Historical Jesus

[theheno]

What's a faux atheist? They actually do believe in god?

 

[Delvo]

It might be overdoing it to say there were lots & lots of wandering Jesus-like preachy dudes. Josephus described about five or six wandering preachy dudes individually, only one or two of which seem particularly jesusy. Is there another sentence, adjacent to those descriptions, saying something like "there were really about eighty of these guys, but here's just a sample, the handful with the biggest followings or most unique stories".

Regardless of their number, the fact that they existed is enough to make it dishonest to claim there's "no evidence" of a historical Jesus after having been informed of them. Inadequate evidence in your judgement, OK, but not none. And to go along with that pretense that the evidence doesn't exist, they also keep pretending the posts about it right here don't exist:

"There's no evidence!"

"Actually, here's some evidence."

"There's no evidence!"

"Umm... you just saw some. Would you like to describe why you find it insufficient?"

"There's no evidence!"

"OK, here's the same evidence you saw earlier, again. Any comment on that?"

"There's no evidence!"

...

"There's no evidence!"

...

"There's no evidence!"

"So what about the evidence that's already been posted repeatedly?"

"There's no evidence!"

...

"There's no evidence!"

 

[Lithrael]

Abbadon, please knock it off with the peeing in peoples cornflakes. I’m fascinated to read this stuff and see what little evidence we have left of how one of the most influential religions evolved from its early days and even its prehistory. It’s neat! If all you want to do is go ‘wow you are just soooo clever you didn’t even see where I said I don’t care’ then kindly go away.

I mean, I disagree with Delvo but he’s not being insufferable.

(To Delvo, to me that’s a bit like saying ‘there were lots of famous airmen at the time’ as evidence for Biggles. It demonstrates plausibility, sure.)

 

[Jerrymander]

For people saying that Paul only thought of Jesus as a heavenly being, you got some problems.

Romans 1:3-4 - regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 9:4-5 - the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

Galatians 4:4 - But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
Galatians 1:19 - I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother.

 

[Lithrael]

I think our main HJ adversary here considers the Pauline stuff to be later additions full of forgery. I’m still more looking at stuff quoted by early apologetics. It really does strike me that they talk like it’s *all* extrapolated from OT prophecy.

 

[IanS]

You really seem to have difficulty reading.

It's a strawman, and you don't even realise why. Who cares what is in the stupid book? It is irrelevant.

Here is why.

The entirety of my position is this. There were a crapton of religious apocalyptic nutbars wandering the levant preaching nonsense two thousand years ago. Many of them developed followings. One or more of those nutbars may have provided some inspiration for the Bumper Book of Bollocks called the bible.
That's it. No extraordinay claims.

As to your sea of irrelevant quotes, why is it that you left out the references in Matthew, Mark and John? You can go look them up if you want, dispute them if you want and it will not make the slightest bit of difference. No matter which way you try to manipulate your magic book it makes not the slightest difference. The area was awash with religious loons with bands of followers any or all of which could serve as inspiration for the anonymous religious loons that actually wrote the idiotic tome.


But by all means continue with the rants against whatever mad ideas you decide to conjour up and pretend that I wrote.

It amuses me to see faux atheists get all hot and bothered about a topic that should be a matter of indifference to them. It is certainly a matter of indifference to me.

We assume there were countless street preachers in first century Judea. But afaik we don't actually have any data for that ... it just seems to most people that it's a reasonable assumption. We should be cautious about it though, because at any specific point of time in that first century, e.g. in 30 to 33AD it might have been the case that such wandering street preachers were not as numerous as we think ... so you need to be careful about building a case on assumptions like that.

But with that said - you say that one such preacher may have been the inspiration for what was written as the bible ... but that's a worthless speculation, because anything at all "may" have happened ... it's entirely worthless to make claims like that unless you can show some actual evidence to support it.

Everyone here (except one person perhaps), knows and agrees that Jesus "may" have been a real person. But the problem is that (a) there is no evidence to show he was actually a real person ever known to anyone, and (b) there is a mountain of unarguable evidence to show that the biblical accounts of him were invented by writers who had never known any such person, but who believed in just such a messiah of the past from prophecies in ancient scripture ...

... the position is that there is actually vastly more evidence against his existence than there there is for it. And that means it's quite possible that he was only ever a figure of religious mythology. And that's all that most of us are saying.

 

[bobdroege7]

The gospel of Thomas is evidence that there was some dude who said some stuff and his name was Jesus.

There is also evidence that the Pauline branch of Christianity that was made up of whole cloth, and since history is written by the winners, and at the founding of the Roman Catholic Church those who didn't toe the Jesus is divine line, where at best thrown in the dungeon.

 

[IanS]

It might be overdoing it to say there were lots & lots of wandering Jesus-like preachy dudes. Josephus described about five or six wandering preachy dudes individually, only one or two of which seem particularly jesusy. Is there another sentence, adjacent to those descriptions, saying something like "there were really about eighty of these guys, but here's just a sample, the handful with the biggest followings or most unique stories".

Regardless of their number, the fact that they existed is enough to make it dishonest to claim there's "no evidence" of a historical Jesus after having been informed of them. Inadequate evidence in your judgement, OK, but not none. And to go along with that pretense that the evidence doesn't exist, they also keep pretending the posts about it right here don't exist:

"There's no evidence!"

"Actually, here's some evidence."

"There's no evidence!"

"Umm... you just saw some. Would you like to describe why you find it insufficient?"

"There's no evidence!"

"OK, here's the same evidence you saw earlier, again. Any comment on that?"

"There's no evidence!"

...

"There's no evidence!"

...

"There's no evidence!"

"So what about the evidence that's already been posted repeatedly?"

"There's no evidence!"

...

"There's no evidence!"

People with any education or common sense at all should be wondering how on earth you ever wrote that post above with it's focus on that highlight -

- how on earth do you think its actually evidence of Jesus to say that there were probably quite a number of religious Jewish preachers wandering around Judea around 30AD ???

Just because there were (most probably) all sorts of religious people saying all sort of things, is not by any stretch of anyone's rational imagination evidence for the existence of Jesus! ...

... you might as well be saying that the fact that senior clerics preach in churches all over the world today, that is also "evidence of Jesus"!!

It's posts like that from you, with beliefs like that as your "evidence", that go a long way towards explaining why you think Jesus did exist and why/what you think counts as actual "evidence".

 

[IanS]

For people saying that Paul only thought of Jesus as a heavenly being, you got some problems.

Romans 1:3-4 - regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 9:4-5 - the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

Galatians 4:4 - But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
Galatians 1:19 - I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother.

Yeah, we've been through all of that well over 100 times before in these threads.

 

[abaddon]

We assume there were countless street preachers in first century Judea. But afaik we don't actually have any data for that ...

But we do. Bar Kochba for example, who was declared the messiah by Rabbi Akiva or ben Ya'ir. In fact, we don't need to speculate at all whether it is plausible or not because it is still happening today. Just take a peek at Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite, David Koresh, L. Ron Hubbard for example.

it just seems to most people that it's a reasonable assumption. We should be cautious about it though, because at any specific point of time in that first century, e.g. in 30 to 33AD it might have been the case that such wandering street preachers were not as numerous as we think ... so you need to be careful about building a case on assumptions like that.

Except it is not an assumption. It is an axiom. It has been happening for all of recorded human All of it. Right now, in fact. And it will continue to happen in the future.

I harbour a spark of hope that one day humanity will set aside the superstitious nonsense. All of it. But I don't see it happening in my lifetime.

But with that said - you say that one such preacher may have been the inspiration for what was written as the bible
[/QOTE]I said one or more.

... but that's a worthless speculation, because anything at all "may" have happened ... it's entirely worthless to make claims like that unless you can show some actual evidence to support it.

But it is a plausible origin for the fables. It's not like I am claiming jesus popped out of a orchid in the Himalayas and hiked to Jerusalem over land, is it? The Levant was stuffed to the gills back then with religious loons. It still is.

Everyone here (except one person perhaps), knows and agrees that Jesus "may" have been a real person. But the problem is that (a) there is no evidence to show he was actually a real person ever known to anyone, and (b) there is a mountain of unarguable evidence to show that the biblical accounts of him were invented by writers who had never known any such person, but who believed in just such a messiah of the past from prophecies in ancient scripture ...

Sure the NT writers are probably unknowable and certainly, no eyewitness accounts exist without a shadow of doubt. The gospels are blatantly not eyewitness accounts.

E.g. The opening of Luke goes...

1 Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, 3 I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.

Luke outright states he is not an eyewitness, that lots of others were writing accounts and that he had to research it to figure out what to write.

... the position is that there is actually vastly more evidence against his existence than there there is for it. And that means it's quite possible that he was only ever a figure of religious mythology. And that's all that most of us are saying.

And my position is simply that there were loads of apocalyptic preachers at the time, tall tales about them circulated by word of mouth and eventually some nutty twonk committed them to paper/papyrus/goat skin/whatever. Big deal.

 

[abaddon]

For people saying that Paul only thought of Jesus as a heavenly being, you got some problems.

Romans 1:3-4 - regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 9:4-5 - the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

Galatians 4:4 - But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
Galatians 1:19 - I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother.

Jesus was not descended from David.

Since ancestry at the time was patriarchal, Jesus had no human ancestry.

Jesus was a bastard born of spooky rape. According to jewish law Mary and Jesus should have been put to death.

After Jesus, Mary had sex with her husband.

And?

 

[theheno]

Jesus was not descended from David.

Since ancestry at the time was patriarchal, Jesus had no human ancestry.

Jesus was a bastard born of spooky rape. According to jewish law Mary and Jesus should have been put to death.

After Jesus, Mary had sex with her husband.

And?

And I assume you will tell us how indifferent you are to it all, and you don't care etc, also telling us how laughable it is that people are debating this, which of course you know is silly.

 

[theheno]

But I'll ask again anyway, what is a faux atheist?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

But I'll ask again anyway, what is a faux atheist?

A theist?

Jesus was not descended from David.

Since ancestry at the time was patriarchal, Jesus had no human ancestry.

Jesus was a bastard born of spooky rape. According to jewish law Mary and Jesus should have been put to death.

After Jesus, Mary had sex with her husband.

And?

Didn't one of the gospels try to show Mary as a descendant of David?

I could be wrong.. Just trying to remember back when I paid more attention to this stuff.

Of course, it doesn't really matter, since as you say, lineage back then was all patriarchal..

 

[theheno]

A theist?




Didn't one of the gospels try to show Mary as a descendant of David?

I could be wrong.. Just trying to remember back when I paid more attention to this stuff.

Of course, it doesn't really matter, since as you say, lineage back then was all patriarchal..

A theist you say. That would be my understanding of a faux atheist, but I have no idea what would make you think people like Ian, dejudge and kapyong are really theists. Really only abbadon can tell us what he meant by faux atheists here

 

[Jerrymander]

Yeah, we've been through all of that well over 100 times before in these threads.

And I'll bet you had contrived answers.

 

[GDon]

Didn't one of the gospels try to show Mary as a descendant of David?

I could be wrong.. Just trying to remember back when I paid more attention to this stuff.

From Tertullian, "On the Flesh of Christ":

"This opinion will be very suitable for Ebion, who holds Jesus to be a mere man, and nothing more than a descendant of David, and not also the Son of God...

... the root of Jesse is the family of David, and the stem of the root is Mary descended from David... for every step indeed in a genealogy is traced from the latest up to the first, so that it is now a well-known fact that the flesh of Christ is inseparable, not merely from Mary, but also from David through Mary"

Of course, it doesn't really matter, since as you say, lineage back then was all patriarchal..

No, it wasn't. There were certainly legal implications based on patriarchal lineage, but there was awareness of matriarchal lineage as well, as you can see in one of the geneologies of Jesus (Matthew has four women in his list).

 

[Chanakya]

But let's hark back to the BoP detour for a minute.

This thread had me sold -- starting from an "HJ" position -- on the "MJ" conclusion.

But, thinking about this ... This isn't physics after all, so what IS the reasonable null hypothesis here? For historical characters generally, not just Jesus?

HJers here have shown that HJ is a reasonable proposition. MJers have shown MJ works too. But, crucially, MJers have shown that there is no credibable evidence, and so have claimed the null hypothesis that no Jesus existed.

But, well, thinking about this : Is it really a reasonable null hypothisis -- in history, as opposed to physics -- that no evidence equals did not exist? Shouldn't it be simply be instead that : We don't know! Could roll either way, we don't know ****, isn't that the credible null hypothess?

(Which isn't an objection as such, not an HJ-argument as such -- I haven't thought this out fully -- but a question, a ... thinking aloud.)

Yeah, that's my question. Are we entirely sure that "No Jesus" is the null hypothesis? Sure, HJ cannot possibly be the default position; but are we sure MJ should be the default position? Why not, simply, "We don't know"?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Accepting " we don't know " pretty much ends the discussion..

We don't know, but it is unlikely, leaves more wiggle room.

 

[Chanakya]

True, it's a question of what's likely.

But how likely, or how unlikely, is it, that some wild-eyed preacher attracted followers, and had the whole bible story foisted on him later on -- as opposed to, the whole thing being an out and out concoction, all the way through?

Either case works. In the absence of evidence, I don't see that, given all that has been said here by others, that either is particularly likely (or unlikely!)), compared to the other.

And, specifically, I was wondering, how reasonable is it, really to say "did not exist" is the reasonable null? Might we, perhaps, be drawing overly much from physics here, into a field that might want to treat the scientific method a bit differently? (I don't know, I'm not claiming this is so. The thought came to my mind, and I'm inviting people who've already thought over this question, to share their view on this.)