What counts as a historical Jesus?

[Piggy]

Paul's next book on Sunday

I'm in the city tonight and tomorrow, and I have to exterminate some rats Sunday afternoon, so I hope to post the next installment on Paul's letters Sunday evening, chaos willing.

As we progress, we'll see whether or not anything of use can be gleaned by examining the writings, beliefs, and habits of Jesus's followers.

Ciao -Piggy

 

[Belz...]

Mythicism is this group's own term for itself. It is the mythicist view that there was no historical Jesus.

If someone wants to suggest another term, that's fine (but I draw the line at "Jesus skeptic", can't go there).

Wow, so you are excluding the middle, full stop ? You're either full HJ or full MJ, right ? Can't be skeptical at all about this topic !

Well that explains quite a bit about this thread.

 

[pakeha]

^
Great. I'm looking forward to reading that.
Good luck with the rats.

OK, who do you think he's scamming, and how, and why?

Well, judging my experience with scammers, he was targeting anything that had financial potential.

eight bits said it quite well.

...You've read the letters. Gentiles who sign up will never die because an imagined Jesus said so to Paul. While we're waiting for lift-off, Paul is taking up a collection to help some people whom you'll meet for the first time when we're all flying to meet Jesus. That's when you can check that Paul really gave your money to these people. ...

However, even my thinking Paul was a scammer doesn't mean I'm not following your posts on his letters with a great deal of interest.

 

[tsig]

By that argument, nothing written by Hitler or the Nazis has anything to tell us about who they were and who Hitler was... nothing can be gleaned from their propaganda posters or Nazi defense testimony at war trials.

Which is grossly incorrect.

And if you disagree with the overwhelming academic consensus on this matter, perhaps you could provide some actual support for your contrarian views, based on something other than a misunderstanding of historical methods.

See Piggy we're not trying to find out who the Nazis were or who Hitler was but what the evidence is that Jesus existed.

 

[tsig]

Wow, so you are excluding the middle, full stop ? You're either full HJ or full MJ, right ? Can't be skeptical at all about this topic !

Well that explains quite a bit about this thread.

Yes, Piggy is arguing with some group called Mythers, apparently Jesus existence is a special subject that can only be understood by a lifetime study of language, customs and beliefs of 1st century Hebrews. It's much more complicated than quantum physics, rocket science and calculus all rolled into one.

 

[JaysonR]

apparently Jesus existence is a special subject that can only be understood by a lifetime study of language, customs and beliefs of 1st century Hebrews. It's much more complicated than quantum physics, rocket science and calculus all rolled into one.

Actually, historicity of any ancient person or event is a subject that can only really be understood by a decent versing (not a lifetime) in linguistics, hermeneutics and anthropology; and isn't more complicated, but is comparably as complicated as quantum physics, rocket science, and ... easily more complicated than calculus (which would be comparable to a constituent, like hermeneutics, for example).

And this is why it's a field of practice; because it is complicated and involved.
In much the same way as it is that if we do not wish to accept the findings published by the consensus of the field for physics over a matter, that we would need to be versed enough to counter the established standards provided to us by those within the field; it is so that if we wish to challenge the historicity of any figure or event in history soundly if it has already been accepted by those in the field by consensus, then we would need to be versed enough to counter the established standard provided to us by those same within the field (in fact, these make for great doctorates).

And to counter, includes countering by the same standards that are used in the field, in which the challenge is taking place, for the current standing position.
It doesn't mean just saying, "I don't buy that by my standards".
That won't get anywhere beyond just idle chatter, and doesn't really properly contest any established standard in any field.

It's not a special case; it's the standard case.

 

[Stone]

So by asking the question "What counts as a HJ?" I'm a fundie and a woo? I'd think that the only ones to get this emotional would be Christians.

I think you have a sweet spot in your heart for Jesus.

In fact, I have a sweet spot for all the figures marked with a "+" sign in this list. just as I have a horror of all those marked here with a "-" sign.

(Those with a "=" sign are essentially neutral figures. They did what most others would have done in their position. It's just that they were situated to do big things because of the situation they were in -- and they were bad in some things and good in others. I include them because they play important roles in the narratives chiefly associated with the "+" and "-" figures.) --


Enmetena +

Lugalanda-

Urukagina +

Lugalzagesi -

Sargon =

Hammurrabi +
author: Eloquent Peasant +
Moses +
Krishna +

Kamsa -
Narayana -
Brhaspati -

Hesiod +
Solon +

Pisistratus -

Buddha +
Asoka +
Confucius +
Gaozu +
Cleisthenes+

Leukippos =

Critias -

Socrates +
Christ +

Tiberius -
Pilate -
Nero -

Ulpian +
Constantine +

Theodosius I -

Mohammed +
Abd-ar-Rahman III +

Al-Hakim bi-Amr -
Urban II -
Gregory IX -
Genghis Khan -

Galileo +
Fox +
Naylor +
Lilburne +

Knutzen =

William III +
Locke +

Meslier -
George III -
Lord North -

Jefferson +
Madison +
Washington +

Louis XVI -
Robespierre -

Monroe +

Jackson =

Bahá-u-lláh +
Alexander II +

Lincoln =
Feuerbach =
Marx =

Tolstoy +

Leopold II -

Casement +
Morel +
Theodore Roosevelt +

J. P. Morgan =

Wilhelm II -
Clemenceau -
Hitler -

Einstein +

Franklin Roosevelt =
Truman =

Hirohito -
Tojo -

Marshall +
Larsen +

Mao -
Stalin -

Gandhi +

Godse -

King +

Malan -

Mandela +

Bin Laden -

Bush, Jr. =
Obama =


Cheers,

Stone

 

[Belz...]

Actually, historicity of any ancient person or event is a subject that can only really be understood by a decent versing (not a lifetime) in linguistics, hermeneutics and anthropology; and isn't more complicated, but is comparably as complicated as quantum physics, rocket science, and ... easily more complicated than calculus (which would be comparable to a constituent, like hermeneutics, for example).

And this is why it's a field of practice; because it is complicated and involved.
In much the same way as it is that if we do not wish to accept the findings published by the consensus of the field for physics over a matter, that we would need to be versed enough to counter the established standards provided to us by those within the field; it is so that if we wish to challenge the historicity of any figure or event in history soundly if it has already been accepted by those in the field by consensus, then we would need to be versed enough to counter the established standard provided to us by those same within the field (in fact, these make for great doctorates).

And to counter, includes countering by the same standards that are used in the field, in which the challenge is taking place, for the current standing position.
It doesn't mean just saying, "I don't buy that by my standards".
That won't get anywhere beyond just idle chatter, and doesn't really properly contest any established standard in any field.

It's not a special case; it's the standard case.

And yet people can explain quantum physics.

 

[eight bits]

Jayson

And Suetonius' "Chrestus" isn't actually somebody named or nicknamed Chrestus because...? And if Suetonius meant "Christus," then what do we make of the passage? The unrest in Rome was instigated by this man, in Claudius' time (emperor 41 to 54). How does this man's appearance in Rome fit in with a historical Jesus?

As to the letter

not later than the 1st c CE.

I've seen serious dates into the Second Century. For example, Early Christian Writings, hardly a hang-out for Christ mythers, places it 73-200.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/mara.html

Even if it were 73, and the "Wise King" is Jesus, how does the attestation of the Gospels' contemporary blood libel against the Jews help with the historicity of a man who was said to be killed by Romans, in part because the Jews had already lost their country?

 

[JaysonR]

And yet people can explain quantum physics.

No...they really can't.
I've seen plenty of forum threads shot out by folks the challenge established quantum physics and folks attempting to explain the accepted standards to those who contend them fair no better than what's here.

There was a thread once that was many pages long that involved an individual directly challenging that a Photon was a gauge boson of EM.

Folks could sit there and cite studies and established standards all day, but the contest wanted direct evidence, and since no one could produce direct evidence over a forum, the position was being declared as not proven.

 

[Belz...]

No...they really can't.

Yes, they can. They can dumb down the theory, explain how it works, point to the evidence and why it supports the theory. That some people can't accept it is irrelevant. Here, we're yet to see the evidence. We've seen some of the reasoning, which is very reasonable itself, and the conclusions, but not the evidence we were promised.

 

[JaysonR]

Jayson

And Suetonius' "Chrestus" isn't actually somebody named or nicknamed Chrestus because...? And if Suetonius meant "Christus," then what do we make of the passage? The unrest in Rome was instigated by this man, in Claudius' time (emperor 41 to 54). How does this man's appearance in Rome fit in with a historical Jesus?

It's accepted as being a reference to Jesus as during this time period, there was no established standard between those spellings; it was common to spell the titled name either way.

It addresses disturbances within the Jewish communities in Rome around that time; it is not addressing the downfall of the Temple in 70 CE.

It's a citation of how the Jews in Rome were kicked out because they couldn't stop bickering over this Christ figure's issue.

As to the letter


I've seen serious dates into the Second Century. For example, Early Christian Writings, hardly a hang-out for Christ mythers, places it 73-200.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/mara.html

Even if it were 73, and the "Wise King" is Jesus, how does the attestation of the Gospels' contemporary blood libel against the Jews help with the historicity of a man who was said to be killed by Romans, in part because the Jews had already lost their country?

Yes, some toss it upwards of the second century, but most do not considering the letter is during duress following the destruction of the second temple, and that as such, it would be a bit more difficult to place it after the 1st c CE given the average lifespan of a human being.

It doesn't say that they lost their country before the Wise King was killed, but after.
In the author's opinion, the downfall of Judah was a direct (moral) result of their killing of this Wise King who was pushing contentious new laws.

It doesn't state that they lost their nation, and then killed the Wise King who was introducing new laws.

 

[JaysonR]

Yes, they can. They can dumb down the theory, explain how it works, point to the evidence and why it supports the theory. That some people can't accept it is irrelevant. Here, we're yet to see the evidence. We've seen some of the reasoning, which is very reasonable itself, and the conclusions, but not the evidence we were promised.

You can't show particle evidence, literally, to someone over a forum medium.
You have to actually sit in a lab and show them if they want actual undeniable evidence.
If you just cite tests in a lab, they will challenge the lab conditions (I've seen this plenty of times).

As to here:
I showed evidence.

If you want hard evidence; there isn't any.
There isn't any hard evidence for most any ancient individual or event; case in point: Hippocrates.

 

[Craig B]

JaysonR

It's a citation of how the Jews in Rome were kicked out because they couldn't stop bickering over this Christ figure's issue.

Or because messianic agitation in general was the cause of disturbances among them. Or some guy called Chrestus was causing trouble. It's a very common name in the period, attested about 200 times in the first century in inscriptions on tombstones and the like.

 

[JaysonR]

Chrestus/Christus was not a name; that was a title.
"Jesus" was the name, in translation.
There was, so far as any records indicate, no other figures that were casually referred to by this title as a naming reference implicitly.

There were other messianic individuals, indeed, but we have only one such figure that continually is referred to by the convention of this title as implicitly used in pseudonym.

 

[Craig B]

Here's Suetonius' other reference to Christians.

During his reign many abuses were severely punished and put down, and no fewer new laws were made: a limit was set to expenditures; the public banquets were confined to a distribution of food; the sale of any kind of cooked viands in the taverns was forbidden, with the exception of pulse and vegetables, whereas before every sort of dainty was exposed for sale. Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition. He put an end to the diversions of the chariot drivers, who from immunity of long standing claimed the right of ranging at large and amusing themselves by cheating and robbing the people. The pantomimic actors and their partisans were banished from the city.

Nero 16. How about that? G A Wells observes, and I agree, that it is most suspicious that a reference to Christians should appear in what he calls "an enumeration of minor police reforms". It is very evidently an interpolation by a later Christian copyist embarrassed at the failure of any chronicler but Tacitus to mention the supposed Neronian persecution.

 

[Acleron]

The same reason why many skeptics are passionate against fundies. Fundies peddle woo, and it's infuriating and destructive.

Stone

But when fundies ask for evidence to support the scientific status we give it to them, in fact we drown them in it. What we don't say is that you have to take our word for it now piss off you nasty people.

If they make claims that are bizarre we ask them for evidence, strange that isn't it.

 

[tsig]

You can't show particle evidence, literally, to someone over a forum medium.
You have to actually sit in a lab and show them if they want actual undeniable evidence.
If you just cite tests in a lab, they will challenge the lab conditions (I've seen this plenty of times).

As to here:
I showed evidence.

If you want hard evidence; there isn't any.
There isn't any hard evidence for most any ancient individual or event; case in point: Hippocrates.

So if I asked you for evidence that Hippocrates existed you'd call me a myther, ignorant and a crank?

 

[JaysonR]

Craig B;
I strongly disagree with G. A. Wells (as most of the field does), as there is nothing strange about mentioning the Christians in a list of Nero's actions.

Almost (but not all) everything that we know about Nero is from Seutonius, in fact.
Nero is entered into History as infamously being the emperor who is most associated with Christian persecution.
It is not odd for him to be written of by an account as associated with such actions.

Having any record of Nero that was absent some mention of that action would itself be odd.

 

[JaysonR]

So if I asked you for evidence that Hippocrates existed you'd call me a myther, ignorant and a crank?

No.
I'll show you the evidence that we have, just like I did for Jesus.