What counts as a historical Jesus?

[davefoc]

Hello all.

I found this Professor's blog to be interesting and may add something to the HJ/MJ discussion:

Vita Brevis - The New Oxonian

The blog contains 3 articles regarding the historicity of Jesus, an examination of Earl Doherty's work, and finally looking at Richard Carrier and his use of Bayes' Theorem.

Thanks for the link Greediguts. I think it is relevant and I intend to spend more time reading it. Unfortunately, the guy is a talker and getting to the gist of his argument takes a bit more time than I have right now.

His main point seems to be that all this writing exists about Jesus and its basic function is to push some kind of theological idea about Jesus and not to prove he existed because everybody assumed that at the time of the earliest writings about Jesus because he had actually existed.

I am not in the mythicist camp but I am leery of that argument. I believe Christianity evolved in a preexisting gentile religion that was based on Judaism and the Septuagint. The group was called God-Fearers and is referenced by both Josephus and the author of Luke. The group had a belief that a Messiah was on the way. A mythicist scenario is that the God-Fearer group was primed to believe in a Messiah, somebody just made up one or the hint of one and the belief in the Messiah's existence just swept through the God-Fearer group. This created a big demand for information about this nonexistent Messiah and the Jesus fiction writers satisfied the market for it. I think this scenario is a plausible explanation as to why the Jesus literature came to exist and it doesn't require a physical Jesus.

I also noticed that he hung part of his argument on Paul's writings. I was with him on this. Despite a lot of effort on my part to find more evidence to support the existence of an HJ, Paul's writing still stand as the best evidence (HM might argue the only evidence). I don't think Paul created the idea that the Messiah had come and gone. My view is that this preceded Paul and that Paul made his living as a public speaker to God-Fearer groups that were looking for information on the new (at that time) religion based on Jesus as Messiah. Assuming my scenario is even roughly correct it seems likely to me that the trigger for this move towards belief in a Jesus/Messiah fellow was the existence of an actual Jesus.

 

[pgwenthold]

His main point seems to be that all this writing exists about Jesus and its basic function is to push some kind of theological idea about Jesus and not to prove he existed because everybody assumed that at the time of the earliest writings about Jesus because he had actually existed.

The flaw with this approach is that it has turned non-falsifiable.

How would the story be any different if Jesus didn't exist?

The approach comes down to, "The bible is not inconsistent with Jesus not existing, so we can say he did."

Hans has pointed out very clearly that this is not a valid approach. You need to have a reason to say he existed, not just a counter to those who say the bible doesn't give us a reason to say he did.

 

[HansMustermann]

His main point seems to be that all this writing exists about Jesus and its basic function is to push some kind of theological idea about Jesus and not to prove he existed because everybody assumed that at the time of the earliest writings about Jesus because he had actually existed.

He may have existed, don't get me wrong. But those people wouldn't actually have any way to know that he existed, since they weren't there. (We can know they weren't there, nor had a steady supply of witnesses, because they do swallow the aforementioned enormities.) What they are doing is: they believe that Jesus existed. They're just trusting someone else that Jesus existed.

And while it's theoretically possible that they even had some good reason to believe those people that Jesus existed, if the writings don't share those reasons, then essentially we're back to the problem I mentioned before: what we actually have only needs belief in Jesus to explain the origins of the church. For all the data we have, we don't have anything that would require anyone personally knowing Jesus to explain. We just need a bunch of people believing in Jesus to explain everything adequately.

Just like, say, the origins of Mormonism don't really need the existence of the angel Moroni or an ancient lost tribe of Christians to explain. All that's needed to explain it is that some people believed Joseph Smith about the angel and his translation.

 

[davefoc]

I spent a bit more time reading through R. Joseph Hoffmann's essay.

I didn't find it easy. It is done in an academic style that I don't like. Lots of references to the views of various people, less than clear statements on exactly what the point of the author is and a lot assertions for which the basis is not made clear in close proximity to the assertion.

At least some of his arguments are directed at disproving mythicist theories instead of proving the existence of Jesus. These are relevant to counter arguments of a particular Jesus is myth scenario but they are not probative with regard to the question of whether an HJ existed.

Along these lines he expressed his disagreement with tying the Jesus story to preexisting mythology. This has been discussed often in these HJ threads and I never thought much of those efforts either. Even if one found parallels for the Jesus religion in preexisting beliefs it doesn't preclude the possibility of an HJ and as Hoffman notes the parallels aren't all that strong.

Near the middle of his essay he makes the statement that the preserved controversy is the "surest proof" of a real Jesus. If this is the surest proof of an historical Jesus then there is no proof of an HJ, which I think is actually the case. A lot has been made of the controversies preserved in Paul's letters and the gospels. They do, in fact, give the ring of plausibility to at least some of the stories in the NT. It is easy to imagine the tension between the law following Palestinian Jewish Jesus sect and the gentile believers in the Jesus/Mythology. I think it was this preserved controversy that most affected my own early thinking about the question of an HJ. i.e. it seemed real so maybe it was real.

There is a problem with this line of thought, of course. Successful hoaxers need to add details that ring true to their audience to give their efforts the best chance of being believed. In this case, I suspect that there was an ongoing tension between the gentile followers of the God-fearer groups and the Hellenistic Jews that still continued to follow some aspects of Judaism including circumcision. It seems at least possible that early New Testament hoaxers would have been motivated to capture this controversy in the stories they were creating to give the ring of truth to their writing.

What is required to add credibility to the notion of an HJ is evidence as to why the authors of the NT who were separated in time, location and culture from first century Palestine are credible witnesses of events in first century Palestine. Despite a lot of words, in the end, I didn't see where Hoffman accomplished that at all.

 

[davefoc]

...
Well, the letters of Ignatius are on par with the pastorals, really, in that they're late forgeries. Ignatius was at best some minor local zealot, and if he ever wrote anything, we're missing it. Some people much later though got into overdrive with trying to paint an image of the church which was all about hierarchy and having one doctrine. I.e., the "orthodoxy" that was arbitrarily invented in the second half of the second century, is arbitrarily extended backwards to the very beginning. ...

I was under the impression that the first seven epistles of Ignatius were generally considered genuine (excluding some interpolations perhaps) and it was only the later ones that were considered definite frauds. What is your source for the idea that they are all fraudulent.

Although, I appreciated your post, I was hoping that you might step back a bit from the mythicist crusader and put forth the best case for any kind of contact between the early church fathers and a Palestinian Jesus sect. What is a scenario where such a contact might have happened or do you believe that such contact is flat out impossible? Could the Jesus sect have consisted of Hellenistic Jews living in the Palestine area?

One clue to all this is that at least some of the Hellenistic Jews living outside the Palestinian area seem to have taken up some form of the new Jesus religion. We don't know much about them although the NT book James seems to have been written by one of them and there are clear references to them by early church fathers. Perhaps a Palestinian Jesus sect interacted with this group which was the path by which the Jesus story made it into the God-fearer group?

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, I think that, if nothing else, Paul is bringing over some ideas that the Essenes had been cooking up. So contact between the Greeks and SOME stuff coming from some Jewish gang awaiting Jesus, is a given. It's only one data point, but still, one example is enough to show an "X exists."

My point isn't that such contact is impossible. It obviously isn't. My point is that we really have no reliable information to know what such groups were, who were the guys that travelled around, what was their theology, and so on. Or indeed even whether they actually existed.

The earliest information about ANY Palestinian sects comes relatively late in the 2nd century, and tends to point at offshoots of Paulinity, using modified gospels of those churches of Paul, rather than anything pre-existing.

More importantly, it's from rather unreliable sources. E.g., Tertullian thinks the Ebionites get their name from an arch-heresiarch called Ebion, and he actually spends some time refuting heretic claims of this Ebion. If, as the general consensus seems to be, Tertullian just made up a name based on his own imagining a bogus etymology for their name, then really, Tertullian is making stuff up. There is no real reason to take any other information about them from him as reliable.

In effect, if we believe those guys, then really there is no original palestinian Jesus group that they ever heard of. They only know of offshotts that decided to mix Christianity with keeping the Law too. Something which we see even in Paul's writing as an idea that people in his congregations were getting, so it really doesn't need anything more to explain why whole such groups existed a century later. And if we believe they're talking out the ass, which they seem to be, then we have no information at all.

So, really, we don't know. There COULD be a sect in Palestine that first reached the conclusion that the Messiah had come already, and they could be what started it all. It even seems like a rather plausible scenario. But without any real evidence, it's hard to know if it's also true.

 

[pakeha]

Hello all.

I found this Professor's blog to be interesting and may add something to the HJ/MJ discussion:

Vita Brevis - The New Oxonian

The blog contains 3 articles regarding the historicity of Jesus, an examination of Earl Doherty's work, and finally looking at Richard Carrier and his use of Bayes' Theorem.

Thanks for the link, Greediguts!

 

[HansMustermann]

As for Ignatius, well, you can start for example here:
http://www.bible.ca/history-ignatius-forgeries-250AD.htm

There's actually a lot less than a consensus that they're authentic. The Catholics want to make them authentic (and btw, it's the LAST seven, not the first) because they suspiciously endorse exactly the kind of organization they came up with later, plus an endorsement by name of the Catholic Church. (Which is one WTH, as there is no evidence that anyone used that term until much later.) But really, their whole argument boils down to "we can be sure 8 are forged, therefore the other 7 are genuine." That's it. There is no evidence that anyone had even heard of them until the mid-3'rd century, which is weird for some letters addressed to bishops all over the darned place, or really anything that would count as evidence for their being genuine. It's just those that aren't proven to be fakes.

Which is a bit thin as support, wouldn't you think?

Plus his story is really tripping suspension of disbelief.

We're talking a guy who, without even being a citizen, simply demands to talk to the Emperor Trajan while the emperor is going with the army through Antioch to fight the Persians. And actually gets to talk to Trajan, just because he asked. That's the first WTH.

... apparently for no other reason than to profess his Christianity (WTH?) and is promptly sentenced to be torn by wild beasts for being a Christian. Which is yet another WTH, since there are no records of persecutions against Christians by Trajan at that time. In fact, it would only be 2 years later that Pliny the Younger starts persecuting Christians in Anatolia (and actually at exactly the other end of Anatolia than where Antioch was), and Trajan actually asks him not to actively seek out Christians, and to not follow anonymous tips. But OK...

... and supposedly this Ignatius was actually hoping he'd be executed, or at least seems glad that he is sent to his execution. Not really the most stable person, but ok...

... except instead of just executing him on the spot, like Pliny and really everyone else did, Trajan sends him to be executed in Rome. For no obvious reason, really, since Trajan was going in the other direction. Ignatius isn't even going to be part of some show Trajan will be at, so WTH?

Seriously, WTH? Trajan wasn't into shows of repression, and even as a warning, executing him locally would have sent a more valuable message to his local followers. Why Rome? Why not the local arena in Antioch? Or Ephesus, which is actually on the way they supposedly followed?

Don't you think a more plausible scenario would have involved his going a whole 100 yards or so to the nearest execution place? And good luck writing fast enough to produce 7 long rambling letters in that time.

... and this trip turns into a sort of a band tour, as instead of just going to Rome, they haul the guy all around a quarter of the mediterranean coast, spending a couple of days in each major city along the way, letting him write letters, meet with local elders, etc. This guy is pretty much paraded like a super-star, not like a convict in chains.

... his own account -- in as much as I can say "own" about a forgery -- paints this surrealistic picture: "From Syria even to Rome I fight with wild beasts, by land and sea, by night and by day, being bound amidst ten leopards, even a company of soldiers, who only grow worse when they are kindly treated" That's page 5 from his epistle to the Romans.

WTH? Does that sound even remotely plausible? So now not only he's sent by Rome, but they make him fight wild beasts all over the place, and even while on sea, and even keep him chained amidst ten leopards. Do you really think that someone could actually survive such repeated fights with ten leopards, until they find lions in Rome, which are apparently his nemesis because they do finish him off? Also, do you think the leopards would just sit and let him write?

So basically if it's not a forgery, then good ol' Ignatius is a liar. He's inventing his own pious martyrdom fiction.

... then there's the curious fact that, for someone who supposedly was pretty much THE second pope, and who obviously remembers to write when he's hauled to his execution, there is no mention or letter of him before that.

Which is really curious. He paints a totally ahistorical image, of churches subjected to one bishop who rules them all with an iron fist like Sauron, and whom you should obey like he IS Jesus Christ... yet we just don't see him do what it would take to achieve that. (Nor achieving anything resembling that great unity.) Where are the letters to churches to bring them under his authority? Where are his rulings on matters of theology? Where are the epistles admonishing against heresies? Don't you think he should have written some before being hauled to his execution, if he actually was the second pope?

It's only after he is taken to his execution, that suddenly a bunch of letters appear in his name.

 

[DOC]

Just because you grew up in a city that doesn't mean you were born there. You have no evidence Jesus was born in Galilee.

And it really doesn't make much sense to invent the census {taxation}story that could easily be checked out by the people, especially the ruling Roman authorities of that day.

If you wanted to invent a story, you invent one that can't easily be verified. The authors could have just said Joseph had work to do in Bethlehem or a relative was sick and they went to Bethlehem for that reason. Why bring the most powerful man in the world, Caesar Augustus into the story, if you don't have to. That's not a good way to hide an alleged fabrication.

You believe the story because the writer wasn't a good enough liar?

More so because he (gospel writer Luke) was considered a great historian (at least according to archaeologist Sir William M. Ramsay).

 

[DOC]

There is no evidence Jesus was ever born.

Roman historian Tacitus, the Roman/Jewish historian Josephus, and the alleged great historian Luke would have disagreed. Most historians don't include people in their history writings unless they were born.

 

[ddt]

More so because he (gospel writer Luke) was considered a great historian (at least according to archaeologist Sir William M. Ramsay).

Groan.

Roman historian Tacitus, the Roman/Jewish historian Josephus, and the alleged great historian Luke would have disagreed. Most historians don't include people in their history writings unless they were born.

As it happens, the authenticity of the Josephus passages is the most recent subtopic of the "Evidence of the NT" thread, as you're acutely aware as you frequent that thread. So why don't you engage further in the discussion there?

 

[joobz]

More so because he (gospel writer Luke) was considered a great historian (at least according to archaeologist Sir William M. Ramsay).

that's the same Luke who made up stories regarding Jesus' birth, Right?



---
I feel like we've danced before.

 

[Akhenaten]

Just because you grew up in a city that doesn't mean you were born there. You have no evidence Jesus was born in Galilee.

You have been completely unable, despite your best (albeit pathetic) efforts, to provide the least skerrick of evidence that Jesus was born anywhere.

And it really doesn't make much sense to invent the census {taxation}story that could easily be checked out by the people, especially the ruling Roman authorities of that day.

Why in the name of Jupiter would the Romans care what was in the fairytales that the local rabble were making up to amuse themselves?

Does the CIA fact check Mills & Boon novels?

As for 'the people' - in those days of no paper they'd be doing well to check out events occurring in the next village, let alone in some far-off province that few of them would have even heard of.

And to top it all off you're still making the demonstrably false assumption that the story was written as the events were unfolding, and not decades (at least) later.

If you wanted to invent a story, you invent one that can't easily be verified.

Why? Bleevers aren't interested in verification unless, like some, their faith is too weak to sustain their bleef, in which case they just make up stuff, pretend it's actual history and Voila! Instant verification.

Ask me how I know this, DOC. I double-dog dare you.

The authors could have just said Joseph had work to do in Bethlehem or a relative was sick and they went to Bethlehem for that reason.

Or they could have told the truth. Funny that your suggested solution is to have them make up something that you consider more believable rather than just sticking to the facts.

Well, not funny, so much . . .

Why bring the most powerful man in the world, Caesar Augustus into the story, if you don't have to. That's not a good way to hide an alleged fabrication.

It's called argumentum ad verecundiam. Quite common amongst those who wish to add a veneer of respectability to the drivel that they feel compelled to spout at every opportunity.

If you'd like some examples of this taking place in this very forum, let me know and I'll give you a few links..

Thomas Jefferson would approve, I'm sure.

 

[Akhenaten]

There is no evidence that Jesus was born anywhere.

Sounds somewhat like Obama.

There's no evidence that President Obama was born, eh?

Congratulations, DOC. In a month of stiff competition you've managed to post the stupidest thing I've read on the entire Forum.

 

[Akhenaten]

More so because he (gospel writer Luke) was considered a great historian (at least according to archaeologist Sir William M. Ramsay).

Why are you trying to present this bilge here when you know very well that it's been torn to shreds scores of times in the thread you started in order to present it and from which you flee like a startled gazelle every time some actual evidence appears?

Roman historian Tacitus, the Roman/Jewish historian Josephus, and the alleged great historian Luke would have disagreed. Most historians don't include people in their history writings unless they were born.

Again, why are you interrupting the discussion in this thread with this nonsense rather than dealing with the many points raised against it in both TTTWND and in my "The Incredible odds of fulfilled bible prophecy" thread?

 

[Lucian]

Roman historian Tacitus, the Roman/Jewish historian Josephus, and the alleged great historian Luke would have disagreed. Most historians don't include people in their history writings unless they were born.

Icelandic Christian historian Snorri Sturluson included Odin and Thor as historical personages in his historical work Heimskringla. Why would he have included them if they hadn't been born?

Put the Thor back in Thursday!

 

[HansMustermann]

And Justin Martyr was considering the sons of Zeus (among others) to be real and miraculous, he just thought that Satan did it

But actually that way of solving the cognitive dissonance is still the kind of thing that annoys me. And, yes, a lot of people seem to actually be very willing to take every legendary guy from every story older than a couple of hundred years as real, historical people.

The same people are perfectly willing to believe, and quite rationally so, that modern authors can simply make up fictive characters like Superman. Or like the widow of a Nigerian prince who has some millions to transfer. Or like a sockpuppet to agree with one, or to champion a strawman version of the opposing argument. Etc. But people living anywhere between 500 and 5000 years ago? Nah, man, those couldn't possibly make up Achilles or Robin Hood.

Sometimes extending even into quite modern times. E.g., people believing that Sherlock Holmes is real.

And that's really my problem. It's not even about Jesus per se, or being a "mythicist crusader", it's really that historical gullibility that gets my goat. That every single version of a Superman or Wonder Woman has got to be based on some real person, if it was made up in 1000 BC. Because apparently back then people didn't know how to make up stuff, or something.

It's just that people are less hung up on the others.

 

[Akhenaten]

And that's really my problem. It's not even about Jesus per se, or being a "mythicist crusader", it's really that historical gullibility that gets my goat. That every single version of a Superman or Wonder Woman has got to be based on some real person, if it was made up in 1000 BC. Because apparently back then people didn't know how to make up stuff, or something.

DOC has used this exact line of 'reasoning' (that fiction didn't exist circa 30 CE) to defend his claims that the synoptic gospels are accurate historical records.

 

[pakeha]

... If you have already figured out what bits the messiah must fulfil, and what's the name that encapsulates who you expect it to be, you don't really need a real guy to build a gospel on. You already have a guy: that fleshed out concept of who you expect. It's no harder to build a story from a concept guy like Superman or Captain Kirk or Han Solo, than it is to build it from a real guy. Once you have enough of a concept of what that character would be like and what he'd be expected to do or say, you can just go ahead and write the novel.

So at the end of the day, we can't say Jesus actually existed.
We can he might have or 'probably' did.
And that's as good as it gets?

More so because he (gospel writer Luke) was considered a great historian (at least according to archaeologist Sir William M. Ramsay).

...But anyway, ok, so Luke is lying about who he is and how he knows that, but the only question is how well did Luke research that stuff anyway. Turns out that not so good either. Well, to be fair, he's head and shoulders above Mark in that aspect, as he seems to have at least tried to figure out the geography, customs and history of the place, and he IS using Josephus extensively. Plus he seems to have had SOMETHING resembling court transcripts at some point, which, you know, is one more source he's using. So the guy at least tried. ...

DOC, please stop.
Unless you're actually the Amazing One, indulging in some black humour...

 

[catsmate]

More so because he (gospel writer Luke) was considered a great historian (at least according to archaeologist Sir William M. Ramsay).

Roman historian Tacitus, the Roman/Jewish historian Josephus, and the alleged great historian Luke would have disagreed. Most historians don't include people in their history writings unless they were born.

I see you're still peddling the same old, long debunked, lies to support your delusions.
The Testimonium Flavianum is a forgery. Tacitis mentions "Christiani" and provides no proof for your god. And as for the "great historian Luke" we've covered those particular nonsensical lies many times before.