What counts as a historical Jesus?

[Puppycow]

Hitchens on the Jesus Myth:



One of his many interesting talks. I hadn't seen this particular one before.

 

[metacristi]

Suppose that the true story of Jesus was that of a Jewish apocalyptic preacher in 1st century Palestine who angered the religious establishment and eventually became crucified under the supervision of Pontius Pilate.

If it could be confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that this was in fact what gave rise to the Jesus story and eventually Christianity, would it count as the "historical Jesus"? I think it would be most uncharitable not to, as it is essentially what the Gospels tell, except for there being no miracles and supernatural mumbo-jumbo. And it really wouldn't be a particularly odd series of events (except for the crucifixion part), because there were plenty of Jewish Messiah claimants during this time. The whole idea of a Messiah is really rather childish, as it is basically the idea that one guy will fix all your problems.

Suppose instead that the Jesus-as-rebel hypothesis is true. That is, the idea that Jesus was really a rebel/bandit/revolutionary (who could well have claimed to be the Messiah as such, like Simon bar Kokhba) who was crucified by the Romans, and the legends then remade him into a Messiah who preached peace. Would this be a close enough fit to talk about a historical Jesus?

What if the Jesus story sprung from the lives of several individuals whose life stories eventually merged into one story (plus the mythological stuff)? If that is the case, would it then be reasonable to talk about a historical Jesus?

In other words, how close to the Bible story would a historical individual's life have to be to be considered a (or the) historical Jesus?

Well what counts here is what the consensus methodologies used by historians indicate*. Of course if it turns out that mythicists are right we cannot talk of a historical Jesus. But if we can determine (no certitude involved) from existing evidence (including Christian traditions) some of the real characteristics of a Jewish man named Jesus who preached in the first century Palestine and was crucified by the romans at the order of the prefect Pontius Pilate (at the basis of Christian narrative) then we can talk of a historical Jesus.

Personally I agree with Bart D. Ehrman that the science of history shows quite clearly that Jesus did exist as an apocalyptic prophet (of course very different from the plethora of Jesuses imagined by today's believers), I found his arguments anti-mythicism from 'Did Jesus exist?' extremely solid, virtually impossible to be reversed in the future. Only if one tries to apply ad hoc standards in this problem can one safely dismiss the early Christian writings and talk of a mythical Jesus. Not the best of options.


*Bart D. Ehrman reduces them to 3 essential criterions: contextual credibility, dissimilarity and independent attestation

 

[HansMustermann]

Except of those three, THE strongest one, and the only one which actually is solid support is the independent attestation. Ehrman doesn't actually have that. In fact, he's the first to point out that there is none, when he denies the miracles.

So you can stop pretending that he has any, because he doesn't. He has exactly a big fat zero independent sources of Jesus, something he himself points out when it comes to the miracles or resurrection.

The various tricks like dissimilarity, actually aren't evidence at all. There are a bunch of criteria which are actually used for textual analysis, and stuff like a weak inductive support of which version came first. So basically we can tell that Matthew and Luke came after Mark, instead of the other way around, as assumed much earlier. Or that Luke used Josephus, and not the other way around. They were never meant to support something as true.

Really, you can track the versions of Pus In Boots and have some weak support of which of them was earlier than which, but that DOESN'T actually tell you that there was a historical talking cat.

Only for Jesus this is handwaved as somehow meaning it's true. And I really mean only for Jesus. You don't see people using dissimilarities in the stories of Amaterasu to conclude that there was a historical sun goddess.

And frankly, credibility is just a fancy name for the argument from personal incredulity fallacy. And that's really ALL that he's got. He cherrypicks some stuff as not unbelievable to him. That's all.

So basically the fact that Ehrman wants to find a historical Jesus believable means exactly a big fat nothing. Just like Ray Comfort willingness to believe in a God as an explanation for the banana doesn't make God real, Ehrman's willingness to believe there was a historical Jesus doesn't mean jack squat.

Now if he had actual evidence to support it, that would be worth something. But unfortunately he himself demolishes all evidence as unreliable, leaving us just with his personal incredulity as the sole argument.

 

[HansMustermann]

And here's a thought for those doing the argument from authority: the whole argument is actually a fairly weak inductive argument, in which certain characteristics of a source (e.g., being impartial, being known to use good sources in turn, having his knowledge recognized, hasn't been caught being outright fraudulent) mean it probably is correct.

Now the first problem there is just that: it's an induction, and, as such, fallible. Someone being recognized as an authority of homeopathy, and having on his side the consensus of homeopaths, still doesn't necessarily mean that homeopathy actually works.

But that's not the important part. There is a more perverse aspect there, which, I feel, escapes those using that argument.

Essentially when you did that argument from authority, implicitly you accepted that such inductive reasoning based on the quality of a source is ok to make a wild estimate of its quality. And that is actually important. You can't both use such an argument, and deny the premises it's built on.

And the problem is that once you accepted that a source can be thus judged, then applying the same reasoning to the gospels tells you exactly that they aren't to be trusted. In fact, they're exactly the kind of authority that one doesn't have any reason to give any credence whatsoever to.

The biggest faults are actually two:

1. It's not impartial sources.

2. They contain falsehoods all over the place. To find a non-miraculous historical Jesus there, you have to accept the fact that those sources lied to you several times per page about Jesus. Like, about every instance where he did a miracle.

Not that it's the only faults, mind you. As I was saying, Bart Ehrman himself makes the case at length for what's wrong with the gospels, and why they're not the kind of sources a historian would want.

But absent any external corroboration, even those two are enough to discard the gospels wholesale. What we're left is some sources which that kind of induction tells us to not trust. It's sources which both (A) have a motive to tell BS, and (B) ARE known to be telling BS all over the place.

Insisting that one can still cherrypick -- based on no more than personal disbelief and subjective gut feeling -- which parts of a source are telling the truth, although it told you half a dozen lies on the same page, is stupid.

It's like reading one of Erich von Däniken's books and deciding that although he flat out lied about just about anything we can check, and insisting that, no, see specifically the part about aliens at Nazca is true. Without any other evidence or corroboration. Just because one finds it subjectively believable.

That's the kind of nonsense one has to do to take the gospels as evidence of anything. You have to take a book that's told falsehoods about at least 90% of the events it describes -- and again, it's not just unknowns: to find a non-miraculous Jesus, you have to acknowledge that the miracle parts are falsehoods -- yet just one's personal credibility considerations can turn arbitrary parts of it into factual enough to be evidence.

 

[Greediguts]

The biggest faults are actually two:

1. It's not impartial sources.

2. They contain falsehoods all over the place. To find a non-miraculous historical Jesus there, you have to accept the fact that those sources lied to you several times per page about Jesus. Like, about every instance where he did a miracle.

Hans, do you feel "myth" is the same as lying? Do you think ancient cultures viewed it the same as we do today? I've been reading a lot of Jan Vansina's Oral Tradition as History and I do not find historians who work with folklore and myth among Native Americans, African tribes, or large illiterate groups (like groups in New Guinea)to characterize or treat myths/folklore the same as lies/urban legends. Also, the history professors I have talked with at school do not characterize Egyptian or Greek mythology( or those cultures "historical stories" that clearly could not be true) as "lies" (nor do they think they are "impartial").

How do you view "history"? Especially ancient history? What constitutes history in your mind? (I am honestly asking...)

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, this thing universally devolves into semantics talk about whether inventing a few extra details to a myth is the same thing as lying, or whether an author was lying or merely writing details that some other liar invented.

As I might have mentioned before, though, I view such distinctions as fully irrelevant.

The thing is, what matters is whether an argument is logically sound, which means both (A) a valid inference, and (B) true premises. In effect the last one is what matters when we're discussing truth value.

Whether the premises are false (or unsupported) because

- someone told a lie with malicious intent, or
- some told a little white lie with the purest of intentions (e.g., to save some people from Hell), or
- was suffering from the common delusion that, basically, 'if I just imagined this and I like it, then it's true', or
- was schizophrenic and couldn't tell the difference between his own hallucinations or delusions and reality, or
- had just dreamt the whole thing, and believed the ancient idiocy that religious dreams are direct messages from God, or
- was tripping balls and took that for a message from God, or
- was writing some symbolic prose that was merely supposed to illustrate a concept via something that didn't actually happen, but never got around to saying so, or
- was an honest guy, truthfully writing down the story as he heard it, but the story itself was a lie invented by someone else
... etc ...

... is ultimately of no importance. False premises are false premises, and that's that.

Chasing down such distinctions as whether Matthew lied or he was truthfully writing down someone else's lie, is ultimately of no import. Nor is whether Paul was lying or truthfully conveying stuff from schizophrenic hallucinations and delusions of reference. Etc. What matters is: did they actually write true stuff that we can use as references?

And no, a text where 90% of the events we admit to be false, is not a good source in that aspect. The same inductive reasoning implicitly involved in an argument from authority, says that in this case the sources of that authority are worthless garbage as a historical source. (And incidentally Ehrman himself argues just that, except without actually using words like "worthless garbage.") So, garbage in, garbage out. No matter how sound his reasoning are, and how much respect I have for his scholarship or work (and, yes, I do), as long as the input data for it is worthless garbage, he can't possibly have a sound argument.

So, really, I'm somewhat tired of having that red herring waved in front of me. There is absolutely nothing that changes in my argument if you call it "oral tradition" instead of "some guy making crap up and others repeating and embellishing it", as long as we're talking a source that MUST be telling a whole load of falsehoods, if one is to find a mundane non-magical Jesus in it. Really. So, who cares?

 

[HansMustermann]

As for the rest of the question, basically my position is that there is a difference between

A) a document being historical, as in, having value for a historian, and

B) a document being historical, as in, actually describing historical events.

E.g., the Story of Wenamun has one heck of a historical value of type A, because it's the first historical novel that we know of. It has a lot less value of type B, because it's a novel, not a chronicle. (Though, mind you, it has some, because it's assumed that at least the setting is historically correct. Though usually that is for the time when it was written, rather than necessarily for the time when the action takes place.)

E.g., the psalms of Enheduanna to her goddess Inanna have one heck of a historical value A for, basically, what they are and the insights in the beliefs and life of those people. They have next to no value as chronicles of actual events. One can't find a mundane historical Inanna in those psalms praising a bloodthirsty goddess for obliterating the crops and poisoning the rivers of whole kingdoms. There is no way any one particular person could have done most of what they ascribed to Inanna.

E.g., Spiderman comics have or will at some point have historical value type A, because they'll tell future historians what kind of things the people read in the 20'th century. They'll have next to no value of type B, and trying to find a historical Spiderman in them would be madness.

Sometimes you can use some sources with value type A to track what did some people believe in, or how it correlated to political changes (e.g., a city's rise to prominence being accompanied by their god's taking the centre of the stage), you can use them even as indirect evidence of such events (e.g., if one city's god suddenly gets to be the chief of the pantheon, well, there may be a mundane reason for it), but that doesn't mean you can take them as historical chronicles.

E.g., we can tell that the bloodthirsty Hathor episode in Egyptian mythology was written as a metaphor for their bloody civil war they just had. So it fits in as indirect evidence for that civil war. But it doesn't mean that one can find a historical Hathor in it.

And I'll basically grant the same value to the gospels. They tell us something about the early Xians, but they're worthless crap as sources of actual Jesus events. They have historical value type A, they have next to no value type B.

And really the same goes for tribal legends and whatnot. Sure, they have a heck of a lot of value for anthropologists, and I suppose even a historian could maybe track stuff like what did some ancient tribe do or believe, if they find depictions of those beliefs. I don't however think they are an accurate historical chronicle.

Heck, even Ehrman says that. There was this belief that illiterate cultures repeat stories word for word, and transmit them faithfully over hundreds of years, but as Ehrman says, we now know it doesn't work that way. In fact, we don't have a single example of a culture that does that. Stories are confabulated, embellished and adapted to the audience. If your audience doesn't find, say, your coyote god impressive enough in your existing stories, you confabulate a little more about the cunning stuff he did, and if they find some part no longer palatable, you tone it down.

But, yes, some people pretended that oral traditions are more reliable than anyone can support, to get to use them as valid historical sources. Since we know that that premise is false, we can pretty much ignore anything else based on it, I would say.

And at any rate, to return to what I was actually trying to say earlier, if you find some tribe whose stories are full of provably false stuff, in fact just about anything you can check or make an informed guess about (e.g., whether someone actually transformed into a coyote) is false, then you'd need to be very gullible to believe that, no, see, they're absolutely reliable about everything else.

 

[Brainache]

I think it's like how Truthers talk about 9/11; You can't trust a thing they say about it, but it did happen. They pass factoids back and forth constantly upping the ante on the crazy. They're each trying to sell themselves as the one who knows the REAL, UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH!!!1!!11!!! The "Truth" that will save the world...

 

[HansMustermann]

Basically, yes. That's how "oral traditions" work. Stuff that we now call conspiracy theories or fanboy delusions, are just the normal way oral traditions work. Well, not always that extreme, also because the audience generally aren't informed skeptics, but humans change stories and invent new elements when they want to be right.

Though in other cases, we can witness an explosion of BS that makes even the truthers seem sane, and have several such documented cases. Especially surrounding messiah pretenders. E.g., for Sabbatai Zevi, the more witnesses denied the miracles he was supposed to have dpme, and the more authoritative such witnesses (e.g., a whole rabinical council wrote that they saw no miracle done by him), the more miracles and details were invented about him. As you say, upping the ante of crazy even more. It's effectively no different from some truthers inventing holographic airplanes to make their claims seem stronger, when the less miraculous versions failed to get accepted.

Using less loaded terms, think of midrash, especially since we just had Tim's thread about extra-biblical legends.

If some people found it unpalatable that a prophet would summon bears to kill children for giving him lip, and some rabbi still wants to defend that story, he invents an addendum saying that actually it was because their parents had had sex on Yom Kippur. If some people basically go, 'so what? There is nothing in Ruth's story that indicates that GOD is ok with such mixed marriages,' and some rabbi still wants to defend that story, he just writes an addendum clarifying that actually Ruth had no womb (transvestite Ruth?) and Boaz was 80 years old, and God made a miracle to let her get pregnant, so God obviously approved. So there

It's not even hypothetical examples, but actual midrash passing for more or less canon.

There is nothing that indicates that such things don't happen in purely oral traditions, nor that any oral tradition has safeguards against such additions or changes. In fact, they actually have less. The rabbis writing that midrash were constrained in that they couldn't just change the written Tanakh, so they had to write their clarifications as separate materials. If it had been a tribal oral tradition, you wouldn't even know it, but would get directly the modified story instead of the original and a separate addendum.

 

[Greediguts]

But, yes, some people pretended that oral traditions are more reliable than anyone can support, to get to use them as valid historical sources. Since we know that that premise is false, we can pretty much ignore anything else based on it, I would say.

And at any rate, to return to what I was actually trying to say earlier, if you find some tribe whose stories are full of provably false stuff, in fact just about anything you can check or make an informed guess about (e.g., whether someone actually transformed into a coyote) is false, then you'd need to be very gullible to believe that, no, see, they're absolutely reliable about everything else.

Basically, yes. That's how "oral traditions" work. Stuff that we now call conspiracy theories or fanboy delusions, are just the normal way oral traditions work. Well, not always that extreme, also because the audience generally aren't informed skeptics, but humans change stories and invent new elements when they want to be right.

Though in other cases, we can witness an explosion of BS that makes even the truthers seem sane, and have several such documented cases. Especially surrounding messiah pretenders. E.g., for Sabbatai Zevi, the more witnesses denied the miracles he was supposed to have dpme, and the more authoritative such witnesses (e.g., a whole rabinical council wrote that they saw no miracle done by him), the more miracles and details were invented about him. As you say, upping the ante of crazy even more. It's effectively no different from some truthers inventing holographic airplanes to make their claims seem stronger, when the less miraculous versions failed to get accepted.

Hans from what I have read from scholars working in the field with largely illiterate populations, or those concentrating on myths/folklore of various groups they don't characterize or see the guiding mechanisms to be conspiracy theories, lies, fanboy fic, "upping the ante of crazy" or even a mass game of telephone. The idea of oral tradition you appear to be challenging is one created by apologists trying to co-opt the scholarship and say "See, all oral traditions are mostly true so the bible is trustworthy."

Would you be willing to post some sources from whatever anthropologists or historians whose work you are referring to? Again, I honestly would like to read other scholarship on the topic of oral traditions and their transmission. (Is this part of Richard Carrier's work that I haven't read?)

Wow, that Sabbatai Zevi! Can you imagine, a flesh and blood messianic prophet whose followers try to look for common cultural cliches to use, old prophecies for him to fulfill, and attributing works of supernatural power to him all to enhance his stature? Never heard of that before...

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, I didn't say that they referred to those in those exact terms. People tend to be more around some point between just neutrally documenting what things those people believed in, and some kind of 'oh, wow, they believed in a coyote god, that's soo mystic and fascinating and deeply meaningful.'

It doesn't mean that anyone actually supported any other means for how those myths happened, other than what we already know in more mundane cases like urban legends: someone making it up.

At any rate, I really mean it that I don't intend to chase that fully irrelevant red herring. Whether you like my offensive terms or want to use euphemisms for how those falsehoods got made up, it doesn't matter. I don't care. What matters is that a source full of falsehoods can't be a good source to base a sound argument on. It doesn't matter whether the falsehoods came from CT-like mentalities (although you can see both in Mark and Matthew that they literally propose conspiracies to hide the truth) or fanboyisms or some mystical and profound meaning or whatever floats your boat. What matters is that they are full of falsehoods. It doesn't matter why those falsehoods are there. Just that the same inductive argument that's inherent in an argument from authority, says that these can't be authoritative sources.

But if you want to hear a historian saying that it's not as reliable as some people like to pretend, try Bart Ehrman, since he seems to be the hero of HJ proponents. Plus, he also lists what's wrong with the gospels as historical sources AND what kind of sources would be good for a historian, which is what the "Jesus was real because Bart Ehrman says so" proponents invariably miss. So we can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.



Around 1 hour and 32 minutes he actually talks about how oral tradition works, and how the idea of it being an attempt to reproduce it faithfully word for word is false and in fact not even a goal for oral cultures.

Or you can try:



You can hear him say how stories get changed in retelling around minute 8 or so, and then again later, though most of the rest of his arguments are also applying to why I don't trust tribal "oral traditions" either. At any rate, it's pretty clear that he doesn't value oral traditions much. So, if you didn't hear him already, well, it wouldn't be a complete loss to listen to the whole speech.

It's funny, really, because basically my position on evidence is exactly his. In fact, he's the guy who convinced me that there is no actual evidence for the existence of a HJ. So, you know, kudos.

 

[Greediguts]

Well, I didn't say that they referred to those in those exact terms. People tend to be more around some point between just neutrally documenting what things those people believed in, and some kind of 'oh, wow, they believed in a coyote god, that's soo mystic and fascinating and deeply meaningful.'

Ok. But the work I was referring to is taught in universities and used by anthropologists and historians. It isn't some New-Agey "see the ancients were in touch with nature and modern man is lost" type-thing. They study the culture, the people, the society, the texts (if any) for academics, not to sell crystals. Nor do the good ones try to push some sort of pro/anti religious agenda.

It doesn't mean that anyone actually supported any other means for how those myths happened, other than what we already know in more mundane cases like urban legends: someone making it up.

At any rate, I really mean it that I don't intend to chase that fully irrelevant red herring. Whether you like my offensive terms or want to use euphemisms for how those falsehoods got made up, it doesn't matter. I don't care.

Hans, I have grown accustomed to how you approach this subject and interact with people holding a different opinion than you. You strike me as a "Religion poisons everything" type atheist who prefers to use marginalizing terms and language when dealing with anything that has the scent of Christianity about it. I get it (I used to be the same way). Plus you have made it clear that you have to defend logic at every turn. She is a helpless maiden and you are her steadfast knight.

What matters is that a source full of falsehoods can't be a good source to base a sound argument on. It doesn't matter whether the falsehoods came from CT-like mentalities (although you can see both in Mark and Matthew that they literally propose conspiracies to hide the truth) or fanboyisms or some mystical and profound meaning or whatever floats your boat. What matters is that they are full of falsehoods. It doesn't matter why those falsehoods are there. Just that the same inductive argument that's inherent in an argument from authority, says that these can't be authoritative sources.

Hans, your idea of what sources can be used would basically depopulate the ancient world. How many ancient sources do we have that could even come close to fitting your ideals? I know you have read some of them. How many names/events mentioned by Herodotus are clearly myth (or "lies" or "upping the ante on crazy" as you say)? Should I assume Josephus created the characters of Hillel and Gamaliel? How do you view Appolonius of Tyana? What do we really know about the ancient Egyptians anyway? What is your percentage of myth (or I'm sorry, "fanboy fic") to actual historical events that makes a source acceptable in your eyes? 30% fanboy? 10% fanboy?

I know you might say "We have to have statutes, plaques, etc. - physical evidence!" but archaeology does not exist on an island alone. Anthropology, history, linguistics, and archaeology all work together to help understand the past (to name only a few). The more I delve into not just biblical studies, but ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Roman history the more I realize this. And maybe that's why I entered this conversation again. You have tried to create a version of historical methodology that doesn't really exist. Pre-modern history is not just based upon physical evidence but much is based upon hearsay, myth, oral traditions, cultural cliches, etc. and the majority of all ancient documents are copies of copies of copies, etc. I guess if colleges really want to trim their budgets they can seriously slash the budgets of depts. dealing with ancient history since, according to your set standards the majority of sources used would not make the cut.

But if you want to hear a historian saying that it's not as reliable as some people like to pretend, try Bart Ehrman, since he seems to be the hero of HJ proponents. Plus, he also lists what's wrong with the gospels as historical sources AND what kind of sources would be good for a historian, which is what the "Jesus was real because Bart Ehrman says so" proponents invariably miss. So we can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

Around 1 hour and 32 minutes he actually talks about how oral tradition works, and how the idea of it being an attempt to reproduce it faithfully word for word is false and in fact not even a goal for oral cultures.

Or you can try:


You can hear him say how stories get changed in retelling around minute 8 or so, and then again later, though most of the rest of his arguments are also applying to why I don't trust tribal "oral traditions" either. At any rate, it's pretty clear that he doesn't value oral traditions much. So, if you didn't hear him already, well, it wouldn't be a complete loss to listen to the whole speech.

It's funny, really, because basically my position on evidence is exactly his. In fact, he's the guy who convinced me that there is no actual evidence for the existence of a HJ. So, you know, kudos.

It's funny, really, because Bart is supporting Jan Vansina's work (he's just presenting it in a simplistic fashion). The work done does NOT suggest that the traditions are perfectly transmitted. In fact, the differences are used to help look for the historical bits. There are various different methodologies used and factors to be taken into account depending on what you are dealing with ( an epic, poetry, song, play, etc.), who is doing the telling (religious/government rep., tradesmen, laborers, etc.) and what is the context ( religious ceremony, gossip, state propaganda, state ceremony, holiday, etc.) and how many versions exist( and what are the differences). The simplistic straw man you present of oral traditions is not what I am discussing nor what scholars in the field work with (and I don't think Bart would go along with your calling it "fanboy fic" oddly enough). Basically, ALL sources are suspect. A good historian knows what to do with them and how to use them.

If you don't want to engage scholarship that is relative to the question of historicity (and the methodology, terms, and the mindset used) so be it. Name it a "red herring" if you want, but it speaks more to your bias than critically approaching the subject.

 

[HansMustermann]

Ok. But the work I was referring to is taught in universities and used by anthropologists and historians. It isn't some New-Agey "see the ancients were in touch with nature and modern man is lost" type-thing. They study the culture, the people, the society, the texts (if any) for academics, not to sell crystals. Nor do the good ones try to push some sort of pro/anti religious agenda.

Well, far from me to dis Anthropology, but I still don't see the problem. Sure, some people study what those people believe. And it's a good thing too.

But, again, I'm not aware of anyone claiming that the miraculous legends came to be in any other way than someone making them up. Which is really what I'm saying, if in impolite terms. Just because someone doesn't touch with a ten foot polearm such (granted, less interesting) topics as that some BS-er had to make up those gods, doesn't mean you can find anything else behind it than someone making it up or hallucinating it or whatever.

So I'm not sure I see the contradiction or problem there.

Hans, I have grown accustomed to how you approach this subject and interact with people holding a different opinion than you. You strike me as a "Religion poisons everything" type atheist who prefers to use marginalizing terms and language when dealing with anything that has the scent of Christianity about it. I get it (I used to be the same way). Plus you have made it clear that you have to defend logic at every turn. She is a helpless maiden and you are her steadfast knight.

Sarcasm and circumstantial ad-hominem duly noted, but in the end it's irrelevant. At best it would be chasing yet another fully irrelevant red herring.

The more relevant question isn't why you think I'm saying that, but for example: can you even propose something else for those oral traditions than

A) rote-memorization and unerring transmission, which apparently you're not buying into, or

B) a big game of telephone, which apparently you don't buy into either?

Dancing around "why does Hans say that" doesn't change the fact that a tradition spawning sometimes thousands of generations, IS one big game of telephone and things get changed. What ELSE can it be, in an oral culture?

Etc.

Besides, honestly, you can do better than the silliness that my demanding sound logic is somehow like being the defender of some poor damsel in distress. The point isn't to defend logic, but to not be a gullible dolt. Using broken logic isn't something I reject because poor old logic needs defending, but because I have no reason to believe a conclusion based on broken logic.

Hans, your idea of what sources can be used would basically depopulate the ancient world. How many ancient sources do we have that could even come close to fitting your ideals? I know you have read some of them. How many names/events mentioned by Herodotus are clearly myth (or "lies" or "upping the ante on crazy" as you say)? Should I assume Josephus created the characters of Hillel and Gamaliel? How do you view Appolonius of Tyana? What do we really know about the ancient Egyptians anyway? What is your percentage of myth (or I'm sorry, "fanboy fic") to actual historical events that makes a source acceptable in your eyes? 30% fanboy? 10% fanboy?

First of all, that's not really true. Especially for the first century CE, it's one of the best documented periods ever. So, no, I don't think we'd be in the same boat if we don't believe the Jesus BS.

Second, that's why we want independent corroboration. And not just written, but also archaeology. That's one way to know if some fanboy was making stuff up or there may have been something there.

Third, actually it's not a dichotomy. What really rubs me the wrong way isn't that history isn't an exact science, but lemmings who try to basically make it one. You just need to look through these threads to see no shortage of lemming thinking that they just need to postulate that HJ is established and nobody can doubt it any more. The point is precisely that history doesn't work that way. If you don't have corroboration or much reason to believe that Timaeus (in Plato) was a real historical person, the honest thing to do is admit just that. Only for Jesus somehow it's ok to do an argument by postulating that it's certitude and everyone can't discuss that any more.

Or the sister argument, which is the Nirvana fallacy by any other name. It goes kinda like this: 'see, we're not 100% sure of other characters, like Socrates (or Appolonius of Tyana, or whatever), therefore you can't doubt that Jesus existed." It's been an argument that's popped over and over again. And, seriously, wth? I mean, really, how does something like that even follow? IF Jesus is actually on par for evidence with some characters for which there's room for doubt, then the logical conclusion is actually that there is as much room for reasonable doubt for him too.

I know you might say "We have to have statutes, plaques, etc. - physical evidence!" but archaeology does not exist on an island alone. Anthropology, history, linguistics, and archaeology all work together to help understand the past (to name only a few). The more I delve into not just biblical studies, but ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Roman history the more I realize this. And maybe that's why I entered this conversation again. You have tried to create a version of historical methodology that doesn't really exist. Pre-modern history is not just based upon physical evidence but much is based upon hearsay, myth, oral traditions, cultural cliches, etc. and the majority of all ancient documents are copies of copies of copies, etc. I guess if colleges really want to trim their budgets they can seriously slash the budgets of depts. dealing with ancient history since, according to your set standards the majority of sources used would not make the cut.

Try to read, not just to hear yourself attacking your own strawman.

It's funny, really, because Bart is supporting Jan Vansina's work (he's just presenting it in a simplistic fashion). The work done does NOT suggest that the traditions are perfectly transmitted. In fact, the differences are used to help look for the historical bits. There are various different methodologies used and factors to be taken into account depending on what you are dealing with ( an epic, poetry, song, play, etc.), who is doing the telling (religious/government rep., tradesmen, laborers, etc.) and what is the context ( religious ceremony, gossip, state propaganda, state ceremony, holiday, etc.) and how many versions exist( and what are the differences). The simplistic straw man you present of oral traditions is not what I am discussing nor what scholars in the field work with (and I don't think Bart would go along with your calling it "fanboy fic" oddly enough). Basically, ALL sources are suspect. A good historian knows what to do with them and how to use them.

Did you even read what I wrote in message 147, or did you just have the canned BS prepared and had to dump it anyway? For someone who's so quick to call strawman, you sure hurry to ascribe to me a position that exists only in your imagination.

And really, when the heck did I deny that all sources are suspect? Why do you think I'd want external corroboration, if some weren't?

If you don't want to engage scholarship that is relative to the question of historicity (and the methodology, terms, and the mindset used) so be it. Name it a "red herring" if you want, but it speaks more to your bias than critically approaching the subject.

And that would be trying to make a strawman of what I was actually calling a red herring. Well, gee...

But basically this has itself been a waste of my time and exactly that kind of red herring about names and semantics. The relevance to what I was actually saying is exactly zero. And you haven't actually offered anything of substance even for that red herring either.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

In other words, how close to the Bible story would a historical individual's life have to be to be considered a (or the) historical Jesus?

I think that's a very good question. And I think the answer depends on what people want to do with arguments for or against the existence of historical Jesus.

If it could be confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that this was in fact what gave rise to the Jesus story and eventually Christianity, would it count as the "historical Jesus"? I think it would be most uncharitable not to, as it is essentially what the Gospels tell, except for there being no miracles and supernatural mumbo-jumbo.

That's a mighty large "except for" though. All 4 Gospels make it pretty clear that they're talking about a god-man or a man-god or some such.

It'd be like pointing out that there was actually a 250 pound lumberjack named Paul Bunyan, and he is the "historical Paul Bunyan". What on earth does that even mean?

 

[Greediguts]

Well, far from me to dis Anthropology, but I still don't see the problem. Sure, some people study what those people believe. And it's a good thing too.

But, again, I'm not aware of anyone claiming that the miraculous legends came to be in any other way than someone making them up. Which is really what I'm saying, if in impolite terms. Just because someone doesn't touch with a ten foot polearm such (granted, less interesting) topics as that some BS-er had to make up those gods, doesn't mean you can find anything else behind it than someone making it up or hallucinating it or whatever.

So I'm not sure I see the contradiction or problem there.

And maybe we are talking past each other because I am not referring to the obvious mythical elements of the story. Jesus never walked on water, raised the dead, or came back to life. Yes, all those parts of the story are myth. Any historical Jesus would not resemble the Christ in the gospels. The majority of scholars involved in historical studies re:Jesus all agree, he wasn't a god. He would have been some back-water messianic preacher who ran afoul of the Romans and got killed. But we do find other stories of historical people around that time who have myths attached to them too. It was common in the culture that if you wanted to stress the importance of the person then tack on the magic stories- make them larger than life.

Sarcasm and circumstantial ad-hominem duly noted, but in the end it's irrelevant. At best it would be chasing yet another fully irrelevant red herring.

I was paraphrasing a similar response you made awhile back about (again paraphrasing) "calling'em like ya see'em" and that you tend to use more impolite terms when calling out the gullible lemmings. The mention of "religion posions everything" atheist was not meant to be sarcastic, mean, or an ad-hominem. (in fact, haven't you basically talked about your strong dislike/mistrust of religion/religious believers? Please don't make me go through your posts as you are a prolific poster and it would take some time. If I am misremembering or misrepresenting you, then I apologize. I'm not infallible. But everyone has a bias.)

The more relevant question isn't why you think I'm saying that, but for example: can you even propose something else for those oral traditions than

A) rote-memorization and unerring transmission, which apparently you're not buying into, or

B) a big game of telephone, which apparently you don't buy into either?

Dancing around "why does Hans say that" doesn't change the fact that a tradition spawning sometimes thousands of generations, IS one big game of telephone and things get changed. What ELSE can it be, in an oral culture?

Etc.

Again, we are talking past each other and I accept my responsibility in contributing to that.

I am not proposing some "new way" for oral tradition to be transmitted. What I am saying is the scholarship involved breaks it down and does not make blanket assumptions about any tradition from any time or culture. There is a stressing of 1) learning the language of the culture you study (past or present) 2) Become as familiar as you can with the culture or society 3) Just because a story seems to be fiction doesn't mean all of it is. Again, knowing 1 and 2 helps in this area. You seem to want to lump everything under a title of "fanboy fic". The various fields involved don't just apply a broad brush and assume the people just "upped the crazy"" or were "tripping balls". The devil is in the details (so to speak).

But anyway, when you state"... that a tradition spawning sometimes thousands of generations, IS one big game of telephone and things get changed." - part of this helps to make a point scholars see who study myth and oral tradition.


As I am starting to learn Hebrew I am amazed when I come across acrostic verses in the Tanakh that you can only see its original language. It helps to back up the point you just made. Rote-memorization is easier when you have mnemonic devices such as each verse beginning with sequential letters of the Hebrew alphabet. It points to the text origins as a type of oral tradition. And yes, thousands of generations transmitted much of it and then finally started committing it to written texts. The majority of the older pantheons of gods would appear to follow a similar path.

The first references to Jesus are pretty close to a generation after his death (Paul's letters). His apotheosis happens over a fairly short period of time. The scholars who study this stuff( myth/oral traditions, anthropologists, etc.) don't see the generations they would expect to see if Jesus was a completely mythical being. Myths like that don't normally just happen overnight (especially in ancient, mostly illiterate, cultures). And again, how myths and oral traditions are structured are usually to answer questions/ solve problems not cause them. The old chestnut of "if they were going to create a myth from scratch about Jesus then a better job could have been done" actually holds some weight. His being forced to fit the ancient traditions is telling.

First of all, that's not really true. Especially for the first century CE, it's one of the best documented periods ever. So, no, I don't think we'd be in the same boat if we don't believe the Jesus BS.

What exactly is not true? Ancient historians (Manetho, Herodotus, Polybius, Tactius, etc.) works contained no hearsay or myth???? All the people mentioned can be deemed historical due to physical evidence? If we just throw out Jesus it makes no difference? I don't know what you mean here.

Second, that's why we want independent corroboration. And not just written, but also archaeology. That's one way to know if some fanboy was making stuff up or there may have been something there.

Yes it would be great to have physical evidence but many times we don't. As you say it is ONE way to know, but scholars try to look for various methodologies and tools in an attempt to tease out some history.

Third, actually it's not a dichotomy. What really rubs me the wrong way isn't that history isn't an exact science, but lemmings who try to basically make it one. You just need to look through these threads to see no shortage of lemming thinking that they just need to postulate that HJ is established and nobody can doubt it any more. The point is precisely that history doesn't work that way. If you don't have corroboration or much reason to believe that Timaeus (in Plato) was a real historical person, the honest thing to do is admit just that. Only for Jesus somehow it's ok to do an argument by postulating that it's certitude and everyone can't discuss that any more.

I agree that history is not an exact science. I don't say with 100% confidence that there was an historical Jesus. I don't just dismiss mythicists. I read their work. I have not been convinced but I am open to new theories and any evidence.

But here's the thing. Mythicism is not new. There is a body of work spanning about 100 years. So far the theories proposed do not cover all the bases and answer as many questions as the historical hypothesis. We can do "what ifs" all day ( What if Paul suffered from Cotard's syndrome? What if the choice of Greek word Paul uses in (whatever verse) is being used this way instead of that?, etc.) that's not hard. We're just pulling on one thread. Bringing the various works of various disciplines together has (so far) been met by having a living ancient Jew at the start. Maybe that will change.

But the lemming thing goes both ways. As much as you tire hearing of people stating the historical Jesus is 100% true, I tire of reading posts that engage only the mythic parts of the story ( insert miracle/zombie joke here) as if all scholars in the various fields over the last 100 years are some sort of deluded Christian apologists that are just trying to prove the historicity of the resurrection. The mythicists I read on the internet and the ones I talk to at college don't engage any of the scholarship. The best they do is skim Doeherty and Carrier's sites on the internet and walk away thinking they know it all. It's one thing to bring up Spider-man/Sherlock Holmes comparison when trying to call out someone for being a lemming on the forum and you want to bring straight logic out to show them being 100% certain is silly. It's another when young atheists parrot that and use it as their rational response to the entire body of work. As I am attending classes at a State University here in the USA I am sadly starting to come across that response more and more. Dismissing everything with a "I suppose you think Sherlock Holmes is real too, huh?" when it comes to a historical Jesus seems to resemble the same certitude you complain about.

Or the sister argument, which is the Nirvana fallacy by any other name. It goes kinda like this: 'see, we're not 100% sure of other characters, like Socrates (or Appolonius of Tyana, or whatever), therefore you can't doubt that Jesus existed." It's been an argument that's popped over and over again. And, seriously, wth? I mean, really, how does something like that even follow? IF Jesus is actually on par for evidence with some characters for which there's room for doubt, then the logical conclusion is actually that there is as much room for reasonable doubt for him too.

I'm not saying there isn't doubt. What I'm saying is historians provisionally accept stories and characters. They place them in the context of their time and culture. Hearsay, gossip, and myths are not out-right excluded. Having no physical evidence does not exclude them. They know that the majority of people who lived in ancient cultures left behind almost no trace of their existence. These other characters (Apollonius, Socrates, etc.) by and large fit within the cultural/sociological/anthropological/ historical framework. They are accepted unless there is strong evidence that they actually don't fit in this framework. As you said, it's not an exact science, they do the best they can with what they have. The historical basis for Jesus (not a god- just a dude) fits this framework. There is no "special" provision made for him. So far, mythic theories do not fit this framework as well. The myth idea covers parts but not all (and this usually raises more questions then it answers). Yes there should be doubt but that shouldn't cause us to completely deny someone's existence. We don't do it for a large section of ancient figures without physical evidence so why do it for the historical Jesus?


It's late and I've been on and off the phone while trying to write and post this response so I'll just retract the last bits I posted as they have no real bearing on the future of this conversation now.

 

[HansMustermann]

And maybe we are talking past each other because I am not referring to the obvious mythical elements of the story. Jesus never walked on water, raised the dead, or came back to life. Yes, all those parts of the story are myth. Any historical Jesus would not resemble the Christ in the gospels. The majority of scholars involved in historical studies re:Jesus all agree, he wasn't a god. He would have been some back-water messianic preacher who ran afoul of the Romans and got killed. But we do find other stories of historical people around that time who have myths attached to them too. It was common in the culture that if you wanted to stress the importance of the person then tack on the magic stories- make them larger than life.

Yes, but it was also common in that culture to forge religious texts out of whole cloth (e.g., Daniel), or to forge letters in some character's name (see a buttload of epistles, gospels, apocalypses, and so on from all apostles), and generally to lie. Once you know that it was common to lie to get a point across, then I don't see how one can support that basically they would invent everything EXCEPT a character. If anything, if you know that the culture and nature of a text makes it more prone to adding a few lies, it's all the more reason to be circumspect about everything in it.

And in any case, that's why we should look for corroboration before deciding that there actually was a man there at all. Otherwise if it comes from a single source and there just to make a point, we might conclude, like for Plato's Timaeus that I already mentioned, that there is no real reason to try to cherrypick a historical Timaeus.

The reason we look for a historical Julius Caesar, without all the miraculous stuff like rising from his funeral as a comet and having a magical sword and whatnot, is because we have a bunch of evidence that needs a physical Julius Caesar there. THEN we can look at what parts about him are believable enough. If he came from one biased source (and a couple of others that copied and embellished it), and ladden to the brim with made up stuff about his super-hero Caesar, and wasn't corroborated by anything else, the saner thing to conclude would be that there probably wasn't one.

Really, the direction it goes in a logical way is that IF you have some corroborating evidence that needs a guy to exist, and IF there is enough indication that a source does contain at least some historical evidence (e.g., because enough of it is corroborated by other sources or evidence), THEN you can try to cherry-pick a believable image of that guy from those sources. It doesn't work the other way around, which is what is done by Jesus. Including by Bart Ehrman.

If all you have are some bad sources and no corroboration, being able to nevertheless cherrypick something out of them, doesn't say that the guy existed nor that the sources are good enough. Those are premises, not conclusions.

E.g., I can cherrypick a believable Han Solo, but that doesn't mean that makes Han Solo historical, nor that George Lucas is an accurate historical source. I can cherrypick a non-miraculous mad Arab called Abdul Al Hazred from Lovecraft, but that doesn't mean one actually existed, nor that it makes Lovecraft a good enough historical source. I can cherrypick a believable Frank Castle a.k.a. The Punisher from the comics, but that doesn't mean one existed, nor that Marvel comics are therefore a historical source. Etc.

To be able to cherrypick characteristics of a historical person, the existence of that person and that the sources are good enough are premises, not the conclusions. And just arriving at something non-miraculous and believable doesn't mean it's actually true. "Believable" is not the same thing as "true".

I was paraphrasing a similar response you made awhile back about (again paraphrasing) "calling'em like ya see'em" and that you tend to use more impolite terms when calling out the gullible lemmings. The mention of "religion posions everything" atheist was not meant to be sarcastic, mean, or an ad-hominem. (in fact, haven't you basically talked about your strong dislike/mistrust of religion/religious believers? Please don't make me go through your posts as you are a prolific poster and it would take some time. If I am misremembering or misrepresenting you, then I apologize. I'm not infallible. But everyone has a bias.)

It doesn't have to be false to be an ad-hominem circumstantial. The fact is that you launch into a digression along the lines of "why you hold that position" instead of addressing what's wrong with that position.

That said, my beef isn't actually as much with all believers, as with all fanboys. That does include most 'church fathers' and apologists, and really anyone who thinks they can just make up stuff about what a text or figure says and then treat it as reality just because they like what they just imagined, but I don't think it extends to all believers. I'm pretty sure there are plenty who don't go around making up what Jesus really said, or make up some ancient customs out of whole cloth to make some OT passage OK, etc. And conversely, there are plenty of delusional fanboys on other domains than religion

Again, we are talking past each other and I accept my responsibility in contributing to that.

I am not proposing some "new way" for oral tradition to be transmitted. What I am saying is the scholarship involved breaks it down and does not make blanket assumptions about any tradition from any time or culture. There is a stressing of 1) learning the language of the culture you study (past or present) 2) Become as familiar as you can with the culture or society 3) Just because a story seems to be fiction doesn't mean all of it is. Again, knowing 1 and 2 helps in this area. You seem to want to lump everything under a title of "fanboy fic". The various fields involved don't just apply a broad brush and assume the people just "upped the crazy"" or were "tripping balls". The devil is in the details (so to speak).

It usually is, but in this case it's still not really relevant, because it's mostly orthogonal.

A) Studying a culture and its legends and their role, is mostly orthogonal to the issue of whether something is true or false, and also to the issue of how it came to be.

I mean, sure, we can look at some tribe's legends about werewolves or witches transforming into rabbits, and look at the social and psychological role that those fulfil, and how it influences their view of the world, and how it ties in with social dynamics and interactions with other groups, etc. Which is what anthropology does. Nothing wrong with that.

But then what I'm saying is: we can do the same with modern legends about Bigfoot or about faked moon landings, and in most cases it will be the same. Just because in the modern day explaining reality by delusions went out of fashion instead of making you a shaman or theologians, doesn't mean that they're not having similar psychological explanations.

And in both cases you'll probably find someone making stuff up, or being delusional enough to confuse his own imagination with reality. Whether by tripping balls (a lot of shamans do use psychoactive drugs), or brain damage (a lot of shamans start getting visions and get picked as shaman apprentices after some episode of extreme illness and fever), or whatever.

But it's really orthogonal to the topic of whether that stuff is true or false. Whether I call them delusional fanboys or junkies or shamans, in the end what actually matters for the purpose of having a sound logical inference is whether that can be used as true premises or not.

Invariably the discussion devolves in such red herrings as whether someone was really lying, or it's really that someone else lied to him, or it's a sacred tradition that... is still made up, but it was generations ago. Who cares? If it can't be supported as true, then, for the purpose of establishing the soundness of an argument, who cares exactly what flavour of transmitting a falsehood was involved?

It's like coming to a fraud trial and going, "ah, but did the accused write the proposal on a computer, or on a typewriter?" Who cares? As long as he was selling shares in a non-existent mine, what difference does it make?

B) Yes, some fantastic story may contain real elements, but the way you know that is: corroborating evidence.

E.g., if some tribe has legends of an huge ostrich-like predator bird, and you find bones of such a bird, hmm, maybe it wasn't made up. But if not, there is no reason to assume that something that looks like a collection of made-up fantastic stories is anything but exactly that: some made-up fantastic stories.

Just being able to cherrypick some detail that doesn't sound too miraculous, doesn't mean one should then take that as the truth.

But anyway, when you state"... that a tradition spawning sometimes thousands of generations, IS one big game of telephone and things get changed." - part of this helps to make a point scholars see who study myth and oral tradition.

Maybe, but then we just went from disagreeing on it being a big game of telephone to agreeing about that after all. As Daffy Duck would say, "was this trip really necessary?"

As I am starting to learn Hebrew I am amazed when I come across acrostic verses in the Tanakh that you can only see its original language. It helps to back up the point you just made. Rote-memorization is easier when you have mnemonic devices such as each verse beginning with sequential letters of the Hebrew alphabet. It points to the text origins as a type of oral tradition. And yes, thousands of generations transmitted much of it and then finally started committing it to written texts. The majority of the older pantheons of gods would appear to follow a similar path.

Well, ok, I'll agree there, but there is no indication that the Jesus stories ever got through such a stage. We see them divergin very very quickly even in writing, and the scribes inserting pieces don't even care about breaking the meter in a poem from Paul. If there ever were such a device for preventing distortions, we don't see those guys giving a damn about it.

Furthermore, that wouldn't actually help the case of HJ. What would help the case is if there were lots of witnesses who knew the same story independently, and preferably first hand. If on the other hand, you had some witnesses just repeating a story that was prepared by someone else for easy memorization, then they're not actually witnesses, and they're not independent either. As Ehrman says, if you have 20 guys telling a story but they all copied it from the same guy, then you don't have 20 independent sources, you only have one.

The first references to Jesus are pretty close to a generation after his death (Paul's letters). His apotheosis happens over a fairly short period of time. The scholars who study this stuff( myth/oral traditions, anthropologists, etc.) don't see the generations they would expect to see if Jesus was a completely mythical being. Myths like that don't normally just happen overnight (especially in ancient, mostly illiterate, cultures).

Except we actually know of such myths that happened within years. E.g., all the miracles of Sabbatai Zevi, or those of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, etc, were happening within WEEKS. The idea that a generation or two wouldn't be enough to make up a messiah is bogus.

And since at this point the discussion usually goes, "yeah, but there was a historical Zevi", the same goes in cases where the myth and the person differ a lot more, and even in cases where the person doesn't actually exist.

E.g., David Reubeni wasn't even a rabbi or AFAIK ever claimed to be a messiah. He was an adventurer and con artist, and he got burned at the stake ultimately just for trying to scam the Holy Roman Emperor out of a huge sum and not knowing when to stop. He was just about as messianic as Victor Lustig, really

Yet soon after his death, some girl has visions of him being the messiah in heavens, and suddenly the urban legends take off about his being a messiah.

So, yeah, you could find a historical Reubeni all right, but he'd be nothing like what you could cherrypick from the messiah stories. He wasn't a rabbi, he didn't preach good stuff (heck, he was a con-man), etc.

So how do people know that they can follow such stuff in Jesus's case?

E.g., there are several stories on Snopes that clearly started as works of fiction, but within mere months they were circulated as real stuff. E.g., my favourite example, the story of the spammer found dead with a can of SPAM shoved down his throat. It didn't take a generation for that to get turned into a supposed real story. Yet you couldn't find a historical spammer Keith James Lawrence, because there is none. He's a fictive character.

So, yes, stories can involve a fictive character, and they can start being turned into supposed true stories in MUCH less than a generation.

Plus, in Jesus's case, there is nothing that requires a real character to invent such miracles about. Those people BELIEVED that Paul's character "Jesus" is real, and wanted to prop up that character. There is nothing that requires a real character in piling up miracles upon him to make him more convincing.

And again, how myths and oral traditions are structured are usually to answer questions/ solve problems not cause them. The old chestnut of "if they were going to create a myth from scratch about Jesus then a better job could have been done" actually holds some weight. His being forced to fit the ancient traditions is telling.

Actually it's still a ridiculous canard, because:

A) nobody proposed that he'd be invented from whole cloth. In fact, most mythicists say that Paul found his Jesus in the Tanakh. Like even Paul hints at.

So, yes, without that constraint they might have done a better job, but nobody proposes that it was without any constraints.

B) it's still ridiculous to presume to pretend to know exactly what an ancient author intended, and thus that whatever problem one sees there would be seen as a problem by that author too, or that he'd be such a genius that he'd get everything right without such constraints. It's blatantly disconnected from reality, since authors write less than perfect stories all the time. And in fact that's why one criterion of textual analysis works at all: we can only guess that more palatable versions are newer BECAUSE the original author usually makes an imperfect job that is corrected in future versions by other people.

What exactly is not true? Ancient historians (Manetho, Herodotus, Polybius, Tactius, etc.) works contained no hearsay or myth???? All the people mentioned can be deemed historical due to physical evidence? If we just throw out Jesus it makes no difference? I don't know what you mean here.

If we threw away the non-corroborated stories of Jesus, we'd still have those authors have corroboration. And we'd still regard the unsupported passages as dubious.

E.g., we don't just have to trust Polybius about how a Roman shield was constructed, we have the specimen from Fayum to confirm Polybius's description.

The idea that somehow everything is just as mythical and unsupportable, so we might as well accept Jesus too, is just bogus.

Yes it would be great to have physical evidence but many times we don't. As you say it is ONE way to know, but scholars try to look for various methodologies and tools in an attempt to tease out some history.

Maybe. But then you don't get lemmings insisting that oh, no, the historical Odin has been established because one source says so, and that's the end of the story, you can't doubt it any more. There is a difference between a weakly supported, working hypothesis, and the kind of certitude these people are trying to postulate for Jesus.

I agree that history is not an exact science. I don't say with 100% confidence that there was an historical Jesus. I don't just dismiss mythicists. I read their work. I have not been convinced but I am open to new theories and any evidence.

But here's the thing. Mythicism is not new. There is a body of work spanning about 100 years. So far the theories proposed do not cover all the bases and answer as many questions as the historical hypothesis. We can do "what ifs" all day ( What if Paul suffered from Cotard's syndrome? What if the choice of Greek word Paul uses in (whatever verse) is being used this way instead of that?, etc.) that's not hard. We're just pulling on one thread. Bringing the various works of various disciplines together has (so far) been met by having a living ancient Jew at the start. Maybe that will change.

Please do show even one thing that actually needs a living Jesus as opposed to belief in a Jesus, and has any corroboration.

But yes, mythicism isn't new. But so far, for all the pretense that oh no, it's been debunked already, it hasn't. People just postulate that there's something wrong with it, and better yet, that it has already been shown, but never quite get around to making that point. As Price says, it's not been debunked, it's been just harrumpfed.

So, yeah, that's mythicism. Apparently even 100 years can't move people out of the delusion that they can use a good harrumpf-ing instead of showing the frikken evidence that actually needs a HJ.

But the lemming thing goes both ways. As much as you tire hearing of people stating the historical Jesus is 100% true, I tire of reading posts that engage only the mythic parts of the story ( insert miracle/zombie joke here) as if all scholars in the various fields over the last 100 years are some sort of deluded Christian apologists that are just trying to prove the historicity of the resurrection. The mythicists I read on the internet and the ones I talk to at college don't engage any of the scholarship. The best they do is skim Doeherty and Carrier's sites on the internet and walk away thinking they know it all. It's one thing to bring up Spider-man/Sherlock Holmes comparison when trying to call out someone for being a lemming on the forum and you want to bring straight logic out to show them being 100% certain is silly. It's another when young atheists parrot that and use it as their rational response to the entire body of work. As I am attending classes at a State University here in the USA I am sadly starting to come across that response more and more. Dismissing everything with a "I suppose you think Sherlock Holmes is real too, huh?" when it comes to a historical Jesus seems to resemble the same certitude you complain about.

So--- more harrumpfing?

Everything you attacked is actually good logic when one doesn't have the burden of proof. If the kind of support for the positive claim of a HJ would also make Sherlock Holmes real, that IS problem the problem of those proposing the flawed argument, not some kind of shortcoming of those using the Sherlock Holmes counter.

In fact, if an argument is that easy to defeat, and doesn't even need any scholarship or ancient data to spot why it's invalid, that just makes the argument that much weaker. It's not a reason to complain about those finding it that easy to shoot it down, it's actually a reason to take a look at why is it that easy to shoot down.

If someone did need to know exactly where Josephus was in a certain year, or what Tacitus says about an obscure event, to defeat your argument, then at least that would say that the basic logic framework is valid, and it takes some work to disprove its premises. I.e., at least then it would have some merit. But when you only need to know elementary logic to shoot down its validity, thus not needing to know any further to make it unsound too (it can't be sound if it's invalid), that just means that the argument being shot down is that much lacking any merit.

And it's especially telling that apparently a lot people are tired of having their bogus arguments shot down that easily, but instead of bringing up sound arguments, they just complain about those darned unscholarly people shooting down the BS and how unfair it is to demand sound logic. You'd think that in 100 years of being tired of hearing that the same arguments for HJ would also make Sherlock Holmes true, someone could come up by now with an argument that doesn't. But oh, no, let's just pretend that the fault is with those using logic to shoot down unsound arguments, not with those still making the same unsound arguments.

I'm not saying there isn't doubt. What I'm saying is historians provisionally accept stories and characters. They place them in the context of their time and culture. Hearsay, gossip, and myths are not out-right excluded. Having no physical evidence does not exclude them. They know that the majority of people who lived in ancient cultures left behind almost no trace of their existence. These other characters (Apollonius, Socrates, etc.) by and large fit within the cultural/sociological/anthropological/ historical framework. They are accepted unless there is strong evidence that they actually don't fit in this framework. As you said, it's not an exact science, they do the best they can with what they have. The historical basis for Jesus (not a god- just a dude) fits this framework. There is no "special" provision made for him. So far, mythic theories do not fit this framework as well. The myth idea covers parts but not all (and this usually raises more questions then it answers). Yes there should be doubt but that shouldn't cause us to completely deny someone's existence. We don't do it for a large section of ancient figures without physical evidence so why do it for the historical Jesus?

Except for the fact that there ARE special rules for Jesus.

Socrates for example, we only take him for real because we have 3 contemporary sources, two of which were direct students of him, and one of them critical of him. A character which is only mentioned by one source to make the point is less like Socrates and more like Timaeus. And in that case actually the conclusion is that if such a great philosopher isn't mentioned by anyone but Plato, then he probably DIDN'T exist.

And for a lot of other cases really we have better source than for Jesus. We have sources which aren't trying to sell you a messiah, and are circumspect where they do. E.g., we don't believe Josephus that Vespasian was that great. E.g., we have them either be contemporary to the events and eyewitnesses, or use and cite sources that are. And, again, we are circumspect when they don't. Etc.

Only for Jesus is it handwaved that, oh, no, in HIS case a source that's everything we'd consider circumspect in other sources for anything else, is just as good. It simply is not the same situation at all, and the whole pretense that, really, Jesus is no less supported than Socrates is what's starting to get on my tits.

 

[Greediguts]

Yes, but it was also common in that culture to forge religious texts out of whole cloth (e.g., Daniel), or to forge letters in some character's name (see a buttload of epistles, gospels, apocalypses, and so on from all apostles), and generally to lie. Once you know that it was common to lie to get a point across, then I don't see how one can support that basically they would invent everything EXCEPT a character. If anything, if you know that the culture and nature of a text makes it more prone to adding a few lies, it's all the more reason to be circumspect about everything in it.

But you just lumped apocalyptic text with gospels and with letters. That is not how it works. Each source (no matter how myth-laded) is considered not just part of a corpus but also on its own. Yes obviously there is myth. But the overwhelming majority of religious believers are sincere. Whether their thinking is illogical or confused is another matter(or if the person is an outright liar and fraud which is the exception not the rule). Again all the copies we have of ancient "historians" contain myth. That was the culture. No objective historian dealing in any ancient culture tries to "prove" the myths.

And in any case, that's why we should look for corroboration before deciding that there actually was a man there at all. Otherwise if it comes from a single source and there just to make a point, we might conclude, like for Plato's Timaeus that I already mentioned, that there is no real reason to try to cherrypick a historical Timaeus.

The reason we look for a historical Julius Caesar, without all the miraculous stuff like rising from his funeral as a comet and having a magical sword and whatnot, is because we have a bunch of evidence that needs a physical Julius Caesar there. THEN we can look at what parts about him are believable enough. If he came from one biased source (and a couple of others that copied and embellished it), and ladden to the brim with made up stuff about his super-hero Caesar, and wasn't corroborated by anything else, the saner thing to conclude would be that there probably wasn't one.

Really, the direction it goes in a logical way is that IF you have some corroborating evidence that needs a guy to exist, and IF there is enough indication that a source does contain at least some historical evidence (e.g., because enough of it is corroborated by other sources or evidence), THEN you can try to cherry-pick a believable image of that guy from those sources. It doesn't work the other way around, which is what is done by Jesus. Including by Bart Ehrman.

If all you have are some bad sources and no corroboration, being able to nevertheless cherrypick something out of them, doesn't say that the guy existed nor that the sources are good enough. Those are premises, not conclusions.

Hans, historical evidence (especially ancient evidence) is viewed in its totality and not in a linear fashion. I have taken or am taking various upper-level history classes. The method and theory class I took did not start with an intro to formal/informal logic. Many fields use tools to help expose a bias or prevent people from using just their "common sense" as an approach, but as we both agreed it is not an exact science. Yet, its hard for me to not see you as presenting the field in some sort of specialized ideal so you can discount the historical Jesus.

I say this with no sarcasm or malice. You are a very intelligent person. I am always trying to expand my knowledge. I know I have not been exposed to every textbook on historical/anthropological/sociological method and theory. If you would please present some of your historical/anthropological/ sociological sources I will read them. I will present them to the various professors I have befriended in the various fields at college. I will discuss and question them on the textbooks you present and we can go from there.

E.g., I can cherrypick a believable Han Solo, but that doesn't mean that makes Han Solo historical, nor that George Lucas is an accurate historical source. I can cherrypick a non-miraculous mad Arab called Abdul Al Hazred from Lovecraft, but that doesn't mean one actually existed, nor that it makes Lovecraft a good enough historical source. I can cherrypick a believable Frank Castle a.k.a. The Punisher from the comics, but that doesn't mean one existed, nor that Marvel comics are therefore a historical source. Etc.

To be able to cherrypick characteristics of a historical person, the existence of that person and that the sources are good enough are premises, not the conclusions. And just arriving at something non-miraculous and believable doesn't mean it's actually true. "Believable" is not the same thing as "true".

Fair enough, but if scholars in the far distant future come across tales of Han Solo and try to determine if he was real or not they will use so sort of framework and a totality examination of the evidence to determine that. Knowing the language, placing him within the time-frame when he was supposed to exist, etc. would lead them to think the best available evidence point to his not existing. The majority of scholars feel the historical Jesus hypothesis explains the most and fits the total framework best.

It doesn't have to be false to be an ad-hominem circumstantial. The fact is that you launch into a digression along the lines of "why you hold that position" instead of addressing what's wrong with that position.

That said, my beef isn't actually as much with all believers, as with all fanboys. That does include most 'church fathers' and apologists, and really anyone who thinks they can just make up stuff about what a text or figure says and then treat it as reality just because they like what they just imagined, but I don't think it extends to all believers. I'm pretty sure there are plenty who don't go around making up what Jesus really said, or make up some ancient customs out of whole cloth to make some OT passage OK, etc. And conversely, there are plenty of delusional fanboys on other domains than religion

Thank you for the explanation. Again, I apologize.

It usually is, but in this case it's still not really relevant, because it's mostly orthogonal.

A) Studying a culture and its legends and their role, is mostly orthogonal to the issue of whether something is true or false, and also to the issue of how it came to be.

I mean, sure, we can look at some tribe's legends about werewolves or witches transforming into rabbits, and look at the social and psychological role that those fulfil, and how it influences their view of the world, and how it ties in with social dynamics and interactions with other groups, etc. Which is what anthropology does. Nothing wrong with that.

But then what I'm saying is: we can do the same with modern legends about Bigfoot or about faked moon landings, and in most cases it will be the same. Just because in the modern day explaining reality by delusions went out of fashion instead of making you a shaman or theologians, doesn't mean that they're not having similar psychological explanations.

Ok. But a myth is not a myth is not a myth. Myths are created and serve different purposes in a culture. The discussions aren't about true and false.When I discuss Mormonism with a sociology professor it's not about "Are the Native Americans really ancient Jews?" (the true/false of the doctrine). The discussion is one of the scholars looking at the time (a religious revival happening in America, tales of angels speaking to people become popular) and expecting to see something like Mormonism arising out of the social and religious context of the period lead by a charismatic leader. Same for looking at America after the start of the space race (UfO cults, Scientology, etc. start taking hold). Their are certain expectations within the time and culture that groups will conform to. The Jesus "Myth" doesn't conform so well. It's one thing to say "there were several ideas of what the Messiah would be" (which is true, but there was a popular dominant view) and also placing the whole Christ myth into the Jewish time and culture doesn't work well. To invent a new myth out of nothing (or starting a new one to fulfill the Tanakh) in a short time period claiming Jesus to be a purely mythical divine being (on par with Yaweh) among the dominant expectations of a heavily monotheisitic group like the ancient Jews doesn't sit well with most ancient historians, sociologists, and anthropologists (unless there is a human attached to it).

And in both cases you'll probably find someone making stuff up, or being delusional enough to confuse his own imagination with reality. Whether by tripping balls (a lot of shamans do use psychoactive drugs), or brain damage (a lot of shamans start getting visions and get picked as shaman apprentices after some episode of extreme illness and fever), or whatever.

But it's really orthogonal to the topic of whether that stuff is true or false. Whether I call them delusional fanboys or junkies or shamans, in the end what actually matters for the purpose of having a sound logical inference is whether that can be used as true premises or not.

Invariably the discussion devolves in such red herrings as whether someone was really lying, or it's really that someone else lied to him, or it's a sacred tradition that... is still made up, but it was generations ago. Who cares? If it can't be supported as true, then, for the purpose of establishing the soundness of an argument, who cares exactly what flavour of transmitting a falsehood was involved?

It's like coming to a fraud trial and going, "ah, but did the accused write the proposal on a computer, or on a typewriter?" Who cares? As long as he was selling shares in a non-existent mine, what difference does it make?

B) Yes, some fantastic story may contain real elements, but the way you know that is: corroborating evidence.

E.g., if some tribe has legends of an huge ostrich-like predator bird, and you find bones of such a bird, hmm, maybe it wasn't made up. But if not, there is no reason to assume that something that looks like a collection of made-up fantastic stories is anything but exactly that: some made-up fantastic stories.

Just being able to cherrypick some detail that doesn't sound too miraculous, doesn't mean one should then take that as the truth.

Yes but again the methodology doesn't just rely on "common sense". As we don't always have the best evidence we have to deal with what we have without just dismissing it outright.

Maybe, but then we just went from disagreeing on it being a big game of telephone to agreeing about that after all. As Daffy Duck would say, "was this trip really necessary?"

I'll chalk it up to an over-reaction on my part as the scholarship has many variations and I was probably just balking at the term"telephone" because I took it as a large generalization. I shouldn't have taken that left turn in Albuquerque.

Well, ok, I'll agree there, but there is no indication that the Jesus stories ever got through such a stage. We see them divergin very very quickly even in writing, and the scribes inserting pieces don't even care about breaking the meter in a poem from Paul. If there ever were such a device for preventing distortions, we don't see those guys giving a damn about it.

Furthermore, that wouldn't actually help the case of HJ. What would help the case is if there were lots of witnesses who knew the same story independently, and preferably first hand. If on the other hand, you had some witnesses just repeating a story that was prepared by someone else for easy memorization, then they're not actually witnesses, and they're not independent either. As Ehrman says, if you have 20 guys telling a story but they all copied it from the same guy, then you don't have 20 independent sources, you only have one.

Yes, but again its a case by case basis. Of course it would be great to have more (and better sources). We don't. Again, we have to examine the totality of what we have and examine the "what is" and not the "what ifs".

Except we actually know of such myths that happened within years. E.g., all the miracles of Sabbatai Zevi, or those of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, etc, were happening within WEEKS. The idea that a generation or two wouldn't be enough to make up a messiah is bogus.

And since at this point the discussion usually goes, "yeah, but there was a historical Zevi", the same goes in cases where the myth and the person differ a lot more, and even in cases where the person doesn't actually exist.

E.g., David Reubeni wasn't even a rabbi or AFAIK ever claimed to be a messiah. He was an adventurer and con artist, and he got burned at the stake ultimately just for trying to scam the Holy Roman Emperor out of a huge sum and not knowing when to stop. He was just about as messianic as Victor Lustig, really

Yet soon after his death, some girl has visions of him being the messiah in heavens, and suddenly the urban legends take off about his being a messiah.

So, yeah, you could find a historical Reubeni all right, but he'd be nothing like what you could cherrypick from the messiah stories. He wasn't a rabbi, he didn't preach good stuff (heck, he was a con-man), etc.

So how do people know that they can follow such stuff in Jesus's case?

E.g., there are several stories on Snopes that clearly started as works of fiction, but within mere months they were circulated as real stuff. E.g., my favourite example, the story of the spammer found dead with a can of SPAM shoved down his throat. It didn't take a generation for that to get turned into a supposed real story. Yet you couldn't find a historical spammer Keith James Lawrence, because there is none. He's a fictive character.

So, yes, stories can involve a fictive character, and they can start being turned into supposed true stories in MUCH less than a generation.

Plus, in Jesus's case, there is nothing that requires a real character to invent such miracles about. Those people BELIEVED that Paul's character "Jesus" is real, and wanted to prop up that character. There is nothing that requires a real character in piling up miracles upon him to make him more convincing.

And again, what is the exception and what is the rule. As you point out, real people would appear more often than not involved. What to we expect to see in the culture and time? What does the totality of what we have point to? Making up a messiah is one thing, making up a god is another.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to get off the phone today so I'm gonna have to cut my response short. I don't know how much over the next few days I will be able to participate but I'll try to check in for whatever textbooks and sources you can post. I believe the university library should be able to order any they don't have in stock. I'll look at what you want me to. I can't promise the most timely response and discussion(especially if you post several) but I will get back to you, ok?

 

[davefoc]

FWIW,
I believe that there is an overall consensus here which is masked to a degree by the dialog above. I suggest that the following is true and undisputed:

1. There is less evidence available and of less reliability about a hypothetical historical Jesus than there is for almost any other famous person from antiquity.

2. If an historical Jesus existed, the probable reason that there is no contemporary evidence about his life is that he was not widely known during his lifetime*.

3. The information that has come down to us about a hypothetical Jesus character is separated by time, language and location from the time, language and location of the hypothetical historical Jesus. In addition, some or all of the information that has come down to us about the hypothetical HJ was produced by non-Jewish individuals. In addition, the available information about an HJ is filled with implausible stories, conflicts with other biblical sources and is known to have geographical and historical errors.

4. The uncertainty associated with the historical information about the hypothetical HJ is so great that almost any reasonable theory about the HJ can't be disproved based on available HJ historical information including whether an HJ existed.

There may or may not be a consensus on this but I believe it to be true:
5. Plausible mechanisms exist for the founding of Christianity that do not require an HJ.

I disagree a bit with Hans Munsterman on the issue of whether an HJ existed or not but I believe we agree on all of the above.

I believe what we disagree with is the nature of evidence that can be used to make a guess about the existence of an HJ. HM's position, as I understand it, is that there is no available evidence that is reliable enough to be useful with regard to an HJ. I disagree. There is evidence, but none of it very reliable and none of it could be used to formulate a geometric style proof that an HJ existed. Every piece of evidence for an HJ can be challenged for various plausible reasons. So per force, any conclusion about an HJ is based on guesses about what to accept as reliable and what to reject.

My guess is that there is enough truth in the various pieces of evidence about the HJ that a reasoned guess is possible that he existed. I believe HM disagrees with this. There is not a lot to argue about here. For me the writings of Paul ring true enough that I believe he was talking about a real human being that existed. There are a few bits here and there that lend a little support to my guess, but mostly without the evidence from Paul I would move into the HM camp. I think Paul existed, that the guesses that Paul wrote at least some of what is credited to him are correct and that he was talking about a human being that had existed.

There are other Paul theories and I don't think any of them are disprovable:
1. Paul didn't exist
2. Paul didn't write any of what was credited to him.
3. Paul wasn't talking about a real human being
4. Paul wasn't talking about a real human being that correlated with the Jesus of the gospels.

My guess is just that these theories are wrong.

* There is also the possibility that Jesus was well known during his lifetime but we just don't recognize that individual as Jesus. I think the Eisenman theory is roughly that. It was discussed in one of these HJ threads previously. My own take on it, was that it was unlikely, but plausible. Mostly I thought it was another piece of evidence that what is knowable about an HJ is so minimal that a vast array of theories about an HJ are possible since there is so little hard evidence to invalidate them with.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, just to make it clear, I have no problem with a position that makes a HJ a provisional hypothesis and possible explanation. Same as, dunno, the Hyksos king Sakir-Har. Sure, it's possible.

What ticks me off is when it gets sold as some certitude that nobody doubts. And especially when it comes packaged with the contradicting claim, basically, 'weeell, we can't actually have certainty about anyone, history doesn't work that way... but we're still certain that Jesus existed.'

 

[TimONeill2]

Well, just to make it clear, I have no problem with a position that makes a HJ a provisional hypothesis and possible explanation. Same as, dunno, the Hyksos king Sakir-Har. Sure, it's possible.

What ticks me off is when it gets sold as some certitude that nobody doubts. And especially when it comes packaged with the contradicting claim, basically, 'weeell, we can't actually have certainty about anyone, history doesn't work that way... but we're still certain that Jesus existed.'

Christian apologists may present it as "certain", but I've never come across any critical scholars who do so. At best they operate on the basis that a historical Jesus is the best reading of the evidence. Because it is. In the fifteen or so years that I've been reading mythicist claims and debating mythicists online, I've yet to see them present an alternative reading that isn't absolutely riddled with ad hoc suppositions. Of course it's possible to contrive an alternative reading of the evidence that doesn't involve a historical Jesus, but it always requires constant bolstering with statements that begin (explicitly or implicitly) with "what if ...".

Apart from the problems this poses for any position that wants to stand up to Occam's Razor, we simply have no objective reason to suppose the Jesus stories have their origin with a non-historical figure. There's no mention and not even the faintest hint of an early form of proto-Christianity that believed in a mythic, allegorical, fictional (let alone "fan-fic") or celestial Jesus. And if this is how the whole thing got started, there should be. That alone consigns the whole hypothesis to the level of purely speculative fantasy, not history.

There are reasons for people to entertain these hypotheses, of course, they just aren't objective ones. They emotional and ideological. This is why we have an overwhelming consensus of scholars of all kinds (including many non-Christian, Jewish and atheist ones) on one hand and a two or three mavericks with a gaggle of bloggers and self-published amateurs on the other, all of whom happen to be anti-religious atheists with a clear bias. Whenever we see that kind of mismatched scenario on other questions (climate change, evolution, Holocaust denial) it's wise to be highly sceptical about the guys with the agenda. No difference here.