What counts as a historical Jesus?

[IanS]

HJ-ers here are NOT discussing the Gospel Jesus. We are discussing the human teacher Jesus, as found in the extra-Biblicals. To talk about the Gospel Jesus is shameless obfuscation and goal-post-shifting of the most tawdry kind. Typical of many a myther on the web and of most creationists and holocaust denialists as well: Set up a moving target in order not to be pinned down.

Where were you trained?

Stone

Which "extra biblical human teacher Jesus" is this? Who is that supposed to be?

If by referring to "extra-biblical" writing you mean authors such as Josephus and Tacitus, then those authors were not even born until after Jesus was said to have died! So how do you think any of those authors could ever have heard their stories about anyone called Jesus?

Whatever authors like Josephus and Tacitus may have written about Jesus (and apparently it was very little, if anything at all), they could only have been writing about a Jesus figure who had already been publicised & followed for decades by the first Christian worshippers like Paul.

There is not some other second Jesus figure here. There is not one Jesus who was the person written about by Paul and the gospel authors, and another different person who Josephus and Tacitus were writing about.

They are all talking about the same Jesus figure who was being worshipped by Christians from a time fairly early in the 1st century.

Albeit, according to all those sources/authors, whether they were extra biblical" such as Tacitus and Josephus etc., or whether they were the usual biblical sources such as Paul, Mathew, Mark, Luke , John etc., they were all writing about a Jesus figure that none of them had ever known and who they all imagined to have died at some unspecified time in the past.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

What evidence do you have that Eusebius is the author of the TF?

Well, there's the fact that he's the first one to even mention it, despite the fact that generations of Christians had gone over Josephus and would have probably given an arm and a leg for such a slam-dunk confirmation of Jesus.

Take Origen for example. Not only we saw him use it for James, but also in Contra Celsum he uses the paragraph about John The Baptist from Josephus, and generally he mentions Josephus no less than 11 times. So he had the books. Yet he writes long polemics about Jesus where he could have used that testimony, but he never does. In fact, we just saw Origen say that Josephus didn't accept Jesus as the Messiah -- and indeed, he didn't: he thought Vespasian was the foretold Messiah -- yet the TF says point-blank "He was the Messiah." Plus gushes over the wondrous deeds of Jesus, his resurrection, how tens of thousands of things about him were prophecized before, etc. Doesn't that sound to you like it would be reason to at least suspect Josephus to be a crypto-Christian, like early Christians tried to lie about several other historical figures? Yet we don't see Origen or anyone else connect those dots.

He's not the only one. Justin Martyr is a big apologist of Jesus and debates Pagans and Rabbis with various reasons for why they should accept Jesus as the real thing, at least the same as they accept their own gods and heroes. He also references Josephus. Yet he never uses the slam-dunk that would be a confirmation in Josephus that Jesus actually did miracles, or even that he founded the "tribe of Christians".

Irenaeus, same story.

Clement, same story.

It's as if, you know, the paragraph didn't actually exist. And it probably didn't, not the least because even no matter how you un-interpolate it, it still sticks out like a sore thumb on the page.

The first who mentions it is Eusebius, who... inherited his library from Origen, via Pamphilus. Yet he finds a paragraph in the same book that Origen and Pamphilus read and probably copied, that neither of those had found. Hmm...

Plus, there is the issue of the "tribe of Christians". Eusebius is the first ever to refer to Christians as a tribe, something that later apologists would begin to do too. Before that, and most certainly for a Jew like Josephus, a tribe was strictly a genealogy matter, sorta (but not exactly) like a gens for the Romans. So, you know, in a paragraph that is first found by Eusebius, we find a phrasing that seems otherwise coined by Eusebius. What are the odds?

Plus, we know that Eusebius was that kind of liar. Not only all sorts of fabulous martyrdom stories appear and are claimed by him to be from some earlier sources that nobody else seems to have noticed as such evidence, but we know he rewrote his own story of Constantine's Christianity to something completely different.

Even the early Christian historian Socrates Scholasticus damns Eusebius with faint praise, saying that he was "more intent on the rhetorical finish of his composition and the praises of the emperor, than on an accurate statement of facts."

 

[maximara]

HJ-ers here are NOT discussing the Gospel Jesus. We are discussing the human teacher Jesus, as found in the extra-Biblicals. To talk about the Gospel Jesus is shameless obfuscation and goal-post-shifting of the most tawdry kind. Typical of many a myther on the web and of most creationists and holocaust denialists as well: Set up a moving target in order not to be pinned down.

Where were you trained?

Stone

University of Utah the biggest land grant university west of the Mississippi.

The search of Jesus must start somewhere and no matter how much you want to hand wave it the Gospel Jesus is that starting point. But is as the classic Christ Mythers pointed out there is NOTHING to connect that Jesus to any flesh and blood man who might have lived.

As for the definition of Christ Myth I have PROVEN that there version the apologists keep giving us is cherry picked FALSEHOOD as here is what PRO HJ defined it as:

"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)

"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)

"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)


"(John) Robertson is prepared to concede the possibility of an historical Jesus, perhaps more than one, having contributed something to the Gospel story. "A teacher or teachers named Jesus, or several differently named teachers called Messiahs " (of whom many are on record) may have uttered some of the sayings in the Gospels.

1. The Jesus of the Talmud, who was stoned and hanged over a century before the traditional date of the crucifixion, may really have existed and have contributed something to the tradition.

2. An historical Jesus may have "preached a political doctrine subversive of the Roman rule, and . . . thereby met his death "; and Christian writers concerned to conciliate the Romans may have suppressed the facts.
3. Or a Galilean faith-healer with a local reputation may have been slain as a human sacrifice at some time of social tumult; and his story may have got mixed up with the myth.

4.The myth theory is not concerned to deny such a possibility 9ie the idea a flesh and blood Jesus being involved in the Gospel account.] What the myth theory denies is that Christianity can be traced to a personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded." (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)

Wells Jesus Myth and Jesus Legend are Jesus Myth books even through they accept a 1st century Jesus behind the Q gospel! (Eddy and Boyd (2007), The Jesus Legend pp. 24)

These are NOT "our" (ie Christ Myther) definitions but both ours and Pro HJ ones! If you don't like them tough as those is the definitions the Pro HJ side has given you so deal with it.


Furthermore, comparison with creationists and holocaust denialists is a Non sequitur strawman.
Creationism requires the ignoring current understanding of numerous physcial laws--The Christ Myth theory does not have any such requirements. In fact by the standards of normal historical investigation it is the Pro-HJ side that often ignores the rules.

The Holocaust denial comparison is even more insane (as is nearly any comparison with a post Western printing press event). There are literally tons-miles of contemporary records from about any quarter you can think of documenting the Holocaust.

"I commanded Auschwitz until 1 December 1943, and estimate that at least 2,500,000 victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning, and at least another half million succumbed to starvation and disease, making a total dead of about 3,000,000." (Rudolf Höss April 5, 1946--less then a year after the Holocaust ended)

NOTHING even remotely like this exists for Jesus. The only known possible contemporary was Paul (c5 CE – c67 CE) and the best we have from him is he said he meant some guy who claimed to be Jesus brother.

The whole Pro-HJ position comes off as if in 2089 you found that people were claiming Adolf Hitler was assisted every step of the way by his younger brother Edward who also passed himself off as a double of his brother and that it was Edward and not Adolf who spent his final days in the bunker allowing his brother to escape.

There is more evidence for that peace of historical fantasy then there is for Jesus.

 

[maximara]

Which "extra biblical human teacher Jesus" is this? Who is that supposed to be?

If by referring to "extra-biblical" writing you mean authors such as Josephus and Tacitus, then those authors were not even born until after Jesus was said to have died! So how do you think any of those authors could ever have heard their stories about anyone called Jesus?

Whatever authors like Josephus and Tacitus may have written about Jesus (and apparently it was very little, if anything at all), they could only have been writing about a Jesus figure who had already been publicised & followed for decades by the first Christian worshippers like Paul.

There is not some other second Jesus figure here. There is not one Jesus who was the person written about by Paul and the gospel authors, and another different person who Josephus and Tacitus were writing about.

They are all talking about the same Jesus figure who was being worshipped by Christians from a time fairly early in the 1st century.

Actually there is no evidence that Josephus and Tacitus are talking about the same Jesus as Paul because Paul gives so few historical details to put the Jesus he talks about. As HansMustermann pointed out you had Church fathers like Epiphanius of Salamis as late as the 4th century claiming Jesus was a contemporary-successor of Alexander Jannaeus nearly a century and a half before the Gospel Jesus supposedly lived!

You don't and can't do that if the founder's life is well known; its akin to claiming Joseph Smith the founder of the Morman Church lived in the 1700s rather than the 1800s. The fact that Christians were spewing this kind of insanity shows that when Jesus lived was something that varied from sect to sect--which you would NOT see with a well documented founder.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, not just that and not just about Jesus. We see for example that the church supposedly founded by Peter, and led for decades by Peter, very soon thinks that Peter and Cephas were two different persons. You'd think their beloved leader's name would kinda come up sooner or later while a whole gaggle of them were talking to him, and following him, and learning from him.

But yeah, about Jesus within a century, and some of that within decades:

- nobody knows how old he was, they make that up based on numerology and prophecy considerations

- nobody knows when he was born, they make that up based on numerology and prophecy considerations

- nobody knows even if they were following him for a year, or three years, or for a couple of decades, they make that up based on symbolic considerations

- they don't know his birthday, or even year, and yeah, some even get the century wrong, they make that up based on other considerations that would be awesome to be fulfilled that way

- they don't know who his apostles were. Each gospel gives a different list, and later they have to start just postulating that some guy was also called some completely unrelated name, for no reason, and not following any realistic pattern for nicknames. It's like saying that some guy called Robert was called George... how did that happen? And ok, for some of them maybe there is a good story behind it, but would it happen for half the characters? And where is the evidence to base such a joining of characters on?

- they don't know whether he had biological brothers. The idea that maybe James wasn't the biological brother isn't some late medieval Catholic fantasy, but is already argued pro and contra in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

- they don't know where he went. Everyone takes as his journeys a nonsensical hash of the local geography that even apologists like Origen have to conclude that it's just symbolic, not a literal journey, because it makes no sense.

- they don't know on what day he died, although his resurrection is kinda THE most important thing ever for Christianity. Even one of the canon gospels, points at a different day and even year. And Irenaeus doesn't agree even with the decade.

- they don't know what he said. Mark tells us that the accusation that Jesus said to demolish the temple and he'll rebuild it in 3 days was a false testimony at Jesus's trial, John tells us that yes he did say exactly that and even in the temple to a priest in public. Mark tells us of a sorta secret Jesus, John tells us about a Jesus who hardly even talks about anything else than telling everyone he's the messiah. Etc. And even early Christians come up with a multitude of contradicting sayings and parables, and argue which is actually real. E.g., we see even Papias accused of being a moron for picking the wrong ones.

- was Jesus die-hard for keeping the Law, or come to reform it? Well, even the canon gospels make a hash of it, and have him contradict himself all over the place, non-canon sources even more so.

Etc.

That all doesn't paint to me the image of people who actually knew anything about their Jesus.

Even if there actually was one, all information about him seems to be lost very early and everyone ever after just makes up the details. Unless someone believes in divine visions and/or the Holy Spirit giving people accurate information that they never had other sources of, by sheer probabilities it's more likely to make up wrong details than come up with accurate stuff. And even if one believes in getting accurate information from the Holy Spirit, who are the guys that got the real information and which is the gang which weren't on the phone with the Holy Spirit, and how can we tell?

 

[IanS]

Actually there is no evidence that Josephus and Tacitus are talking about the same Jesus as Paul because Paul gives so few historical details to put the Jesus he talks about. As HansMustermann pointed out you had Church fathers like Epiphanius of Salamis as late as the 4th century claiming Jesus was a contemporary-successor of Alexander Jannaeus nearly a century and a half before the Gospel Jesus supposedly lived!

You don't and can't do that if the founder's life is well known; its akin to claiming Joseph Smith the founder of the Morman Church lived in the 1700s rather than the 1800s. The fact that Christians were spewing this kind of insanity shows that when Jesus lived was something that varied from sect to sect--which you would NOT see with a well documented founder.

All that we have from Tacitus and Josephus is whatever was written by Christian copyists from around the 11th century onwards. It's surely obvious that such Christian copyists must have been writing passages that they thought described the one and only Jesus that they knew of.

If there is some evidence that either Josephus or Tacitus ever wrote to say " by the way this "Jesus" person that I'm writing about was not the same person called Jesus who was worshipped by the Christians ", then by all means lets see that evidence?

Whether or not Josephus or Tacitus believed Jesus was a supernatural messiah is entirely irrelevant here. What is relevant, and what as far as I know is obvious and undisputed, is that the Jesus mentioned briefly by Josephus and Tacitus as the one followed by Christians and crucified by Pilate, is supposed to be the same "Jesus" figure as described in the gospels.

To think there is some sort of other Jesus figure causing some weird confusion, seems to me to be (a)an entirely new suggestion, and (b)apparently absurd ... in fact so absurd that I can only think we must all be talking at cross purposes here.

 

[IanS]

Well, not just that and not just about Jesus. We see for example that the church supposedly founded by Peter, and led for decades by Peter, very soon thinks that Peter and Cephas were two different persons. You'd think their beloved leader's name would kinda come up sooner or later while a whole gaggle of them were talking to him, and following him, and learning from him.

But yeah, about Jesus within a century, and some of that within decades:

- nobody knows how old he was, they make that up based on numerology and prophecy considerations

- nobody knows when he was born, they make that up based on numerology and prophecy considerations

- nobody knows even if they were following him for a year, or three years, or for a couple of decades, they make that up based on symbolic considerations

- they don't know his birthday, or even year, and yeah, some even get the century wrong, they make that up based on other considerations that would be awesome to be fulfilled that way

- they don't know who his apostles were. Each gospel gives a different list, and later they have to start just postulating that some guy was also called some completely unrelated name, for no reason, and not following any realistic pattern for nicknames. It's like saying that some guy called Robert was called George... how did that happen? And ok, for some of them maybe there is a good story behind it, but would it happen for half the characters? And where is the evidence to base such a joining of characters on?

- they don't know whether he had biological brothers. The idea that maybe James wasn't the biological brother isn't some late medieval Catholic fantasy, but is already argued pro and contra in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

- they don't know where he went. Everyone takes as his journeys a nonsensical hash of the local geography that even apologists like Origen have to conclude that it's just symbolic, not a literal journey, because it makes no sense.

- they don't know on what day he died, although his resurrection is kinda THE most important thing ever for Christianity. Even one of the canon gospels, points at a different day and even year. And Irenaeus doesn't agree even with the decade.

- they don't know what he said. Mark tells us that the accusation that Jesus said to demolish the temple and he'll rebuild it in 3 days was a false testimony at Jesus's trial, John tells us that yes he did say exactly that and even in the temple to a priest in public. Mark tells us of a sorta secret Jesus, John tells us about a Jesus who hardly even talks about anything else than telling everyone he's the messiah. Etc. And even early Christians come up with a multitude of contradicting sayings and parables, and argue which is actually real. E.g., we see even Papias accused of being a moron for picking the wrong ones.

- was Jesus die-hard for keeping the Law, or come to reform it? Well, even the canon gospels make a hash of it, and have him contradict himself all over the place, non-canon sources even more so.

Etc.

That all doesn't paint to me the image of people who actually knew anything about their Jesus.

Even if there actually was one, all information about him seems to be lost very early and everyone ever after just makes up the details. Unless someone believes in divine visions and/or the Holy Spirit giving people accurate information that they never had other sources of, by sheer probabilities it's more likely to make up wrong details than come up with accurate stuff. And even if one believes in getting accurate information from the Holy Spirit, who are the guys that got the real information and which is the gang which weren't on the phone with the Holy Spirit, and how can we tell?

Oh, absolutely - it certainly appears that Paul and the gospel authors knew very little about any normal earthly life of the person who they worshiped as "Jesus".

But that has nothing at all to do with thinking that Josephus and Tacitus, when they mention a figure called "Jesus", are actually talking about someone who those two authors thought was a completely different person than the Jesus figure worshipped as the messiah by the Christians of that time, does it??

We are not talking about two completely different Jesus people here.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I suppose it would matter, if there was any reason to believe that Tacitus actually had any independent information of Jesus (although he doesn't actually say that the Christ, i.e., messiah that these guys were into was even called Jesus, or was yet another messianic tradition), or that there is any way or sane reason to un-interpolate Josephus so he actually talks about Jesus Christ at all.

All that Tacitus actually is evidence of is that in circa 64 AD there were some Chrestians in Rome that believed in a messiah crucified in Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate, which in turn means during the reign of Tiberius.

He doesn't even say that the Christians were many. The great multitude arrested was upon the testimony of those who confessed. Which for slaves meant: under brutal torture. Which basically meant the poor sod would give you all the names he can think of, just to make the pain stop. You could continue expanding that circle as long as you wanted, by just starting torturing those named, then those they named, and so on. At some point you'd have people confessing to be Chrestians, and confirming whatever you want to hear about Chrestians, and naming other Chrestians without even knowing WTH does that mean.

After that for a while nobody else seems to ever hear anything about Christians (ok, Chrestians) in Rome for the next decades, and Josephus (who would only really get his privileged position as protege of Vespasian a few years later) doesn't seem to have heard anything worth noting about those guys blaming the Jews or one of the governors he demonizes for the death of their messiah.

But at any rate, Tacitus is only evidence that there were Christians in Rome in the 60's. Well, considering that Paul was writing to the Christians in Rome in the 50's and Mark is thought to have written in Rome sometimes in the 70's or later, it doesn't really come as a surprise that there'd be Christians there between those points too.

But whether there was one Jesus, or there was a mash-up done about several Jesuses, or if that Christ was actually even called Jesus? Nope, Tacitus doesn't help us much there.

 

[IanS]

I suppose it would matter, if there was any reason to believe that Tacitus actually had any independent information of Jesus (although he doesn't actually say that the Christ, i.e., messiah that these guys were into was even called Jesus, or was yet another messianic tradition), or that there is any way or sane reason to un-interpolate Josephus so he actually talks about Jesus Christ at all.

All that Tacitus actually is evidence of is that in circa 64 AD there were some Chrestians in Rome that believed in a messiah crucified in Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate, which in turn means during the reign of Tiberius.

He doesn't even say that the Christians were many. The great multitude arrested was upon the testimony of those who confessed. Which for slaves meant: under brutal torture. Which basically meant the poor sod would give you all the names he can think of, just to make the pain stop. You could continue expanding that circle as long as you wanted, by just starting torturing those named, then those they named, and so on. At some point you'd have people confessing to be Chrestians, and confirming whatever you want to hear about Chrestians, and naming other Chrestians without even knowing WTH does that mean.

After that for a while nobody else seems to ever hear anything about Christians (ok, Chrestians) in Rome for the next decades, and Josephus (who would only really get his privileged position as protege of Vespasian a few years later) doesn't seem to have heard anything worth noting about those guys blaming the Jews or one of the governors he demonizes for the death of their messiah.

But at any rate, Tacitus is only evidence that there were Christians in Rome in the 60's. Well, considering that Paul was writing to the Christians in Rome in the 50's and Mark is thought to have written in Rome sometimes in the 70's or later, it doesn't really come as a surprise that there'd be Christians there between those points too.

But whether there was one Jesus, or there was a mash-up done about several Jesuses, or if that Christ was actually even called Jesus? Nope, Tacitus doesn't help us much there.

Well as far as Tacitus is concerned, we really can't say what he ever wrote anyone named "Jesus". Because (apparently) what are always being referred to as the words of Tacitus written around 100AD, are, it appears, actually only the words written by Christian copyists 1000 years after Tacitus had died!

That’s so long after the claimed events, and from such an unreliable source (ie 1000 years of anonymous Christian copying) that it's quite absurd for anyone to claim that we could know what Tacitus might have ever said.

And afaik, the same problem exactly applies to the Christian copies of Josephus.

As far as the possibility that there was more than one "Jesus", or perhaps more realistically the possibility that different early authors were confused about exactly who Jesus was - whilst afaik, that is a new suggestion in respect of Jesus, or at least a new suggestion in this thread, nevertheless I would agree that there are various other characters in the gospel accounts who seem to go by the same or similar names to the extent that early writers appear very confused as to exactly which person it was that they were writing about ...

... to take the figures called "James" for example - Elegard (see my previous refs to his book) spends a couple of pages listing all the various gospel confusions over figures named "James", so I can well believe that early authors, such as the gospel authors really did not know who they were actually calling "James". And the same apparently applies to the figure of "Mary" ... there were apparently numerous different "Mary's" who were getting mixed up with one-another.

But imho, all that shows is how unreliable and confused all of this early Christian writing is.

 

[Bad vibe]

I've seen numerous articles over the years that basically say Biblical scholars have been more interested in moving the dates as far back as possible aiming at a contempory dating clutching any straw to support their already held conviction, that doesn't sound very objective to me. It does seem like some modern scholars are more honest but saddled with a huge amount of baggage from their predecessors. Just my impression.

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

Patience. One thing at a time. And laying out the reasons all scholars accept a First Century date of composition for gMark will take rather more time than it took to write the two sentences you quite above, so please don't say such silly things.

So its argumentum ad populum within Christianity.

 

[maximara]

Whether or not Josephus or Tacitus believed Jesus was a supernatural messiah is entirely irrelevant here. What is relevant, and what as far as I know is obvious and undisputed, is that the Jesus mentioned briefly by Josephus and Tacitus as the one followed by Christians and crucified by Pilate, is supposed to be the same "Jesus" figure as described in the gospels.

To think there is some sort of other Jesus figure causing some weird confusion, seems to me to be (a)an entirely new suggestion, and (b)apparently absurd ... in fact so absurd that I can only think we must all be talking at cross purposes here.

You clearly don't know much about the Christ Myth theory nor have read what I have repeatedly posted about it:

"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))

News Flash here--1910 was 102 years ago so the idea is hardly "new".

Second, the idea is not "apparently absurd" as I has also repeatedly shown with the example of the John Frum of history and the one the cult describes it does happen.

I've noticed that the pro HJ people are either ignoring the John Frum example or latching on small irrelevant parts of my posts--likely because they cannot refute the FACT that John Frum shows the Christ Theory has validity.

The reality is "christ" could be used a a nickname rather than a formal title and outside the Christian community it was used as such.

 

[grahbudd]

I've seen numerous articles over the years that basically say Biblical scholars have been more interested in moving the dates as far back as possible aiming at a contempory dating clutching any straw to support their already held conviction, that doesn't sound very objective to me. It does seem like some modern scholars are more honest but saddled with a huge amount of baggage from their predecessors. Just my impression.

What articles?

 

[maximara]

So its argumentum ad populum within Christianity.

You will notice that TimONeill2 has been avoiding the John Frum example like the plague as it proves the Christ Myth theory idea that there was a preexisting mythology that a later similarly name teacher was plugged into has validity--because it happened.

 

[maximara]

What articles?

Nongbri, Brent (2005) "The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel." Harvard Theological Review 98:23-52. is one I can think of.

"What I have done is to show that any serious consideration of the window of possible dates for P52 must include dates in the later second and early third centuries." (Nongbri pg 48)

 

[grahbudd]

Nongbri, Brent (2005) "The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel." Harvard Theological Review 98:23-52. is one I can think of.

"What I have done is to show that any serious consideration of the window of possible dates for P52 must include dates in the later second and early third centuries." (Nongbri pg 48)

Yes, I've read this article (it's not really 'numerous' but I readily grant it's one!).

The point the author is making is not so much that the dating is 'wrong', but that the 125 date has got sort on entrenched in the literature as 'the date', when in fact, as with all such methods of dating one cannot be anywhere near as precise. I think that's an utterly valid point and many people have taken it on board. From my own field, I see this sort of thing happening the whole time - cross-disciplinary simplifications (in this case from papyrology to biblical criticism).

Conservative workers have - alas! - been sometimes prone to this sort of confirmation bias. But I don't think it's true as a whole for the field. People don't think the gospels are 1st century because they want them to be. Rather, that's simply where the evidence points. I don't think the evidence points to them being 'super' early, like from the 40s or 50s, although they clearly encorporate traditions and texts from this era (I will argue that case for this if requested!).

Nevertheless one can't simply trash the whole field of palaeographic dating just because some people have ignored its limitations. And after all dates can be too late as well as too early! Papyrologists often aim for a 50 year window, but often 100 years is more appropriate. Even so, one can see that there quite a number of per-nicene papyrus witnesses to texts. And this is no surprise as they were being extensively cited as well!

 

[IanS]

You clearly don't know much about the Christ Myth theory nor have read what I have repeatedly posted about it:

"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))

News Flash here--1910 was 102 years ago so the idea is hardly "new".

Second, the idea is not "apparently absurd" as I has also repeatedly shown with the example of the John Frum of history and the one the cult describes it does happen.

.

OK, look I'm not going to waste time nor create diversions by engaging in disputes with those here who, like me, are essentially expressing some scepticism over what seems to be the lack of credible evidence for Jesus.

However, what you have posted above is quite wrong, because it's not actually addressing what I'd written at all! So, just for the record, I'll explain that ...

... when you say " You clearly don't know much about the Christ Myth theory ... " - Look, I do not want to know, and do not need to know anything about any specific "Myth Theories", thanks. Because it's more than sufficient just to recognise that as far as a historical Jesus is concerned, the key fact is that the so-called "evidence" appears to be so weak. And to explain that remark too (so that there really can't be any more confusion), what I'm saying is -

... I don't care what myth theories have been proposed, and I'm not myself either proposing or supporting any myth theory. Because it's completely unnecessary for me (or any sceptic) to waste time on speculation like that. All that I'm saying in this thread, and all that I or any sceptic needs to point out, is that there appears to be little if any genuine independent and credible evidence to show that the Jesus figure of the Bible actually existed ... that's all, and that's all that's needed.


And when you say this -

"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)).

That is (a) quite irrelevant to what I had said, and (b) is nothing more than a quote of one persons opinion, which does make his opinion a fact, especially since he actually only says it "May have been the case".

But the reason that is entirely irrelevant to what I'd written, is because I was never disputing the idea that there may have been various different real preachers who were actually the model upon which the Jesus stories were built. That may or may not be true, and it's probably not something that we can ever establish one way or the other. But that's not relevant to what I said, because -

- what I said was that it's news to me if HJ believers such as Stone (it was his post I had replied to) are really saying that Tacitus was writing about an entirely different person called Jesus, and not about the Jesus who was being described by Paul and the gospel authors.

And to spell that out even further - whilst Tacitus and Josephus themselves had clearly never met, seen or heard the biblical person called Jesus (in fact it seems nobody had ever met, seen or heard that biblical Jesus!), and whilst in that sense they did not actually personally know the individual they were writing about, afaik the HJ supporters both in this thread and everywhere else are certainly treating the biblical Jesus as the same individual who Tacitus and Josephus wrote about. That's all. And afaik, none of the HJ crowd would disagree with that ... they absolutely are saying that Josephus and Tacitus were writing about the same "Jesus" as the figure called "Jesus" in the writing of both Paul and the gospels.

News Flash here--1910 was 102 years ago so the idea is hardly "new".

Second, the idea is not "apparently absurd" as I has also repeatedly shown with the example of the John Frum of history and the one the cult describes it does happen.

.

You are at cross purposes, and talking about a different "idea". What I'm saying is "absurd" is the idea that HJ supporters (such as Stone, who originally floated the idea, probably unintentionally) are actually claiming there were two different figures called "Jesus" and that Tacitus and Josephus were writing about one Jesus (according to Stone, that would be an ordinary mortal non-miraculous "Jesus"), whilst the gospel authors and Paul were writing about some other completely different individual who just also happened to be called "Jesus", but who was actually the miraculous messiah of the bible.

That is, imho, absurd ... it's absurd because HJ believers and so-called "biblical scholars/historians" are, afaik, definitely not claiming that Tacitus and Josephus are writing about a figure called Jesus who was not the same individual called "Jesus" in the gospels.

And finally, just to summarise and emphasise something else about the core basis of these disputes about so-called “myth theories” -

- my position is simply that I do not need to subscribe to any specific myth theory. That’s entirely unnecessary. All that’s necessary, and all that I’m doing, is agreeing with those who have pointed out that the evidence for the existence of Jesus as the sort of individual depicted in the biblical writing (eg the gospels and Paul’s letters), actually appears to be very weak indeed. Such that, it’s quite possible that the Jesus figure worshipped by Christians from the 1st century may never have really existed.

That’s all. And that’s more than enough to raise very serious questions over the way the Christian church, worldwide, has depicted the story of Jesus, and continues to depict Jesus, as a matter of certain historical fact and as if there has never been any doubt his existence.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Actually, the idea of being more than one conceptual Jesus is actually anything but absurd. In fact there are plenty of examples where the person and the myth character loosely based on them are substantially different, to the point of being effectively different people.

E.g., Saint Christopher... the giant guy (depending on the legend, starting at 8 foot and getting to truly giant proportions in some) who carries people across a mighty river, sorta like a human substitute for a ferry, including apparently carrying a toddler Jesus who's travelling on his own for whatever reason. Furthermore, in the eastern Orthodox tradition, he's represented with the head of a dog, sorta like a giant Anubis. (Apparently because some Byzantine scribe mistook Cananeus (Canaanite) for Canineus (canine).) for We're not even talking about some truly obscure figure, but someone who in a lot of places has more representations than ANY religious figure except Jesus and Mary.

Needless to say, there was no frikken historical giant giant guy with a dog's head, and all that. The whole legend seems to be based on nothing more than his name, meaning "Christ bearer." Some people just didn't know wth that guy did, and they made it up from whole cloth. There is no historical incident behind the made up fiction.

There is a possible (if very weak) identification with St Menas... a minor idiot, completely forgettable except for throwing his life away by pretty much asking to be executed as a Christian. Why? Because he supposed dreamed that angels are giving crowns to those martyred and he's going to get an extra crown if he gets himself martyred. As if having a crown or two or three even makes any difference in heavens, anyway. So he gets himself allegedly tortured and killed just to get some fancy headgear in heavens. No, really. You can't make that kind of stuff up, folks. And you know a saint is lame, when they ascribe miraculous stuff to his corpse, but none to him when alive. In effect his corpse was better than he was before his execution.

But... St Menas never did any of the stuff St Christopher supposedly did. He didn't have a dog head. He wasn't even a Canaanite. He didn't carry people across the water. He never claimed to have met a toddler Jesus, nor even seen Jesus directly in that dream of his. He didn't do the whole fanciful journey of St Christopher to find the mightiest king to serve. There isn't even any record or legend of his even being called Christopher when alive, just a speculation that he might have been called Christ-bearer by some after his execution.

Effectively, St Menas and St Christopher are different people. Except the latter isn't a real person. Was St Menas the historical St Christopher? I don't see how, since no details except some incredibly weak connections about his execution match at all between the two. At best someone may have heard of some executed Christ-bearer, and filled in the details with their own fancy starting from the name alone.

Sure, people then thought they were writing about a real St Christ-Bearer, but that's still not the same as writing about St Menas.

Ditto here. The guy X in the gospels and whoever the guy Y may have been that triggered Paul's psychotic episodes, can jolly well be different people. If someone like Tacitus got his information from the Christians, then he's writing about entity X, not about entity Y.

 

[Belz...]

No, really. You can't make that kind of stuff up, folks.

Actually, I thought we were arguing that they were !

 

[grahbudd]

[email protected]

Oh, I know about the synoptics. And yes, I'll cheerfully grant that Mark probably did exist before JM. In fact, whatever JM's mashup looked like, it's almost definitely a derivative of Mark. So we don't need to focus much on Mark's existence, I would say.

I can somewhat see Maximara's point about Irenaeus being the only hard upper limit for some document, but I actually think probabilities or supporting it get incredibly thin for a MARK that's that late. So I'm already agreeing with you about Mark. So that's not what I asked. The question was just if it's supportable that JM quotes exactly from our Gospels, or something else, even if they're related.

Also, I'd say that at least of the problems pretty much disappear if you go four-document hypothesis instead of three-document. Then we have some separate sources for stuff unique to Luke or Matthew, such as the nativity, and possibly a proto-Luke along the way.

IF the actual gospel of Luke wasn't composed yet -- and note again that I'm not a particularly strong proponent of that, but just for the sake of exploring the whole possibility space -- there's nothing to say that all the traditions in Luke started with Luke. They may have existed as an actual document L, or a corpus of church traditions of a particular church, or an oral tradition, or whatever, long before Luke even started on his work.

As for a source that is kinda like Luke, but not quite Luke, that's actually a quite simple proposition. We know that Marcion and his opponents accused each other of adding stuff to Marcion's gospel to get Luke, or conversely of lopping off stuff from Luke to get Marcion's gospel. A possible solution to placing Luke after Marcion is basically to go with the possibility that Luke did copy wholesale from Marcion, save for a couple of key additions of his own.

That said, let's look at that quote, supposedly from Luke. It's very close, but not identical. Using your own citations for a quick eyeball comparison, an article and the verb are missing in Justin's version. Ok, I suppose that's close enough for it to be a scribe error in whatever version Justin is using, but...

... it's also an incredibly common idea, phrased in several ways by thousands of different people. In fact, Justin says it without citations himself in the previous chapter 18 as what the Christians believe, and in On Resurrection he cites Homer as saying yet another different phrasing of the same thing. The idea that with a god, or with the gods, nothing is impossible or conversely everything is possible, was a staple of all religious thought across all recorded human history.

I.e., far from having to come from Luke or Mark, it's something that could come from just about any church tradition. It's just about the kind of thing that you'd expect any new religion or religious apologist to squeeze in SOMEWHERE.

Finally, while somewhat less probable, it's not clear at all that Justin had to get it from Luke as opposed to the other way around, or both getting it from some liturgical formula or such. Luke copies things verbatim in other places, and indeed it's one reason why we take the Q passages in Luke to be the best reconstruction of Q we can get. Why would he change Jesus's saying? Well, there are lots of reasons, but it being already a formalized saying or affirmation in his church is one thing that made other people alter scripture or scripture translations in the last 2000 years. See, the KJV for example.

A further problem is that basically far from being the norm, such identifiable quotes are something like a couple total, and even then they're too simple phrases to really have a good identification. Where Justin mentions more than a brief quip, it starts to differ significantly, and points more at some other mash-up -- possibly a harmonization of Luke and Matthew, or possibly some other kind of mash-up -- than we have. E.g., his nativity record while echoing the general ideas in both Luke and Matthew -- which alone says it wasn't directly from either -- also has some differences from both. In fact, it looks more like someone trying to make a definitive version of the virgin birth prophecy being fulfilled, or someone quoting that, than someone actually working from either Matthew or Luke directly.

Still, either way, I guess you did what was asked of you.

Once again I would urge you to work carefully through the known examples and try to come up with a detailed explanation of JM's quotations that do not rely on the Synoptics or a post synoptic harmony. *

I will however give another example on top of the one I already gave. *Sometimes Justin quotes the same saying twice, but in doing so he gives it once in a form close to Matthews version and once in Luke's version.

For example, in the Dialogue 101.2 he has


or when on earth He acted in the very same manner, and answered to one who addressed Him as' Good Master:' Why callest thou me good? One is good, my Father who is in heaven.

Luke 18:19

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone.

εἶπεν δὲ αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν; οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εἷς [ὁ] θεός.

And in the first apology 16.7

And when a certain man came to Him and said, Good Master, He answered and said, There is none good but God only, who made all things



Matthew 19:17

Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good.

ὁ δὲ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ; εἷς ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαθός· εἰ δὲ θέλεις εἰς τὴν ζωὴν εἰσελθεῖν, τήρει τὰς ἐντολάς.

I can't be bothered (I'm afraid! ) to type in the Greek for Justin as its not available in cut and pastable format but in the apology quotation he has a εἷς ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαθός type form (like in Matthew) and in the dialogue quotation he has a οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εἷς [ὁ] θεός type form as in Luke.

Now both these quotations in JM are surrounded by phrases from the Synoptics, but the point here (there are other examples) is that Justin is usling more than one source here (he tells us elsewhere that these sources are written). And furthermore, one of his sources is here like Matthew and one like Luke, even though he does not quote precisely (in common with broader citation practice at the time, not just in christianity, one might add). And thus it seems that JM is quoting posting post-synoptically: his source is not some proto text that the canonicals were derived from, but rather were either the Synoptics themselves (as here) or a harmony between Matthew and Luke.

Once again I would urge you, if you disagree with this, to come up with a model for Justin's quotations that account for these features (and others) and yet avoid the existence of the synoptic gospels at the time he was writing. I would say, however, that talk of the oddness of his quotations is not enough here: there are heaps of examples and it's possible to analyse them critically. I stand, as ever, willing to be persuaded.