Evidence for Jesus

[maximara]

OK, but this "Great Moment" concept still requires particular people to arrticulate the ideas. If it hadn't been Newton it might have been Leibniz, if not Columbus, then some other European Sailor and so on... The time was right, the general ideas were floating around, but someone still had to voice them.

It is clear that you do not really understand the "Great Moment" theory.

"The times make the man...This is history as sociology; societies change according to large mass movements, and those movements throw up 'leaders' and 'founding fathers' and 'inventors of the steam engine' who just happen to fit the requirements of the times." (GURPS Infinite Worlds pg 98)

This explains why inventions and discoveries made "too early" (Julius Edgar Lilienfeld's 1927 and Dr. Oskar Heil's 1936 transistors for example) more often then not wind up sitting on the shelf rather than amounting to something.

 

[Brainache]

It is clear that you do not really understand the "Great Moment" theory.

"The times make the man...This is history as sociology; societies change according to large mass movements, and those movements throw up 'leaders' and 'founding fathers' and 'inventors of the steam engine' who just happen to fit the requirements of the times." (GURPS Infinite Worlds pg 98)

This explains why inventions and discoveries made "too early" (Julius Edgar Lilienfeld's 1927 and Dr. Oskar Heil's 1936 transistors for example) more often then not wind up sitting on the shelf rather than amounting to something.

I don't see how anything I wrote contradicts any of that. In fact, "those movements throw up 'leaders' and 'founding fathers' and 'inventors of the steam engine' who just happen to fit the requirements of the times." " Is pretty much exactly what I meant for Jesus and his times.

How this "Great Moments" idea reduces the possibility of an HJ isn't clear to me. Surely it makes an HJ more likely, not less, doesn't it?

 

[maximara]

I don't see how anything I wrote contradicts any of that. In fact, "those movements throw up 'leaders' and 'founding fathers' and 'inventors of the steam engine' who just happen to fit the requirements of the times." " Is pretty much exactly what I meant for Jesus and his times.

How this "Great Moments" idea reduces the possibility of an HJ isn't clear to me. Surely it makes an HJ more likely, not less, doesn't it?

Again we have to go back to what is meant by "Historical Jesus" and where on the huge historical myth spectrum (event may be but slightly colored and the narrative essentially true" or the "a small residuum of truth remains and the narrative is essentially false") we are.

Would a Jesus born c 112 BCE in the small town of Cana, who preached a few words of wisdom to small crowds of no more than 10 people at a time, and died due to being run over by a chariot at the age of 50 fit the bill for a "Historical Jesus"?

Would a Jesus who lived c 100 BC but essentially preached the teachings in the Gospels and was crucified by Alexander Jannaeus count as a "Historical Jesus"?

Candidates for the "historical" King Arthur and Robin Hood have been suggested as much as two centuries away from when the stories place them such as seen with Lucius Artorius Castus and Sir John de Evill (Sire Johannes d'Eyvile in the English of the day) respectively.

So what is wrong with saying Jesus actually lived c 100 BCE?

 

[Brainache]

Again we have to go back to what is meant by "Historical Jesus" and where on the huge historical myth spectrum (event may be but slightly colored and the narrative essentially true" or the "a small residuum of truth remains and the narrative is essentially false") we are.

Would a Jesus born c 112 BCE in the small town of Cana, who preached a few words of wisdom to small crowds of no more than 10 people at a time, and died due to being run over by a chariot at the age of 50 fit the bill for a "Historical Jesus"?

Would a Jesus who lived c 100 BC but essentially preached the teachings in the Gospels and was crucified by Alexander Jannaeus count as a "Historical Jesus"?

Candidates for the "historical" King Arthur and Robin Hood have been suggested as much as two centuries away from when the stories place them such as seen with Lucius Artorius Castus and Sir John de Evill (Sire Johannes d'Eyvile in the English of the day) respectively.

So what is wrong with saying Jesus actually lived c 100 BCE?

I've said elsewhere that the criteria I would need to satisify a claim of HJ would be:
-Lived in early 1st Century Palestine.
-Was associated with John The Baptist.
-Preached about "The Kingdom Of God".
-Was crucified by the Romans.
-Was called Jesus(or whatever the Aramaic version of that name was).

Fairly minimalist really and by some of the definitions I've seen you post before, it might even be called a Mythical Jesus. I think much of the gospel stories are Theological allegories, metaphors or symbolism.

 

[maximara]

I've said elsewhere that the criteria I would need to satisify a claim of HJ would be:
-Lived in early 1st Century Palestine.
-Was associated with John The Baptist.
-Preached about "The Kingdom Of God".
-Was crucified by the Romans.
-Was called Jesus(or whatever the Aramaic version of that name was).

Fairly minimalist really and by some of the definitions I've seen you post before, it might even be called a Mythical Jesus. I think much of the gospel stories are Theological allegories, metaphors or symbolism.

So are you saying if the Jesus in question fails just one of the above criteria he would NOT be a HJ?

What about

-Lived in early 1st Century Palestine.
-Did NOT associate with John The Baptist.
-Did NOT Preach about "The Kingdom Of God".
-Was crucified by the Romans.
-Was called Jesus(or whatever the Aramaic version of that name was)?

Josephus talks about the popularity of John The Baptist and yet no mention of Jesus being associated with him is made--even the Testimonium Flavianum does not make this connection.

As for the "The Kingdom Of God" part when you get right down to it is little different from other beliefs of the time-live according to this guidelines and you will be rewarded. Been there, done that, have a whole warehouse of T-shirts. It wouldn't have been too hard to take some 'Doomday is soon coming repent' message and turn it into something more agreeable to a Roman audience.

 

[Brainache]

So are you saying if the Jesus in question fails just one of the above criteria he would NOT be a HJ?

What about

-Lived in early 1st Century Palestine.
-Did NOT associate with John The Baptist.
-Did NOT Preach about "The Kingdom Of God".
-Was crucified by the Romans.
-Was called Jesus(or whatever the Aramaic version of that name was)?

Probably not. I could accept the NOT associated with JTB part, but the "Kingdom of God" part is essential.

Josephus talks about the popularity of John The Baptist and yet no mention of Jesus being associated with him is made--even the Testimonium Flavianum does not make this connection.

As for the "The Kingdom Of God" part when you get right down to it is little different from other beliefs of the time-live according to this guidelines and you will be rewarded. Been there, done that, have a whole warehouse of T-shirts. It wouldn't have been too hard to take some 'Doomday is soon coming repent' message and turn it into something more agreeable to a Roman audience.

As I understand it the "KoG" thing as preached by Jesus is not "live according to this guidelines and you will be rewarded", it was something a bit more subtle. The idea was that the land belonged to God and men could not own any part of it. They could be tennants and care-takers, but not owners. That men had no right to withold anything from their fellow men, because it all belonged to God. No one can steal from you if you don't own anything, you might as well give a thief extra, he might need it more than you and anyway, it all belongs to God, so you haven't lost anything... Consider the lillies ...etc

It was about changing things in this life, not the afterlife - "On Earth as it is in Heaven", not "Pie in the sky when you die".

It was an attempted side-step of the whole structure of power in Roman Palestine. Don't use their money or buy their products and you won't be paying anything to Ceasar. It was a dismal failure of course, but there were a lot of downtrodden slaves and poor people around to whom the idea was appealing enough to keep going afterwards outside of Judea. Eventually of course it became institutionalised and twisted into what became the state religion of Rome, but by then it was very different from how it started.

This version of HJ brought to you from the works of John Dominic Crossan.

 

[maximara]

Probably not. I could accept the NOT associated with JTB part, but the "Kingdom of God" part is essential.



As I understand it the "KoG" thing as preached by Jesus is not "live according to this guidelines and you will be rewarded", it was something a bit more subtle. The idea was that the land belonged to God and men could not own any part of it. They could be tennants and care-takers, but not owners. That men had no right to withold anything from their fellow men, because it all belonged to God. No one can steal from you if you don't own anything, you might as well give a thief extra, he might need it more than you and anyway, it all belongs to God, so you haven't lost anything... Consider the lillies ...etc

It was about changing things in this life, not the afterlife - "On Earth as it is in Heaven", not "Pie in the sky when you die".

It was an attempted side-step of the whole structure of power in Roman Palestine. Don't use their money or buy their products and you won't be paying anything to Ceasar. It was a dismal failure of course, but there were a lot of downtrodden slaves and poor people around to whom the idea was appealing enough to keep going afterwards outside of Judea. Eventually of course it became institutionalised and twisted into what became the state religion of Rome, but by then it was very different from how it started.

This version of HJ brought to you from the works of John Dominic Crossan.

The problem is that this seems to be yet another version of the issue Albert Schweitzer brought up over 100 years ago where Jesus effectively becomes a historical Tabula rasa--a black slate on to which the researcher puts their own views and beliefs.

Paul, the closest temporally to the teachings of Jesus seems to be talking about rewards in the afterlife and by the time the Gospels get written that idea seems to have kicked into high gear.

 

[catsmate]

That's the Great Moment idea in a nutshell, isn't it?

It isn't that the world sees occasional ubermensch who breathe inspiration and crap brilliance, but that things come together often and chaotically enough that sometimes everything just lines up well enough for whoever's in the room at the time to take one small, intuitive leap. Often enough it happens nearly simultaneously in otherwise independent circumstances. That's how we got Newton and Leibniz. Bell and Gray. Humorous pairing I can't think of at the moment in some field unrelated to the sciences, but upon reflection would totally fit the description.

Not really. It's a mix of individual brilliance and "the right time".
Sometimes it's "calculus time" (or whatever development) and other times an individual pushes the boundary a little.

 

[Brainache]

The problem is that this seems to be yet another version of the issue Albert Schweitzer brought up over 100 years ago where Jesus effectively becomes a historical Tabula rasa--a black slate on to which the researcher puts their own views and beliefs.

Paul, the closest temporally to the teachings of Jesus seems to be talking about rewards in the afterlife and by the time the Gospels get written that idea seems to have kicked into high gear.

Yes, and Paul seems to have been in conflict with the earlier followers over what the rules were in "God's Kingdom". Paul was the guy who turned "Teacher Jesus" into "God Jesus" and told the Gentiles that they didn't have to be strict Jews living in the wilderness to join the club. His version was a lot more appealing to non-Jews. It was Paul's followers who wrote the Gospels, but there seems to still be traces of other influences in some of those books (Matthew and James, mostly)

After about 70AD (or 120AD at the latest) any strict Jewish followers of Jesus as a purely human teacher would have been scattered and scarce. I believe they were called Ebionites and I still think it's not impossible that they were responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls.

 

[Fudbucker]

Sure it can't, because you don't understand what I was saying. What I was saying is that the core claim, equivalent to the Jesus question, is "A cab driver was robbed". Adding "Tuesday" and "New York" narrows it down to a more specific claim, with a lower probability. Even for New York it's lower than WITHOUT constraining it to any particular place in the world.

Now "a cab driver was robbed" is a high probability event, so there is not much reason to doubt that it happened SOMEWHERE. In fact lots of them did, worldwide, on any given day.

But something like "Great Cthulhu rose from deep R'lyeh" is something so improbable, given all you know about the world and the Cthulhu myths, that you can have serious doubts that it actually happened. If nothing else, you'd probably have heard about it if a whole tectonic plate rose to bring R'lyeh up to sea level, causing all the earthquakes and tsunamis you'd expect, and a giant monster started the apocalypse.

Adding such details as whether it was on a Monday or a Tuesday, or whether it was in the Pacific or in the Mediterranean, can't make the core claim more probable.

Yes, it can.

"Core claim": A green marble will be drawn from a unknown bag containing an unknown number of marbles.

Added detail: the bag is full of green marbles.

In Bayesian terms, Pr(X) just skyrocketed with that added detail. In every Bayesian calculus there is a little "k" next to each variable that is often not written. This stands for our background knowledge. Suppose I know about the bag of green marbles, and you don't. For you, Pr(X,k) will be very small, because for all you know, you could get any color marble out of the bag. For me, Pr(X,k) will be quite high, because of my background knowledge.

You can't, basically, go, "oh, there's more room for a sunken city in the Pacific, so he probably did rise." Adding a constraint like exactly WHERE the Great Old One awoke, can't raise the probability that he awoke.

No matter how many real world details you pile up on it, it can't make it more probable that Cthulhu rose at all.

Bad analogy. The existence of an historical Jesus isn't comparable to the existence of Cthulhu.

 

[The Norseman]

Yes, it can.

"Core claim": A green marble will be drawn from a unknown bag containing an unknown number of marbles.

Added detail: the bag is full of green marbles.

In Bayesian terms, Pr(X) just skyrocketed with that added detail. In every Bayesian calculus there is a little "k" next to each variable that is often not written. This stands for our background knowledge. Suppose I know about the bag of green marbles, and you don't. For you, Pr(X,k) will be very small, because for all you know, you could get any color marble out of the bag. For me, Pr(X,k) will be quite high, because of my background knowledge.

Cool! Now where is the bag full of green marbles with regards to an historical Jesus?

 

[Brainache]

Cool! Now where is the bag full of green marbles with regards to an historical Jesus?

That would be a Jerusalem full of apocalyptic preachers.

 

[eight bits]

In Bayesian terms, Pr(X) just skyrocketed with that added detail.

Well, whether you subscript the background information or declare it among the givens, you're courting confusion to compare two different conditional probabilities, but using identical symbols for both. An editor wouldn't let you suppress the notation in such a case, and it isn't what Hans was talking about anyway. Maybe he should be talking about it, but one hitch at a time.

In Bayesian terms, none of the probabilities change during a problem, because they're all conditional or prior (unchanged by evidence, by definition). The probabilities represent somebody's beliefs. The probability that a green marble is drawn given that the bag contains only green marbles is 1. Always, in every problem, throughout the problem.

What changes during your problem is that the "given all green" probability becomes salient, because the truth of its "given" part becomes known. The only thing that changes in a pure Bayes problem is what you know about the situation, and so which probabilities are salient.

That, of course, is conceptual or ideal. Realisitcally, nobody has actual beliefs about the specific effect of learning every possible thing that might be learned. But if I do learn something unexpected, then I can usually "pretend" that I had the needed conditional belief all along.

Hans is talking about priors. Pr(A and B given C) cannot be greater than P(A given C) and cannot be greater than P(B given C), for all A and for all B and for all non-contradictory C. That is a feature of all belief representations, not just probability.

If you present me with an opaque bag of marbles,

~ I believe a green marble might be drawn from it,

~ I believe it might contain only green marbles,

but my confidence that both are true is strictly less than my confidence in the first, and equal to my confidence in the second. In no case can my confidence in both be greater than in either one alone.

What is more relevant to the evaluation of stories, however, is that my confidence that a story is true given that someone told me the story and included a detail can be greater than my confidence in the story given that someone told me the story and didn't mention the detail.

Pr(drawing a green marble given you told me there is a bag and that it's all green) may be greater than Pr(drawing a green marble given you told me there is a bag). Not necessarily, since I may not believe you, but of course it is possible that I would.

Every day, people can and do increase their listeners' confidence by including details, by doing it without contradicting themselves, introducing other anomalies, or including things far-fetched all by themselves. Just visit any trial courtroom and watch the witnesses testify.

But while you're there, notice that even the most successful witness never persuades opposing counsel. Conclude that priors do matter. Spoken or written testimony, unsupported by other evidence, is almost always thin. A sprinkling of local color is unlikely to persuade many people who aren't already persuaded anyway. It just isn't doomed on logical or belief representational grounds

 

[Craig B]

After about 70AD (or 120AD at the latest) any strict Jewish followers of Jesus as a purely human teacher would have been scattered and scarce. I believe they were called Ebionites and I still think it's not impossible that they were responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Ebionites, probably yes. But if they were responsible for the DSS, are you dating these scrolls to the period 30 to 70 AD? Do you have evidence that they were assembled over this short period? (I presume you're not assigning any of them to the period 70 to 120 AD.)

 

[The Norseman]

That would be a Jerusalem full of apocalyptic preachers.

That's still presuming far too much than is in actual evidence.

 

[Fudbucker]

That would be a Jerusalem full of apocalyptic preachers.

And Paul's letters to early Christian community's referencing Jesus. Our background knowledge is such that it's more probable there was an actual person who inspired the early Christian sects.

 

[Fudbucker]

Well, whether you subscript the background information or declare it among the givens, you're courting confusion to compare two different conditional probabilities, but using identical symbols for both. An editor wouldn't let you suppress the notation in such a case, and it isn't what Hans was talking about anyway. Maybe he should be talking about it, but one hitch at a time.

It's the same hypothesis ("Will I pick a green marble out of the bag?"), but the prior probabilities differ because of the different sets of background information. Reconciling priors is necessary. For example, a racist detective may believe "Suspect A (who's black) committed the crime" has a high probability. His non-biased partner might assign a much lower probability. If they don't straighten it out, the evidence won't be interpreted right.

In Hans case, I think he's leaving out important background information: the abundance of messianic prophets at the time, and Paul's letters referencing Jesus. If there were no actual person, it would require torturous explanations that don't fit with our background knowledge of how cults form.

In Bayesian terms, none of the probabilities change during a problem, because they're all conditional or prior (unchanged by evidence, by definition). The probabilities represent somebody's beliefs. The probability that a green marble is drawn given that the bag contains only green marbles is 1. Always, in every problem, throughout the problem.

Pr(X/Y) changes (unless the evidence is unclear), which is the whole point of doing a Bayesian analysis. If you believe all swans are white(X), and you see a white swan (Y), Pr(X/Y) will increase.

 

[HansMustermann]

Yes, it can.

"Core claim": A green marble will be drawn from a unknown bag containing an unknown number of marbles.

Added detail: the bag is full of green marbles.

No, you still don't get it. And it's weird, because I explained it repeatedly already.

When the question is whether I pulled a marble out of a bag at all, or for that matter whether that bag of marbles even exists, adding a detail like their being green, WON'T and CAN'T be evidence that I pulled a marble out of it.

E.g., if I say that you stole one of my cookies, adding the detail that they were chocolate cookies CAN'T and WON'T be evidence that the theft occured at all. It would be, frankly, stupid to handwave that because there's nothing unbelievable about cookies being the chocolate chip kind, it means you're more likely to be a thief.

And the probability that you stole chocolate chip cookies is by necessity a slice of the total probability that you stole any cookies at all. You can't make it go higher by adding such details.

In Bayesian terms, Pr(X) just skyrocketed with that added detail. In every Bayesian calculus there is a little "k" next to each variable that is often not written. This stands for our background knowledge. Suppose I know about the bag of green marbles, and you don't. For you, Pr(X,k) will be very small, because for all you know, you could get any color marble out of the bag. For me, Pr(X,k) will be quite high, because of my background knowledge.

Yes, but if the question is whether someone even pulled a marble at all, or if he even touched the bag at all, your adding that the marbles are green doesn't mean jack squat. IF they had drawn a marble, THEN you could use that information to know what colour it is. But it doesn't work in reverse.

Basically where the question is about P(X), you're offering at worst a P(Y|X) and at best a P(X|Y). Neither is the same as P(X), and even by Bayesian standards, it's nonsense to confuse the two.

The probability for me to get a green marble CONDITIONAL of my drawing a marble at all, CAN'T tell you whether I actually drew a marble at all, nor what's the probability that I drew the marble or even touched the frikken bag at all.

Equally, you could say that if I didn't have sibbling, then I'd be a single child. In fact, the probability to be a single child is by definition 1.0 if one doesn't have sibblings. But you can't use that reasoning as evidence that I actually am a single child. P(X|Y) is indeed 1.0, but P(X) is a lot less than 1.0 even in the general population. And for me it's still false, even though the CONDITIONAL probability is 1.0.

Or IF I were the Wandering Jew, then I'd be at least 2000 years old. In fact, the probability to be over 2000 years old CONDITIONAL that one is the Wandering Jew is 1.0. If we take X="Guy A is over 2000 years old" and Y="Guy A is the wandering jew", then P(X|Y) has to be 1.0 as a matter of definition. Yet we can be pretty sure that P(X) is at least as good as zero .

Or to mangle your swans example, IF my brother's pet bird is a swan, THEN chances are good it's white. But you can't use swans being predominantly white to argue that my brother owns one. P(X|Y) or P(Y|X) are not the same thing as P(X) for swans, just like for anything else. In fact if X="a pet bird is a swan" and Y="a pet bird is a white", then P(Y|X) is probably very high. Not exactly 1.0, but it's up there. Yet P(X) is actually very low. There are overwhelmingly more pet canaries and parrots and whatnot as pets than swans.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

No, you still don't get it. And it's weird, because I explained it repeatedly already.

When the question is whether I pulled a marble out of a bag at all, or for that matter whether that bag of marbles even exists, adding a detail like their being green, WON'T and CAN'T be evidence that I pulled a marble out of it.

E.g., if I say that you stole one of my cookies, adding the detail that they were chocolate cookies CAN'T and WON'T be evidence that the theft occured at all. It would be, frankly, stupid to handwave that because there's nothing unbelievable about cookies being the chocolate chip kind, it means you're more likely to be a thief.

And the probability that you stole chocolate chip cookies is by necessity a slice of the total probability that you stole any cookies at all. You can't make it go higher by adding such details.



Yes, but if the question is whether someone even pulled a marble at all, or if he even touched the bag at all, your adding that the marbles are green doesn't mean jack squat. IF they had drawn a marble, THEN you could use that information to know what colour it is. But it doesn't work in reverse.

Basically where the question is about P(X), you're offering at worst a P(Y|X) and at best a P(X|Y). Neither is the same as P(X), and even by Bayesian standards, it's stupid nonsense to confuse the two.

Is this argument still going on? Now we've just moved onto marbles instead of lawyers?

Let's see if someone making the marble hypothesis can show me some math then. Let's try an example.

Jerry has a bag of 10 marbles. 60% of them are green. Ben says he has a green marble in his pocket.

What is the probability that Ben has a marble that came from Jerry's bag?

If Jerry's bag contained ONLY green marbles by how much would the probability that Ben's marble came from Jerry's bag increase?

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, yeah, that's kinda my point. In fact it's probably an even better example.