Gentile attack, until one of the sheep develops a powerful horn, against which the enemy had no power.41 This is doubtless to be identified with the Maccabees,42 whose victory was expected to inaugurate the kingdom of God, when the enemy should be destroyed, and the righteous dead should arise. One described as a white bull should lead them,43 and he fulfils the functions of the Messiah, though the term is not used of him, and there is no mention of Davidic descent. The Similitudes of Enoch raise problems of Christian [p.10] interpolation and of the interpretation of their figure of the Son of Man. In the book of Daniel the Son of Man is a figure symbolizing the saints as invested with power in the coming kingdom,44 and [B]there are some who think the Son of Man is here also a collective symbol.45 Others hold that he is a transcendental figure, a pre-existent individual.46 For our purpose this is not material, since nothing of this character can be found in the Scrolls. The term Anointed One, or Messiah, is found in the Similitudes,47 but there is nothing to indicate that he is a human deliverer, and again the view has been expressed that this is a collective figure.48



Dating The Dead Sea Scrolls

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls

Scholarly consensus dates the Qumran Caves Scrolls from the last three centuries*BCE*and the first century*CE.[2]*Bronze coins found at the same sites form a series beginning with*John Hyrcanus*(in office 135–104*BCE) and continuing until the period of the*First Jewish–Roman War*(66–73 CE), supporting the radiocarbon and*paleographic*dating of the*scrolls.[5]


Radiocarbon dating
Main article:*Carbon dating the Dead Sea Scrolls

Parchment from a number of the Dead Sea Scrolls has been carbon dated. The initial test performed in 1950 was on a piece of linen from one of the caves. This test gave an indicative dating of 33CE plus or minus 200 years, eliminating early hypotheses relating the scrolls to the medieval period.[433] Since then two large series of tests have been performed on the scrolls themselves. The results were summarized by VanderKam and Flint, who said the tests give "strong reason for thinking that most of the Qumran manuscripts belong to the last two centuries BCE and the first century CE."[17]:32

Paleographic dating[edit]

Analysis of letter forms, or*palaeography, was applied to the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls by a variety of scholars in the field. Major linguistic analysis by*Cross*and*Avigad*dates fragments from 225*BCE to 50*CE.[434]*These dates were determined by examining the size, variability, and style of the text.[435]The same fragments were later analyzed using radiocarbon dating and were dated to an estimated range of 385*BCE to 82*CE with a 68% accuracy rate.[434] “

Because of their faithfulness, we have today a form of the Hebrew text which in all essentials duplicates the recension which was considered authoritative in the days of Christ and the apostles, if not a century earlier. And this in turn, judging from Qumran evidence, goes back to an authoritative revision of the Old Testament text which was drawn up on the basis of the most reliable manuscripts available for collation from previous centuries. These bring us very close in all essentials to the original autographs themselves, and furnish us with an authentic record of God's revelation. As W. F. Albright has said, "We may rest assured that the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible, though not infallible has been preserved with an accuracy perhaps unparalleled in any other Near Eastern literature."[504]

Christian origin theory[edit]

Spanish*Jesuit*José O'Callaghan Martínez*argued in the 1960s that one fragment (7Q5) preserves a portion of text from the*New Testament*Gospel of Mark*6:52–53.[424]*This theory was*falsifiedin the year 2000 by paleographic analysis of the particular fragment.[425]

Robert Eisenman*has advanced the theory that some scrolls describe the*early Christian*community. Eisenman also argued that the careers of*James the Just*and*Paul the Apostle*correspond to events recorded in some of these documents.[426]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4Q246

4Q246, also known as the*Son of God*Text or the*Aramaic Apocalypse, is one of the*Dead Sea Scrolls*found at*Qumran*which is notable for an early*messianic*mention of a*son of God.[1][2]*The text is an*Aramaic language*fragment first acquired in 1958 from cave 4 at Qumran, and the major debate on this fragment has been on the identity of this "son of God" figure.[3]



https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/01/dead-sea-scroll-

translated-religion-tekufah-spd/
The Mystery of the Scrolls

As religious documents, a wave of controversy surrounds the Dead Sea Scrolls. They were written between the second century BC and the second century AD, but their exact authors are highly contested. Scholars agree, however, that the documents—which consist of explanatory, wisdom, apocalyptic, and calendrical texts, in addition to hymns and prayers—were written by Judean desert dwellers.


https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org...s/the-dead-sea-scrolls-and-the-new-testament/

Nevertheless, there are some similarities between the two groups and their writings, which make for interesting comparisons. For example, a list of miracles appears in both Luke 7:21–22 of the New Testament and the Dead Sea Scroll known as the Messianic Apocalypse (4Q521).
In Luke 7, Jesus gives these miracles to the disciples of John the Baptist as proof that he is the messiah. In the Messianic Apocalypse, which was written approximately 150 years before Luke’s Gospel, the Lord is the one who will perform these miracles. The source for both of these lists is Isaiah chapters 35 and 61. While not all of the same miracles appear in Luke 7 and the Messianic Apocalypse, the miracles that do appear in both are listed in the same order (see char

The curious thing is that not all of these miracles, such as “raising the dead,” appear in the passages from Isaiah, which were the source material for the lists—the prophecies being fulfilled. Yet the miracle of “raising the dead” appears in both Luke 7 and the Messianic Apocalypse*right before*bringing “good news to the poor.” Rather than suggesting that the writer of Luke 7 copied from—or was even aware of—the Messianic Apocalypse, this similarity suggests that both groups shared certain “interpretive and theological traditions on which writers in both communities drew.

 

[Belz...]

Also – re. my previous post on the Dead Sea Scrolls as a quite obvious source from which Paul & the members of the Church of God at Jerusalem (see Paul's letter for all that) could easily have been forming a religious belief around the idea of a spiritual messiah of the distant past (up to 250 years before Paul), ie an Apocalyptic Messiah belief which afaik everyone agrees that Paul was preaching - below are some links and quotes on the Dead Sea Scrolls where the Scrolls certainly do talk about their belief in an apocalyptic messiah.

They could've, and it's certainly a possibility that's been raised in the past. However if I remember correctly it requires that said Messiah essentially start as mythical, then be made human (in Mark) and then back to godlike again. Under that scenario I still find it more likely if we cut out the first part and simplify it, Occam and all.

 

[ArchSas]

Also – re. my previous post on the Dead Sea Scrolls as a quite obvious source from which Paul & the members of the Church of God at Jerusalem (see Paul's letter for all that) could easily have been forming a religious belief around the idea of a spiritual messiah of the distant past (up to 250 years before Paul), ie an Apocalyptic Messiah belief which afaik everyone agrees that Paul was preaching - below are some links and quotes on the Dead Sea Scrolls where the Scrolls certainly do talk about their belief in an apocalyptic messiah.

But just to recap what I said in that previous post - Afaik, everyone agrees that Paul was preaching an apocalyptic message of messiah belief. Afaik, there are no dissenting voices on that. However, what the quotes below show, is that the Dead Sea Scrolls were also preaching an apocalyptic messiah. But note that the Scrolls were written as much as 250 years or more before Paul was even born ... although experts all agree that those Scrolls continued to be written all through the lifetime of Paul and up until about 100AD (see the dating links & quotes below) ... and the writers of those scrolls were preaching and writing in the exact same few square-miles as Paul ...

Hold on, are you under the impression that only the Essenes (and later Paul, who you claim drew inspiration from them) were preaching apocalyptic messages and included discussion about a messiah? Or even more generally, do you think the idea of a group predicting the messiah (or making claims about one) was rare during the second temple period?

It looks like your claim is that because the Dead Sea Scrolls contain apocalyptic messages then early Christians must have been inspired to turn their writings into a new religion, and if that's the case, wow, you know even less about the history of this period than I thought. The entire second temple period was full of apocalyptic preaching and predictions/claims about the messiah. That's one of the defining traits of the period, historically. Apocalyptic writing was incredibly widespread and popular through the entire period, and by the first century it was pretty mainstream. There were also lots of people claiming to be the messiah (or predicting his near arrival), including Simon Bar Kokhbah, John the Baptist, and several the Josephus mentions. That's one of the reasons Brainache was able to claim earlier in the thread that the existence of a person like Jesus isn't a fantastic claim - we already know of many other people like him (unless you want to claim they didn't exist, either), so his existence fits very well with what was a popular movement, and what we know about others like him. Is it possible that Jesus still could have been an invention? Yes, but it wasn't necessary, it's not like apocalyptic preachers with small followings that were killed by the authorities were uncommon. He isn't even the only Jesus of that description mentioned by Josephus. As others have said, it really comes down to what you consider valid criteria for a historical Jesus. But the DSS aren't some kind of smoking gun in the way you seem to be presenting them, the Essenes' messianic writings were part of a broader cultural movement that was incredibly widespread at the time - just like your last highlighted quote says.

 

[ArchSas]

He isn't even the only Jesus of that description mentioned by Josephus.

Since I just realized I was wrong about this, and can't edit the post anymore, I wanted to correct myself on this point. I was misremembering Josephus (it's been years since I've read these sources or had to think about the topic); he mentions many different Jesuses (Jesi?) and several apocalyptically-inspired Jewish rebels, but the famous Jesus is the only that meets both of those criteria. My larger points still stand (and so do Brainache's about how IanS is getting the DSS wrong), but that was a big enough mistake to warrant correction. My bad.

 

[Brainache]

Hold on, are you under the impression that only the Essenes (and later Paul, who you claim drew inspiration from them) were preaching apocalyptic messages and included discussion about a messiah? Or even more generally, do you think the idea of a group predicting the messiah (or making claims about one) was rare during the second temple period?

It looks like your claim is that because the Dead Sea Scrolls contain apocalyptic messages then early Christians must have been inspired to turn their writings into a new religion, and if that's the case, wow, you know even less about the history of this period than I thought. The entire second temple period was full of apocalyptic preaching and predictions/claims about the messiah. That's one of the defining traits of the period, historically. Apocalyptic writing was incredibly widespread and popular through the entire period, and by the first century it was pretty mainstream. There were also lots of people claiming to be the messiah (or predicting his near arrival), including Simon Bar Kokhbah, John the Baptist, and several the Josephus mentions. That's one of the reasons Brainache was able to claim earlier in the thread that the existence of a person like Jesus isn't a fantastic claim - we already know of many other people like him (unless you want to claim they didn't exist, either), so his existence fits very well with what was a popular movement, and what we know about others like him. Is it possible that Jesus still could have been an invention? Yes, but it wasn't necessary, it's not like apocalyptic preachers with small followings that were killed by the authorities were uncommon. He isn't even the only Jesus of that description mentioned by Josephus. As others have said, it really comes down to what you consider valid criteria for a historical Jesus. But the DSS aren't some kind of smoking gun in the way you seem to be presenting them, the Essenes' messianic writings were part of a broader cultural movement that was incredibly widespread at the time - just like your last highlighted quote says.

Since I just realized I was wrong about this, and can't edit the post anymore, I wanted to correct myself on this point. I was misremembering Josephus (it's been years since I've read these sources or had to think about the topic); he mentions many different Jesuses (Jesi?) and several apocalyptically-inspired Jewish rebels, but the famous Jesus is the only that meets both of those criteria. My larger points still stand (and so do Brainache's about how IanS is getting the DSS wrong), but that was a big enough mistake to warrant correction. My bad.

Thanks for that.

We could probably get into Josephus and his description of Judas the Galilean and his "Fourth Philosophy", the various "Innovators" and the "Zealots" who led the revolt against Rome that resulted in the destruction of the Temple. We could, but what would be the point if after debating this topic for years, some posters still know nothing about the historical context.

Good luck turning it around.

 

[Delvo]

Since I just realized I was wrong about this, and can't edit the post anymore, I wanted to correct myself on this point. I was misremembering Josephus (it's been years since I've read these sources or had to think about the topic); he mentions many different Jesuses (Jesi?) and several apocalyptically-inspired Jewish rebels, but the famous Jesus is the only that meets both of those criteria. My larger points still stand (and so do Brainache's about how IanS is getting the DSS wrong), but that was a big enough mistake to warrant correction. My bad.

You were right the first time. In "The Jewish Wars", he describes a guy called "Jesus Son Of Ananias", also sometimes "Jesus Of Jerusalem". And the name and general "coming Jewish Apocalypse" style are not the only things they have in common. This guy also:
•entered the city during a Jewish festival
•went to the temple to rant against it while quoting Jeremiah 7
•stuck around afterward to preach daily about the coming destruction there
•was seized & beaten by Jewish authorities who accused him of speaking against the temple
•offered no defense
•was turned over to the Romans, who beat him some more
•was interrogated personally by the Roman governor
•still offered no defense there either
•was not found guilty of anything or a threat by the governor, who decided he should be set free
•cried out about his own sad fate just before dying

(Bible Jesus ended up not being freed after all thanks to a plot contrivance, of course, but this one was. Then he died not by execution but in a siege, with final quote that's not the same words but the same theme.)

That was published in 68, and the events happened in the 60s. That's before the Gospels, but after Paul's letters... and the parallels are with the Gospels (especially Mark), not with Paul's letters. If there's a single specific individual who can be fairly called the real-world basis for the Bible's Jesus, I'd say it's this one, not Paul's vague demigod of vagueness.

 

[ArchSas]

You were right the first time. In "The Jewish Wars", he describes a guy called "Jesus Son Of Ananias", also sometimes "Jesus Of Jerusalem". And the name and general "coming Jewish Apocalypse" style are not the only things they have in common.

Darn, I was thinking of the wrong Jesus when I tried fact-checking myself (Jesus son of Damneus). Sometimes it's hard keeping them all straight, but it's good to know I wasn't completely misremembering Josephus. Thanks for the correction.

 

[IanS]

Well you did to me. I even quoted the exact bit that led to that.



First, it wasn't a claim. You really should read more carefully. Second, what's silly about it? It happens all the time, in history, in fiction and myth, etc. That's why I said you don't appear to know much about the topic.



I defined what 'historical Jesus' means to me and what would qualify. I suggested that it might be more than one person. What is it about that that indicates that I know who they are?

Are you done misrepresenting my posts? It's not going to make you any more right, and it shows a lot of irony, after what you said about me earlier.



Again, I've done so multiple times in previous threads in which you participated. Said evidence did not convince you then and I have no delusion that it will convince you now. I did touch upon a couple of reasons earlier. I suggest you look back and read what I post.



That's not what I said.



I was discussing with Archie about a particular aspect, and one of the things that makes me lean in that direction. I don't see why you'd expect that to be anything else.



I am not at your beck and call, and I've stated numerous times what I mean to discuss in this thread. The evidence for the historical Jesus is not part of that. You might as well ask me to debunk the Shroud of Turin; it's just as relevant to the topic, and just as irrelevant to what I am discussing.

What is the evidence which you say convinces you that Jesus was probably real?

Where is your evidence?

Why you can't you tell us what you are claiming as the evidence of a real Jesus?

It does not matter whether I personally find what you offer (as evidence) convincing. For a start I am not the only person here who is arguing against you. You need to be straight with everyone here, and explain what you are using as your evidence - if you are arguing that certain evidence convinces you that Jesus was probably real, then the burden is entirely upon you to explain what you are claiming as that evidence.

If you cannot or will not produce that evidence, then you have absolutely no case here at all.

And secondly - whilst I'm not expecting to be convinced by what you offer as evidence (though I might be convinced. It depends what that evidence is), I want to see if you have any cogent enlightening point to make from whatever material that is influencing you as evidence of Jesus.

And thirdly - I really have no idea what you ever claimed as evidence in previous threads from years ago. What I recall from those threads was various other posters (some of them still here) offering mainly that one line from Paul (which has numerous problems with it, as I've explained in great detail many times), and particularly on this forum/site they offered Josephus and Tacitus as their main evidence.

So .... the evidence? Do you actually have any at all?

Why can't you just tell us? What is so hard about doing that?

 

[Belz...]

Why you can't you tell us what you are claiming as the evidence of a real Jesus?

I can, just like I can tell you why the Shroud of Turin, which would definitely be on-topic, is a sham. But that is not what I'm discussing. I'm discussing what constitutes expertise on the matter.

I don't know why that is so hard for you to understand.

 

[IanS]

By the way, just so people can see it and judge it for themselves – here is the film I described earlier of Bart Ehrman giving a book reading of what was then his newly published Book “Did Jesus Exist” -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRDqTh4y46c


What anyone should notice there is just how weak Ehrman's explanations and arguments are, and how it takes him 23 mins out of his allotted time of 26 mins before he finally gets around to telling that audience what he is claiming as the evidence of Jesus which he again repeats there as a "certainty" (ie he spent 88% of his allotted time just complaining about all the weakest points that various mythicists had raised in the past). And when he finally does get to his evidence he just says Paul had met the actual brother of Jesus, and he adds for effect “you would think his own brother would know if Jesus was real”, and then he lamely says "there is one other piece of evidence but it's too complicated for me to explain it here"! And that's it! …

… that is the sum total of what he explains as his evidence. And that's in a book where he has just told the audience that his book is all about the entire explanation of all the evidence that shows Jesus was “certainly real”.

And to repeat, lest the pro-HJ posters here fail again to recognise the most important factors in this subject – Bart Ehrman is by far the most prominent well known “expert” academic, by far the most published on this precise topic of Historicity of Jesus, and he is by far the one named “Historian” (he's he's actually NOT a historian, he is a Bible Studies lecturer in a Bible Studies Dep't) who all pro-HJ posters everywhere on the internet quote almost to the exclusion of any other credible named “expert” on this subject … but you can see in that film just how dreadfully weak the standard of academia is in this field even with it's most notable and most respected members such as Bart Ehrman.

 

[Brainache]

By the way, just so people can see it and judge it for themselves – here is the film I described earlier of Bart Ehrman giving a book reading of what was then his newly published Book “Did Jesus Exist” -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRDqTh4y46c


What anyone should notice there is just how weak Ehrman's explanations and arguments are, and how it takes him 23 mins out of his allotted time of 26 mins before he finally gets around to telling that audience what he is claiming as the evidence of Jesus which he again repeats there as a "certainty" (ie he spent 88% of his allotted time just complaining about all the weakest points that various mythicists had raised in the past). And when he finally does get to his evidence he just says Paul had met the actual brother of Jesus, and he adds for effect “you would think his own brother would know if Jesus was real”, and then he lamely says "there is one other piece of evidence but it's too complicated for me to explain it here"! And that's it! …

… that is the sum total of what he explains as his evidence. And that's in a book where he has just told the audience that his book is all about the entire explanation of all the evidence that shows Jesus was “certainly real”.

And to repeat, lest the pro-HJ posters here fail again to recognise the most important factors in this subject – Bart Ehrman is by far the most prominent well known “expert” academic, by far the most published on this precise topic of Historicity of Jesus, and he is by far the one named “Historian” (he's he's actually NOT a historian, he is a Bible Studies lecturer in a Bible Studies Dep't) who all pro-HJ posters everywhere on the internet quote almost to the exclusion of any other credible named “expert” on this subject … but you can see in that film just how dreadfully weak the standard of academia is in this field even with it's most notable and most respected members such as Bart Ehrman.

In this thread, who has mentioned Bart Erhman?

Tell us more about the Dead Sea Scrolls...

 

[Lothian]

May I suggest that prior to posting further on this topic participants read the threads started by Doc .

We can then pick this up again when you have done that which should be about 2022.

 

[Belz...]

Your link is a search. It only works for you.

 

[IanS]

Hold on, are you under the impression that only the Essenes (and later Paul, who you claim drew inspiration from them) were preaching apocalyptic messages and included discussion about a messiah? Or even more generally, do you think the idea of a group predicting the messiah (or making claims about one) was rare during the second temple period?

It looks like your claim is that because the Dead Sea Scrolls contain apocalyptic messages then early Christians must have been inspired to turn their writings into a new religion, and if that's the case, wow, you know even less about the history of this period than I thought. The entire second temple period was full of apocalyptic preaching and predictions/claims about the messiah. That's one of the defining traits of the period, historically. Apocalyptic writing was incredibly widespread and popular through the entire period, and by the first century it was pretty mainstream. There were also lots of people claiming to be the messiah (or predicting his near arrival), including Simon Bar Kokhbah, John the Baptist, and several the Josephus mentions. That's one of the reasons Brainache was able to claim earlier in the thread that the existence of a person like Jesus isn't a fantastic claim - we already know of many other people like him (unless you want to claim they didn't exist, either), so his existence fits very well with what was a popular movement, and what we know about others like him. Is it possible that Jesus still could have been an invention? Yes, but it wasn't necessary, it's not like apocalyptic preachers with small followings that were killed by the authorities were uncommon. He isn't even the only Jesus of that description mentioned by Josephus. As others have said, it really comes down to what you consider valid criteria for a historical Jesus. But the DSS aren't some kind of smoking gun in the way you seem to be presenting them, the Essenes' messianic writings were part of a broader cultural movement that was incredibly widespread at the time - just like your last highlighted quote says.

Dear oh lord! Please read what people have said in their posts before you make dismissive and disparaging criticism of them. You are actually making my case for me! …

… you are saying above "The entire second temple period was full of apocalyptic preaching and predictions/claims about the messiah.", that's going further than I did, where you are now claiming to personally know that as a certainty, which is always a very unwise claim to make. Whereas as I had said exactly the same thing, but gone no further than to say that in his book on the Dead Sea Scroll's, Stephen Hodge says that by at least 100BC (i.e. 100 to 150 years before Paul's converting vision) “preaching in that region had become very diverse, with people now preaching various versions of an apocalyptically religious messiah, as opposed to the earlier traditional Jewish belief in a princely leader taking the Jewish people to a great military victory ” … below is the entire quote of my post with precisely that sentence highlighted for you -

But as a direct result of that vision, Paul instantly changed his traditionalist messiah belief (promised since at least 500BC in the Old Testament) to belief in an apocalyptic messenger sent by God to gather the faithful in warning of God's now imminent day of the apocalypse.

However, that apocalyptic messiah belief was in fact the same belief found in the the Dead Sea Scrolls when they were discovered in that exact same region between 1946 to 1956. Those Scrolls are most often dated to have been written as an ongoing enterprise from about 200BC through to about 100AD.

If you read the book by Stephen Hodge (The Dead Sea Scrolls), he explains that by at least 100BC (if not earlier) preaching in that region had become very diverse, with people now preaching various versions of an apocalyptically religious messiah, as opposed to the earlier traditional Jewish belief in a princely leader taking the Jewish people to a great military victory.
IOW – Paul came to believe, from his vision, that people like the Essenes (who wrote the Scrolls) had been right in their interpretation of the promised messiah … Paul then began preaching exactly that same sort of apocalyptic view of a religious messiah.

So that, in brief, is a fairly clear explanation of how and why Paul was actually preaching about a spirituall Christ, and not a real living person.

.

The essential point is (in case you've missed that too), that in his letters Paul makes explicitly clear that before his vision he had been preaching a much more traditional form of Judaism, where he was on the streets vehemently opposing others who were now preaching an apocalyptical belief in the promised messiah … Paul then says he had that converting vision, after which he instantly came to believe that a message he describes as “hidden so long” in scripture, actually did mean that Jesus was an apocalyptic messenger of the past, sent by God to warn the faithful of the imminent day of final judgement, and in that belief he says he then joined with the beliefs of the people he called the “pillars” of the Church of God in Jerusalem …. i.e. he came to share the same general belief in OT prophecy of an apocalyptical messiah …

… that was something I explained in that above quoted post 301 for the benefit of Belz and others here who had said they could not conceive of how Christianity could have ever begun unless there was some real person, i.e. Jesus, as it's founder/source/figurehead …

… well what my above description shows is how, by the time of Paul in 30AD, it would have been very easy indeed for Paul and others such as the “Pillars of The Church of God”, to have believed in a messiah who was never known to any of them as any sort of real living person, but who was only ever a figment of their religious belief where Paul and all the others had only known “the Christ” through their religious visions which they believed to be revelations from God …

… they, i.e. Paul and the Pillars of the Church, may have believed that this visionary messiah had indeed been alive upon the Earth a hundred years or more earlier when the Scrolls were first being written, but by the time Paul came to believe in the revealed truth of his vision, that messiah was no longer in living existence (if indeed he ever was), i.e. the believed messiah was by then (i.e. by circa 33-37 with Paul's vision) only a figure of visionary belief.

 

[David Mo]

They could have. But how do we know whether they added miraculous stuff to a real person or just made up the whole thing?

There is a danger that you just strip away the things that are obviously false and then assume that what is left which is plausible is true.

But that approach could leave us with a historical Peter Parker who just couldn't climb buildings too.

The supporters of the historical Jesus adduce quite a few reasons of little weight. The strongest indications (or less weak, depending on how you look at it) would be the mentions of a Jesus of flesh and blood in the Pauline Epistles and the difficulty that a Jesus who died an infamous death was invented by the Christians at the end of the first century.

They are not evidences, in a strict sense.I don't think there's another one worth mentioning.

 

[ArchSas]

Dear oh lord! Please read what people have said in their posts before you make dismissive and disparaging criticism of them.

I did. You're keep trying to make the claim that the messianic figure in the DSS is tied to Paul's notion of Jesus (which is wrong, BTW, as Brainache has pointed out, and you keep ignoring), and because it's the only example you keep using, it really makes it seem like you think it was Paul's direct inspiration. Nothing you've said in this post even tries to argue against that (or even meaningfully addresses anything I said - as I noted before, you just keep repeating to same things over and over and acting like it somehow proves you're right), so I'm still assuming it's what you think. Either way, it demonstrates a lack of understanding of the subject.

You are actually making my case for me! …

I'm really not. And I'm struggling to see why you do (besides Dunning-Kruger). Just like in your last post, your source just backs up what I'm saying, and has nothing to do with what you appear to be claiming. You keep showing that you refuse to engage with meaningful criticism, so I'm out again.

 

[IanS]

I did. You're keep trying to make the claim that the messianic figure in the DSS is tied to Paul's notion of Jesus (which is wrong, BTW, as Brainache has pointed out, and you keep ignoring), and because it's the only example you keep using, it really makes it seem like you think it was Paul's direct inspiration. Nothing you've said in this post even tries to argue against that (or even meaningfully addresses anything I said - as I noted before, you just keep repeating to same things over and over and acting like it somehow proves you're right), so I'm still assuming it's what you think. Either way, it demonstrates a lack of understanding of the subject.



I'm really not. And I'm struggling to see why you do (besides Dunning-Kruger). Just like in your last post, your source just backs up what I'm saying, and has nothing to do with what you appear to be claiming. You keep showing that you refuse to engage with meaningful criticism, so I'm out again.

What do you mean in the above highlight by saying that I am trying to “tie” the view that Paul presented of the messiah after his vision, to the “messianic" figure in the DSS”?

I am not saying that Paul came to believe exactly what the Essene's (i.e. the claimed writers of the Scrolls) believed about messianic Judaism. I did not say that at all.

What I am saying is that the Dead Sea Scrolls describe a messiah belief that was apocalyptic in nature, and in post #385 I gave links & quotes which say exactly that. And I said that is exactly what Stephen Hodge says about the apocalyptic nature of the Scrolls in his book The Dead Sea Scrolls (it's the book that I cited for this earlier).

AFAIK, there is no disagreement about any of that – the Scrolls describe a messiah belief that was apocalyptic in nature.

What I am saying about Paul is that in his letters he actually stresses that prior to his vision he was preaching a more traditional form of Jewish belief, that was different from what he came to believe following his converting vision. The vision convinced Paul that his traditional Jewish view of the messiah was wrong (in fact in his letters he makes a very clear & abject apology to people for preaching that wrong view of the messiah), and that God had now revealed to Paul that the true meaning of “Scripture” was that the messiah had already been upon the Earth in the untold past (Paul never says how long ago he thought that was).

And from that moment onwards Paul preached that the messiah message was to show the faithful that just like “the Christ”, they too (i.e. all faithful believers) would be raised up after death by God when he (Paul) says in 1 Corinthians 15 for example “Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom*to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.*25*For he must reign*until he has put all his enemies under his feet.*26*The last enemy to be destroyed is death” . That is afaik, agreed by all Bible Scholars (ie “expert historians”) to be a clearly apocalyptic messiah belief.

In other words - following his vision, Paul's view of the messiah was apparently very similar to that of the “Pillars of the Church of God” who had been preaching before Paul, and similar also in that sense of the apocalyptic message, to the apocalyptic messianic beliefs found in the Sea Sea Scrolls.

What I am saying about the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls is that their description of an apocalyptic messiah was apparently being written at least 100 years before or even 200 years or more before Paul was even born.

So that by the time Paul was preaching his more traditional Judaic messiah beliefs around circa 20AD to 30AD, the Essenes (or whoever it was that wrote the Scrolls) had already been in that exact same small region around Judea peaching belief in an apocalyptic messiah, and where in his book Hodge says that by about 100BC to 50BC there were many people in that region preaching various diverse beliefs about the promised messiah, inc. the belief that the messiah would be an apocalyptic messenger warning the faithful to be ready for Gods final day of judgement … which is apparently exactly what Paul came to believe from his vision that was said to have occurred about 33 to 37 AD.

That's what I am suggesting as one quite obvious way in which Paul and the others (e.g. the “Pillars” John, Peter and James … plus according to Paul, also “the Twelve, all the Apostles, and 500 others at once”) could have come to believe in a messiah of the distant past (e.g. from 100BC or earlier) who was by Paul's time no longer a living person (if indeed any such apocalyptic messiah, such as that of the Essenes, was ever a real person).

 

[maximara]

One way is to test your new enquiry against what is already known. So if the Bible says there was a Roman census that required people to return to their birth place we can look to see what we know about Roman census etc.

And this is where the historical Jesus is very much lacking, the mundane elements from the bible not only can't be verified they are often contra to what we do know.

Correct. The RationalWiki article on the Gospels points out the first person to extensively quote from the Gospels we know, Irenaeus, puts the crucifixion of Jesus somewhere between 42-44 CE with Jesus be somewhere between the ages of 46-50 when it happened.

"For Herod the king of the Jews and Pontius Pilate, the governor of Claudius Caesar, came together and condemned Him to be crucified." (Demonstrations 74)

The key issue here is the title "King of the Jews" (ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΩΝ in Greek). At best only three Herods held this formal title: Herod the Great, Herod Agrippa I, and Herod Agrippa II. Of these Herods only one ruled in the time of Claudius Caesar. Herod Agrippa I formally held the title King of the Jews from 42 till his death in 44 CE.

Against Heresies 2:22 expressly cites Luke 3:23 for when Jesus was (around) 30 and then Irenaeus explains that "For when the Lord said to them, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it, and was glad, they answered Him, You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham? (John 8:56-57) Now, such language is fittingly applied to one who has already passed the age of forty, without having as yet reached his fiftieth year, yet is not far from this latter period." ie between the ages of 46 and 50

If we back figure this we get 3 BCE to 9 BCE as there is no year zero so Jesus would, in 1 CE, be 3 to 5 (if 46) and 7 to 9 (if 60) which gets us to 2 to 4 (46) and 6-8 (50) in 1 BCE. If we take the Herod the Great story as is and the two years and younger this locks us at 4 (Herod acted immediately)-7 (Herod was a little slow and took two years to figure out he was tricked) BCE.

It is clear that the Pontius Pilate reference was shoved in because there is no way he was a governor of Claudius Caesar

 

[HansMustermann]

Absolutely. I don't think anybody's doing that, though.

However, not being a historian, I can't get into the nitty-gritty details of their craft. We'd have to find one and ask them how they can smelt fact from legend, and forge history from it. But from what I understand they not only read the text but analyse its composition, compare it with other versions and with known history and culture. For instance, if a mundane bit of the story stays the same throughout, save wording, it might be more credible, though you can never be sure.

History's really hard, especially when you go back to before film could record it.

1. Well, you can only say "it stays the same" since the Gospel Of Mark. What the story did before that, is completely unsupportable.

Actually, even Mark is more problematic than it sounds in that aspect. Because while it is generally agreed that it was written (at the earliest) in the 70's or thereabouts, the first actual complete copy we have is IIRC mid 3rd century. Incomplete ones are earlier, but really it only starts cropping up in the 2nd century. We can take an informed guess that it must have been written before Matt and Luke, because those copied verbatim from it, but we don't really have an actual copy that early.

So a lot of what is in Mark, we can't REALLY be sure is unchanged since the first version of Mark or retrofitted from the others or whatever.


2. Even if you had the very first copy, autographed by Mark himself, would you believe it?

I mean, if someone provably lies about two dozen things, would you really believe him about the one or two things you can't tell? Or would you do some simple probabilities heuristic and go, "hmm, if he lied about 24 things out of 25, then AT BEST he can be 4% reliable, or on the average 2%?" So, you know, that's about how probable the last one is to be true.

I mean, imagine I wrote an amazing post about how I went to New York and saw the Eiffel Tower in the harbour, and then went a short walk north to Washington DC, and lost my savings at the grand casino in Washington DC, then had a walk to Maine to see the Space Shuttle launch, walked across Lake Eire to Cuba, etc. And oh, I also met Bill Gates in DC.

After the long string of things that you know can't possibly be true, would you actually just believe the part where I met Bill Gates? Hell, would you even believe I was in those places at all?


3. But here's an even more perverse aspect: exactly what IS mundane in the gospels. Pretty much nothing whatsoever.

It's not a novel in the normal sense. It's a collection of minimal scenes, each of which make a specific allegoric point. They all have the structure: minimal setting up the scene, Jesus delivers his amazing wisdom or does his miracle (or both), everyone is amazed, end of scene.

There are no mundane "Jesus and Peter were having a beer and joking about riding Mary Magdalene's ass into Jerusalem. Then Jesus told the 'your vagina is in the sink' joke and lo, Peter crapped his loincloth laughing" scenes.

Each of the ones in there is highly motivated to convey a point. So basically that argument falls flat for the entirety of it.

 

[Lithrael]

You were right the first time. In "The Jewish Wars", he describes a guy called "Jesus Son Of Ananias", also sometimes "Jesus Of Jerusalem". And the name and general "coming Jewish Apocalypse" style are not the only things they have in common. This guy also:
•entered the city during a Jewish festival
•went to the temple to rant against it while quoting Jeremiah 7
•stuck around afterward to preach daily about the coming destruction there
•was seized & beaten by Jewish authorities who accused him of speaking against the temple
•offered no defense
•was turned over to the Romans, who beat him some more
•was interrogated personally by the Roman governor
•still offered no defense there either
•was not found guilty of anything or a threat by the governor, who decided he should be set free
•cried out about his own sad fate just before dying

(Bible Jesus ended up not being freed after all thanks to a plot contrivance, of course, but this one was. Then he died not by execution but in a siege, with final quote that's not the same words but the same theme.)

That was published in 68, and the events happened in the 60s. That's before the Gospels, but after Paul's letters... and the parallels are with the Gospels (especially Mark), not with Paul's letters. If there's a single specific individual who can be fairly called the real-world basis for the Bible's Jesus, I'd say it's this one, not Paul's vague demigod of vagueness.

Well that sounds pretty convincing, what’s that from exactly? Is it/why isn’t it commonly accepted as a possible or likely inspiration?