What counts as a historical Jesus?

[tsig]

That's what crucifixion was all about. It was considered the worst possible form of execution and was reserved for pirates, escaped slaves and for rebels against the Empire.

So he didn't follow his own preaching about rendering unto Caesar.

 

[TimONeill2]

Mostly I'm prepared to agree to disagree with the faith that you have that it is possible to derive reliable information out of the NT gospels

It's hardly "faith". When we find elements in an early tradition - eg in gMark - that the later traditions have to work hard to modify to make them fit their developing ideas about Jesus, this is an indicator of historicity. gMark has Jesus being baptised by John the Baptist and seems to depict Jesus becoming Yahweh's anointed one at that point. But gMatt has Jesus as Messiah since his birth, which makes the idea that Yahweh's anointed needed to have his sins removed by a lesser prophet a bit problematic. So he inserts a bit of dialogue in his version of the story he takes from gMark (there is no dialogue in the original) where John objects saying "'I need to be baptised by you, and yet you come to me?' "(Matt 3:14) and Jesus reassures him that " it is proper for us to do this". By the time we get to gJohn, things are different again. That gospel's writer had an even more elevated idea of Jesus, depicting him as having a heavenly pre-existence with Yahweh before he was manifested as man on earth. So he depicts Jesus interacting with John the Baptist, but his version removes the awkward baptism element altogether, depicting John baptising other people and then pointing out Jesus and declaring him the Messiah (John 1:29-33)

The baptism story or something like it is one of the very few elements that is in all four of the gospels. What's interesting here is while all four handle it differently, they all leave this encounter between Jesus and John the Baptist at the very start of his career in the beginning of their stories, even though it was slightly awkward because it makes Jesus subordinate to John or at least junior to him. This seems to be because this encounter happened and was a significant part of the traditions about Jesus, so it couldn't be wholly excluded.

The study of very early Christian history is like other ancient history study
There is a huge difference. People that are studied from ancient history were usually famous in their own time. Usually there is no doubt that they existed and they did things that had to be done by somebody so that even if they didn't exist somebody did the acts attributed to them.

Jesus is a tricky historical subject precisely because he became famous after his death as the sect that was based on him became more prominent, certainly. But this doesn't make him markedly different to various other people who were briefly, locally famous and who we only know about from much later mentions. If anyone was so motivated they could apply a similar level of hyperscepticism about the existence of all the other Jewish prophets and Messiahs of the time, including the three I mentioned in my last reply to you. After all, they are (like Jesus) only attested later in Josephus and he could never have met most or all of them. But it seems that people are only motivated to apply that level of scepticism to Jesus, for some strange reason. I'm also always intrigued by how most people who insist Jesus didn't exist are happy to accept that John the Baptist did, purely on the basis of a mention in Josephus.

It is likely that Jesus did nothing that made him particularly famous in his own time and we have no corroboration outside the NT that most of the things reported in the NT happened. Stuff written well after his death by people separated by language, distance and time from a hypothetical Jesus character are particularly unreliable sources when there is no way to corroborate their claims and their claims are made as part of an effort to promote a new religion.

Ancient historians deal with sources that are heavily biased and that have supernatural elements in them all the time. If they didn't they would have very little to work with. Yes, teasing out historical information from the gospels is difficult and yes, any conclusions are subjective and provisional. But you could say that about conclusions garnered from all kinds of ancient texts. Try getting historical information out of Fifth Century panegyrics sometime and you'll see what I mean.

The NT is largely fictional
You seem to be raising some kind of semantic point that I don't get on this. The birth narrative is generally believed to be complete fiction. All the supernatural events didn't happen. At the least the long passages that purportedly contain Jesus speeches are likely to be fictional given the inability of people to record speeches. Where the gospels conflict with each other at most only one is accurate. Some of the passages contain conversations that the author couldn't possibly have overheard. Every aspect of the trial narrative is suspect. There are conflicts with geography. The genealogy stuff is almost certainly made up. The stuff about the twelve apostles is probably fictional. There is not much left of the gospels after all the probably false material is removed and given that, it seems like characterizing them as largely fictional would be correct by any normal meaning of that expression.

I'd agree with all that, apart from the Twelve (Paul refers to them and this seems to be a very clear element in the oldest traditions). But this is another problem I have with the hypersceptical/mythicist mindset - a kind of weird "all of nothing" absolutism which is almost fundamentalist. "If x, y and z is not historical then none of it is!" But, as I show with my baptism example above, the reality is more complex than that.

There are only a few things I would say can be stated about Jesus by an objective historian with any degree of confidence: (i) he existed (ii) he was a Jewish preacher-prophet in the apocalyptic tradition who preached the coming End Times and kingship of Yahweh, (iii) he was baptised by another such preacher, John the Baptist (iv) he annoyed both the Temple priesthood and the Romans and was arrested at Passover in Jerusalem and (v) he was crucified for sedition against Rome. Even if we agree and accept on all the "fictional" elements above (that's not quite the right word, but anyway), there are good reasons for accepting these five elements in the story are historical.

Interestingly, if we take the obvious later interpolations out of Josephus' passage about Jesus in Antiquities XVIII (eg "he was the Messiah"), the passage we get pretty much details the five points above.

 

[TimONeill2]

So he didn't follow his own preaching about rendering unto Caesar.

There are various elements in the gospels which are there purely to distance him from anti-Roman sedition. That seems to be one of them.

Though he may have said something like that, since there is a strongly repeated theme in his reported preaching that said a lot of things that people were very concerned about and argued over were trivial, since the end of the world was coming and coming very soon.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

But this is another problem I have with the hypersceptical/mythicist mindset - a kind of weird "all of nothing" absolutism which is almost fundamentalist. "If x, y and z is not historical then none of it is!" But, as I show with my baptism example above, the reality is more complex than that.

Actually, it's not all or nothing, it's basically an induction. In fact, all the arguments that, for example, Ehrman presents for what kind of documents the historians want, are at their heart inductive reasoning.

But in the case you cite it's simply a case that if a source was telling BS in 90% of the things you can check, then a simple induction says that for one thing you can't check, you can take a baseline of 90% of that being BS too. And if a document was telling BS about every single event that we can check or have an informed opinion that it didn't happen, well, then you really don't have much reason to take the rest as true just because you want to believe it.

Basically if an email from Nigeria was mentioning a non-existent bank, a non-existent royal family, etc, induction says that probably the widow it mentions is fake too.

Edit: Or in simpler terms, induction can be illustrated via the story of the boy who cried wolf. If some guy cried wolf 10 times, and 10 times there was no wolf, then when he does it the 11'th time, what kind of probability you can go by, as an estimate of how good a source he is about those wolf attacks? Well, at best he has 1 to 10 odds of being correct.

Now simple induction is very fallible -- and as I was saying earlier, useless for long reasoning chains -- but it's at least a valid mode of reasoning, if that's the best you can do. Whereas just wanting to believe everything that can't be disproven isn't even that, it's just wishful thinking.

Just for the record, we can actually do better than even simple induction, though, via Bayes, and that COULD theoretically change probabilities from that baseline radically, but generally for religious texts it tends to make it worse, because we know that basically every religion we can actually know about is one big ball of lies. The probability that a text is telling the truth CONDITIONAL of the fact that it's a religious text, is actually lower than the baseline probability that a random text is telling the truth. In fact, from what we know of the religions recent enough to check, the probability of anything in them being solid fact is practically nil.

In fact we can check that successful religious figures like, say, L Ron Hubbard HAVE lied about the non-miraculous stuff too. Some were just liars like L Ron Hubbard or Joseph Smith, some were crazy like Charles Manson or Koresh, etc, but the fact is that even mundane events and claims that are part of their message are anywhere between lies and filtered through their crazy. E.g., the existence of some ancient tribes certainly isn't impossible or miraculous, but Joseph Smith made it up. E.g., a naval incident involving L Ron Hubbard isn't particularly miraculous, but his version SEVERELY contradicts the official army report. E.g., the existence of some lyrics about an upcoming racial war isn't miraculous or particularly implausible -- heck, there probably are dozen of bands who sung about that -- but we know that the ones in the BEATLES that Charles Manson claimed, just aren't there. Etc.

At any rate, now you know why those darned mythicists don't trust the rest of the text. In a nutshell, because we have some understanding of probabilities, no matter how flawed.

 

[tsig]

There are various elements in the gospels which are there purely to distance him from anti-Roman sedition. That seems to be one of them.

Though he may have said something like that, since there is a strongly repeated theme in his reported preaching that said a lot of things that people were very concerned about and argued over were trivial, since the end of the world was coming and coming very soon.

So we can toss the gospels in the trash because Jesus didn't really say any of that stuff?

 

[maximara]

And Paul's earlier accounts are based on ... ?

An earlier would be messiah that was crucified. Knohl and Wise have suggested that such a earlier figure was the inspiration for Jesus' teachings

Knohl, Israel (Author), David Maisel (Translator) (2002) The Messiah before Jesus: The Suffering Servant of the Dead Sea Scrolls University of California Press


In fact there is a bit of wonkiness regarding Paul and the Gospels Jesus that points to this. Paul converted somewhere between 31-36 CE. ("Paul, St" Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005) The Gospels Jesus started his ministry after John the Baptist was executed.

We know from Flavius Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews Book XVIII that John the Baptist was executed no earlier than the twentieth year of the reign of Tiberius or 34 CE (that is when Philip II, Herodias' original husband died)

It is well known that John talks of three Passovers (John 2:13; 6:4; 11:55).

We also know that Pontius Pilate was recalled to Rome in 36 CE. If the Gospels are reasonably accurate, Jesus could only have been crucified 36 CE.

Now you have another major problem. As Saul, Paul is implied to have persecuted Christians ie followers of the crucified and risen Jesus for years.

But how is that possible if Gospel Jesus couldn't have been crucified any earlier then 36 CE? How do you have Paul converting to Christianity before (31-35 CE) the key event (the crucifixion and rising of it founder) even happens?

The best Occam Razor solution is the one Wells currently presents: Paul's Jesus and one the Gospels talk about are two different Jesuses.

The more you dig into all the historical event the more and more improbable the Gospel Account becomes.

 

[Stone]

So he didn't follow his own preaching about rendering unto Caesar.

Are you trying to whitewash the typical ways of all Empires? You're writing as if the Romans' executing Jesus was based on what he really said rather than on typically paranoid imperial habits that undoubtedly executed the innocent along with the guilty.

Fact: Empires don't like unrest of any sort. If Jesus attracted special notice for whatever reason, he was already toast, not because of anything specific from Jesus but because of the habits of every Empire that's ever been and ever will be.

Your remark implies no Empire has ever had a miscarriage of justice. That's beyond absurd.

Stone

 

[maximara]

I disagree a bit with the above. TimONeill2 is focusing on the issue of Nazareth because that is the most active sub topic going. It doesn't mean that he is ignoring other topics because he doesn't have evidence to support other aspects of his claim.

The whole Nazareth issue as a weak one in any case. The now defunct Jesus police site while very pro Historical Jesus threw out the whole idea that Jesus was in any way connected with the town Nazareth.

"From another point of view, there is a wealth of evidence that Nazareth did not even exist at the time of Jesus as it is described in the New Testament. It may have been a tiny spot where transient Arabs established tent cities or where people lived in "wretched caves", but it certainly wasn't a City that supported a sizable population and a synagogue" (Common errors: Lived in Nazareth)


"If Nazareth didn’t exist as the town described in the gospels, and if the only connection between Jesus and Nazareth was a false translation, where might Jesus have called home? A careful reading of the Gospel of Mark indicates that Jesus’ hometown was Capernaunm not Nazareth. He notes “When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home…” (2:1). Later the Gospel says that “He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue…” (6:1). Given that Nazareth, if it existed at all, was too small to host a synagogue, how could Nazareth have been his hometown? Capernaum, on the other hand, had a “sizable synagogue” (Asimov p. 820; Sanders, p. 103), and there is some archeological evidence for that fact (Loffreda, 1985; Wilson, 1992)." (Common errors: Lived in Nazareth)

You will notice that TimONeill2 has been avoiding the whole John Frum example like the plague because he can't challenge it.

 

[maximara]

I know you said something like this earlier. The problem with it with regards to this thread is that most of the people participating in this thread, including perhaps even TimONeill2, would be in the Christ myth camp if the Christ myth theory is defined as you do.

This is NOT how I define the Christ myth theory but how John Robertson (1901), Albert Schweitzer (1912, 1931), Herbert George Wood (1934) C.H. Dodd, (1938), Archibald Robertson (1946), the 1982 International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J, and Ian Howard. Marshall (2004) define the Christ Myth ie nonhistorical theory.


"I especially wanted to explain late Jewish eschatology more thoroughly and to discuss the works of John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, James George Frazer, Arthur Drews, and others, who contested the historical existence of Jesus. It is not difficult to pretend that Jesus never lived. The attempt to prove it, however, invariably produces the opposite conclusion. (Schweitzer, Albert 1931 Out of my life and thought: an autobiography pg 125)

"My theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth" (Frazer, Sir James George (1913) The golden bough: a study in magic and religion, Volume 9 pg 412)

"All that can rationally be claimed is that a teacher or teachers named Jesus, or several differently named teachers called Messiahs, may have Messianically uttered some of these teachings at various periods..." (Robertson, J. M Christianity and mythology (1910)

"[John] Robertson is prepared to concede the possibility of an historical Jesus, perhaps more than one, having contributed something to the Gospel story." (Archibald Robertson, Jesus: Myth or History?, 1946)

"But the sociological fashion reflected in the rise of Formgeschichte leads colour to Christ-myth theories and indeed to all theories which regard Jesus as an historical but insignificant figure." (Wood, Herbert George (1934) Christianity and the nature of history, MacMillan (New York, Cambridge, [Eng.] : The University Press pg 40)

"This view (Christ Myth theory) states that the story of Jesus [as opposed to the man himself] is a piece of mythology, possessing no more substantial claims to historical fact than the old Greek or Norse stories of gods and heroes..." (1982 International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J)

Not MY definitions but those going over nearly 100 years.

 

[davefoc]

An earlier would be messiah that was crucified. Knohl and Wise have suggested that such a earlier figure was the inspiration for Jesus' teachings

Knohl, Israel (Author), David Maisel (Translator) (2002) The Messiah before Jesus: The Suffering Servant of the Dead Sea Scrolls University of California Press


In fact there is a bit of wonkiness regarding Paul and the Gospels Jesus that points to this. Paul converted somewhere between 31-36 CE. ("Paul, St" Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005) The Gospels Jesus started his ministry after John the Baptist was executed.

We know from Flavius Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews Book XVIII that John the Baptist was executed no earlier than the twentieth year of the reign of Tiberius or 34 CE (that is when Philip II, Herodias' original husband died)

It is well known that John talks of three Passovers (John 2:13; 6:4; 11:55).

We also know that Pontius Pilate was recalled to Rome in 36 CE. If the Gospels are reasonably accurate, Jesus could only have been crucified 36 CE.

Now you have another major problem. As Saul, Paul is implied to have persecuted Christians ie followers of the crucified and risen Jesus for years.

But how is that possible if Gospel Jesus couldn't have been crucified any earlier then 36 CE? How do you have Paul converting to Christianity before (31-35 CE) the key event (the crucifixion and rising of it founder) even happens?

The best Occam Razor solution is the one Wells currently presents: Paul's Jesus and one the Gospels talk about are two different Jesuses.

The more you dig into all the historical event the more and more improbable the Gospel Account becomes.

This is interesting and seems to be part of the general difficulties associated with dating the crucifixion and the death of JTB that I mentioned earlier.

Summary of Josephus/Gospel conflict on the date of JTB's death from this source: http://www.josephus.org/JohnTBaptist.htm
Based on a variety of arguments Josephus seems to put the death of JTB at about 36 CE. This is somewhat after the generally accepted dates for the death of Jesus and as you noted it is after the generally accepted dates for the conversion of Paul. And this dating seriously conflicts with NT accounts that put JTB's death before that of Jesus.

The same source discusses a paper by Saulnier that attempts to reconcile Josephus and the Gospels. The author of the article I linked to doesn't think that Saulnier was successful with his attempts at a reconciliation.

So what to make of all this?

For me, it is just one more fact supporting what I already know about this issue. There is almost no reliable information about the earliest phase of Christianity. There just aren't good solid data points that can be used to limit the range of plausible speculation so there is an infinite variety of theories that could be right. In this case:
1. Maybe every single aspect of the early Christian origin story is false in the NT. That is, there is no JTB, no Jesus, no James, no Peter, no Mary. The whole thing was made up and even the Josephus mentions of JTB were later interpolations (there is at least one article on the web that argues that the Josephus writings on JTB are interpolations). Since the various authors were just creating fiction it is not unexpected that there would be serious conflicts between the different early authors.
2. Maybe there is no actual conflict here and the dates can be reconciled. The people attempting to do the dating just made mistakes.
3. Maybe your two Jesus theory is correct.
4. Maybe this is just a routine mess up by the Gospel authors and the JTB death happened but the JTB/Jesus interactions didn't.

I am sure there are many more possibilities than the ones I listed above. Can this issue be resolved to the point that a probable resolution can be identified? I doubt it.


One argument here is that even if the Gospels have messed up on this, the most significant underpinning of the argument that an HJ existed is the letters of Paul that are believed to be authentic. This kind of issue supports the notion that the Gospels are unreliable, but this is already an accepted fact. This conflict doesn't undermine the argument that Paul's letters provide reasonably good evidence for the existence of an HJ.

 

[davefoc]

...

Not MY definitions but those going over nearly 100 years.

I didn't mean to dispute that your definition of what the Christ Myth theory was right or that it wasn't supported by others.

My point was that with your definition everybody participating in this thread believes that the Christ Myth theory is correct. So there wouldn't be much to debate if that was the issue. I think, using your terminology, the issue in this thread is which Christ Myth view is correct. My cut at the positions of the people taking part in this thread:
1. It is probable to certain that an HJ existed.
2. It is more likely than not that an HJ existed but it is plausible he didn't.
3. The data regarding an HJ is too unreliable to justify any particular judgment as to whether he existed or not
4. It is more likely than not than an HJ didn't exist but it is plausible that he did.

I'm not sure any people participating in this thread would place themselves in group 4. I think there are at least some people in the three other groups.

There is also a contingent of people that believe the whole issue is unimportant if one assumes that the hypothetical HJ was not a supernatural being. These are the sane people and they just stop by, post their view on this and then leave.

I intended HJ above to refer to an HJ that meets only a few minimal criteria including the fact that the life and death of this particular individual is the character identified as Jesus in Christian belief.

 

[davefoc]

The whole Nazareth issue as a weak one in any case. The now defunct Jesus police site while very pro Historical Jesus threw out the whole idea that Jesus was in any way connected with the town Nazareth.

"From another point of view, there is a wealth of evidence that Nazareth did not even exist at the time of Jesus as it is described in the New Testament. It may have been a tiny spot where transient Arabs established tent cities or where people lived in "wretched caves", but it certainly wasn't a City that supported a sizable population and a synagogue" (Common errors: Lived in Nazareth)


"If Nazareth didn’t exist as the town described in the gospels, and if the only connection between Jesus and Nazareth was a false translation, where might Jesus have called home? A careful reading of the Gospel of Mark indicates that Jesus’ hometown was Capernaunm not Nazareth. He notes “When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home…” (2:1). Later the Gospel says that “He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue…” (6:1). Given that Nazareth, if it existed at all, was too small to host a synagogue, how could Nazareth have been his hometown? Capernaum, on the other hand, had a “sizable synagogue” (Asimov p. 820; Sanders, p. 103), and there is some archeological evidence for that fact (Loffreda, 1985; Wilson, 1992)." (Common errors: Lived in Nazareth)

I suppose I'm missing something here, but isn't this weak evidence that at least gMark has some reliable information? And reliable information in gMark supports the notion that at least some of gMark is true.

You will notice that TimONeill2 has been avoiding the whole John Frum example like the plague because he can't challenge it.

I might be missing something here also, but what is there for TimONeill2 to avoid? Doesn't the John Frum example, along with all the other fictional character analogies just go to the plausibility that there was no HJ. I don't think TimONeill2 disputes that it is plausible that religions can be founded based on false beliefs on the nature of central characters in the religion including even whether the individuals existed.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

The problem though is that Paul is horribly vague about his Jesus, and insists that it was revealed to him through visions, rather than having met or learned anything about Jesus. It actually goes further than just whether gentiles should be circumcised. E.g., in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 we have Paul's mention of the Last Supper, which is usually one argument for HJ, one way or another. But let's read what he says:

23. For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread,

24. and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

25. In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

26. For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.​

But look at what verse 23 says: he is passing to those people what he received from the Lord, not something he learned from other people. Paul either hallucinated the Last Supper or it's one of those delusions he finds in the OT, in much the same way Charles Manson was finding prophecies in Beatles lyrics. It's actually a common kind of delusion in schizophrenia. Not that the hallucination alternative is any better.

What this is an indication (though not proof or anything) of is actually two things:

1. Paul can quote a saying or deed of Jesus when it supports his point. (In this case, that the eucharist isn't a whole free meal.) The idea that he wouldn't repeat what is in whatever he called "gospel" and already gave those people, is false. But in other places he rants and rambles for pages, doing his own hand-waving, although Jesus had already ruled about that point, and a quote would nail it right there. So exactly how much did Paul know about Jesus, after all?

2. It fits with a literal reading of the statement in Galatians 1:11-12 that whatever he's preaching, he got from the Lord, not from people. Here he actually feels a need to say that he got the last supper episode from the Lord. Which in turn poses two problems:

2.A. Exactly how much can one base on the guy's hallucinations? Unless you actually believe in miracles and divine visions, that's not a good source. (Though at the time, they did believe that dreams are routinely prophetic. See for example the first two chapters of Matthew where he even tells you how everyone got those messages from God: in dreams.) Even if let's say Paul did believe that his visions were about an earthly HJ, are one guy's hallucinations or delusions actually evidence about that HJ.

2.B. There is the issue that the gospels describe that Last Supper as fact. Now there's that problem again: if the Gospels are based in fact and witnesses, that means that Paul actually hallucinated an accurate version of an event he never witnessed, and about a guy he never met, down to exactly what that guy did and said and in what sequence. Now again, at the time they'd have no reason to doubt that prophetic dreams and visions do happen, but for a modern skeptic I'd say that that sounds very improbable. So are the Gospels confirmation of that improbability, or does that just tell us that they were writing fan-fic based on Paul there? I'd vote the latter.

Basically think in modern terms: if a guy Tom writes about an event, let's say that Obama rode a horse to the history museum and wiped his ass with the declaration of independence, and we know that that never happened, either because he admits it was a dream, or because it was something he published in The Onion or such. Now 30 years later some other guys Dick and Harry write a biography of Obama which include that event as fact. Would you take it as independent confirmation, or as a sign that they're copying uncritically from Tom?

3. The two Jesuses version also doesn't do much to resolve that. Now it's conceivable that, just like for John Frum, some guy later would take the mantle of the messiah and re-enact what the messiah is said to have done. But it leaves us with a time warp.

Even if Paul preached that episode before 1 Corinthians, which is generally dated 53 to 57 CE, he tells us that as soon as he got his vision he went straight to Arabia and stayed there until he fled Damascus and the governor of king Aretas IV Philopatris. That return can't have been earlier than 37 CE.

So now we'd have Jesus II in Jerusalem in 36 CE enacting something from Paul's vision, even though Paul hasn't yet come back to tell anyone in Jerusalem about it, and wouldn't until at least 37 CE. Surely you can see the problem there.

The Gospels describing that deed being done by Jesus II runs into the problem that now we have a psychic Jesus II, or at least an extraordinarily informed one. Not to mention one who didn't have any reason to exist as a pretender for Paul's messiah, since Paulinity didn't even exist yet in Jerusalem.

So again, it seems to me more like we have evidence of at least one place where the Gospels aren't based on anything a real Jesus did (the first one, a later pretender, or whatever), but are simply writing fan-fic based on Paul.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I suppose I'm missing something here, but isn't this weak evidence that at least gMark has some reliable information? And reliable information in gMark supports the notion that at least some of gMark is true.

Personally I'd say not at all. Fiction also routinely involves real places.

E.g., War And Peace also tells us exactly where Count Bezukhov was when, and it's real places. E.g., he's been in Paris, hence the French form of his name. It doesn't mean that there is anything true in it about the fictive Count Bezukhov, it just means that the author knew of those places.

But generally, even for Mark, you already knew that Mark used the names of a bunch of real places: Jerusalem, Capernaum, Tyre, Sidon, etc. I don't see why there has to be a true story about any event he places in any of them. Especially since in other places he basically makes a hash of the route, when throwing such names around.

 

[davefoc]

...

I do appreciate the fact that you wrote this and I will take a serious look at it tomorrow.

But my point wasn't that Paul's writings were reliable or unambiguous with regard to the the issue of an HJ, but rather they were the best evidence for an HJ, and more data that suggests gMark is unreliable doesn't undermine the argument that Paul's writing provide evidence for the existence of Jesus (although other arguments and evidence might undermine that claim also).

As to issue of whether Maximara's post about Nazareth provided weak evidence in favor of the existence of an HJ.

Maximara suggested that the original gMark probably placed Jesus' town of origin as Capernaunm and not Nazareth. That seems to be more plausible than that it was Nazareth and is consistent with the NT claim that there was a synagog in Jesus' home town. (ETA: at least my gMark credibility meter moved slightly upward after I read this, apparently HM's didn't but I think his gMark credibility meter might be pegged to zero and I'm not sure that it has any freedom to move up).

The fact that the author of gMark may have incorporated the name of a real religious order in his writings suggests at least some details from first century Palestine were making their way into one of the Gospels albeit in a bit of a confused way. That sounds like a weak argument that, probably oral traditions are making their way to the author of gMark which sounds like weak evidence that gMark may have incorporated details in his work that were true about an HJ.

Please understand that I wasn't claiming that this was proof or even strong evidence. I am convinced that neither is available with regard to almost any issue associated with first century Christianity.

 

[Darat]

I didn't mean to dispute that your definition of what the Christ Myth theory was right or that it wasn't supported by others.

My point was that with your definition everybody participating in this thread believes that the Christ Myth theory is correct. So there wouldn't be much to debate if that was the issue. I think, using your terminology, the issue in this thread is which Christ Myth view is correct. My cut at the positions of the people taking part in this thread:
1. It is probable to certain that an HJ existed.
2. It is more likely than not that an HJ existed but it is plausible he didn't.
3. The data regarding an HJ is too unreliable to justify any particular judgment as to whether he existed or not
4. It is more likely than not than an HJ didn't exist but it is plausible that he did.

...snip...

I'll throw in a fifth, which is my position and slightly different to your 3.

5. There is no evidence to indicate that a historical Jesus existed or was necessary for the founding of Christianity.

ETA: By historical I am meaning someone who did and said the stuff attributed to a person in the NT, even if we exclude the supernatural stuff.

ETA1: The bolded part is one of problems I see for those that want there to be a historical Jesus. Personally I don't give a fig whether there was or there wasn't, to me it is merely an interesting titbit of history with no link to what Christianity became or is today since Christianity was and is based on a supernatural character that we know never existed. And even if we could "prove" there was a historical character "Jesus" it does not add a jot of verisimilitude to Christian beliefs, likewise if we could prove there was not a historical character that is also irrelevant to Christian beliefs since we already know Christianity was not based on an actual person.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I do appreciate the fact that you wrote this and I will take a serious look at it tomorrow.

But my point wasn't that Paul's writings were reliable or unambiguous with regard to the the issue of an HJ, but rather they were the best evidence for an HJ, and more data that suggests gMark is unreliable doesn't undermine the argument that Paul's writing provide evidence for the existence of Jesus (although other arguments and evidence might undermine that claim also).

Well, what I was addressing was this: "the most significant underpinning of the argument that an HJ existed is the letters of Paul that are believed to be authentic."

I was just saying that I'm (provisionally) taking them as authentic too, but I'm not sure how much you can take them seriously, given that he even tells you himself that the only detailed thing he ever writes about Jesus came from a hallucination.I can see how back then that kind of evidence was ok -- and even as late as the Renaissance dreams were allowed as evidence in trials: many witches were burned for what some neighbour dreamed, for example -- but nowadays that's not really ok as evidence goes.

And that's kinda the thing: nowadays that kind of evidence is so ludicrious and would get laughed out the door, that we assume nobody back then would start antagonizing the authorities over something he dreamed. But as an illustration of how ok that was seen among the early Christians, Matthew told them that Joseph not only believed the missus is pregnant with God because a dream said so, but then abandons his home and business and everything and goes to Egypt because another dream said the king wants to kill his baby Of course, I'm not taking Matthew as a historian, but it illustrates the point that his audience would not go, "wait, was Joseph frakking retarded?" That kind of taking dreams as evidence was obviously OK for the early Christians.

So even if Paul's letters are authentic, and even granting that he may have believed that Jesus was a real person on Earth, there isn't all that much necessity that he'd base it on more than hallucinations and dreams. So it doesn't IMHO point to a historical Jesus all that strongly.

As to issue of whether Maximara's post about Nazareth provided weak evidence in favor of the existence of an HJ.

Maximara suggested that the original gMark probably placed Jesus' town of origin as Capernaunm and not Nazareth. That seems to be more plausible than that it was Nazareth and is consistent with the NT claim that there was a synagog in Jesus' home town. (ETA: at least my gMark credibility meter moved slightly upward after I read this, apparently HM's didn't but I think his gMark credibility meter might be pegged to zero and I'm not sure that it has any freedom to move up).

I wouldn't say zero, but in the absence of any corroborating evidence for the actual events, it is, shall we say, very low. I'm open to moving it up, if evidence supports it, but at the moment corroborating evidence is pretty much what we don't have.

Plus, there's the issue that essentially the accuracy of the gospels about some Jesus events, and the existence of a Jesus who actually did that, are equivalent. If the gospels are accurate at all about Jesus doing X, Y and Z, then there was a Jesus who did X, Y and Z. And if Jesus actually did X, Y and Z that are mentioned in the gospels, then they are accurate about that. It's an implication in both directions, hence an equivalence.

And if X <=> Y, then an argument that boils down to "if we assume X, then Y" is inherently circular logic. When the question is Y, I can't really base it on assuming an equivalent claim to Y. So even if I didn't particularly have anything against Mark per se, you know, I still can't use the conclusion as a premise. There needs to be something ELSE that supports X, before I could go "therefore Y" without committing a fallacy.

That he wouldn't be wrong about a setting, well, that's at least one less detail to undermine his credibility, but it still doesn't support anything about the events he describes.

Corroborating evidence about the places is IMHO something entirely orthogonal. As I was saying, fiction routinely uses real places. The New York depicted in Spiderman comics or Grand Theft Auto is real and decently accurate, for something that's not a city guide, but the events didn't actually happen. And in Mark's case, ok, I can see why he'd want to place his earthly Jesus in some real earthly places, but I'd like to see something supporting the actual events.

The fact that the author of gMark may have incorporated the name of a real religious order in his writings suggests at least some details from first century Palestine were making their way into one of the Gospels albeit in a bit of a confused way. That sounds like a weak argument that, probably oral traditions are making their way to the author of gMark which sounds like weak evidence that gMark may have incorporated details in his work that were true about an HJ.

It's actually not all that surprising, since for example Luke too had heard of a sect of Nazarenes that was apparently active outside of Judaea too. E.g., in Acts 24:5, this accusation is raised against Paul:

"We have found this man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect."​

(Incidentally it IS the exact same "nazoraios" word that that Matthew tries to justify as a title for Jesus by placing Jesus in Nazareth. And we can be pretty sure that here Paul isn't accused of being a ring-leader of the villagers of Nazareth. So, whatever the case may be in Aramaic or Hebrew, in Greek the sect name was rendered exactly the same.)

It's not really unusual for someone writing historical fiction to incorporate such elements. We know that for example Luke mined Josephus for events to twist into, for example, parables.

Now I suppose that if the Nazarenes were so obscure that Mark would be unlikely to hear about them except in an oral tradition about Jesus, that would make a case for that oral tradition about Jesus. But actually we see Luke use the Nazarenes as something that would not only be known to the governor, but readily apparent as an accusation against Paul. Either Mark or whoever was making up the stories he transcribed, could easily hear about such a sect otherwise.

Please understand that I wasn't claiming that this was proof or even strong evidence. I am convinced that neither is available with regard to almost any issue associated with first century Christianity.

Well, I didn't say you were. I was just commenting a few details there. Exactly how strong a case remains or how strong a case they make, that you can decide for yourself.

 

[davefoc]

Does anybody have any comments on the dating conflict associated with the death of JTB that Maximara and I have mentioned?

This seems like it has the potential to be something that undermines substantially the already shaky credibility of gMark. Perhaps somebody that holds a strong view that an HJ existed could comment on this apparent discrepancy and what impact it might have on the case for an HJ?

 

[davefoc]

I'll throw in a fifth, which is my position and slightly different to your 3.

5. There is no evidence to indicate that a historical Jesus existed or was necessary for the founding of Christianity.

The difference between your view and what I intended for group 3 is subtle. I'm not sure that other group 3 supporters wouldn't also hold your views on this . As the official in charge of this list, I have decided to keep you in group 3. You can of course appeal but as I am also the final arbitrator for appeals about this list, I can't promise you a fair hearing.

ETA: By historical I am meaning someone who did and said the stuff attributed to a person in the NT, even if we exclude the supernatural stuff.

ETA1: The bolded part is one of problems I see for those that want there to be a historical Jesus. Personally I don't give a fig whether there was or there wasn't, to me it is merely an interesting titbit of history with no link to what Christianity became or is today since Christianity was and is based on a supernatural character that we know never existed. And even if we could "prove" there was a historical character "Jesus" it does not add a jot of verisimilitude to Christian beliefs, likewise if we could prove there was not a historical character that is also irrelevant to Christian beliefs since we already know Christianity was not based on an actual person.

I agree pretty much with all of this. Even more significantly for me since I never believed a super-natural Jesus existed, any HJ isn't even a significant player in the history of Christianity. If he existed, he was a guy at the right time and place in history with the right personal history to get adapted by a preexisting religion into their superman. What this means to me is that the search for an HJ is the search for a man that isn't all that significant a player in history and is certainly of less consequence than the effort expended to try to figure out whether he existed or not.

Over the period of our participation in these HJ threads I have pretty much only disagreed a bit with one aspect of your perspective. I think you think it is more important that history from other religions suggests the plausibility of a completely fictional HJ than I do. I accept that you are right that it is plausible in general or even common for the founder character of a religion not to exist but it doesn't mean that it is necessarily true for Christianity. However, I think that the particular aspects of what we know about early Christian history don't rule out the possibility that there wasn't an HJ so we end up at essentially the same place.

 

[Belz...]

Does anybody have any comments on the dating conflict associated with the death of JTB that Maximara and I have mentioned?

Here's one: historians back then sucked.