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.
We also can view the start of Christianity with the benefit of our modern and documented knowledge of how a religion can start. And what we find is that making it all up out of whole cloth or stealing parts of an already established religion and tacking on new made-up bits is the usual way they do start and also that the central figure of the religion can be completely made-up. (Examples of both happening: Scientology and Mormonism.)
Given this I think there is no reason to start with the hypothesis that Jesus must have had some actual historical foundation i.e. been based on a particular person who lived around 0 BE.
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 ...".
The material we have from the second half of the First Century and the early part of the Second. That includes the texts that tell stories of this "Jesus" and which depict him as living a generation earlier, in the first half of the First Century. We have to account for how these stories arose. The explanation that they arose because there was an early First Century Jewish preacher who formed the basis for the later stories is the most parsimonious and logical explanation. Alternatives can be constructed, but they all require baseless suppositions that don't work as historical analysis. They only work as ad hoc work arounds to keep the alternative explanations from collapsing from their lack of foundation.
This is why the elaborately contrived alternatives we find in this thread and throughout Mythicist material are held in such low regard by scholars.
The question is "How did the stories that we find in the early gospels arise?" So obviously it's those gospel texts and the stories they contain that I'm referring to when I say "the evidence". The explanation that they arose because they are based on an actual First Century preacher (with theological accretions) requires the least number of suppositions. So it's the most likely answer to the question.
Really? You missed all these threads where we've been told that you have to be some CT-er to even have doubts? Or you missed even, yes, critical scholars like Bart Ehrman try to pretend that nobody doubts HJ? Or all the scholars that got quoted in these threads?
But here is Bart Ehrman himself talking smack about how "there's no serious historian that doubts that Jesus existed", only supposedly some crackpot pseudo-historians, even if not in those exact words:
Seems to me like it would have to be pretty damn certain for there to be no doubt. Especially since historians do have SOME room for doubt for other historical figures and especially about what they actually did.
Since that's really where the HJ is invariably leading. It doesn't stop at "well, there were some 100,000 guys with that name and one of them probably got crucified by the Romans even by sheer probabilities." Invariably once that foot is in the door, people somehow just know that the gospels then are absolutely accurate about a lot of other details that only appear half a century or more after Jesus's supposed death. Suddenly they also know what views he had and what he preached, although almost any "serious historian" knows that public speeches were just made up in the ancient world chronicles, because nobody carried a desk and ink and papyrus at all times, to take notes in case some Son Of God decides to give an ad-hoc speech on a hill. They "know" he was a rabbi. They "know" what disciples he had and how many. Etc.
Which is just piling more unsupported BS upon unsupported BS.
And really, historians don't have that kind of certitude about anyone else. If you told someone for example that maybe Socrates didn't give that highly insulting summation of his defense, that sealed his doom, chances are they might even agree with you that yeah, that may have been made by Plato because he's the only one writing it.
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 ...".
This newfangled 'logic' still confuses you, huh? And especially the burden of proof concept.
A "what if" is exactly the right thing to do to poke holes in an inference that
A) is making the positive claim, and thus has the burden of proof, and
B) isn't even valid, much less sound.
The fact is that in fact it's the HJ claim that is riddled with unsupported suppositions that are snuck in as premises. There are implicit or explicit postulates pulled out of the butt about what people wouldn't lie of, about what parts of those propaganda books you should take as the real thing, about what illogical nonsense should be allowed in the inference, about what contradictions in the argument should be allowed (e.g., at the same time he was so well known and there were so many witnesses that the gospel authors couldn't make up stuff, yet at the same time nobody else who could write would even hear of him), what special pleading argument is somehow valid only for Jesus, what implications are ok to follow in reverse although logic doesn't work that way for anything else, etc.
The fact is that it's one big pile of illogical nonsense.
Poking holes in that and showing why those implications don't work that way -- e.g., yes, because a "what if" something different produces the same result -- is exactly the logically correct thing to do, when presented with that big pile of nonsense.
Occam's Razor gets handwaved lots in these discussions, yes. Usually just to show that the HJ proponent doesn't understand Occam's Razor either.
The fact is that according to Occam, the proposition with the least entities wins. And that means real entities, not stuff like "but then Paul would have to lie." The fact is that for example for Santa, if the same can be explained without a real Santa entity, then the one without Santa wins. Meta-entities like "but then both my parents have lied to me" don't count.
For Jesus not only the MJ version has one less HJ entity, it also doesn't need all those witnesses, and people involved in transmitting the tradition accurately, etc. The version without Jesus has LOTS less entities, therefore it's the most Occam conform.
So, yeah, I think I can discount that Occam nonsense too.
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.
That's an argument from ignorance fallacy, so, far from being the objective position, it's the illogical position. You don't get to just reverse the burden of proof.
There is no mention of someone making up Hathor's bloody rampage through Egypt, but we're pretty sure it's a made up allegory for the bloody civil war they just had. There is no mention of Osiris's death and resurrection being made up either, but, meh, we're pretty sure it's just allegory and we even have a good idea what for. Heck, even in modern days, nobody wrote something like "nah, I was there when Joseph Smith made up the whole Book Of Mormon and the angel thing", but we're pretty sure he made it up anyway.
But that's just examples. The bottom line is that assuming the positive unless you get some document that explicitly states the negative, is exactly what the argument from ignorance fallacy is. As any fallacy, it's just broken logic that can be safely ignored.
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.
Ah, the good ol' ad-hominem circumstantial. Because God knows that no such pile of illogical BS isn't complete without the speculations about what may be wrong with those who don't just believe your broken logic
The question is "How did the stories that we find in the early gospels arise?" So obviously it's those gospel texts and the stories they contain that I'm referring to when I say "the evidence". The explanation that they arose because they are based on an actual First Century preacher (with theological accretions) requires the least number of suppositions. So it's the most likely answer to the question.
No it isn't. How did something get made up is exactly of zero relevance to whether a conclusion is supported or not. The only relevant question is whether the conclusion is supported, not why and how would someone make up something.
If Jack tells me that he has an invisible dragon in his garrage, how he came up with that is fully irrelevant to the truth of that proposition. And even if I weren't able to imagine how or why he'd make THAT up, that doesn't mean I should believe him.
That's a little bit circular, when the veracity and indeed evidence value of those texts is what is being doubted in the first place. You can't base the proposition that some parts of the gospel are true, on... exactly the same gospels.
It's as illogical as supporting the proposition X="War And Peace is a historical source for the existence and life of Count Piotr Bezukhov" by showing passages from War And Peace. You can't have the same thing as both the premise an the conclusion.
The explanation that they arose because they are based on an actual First Century preacher (with theological accretions) requires the least number of suppositions. So it's the most likely answer to the question.
No, it isn't. Again, you fail to understand Occam. It doesn't matter that you can massage a big ball of entities into one single supposition. You don't get to count basically 'my theory is true' as a single entity. Vague suppositions don't matter for Occam. Entities do.
A HJ involves a lot of implied entities, which would be involved in having a reliable and uninterrupted chain of evidence between Jesus and the gospel writers. If your theory hinges on Jack hearing it from Jill who heard it from Dick who heard it from Tom who heard it from Harry, all those people are entities involved in making it work.
The question is "How did the stories that we find in the early gospels arise?" So obviously it's those gospel texts and the stories they contain that I'm referring to when I say "the evidence". The explanation that they arose because they are based on an actual First Century preacher (with theological accretions) requires the least number of suppositions. So it's the most likely answer to the question.
Bring on the evidence, I'd say. Looking at the synoptic gospels, I don't think that evidence is very good.
The oldest one is Mark, and it's dated shortly after 70AD. It mentions only two historical figures of note of the time: John the Baptist and Pontius Pilate. It makes a mess of the geography, and its depiction of life in 1st Century Judea is as accurate as "Borat" is of 21st Century Kazakhstan.
Matthew and Luke both have Mark as basis. They correct the egregious errors, and both tack on a - different - nativity story which are roughly in the right time frame to have Jesus crucified under Pilate.
I don't see how this couldn't have simply been invented by Mark. He wanted to give this spiritual Jesus we have from Paul's letters flesh and blood, and did some Dan Brown-level research (i.e., virtually none) to give a backdrop to the story. Pontius Pilate was a known name because he had antagonized the Jews with several insensitivities, leading to riots. John was one of the many preachers in Judea, maybe associated with early roots of the Jesus cult.
Please correct me where I'm wrong, but I don't see it far-fetched that Mark just made up all that stuff.
Really? You missed all these threads where we've been told that you have to be some CT-er to even have doubts? Or you missed even, yes, critical scholars like Bart Ehrman try to pretend that nobody doubts HJ? Or all the scholars that got quoted in these threads?
But here is Bart Ehrman himself talking smack about how "there's no serious historian that doubts that Jesus existed", only supposedly some crackpot pseudo-historians, even if not in those exact words
Sorry, but Ehrman is not saying it's "certain" and makes it very clear in his recent book that he makes no such claim. When he says there are no serious historians who doubt it he is saying, correctly, that they are convinced that a HJ existed, as opposed to doubting that he did. Which is the case. How you managed to leap from that to interpreting that he is saying this makes it "certain" I have no idea.
Seems to me like it would have to be pretty damn certain for there to be no doubt. Especially since historians do have SOME room for doubt for other historical figures and especially about what they actually did.
He didn't say there is NO doubt. You just imagined that. Listen to what he says again.
Since that's really where the HJ is invariably leading. It doesn't stop at "well, there were some 100,000 guys with that name and one of them probably got crucified by the Romans even by sheer probabilities."
It doesn't stop there because the evidence leads well beyond that point. To pretend that the evidence doesn't get us past that statement is simply wrong.
Invariably once that foot is in the door, people somehow just know that the gospels then are absolutely accurate about a lot of other details that only appear half a century or more after Jesus's supposed death.
Again, you're imagining things. "People" don't stop at that statement and then imagine the rest at all.
Suddenly they also know what views he had and what he preached, although almost any "serious historian" knows that public speeches were just made up in the ancient world chronicles, because nobody carried a desk and ink and papyrus at all times, to take notes in case some Son Of God decides to give an ad-hoc speech on a hill. They "know" he was a rabbi. They "know" what disciples he had and how many. Etc.
I can't comment on what any other "people" might decide they "know", but the scholars I read make the point repeatedly that we can't and don't "know" what exactly he preached at all, partially for the very reasons you mention. They do, however, make some arguments for what they feel he may have said, but that's very different to what you're claiming they do above.
Part of the trouble seems to be that you have some trouble dealing with nuance and seem to see everything in stark black and white. All this "certainty" and things that are "known" exist mainly in your imagination, not in the scholarship.
And really, historians don't have that kind of certitude about anyone else.
The fact is that in fact it's the HJ claim that is riddled with unsupported suppositions that are snuck in as premises. There are implicit or explicit postulates pulled out of the butt about what people wouldn't lie of, about what parts of those propaganda books you should take as the real thing, about what illogical nonsense should be allowed in the inference, about what contradictions in the argument should be allowed (e.g., at the same time he was so well known and there were so many witnesses that the gospel authors couldn't make up stuff, yet at the same time nobody else who could write would even hear of him), what special pleading argument is somehow valid only for Jesus, what implications are ok to follow in reverse although logic doesn't work that way for anything else, etc.
Poking holes in that and showing why those implications don't work that way -- e.g., yes, because a "what if" something different produces the same result -- is exactly the logically correct thing to do, when presented with that big pile of nonsense.
The what ifs" I was referring to were the postulated proto-Christianities that mythicist theories always have to invent to "explain" how these stories about a "Jesus" arose. The ones that have no evidential basis at all, left no trace in the historical record but which have to be constructed out of whole cloth to keep any mythicist alternative explanation of the later material from collapsing.
Occam's Razor gets handwaved lots in these discussions, yes. Usually just to show that the HJ proponent doesn't understand Occam's Razor either.
Er, no - William of Occam never said any such thing. The closest thing in his writings to the principle which takes his name is Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate ("Plurality must never be posited without necessity") Bertrand Russell's paraphrase is closest to the original principle: "Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities." This is why an explanation of the later Jesus stories which requires the invention of a proto-Christianity that believed in an allegorical/fictional/celestial/mythic/non-historical Jesus for which we have zero evidence is never going to stack up against one that simply requires a preacher was a regarded as the Messiah and then got crucified. The latter doesn't require wholesale supposition and is supported by actual evidence rather than invented "unknown entities."
So, yeah, I think I can discount that Occam nonsense too.
You could do so by producing some evidence for this invented proto-Christianity. If you can't, Occam's Razor slices and dices the mythicist contrivance.
That's an argument from ignorance fallacy, so, far from being the objective position, it's the illogical position. You don't get to just reverse the burden of proof.
Pardon? So you can hypothesise a proto-Christianity for which you have zero evidence and then claim that you don't need to actually substantiate this piece of wishful thinking because you've just decided that it's "logical"? That's breathtaking. It must be fun to study history that way.
There is no mention of someone making up Hathor's bloody rampage through Egypt, but we're pretty sure it's a made up allegory for the bloody civil war they just had. There is no mention of Osiris's death and resurrection being made up either, but, meh, we're pretty sure it's just allegory and we even have a good idea what for. Heck, even in modern days, nobody wrote something like "nah, I was there when Joseph Smith made up the whole Book Of Mormon and the angel thing", but we're pretty sure he made it up anyway.
We are talking about the mere existence of a Jewish preacher, not the actions of Egyptian gods or a Mormon angel. Analogies need to be apt to actually work.
Irrelevant ones. You can't just conjure up proto-Christianities based on nothing but wishful thinking and declare that they exist simply because otherwise your theory collapses. If this proto-Christianity existed, when did it arise, when did it disappear and why did it do so without anyone noticing or so much as hinting it had existed? You have a lot of work to do if you want to present this idea as a viable alternative. Otherwise your whole argument is based on an "unknown entity" of your invention and Occam's Razor favours the explanation that is based on known entities.
I've already explained that when I was referring to "the evidence" I was talking about the stories we have in the gospels. The question about whether an historical Jesus existed or not is effectively asking "How did these stories in the gospels arise?" The scholarly consensus is that they arose out of theologised memories of a Jewish preacher named Jesus. The mythicists try to present various alternatives that don't involve any such historical figure.
So the answer to the question needs account for this material in the most parsimonious manner possible. "The evidence" is the evidence of what late First Century Christians believed. The question is about how those beliefs arose and whether this involved a historical Jewish preacher or not.
See my reply above. For the third time: "the evidence" I was referring to was the evidence of what the later First Century Christians believed about Jesus. This question is about how those beliefs arose.
I don't see how this couldn't have simply been invented by Mark.
Because the text of gMark has indicators of earlier strata of transmission which shows that he was reworking previous material. Which means he didn't make it all up - he was reshaping something that predated his work.
He wanted to give this spiritual Jesus we have from Paul's letters flesh and blood, and did some Dan Brown-level research (i.e., virtually none) to give a backdrop to the story.
This is the "spiritual Jesus" who was born of a woman, born under Jewish law and was a descendant of King David? And had a brother called James and friend called Cephas who Paul had met personally? Doesn't sound very "spiritual" to me.
I've already explained that when I was referring to "the evidence" I was talking about the stories we have in the gospels. The question about whether an historical Jesus existed or not is effectively asking "How did these stories in the gospels arise?" The scholarly consensus is that they arose out of theologised memories of a Jewish preacher named Jesus. The mythicists try to present various alternatives that don't involve any such historical figure.
So the answer to the question needs account for this material in the most parsimonious manner possible. "The evidence" is the evidence of what late First Century Christians believed. The question is about how those beliefs arose and whether this involved a historical Jewish preacher or not.
However that is not evidence of a historical Jesus. Or rather it is no more evidence for a historical Jesus than the claims made by Joseph Smith, Jr. Or taking as evidence for a historical Mary the claim by a local Bishop that Soubirous saw Mary.
However that is not evidence of a historical Jesus. Or rather it is no more evidence for a historical Jesus than the claims made by Joseph Smith, Jr. Or taking as evidence for a historical Mary the claim by a local Bishop that Soubirous saw Mary.
Again, it's the evidence we need to take account of if we want to try to determine how those stories arose. Just as if we wanted to determine if the claims made by Smith were true, we'd have to start by examining his stories. Or if we'd want to determine the veracity or otherwise of the claims made by Mme. Soubirous, we'd have to start with the accounts of her claims.
The question here is how these stories about this "Jesus" arose. We have to start by examining those stories and work from there if we want to try to come up with the most parsimonious answer to that question.
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.
Never mind Hans and Darat have pretty much dealt with this. Some evidence for a historical Jesus would be nice.
As for Ehrman, I've read Did Jesus Exist? and given the scholarship of some of his previous work I was surprised at how bad it was; riddled with fallacies and dodges, errors and misinformation, ad hominem attacks on his opponents, selectively addressung arguments. Not forgetting basic errors of fact and his strawman slanders of Earl Doherty.
Again I agree, however his claims are the same type of evidence you have presented for there being a historical Jesus, therefore if one is evidence of a historical Jesus than so is the other. If you wish to assert that there is a difference that is special pleading.
Again I agree, however his claims are the same type of evidence you have presented for there being a historical Jesus, therefore if one is evidence of a historical Jesus than so is the other. If you wish to assert that there is a difference that is special pleading.
I'm sure TimONeill2 will answer this himself, but I just wanted to weigh in...
We know that there were people living in that time and place (1st Century Judea) who were preaching against the corruption of the Temple, about the coming of a Messiah and the End Times. We can read their own writings in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Now, (I don't want to side-track this again with talk about Eisenman's theories) I know there is no specific mention of anyone called "Jesus" in the DSS, but a lot of what is in there matches pretty closely with what the Bible says the first followers of Jesus said and did.
Is it really so hard to imagine a Jewish Preacher saying the same stuff as in those scrolls being the basis for the Jesus stories?
See my reply above. For the third time: "the evidence" I was referring to was the evidence of what the later First Century Christians believed about Jesus. This question is about how those beliefs arose.
Okay, so how those early Christians got to the stories that are written down in the Gospels. Well, they had enturbulated thetans. Or, the angel Moroni wrote them on golden plates. They sat around a campfire and told tall stories. Really, there are thousand-and-one ways that people invent stories. And then they got tacked to one mythical Messiah figure.
Because the text of gMark has indicators of earlier strata of transmission which shows that he was reworking previous material. Which means he didn't make it all up - he was reshaping something that predated his work.
This is the "spiritual Jesus" who was born of a woman, born under Jewish law and was a descendant of King David? And had a brother called James and friend called Cephas who Paul had met personally? Doesn't sound very "spiritual" to me.
And in all his letters, that's bloody all that Paul had to say about a Jesus of flesh and blood. In only two letters, if I'm not mistaken (Galatians and Romans). BTW, the "brother" James could well be figuratively, and I can't find a "friend" reference to Cephas, only that he was an apostle, which doesn't say much. But it's the appearance of Jesus that mattered to him, not the flesh-and-blood one.
We know that there were people living in that time and place (1st Century Judea) who were preaching against the corruption of the Temple, about the coming of a Messiah and the End Times. We can read their own writings in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Now, (I don't want to side-track this again with talk about Eisenman's theories) I know there is no specific mention of anyone called "Jesus" in the DSS, but a lot of what is in there matches pretty closely with what the Bible says the first followers of Jesus said and did.
Is it really so hard to imagine a Jewish Preacher saying the same stuff as in those scrolls being the basis for the Jesus stories?
No, it isn't. But what leads you then to deduce there was one single Jewish preacher saying that stuff? Why not a dozen different preachers who got amalgamated into one? Where do you draw the line? If you look at the number of sayings the Jesus Seminar thought authentic, pretty low. And then there's the matter of being nailed to the cross - that seems to me essential for a "historical Jesus".
And the existence of an Historical Jesus doesn't mean YHWH exists or demons or Satan...
No, it isn't. But what leads you then to deduce there was one single Jewish preacher saying that stuff? Why not a dozen different preachers who got amalgamated into one? Where do you draw the line? If you look at the number of sayings the Jesus Seminar thought authentic, pretty low. And then there's the matter of being nailed to the cross - that seems to me essential for a "historical Jesus".
Who amalgamated them? Paul? gMark? James, his (their?) Brother? That he was crucified might explain why more Jews weren't big fans of him.
I think it's likely that James had a bigger following, but that those fans were pretty much wiped out when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and afterwards at Masada.
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