What counts as a historical Jesus?

[Piggy]

In other words you won't watch it because you're probably not spot anything new, which you can't know unless you watch it. It's brilliant.

I'm giving it a vew myself.

No, I'm not watching it because it's an hour long.

Whenever anybody says, well, I can't explain this to you, but if you'll give up an hour and watch this video all will be clear, I never take them up on it.

In this case especially, because seriously, I've heard the arguments.

 

[Piggy]

Is that solid evidence, really ?

After well over a century of academic study of those documents, and placing them in the context of all we know about that place and time, yes, it is.

In Paul's letters, we have correspondence among leaders of the Jesus-as-Christ movement shortly after Jesus's death.

There is currently no plausible scenario to offer in which Paul is lying about dealing with James, Peter, and others, even if there is reason to doubt some of his statements regarding what exactly those dealings consisted of.

Once we're confident that we're dealing with sufficiently good copies of the letters, which by now we are, then given the nature of the documents there's just not any reasonable argument against the veracity of the very fundamentals of what he reports, e.g., that James and others were in charge of the church in Jerusalem, that Peter and his wife were missionaries, that he (Paul) had the role of converting saints from among the God-fearers and other pagans, that there were disagreements over table fellowship and circumcision, etc.

There simply is no reasonable narrative to explain those artifacts which includes Paul perpetuating a hoax about that stuff.

 

[Piggy]

Perhaps Wikipedia is wrong in what it says about Ehrman’s academic qualifications and background, but what is described in the wiki quotes below is not someone who is a typical academic historian who normally conducts research into non-religious areas of history (as most academics historians do, afaik?) and who just happened at one point to look into the historical evidence for and against the existence of Jesus.

What is described there is someone who’s background and qualifications appear to be specifically in the area of religious studies.

Say what?

Here, look at this again:

He received his PhD and M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, where he studied under Bruce Metzger. He received magna cum laude for both his BA in 1978 and PhD in 1985.

Of course he specialized. To study this stuff, you have to specialize.

Do keep in mind that Princeton Theological Seminary is an accredited institution. It's not Liberty University.

To get the PhD you will be studying ancient manuscripts, linguistics, history, and archaeology. It's an academic program.

 

[IanS]

Say what?

Here, look at this again:



Of course he specialized. To study this stuff, you have to specialize.

Do keep in mind that Princeton Theological Seminary is an accredited institution. It's not Liberty University.

To get the PhD you will be studying ancient manuscripts, linguistics, history, and archaeology. It's an academic program.

He is then, not one of the vast number of mainstream academics in typical Univ. history departments, is he. He is not that sort of "historian".

He is instead someone who's qualifications, background and interests are very specifically in religion and the historicity of Jesus. Yes?

How many of your other numerous "scholars" are in the same position as Ehrman? That is - not typical academic historians. But individuals who are qualified mainly if not entirely in religious studies?

 

[Belz...]

No, I'm not watching it because it's an hour long.

Whenever anybody says, well, I can't explain this to you, but if you'll give up an hour and watch this video all will be clear, I never take them up on it.

In this case especially, because seriously, I've heard the arguments.

Sorry for insisting but, how would you know without watching ? Did you read a transcript ?

There simply is no reasonable narrative to explain those artifacts which includes Paul perpetuating a hoax about that stuff.

You mean aside from peddling his silly religion ?

 

[IanS]

No, it's not assuming because we have solid evidence that Paul knew Jesus's brother, since he discusses it in his letters as a matter of course.

Are you assuming that a reference here to "brother" must mean a physical blood brother?


Afaik, Paul and the gospel writers often use the terms brother, brothers or brethren, when referring to brothers in shared belief.

What is the evidence that anyone was actually a blood brother, or in fact any literal real family relative of Jesus?

Any independent evidence of beliefs like that? Ie, evidence from contemporary first-hand sources that were not biblical?

 

[Piggy]

What's the evidence that backs up your scenario?

If you don't wish to type it out again, could you link to where you have presented the evidence before?

OK, so we've got Jesus as a Jew from Nazareth in Galilee. Everyone agrees that's where he was from, it's something nobody would want to invent if it weren't true, and his followers go to some lengths to explain it away, in fact, because it doesn't comport with any messianic prophecy.

That he was from there is overwhelmingly likely.

And this also is our first evidence that he was a real man, not made up for any reason.

There simply are no traditions of a messiah who's a Galilean peasant. And unsurprisingly, there are no known traditions about anybody from Nazareth at all.

The next bit is his association with John the Baptist, who is also described in the writings of Josephus.

John appears to have been a charismatic Jewish holy man who had a mission in the southern wilderness performing baptisms. Immersion and ablution were very common in Judea and Galilee, but John had some sort of twist to it, and was a popular figure.

For some reason, Herod has him jailed and beheaded. According to the Christians, he criticized Herod's marriage, which is actually possible, but who knows.

Anyway, we're confident that Jesus became a follower of John because….

1. His followers agreed that he did, even after the point when they believed him to be a messiah.

2. Jesus was of the same ilk as John and other holy men of that place and time, so it's perfectly reasonable that he would have at one point been a disciple of one of them.

3. Jesus's followers quickly developed stories in which it is explained why Jesus got baptized by John, because it's problematic, seeing as how John should not have had the authority to baptize Jesus if Jesus was who they said he was. Had Jesus not been one of John's followers, and not gotten baptized by him, it's not something that anyone would invent only to have to turn around and make excuses for it.

So here we have this Galilean among John's group, perhaps a student in his inner circle, when John is beheaded.

Well, if you're already apocalyptic -- and these guys weren't the only ones by a long shot, it was a widespread brand of Judaism at the time -- and you think your leader's a prophet, and the state kills him, at a time when the Temple is being run by non-Levites (which is contrary to the Law)… that tends to breed true radicals, absolute believers.

Given what his followers come to say they believe, there is little doubt that Jesus was a truly committed apocalyptic Jew who expected the Day of the Lord to come imminently, during their lives, and for the leaders of the world, including Judea and Galilee, to be obliterated, and for him and his followers to survive and live in paradise.

That fits seamlessly with the stint under John which his followers tell stories about.

 

[HansMustermann]

Not very solid, but it is evidence. A person is named in the Gospels as Jesus' brother, and in a different context Paul tells us he met a person of that name, who is the Lord's brother.

A person is named in RandomInternetGuy123456's fanfic as Captain Kirk, and what do you know? There is also a series by Gene Roddenberry about a Captain Kirk. That's independent confirmation, right?

 

[Piggy]

He is then, not one of the vast number of mainstream academics in typical Univ. history departments, is he. He is not that sort of "historian".

He is instead someone who's qualifications, background and interests are very specifically in religion and the historicity of Jesus. Yes?

How many of your other numerous "scholars" are in the same position as Ehrman? That is - not typical academic historians. But individuals who are qualified mainly if not entirely in religious studies?

What are you talking about?

When you read articles by historians specializing in the Second World War, who wrote their dissertations on the subject, do you suspect that they're not qualified to comment on the war BECAUSE they specialize in it?

Of course not.

You seem to have some misperception about what scholars of ancient literature and culture do.

Ehrman has written about the historical Jesus, and is probably the only writer on that topic that any number of folks outside the field could name, but he's not the only one and it's not all he writes about.

Of course, I would never rely on Ehrman alone, and I don't agree with all his views.

But you seem to want to get scholarship about religious texts from people who don't specialize in studying religious texts.

That makes no sense.

 

[Piggy]

Sorry for insisting but, how would you know without watching ? Did you read a transcript ?

Crank is crank.

I'm not watching an hour long video when the person who posted it won't even describe the points it contains. Sorry.

If you think there are good points to be made there, why don't you bring them up?

 

[Belz...]

OK, so we've got Jesus as a Jew from Nazareth in Galilee. Everyone agrees that's where he was from, it's something nobody would want to invent if it weren't true

Wait, stop. Why not ?

That he was from there is overwhelmingly likely.

And this also is our first evidence that he was a real man, not made up for any reason.

There simply are no traditions of a messiah who's a Galilean peasant. And unsurprisingly, there are no known traditions about anybody from Nazareth at all.

Well that's because we're here assuming that he was real in the first place, or that the gospels were sourced from something that's anywhere near the current versions. All bets are off if this isn't true. If you had watched the video, you'd know what I am talking about, but I guess I'll have to give you a summary:

Jesus could have started out as a myth about a celestial beign, who was later (after Paul) fitted with a real-world story by the writer of Mark in order to make him more appealing (to Greek or Roman readers) or something, and then fit with prophecy after that (to make him more appealing to Jews). I'm not very good at giving summaries of videos but that's the general idea, and from that Carrier says in his monologue it was a common kinda of thing in the religions of the day.

Anyway, we're confident that Jesus became a follower of John because….

1. His followers agreed that he did, even after the point when they believed him to be a messiah.

Maybe because they read that in scripture, Piggy. His followers never met Jesus.

2. Jesus was of the same ilk as John and other holy men of that place and time, so it's perfectly reasonable that he would have at one point been a disciple of one of them.

That's precisely why it's equally plausible that someone wrote that in to make it more believable.

3. Jesus's followers quickly developed stories in which it is explained why Jesus got baptized by John, because it's problematic, seeing as how John should not have had the authority to baptize Jesus if Jesus was who they said he was.

Which is a side-effect of 2.

Given what his followers come to say they believe, there is little doubt that Jesus was a truly committed apocalyptic Jew who expected the Day of the Lord to come imminently, during their lives, and for the leaders of the world, including Judea and Galilee, to be obliterated, and for him and his followers to survive and live in paradise.

Again: none of these followers actually ever met Jesus, so what they believe Jesus was is a bit irrelevant.

 

[Piggy]

Are you assuming that a reference here to "brother" must mean a physical blood brother?


Afaik, Paul and the gospel writers often use the terms brother, brothers or brethren, when referring to brothers in shared belief.

What is the evidence that anyone was actually a blood brother, or in fact any literal real family relative of Jesus?

Any independent evidence of beliefs like that? Ie, evidence from contemporary first-hand sources that were not biblical?

There's been a long debate about that, as there should be.

But at the end of the day, the notion that James was Jesus's brother has emerged as the best explanation, according to most scholars.

But first, I have to say, arbitrarily demanding "first-hand sources" and refusing to look at the sources which one would most want to look at, those preserved by the Jesus movement itself, it just doesn't fly.

The thing about James is that he has an incredibly important position, but he's not a disciple, and we have no inkling at all of any mysterious group that might be known as the Brothers of Jesus to which he might have belonged, so it makes the most sense that James achieved his high status and was called the "brother" because he actually was Jesus's brother.

Certainly Jesus would have had siblings, and the movement tells stories which do include siblings so the earliest Christians appear to be perfectly OK with Jesus as a member of a family.

Given all that, the current thinking is that James was Jesus's brother. But if he were not, that wouldn't have any impact on the widespread acceptance that Jesus was a real person.

 

[Belz...]

Crank is crank.

Can I say that about any argument I don't want to be exposed to ?

 

[Piggy]

You mean aside from peddling his silly religion ?

No, not aside from that, including that. That assumption does not produce any coherent or plausible explanation, given what the letters actually say.

 

[Craig B]

A person is named in RandomInternetGuy123456's fanfic as Captain Kirk, and what do you know? There is also a series by Gene Roddenberry about a Captain Kirk. That's independent confirmation, right?

These remarks are plain silly. The Gospel account may or may not be confirmation of Paul's statements, depending on whether the sources are independent. But that doesn't stop these things from being evidence. As always, however, we must evaluate the evidence. Babbling about Star Trek and fanfic may not be the best way of doing that.

 

[Belz...]

No, not aside from that, including that. That assumption does not produce any coherent or plausible explanation, given what the letters actually say.

Ok, why not ? I don't know much about Paul's writings, so could you clarify ?

 

[Belz...]

Babbling about Star Trek and fanfic may not be the best way of doing that.

Babbling about Star Trek is always the best way to do anything.

Kirk out.

 

[IanS]

There is currently no plausible scenario to offer in which Paul is lying about dealing with James, Peter, and others, even if there is reason to doubt some of his statements regarding what exactly those dealings consisted of.

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There simply is no reasonable narrative to explain those artifacts which includes Paul perpetuating a hoax about that stuff.

As it happens, Carrier deals with exactly that claim in the video. The video is a summary of his forthcoming book (which is apparently completed, and just going through the final stages of editing and "peer review"), so it would probably be better to read the book with all it's academic refs., rather than watching the film clip.

But as I say, he does explain why there is a good academic case to be made showing how all of what was said about Jesus by Paul and the Gospel writers, inc. ideas of anyone called James being his actual brother, is in fact part of what was at that time a widespread religious practice of deliberate hallucinatory fiction amongst the early Christians and their predecessor.

The same practice of visionary dreams is apparently also described from the period 200 years before Christ, in the Dead Sea Scrolls (c200BC to 70AD). Religious visions were interpreted as real events, and “Euhemerised”, that is re-told/preached in an earthly setting with the addition of real living people, real places and real events etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euhemerus

 

[HansMustermann]

OK, so now you've drifted off into other topics.

You don't seem to understand the situation.

The term used in Ezra's apocalyptic vision to refer to a man (or to an angel in the form of a man) morphs into a term used for a specific personage in the apocalyptic visions in the Daniel and Enoch writings, and shows up in Christian writings in that same sense, which isn't surprising because Daniel and Enoch show up all over the place in original Christian thought.

Dude, show at least ONE instance in Hebrew or Aramaic where it's used that way. That's really it. Show the evidence that it was actually used that way.

I couldn't care less about the rest of your handwaving or postulates about what I don't understand if I don't agree with you. In fact, I grow tired of this lame act of just postulating what's wrong with others instead of supporting your own claims.

Ezra just is not it. For a start it appears to be written some decades after Jesus, in fact after the destruction of the temple, and hence it does not support that usage some 40 years later. Plus, Ezra too just says "man". I'm at a loss to find anywhere in Ezra anything that uses "son of man" as a title for anything at all.

If you know one, please supply exact chapter number and verse number.

From this, we can see not only the morphing of usage, but also the progression of thought among apocalyptic Jews.

But that's not what was asked. Show one usage of "son of man" as a title for the Messiah in either Hebrew or Aramaic. That's it. Not to postulate stuff out of the ass about what it shows... even though it doesn't actually use those words.

Whether Jesus thought of himself as playing that role on the Day of the Lord or not is an open question. I think it's more likely that he did not, but that's tangential.

Considering that there is no evidence or even indication whatsoever that any Aramaic speaker would think of that as even meaning any role at all, yeah, I'd say he most likely didn't think of it as his title either.

In any case, again, it's an analog to the current Spanish usage of señor to mean "gentleman" or "God".

Except there are plenty of examples of that meaning God in Spanish -- heck, even I could give you a couple, and I'm not even a Spanish speaker -- but there are exactly zero instances of "son of man" in Aramaic being used to mean anything but "man".

And there's no real doubt about this, you know. The progression is clear to see from the writings, and the traditions into which they fit.

If there is no real doubt, then just show the evidence on which such certainty is based. Even a single instance of such usage in Hebrew or Aramaic would be a pretty darn good start.

But just postulating out of the butt that there is no doubt, just isn't it.

This is not controversial.

Then you should have no problem showing at least one usage of the term in Hebrew or Aramaic that means that. Note that this still falls short of supporting such certainty, but still, it would be a better start that just pulling such certainty out of the butt.

Whether Jesus spoke the term doesn't matter, and for our purposes it doesn't matter whether he saw himself in that role or not, whatever term he would have used for it.

If it doesn't matter for your HJ reconstruction, then just don't postulate it as a part of the reconstruction. But if you do, please be prepared to support it better than just postulating some certainty out of thin air.

The topic at hand was belief by others, after his death, that he was the Son of Man who would lead God's Army, and how that differs from another title given to him, Son of God.

Was it? That's the whole question. Please actually support it, don't just postulate some certainty out of nowhere.

 

[Piggy]

Well that's because we're here assuming that he was real in the first place, or that the gospels were sourced from something that's anywhere near the current versions. All bets are off if this isn't true. If you had watched the video, you'd know what I am talking about, but I guess I'll have to give you a summary:

Jesus could have started out as a myth about a celestial beign, who was later (after Paul) fitted with a real-world story by the writer of Mark in order to make him more appealing (to Greek or Roman readers) or something, and then fit with prophecy after that (to make him more appealing to Jews). I'm not very good at giving summaries of videos but that's the general idea, and from that Carrier says in his monologue it was a common kinda of thing in the religions of the day.

If you had taken my advice and not watched the video, you would not now have this wrong idea stuck in your head.

No, we're not assuming he was real from the get-go.

However, when we run across correspondence from a group of Jews who say they're followers of an apocalyptic holy man named Jesus who died recently, then historically speaking, the most likely explanation for that claim is that they're followers of an apocalyptic holy man named Jesus who died recently.

That's not problematic. There's no problem to be solved by proposing that they're wrong.

When we discover that they're having to explain away embarrassing facts about this guy, such as his coming from Nazareth, being baptized by John (in light of their claims about him), and his being crucified… and when we consider that there's no precedent for any such literary or religious figure for them to draw on… then that likelihood goes up through the stratosphere.

Now, one problem about the scenario you describe above is that Paul already sees Jesus as a human being, born a Jew, born of a woman, born into the Law, flesh and blood, crucified, dead, raised from the dead. So there couldn't be any conversion of concepts of Jesus from divine to human after Paul, since it must have already happened before Paul.

Moreover, while Paul records many disputes between him and James the Brother of Jesus and the members of the Twelve in Jerusalem, he reports no dispute over this issue with them. (Although he does take issue with some outside the circle of those who knew Jesus.) Which means that it's most likely that they didn't disagree with Paul, which means the earliest Christians thought Jesus was human.

Finally, there simply is no tradition to be cited that would support the "Jesus as divine non-human" scenario. What, exactly, does this guy think they were drawing on? Is he keeping some ancient manuscripts to himself?

Keep in mind, these folks didn't say Jesus was some ancient figure. They said he was a contemporary holy man.

I don't know of a single instance of any group claiming that they were recently founded, just a few years back, by someone who never existed.

Can you find a precedent for that? Hopefully one somewhere near the time, place, and culture we're discussing?