Evidence for Jesus

[Brainache]

Ok, that I did not know off and I am probably wrong in thinking that there is no evidence of Nazareth in the 1st century.

Just one question to this excavation though. How do they know it is a 1st century city called Nazareth they excavating?
As far as I know, no known official record from that time mentions Nazareth. So is this a case of making the archeological find fit a myth, without much evidence of it being the actual Nazareth that Jesus supposedly grew up in that is being excavated?

I guess you'd have to ask the Archaeologists that question.

I know there was an early reference to Nazareth in Jewish writing as a place where Priestly families relocated after the destruction of Jerusalem and that in the fourth century the Byzantines built a big church there because they thought it was the Nazareth from the Bible. I don't know if they really knew that, or if they just picked a random Galilean village and decided it was the right spot.

 

[HansMustermann]

I'd add that, heck, look at all the Christian saints and martyrs who were invented from scratch or from second hand rumours about something else.

E.g., we're pretty sure that there was no saint Christopher, what with all the impossible details about him and with even his name reflecting his role in the story. Plus that his martyrdom in his story kinda reflects a different saint, with a different name, and from a different place.

E.g., saints Barlaam and Josaphat seem to mirror a story about the alleged historical Buddha.

Now so far someone could say, "sure, and they're still based on real persons, ain't they?" Sure. But the real person isn't who you'd take from the story. If you took, say, the story of Barlaam and Josaphat and decided to cherrypick a minimal version that ought to be historical, you'd be off by over half a millenium and you'd be wrong about what religion was it about too.

E.g., the centurion Longinus. Now that one started just as a generic soldier in the story, that we have no reason to take as based on any particular research into a real person. Then over time he gets a name, a rank, a place of birth, a whole martyrdom story, etc. Pretty much out of whole cloth. It's a fictive person based on no more than a background character in a story.

 

[IanS]

Since we know that new cults sprang up rather frequently around those parts around those days, and that someone seemed to be pronouncing someone the messiah every five minutes, does that make a historical person as the basis for the Jesus myth more or less likely?

If for many centuries it had been common practice for all sorts of religious people in that region to be proclaiming someone or other as their prophesised “messiah", then it probably makes it less likely that any of claims were true.

The fact that such claims were being made, is certainly not "evidence" that the claime were true.

The problem with the Jesus story (amongst numerous fatal problems), is that almost that was claimed of him, had been prophesised directly or indirectly many centuries before throughout the Jewish OT ... which does rather suggest where the Jesus stories came from.

 

[maximara]

As to why it needs a preacher, maybe it doesn't, but it isn't the sort of thing that comes out of a committee. Individual teachers is how these ideas generally arose in those days. In a society like the one we're talking about where the rich were very rich, the poor were destitute and the divide was fairly rigid, bypassing the whole system of Patronage was a radical idea. Radical ideas come from radical Idealists.

I'm going to go all "Hans Musterman" on you and try an analogy: Look at Marxism. It arose in 19th Industrial England, because of socio-economic reasons. It had a few pre-cursors in Utopian Socialism and other thinkers. It may or may not have arisen without Karl Marx, but Marx was the guy who put it all together and whose name we remember.

So maybe Jesus was just part of a tradition, with pre-cursors (John The Baptist etc), competing ideas (Sicarii, armed rebels etc) and contemporary influences (economics, corrupt Temple etc). It makes more sense to me to assume there was a Jewish Peasant Preacher at the heart of it all, than that these specific teachings were invented by an Author in Rome (gMark) who had never been to Judea and who didn't even speak the language.

Actually as the John Frum and similar Cargo cults show this kind of movement can spring up without a clear founder.

You only have to watch James Burke's Connections series to see that the Great Moment hypothesis is more valid then the Great Man one.

Who here knows of Nicolas Appert whose discovery that heat sterilized food netted him 12,000 francs prize in 1809?

How about Thomas Newcomen's steam engine used extensively from 1710 to 1765 when Watt improved the design?

How about the Arc light (first electric light) demonstrated by Sir Humphry Davy in 1802?

How about British scientist Warren de la Rue who put a filament in a vacuum tube in 1840 long before Edison's more famous 1878 bulb?

How about Louis Pasteur's 1877 discovery that a mold known as Penicillium notatum inhibited anthrax? In fact this discovery is indirectly referenced in Paul de Kruif's 1926 Microbe Hunters with the statement "Pasteur gravely announced, "there are high hopes for the cure of disease from this experiment," but that is last you hear of it, for Pasteur was never a man to give the world of science the benefit of studying his failures." More over there was a 1875 paper by John Tyndall to the Royal Society regarding the mold's antibacterial properties.

Many more examples can be found.

 

[TimCallahan]

I'd add that, heck, look at all the Christian saints and martyrs who were invented from scratch or from second hand rumours about something else.

E.g., we're pretty sure that there was no saint Christopher, what with all the impossible details about him and with even his name reflecting his role in the story. Plus that his martyrdom in his story kinda reflects a different saint, with a different name, and from a different place.

E.g., saints Barlaam and Josaphat seem to mirror a story about the alleged historical Buddha.

Now so far someone could say, "sure, and they're still based on real persons, ain't they?" Sure. But the real person isn't who you'd take from the story. If you took, say, the story of Barlaam and Josaphat and decided to cherrypick a minimal version that ought to be historical, you'd be off by over half a millenium and you'd be wrong about what religion was it about too.

E.g., the centurion Longinus. Now that one started just as a generic soldier in the story, that we have no reason to take as based on any particular research into a real person. Then over time he gets a name, a rank, a place of birth, a whole martyrdom story, etc. Pretty much out of whole cloth. It's a fictive person based on no more than a background character in a story.

In fact, the name Longinus is based on longche, a Greek word meaning "lance." The evidence for his existence gets thinner the further one looks into it, since the incident of the soldier spearing Jesus in the side only appears in the gospel of John and is an invention to try to make a statement in the Jewish scriptures into a prophecy about Jesus (Jn. 19:36, 37):

For these things took place that the scripture be fulfilled, "Not a bone of him will be broken." And again, another scripture says, "They shall look on him whom they have pierced."

The scriptures thus "fulfilled" are Ex. 12:46, describing the preparation of the Paschal lamb, and Zech 12:10, a messianic prophecy taken out of context. So, out of the zeal of the author of John to "fulfill" Jewish scripture an incident was created - one not found in the Synoptic Gospels - and out the incident was created a man and, eventually, a saint.

Another saint born of the Passion narrative is St. Dismas, the "good" thief from Luke 23:40 - 43. Again, this is a saint created by cherry-picking, since in Mark and Matthew both thieves revile Jesus. Pilate was also elevated to near sainthood in the process of separating Jesus from being Jewish and blaming the crucifixion.

Finally, there's St. Lazarus. As an actual gospel character, he only appears as the one Jesus raises from the dead in the Gospel of John. However, he is often conflated was Lazarus the beggar, a character from a Parable in Luke.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Finally, there's St. Lazarus. As an actual gospel character, he only appears as the one Jesus raises from the dead in the Gospel of John. However, he is often conflated was Lazarus the beggar, a character from a Parable in Luke.

Wasn't the Wandering Jew also (a) Lazarus? He's my favorite mythical person as his existence is never even stated outright, nor even implied, but is logically necessary to make one of Jesus's offhanded comments technically true.

 

[Craig B]

Wasn't the Wandering Jew also (a) Lazarus? He's my favorite mythical person as his existence is never even stated outright, nor even implied, but is logically necessary to make one of Jesus's offhanded comments technically true.

The WJ is named as Ahasuerus in most sources, which would make him the Persian King Xerxes, as his name is rendered in the (very odd) Book of Esther.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

The WJ is named as Ahasuerus in most sources, which would make him the Persian King Xerxes, as his name is rendered in the (very odd) Book of Esther.

But Xerxes wasn't even Jewish! He was Persian! Besides, we all saw Leonidas cut his cheek with a spear, and he clearly bled, proving he wasn't immortal.

Now I can't help but picture Xerxes of 300 wandering into a typical feudal dirt farming village - fabulous jewelry, dramatic slow motion and all - and trying to just blend in.

 

[jsfisher]

Let's take the prevalence of populist preachers in ancient Jerusalem.

Since we know that new cults sprang up rather frequently around those parts around those days, and that someone seemed to be pronouncing someone the messiah every five minutes, does that make a historical person as the basis for the Jesus myth more or less likely?

Neither more nor less likely. A lie becomes no less a lie when embellished with tidbits from fact.

 

[HansMustermann]

But Xerxes wasn't even Jewish! He was Persian! Besides, we all saw Leonidas cut his cheek with a spear, and he clearly bled, proving he wasn't immortal.

Now I can't help but picture Xerxes of 300 wandering into a typical feudal dirt farming village - fabulous jewelry, dramatic slow motion and all - and trying to just blend in.

Actually, try to picture him walking into town in that naked outfit in a North European winter, at -10C. I think we found the historical Papa Smurf

 

[Craig B]

If for many centuries it had been common practice for all sorts of religious people in that region to be proclaiming someone or other as their prophesised “messiah", then it probably makes it less likely that any of claims were true ...

The question was not, whether it made the claims more likely to be true, but whether it made more likely the proposition that they were made about a historical person. The answer to that is of course Yes. We know that there were many messianic or apocalyptic preachers. We know that there were many people named Jesus. We know of at least one person who was both - Jesus b. Ananias (Yeshua ben Hananiah) though he was not crucified, but killed by a Roman catapult shot during the siege of Jerusalem.

 

[HansMustermann]

However, the fact that something is mundane, still doesn't mean you can simply assume it as true.

As a trivial -- if distasteful -- example some studies point out at an incredible number of men having raped at least once. There are definitely more rapists in the general population than messiah pretenders. Yet if some hallucinating schizophrenic said that his visions say Craig is a rapist, same as Paul found Jesus basically, I'd want more evidence than that. And preferably evidence which can establish a chain of evidence, not just something where at best there might have been a rumour in circulation... except we have no evidence even of that.

Being mundane is not the same thing as being supported.

 

[maximara]

I guess you'd have to ask the Archaeologists that question.

I know there was an early reference to Nazareth in Jewish writing as a place where Priestly families relocated after the destruction of Jerusalem and that in the fourth century the Byzantines built a big church there because they thought it was the Nazareth from the Bible. I don't know if they really knew that, or if they just picked a random Galilean village and decided it was the right spot.

The problem is that from what little exists Nazareth in the required time period appears to have been ridiculously small. More over we are not not sure that the prophecy regarding Nazareth (if such even existed) actually refers to a place. Some scholars suggest the term is derived from Ne·tzer or Nazirite which refer to groups of people not places.

Micah 5:2 (where the prophecy regarding Bethlehem is though to come from) uses Bethlehem in this manner even in the KJV:

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

the NIV translation is more clear:

But you, Bethlehem(A) Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.

There is NOTHING in the OT that shows Bethlehem or Nazareth were places and if they weren't then the whole moving around is to solve a nonexistent problem.

 

[Cavemonster]

However, the fact that something is mundane, still doesn't mean you can simply assume it as true.

As a trivial -- if distasteful -- example some studies point out at an incredible number of men having raped at least once. There are definitely more rapists in the general population than messiah pretenders. Yet if some hallucinating schizophrenic said that his visions say Craig is a rapist, same as Paul found Jesus basically, I'd want more evidence than that. And preferably evidence which can establish a chain of evidence, not just something where at best there might have been a rumour in circulation... except we have no evidence even of that.

Being mundane is not the same thing as being supported.

I've got a bag of candy here, fruit crosses that come in three flavors. Apple, Peach and Lime.

I've just reached in and pulled out a single piece of candy at random, one of the three.

You have three possible hypotheses:

1) The piece I'm holding is Apple.
2) The piece I'm holding is Peach.
3) The piece I'm holding is Lime.

Now if you had access to information about the ratio of different flavors, wouldn't that affect your evaluation of the likelihood of any of those three claims?

Please, for just one moment, answer this question before launching into your opinion on how you think it may or may not apply to a historical Jesus.

 

[jsfisher]

I've got a bag of candy here, fruit crosses that come in three flavors. Apple, Peach and Lime.

I've just reached in and pulled out a single piece of candy at random, one of the three.

You have three possible hypotheses:

1) The piece I'm holding is Apple.
2) The piece I'm holding is Peach.
3) The piece I'm holding is Lime.

Now if you had access to information about the ratio of different flavors, wouldn't that affect your evaluation of the likelihood of any of those three claims?

I will assume we are to take as given that you are holding a piece of candy selected at random from a bag. In that case, knowing the percentage of each flavor in the bag would allow me to deduce the probabilities of you holding a particular piece.

However, that's not what you asked. You asked about assessing each of three possible statements you might make about the piece (presumably with you knowing which piece you actually hold). Knowing the proportions of flavors in the bag isn't useful information (unless, of course, the bag contained none of a flavor you now claim to hold).

The truth of your claim to be holding peach is independent of the likelihood you are holding a peach flavored candy without additional, unwarranted assumptions.

 

[Cavemonster]

I will assume we are to take as given that you are holding a piece of candy selected at random from a bag. In that case, knowing the percentage of each flavor in the bag would allow me to deduce the probabilities of you holding a particular piece.

However, that's not what you asked. You asked about assessing each of three possible statements you might make about the piece (presumably with you knowing which piece you actually hold). Knowing the proportions of flavors in the bag isn't useful information (unless, of course, the bag contained none of a flavor you now claim to hold).

The truth of your claim to be holding peach is independent of the likelihood you are holding a peach flavored candy without additional, unwarranted assumptions.

Let's say that the percentages go like this.

99.99999999999999999999999999999999999% of all the candies manufactured and bagged are Apple. The bag in question was chosen at random. The remaining percentage is plit between the two other flavors.

Are you saying I'd be amiss if I said hypothesis #1 is most likely to be true compared to the other options? If you had that knowledge and someone offered you a bet, put up $1 and win a million if the candy is apple, would you say that you have no idea whether the claim is true?

 

[jsfisher]

Let's say that the percentages go like this.

99.99999999999999999999999999999999999% of all the candies manufactured and bagged are Apple. The bag in question was chosen at random. The remaining percentage is plit between the two other flavors.

You are changing the problem, I see, but ok....

Are you saying I'd be amiss if I said hypothesis #1 is most likely to be true compared to the other options?

That's not quite what you asked in the original post. Well, in fairness, your question was poorly stated and ambiguous, so you could have meant several things, but it strongly implied we were to assess that truth of a statement made by you with full knowledge of what you'd selected.

Yes, I can assess the probabilities of what you actually selected, but that is still not the question before us. You asked about assessing the truth of a statement you made.

If you had that knowledge and someone offered you a bet, put up $1 and win a million if the candy is apple, would you say that you have no idea whether the claim is true?

So, this $1 to $1,000,000 offer came only after the selection and the statement were both made? Or are you again changing the question?

The situation is you picked a single piece of candy out of a bag and you then made a single statement about it. That's one and only one event, never to be repeated Does knowing the proportions of candy in the bag help me assessing the truth of your statement. The answer is no. I know the probabilities of what you could have picked. I do not know the conditional probabilities of what you'd say about your pick.

 

[Cavemonster]

You are changing the problem, I see, but ok....[

The situation is you picked a single piece of candy out of a bag and you then made a single statement about it.
/QUOTE]

I'll ask you to read my posts again.

I never said anything about me making a statement. Not at all.

I think you're inventing things as you try to imagine the connection to an historical Jesus.

 

[jsfisher]

I'll ask you to read my posts again.

I never said anything about me making a statement. Not at all.

As I wrote, your proposition is poorly stated and ambiguous, but let's look:

Now if you had access to information about the ratio of different flavors, wouldn't that affect your evaluation of the likelihood of any of those three claims?

So, yes, you did. A claim would be a statement, and the only reasonable party to be making the statement would be the one holding the candy. (It remains ambiguous whether we are to assess the likelihood of which claim you'd make or likelihood of whichever claim you'd make being true. I went with the latter, but either way, the contents of the bag are irrelevant as long as at least one of each flavor were originally present.)

If you had intended something much simpler, like say for example the likelihood of which candy you'd selected, then your post should have been much, much simpler, without the baggage of hypotheses, claims and all the rest of the muddled text in your post.

I think you're inventing things as you try to imagine the connection to an historical Jesus.

You continue to make unwarranted assumptions.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

You're still missing the rhetorical sleight of hand that's key to this whole enterprise: regardless of its flavor properties, the candy exists.