Jesus Christ?

[llwyd]

FWIW, I am in the group that thinks that an HJ probably existed but the two arguments you put forth here are weaker than it might seem.

Well, I admit this is a minor issue academically given the sparse sources, but that's not very exceptional when it comes to ancient history studied in esoteric fragments written in esoteric languages: there can easily be only a handful of real authorities in any given subject. But I don't think this will change the basic empirical situation: there are experts on this issue and they are mostly in agreement. There are no shortcuts, not in the study of the era of Jesus, or, say, in structural mechanics of building collapses - you qualify, you publish, you get accepted, or then not. What else would be there? Internet forums?

As to the case for a composite or totally mythical figure - surely it can be made, but I don't really see where else it could be made but in the academia and within the scientific method as it is applied in historiography. How else? When I said that a historical figure behind the Jesus myth speaks to common sense and Occam, I did say "as a lay person", so to my mind I did not pretty much take any serious position on that question. (Though I have to see I have seen snake oil salesmen in the various WTC battles that have come with exactly the kind of rationalizations about Occam as Hans above...)

To sum things up: I see this as an expert issue and make, very strongly, the argument that in that case, for an amateur and lay person unable to read these manuscripts in the original, the rational way is to trust the current expert consensus. Knowing the gloria that comes when you can establish a new consensus and break genuinely new ground, it would be very difficult to believe that the applied scientific method would not ultimately work on this issue too. I don't really see the fuss at all. This is an internet forum with obviously several one issue lay crusaders - not hugely different, in kind, than the ID or WTC or NWO crowd. So which side should one, rationally, believe in your mind?

 

[davefoc]

Well, I admit this is a minor issue academically given the sparse sources, but that's not very exceptional when it comes to ancient history studied in esoteric fragments written in esoteric languages: there can easily be only a handful of real authorities in any given subject. But I don't think this will change the basic empirical situation: there are experts on this issue and they are mostly in agreement. There are no shortcuts, not in the study of the era of Jesus, or, say, in structural mechanics of building collapses - you qualify, you publish, you get accepted, or then not. What else would be there? Internet forums?
...

I am not sure this is a problem where expertise in esoteric ancient languages leads to much objective evidence.

The bits and pieces of evidence concerning the nature of an HJ have been translated numerous times and there is just nothing in them that provides much reliable evidence about an HJ. There is no doubt that tens of thousands of papers and books have been written about the hypothetical life of an HJ, yet they all share one thing in common. Not a word they contain is based on anything to have been written during the life of a hypothetical HJ.

I disagree that the situation with regards to an HJ is not exceptional when it comes to ancient history. Not only are all the sources concerning the life of a hypothetical HJ separated in language, culture, time and location from his life but either all or almost all the sources have a religious axe to grind. Most of what we think of as ancient history deals with leaders and other people that were fairly well known in their own time that must have existed even if we are wrong about the details. Their existence is corroborated by artifacts and the overall historical knowledge that makes it clear that somebody must have existed that did something similar to what they are believed to have done.

 

[pakeha]

...but I'm sure he produced a miracle or two in his time, if he really existed. So far, there has not been a credible academic challenge to this view (and, no, internet forums don't qualify), but maybe we will have new materials or new interpretations to change this consensus that there really was a historical figure behind the myth. ...

Hi, llwyd.
Are you saying Jesus really was a miracle worker?
And this is the academic consensus?

 

[HansMustermann]

@llwyd:
There also are experts and publications and academic education in:

- homoeopathy (no, seriously, you can learn it in normal universities over here and there are doctors in it and professors in it)
- acupuncture
- chiropractic
- nutritionism (which is actually the BS version; the title for the medical version is actually dietician)
- naturopathy
- spiritism
- dianetics
- animal magnetism
Etc, etc, etc.

The existence of experts or even peer review on a discipline is only worth anything, if it proved that it works and they're actually hardline about applying the scientific method and disallows any kind of alternate knowledge. I.e., that they don't allow one to just 'know' things out of thin air, everything has to be strictly supported by evidence, and everything is actually picked upon and they try to falsify it. Otherwise, it's not even worth the paper they print their crap on.

And most importantly, anything they claim is based on hard evidence that everyone can see and pick on, not on just 'trust the guys with the funny titles'. In fact, if the main (and often only) argument that is used to support a discipline's conclusions is 'just trust them because they're the experts', that's a red flag and a strong indication that it might actually be as bogus as chiropractic and spiritism. The real science disciplines let their data and valid reasoning do the supporting, not reach for the title as proof of being right, like even Ehrman does in various interviews.

As long as the bible studies field does none of that proper scientific stuff, and is in fact all about pretending that you can somehow 'know' that stuff is true in some ancient fanfic just because it isn't disproven, then, no, it doesn't qualify. I don't care how many experts it has, there is no amount of that which can be a substitute for EVIDENCE, nor any amount that would allow one to be MORE sure because they have LESS evidence than any other field.

I.e., the 'just trust the experts' nonsense is just as bogus as the last few times you trotted it out.

 

[llwyd]

Hi, llwyd.
Are you saying Jesus really was a miracle worker?
And this is the academic consensus?

Well, not real miracles, of course.

Hans, I already know what you think of the study of history, you don't really need to repeat your views. Let's just agree to disagree.

 

[Kirk]

Okay, so I think that there is a consensus (at least among skeptics) that there was nothing at all written about Jesus during his supposed actual life. What is the closet writting to his life in years afterwards and was it even someone who knew him personally?

 

[eight bits]

Okay, so I think that there is a consensus (at least among skeptics) that there was nothing at all written about Jesus during his supposed actual life. What is the closet writting to his life in years afterwards and was it even someone who knew him personally?

The earliest writing that survives as separate works appears to be six or seven letters of Paul, which are often dated to the 50's or early 60's. Paul did not know Jesus personally, but rather had visions. Paul said he interacted with the Jerusalem Apostles, that is, people who reported that they had known Jesus both in the flesh and afterwards.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, eight bits already gave the short and skinny of it, but just to make it clear, though:

1. Incidentally Paul doesn't really say he had visions, he says he had revelations. The whole vision on the way to Damascus and all is from Acts not from Paul, and there are enough scholars who don't take Acts very seriously. We don't really know what Paul's revelations involved. They could be visions, and it's pretty plausible to take that version. But they also could mean he found Jesus in OT phrases out of context, or he just had a moment where his cognitive dissonance resolved to the idea that the messiah had already come, or whatever. We don't really know what happened there.

2. Paul does say he met a bunch of apostles, but he has over 500 apostles at one point, and never says that those knew Jesus alive either. It's pretty clear, I'd say, that for Paul "apostolos" meant exactly what the normal Greek meaning of the word is: an envoy. I suppose in a religious context, it would mean proselytizers.

That incidentally is why we call the 12 by the name of apostles. The orthodoxy formed later had them sent by Jesus to spread the word, i.e., they're his envoys.

We connect "apostle" to those 12 because for us it's a specialized loanword that is only used for those, and it's never used for anything else. Sorta like if I was telling you about the Sputnik, you'd know which one I mean. But at the time Paul was writing that, any envoy was a "apostolos". That was just the normal word for envoy.

Maybe they did know Jesus before his crucifixion. Maybe they didn't.

All that Paul says to connect them with any kind of Jesus is that the risen Jesus revealed himself to all those 512+ guys. Incidentally IIRC he uses the same word as for his own revelation, which didn't involve knowing Jesus before. So here again, it's not clear WTH happened there. Did a bunch of guys all get an ergot LSD-type trip and hallucingate Jesus? Were they a gang who too found Jesus just in the OT? (Would be consistent with their not having anything to add or correct in Paul's version.) Or did they lie to Paul about actually seeing a dead guy crawling from the tomb? Or what?

3. Even after staying with Peter for 2 weeks, Paul still insists that what he preaches comes from his revelations, and explicitly not something he was taught by any man.

incidentally Peter also is never taken by Paul to be an authority on Jesus, like you would treat the best buddy of Jesus and your best witness to whatever he actually said. Paul's Peter is just another guy who is never given any special qualifications, and Paul even finds it normal to lecture Peter on what being a Christian involves. Paul isn't learning from Peter, he's teaching Peter, whether Peter wants it or not.

Paul also insists that those apostles didn't have anything to add or correct to his version, which sounds unlikely for a gang that supposedly included Jesus's best buddy and Jesus's biological brother. Unless one believes in actual divine visions, there's no way Paul's revelation could have actually been that exact.

So I'd say that even if he did learn anything about a real Jesus from Peter and the gang, Paul feels that he can just ignore it and give primacy to his revelations. He sure isn't relaying it to his congregation.

So even if there was a real Jesus, there is a good chance that basically Paul robbed us of any information about him.

4. Paul says that he preached the same thing even before he actually met Peter and the gang. In fact, he explicitly says that he didn't go meet anyone, but buggered off to Arabia and preached there for at least 3 years. One can ask WTH did he preach there?

5. All that is somewhat unimportant anyway, since Paul doesn't actually tell us much about his Jesus. Pretty much the only thing he ever quotes jesus on, is the Last Supper. That's it. Outside of that, Paul is strangely avoiding to mention ANY saying, parable, incident, or anything at all about Jesus. Which is weird, since he writes 20-page letters about Jesus, and yet he never actually talks about Jesus. Even when, according to the gospels, Jesus had already ruled about something that Paul wastes a dozen pages handwaving, and a simple "Jesus said so" would have solved the issue, Paul doesn't actually do that.

Now I could dive into the various possibilities and implications of that alone, but for now let's just say this: yeah, Paul technically writes about Jesus some 20 years after the supposed crucifixion, but he doesn't actually write almost anything about Jesus. So as a semi-contemporary source for a historical Jesus, Paul pretty much isn't one.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

1. Incidentally Paul doesn't really say he had visions, he says he had revelations. The whole vision on the way to Damascus and all is from Acts not from Paul, and there are enough scholars who don't take Acts very seriously. We don't really know what Paul's revelations involved. They could be visions, and it's pretty plausible to take that version. But they also could mean he found Jesus in OT phrases out of context, or he just had a moment where his cognitive dissonance resolved to the idea that the messiah had already come, or whatever. We don't really know what happened there.

I thought it was generally agreed to be the last one. Transcendental flashes of pure out-of-the-blue realization was what all the Gnostic cults in the area at the time were based around, weren't they? In the cases where biblical figures have real visions, the way today's televangelists say "Jaysus done came ta me in a dream, mah bruthuhs," they're always highly symbolic and inscrutable, e.g. Jacob's Ladder, or King Whats-his-name's cows, or Revelations.

 

[eight bits]

Hans

That's all very interesting about the Road to Damascus, and so on. However, when I said Paul had visions, I was relying on the six or seven survivng letters of Paul, the literature that I was pointing Kirk toward, in answer to his questions about the earliest writings.

For the visual quality of the relationship Paul described, see 1 Corinthians 15: 3-8, "Christ died ... after that ... he appeared to me," and of course in the same letter, the famous plaint 9: 1, "... Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our lord?..."

Paul doesn't say that there are 500 apostles. That incident, too, is in the 15: 3-8 inventory of appearances, specifically at verse 6, "After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep." Nothing about apostles.

As to the term apostle, knowing Jesus before the crucifixion is not an element of that status. However, Paul is exceptional among the first generation leaders in not having that attributed to him. He knows it, too. That's why he complains "Am I not an apostle?" I'm pretty sure he wasn't the first to question his status.

When I used the term "Jerusalem apostles," and their report about knowing Jesus in the flesh, I was thinking of Galatians, especially 1: 19 where James is referred to as "the brother of the Lord," and 2: 9 where James' working relationship with Cephas (Simon Peter) and John is described.

Further, since Paul uses a conventional eucharistic institution narrative (1 Corinthians 11: 23-26), I think it is a fair inference that the Jeursalem leaders presented themselves to Paul as the "you" that Jesus is quoted as addressing in that set piece, which was an incident during his natural life. Paul would also plausibly have had some background information as a one-time persecutor of the sect, an activity he acknowledges in 1 Corinthians 15: 9.

 

[HansMustermann]

@Beelzebuddy
Well,

A) I'm at least trying not to take sides this time, but present the information as it is

B) what's 'accepted' is a whole other issue. The hallucination version is probably the most accepted among atheists in my limited and anecdotal experience, with epilepsy probably being the leading explanation there. And if you ask a die-hard fundie, you might find they actually believe it's 100% accurate that Jesus spoke to Paul and dictated to him a gospel so accurate that nobody could find any fault with it.

@Eight Bits
Well, we could have whole threads on those topics, and actually it's happened repeatedly before. Let's just say it's not that clear.

E.g., precisely BECAUSE he counts himself as those who have 'seen' the lord, and is therefore an apostle, I have my doubts that it necessarily means the Jerusalem gang had 'seen' Jesus in flesh. What counted for Paul as seeing Jesus, could count for those too.

E.g., "brother of the Lord" was actually not very clear at all, given that Paul uses "brothers" even for his congregation. And it's not just to me, but it wasn't clear even to the early Christians. In fact, the James leading the Jerusalem church in Acts is very clearly NOT a biological brother of Jesus at all. And Catholic theologians to this day take it as a different James. So there is room for debate there, I should say.

E.g., sure, he has a complex about not being taken seriously as an apostle, but that doesn't necessarily have to mean anything like that. Just the fact that he's the new guy and those in the established church logically out-rank him, would be enough to make him defensive of his status.

E.g., about the visual relationship, well, that's actually the least supportable if you look at the Koine Greek original (yeah, we run into that again). Even in English we use "to see" metaphorically, e.g., "have you seen the light, brother?". and "horao" in Greek was even more ambiguous than "to see" in English. It also meant to perceive, or to experience, to discern, etc. It was heavily used in the sense of to see with the mind, or perceive inwardly, and so on.

When they wanted to mean more mechanical vision, they used for example "eido", not "horao". Yeah, they actually had more than one verb for to see. And "horao" is the least literally used.

Don't get me wrong, it could also mean simple visual perception, but it's nowhere NEAR as clear as you'd think from the English translation. Paul somehow "saw" Jesus with his mind, but that can mean anything from an actual vision to just non-visually realizing that the saviour had already come.

ETA: mind you, I'm perfectly ok with a hallucinating Paul. In fact, my most plausible explanation for all he writes is that he was a paranoid schizophrenic. I'm just saying I can't really exclude just a bad case of cognitive dissonance, though.

 

[halleyscomet]

Did we really get this far into the thread without a reference to "The God Who Wasn't There"?

It's an interesting film that gives you a lot of starting points for more research.

 

[maximara]

max



Believe whatever you like. Characterize arguments you dislike however you wish.

Nevertheless, the black-letter fact is as follows.



That is what appears in his Panarion. That's what Epiphanius taught. Epiphanius did not write differently in section 29, but rather he wrote something that becomes grammatically unclear when it is removed from the sentence in which it appears. That is all.

And yet we have this:

"More astonishing still is the widespread Jewish and Jewish-Christian tradition, attested in Epiphanius, the Talmud, and the Toledoth Jescji (dependent on second-century Jewish-Christian gospel), that Jesus was born about 100 BCE and was crucified under Alexander Jannaeus! " Price, Robert (2003) Incredible Shrinking Son of Man pg 40)

"Both of the passages from Epiphanius are highly significant in terms of placing the nativity of Jesus back in the days of Alexander Jannaeus and Alexandra-Salome..." (Thomas, Michael (2011) Jesus 100 B.C. - Page 78)

"Perahia's pupil, relying on the support of Epiphanius, who sets the birth of Jesus in the reign of Alexander (Jannaeus) and Alexandra, that is, in the time of Ben Perahia or Ben Tabai." (Efrón, Joshua (1987) Studies on the Hasmonean Period - Brill Academic Pub Page 158)

"For, Epiphanius in the fourth century actually traces the pedigree of his Jesus the Christ to Pandira, who was the father of that Jehoshua who lived and died at least a century too soon to be the Christ of our Canonical Gospels." (Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna (1960) Collected writings, Volume 8 Philosophical Research Society.

Furthermore, Mead's book is accepted as a valid reference in The Historical Jesus: Five Views a 2009 Christian work edited by James K. Beilby, Paul R. Eddy and printed by InterVarsity Press

Four scholars on both sides of the Christ Myth theory and they ALL say the same thing--that Epiphanius put Jesus as living during the time of Alexander (Jannaeus). It is not what I believe but what the scholars on both sides of this argument say and all the ones I found agree that Epiphanius put Jesus as living during the time of Alexander (Jannaeus).

 

[Craig B]

@maximara

Are you really and seriously offering us Helena Blavatsky's ideas as representing authentic scholarship? A perusal of her biography indicates that she was either a charlatan or insane.

 

[HansMustermann]

I dunno, Maximara... I still think that Epiphanius's text is more authoritative than any scholarly interpretation of it. And in the meantime it seems to me like the text just makes a hash of the argument that would put Jesus in 70 BC, as it does of most other arguments.

His argument about the continuity of succession would indeed require a Jesus in 70 BC or earlier, but it seems clear that elsewhere he didn't believe that. I.e., it seems more like his continuity of succession argument is just broken, rather than implying anything else.

Epiphanius doesn't seem to be particularly good at history, nor for that matter at propaganda. He's a bleating one-track-minded zealot, self-confessedly working off second hand rumours, plus he's got to stretch or even manufacture heresies to fit the number he chose for biblical considerations.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Is there enough true evidence that this person ever existed at all? If so, what is it?

Certain historical figures cast very little doubt of their existence (actions attributed to them notwithstanding). What are the odds that anything closely resembling the portrayal by the Jews in the New Testament actually lived?

Try asking a True Believer, a Christian, about any other religion's "founder". They will, in most cases, dismiss it as mere myth, or something made up by person or persons unknown.

 

[Craig B]

Try asking a True Believer, a Christian, about any other religion's "founder". They will, in most cases, dismiss it as mere myth, or something made up by person or persons unknown.

I don't think that's true at least as regards the two biggest religions. Christians and Muslims assert the historicity of the founders of each other's religion. What believers tend to deny is the divine inspiration or mandate of other religion's founders; though Jesus is a "prophet" for Muslims.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I don't think that's true at least as regards the two biggest religions. Christians and Muslims assert the historicity of the founders of each other's religion. What believers tend to deny is the divine inspiration or mandate of other religion's founders; though Jesus is a "prophet" for Muslims.

True. They're the People of Book. Note that it's singular. Book. So I lump them into one bucket. Self-reinforcing delusions, I think they're called.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, I find that ever since Euhemerus, people tend to... like to believe there was some Earthly guy behind just about any mythical figure, even when there is no evidence or rational reason to do so.

For those who may not know offhand who Euhemerus was, he invented historical kings, places and monuments behind all the Greek/Roman pantheon gods. Even if he had to make up evidence like monuments that nobody else ever saw.

It didn't stop with him. Saxo Grammaticus invented Earthly identities of Thor and Odin as sorcerers who convinced the gullible Norse to worship them as gods. Even though we know some of that worship was in place over a thousand years before him, at a time where the Germanic tribes were illiterate hunter gatherers, and really, he'd have no documents from that time to base it on. But he invented it anyway, complete with tawdry affairs and all.

And it goes on to this day. People are more than willing to believe that there was a historical Robin Hood, although we know "Robin Hood" was a generic term for a highwayman (in fact at least one guy is called a robin hood in a document even though they also mention his real name), and know the stages the story went through. Even the early stories about him bear no resemblance to the modern myth: he really started as a generic evil bandit. Any modern trait or deed of him, just can't be traced even to the original stories, never mind to a supportable historical guy.

People are more than willing to believe there was a historical Sherlock Holmes.

Or to borrow Maximara's example, people are more than willing to believe there was a historical guy behind the John Frum cargo cult, although the only one ever recorded is a guy who tried to take that identity long AFTER the cult was in place.

Etc.

So I'd say actually probably if you asked to someone if there was a historical Buddha, they'd probably say "yes". And you could probably get them to accept quite easily that Krishna or Amaterasu or Nuwa were originally humans.

... that is, if they don't already believe those were ancient astronauts

I dunno why people do that. I guess it's some kind of instinctive middle ground that seems more reasonable to take, or something. Thing is, there's nothing automatically reasonable about a position, just because it's not extreme. The correct position between, say, (A) there were ancient astronauts, and (B) no there weren't, is clearly B. You don't get a more reasonable position about it by just going middle ground and accepting just a couple of astronauts. I don't see why it would be any different for gods and heroes (demi-gods). I'm at a loss as to what is gained from just assuming there was a guy who was Odin or Amaterasu or even Robin Hood, if there is no evidence requiring one, but I think most people are more than willing to accept any of those.

 

[maximara]

@maximara

Are you really and seriously offering us Helena Blavatsky's ideas as representing authentic scholarship? A perusal of her biography indicates that she was either a charlatan or insane.

And this applies to Brill Academic Pub which says the same thing ("Perahia's pupil, relying on the support of Epiphanius, who sets the birth of Jesus in the reign of Alexander (Jannaeus) and Alexandra, that is, in the time of Ben Perahia or Ben Tabai.") how?

Your Ad hominem attact doesn't detract from the fact that Helena Blavatsky's view on this matter is supported by one of the most respected Academic Publications around--unless you have evidence that Brill Academic Pub is a charlatan or insane publication which I think we would all love to see.