What counts as a historical Jesus?

[IanS]

Personally I'm surprised that you find this difficult to understand, but although I will not presume to speak for Dave, I hope I may set down my thoughts again. Paul's claims may indeed be spurious: it is not part of this argument that Paul is trustworthy. But he claims to encounter a community of people in Jerusalem, and these are led by individuals who have the same names as kinsmen and associates of Jesus mentioned to in the Gospels. If Paul's "Lord" is the same as the Jesus who has such associates in the Gospels, then Paul's Lord is the Gospel Lord Jesus. That is, if such a Jesus existed, then he and he alone is the Jesus who may be defined as the HJ. But he may not have existed, if Paul's and the Gospels' accounts of this Jesus are fictitious. If they are fictitious (and they may well be) then there is NO "Historical Jesus" .

No. I do not think the above is actually correct. Look at the highlighted part - you say Paul’s Lord is the Gospel Jesus, and he alone is the Jesus who may be defined as the HJ .... well that is surely a mistake! ...

... there is no need that the Jesus described by Paul and the Gospel writers is accurately or actually the HJ ...

... a HJ of some type may have existed, but might well be very far removed from anything written in Paul’s Letters or the Gospels.

That HJ may still have served as the basis of later writing in Paul and the Gospels, but whatever is said in that writing may easily be entirely fictional. And afaik, the likely evidence suggests that it probably is fictional.

Suppose for example the accounts of Paul (and then later the Gospel authors) were actually based on someone like the Dead Sea Scrolls Teacher of Righteousness who may have lived circa. 100 BC (or even, several centuries BC). In that case there would have been a real HJ (the Teacher of Righteousness), but he would not be the Jesus figure described by Paul or any of the Gospel writers.

. No, he is defined by an association claimed (perhaps falsely!) both by the Gospels and by Paul. His existence is probable only in proportion to the credit due to the Pauline and Gospel accounts referred to above.

No. See the above.

 

[IanS]

It goes like this: IF Paul actually met associates of the HJ, THEN those associates existed, THEN obviously HJ existed.

You don't have to assume a HJ to do that inference. And it's valid too.

.

You say the above is NOT assuming a HJ? But look at the highlight ... that specifically is assuming a HJ to begin with, is it not?

The highlight specifically begins with (and depends entirely upon) the assumption that HJ existed and then met with these "associates".

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

No it's not. It's not saying "X happened, therefore Y", it's saying that "IF X happened, then Y". There's that if. It doesn't assert the premise as true.

I mean, I can equally say that if the Vulcans landed during my lifetime in a warp-capable ship, I'd start believing that warp-travel is possible. And I would, too, since it would be direct evidence. But that doesn't mean I'm assuming Vulcans or warp-capable ships a reality just because I build a hypothetical scenario.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Look, let's put it this way. We have two sets:

S1=the set of people met by Paul
S2=the set of people who personally knew the historical Jesus

Now S2 can also be empty. If S2 has no elements, then basically we have no historical Jesus, since nobody in the whole world met one.

Saying "if Paul met some associates of Jesus" is saying: IF there exists at least one element that is in both S1 and S2, i.e., IF the intersection of S1 and S2 is not empty.

And IF that's the case, then it trivially follows that S2 is non-empty too. Because any element that is in both S1 and S2, is by definition in S2.

In essence that's what Dave has been saying: that trivial inference that IF we knew that the intersection of S1 and S2 is non-empty (but, as he too admitted, we don't actually know that), then we could know that S2 isn't empty either. It may not be the most enlightening or amazing inference, but it's valid.

Note that sets can be empty, and can be defined in a way that defines an empty set. E.g., I can define S3, the set of wood elves living in my fridge. There are none, but there we go. Or S4, the set of people who died in the Eugenics wars in the 1990's fighting against Khan Noonien Singh. Since that only happened in Star Trek, it's safe to assume that the set is empty.

Just defining the set doesn't mean one assumes it to also have elements.

 

[Craig B]

... That HJ may still have served as the basis of later writing in Paul and the Gospels, but whatever is said in that writing may easily be entirely fictional. And afaik, the likely evidence suggests that it probably is fictional.

Suppose for example the accounts of Paul (and then later the Gospel authors) were actually based on someone like the Dead Sea Scrolls Teacher of Righteousness who may have lived circa. 100 BC (or even, several centuries BC). In that case there would have been a real HJ (the Teacher of Righteousness), but he would not be the Jesus figure described by Paul or any of the Gospel writers.

That's a fascinating idea. But really weird! Very well. There was no Jesus who had a brother called James, a companion called Peter, and followers in Jerusalem in the early first century. Although the Gospels say there was. And Paul, having hallucinated a Jesus, goes and meets these people, and writes about them. I say that if there was a historical Jesus, this was the one. Christians who believe the stories say, this was the one, and he existed. I say if this one didn't exist, there was no HJ.

What you say is this. If this one didn't exist, and there was another guy a hundred - or it may be several hundred - years earlier, whose name we don't know, and nobody tells us the names of his brother and associates, and if he had followers in Jerusalem in c 40 AD, there is no evidence that these are the people Paul met. Now you say, if the Gospel Jesus didn't exist there still would be an HJ, and it would be this other guy. And I say that's bizarre.

 

[IanS]

No it's not. It's not saying "X happened, therefore Y", it's saying that "IF X happened, then Y". There's that if. It doesn't assert the premise as true.

I mean, I can equally say that if the Vulcans landed during my lifetime in a warp-capable ship, I'd start believing that warp-travel is possible. And I would, too, since it would be direct evidence. But that doesn't mean I'm assuming Vulcans or warp-capable ships a reality just because I build a hypothetical scenario.

I think you're wrong, Ian. The implication is in the other direction, and it's a very valid one.

It goes like this: IF Paul actually met associates of the HJ, THEN those associates existed, THEN obviously HJ existed.
You don't have to assume a HJ to do that inference. And it's valid too.

What it's not is sound. We don't know if the premise is true. Hence, we cannot take it as actually supporting the existence of HJ, but then Dave wasn't doing that anyway.

OK, getting close to my last try lol (you'll all be relieved to know! ), but - please look again at the highlighted part above. What is actually happening in that sentence in order for you to end up with your conclusion saying “THEN obviously HJ existed.” ?

OK, what is happening in that sentence, what your sentence actually says is - that we can conclude that Jesus existed (ie you say “THEN obviously HJ existed.”) providing we start out with the this statement “IF Paul actually met associates of the HJ” …. well that is a direct a-priori assumption that Jesus existed in order for your conclusion to be true! (the conclusion being “Then obviously HJ existed” …. its completely circular lol ….

… in order to reach your conclusion you have to assume Jesus existed … that’s what it means to say “IF Paul actually met associates of the HJ” … that statement specifically means “let us for the sake of argument assume Paul met associates of HJ … ie a real existing HJ”!! That’s exactly the same as saying “lets assume for the sake of argument that Jesus did exist” … and from there you them immediately conclude “Then obviously HJ existed”!! ….

… well yes, obviously in that case a HJ existed, because in that sentence you explicitly assumed a HJ existed for the sake of your argument!!

IOW - you might just as well have said “Lets assume a HJ existed”. … but in that case it’s no longer relevant what Paul or the Gospel writers say about the potential existence of any HJ, because you have already assumed a-priori that he did exist!

Look, here’s an even easier way to understand what I’m saying - just cross out almost all of your above quoted highlight and just write the following instead without any need for reference to Paul …


IF Paul actual ly met associates of the HJ, THEN those associates existed, THEN obviously HJ existed.

But that is exactly the same as just writing -

"IF HJ existed, Then HJ existed"

 

[IanS]

What you say is this. If this one didn't exist, and there was another guy a hundred - or it may be several hundred - years earlier, whose name we don't know, and nobody tells us the names of his brother and associates, and if he had followers in Jerusalem in c 40 AD, there is no evidence that these are the people Paul met. Now you say, if the Gospel Jesus didn't exist there still would be an HJ, and it would be this other guy. And I say that's bizarre.

Ha ha (sympathetic smile lol ) ... No, it's not at all bizarre. What it says (to rewrite your assumed version only very slightly) is simply this -

- what eventually appeared in the anonymously written Letters of Paul and the equally anonymous Gospels, may have very easily been only the beliefs of a religious sect that came to be called Christians in say the 1st or 2nd century AD. With me so far? ...

... however, what those Christians believed by that time (by the 1st to 2nd cent. AD, say), and what they wrote about those beliefs, may very well have been based on ever evolving and ever more fantastic stories which had come to them originally from a much earlier date when proto-Christians in that region had talked about a preacher who had once been regarded as the prophesised messiah.

You don't need to make any assumptions about whether anyone called James was actually the flesh-&-blood brother of a Gospel Jesus. And you don't need to make any assumptions about the truth of Paul’s Letters and whether Paul ever did meet actual personal disciples of Jesus etc. etc.

Indeed, throughout most of this thread we have all been agreeing that the evidence for any of those Biblical stories about Jesus is thin to the point of vanishing. Afaik, there is no credible independent evidence that Paul ever met anyone who actually met Jesus, for example.

So ... if we are going to answer the question of what counts as a HJ, then all I am saying is that we might as well discard the obviously unreliable biblical writing (much of which is clearly fantasy anyway), and just say that if there ever was a real flesh-&-blood HJ then the Biblical stories about him would need nothing more than to be based on a preacher who had really lived at some time before the Bible stories were written.


IOW - there might have been a real historical individual behind the Bible stories, but the bible stories themselves might very easily be entirely fictional accounts. And one obvious way in which that is likely to occur is if none of the biblical authors such as Paul, Mark, Mathew, Luke, John etc. had ever in fact met with this Jesus character due to the fact that they all believed that he had died at some unspecified time in their past.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

It's not really that circular. It's more like "if we had evidence that Jesus existed, then he existed". First hand witnesses would definitely be evidence.

Unfortunately, we don't have those. But if they existed, damn, that would be great.

But, yes, it's a very trivial implication (though not equivalence.) I dare say it's stating the obvious, really. So? That doesn't make it invalid.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Or to put it otherwise, you seem to just be having trouble with logical implication (a.k.a. consequence), rather than anything Jesus specific.

Basically it's stated that X => Y, and your objection seems to be that, yeah, but X can only be true if Y is true in the first place. Well, yes, but that's what makes it an implication. If it worked any other way, if X could be true when Y is false, then it simply wouldn't be X => Y.

 

[Craig B]

... Afaik, there is no credible independent evidence that Paul ever met anyone who actually met Jesus, for example.

In which case there was no HJ, not that some guy living hundreds of years previously was the HJ.

So ... if we are going to answer the question of what counts as a HJ, then all I am saying is that we might as well discard the obviously unreliable biblical writing (much of which is clearly fantasy anyway), and just say that if there ever was a real flesh-&-blood HJ then the Biblical stories about him would need nothing more than to be based on a preacher who had really lived at some time before the Bible stories were written.

Any old preacher at any time?

IOW - there might have been a real historical individual behind the Bible stories

If that "real historical individual" was an individual called Jesus with a brother called James, a companion called Peter and surviving followers living in Jerusalem, as suggested in the Gospels and Acts, and if these people were the same people as the ones Paul claims to have met, then that Jesus was the HJ. If he did not exist (and he may not have existed) then there was no HJ, however many Teachers of Righteousness or Yehoshuas ben Pandera or ben Stada or ben Hananias or ben Damneus there may or may not have been, living at different times in various different places.

but the bible stories themselves might very easily be entirely fictional accounts.

Again, yes indeed.

And one obvious way in which that is likely to occur is if none of the biblical authors such as Paul, Mark, Mathew, Luke, John etc. had ever in fact met with this Jesus character due to the fact that they all believed that he had died at some unspecified time in their past.

As that stands it reads a bit strangely, but perhaps you mean, " ... had never in fact met with Jesus because the details given in the Gospels and Acts about the Jesus described therein are completely fictitious, and in reality the Jerusalem people mentioned by Paul knew no such Jesus, and were inspired by another Jesus character living at some other time, who may have been equally fictitious". But if so, that other Jesus was not the HJ. There was no HJ in such a case.

 

[Aepervius]

Or to put it otherwise, you seem to just be having trouble with logical implication (a.k.a. consequence), rather than anything Jesus specific.

Basically it's stated that X => Y, and your objection seems to be that, yeah, but X can only be true if Y is true in the first place. Well, yes, but that's what makes it an implication. If it worked any other way, if X could be true when Y is false, then it simply wouldn't be X => Y.

Stops me if I am wrong but aren't you confusing implication with equivalence ?

X<=>Y X true means Y true, AND Y true means X true.
X=>Y Means if X is true Y is true but starting from Y you can say nothing from X

He does seem to say that Y is equivalent to X, (that X=>Y and Y=>X).

I could be wrong though.

 

[IanS]

In which case there was no HJ, not that some guy living hundreds of years previously was the HJ. Any old preacher at any time? If that "real historical individual" was an individual called Jesus with a brother called James, a companion called Peter and surviving followers living in Jerusalem, as suggested in the Gospels and Acts, and if these people were the same people as the ones Paul claims to have met, then that Jesus was the HJ. If he did not exist (and he may not have existed) then there was no HJ, however many Teachers of Righteousness or Yehoshuas ben Pandera or ben Stada or ben Hananias or ben Damneus there may or may not have been, living at different times in various different places. Again, yes indeed. As that stands it reads a bit strangely, but perhaps you mean, " ... had never in fact met with Jesus because the details given in the Gospels and Acts about the Jesus described therein are completely fictitious, and in reality the Jerusalem people mentioned by Paul knew no such Jesus, and were inspired by another Jesus character living at some other time, who may have been equally fictitious". But if so, that other Jesus was not the HJ. There was no HJ in such a case.

OK, without going through it all again. What you are doing in the above (and what I suspected you were doing from a page or two back when we started talking about this issue), is making the un-stated assumption that any HJ MUST conform to certain specific statements in Paul's letters and/or in the Gospels ... such as the specific statement that Paul met the actual disciples who had definitely known Jesus ... or that James was definitely the actual blood brother of Jesus.

But it is clearly not necessary to make any such assumption at all.

Come on, think about this for a moment ...

... a real HJ may have existed regardless of whether anyone called Paul ever wrote anything (indeed, regardless of whether Paul himself even ever lived as a real character!).

There is nothing to stop people in say the 2nd century AD believing in the existence of a, by then, long dead messiah, whose story had been handed down to them through the generations and where the details of that story, such as James being his brother and St. Paul meeting with his disciples etc., had over time become highly embroidered and largely fictional.

In that case, Christianity would still have originated from a real person who once lived and preached various things in that region. But the later stories about him, attributed to Paul and the Gospel authors, would not necessarily be true in much if any detail at all.

That would still be a HJ. It would still be a real person who had become the inspiration behind what subsequently became Christianity and the Gospel writing.

But it would not be a HJ who necessarily did any of the detailed things claimed by the biblical writers.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Stops me if I am wrong but aren't you confusing implication with equivalence ?

X<=>Y X true means Y true, AND Y true means X true.
X=>Y Means if X is true Y is true but starting from Y you can say nothing from X

He does seem to say that Y is equivalent to X, (that X=>Y and Y=>X).

I could be wrong though.

I said in an implication X can be true ONLY when Y is true, which is to say that the combination of X=true and Y=false is not an allowed combination, so I don't see how that's equivalence. I didn't say X is false when Y is false too, which would make it equivalence.

Write the truth table for what I claimed there, without filling in anything from imagination, and you'll see you get exactly the table for implication.

I'm just saying that X => Y can be valid even when causality is the other way around. E.g., if the cops find someone with a bullet in the head and gunpowder residue, he's been shot at point blank range, although obviously it's not the wound that caused the shooting. The fact that (in a simplified world, for example sake) we don't know any other way that someone could get that kind of symptoms without assuming a shooting that makes it an implication, not what makes it circular.

At any rate, it's trivial to show that what Dave claimed is not an equivalence.

What was said is, basically, "If Paul had met associates of HJ, then HJ existed." Which is implication.

To have equivalence, we'd also need the claim in the other direction, namely, "If HJ existed, then Paul had met his associates." Which is pretty obviously false. Paul could have talked to the wrong gang, or worked from third hand accounts, or made it up anyway, or whatever.

 

[IanS]

At any rate, it's trivial to show that what Dave claimed is not an equivalence.

What was said is, basically, "If Paul had met associates of HJ, then HJ existed." Which is implication.

.

What I'm trying to point out is that any mention of Paul in that above statement is irrelevant (and likely to be seriously misleading).

It's irrelevant because the statement contains a PRIOR assertion, which is that "associates of Jesus existed". The statement just reduces to saying -

"If Jesus had real associates, then Jesus existed" ...

… the statement really has nothing to do with anything about Paul ... the addition of Paul is bogus in that sentence. That's the point.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Even if you reduce it to that, it still isn't circular. So your point is...?

But even that reduction is a gross misunderstanding of logic, since what you removed is itself an implication, not an equivalence. You can't claim that, oh, two things are just equivalent anyway, when actually it works only in one direction. And yes it does work only in one direction. If Paul met Peter, then Peter existed. But in the opposite direction, if Peter existed, then it's not necessary that Paul met him.

Basically you can follow the implication, but not just replace claim X with claim Y and say they're equivalent anyway, unless you can show that they are indeed equivalent. I.e., that the implication works in the opposite direction too. And here clearly it's not equivalent, since it doesn't work the other way around.

 

[IanS]

Even if you reduce it to that, it still isn't circular. So your point is...?

But even that reduction is a gross misunderstanding of logic, since what you removed is itself an implication, not an equivalence. You can't claim that, oh, two things are just equivalent anyway, when actually it works only in one direction. And yes it does work only in one direction. If Paul met Peter, then Peter existed. But in the opposite direction, if Peter existed, then it's not necessary that Paul met him.

Basically you can follow the implication, but not just replace claim X with claim Y and say they're equivalent anyway, unless you can show that they are indeed equivalent. I.e., that the implication works in the opposite direction too. And here clearly it's not equivalent, since it doesn't work the other way around.

Well that is not what I said at all.

Please read again what I just said in post #1435 ...

At any rate, it's trivial to show that what Dave claimed is not an equivalence.

What was said is, basically, "If Paul had met associates of HJ, then HJ existed." Which is implication.
.

What I'm trying to point out is that any mention of Paul in that above statement is irrelevant (and likely to be seriously misleading).

It's irrelevant because the statement contains a PRIOR assertion, which is that "associates of Jesus existed". The statement just reduces to saying -

"If Jesus had real associates, then Jesus existed" ...

… the statement really has nothing to do with anything about Paul ... the addition of Paul is bogus in that sentence. That's the point.

Your quote (highlighted) specifically requires that Jesus had associates BEFORE Paul ever met those associates …

… your highlight directly and specifically depends totally and completely on associates having already met Jesus BEFORE Paul then later meets the same associates.

How much clearer does that have to be?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

But again, the fact that X being true REQUIRES Y to be true is what makes it an implication. If it were any other way, it wouldn't work as an implication. There is nothing invalid there.

I mean, let's try the same for other X => Y situations.

E.g., IF X="My neighbour's cat gave birth to kittens", THEN Y="My neighbour's cat is female."

Of course that for the cat to give birth, it must be a female in the first place. We're pretty sure that X couldn't be true if Y weren't true too. But that's just why the implication works, not something that makes it invalid. If we knew any ways that a cat can give birth without being female, then we wouldn't have an X => Y in the first place.

(It's not an equivalence, though, because a cat can be female and never have kittens. E.g., if she's spayed.)

The fact that sometimes Y is the only possible cause of X, or at least a required ingredient, doesn't mean it's anything different than X => Y. It's in fact one way to be sure that X => Y.

 

[maximara]

There is nothing to stop people in say the 2nd century AD believing in the existence of a, by then, long dead messiah, whose story had been handed down to them through the generations and where the details of that story, such as James being his brother and St. Paul meeting with his disciples etc., had over time become highly embroidered and largely fictional.

In that case, Christianity would still have originated from a real person who once lived and preached various things in that region. But the later stories about him, attributed to Paul and the Gospel authors, would not necessarily be true in much if any detail at all.

That would still be a HJ. It would still be a real person who had become the inspiration behind what subsequently became Christianity and the Gospel writing.

But it would not be a HJ who necessarily did any of the detailed things claimed by the biblical writers.

This is what guts of the Christ Myth theory is: The Gospel Jesus didn't exist. Now some versions do accept that there is a man behind the myth but they put him in a different century (c100 CE) or contend while he lived in the 1st century he wasn't crucified at all and the whole trial scene was made up so that he'd match an already existing Jesus myth that may have dated to the 1st century BCE.

Something akin to this appears with Uncle Sam. According to legend Uncle Sam is based on Samuel Wilson during the War of 1812. However, there is a stanza in Yankee Doodle (1775) that mentions "Uncle Sam" and many elements in Uncle Sam first showed up in Brother Jonathan (1783).

So there seems to have been a pre existing Uncle Sam myth that Samuel Wilson was later plugged into.

 

[Craig B]

This is what guts of the Christ Myth theory is: The Gospel Jesus didn't exist. Now some versions do accept that there is a man behind the myth but they put him in a different century (c100 CE) or contend while he lived in the 1st century he wasn't crucified at all and the whole trial scene was made up so that he'd match an already existing Jesus myth that may have dated to the 1st century BCE ...

No. The Jesus Myth theory asserts positively that there existed a Jesus Myth, not simply that the Jesus figure in the gospels cannot be shown to be historical. In my view there is not enough evidence to assert confidently, either that the Gospel Jesus is historical, or that there was a pre-existing myth about a Jesus figure. The "guts" of the Jesus Myth theory is not simply that Jesus didn't exist. "Mythical" here doesn't simply mean "non-existent".

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

We've been through this before. Yes, there is one fairly recent flavour of Jesus Myth that states he was a mythical cosmic figure in the first place. However it's also what's been used all along for what's sometimes now repackaged as the Jesus Legend.

Much as I respect Carrier and Doherty and their work on it, in all fairness, they don't get to redefine the word. They can, of course argue and support one flavour of Jesus myth, but they don't get to claim the word exclusively.