What counts as a historical Jesus?

[Piggy]

Paul's letter to the Galatians

OK, so, getting on with our examination of the writings of the followers of Jesus to see what they can tell us….

We'll move on to Paul's letter to the Galatians, which is different from his other letters in 2 important ways.

First, it's addressed "to the assemblies in Galatia" (modern-day Turkey) rather than to a specific church. Second, Paul does not begin by thanking God for the assemblies. (In fact, it is not clear which of these assemblies were founded by Paul in the first place.)

In this letter, Paul attempts to address objections which he has heard of which have been raised against his "gospel" by other missionaries visiting the Galatian assemblies -- specifically, by apostles who disagree with his interpretation of the mission to the gentiles.

One thing to note which is especially clear in this letter -- when Paul justifies his interpretation of the meaning of Jesus's death, he never refers to any pagan sources, never refers to anything smacking of a mystery cult. No, every single one of his arguments is rooted explicitly and exclusively in Judaism.

This is quite remarkable in an address to gentiles.

What's more, his detractors are themselves not arguing from a pagan or "mystery cult" point of view -- they claim to be even more Jewish than Paul!

This concords perfectly with what we've seen regarding the archaeology of Galilee and the Jewish apocalyptic tradition within which the earliest Jesus movement fits.

Even Paul's reasons for attempting to convert gentiles in the first place is anchored in Jewish scripture, which as we've seen contends that in the New Jerusalem all the nations will bend their knees to honor the one true God, the God of the Covenant with Abraham.

Here's how the letter opens:

Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— and all the brothers and sisters with me,

To the churches in Galatia:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Paul starts this letter by identifying himself, as he did in the body of the letter to the Thessalonians, as an apostle (messenger) who does not deliver a message from other men, but who delivers a message received directly from God and his anointed one, Jesus.

He also identifies Jesus as the one who was sacrificed because of sin, in order to rescue his followers from the "present evil age", indicating that there will be a future age in which there is no sin or evil, and his followers will enjoy that future.

So why does Paul bother to give his credentials right off the bat?

As we shall see, the cause of this letter is to refute the claims of his detractors within Jewish Christianity. (This is why it makes no sense to claim that Paul invented the religion, btw -- if he had, then there would be no such detractors, and he wouldn't be involved in disputes with the apostles in Jerusalem and elsewhere which obliged him to write a letter such as this.)

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!

See what I mean about Paul's megalomania? His gospel, which he says he received from God through the final earthly appearance of Jesus, is the only one. Even if an angel preached a different gospel, it must be a rebel angel. Only Paul is to be believed.

But this web of conflict is telling.

It speaks to a community trying to make sense of the unexpected death of their leader. It certainly does not appear anything like a group setting out to fleece people -- if they were doing that, surely they would have at least decided what their patter was supposed to be!

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.

Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.

Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they praised God because of me.

Several important points here….

First, he says that the Galatians "have heard" about his "previous" life in Judaism (as a Pharisee) as opposed to his current life in the faith.

He doesn't say that this is something they heard from him. Perhaps it was, but given the fact that this letter is a response to his detractors, it's quite likely that they "have heard" about his past persecutions of Christians from the other missionaries who disagree with Paul's theology and consider him a Johnny-come-lately.

[Note to mythicists: Feel free to substitute "quite likely" and other such phrases in my posts for "100% certain" in your misrecollections of what I write.]

Also, note that Paul says here that Jewish Christianity (JX) pre-dates his conversion. And as we get into the letter, we'll see that this can't plausibly be a Pauline fabrication, since other missionaries, including those who disagree with Paul, are also visiting these assemblies.

Paul says God set him aside in his mother's womb for a special purpose. In doing so, Paul identifies himself with the Old Testament prophets who were said to have been set aside before birth for their missions.

Once again, and as always, Paul's references are thoroughly Jewish, with no hint of non-Jewish "mystery cult" influences.

But even Paul himself did not know he had been set aside for this mission. If he had, he would not have persecuted Xians. He only came to understand this purpose of his life -- as did the OT prophets -- when God revealed it to him.

And this mission is to convert Gentiles to belief in the resurrection of Jesus the Anointed. As we've seen, this mission only makes sense within the framework of Jewish scripture, which held that all nations would eventually bow to the one true God.

He assures his readers that he is not lying when he says he didn't get his gospel from the guys in Jerusalem. Which clearly indicates that his detractors were saying that he did get his understanding from other Christians.

Again, this is crucial because in that culture proximity to the teacher was all-important. That's why Paul repeatedly stresses his bona fides as one who received the teaching from Jesus's final appearance on earth. (And that's also why we know that James was either Jesus's biological brother or, less likely, some other person who knew him personally -- if he weren't, Paul would have dismissed him just as we'll see him dismiss the nameless apostles who are talking trash about him -- and he couldn't have been a "pillar" of the church along with Peter and James in the first place.)

Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain. Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. James, Cephas, and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

Now we get to the crux of the matter -- circumcision.

Remember, Paul says that gentile converts should NOT be circumcised or keep kosher, because if they convert then they are Jews, not gentiles, and the prophecy requires that gentiles accept God's truth in the final days.

Here, he reports a meeting with the "pillars" in Jerusalem -- James, Peter, and John -- at which he was accompanied by Titus and Barnabus, and nobody (according to Paul) insisted that Titus be circumcised. So if the leaders of the church in Jerusalem didn't object to Titus not being circumcised, then who are these others to insist that the Galatian gentiles be circumcised?

Paul says he was already witnessing to the gentiles, and says (we have only his word here) that the pillars accepted his mission, just as Peter had a mission to the Jews.

And here he mentions "false believers" (i.e., people who disagree with Paul) who had "infiltrated" his group somehow, and says it was because of these people that "this matter arose".

Yet even admitting that, he still insists that he only went to Jerusalem because God told him to (by revelation), certainly NOT because he had to explain himself to the pillars. As we'll see, Paul is always careful to explain that NOTHING he does is in response to anything humans do, but only in response to the will of God.

But in giving this defense, Paul gives away the unavoidable fact that there were actually "pillars" of the church in Jerusalem who were considered the penultimate authorities (Jesus and God being the ultimate authorities) and who therefore MUST have been considered to have received their teaching DIRECTLY from Jesus.

At this point, it really does become untenable to claim that Paul invented the religion himself. We can tell that even at this early stage in examining his letters.

It's interesting, too, that the pillars gave the "right hand of fellowship" to Paul and Barnabas. But no mention of Titus there.

Finally, we see the injunction to "remember the poor". In other words, they're saying to Paul that if he's sincere, he'll be a fig tree that makes figs. If he's doing the Lord's work, he'll help others who are less fortunate. A stipulation to which he quickly agrees.

This should of course raise some flags -- is this some sort of nudge-nudge-wink-wink? Are they saying "We'll let you in if you raise money and bring it to us?"

At this point, we have to say, sure, possibly.

But then why all the arguments about being Jewish? If that's all they care about, why are missionaries, including some from James (as we'll see) nitpicking him and attempting to undermine him?

(It should also be noted that there was a famine in Judea ca. 47 CE, per Josephus.)

At the end of the day, the collection for the poor is best seen in light of their stated belief that God will judge people based on how they treat others, and that the powerful and greedy will perish while the loving and generous survive.

It's not the only way to see it, but it's the view that best comports with ALL the evidence we have.

Paul continues….

When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

Here we have the crux of it.

Paul says that Peter (Cephas) had no problem sharing a table with gentiles until some other missionaries ("from James") showed up, at which point not only Peter but also Barnabas we cowed into separating themselves, out of fear of what "the circumcision group" would say.

(NB: Does this sound like a non-Jewish mystery cult to you?)

This points not only to the power of James -- which would be best explained, in that culture, by a blood relation to the Teacher, which is also the simplest interpretation of the text -- but as well to the extreme Jewishness of James and his faction.

Paul goes on to say that those who are "justified" before God an will be saved are not justified by the law, but by being chosen, by the grace of God. In other words, not everyone who follows the law will be saved, and some who don't will be.

Here's how he caps it off:

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!

In other words, if the Jewish law were sufficient to guarantee salvation when the Day of the Lord arrives, then there would have been no need for Jesus to be crucified so that those who believed in his resurrection would be saved.

After all, the Law has been there for centuries. If that were your ticket to salvation from God's coming wrath, then God would have had no need to resurrect Jesus as proof of the fulfillment of prophecy, or to send the Holy Spirit to those who believe. (More on that later.)

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? …. So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."

Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Here we see another reference to how Paul works.

He doesn't make converts by arguing the Law and the prophets to them. He makes converts by demonstrations of the Holy Spirit, in some sort of charismatic ritual which he doesn't describe.

He basically says, look, you didn't convert because of the Law, you converted because you believed in the resurrection of Jesus, and in response God gave you an experience of the Holy Spirit, and that proves everything.

So, he says, if you converted because you experienced the Holy Spirit, in spite of not being Jewish, and you know that God chose you because of your faith in the resurrection of Jesus, not because of your adherence to the Law (which you weren't adhering to) then why turn your back on that and think that you need the Law to be saved?

According to Paul, for a gentile convert to want to obey the Law is a slap in the face to God, who has his own purpose in converting Gentiles through the Holy Spirit.

As a prooftext, he cites Abraham (not any pagan belief or mystery teaching) who couldn't have been saved by a Law that didn't exist yet, but who was saved by faith in the one true God.

He then reveals what his "gospel" is… Christ as the ultimate atoning sacrifice to end all sacrifices:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Why is the Law a "curse"? Paul says, "it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law'.” This, according to Paul, is impossible, and the Law itself demonstrates that fact by allowing for sacrifices to bring Jews back into a right relationship to God when they do violate the Law.

Now, a word of caution: This doesn't mean that Paul believed the Law was impossible to keep! The Law is possible to keep, but ONLY because it allows for atonement. If it did not, THEN it would be impossible to keep.

His point is that the atonement achieved by the sacrifice of Jesus, the ultimate martyr, puts all believers in the resurrection into a right relationship, because God has chosen them. In doing so, God frees them from any risk of being "cursed" for not following the Law.

Paul goes into more detail about his beliefs:

The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ. What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.

Why, then, was the law given at all? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.

In other words, per Paul, the Law was a temporary measure, a cosmic Band-Aid to help people live right in between the pivotal events of the "promise" to Abraham and the fulfillment of that promise in Jesus, whose resurrection marks the arrival of the coming of the Kingdom of God on Earth.

(Again, note how thoroughly Jewish Paul's worldview and arguments are -- there is no hint, no trace of any "mystery cult" in his writings. And btw, Paul is following the Septuagint here, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, not the Hebrew versions of those scriptures.)

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Next, Paul clarifies what he means by slavery:

What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

What's essential here is that Paul believes that "the set time [has] fully come", which means the time when God will establish his rule on earth (see his writing in the letter to the Thessalonians).

Also note that Paul clearly states that Jesus was born "of a woman" and "under the Law". ONLY human beings are "born of a woman" and "born under the Law" which is an agreement between God and the descendants of Abraham.

ANYONE WHO SAYS THAT PAUL NEVER REFERS TO JESUS AS HUMAN IS FLAT OUT WRONG. They can do their intellectual acrobatics to attempt to spin Paul's words, but there's no denying the plain meaning of the words.

Now here's an interesting little bit:

As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you

He says that they nursed him back to health. Perhaps Paul intended to pass through, but fell ill and stayed with them, and preached his version of the gospel to them at that point.

If so, perhaps Paul did not establish these churches. Perhaps he was visiting already established assemblies, since why else would some group nurse this guy back to health?

That scenario also makes sense of why Paul addresses his letter simply to the assemblies, and why there would be so many anti-Paul missionaries in the area saying that Paul's gospel isn't the right one.

But at the end of the day, there's no way to be sure one way or the other.

[NB to mythicists: Feel free to skip over that bit there and continue to say I'm peddling "100% certainty" about everything.]

Because on the other hand, Paul says this:

Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may have zeal for them. It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always, not just when I am with you. My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!

He says that these other people are simply looking to gather their own followings (unlike Paul, who brings the word from God and Jesus) but calls the Galatian assemblies "my children". So did he in fact establish these churches, or is he just taking his usual patronizing tone?

It's a tough call. And it underscores the fact that not everything in Paul's letters is clear, not by a long shot. But the existence of these well-recognized problems does not mean that any and everything is up for grabs and can be interpreted in any old way that anyone pleases.

In this case, for example, the question of whether or not these are Paul's churches (in whole or in part) has no bearing on the question of whether or not the JXs were following a crucified holy man or… some non-real entity, despite their clear assertions to the contrary.

But getting back to Paul's defense of his mission to the gentiles… again, he uses Hebrew scripture to justify his point:

Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.

These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written:

“Be glad, barren woman,
you who never bore a child;
shout for joy and cry aloud,
you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
than of her who has a husband.”

Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

Basically, he says "God chooses whoever he wants".

Ishmael, the first born, was born of a slave, and therefore will not inherit.

But Isaac, the son of God's promise, does inherit.

Those who think the Law is necessary to inherit will not inherit. Only those who understand that salvation comes by grace alone and faith alone will inherit.

Keep in mind, Paul is not excluding Jews. He himself will say he is blameless before the Law. What he's saying is that only Jews and gentiles alike who believe in the resurrection of Jesus, and who understand that salvation comes through the Holy Spirit, will be saved. Those who fall back on the Band-Aid covenant (the law of Moses) will perish.

For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Note again that the proof of one's justification before God is loving other people. If you don't do that, then God will not save you when the Day of the Lord arrives and Jesus returns with God's army to destroy all mortal things.

(Also note that the proof is not any performance of any mystery ritual, not inclusion in or knowledge of a mystery rite, not giving money to Paul or anyone else, but being kind to others as you would have God be kind to you when judgment comes.)

Amazingly, Paul then follows up with this:

The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty…. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and castrate themselves!

Way to love, Paul!

One can only assume that his rage against the "agitators" is justified in his mind because they are turning the "saints" against the true path. Because he pivots from this back to his exhortation to love:

But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Paul was a Pharisee, so it's not at all odd to see this quote coming from him, since we see it elsewhere in the rabbinic traditions of that time. Remember, unlike the Saducees who insisted on strict adherence to a relatively small set of scrolls, the Pharisees recognized the "wisdom of the fathers" as well. And by all accounts, Jesus himself cites this same tradition.

Then Paul contrasts the way of the flesh with the way of the spirit:

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

As we've seen, Paul believed that God would give all saved "saints" a body made of perfect, immortal celestial stuff. And when that happened, all those problems of the flesh would simply vanish. Until then, however, it was necessary to live as though one were already in the Kingdom, in order to demonstrate one's worthiness to be there.

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ…. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

So all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

In any case, it's important to remember here that, for Paul, eternal life doesn't happen in Heaven -- it happens on Earth, after the arrival of the Son of Man, when all mortal things are done away with and God Himself rules from the Temple in Jerusalem.

Now this is interesting:

See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand!

Paul makes a point that he's not dictating this letter, and notes that the readers should be able to recognize his handwriting with its "large letters".

This is a way of emphasizing that these words come directly from Paul himself, directly from the apostle who got his gospel from God through Jesus. After all, it's in his handwriting, lest anyone doubt (as some had obviously come to do).

Again, in this culture, direct witness is preferred. This letter was important enough to Paul that he took the time to write it out himself. Not surprising, since it was in response to aspersions against his authority.

As we'll see, these themes will be repeated in his other writings.

And throughout those writings, we don't see the mark of a man who invented a religion out of whole cloth, or a man working outside the Jewish tradition.

There is certainly no hint of influence from mystery cults here, and not even a hint that Jesus wasn't a real man -- in fact, Paul's theology doesn't make sense if Jesus was not born of a woman under the law, and was resurrected bodily, as he says.

More next time….

 

[Stone]

I don't have a clue what you're saying, but please learn to spellcheck.

Yous' is right. It should be evalooshun.

You're also off-topic. And if you think that it would be hard for people who claim to be learned about evolution to present tangible evidence for it, like it apparently is for this particular topic, here, then all I can say is that your devotion to this consensus is blinding you to reality.

Fine, then present tangible evadenc for evalooshun. Don't distract us with specialists. Tell us the evadenc why you believe in evalooshun.

We can then judge for ourselves.

Stone

 

[Piggy]

The reliability of experts is not something that we can judge in a vacuum. Most of us that participate in these threads are more skeptical than the average person and we are looking for information to help us judge whether a particular set of experts is reliable or not.

No, you're not.

If you were, then you would have read some of the sources I cited.

As it stands, you're simply asking to be spoon-fed something which is impossible to spoon-feed to anyone.

And btw, I find it impossible to believe that you are behaving in a manner that is "more skeptical than the average person".

Last time I checked, it wasn't "skeptical" to believe that amateur speculators are in some position to know more than degreed professionals publishing in peer-reviewed journals.

 

[Piggy]

It absolutely blows my mind that mythicists go crying for "direct evidence" about everything, and moaning about any "speculation" (i.e. analysis)… and yet, when it comes time to describe any of the no-Jesus notions, suddenly that goes right out the window, and it's perfectly fine to build castles in the air without a shred of evidence and based on the wildest speculation possible.

 

[Stone]

It absolutely blows my mind that mythicists go crying for "direct evidence" about everything, and moaning about any "speculation" (i.e. analysis)… and yet, when it comes time to describe any of the no-Jesus notions, suddenly that goes right out the window, and it's perfectly fine to build castles in the air without a shred of evidence and based on the wildest speculation possible.

And that sums up all the myther threads that I've ever read, Piggy. Now you know why I'm so exasperated. The double standard shown by mythers is just infuriating. You're starting to blow your cool now, as I did three years ago. I used to be more like Jayson: providing citations, backgrounders, scholarly digests by the fistful -- and keeping my manners always (more fool me). Then I learned all too slowly that it was a waste of time. The journey is pointless and exhausting. You just can't persuade cultists. You shouldn't even try. Jayson has a long painful road ahead of him. You've already walked roughly half of that road; but poor Jayson's odyssey is only beginning. He's me three years ago. I can only hope his journey won't be as arduous and painful as mine -- or yours now. Let's hope he sees the hopelessness of it all before he becomes the irascible poster I am.

Stone

 

[Acleron]

Yous' is right. It should be evalooshun.



Fine, then present tangible evadenc for evalooshun. Don't distract us with specialists. Tell us the evadenc why you believe in evalooshun.

We can then judge for ourselves.

Stone

Off topic and irrelevant, if there was no proof of evolution it wouldn't make any difference to this discussion. But if you are talking about the provision of said evidence ...

Try here

You might notice the eagerness of the participants to produce the evidence and the discussion of which sources would be most acceptable. A refreshing change, with one notable exception, from this thread.

 

[Piggy]

And that sums up all the myther threads that I've ever read, Piggy. Now you know why I'm so exasperated. The double standard shown by mythers is just infuriating. You're starting to blow your cool now, as I did three years ago. I used to be more like Jayson: providing citations, backgrounders, scholarly digests by the fistful -- and keeping my manners always (more fool me). Then I learned all too slowly that it was a waste of time. The journey is pointless and exhausting. You just can't persuade cultists. You shouldn't even try. Jayson has a long painful road ahead of him. You've already walked roughly half of that road; but poor Jayson's odyssey is only beginning. He's me three years ago. I can only hope his journey won't be as arduous and painful as mine -- or yours now. Let's hope he sees the hopelessness of it all before he becomes the irascible poster I am.

Stone

Dude, check my post count -- I've seen it all.

It is indeed very easy to get exasperated when dealing with cranks of any stripe, especially since one of the hallmarks of crank is to bash people and ideas with which they are unfamiliar, and justifying it to themselves with an evidence-free assessment of the mainstream's corruption, bias, or what have you.

Holocaust deniers say that mainstream historians are under the thumb of the international Jewish conspiracy, warming deniers say that all climate scientists are trying to gin up grant money, medical quacks say pharmaceutical companies are keeping natural healing secrets off the market because they'd ruin profits, creationists say that evolutionary biologists are a bunch of atheists trying to squelch the truth of God, and mythicists say that scholars of the ANE (whose work they themselves cite, but misinterpret) are rabid fundies or something or are so cowed by the great figure of Jesus that they lose their sense when it comes to this particular topic.

I'm actually glad that Jayson is taking the approach he's taking. It's good to have someone do that.

The trouble with that approach, however, is that cranks always want to pretend there's some controversy, and that their side of this phony controversy is just as valid as the other side.

And if they're allowed to get away with it, people who aren't familiar with the field can easily get sucked in.

Like the creationists say, "Teach the controversy".

Except there's no controversy to teach!

Same with this topic. There simply is no controversy, and the people they're reading (and calling "serious" researchers) are simply outsider contrarians.

Nobody here -- or anywhere else -- is offering any plausible no-Jesus scenario that actually fits the evidence, much less any evidence for it.

It's all arguments from ignorance -- if they don't know it, then it isn't known -- and a bunch of long-debunked junk speculation by amateurs, with a couple of guys tossed in who managed to get degrees somehow but who can't muster up any hypotheses that can even pass muster to get into the journals.

But to the mythicists, like all adherents of crank notions, these guys are the champions, they're the ones who (somehow) really know what's going on, they are unafraid to doubt the humanity of Jesus, their minds aren't muddled by… well, whatever it is that's supposed to be muddling the minds of everyone who actually publishes in the field of Ancient Near Eastern studies.

Compared to 9/11, the conspiracy theory behind HJ is simply staggering, spanning the globe, encompassing not just a few people producing a report but thousands of scholars in multiple fields over a span of decades.

It's ridiculous.

And their ideas are ridiculous. They don't even make sense. I mean, seriously, they don't pass the sniff test.

That's why I'm tuning them out, for the most part.

My goal here is to present the MAV re HJ, then go source by source and show the match.

Not that the mythicists will listen or care, but I'm not writing to them or for them. I'm writing for open-minded people who actually want to understand what HJ theory is, and how it can be deduced from what we know of Jesus's first followers, in the context of 1st century Judaism.

I don't particularly care what mythicists believe.

But I do think that it is important for actual skeptics who read these threads to understand that mythicism is just as cranky as 9/11 truth, moon hoax, bigfoot, or any other amateur contrarian stuff.

 

[maximara]

Nobody here -- or anywhere else -- is offering any plausible no-Jesus scenario that actually fits the evidence, much less any evidence for it.

BZZZ WRONG. Again the John Frum cargo cult is exhibit number 1.

It's all arguments from ignorance -- if they don't know it, then it isn't known -- and a bunch of long-debunked junk speculation by amateurs, with a couple of guys tossed in who managed to get degrees somehow but who can't muster up any hypotheses that can even pass muster to get into the journals.

Considering that Anthropology of Consciousness is a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Anthropology Association has an article that flat out states "There is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived" this argument is in the dumpster.

But to the mythicists, like all adherents of crank notions, these guys are the champions, they're the ones who (somehow) really know what's going on, they are unafraid to doubt the humanity of Jesus, their minds aren't muddled by… well, whatever it is that's supposed to be muddling the minds of everyone who actually publishes in the field of Ancient Near Eastern studies.

Considering that as Bruce Trigger pointed out in both the 1986 and 2006 editions of his A History of Archaeological Thought Ancient Near Eastern studies is effectively in the Imperial synthesis period of Archaeological process that is not saying much. That methodology has long been discredited and in one of these many threads I even cited a modern peer reviewed paper that went on on just how bad things were (“the excavation methods employed leave much to be desired” says a 1999 work regarding Later Village Period excavations and more recent sites are little better)

Compared to 9/11, the conspiracy theory behind HJ is simply staggering, spanning the globe, encompassing not just a few people producing a report but thousands of scholars in multiple fields over a span of decades.

Actually Blasphemy laws and the Red Scare (1917-1991) put a major damper on any serious look into how historical Jesus was in most Western countries.

"In order to understand what is meant by an "historical Jesus," consider King Midas in Greek mythology. The story that King Midas turned everything he touched into gold is clearly nonsense, yet despite this we know that there was a real King Midas. Archaeologists have excavated his tomb and found his skeletal remains. The Greeks who told the story of Midas and his golden touch clearly intended people to identify him with the real Midas. So although the story of the golden touch is fictional, the story is about a person whose existence is known as a fact--the "historical Midas." In the case of Jesus, however, there is no single person whose existence is known as a fact and who is also intended to be the subject of the Jesus stories, i.e. there is no historical Jesus."

"You should point out that although the existence of Julius Caesar, or Queen Elizabeth, etc., is accepted worldwide, the same is not true of Jesus. In the Far East where the major religions are Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism and Confucianism, Jesus is considered to be just another character in Western religious mythology, on a par with Thor, Zeus and Osiris. Most Hindus do not believe in Jesus, but those who do consider him to be one of the many avatars of the Hindu god Vishnu. Muslims certainly believe in Jesus but they reject the New Testament story and consider him to be a prophet who announced the coming of Muhammed."

Then you have Ishu, who was born in a cowshed, was visited by three holy men, performed many amazing miracles, walked on water, and spoke a wonderful sermon on a mountain. Uh, haven't we seen this before?

 

[IanS]

Anybody that has made a concerted objective effort to find reliable evidence to support the existence of an HJ realizes there just aren't a lot of solid data points to hang one's hat on. There is not a single contemporary attestation to the HJ that exists today. There is not a single non Christian attestation to the HJ that dates to the first century except for perhaps the very shaky Josephus stuff.

There is almost no reliable attestation to the HJ in the Gospels as you well know. What looks like attestation to an HJ by four independent Gospel authors is at best independent attestation by one author. And obviously that single attestation is by somebody that writes in a different language than the HJ is likely to have spoken, was not an eyewitness to any of the events he describes, didn't live in the same area that he writes about, is clearly making up the bulk of what he writes and he provides not a single suggestion as to what the source of his claims are.

.

All mention of Jesus seems to derive from the biblical stories. Eg, the few non-biblical authors who did make brief mention of Jesus, were not even born at the time of Jesus, and were at best only repeating hearsay stories of the day. And the only other known source for any mention of Jesus, is the NT bible.

But as you say, that bible is largely composed of four main gospels together with Paul’s Letters. Where, three of those gospels all appear to be copied almost entirely from g-Mark. And without checking, I expect g-Mark also copies parts of Paul. And Paul, was clearly getting his stories from his religious belief in the OT messiah prophecies.

So this amazingly well and fully attested Jesus figure, appears only to be actually "attested" by the religious belief that the authors of Paul and Mark drew from the OT. Needless to say, neither Paul or Mark ever claimed to meet Jesus. They thought he was already dead and a figure of the past.

And that is supposed to be "exceptionally well attested" ?

 

[pakeha]

Paul's letter to the Galatians

OK, so, getting on with our examination of the writings of the followers of Jesus to see what they can tell us….

Thanks for providing the thread with these insights into Paul's writings.
I'm most grateful for the time and energy you've put into this commentary.

 

[davefoc]

All mention of Jesus seems to derive from the biblical stories. Eg, the few non-biblical authors who did make brief mention of Jesus, were not even born at the time of Jesus, and were at best only repeating hearsay stories of the day. And the only other known source for any mention of Jesus, is the NT bible.

But as you say, that bible is largely composed of four main gospels together with Paul’s Letters. Where, three of those gospels all appear to be copied almost entirely from g-Mark. And without checking, I expect g-Mark also copies parts of Paul. And Paul, was clearly getting his stories from his religious belief in the OT messiah prophecies.

So this amazingly well and fully attested Jesus figure, appears only to be actually "attested" by the religious belief that the authors of Paul and Mark drew from the OT. Needless to say, neither Paul or Mark ever claimed to meet Jesus. They thought he was already dead and a figure of the past.

And that is supposed to be "exceptionally well attested" ?

Obviously, I agree with most of this and don't have much to say about it beyond what I've already said. More than I realized in the past the main part of the argument that an HJ existed is dependent on Paul.

On a different topic:

I just reread Mark. I've always had trouble making it through in the past, but for whatever reason I sort of enjoyed it this time. FWIW, I had a few new impressions:

The first was that the notion that it is entirely non-historical seems to be plausible. If there is truth in it, it almost has to be the part centered on the execution. It just doesn't look likely that there is much truth in this collection of implausible events and details that don't seem likely to have reliably made it through a filter of time, language, distance and culture.

The second thing that impressed me was this story:

They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you authority to do this?”

Jesus replied, “I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin? Tell me!”

They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’ …” (They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.) So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”

I have always liked the He-who-is-without-sin-cast-the-first-stone story from John (supposedly it is a later interpolation). I really enjoy the thinking on your feet aspect of the thing and I had forgotten that there was something similar in Mark.

A third impression was that Mark was written by an extremely skilled individual with great insight into how to weave a story that was going to resonate with his audience. Perhaps an obvious notion but one that I hadn't thought much about before. If you transport this guy forward in time a couple of thousand years I suspect he'd still be a very successful author.

 

[pakeha]

Piggy, I'm reading Galatians and am struck by something in chapter 5

2 Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.

3 For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

4 Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

and then just a bit later, this

11 And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased.

I find this confusing and oddly reminiscent of the contradictions I'm accustomed to finding when treating with scammers and their rantings.
Obviously I don't want to retro-fit my own angle on this document, so could you give your take on this?

 

[maximara]

Yes.
That's what I've been attempting to convey; that history is not a hard science.
This is why it's classed as a Humanities field and not a Science field; the exception being the confused classification of Archaeology...and that's why I described the relationship between Humanities and Science as a divorce, as there are social contentions between the two (mostly in jest, but sometimes in insult).

History is mostly pieced together in similar fashion to how Paleontologists piece together what a species of animal looked like that no longer exists; educated guess work, basically.

True but you also have the social sciences: Anthropology, Archaeology, Historical Anthropology, and Sociology to mention a few.

The field that really applies to to the whole historical Jesus debate is Historical Anthropology (sometimes called Ethnohistory) which is very young (dating at best to the 1960s)

To oversimplify Historical Anthropology attempts to create a "social profile" as it were as a benchmark to evaluate written documents.


Richard Carrier's 1997 "Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels" is an example of what Historical Anthropology does...or rather what it did in the 1970s.


For those more interested in more modern applications of Historical Anthropology:

Biersack, Aletta ed. (1991) Clio in Oceania: Toward a Historical Anthropology. Smithsonian Institute Press.

Borofsky, Robert (2000) Remembrance of Pacific Pasts: An Invitation to Remake History. U of Hawaii Press.

Cohn, B (1987) An anthropologist among the historians and other essays. OUP.

Comaroffs (1992) Ethnography and the Historical Imagination. Westview Press.

Connerton, Paul (1989) How Soceities Remember. Cambridge University Press

Hastrup, Kristen (1992) Other Histories. Routledge.

Ohnui-Tierney, Emiko (1990) Culture Through Time: Anthropological Approaches. Stanford University Press
Stanford UP.

Rosaldo,Renato 1980 Ilongot Headhunting 1883-1974: A Study in society and History. Stanford University Press

Sahlins, Marshall (1981) Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities: Structure in the Early History of the Sandwich Islands Kingdom. U of Michigan Press.

Stewart, M (1997) The Time of the Gypsies. Westview Press.

Thomas, Nicholas (1986) Out of Time: History and Evolution in Anthropological Discourse. University of Michigan.

Tonkin, Elizabeth, Maryon McDonald & Malcolm Chapman eds (1989) History and Ethnicity. Routledge.

 

[maximara]

I think we need to start some forum pool to guess how many times this single point will need to be explained to you before you pay attention.

The MAV (mainstream academic viewpoint) is precisely that.

Jesus of Nazareth, the human Jesus, had a humble life and a tragic pathetic death.

He was not born in Bethlehem. He was not the anointed one of God. He was not what modern Christians imagine him to have been.

What you describe here is not the mythicist point of view, it is the MAV.

BZZZ WRONG:

"The gist of his position was in a large measure like the mythical theory of David Strauss, which created a sensation fifty years ago. Strauss held that there was verily a historic Christ, but that a vast mass of miracle and supernatural wonders had been woven like wreaths around the head of Jesus. Drews goes further. He alleges that there never was such a person as Jesus of Nazareth." (The Times 1910)

---

"(John) Robertson is prepared to concede the possibility of an historical Jesus, perhaps more than one, having contributed something to the Gospel story. "A teacher or teachers named Jesus, or several differently named teachers called Messiahs " (of whom many are on record) may have uttered some of the sayings in the Gospels.

1 The Jesus of the Talmud, who was stoned and hanged over a century before the traditional date of the crucifixion, may really have existed and have contributed something to the tradition.

2 An historical Jesus may have "preached a political doctrine subversive of the Roman rule, and . . . thereby met his death "; and Christian writers concerned to conciliate the Romans may have suppressed the facts.

3 Or a Galilean faith-healer with a local reputation may have been slain as a human sacrifice at some time of social tumult; and his story may have got mixed up with the myth.

4 The myth theory is not concerned to deny such a possibility (that Jesus existed as a flesh and blood man). What the myth theory denies is that Christianity can be traced to a personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded"

(summation of J. M. Robertson's 1900 Christianity and Mythology)

"In wide circles the doubt grows as to the historical character of the picture of Christ given in the Gospels. (...) If in spite of this anyone thinks that besides the latter a Jesus cannot also be dispensed with, this can naturally be opposed; but we know nothing of Jesus. Even in the representations of historical theology, he is scarcely more than the shadow of a shadow. Consequently it is self-deceit to make the figure of this 'unique' and 'mighty' personality, to which a man may believe he must on historical grounds hold fast, the central point of religious consciousness." (Drews, Arthur (1910) The Christ Myth)

"My theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth" (Frazer, Sir James George (1913) The golden bough: a study in magic and religion, Volume 9 pg 412)

Yet with all this Albert Schweitzer in his 1931 Out of my life and thought: an autobiography stated "I especially wanted to explain late Jewish eschatology more thoroughly and to discuss the works of John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, James George Frazer, Arthur Drews, and others, who contested the historical existence of Jesus. It is not difficult to pretend that Jesus never lived. The attempt to prove it, however, invariably produces the opposite conclusion."

---
From Jesus Legend (1996) on Wells has accepted there was a historical Jesus behind the hypothetical Q Gospel BUT both Jesus Legend and Jesus Myth have been presented as examples of the Christ Myth theory by Robert Price (Price, Robert M (1999) "Of Myth and Men A closer look at the originators of the major religions-what did they really say and do?" Volume 20, Number 1 (Winter, 1999/2000') Free Inquiry magazine), Richard Carrier, and Eddy-Boyd (Eddy and Boyd (2007), The Jesus Legend pp. 24).


You can hem you can haw but there it is. DEAL WITH IT.

 

[maximara]

Dave, I have to point out that you're embarrassing yourself.

What Jayson says is correct -- Jesus is amazingly well attested, and has I believe an unrivaled quality of attestation for any commoner in that period or earlier.

So well attested that in 180 CE Irenaeus had Jesus crucified at a minimum of 50 years old (Against Heresies 2:22:4) by Herod the king of the Jews (ie Herod Agrippa I per Crossan, John Dominic (1996) Who Killed Jesus?: Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story pg 94) under Claudius Caesar (Demonstration (74)) ie no earlier then 42 CE! And the best arguments he could provide for there being only four gospels was a bunch of mystic clap trap.

So well attested that there was a group running around that held Jesus was crucified during Alexander Jannaeus reign.

So well attested that in the 4th century that Christians fabricated the Acts of Pilate.

So well attested that in the 4th century Eusebius in his The History of the Church claimed "It is also recorded that under Claudius, Philo came to Rome to have conversations with Peter, then preaching to the people there ... It is plain enough that he not only knew but welcomed with wholehearted approval the apostolic men of his day, who it seems were of Hebrew stock and therefore, in the Jewish manner, still retained most of their ancient customs." despite the FACT Philo wrote not one word about Jesus

The more you look the more it appears that you have a vaguely remembered nearly legendary figure who effectively became a literary Captain Scarlet puppet for various sects of Christianity with what amounts to a made up biography.

 

[Belz...]

it absolutely blows my mind that mythicists go crying for "direct evidence" about everything, and moaning about any "speculation" (i.e. Analysis)…

we are not mythicists.

 

[Belz...]

Dude, check my post count

Can I "pull rank" on this ?

 

[Belz...]

Paul's letter to the Galatians

I want to echo Pakeha's thanks for this post.

 

[tsig]

Dude, check my post count -- I've seen it all.

It is indeed very easy to get exasperated when dealing with cranks of any stripe, especially since one of the hallmarks of crank is to bash people and ideas with which they are unfamiliar, and justifying it to themselves with an evidence-free assessment of the mainstream's corruption, bias, or what have you.

Holocaust deniers say that mainstream historians are under the thumb of the international Jewish conspiracy, warming deniers say that all climate scientists are trying to gin up grant money, medical quacks say pharmaceutical companies are keeping natural healing secrets off the market because they'd ruin profits, creationists say that evolutionary biologists are a bunch of atheists trying to squelch the truth of God, and mythicists say that scholars of the ANE (whose work they themselves cite, but misinterpret) are rabid fundies or something or are so cowed by the great figure of Jesus that they lose their sense when it comes to this particular topic.

I'm actually glad that Jayson is taking the approach he's taking. It's good to have someone do that.

The trouble with that approach, however, is that cranks always want to pretend there's some controversy, and that their side of this phony controversy is just as valid as the other side.

And if they're allowed to get away with it, people who aren't familiar with the field can easily get sucked in.

Like the creationists say, "Teach the controversy".

Except there's no controversy to teach!

Same with this topic. There simply is no controversy, and the people they're reading (and calling "serious" researchers) are simply outsider contrarians.

Nobody here -- or anywhere else -- is offering any plausible no-Jesus scenario that actually fits the evidence, much less any evidence for it.

It's all arguments from ignorance -- if they don't know it, then it isn't known -- and a bunch of long-debunked junk speculation by amateurs, with a couple of guys tossed in who managed to get degrees somehow but who can't muster up any hypotheses that can even pass muster to get into the journals.

But to the mythicists, like all adherents of crank notions, these guys are the champions, they're the ones who (somehow) really know what's going on, they are unafraid to doubt the humanity of Jesus, their minds aren't muddled by… well, whatever it is that's supposed to be muddling the minds of everyone who actually publishes in the field of Ancient Near Eastern studies.

Compared to 9/11, the conspiracy theory behind HJ is simply staggering, spanning the globe, encompassing not just a few people producing a report but thousands of scholars in multiple fields over a span of decades.

It's ridiculous.

And their ideas are ridiculous. They don't even make sense. I mean, seriously, they don't pass the sniff test.

That's why I'm tuning them out, for the most part.

My goal here is to present the MAV re HJ, then go source by source and show the match.

Not that the mythicists will listen or care, but I'm not writing to them or for them. I'm writing for open-minded people who actually want to understand what HJ theory is, and how it can be deduced from what we know of Jesus's first followers, in the context of 1st century Judaism.

I don't particularly care what mythicists believe.

But I do think that it is important for actual skeptics who read these threads to understand that mythicism is just as cranky as 9/11 truth, moon hoax, bigfoot, or any other amateur contrarian stuff.

Piggy you leave no room for skeptics, you say, accept what I say or be called a mythicist which you then define as a crank. Your wholesale, emotional onslaught against these mythical mythicists leaves me staring in wonderment. The weakness of your argument can be adduced by the need to denigrate your opponents and when you admit your aren't even listening to what the other side is saying it ceases to be an argument and becomes a sermon.

So preach on brother Piggy, Jesus loves you.

 

[maximara]

we are not mythicists.

Sure be are...in the way David Strauss (The Times), Sir James George Frazer (Albert Schweitzer 1912, 1931) and G.A. Wells post Jesus Legend (Robert Price (Price, Robert M (1999) "Of Myth and Men A closer look at the originators of the major religions-what did they really say and do?" Volume 20, Number 1 (Winter, 1999/2000') Free Inquiry magazine), Richard Carrier, and Eddy-Boyd (Eddy and Boyd (2007), The Jesus Legend pp. 24)) are.

Seriously, I think "mythist" along with "Christ Myth" are the most misused and misapplied terms on BOTH sides of the whole HJ debate ever.

I mean just what was old Schweitzer smoking that he thought that James George Frazer contested the historical existence of Jesus?!?