What counts as a historical Jesus?

[Piggy]

I know. I just don't know why. Last time we had this conversation you told me that it was simply more likely that a historical Jesus existed because (I'm paraphrasing, of course. Forgive me if I'm misrepresenting) why would they write that if it weren't true ? Well, it's a bit of an argument from incredulity, but what I didn't catch back then is that there actually is an answer to that question. Please note that I still haven't made up my mind about this; I find it fascinating, that's all.

Well, I was actually trying to have that conversation, but it keeps getting derailed.

On page 38 I answered a question, laying out a pretty standard bio for a historical Jesus.

Someone asked for a summary of the evidence, so I did that for the first couple of bits about being from Nazareth and being a follower of John the Baptist.

Of course, then there's an assault by the Jesus Truthers -- I'm sorry to call them that, but seriously, that's what they are -- who start making pointless objections.

I can either get bogged down with those, or I can continue presenting the scenario.

But the thing is, if you REALLY want the evidence that will convince you, it won't fit on forum posts. It really won't. Because we're dealing with ancient documents and cultures and beliefs and artifacts and languages, the chain of evidence for any one point is long and tangled.

Therefore, what I'm trying to demonstrate is that the whole Jesus Myth idea is absurd on its face. It doesn't hold water, and we shouldn't suspect that it would.

If I get caught up chasing one petty objection to the other -- I mean really, folks are proposing "What if Paul made up the guys in Jerusalem?" -- it'll go nowhere forever.

So I'm going to get back to the bigger picture.

As to the other question, historians can't prove history, so they're always dealing in probabilities.

Nobody can prove Jesus, but the likelihood is higher that he existed than that he didn't.

But as to the Jesus Myth notions as they exist right now… those are crank ideas. By which I mean, although there may be some plausible scenario which lacks a historical Jesus, none of these guys have yet come up with it.

 

[Piggy]

I still see several possibilities:

1) Paul met with real disciples of Jesus.
2) Paul made up Jesus and his disciples.
3) Paul had an idea about a saviour, met the disciples of another and mashed them up into one.

And why did Paul meet with disciples at all ? I mean, we know he didn't have a real vision, so why seek out Jesus' disciples in the first place ? Did he hear about the Jesus cult and went to meet them and then made up the vision thing ? Or did he make up the whole thing ? That's the problem I have with this issue.

Paul could not have made up the disciples. The various apostles and missionaries were all traveling to one another's churches. There's no way he could have pulled off a lie like that, even if he'd wanted to.

Nor could he have created a mash-up, not only for the same reason as above, but also because the other cult would not have allowed it.

I'll make another post about his relationship with the brothers and the Twelve.

 

[IanS]

Why do you keep attributing to me a belief in the reality of the postmortem Jesus events mentioned by Paul? OK, let me spell it out for you. By "the words naturally mean that there was a real person" I intend to imply: "Paul's saying that there was a real person means that he believed there was a real person."

The answer is because of what you actually said in your previous post (the quote is shown below) -

Here the appearances have obviously occurred recently - "most of whom are still living" - and are associated with the burial and raising. The words naturally mean that there was a real person who died recently and to whom these events occurred .

In that quote you are emphasising the line which says “most of whom are still living”. But in writing that Paul is talking about people who were still living at the time he wrote that epistle. But that does mean those same people must have been living at some unknown time in the past when they might have personally witnessed a living Jesus!

 

[Piggy]

But Jesus was supposed to be dead by the time of Paul's vision. So that is a fictional experience of Jesus. On top of that, in Corinthians Paul tells us more of that vision, saying the risen Jesus was seen first by Cephas, then by "the twelve", then by more than 500 other people at once, and then seen by James and all the apostles, and then seen also by himself.

That is fictional belief, isn't it. That cannot be reliable historical fact (though no doubt, people believed it was in the 1st century AD).

Yeah, but you're missing the point.

Historians can tell just as much about a person by the falsehoods they tell as by the truths they tell.

"Because it's true" is only one possible answer to the historian's question "Why was this written?" And all the possible answers are significant and useful.

The thing is, these beliefs about Jesus on the part of Paul do not in any way indicate that the Jesus movement wasn't founded by a Galilean holy man who was crucified by Pilate.

In fact, given the circumstances, these beliefs make perfect sense.

I'd like to talk about those beliefs and why they make sense, but I've only covered up to John's beheading and I need to get back to that. This comes later.

 

[HansMustermann]

If you don't want to be called a crank, and don't want to be compared to other cranks, then don't use crank tactics, such as dismissing a global scholarly consensus with appeals to "argument from authority", or taking pot-shots at details without proposing a coherent theory, or cherry-picking, or getting facts dead wrong (see Paul's views on Jesus above, for example), or seeking solutions to non-existent problems, or painting all mainstream scholars as idiots who can't tell that miracles don't really happen, or insisting on quoting a tiny number of outsiders along with self-promoting contrarian non-scholars while ignoring altogether the mainstream scholarship which produced the very body of knowledge which the fringers cite but misinterpret.

Right. So because you don't understand logic or evidence, you call cranks those who do. Whop-de-do, now that was a surprise

Look, seriously, the rules of logic aren't going to rewrite themselves in your favour just because you resort to insults.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Well, I was actually trying to have that conversation, but it keeps getting derailed.

On page 38 I answered a question, laying out a pretty standard bio for a historical Jesus.

Someone asked for a summary of the evidence, so I did that for the first couple of bits about being from Nazareth and being a follower of John the Baptist.

Of course, then there's an assault by the Jesus Truthers -- I'm sorry to call them that, but seriously, that's what they are -- who start making pointless objections.

I can either get bogged down with those, or I can continue presenting the scenario.

But the thing is, if you REALLY want the evidence that will convince you, it won't fit on forum posts. It really won't. Because we're dealing with ancient documents and cultures and beliefs and artifacts and languages, the chain of evidence for any one point is long and tangled.

Therefore, what I'm trying to demonstrate is that the whole Jesus Myth idea is absurd on its face. It doesn't hold water, and we shouldn't suspect that it would.

If I get caught up chasing one petty objection to the other -- I mean really, folks are proposing "What if Paul made up the guys in Jerusalem?" -- it'll go nowhere forever.

So I'm going to get back to the bigger picture.

As to the other question, historians can't prove history, so they're always dealing in probabilities.

Nobody can prove Jesus, but the likelihood is higher that he existed than that he didn't.

But as to the Jesus Myth notions as they exist right now… those are crank ideas. By which I mean, although there may be some plausible scenario which lacks a historical Jesus, none of these guys have yet come up with it.

Thank you so very much for sharing your (highlighted) opinion.

 

[Piggy]

I’m surprised you would post those sort of comparisons. They are clearly not remotely similar.

The WW2 Holocaust, the moon landings (or whatever similar thing you are referring to there), and claimed sightings of things like the Loch Ness Monster (I know nothing about US versions such as Bigfoot), are all things where the claimed evidence, whether written or filmed or physical objects etc (Roswell alien autopsy, anyone ), and where the claimed evidence has been debunked by objective scientific evidence and scientific investigation, many times.

The religious claims of scientifically ignorant people living 2000 years ago in the middle east, about belief in a supernatural god who visits earth as Jesus and who performs constant miracles as the basis of all those accounts, is not remotely in the same category as your examples of the holocaust etc.

I'm not talking about the claims of any ancient people.

I'm talking about the current scholarship, which in this case extends across disciplines, including religious studies, linguistics, archaeology, and so forth.

Serious objective academic study of the Bible began in the 1800 and we have an enormous body of research now which situates those writings in their historical context.

There's a reason why the number of mythicists among publishing scholars in the field can be counted on the fingers of one hand, with fingers left over.

That stuff is taken just as seriously as those others I mentioned above are in their fields. The comparison is not a bad one.

 

[HansMustermann]

I can either get bogged down with those, or I can continue presenting the scenario.

Or you could just present actual evidence already.

Like many other trolls hiding behind "I don't have time for that", actually I see you have plenty of time to write dozens of messages spewing more unsupported nonsense, arguing fallacies, slinging insults, and arguing why you don't have to abide by the perfectly normal rules of logic.

But it would have taken exactly one message to provide actual evidence for just about anything that was asked. E.g., it wouldn't take more than one message to provide at least one instance of "son of man" being used as a title in either Hebrew or Aramaic.

But nah, apparently you totally don't have time for that one message, when you could instead be pumping out dozens of ego-wank messages about who's crank if they don't agree with you.

Heh.

 

[Piggy]

That’s a common argument. But I think it’s a false one.

It’s a question of degree or extent to which the persons life is characterised by the claimed miracles.

It may be true that various Roman emperors were claimed to be gods and even that they had performed miracles. But that is only the tiniest fraction of what those emperors were known for throughout their lives. They were far better known as normal human individuals who made laws, argued with their political advisors, lead armies into all sorts of battles, had numerous monuments erected, had coins minted, got married (numerous times), had numerous children, murdered all sorts of people, and were often eventually murdered themselves etc. etc. Only the most microscopically small element of their known lives concerned anyone’s claims of miracles or supernatural status.

With Jesus the entire opposite is the case. Jesus is only known from the devotional biblical accounts which describe him constantly and almost entirely in terms of his numerous miracles. The miracles and the supernatural status characterise his entire being. The same is true for all the other well known gods of ancient history. But of course, everyone believes they are fictional.

The question is, WHY did people tell those miracle stories about Jesus?

Was it because Jesus was some ancient god or hero? No. Nobody thought that and there is no such ancient god or hero we've ever encountered.

Was it because he was a folk legend hero, of the type we see in the first part of Daniel? No, for the same reasons.

Was it because he was a hoax? No. Nobody's ever come up with a hoax theory that makes any sense.

Was it because a group of apocalyptic Jews were so distraught at the death of their leader -- an event that threatened to topple the world view which they had given up everything to embrace -- that they re-examined the prophecy and shoe-horned it so that their dead leader was actually prophecied to return when his prophecies came true?

Bingo!

Not only does that explanation fit all of the writings this group left behind, but it also fits perfectly with what we now know about the psychology and sociology of such groups (e.g., see Cialdini's chapter on end-time groups in "Influence").

In other words, the miracle stories are exactly what we would expect to arise from this group, who believed their leader was chosen by God to lead them in the new Jerusalem after the arrival of the Kingdom.

In fact, Jesus isn't the only figure of his day and place to receive such treatment.

 

[Piggy]

The only way you can pretend that there is "unanimity" about the very existence of Jesus is to dismiss everyone with whom you disagree as cranks.
You would know that, since, after all, you taught this stuff...

I don't "dismiss" them as cranks, they are cranks. It's not a meaningless term.

When you've got a group of people peddling debunked theories, who are either non-scholars or are tourists from other fields, along with only 2 or 3 on the globe representing anyone at all in the field, you've got crank scholarship.

The problem with debunking crank scholarship is that if you take it seriously, you give it a weight and credit that it doesn't deserve. After all, it's up to the contrarian to demonstrate why the mainstream consensus is wrong.

For example, if you look at the articles in the book "The Historical Jesus in Context", you will find none dealing with any of the issues brought up by the mythicists. Why not? Are they suppressing the truth? No, they're not bringing up those points because they're not valid.

When mythicism steps out of the blogs and actually produces some scholarship worth discussing at accredited institutions, then I'll give it another hearing.

As it is, I've heard it, it's bunk, that's why it's fringe, and I'm not "dismissing" it. I reject it, of course, but I haven't merely dismissed it.

 

[HansMustermann]

The question is, WHY did people tell those miracle stories about Jesus?

Because they were trying to convert others. And we know even from Paul that some people expected miracles.

Was it because Jesus was some ancient god or hero? No. Nobody thought that and there is no such ancient god or hero we've ever encountered.

That's a BS argument. Ultimately people didn't tell miraculous stories about heroes just because they were heroes, but because they were trying to peddle said story to other people.

Plus those heroes too were once new and someone had to invent those myths about them. So the same argument could be made about Hercules at some point. Oh noes, they totally wouldn't make up stories about him, because there was no cult of Hercules before that.

In that aspect, Jesus is no different.

Was it because he was a folk legend hero, of the type we see in the first part of Daniel? No, for the same reasons.

WTH even is the difference between a folk legend hero and an oral tradition hero? Because your argument seems to be that Jesus wasn't the former, although (at least by the times of Mark or Matthew), he was the latter.

Was it because he was a hoax? No. Nobody's ever come up with a hoax theory that makes any sense.

That's exactly a textbook argument from ignorance. What must be supported is the positive claim that he existed. You don't get to be right a positive claim just because nobody proved that it was a hoax.

Was it because a group of apocalyptic Jews were so distraught at the death of their leader -- an event that threatened to topple the world view which they had given up everything to embrace -- that they re-examined the prophecy and shoe-horned it so that their dead leader was actually prophecied to return when his prophecies came true?

Bingo!

No, not really. For a start, just because you can list a bunch of alternatives, doesn't mean they're the only ones.

Why would people make up miraculous claims? Let's see... because they were trying to sell their story and it lacked miracles? There is no requirement for anything real behind it.

 

[Slowvehicle]

I don't "dismiss" them as cranks, they are cranks. It's not a meaningless term.

When you've got a group of people peddling debunked theories, who are either non-scholars or are tourists from other fields, along with only 2 or 3 on the globe representing anyone at all in the field, you've got crank scholarship.

The problem with debunking crank scholarship is that if you take it seriously, you give it a weight and credit that it doesn't deserve. After all, it's up to the contrarian to demonstrate why the mainstream consensus is wrong.

For example, if you look at the articles in the book "The Historical Jesus in Context", you will find none dealing with any of the issues brought up by the mythicists. Why not? Are they suppressing the truth? No, they're not bringing up those points because they're not valid.

When mythicism steps out of the blogs and actually produces some scholarship worth discussing at accredited institutions, then I'll give it another hearing.

As it is, I've heard it, it's bunk, that's why it's fringe, and I'm not "dismissing" it. I reject it, of course, but I haven't merely dismissed it.

Thank you for presenting your opinion.

 

[HansMustermann]

I don't "dismiss" them as cranks, they are cranks. It's not a meaningless term.

When you've got a group of people peddling debunked theories, who are either non-scholars or are tourists from other fields, along with only 2 or 3 on the globe representing anyone at all in the field, you've got crank scholarship.

The problem with debunking crank scholarship is that if you take it seriously, you give it a weight and credit that it doesn't deserve. After all, it's up to the contrarian to demonstrate why the mainstream consensus is wrong.

No, not really. It's still the ones who make the positive claim who get the burden of proof.

Otherwise you'd be a crank to not believe in homeopathy, unless you do the impossible task of disproving that it ever worked. But luckily it doesn't work by your deranged ideas of consensus. It's not the task of the "contrarian" to debunk the homeopaths' consensus, it's only up to him to ask for evidence. That's all.

 

[IanS]

Paul could not have made up the disciples. The various apostles and missionaries were all traveling to one another's churches. There's no way he could have pulled off a lie like that, even if he'd wanted to.

Nor could he have created a mash-up, not only for the same reason as above, but also because the other cult would not have allowed it.
I'll make another post about his relationship with the brothers and the Twelve.

Piggy -I know you believe what you are saying, but it doesn't help if you keep presenting things as if it were certain fact (see the highlighting above).

Nobody will ever get to the bottom of any of this biblical stuff if the faithful keep insisting that what's known about biblical characters like Paul, Jesus, or James as the brother of Jesus, is all known definite "fact".

We, all of us, should try to keep at least something of an open mind on all this. It is after all, not absolutely certain that Paul even existed (let alone Jesus). Much less that Paul actually did any of things written in his Letters ... it's not impossible that the letters were written by someone else after Paul had died, for example. I'm not saying we should believe that as likely, but we should not in all honesty regard any of these ancient religious sources as absolute certain fact ... not if we are being at all serious about any of this.

 

[Belz...]

Paul could not have made up the disciples. The various apostles and missionaries were all traveling to one another's churches.

Wait, how do we even know that, except from Paul himself ?

 

[Belz...]

Right. So because you don't understand logic or evidence, you call cranks those who do. Whop-de-do, now that was a surprise

Look, seriously, the rules of logic aren't going to rewrite themselves in your favour just because you resort to insults.

You could be a bit more amenable yourself, Hans.

Surely if you both think your cases are strong, you can argue it here.

 

[Belz...]

The question is, WHY did people tell those miracle stories about Jesus?

Probably because they believed it. But that belief does not translate into reality.

Was it because Jesus was some ancient god or hero? No. Nobody thought that and there is no such ancient god or hero we've ever encountered.

Who says it has to be ancient. He could have originated around 30 CE for all we know.

Was it because he was a hoax? No. Nobody's ever come up with a hoax theory that makes any sense.

Is the book of Mormon a hoax, or did Smith believe all that ?

Bingo!

That's the bit where I think we're jumping a bit ahead of ourselves. All we can actually say according to you is not "bingo" but "it's the most likely explanation", which is a weaker claim.

 

[HansMustermann]

You could be a bit more amenable yourself, Hans.

Surely if you both think your cases are strong, you can argue it here.

*shrug* Exactly what kind of argument would YOU make against someone who's arguing that all the normal rules of logic don't apply, and slinging insults if you call his fallacies or even if you ask for evidence?

And I wasn't aware that logic was still something that needs to be argued about.

 

[IanS]

I'm not talking about the claims of any ancient people.

I'm talking about the current scholarship, which in this case extends across disciplines, including religious studies, linguistics, archaeology, and so forth.

Serious objective academic study of the Bible began in the 1800 and we have an enormous body of research now which situates those writings in their historical context.

There's a reason why the number of mythicists among publishing scholars in the field can be counted on the fingers of one hand, with fingers left over.

That stuff is taken just as seriously as those others I mentioned above are in their fields. The comparison is not a bad one.

Actually the comparison is a “bad one”. Because you are talking about the claims of ancient people writing in biblical times vs. the claims of people who today say they have film and physical evidence etc. of such things as Bigfoot, UFO's and Ghosts etc.

Relatively current/recent claims like that can be, and have been, completely de-bunked by objective scientific investigations.

But the claims from biblical writing are being supported by modern day "scholars of Christianity" who are relying on examining the 2000 year-old biblical writing as evidence for truth of their own internal claims of a real miraculous Jesus.

That's not to say that such scholars cannot try to determine what's likely to be fact from fiction in the bible. But that's not remotely comparable to modern day photographic chemists showing that bits of film of Bigfoot or Nessie are faked, etc.

 

[Belz...]

*shrug* Exactly what kind of argument would YOU make against someone who argues that all the normal rules of logic don't apply, and slinging insults if you call his fallacies?

And I wasn't aware that logic was still something that needs to be argued about.

Hans, all I'm saying is that if you both opened up a bit it might lead the other to be more amenable to conversation. As it stands you're just nay-saying each other, and this does nothing to help the thread or its participants.