What counts as a historical Jesus?

[Craig B]

But all this is at odds with I. Howard Marshall's two different criteria for Jesus being "historical":
1) Jesus existed as an actual man rather than a fictional creation ala King Lear or Dr Who.
2) The Gospel stories are reasonably accurate rather then unsupported legend ala Kin Arthur.

What I wrote is in no way at odds with these principles. As to 1) I wrote: "(if there was) no Jesus ben Joseph in the days of Pilate, then there was no Gospel Jesus." And for 2) I wrote "If a Jesus ben Joseph did live then, and was taken and executed, but in fact was unable to walk on water and raise the dead, then there was a Gospel Jesus, but the accounts of his deeds have been exaggerated." That is, if the gospels contain substantial truths, but are not wholly accurate in detail. In short, my statements correspond very well to Marshall's criteria as reported by you.

 

[eight bits]

Hans

Paul fighting wild beasts in Ephesus

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:32 a hypothetical sentence about fighting wild beasts in Ephesus. He does not say that he ever did so.

Some of his letters may also (debatably) hint at an imprisonment in Rome, though as I was saying, that's highly debatable, and he seems free to travel around afterwards.

That's the usual tradition on point. Paul is said to have prevailed in his appeal to the emperor, and was released. He died later, supposedly after further travel, when he re-offended. It is unclear how the appeal to the Emperor was accomplished administratively.

You're of course free to apply any heuristics you wish when you're doing it for yourself or for some personal incredulity arguments.

Then we are in agreement. To which I would add that there is no impersonally valid method for any person to select heuristics for anybody else.

So, as I said, when a difference in tastes crops up, there is little to discuss.

Or briefly: I'm sorry, but there is no such thing as following personal preferences when it comes to logic or statistics.

As to logic, we are discussing nondemonstrative reasoning. To a greater or lesser extent, a heuristic conclusion structures, but does not transcend, personal opinion. It is richness of evidence, rather than force of necessary argument, that typically drives whatever interpersonal agreement there might be in nondemonstrative controversies. The questions before us in this thread are conspiculously poor in bearing evidence.


Generally, a small note

Mention of King Edward in "Robin Hood"

The penultimate Anglo-Saxon king of England was Edward the Confessor, who is a Roman Catholic saint. He died in 1066. His son Harold lost the Battle of Hastings later that year to the Normans. Edward was canonized during the reign of Henry II, father of John and Richard.

 

[Craig B]

Generally, a small note

Mention of King Edward in "Robin Hood"

The penultimate Anglo-Saxon king of England was Edward the Confessor, who is a Roman Catholic saint. He died in 1066. His son Harold lost the Battle of Hastings later that year to the Normans. Edward was canonized during the reign of Henry II, father of John and Richard.

Yes it occurred to me, once Hereward the Wake had been mentioned, that this pre-Conquest king might be the one referred to in the original "Robin Hood" stories. But Hereward is celebrated as a leader of resistance to the Normans, not to the pre-Conquest Saxon kings, so although the Confessor matches chronologically he doesn't fit very well politically.

 

[eight bits]

That we have any Edward version alongside Richard-John versions suggests that the linkage of the tales to the politics of their tellers is pretty labile anyway.

It was not my intention to derail our discussion to this, a problem of a different era and culture from Christian origins.

The closest parallel I can discern between the two cases is that during the late Twentieth Century Jesus inspired The Life of Brian and Robin begot Men in Tights. That would make a great double bill at an oldies cinema.

 

[Craig B]

That we have any Edward version alongside Richard-John versions suggests that the linkage of the tales to the politics of their tellers is pretty labile anyway.

It was not my intention to derail our discussion to this, a problem of a different era and culture from Christian origins.

The closest parallel I can discern between the two cases is that during the late Twentieth Century Jesus inspired The Life of Brian and Robin begot Men in Tights. That would make a great double bill at an oldies cinema.

I think these parallels are relevant. Jesus with William Tell, King Arthur, Robin Hood and John Frum. The same criteria of mythical or real persons apply in all cases. We are at the same distance from John Frum, more or less, as the later Gospels are from Jesus. Closer, probably, in terms of average lifetimes and the availability of written records.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, if we're talking about how soon after an event it can happen, the funny thing is that we even have an example that has a negative time there, so to speak. Someone was proclaimed the messiah in heavens BEFORE he actually, you know, got killed and supposedly went to heavens, and all the while he was telling those people that he's not the messiah.

I'm talking of course about David Reubeni. He never was a rabbi or a messiah pretender per se. He was a big time scammer with a lot of chutzpah. He scammed the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, and would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those pesky kids... err... I mean, if he knew when to stop. He had no interest in religion per se, far as anyone can tell, and to different people he had presented himself as a descentand of Muhammad instead of a representative of Jewish kingdoms.

And I may have mentioned before that his cult took off when a schizophrenic girl dreamed of him being in heavens, and giving her a tour of the heavens, and promising golden thrones in heavens to all those persecuted by the Inquisition. Suddenly a LOT of people wanted to believe that he IS the messiah, reality and details be damned.

Funnily -- if you're into sick gallows humour -- it should have been clear to anyone who's read the OT that she's a false prophetess, because she failed in what she promised. See, apparently she didn't just see Reubeni, but also Moses and the angels, and was promised that she'll be the one to lead the Jews back into the Holy Land. Instead of that, she and 38 followers were burned alive by the inquisition. False prophet right there. As prophets go, that's an EPIC FAIL right there.

But it didn't matter. Instead of dampening the claim to Reubeni's messiahood, it actually just made even more Jews believe he's the real article.

Where I was wrong before -- since some sources are unclear about the order of events and years and all -- was assuming that this happened after Reubeni's death. I mean, come on... You don't preach that someone is sitting in heavens at the Father's right, as in RIGHT NOW, unless he's dead, right? How stupid would it be to believe someone is in heavens right now although he's in the next village right now, right?

But actually that's exactly what happened. The guy was proclaimed a messiah and was seen IN HEAVENS... while travelling to Portugal to scam the king of Portugal.

To their partial excuse, though, one must remember that his visit did put the Inquisition persecutions on hold. Mainly because the King needed the Jews' money to pay Reubeni, plus it seemed unwise to persecute Jews while trying to ally with some great Jewish empire that supposedly Reubeni represented. So I guess he was a bit of an incidental saviour of some people's mortal asses.

Still, not only he never claimed to be a messiah, he flat out said that he was a military envoy not a messiah, when Dioeo Pires (another guy who had gotten all crazy about Reubeni's being the messiah... although Pires was an uncircumcised gentile) came to greet him as the messiah. In fact, Reubeni seemed to be by now very circumspect of anyone trying to make him a messiah, since a few people were starting to convert and encouraging apostasy from Xianity... now that could jolly well get him tied to a stake instead of given lots of money. He treated Dioeo Pires very coldly.

Of course, that went exactly like Brian's denying his being the messiah in the Life Of Brian. Pires apparently just got more convinced that Reubeni is the messiah, and thought that his being coldly dismissed was because HE, Pires, was basically not worthy of the messiah's attention. So he went and got circumcised and tried again

To round off the package, Reubeni really was as far from messianic expectations as you can possibly get. He was quite the opposite of expectations of humility, and caring for the poor, and all the other things that other wannabe messiahs made a show of. He travelled in luxury, wore the finest embroidered clothes, and generally knew how to live the good life on other people's money. Now I can see how that may have been good for his persona as a supposed ambassador of a mighty kingdom, but... I'm kinda at a loss about exactly what of that made people think that now THAT is a messiah.

At any rate, there we go: someone as far as you can get from qualifying as a messiah, got proclaimed the messiah, all the while he was around to deny it.

If you thought the Life Of Brian was just taking the piss, it actually happened, folks

 

[Craig B]

... He travelled in luxury, wore the finest embroidered clothes, and generally knew how to live the good life on other people's money. Now I can see how that may have been good for his persona as a supposed ambassador of a mighty kingdom, but... I'm kinda at a loss about exactly what of that made people think that now THAT is a messiah.

Ask Isaiah. I can't imagine that King Cyrus was attired in rags, and begging his way from door to door, yet here is Isaiah 45:1

outōs legei kurios o theos tō christō mou kurō - This is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus.

His "christ" in the Greek!

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, the meaning of the word kinda changed in the literally two millennia between Cyrus and Reubeni. Still, I see your point.

 

[eight bits]

Jesus with William Tell, King Arthur, Robin Hood and John Frum. The same criteria of mythical or real persons apply in all cases.

Is there some controversy about whether Jesus could have been made up? Of course he could. It's what we expect from good writers, and Paul is arguably the best selling author of all time. Interestingly, the runner-up BSA of AT may be Mohammed, and his Jesus is definitely a "further adventures" reimagining of an earlier, already established character.

The characters you named are all known figures in the public domain, available to any artist addressing an audience who's heard of them, regardless of whether the character is real, made-up or of unknown or disputed historical status. What matters is being well-known to the author's audience and available free-of-charge to the author. Human nature will do the rest. New and differently decorated tales appear.

Perhaps you enjoyed the recent story about Abraham Lincoln and vampires? I know I did. Was that the first fictional appearance of the 16th President of the United States? Apparently not:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Abraham_Lincoln_in_fiction

A bit more obscure, and an object lesson in the importance of the free-of-charge feature is The Late Gatsby. This is a popular mash-up of the characters of Fitzgeralds's novel The Great Gatsby, also with vampires. It has done well worldwide, but it is almost unavailable in the United States until 2020, because of a transitional quirk in the American copyright laws.

With the same confidence that Abraham Lincoln is a historical character, Jay Gatsby is the solely the product of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and not at all historical.

Conclude: being well-known and available free-of-charge is uninformative about historicity, but suffices for the intergenerational spinning of tales featuring characters with those attributes.

 

[TimCallahan]

Hans . . . (maga-snip) . . . Generally, a small note

Mention of King Edward in "Robin Hood"

The penultimate Anglo-Saxon king of England was Edward the Confessor, who is a Roman Catholic saint. He died in 1066. His son Harold lost the Battle of Hastings later that year to the Normans. Edward was canonized during the reign of Henry II, father of John and Richard.

Concerning the hilited area: This may be a bit nit-picking, but Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon king, who fell at Hastings, was the son of Godwin. Edward the Confessor died without leaving any descendants. He had, years before, named William of Normandy his successor, at a time when he had fled England, because Godwin had attempted a coup of sorts (IIRC). Harold was acclaimed king by the Witan, the council of English nobles.

 

[eight bits]

TC Point taken. Thank you for the correction.

 

[maximara]

What I wrote is in no way at odds with these principles. As to 1) I wrote: "(if there was) no Jesus ben Joseph in the days of Pilate, then there was no Gospel Jesus." And for 2) I wrote "If a Jesus ben Joseph did live then, and was taken and executed, but in fact was unable to walk on water and raise the dead, then there was a Gospel Jesus, but the accounts of his deeds have been exaggerated." That is, if the gospels contain substantial truths, but are not wholly accurate in detail. In short, my statements correspond very well to Marshall's criteria as reported by you.

You are missing the point that these are two DIFFERENT criteria for a historical Jesus:

1) Jesus existed as an actual man rather than a fictional creation ala King Lear or Dr Who.

This would include Mead's, Ellegård's, and Wells pre-Jesus Myth c100 BCE Jesus. It would also include a pre existing Jesus myth that "reports of an obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name" were shoehorned into (basically Well's post-Jesus Myth theory).


The problem with Marshall's second criteria is that the even stripped of its supernatural elements the Gospel account doesn't stand up to known historical facts. If anything the whole trial has the feeling of the kind of non factual drama you saw on Parry Mason back in the day.

In fact that is the Gospel' problem in a nutshell--every time we get to compare them with known historical events they spectacularly fall apart in some way. The Gospels seem to play history more loosely then Birth of a Nation did and that is saying a lot.

 

[Craig B]

You are missing the point that these are two DIFFERENT criteria for a historical Jesus:

1) Jesus existed as an actual man rather than a fictional creation ala King Lear or Dr Who.

This would include Mead's, Ellegård's, and Wells pre-Jesus Myth c100 BCE Jesus. It would also include a pre existing Jesus myth that "reports of an obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name" were shoehorned into (basically Well's post-Jesus Myth theory).

I disagree. If there was only a c100 BCE ben Stada, or a Teacher of Righteousness, and not any peripatetic apocalypticist of Pilate's day, there was NO Gospel Jesus. There are lots of Jesuses in Josephus. We even have an apocalypticist, Jesus son of Ananias, who was flogged as a nuisance, released as insane and finally killed by a Roman catapult shot during the siege of Jerusalem; if only he and not a crucified Jesus ever existed, there was no Gospel Jesus. If only the High Priest Jesus son of Damneus existed, and not Jesus the Nazarene, then there was no Gospel Jesus.

The problem with Marshall's second criteria is that the even stripped of its supernatural elements the Gospel account doesn't stand up to known historical facts. If anything the whole trial has the feeling of the kind of non factual drama you saw on Parry Mason back in the day.

Yes indeed. I was using the supernatural elements as things that can't possibly be true. People are not born of virgins and can't revive dead bodies - their own, or others'. But of course in addition to these inaccuracies there are certainly non-supernatural ones. Was Jesus naturally born in Bethlehem? Was he born in Herod's day, or in the year of the census - ten years after Herod's death? Did he have twelve disciples, or is this a fiction based on the traditional number of the tribes of Israel? And so on ... Who knows? So I agree with your last observation too.

In fact that is the Gospel' problem in a nutshell--every time we get to compare them with known historical events they spectacularly fall apart in some way. The Gospels seem to play history more loosely then Birth of a Nation did and that is saying a lot.

But there really was a Civil War in the USA, so BOAN is not pure myth based on total fiction. It is a tendentious distortion of reality. Assuming that there had never been a Civil War, but it was based on folk tales inspired by the War of Independence of the previous century (the equivalent of your and Mead's 100 BCE Jesus) then BOAN would be complete fiction from end to end. Which is he case with the Gospels? I don't know.

 

[maximara]

I disagree. If there was only a c100 BCE ben Stada, or a Teacher of Righteousness, and not any peripatetic apocalypticist of Pilate's day, there was NO Gospel Jesus. There are lots of Jesuses in Josephus. We even have an apocalypticist, Jesus son of Ananias, who was flogged as a nuisance, released as insane and finally killed by a Roman catapult shot during the siege of Jerusalem; if only he and not a crucified Jesus ever existed, there was no Gospel Jesus. If only the High Priest Jesus son of Damneus existed, and not Jesus the Nazarene, then there was no Gospel Jesus. Yes indeed. I was using the supernatural elements as things that can't possibly be true. People are not born of virgins and can't revive dead bodies - their own, or others'. But of course in addition to these inaccuracies there are certainly non-supernatural ones. Was Jesus naturally born in Bethlehem? Was he born in Herod's day, or in the year of the census - ten years after Herod's death? Did he have twelve disciples, or is this a fiction based on the traditional number of the tribes of Israel? And so on ...


Who knows? So I agree with your last observation too. But there really was a Civil War in the USA, so BOAN is not pure myth based on total fiction. It is a tendentious distortion of reality. Assuming that there had never been a Civil War, but it was based on folk tales inspired by the War of Independence of the previous century (the equivalent of your and Mead's 100 BCE Jesus) then BOAN would be complete fiction from end to end. Which is he case with the Gospels? I don't know.

But BOAN is using the Civil War as a backdrop just as Gone With the Wind did. That doesn't mean that "Rhett Butler is alive and well and living in Ohio...somewhere" ("The Case of the Bermuda Triangle". NOVA / Horizon. 1976-06-27. PBS.) or that there really was a congressman named Austin Stoneman who was Speaker of the House (BOAN)

In fact, Austin Stoneman serves as a perfect counter point to your argument. The Speakers of the House 1865 to 1877 are well documented: Schuyler Colfax (1863-1869); Theodore M. Pomeroy (1869); James G. Blaine (1869-1875); Michael C. Kerr (1875-1876); and Samuel J. Randall (1876-1881).

You can even point out that Thaddeus Stevens the congressman Austin Stoneman is supposedly based on doesn't fit: Stevens was NEVER Speaker of the House and died August 11, 1868 while BOAN's Stoneman is not only Speaker of the House but is alive and in that role in 1871.

Nevermind your argument ignores THE problem with comparing Jesus to any post Western Printing Press (ie after 1439) person or event: the mountain of documentation available.

The newspapers that document the Civil War still exist as do the government records of that period--NOTHING even APPROACHING this scope exists for Jesus. Heck there is more contemporary material on John Newbrough and his Oahspe then there there is on Jesus thanks to this and the same is true of many attempts at new religious societies in the later part of the 19th century that thanks to their failure are only remembered because they add a bit of local color.

 

[pakeha]

...In fact that is the Gospel' problem in a nutshell--every time we get to compare them with known historical events they spectacularly fall apart in some way. The Gospels seem to play history more loosely then Birth of a Nation did and that is saying a lot.

Yes.
It's why the search for the historical Jesus, if based on the gospels, is best compared to looking for the end of the rainbow.

 

[Craig B]

Yes.
It's why the search for the historical Jesus, if based on the gospels, is best compared to looking for the end of the rainbow.

I entirely agree, and have said so. The gospels contain impossible supernatural material, and in addition undecidable questions within their "possible" material.

Was Jesus naturally born in Bethlehem? Was he born in Herod's day, or in the year of the census - ten years after Herod's death? Did he have twelve disciples, or is this a fiction based on the traditional number of the tribes of Israel? And so on ...

 

[HansMustermann]

Hmm... well, just for narrowing down what margin of error we're willing to accept, would Alexander son of Herod qualify as the historical Jesus? I've mentioned him before in the thread, but here's the most complete version I've don so far, from TB's thread.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9210777&postcount=159

Now in the interest of full disclosure, _I_ don't believe there was a historical Jesus, nor that Alexander is close enough to qualify. But if I had to put my money on a... well, let's not call it "the historical Jesus", but let's say, "the closest supportable person that existed, and details of whom might (or might not) have been repurposed as details of Jesus, unless it's one HELL of a coincidence", I'd go with Alexander.

But here I'm not interested in convincing you that Alexander is the HJ. The question is just how much a person can differ from the legend, and still count as the historical X. So if we had a time machine and IF it turned out that Alexander is indeed the best match ever, would you think he's close enough to count as the HJ or not? Just hypothetically and conditional of that big if, and all that.

 

[Belz...]

Hmm... well, just for narrowing down what margin of error we're willing to accept, would Alexander son of Herod qualify as the historical Jesus? I've mentioned him before in the thread, but here's the most complete version I've don so far, from TB's thread.

What's interesting about that is that, although finding parallels between two historical figures may not be significant in showing that they may be one and the same, or that one may have inspired the other, it's certainly believable that features from an appealing prior cult to this Alexander, once it faded a bit, were integrated with some other folk stuff to construct a composite messiah character who would be appealing to both gentiles (Romans, specifically) and Jews.

 

[HansMustermann]

Maybe they did, or maybe it's just a bunch of coincidences. But that's not what I'm asking. What I'm asking is if, purely hypothetically, it turned out that Jesus is based on some increasingly distorted stories about Alexander over almost a century (in fact, it is about a century between his execution and the traditional dating of John)... would you say he's the historical Jesus, or that it's been distorted too much for someone as different as Alexander to count as a HJ? Remember, the question isn't whether the premise is true, since it's just a hypothetical scenario, and those work for false hypotheses just as well. The question is just how much can some original figure differ from the gospel Jesus, before they stop being the same person.

 

[maximara]

Maybe they did, or maybe it's just a bunch of coincidences. But that's not what I'm asking. What I'm asking is if, purely hypothetically, it turned out that Jesus is based on some increasingly distorted stories about Alexander over almost a century (in fact, it is about a century between his execution and the traditional dating of John)... would you say he's the historical Jesus, or that it's been distorted too much for someone as different as Alexander to count as a HJ? Remember, the question isn't whether the premise is true, since it's just a hypothetical scenario, and those work for false hypotheses just as well. The question is just how much can some original figure differ from the gospel Jesus, before they stop being the same person.

For myself I lean toward Robertson's view that the Gospel Jesus is a composite character shaped by Paul's account. Along with whatever he actually preached you have the teachings of other would be messiahs woven in.

Both the birth and trial stories have the kind of feeling of Robin Hood or King Arthur about them so there is the possibility that NONE of either is true.