Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[Craig B]

Since historians aren't trying to prove the existence of a miracle working son of god, it seems they have a bit of a problem with the historical Jesus, since a miracle working son of god is indeed what we have to work with. To speak of a historical Jesus, first historians need to create a reasonable Jesus, then assemble him out of pieces of the fictional Jesus. Seems like any particular historian could get pretty much any Jesus they want out of the situation. And, from the looks of the field, it appears they do.

So it is impossible to propose a historical existence for any person whose biography has been elaborated to contain mythological elements? Some plausible things are stated about Jesus, as well as some fantastic things. Can some criteria be devised to separate legend from reality?

The people who have a real problem are the "strong" mythicists who state that Jesus was never believed by Paul and others to have existed as a human being, and that he was thought of as a purely spiritual entity residing in a non-physical dimension.

 

[The Norseman]

That's curious: Blatant shameless anti-intellectualism doesn't seem to have killed know-nothing mytherism.

Stone

You bump a five year old thread just to post an insulting line? That's a trollish maneuver if I ever saw one.

 

[Vic333]

So it is impossible to propose a historical existence for any person whose biography has been elaborated to contain mythological elements? Some plausible things are stated about Jesus, as well as some fantastic things. Can some criteria be devised to separate legend from reality?

I'm afraid so, yes. At least, I can't think of any criteria that could separate a plausible supposition from a fact. Can you? Let's say scholar A comes up with a explanation for something in the gospels, and it turns out to be true. Scholar B comes up with an equally probable explanation and it's not what happened at all. How could anyone say which is true? Remember, both are equally probable.

The people who have a real problem are the "strong" mythicists who state that Jesus was never believed by Paul and others to have existed as a human being, and that he was thought of as a purely spiritual entity residing in a non-physical dimension.

That, at least, is more provable. We have Paul's own personal writings, so good examination of the text could result in a good case about what he believed. Provable only by the text, of course. One could say he never expressed all his thoughts about Jesus. Or that he stretched some beliefs in an effort to appeal to others.

Bart seems to accept that idea that Paul thought of Jesus as an angel, though one that that eventually came down to earth.

http://ehrmanblog.org/pauls-view-of-jesus-as-an-angel/

I'm not even a mythicist, myself. I just can't see why people get worked up over it or view the best of their ideas as any more implausible that the best of historicists ideas.

 

[TimCallahan]

Personally, I suspect there was a real guy named Jesus upon whom the gospels wee based. That said, about all we can imply from them is that he had a Cynic philosopher's view, which meshed well with his apocalyptic mind set and messianic pretensions. It is also quite possible that Jesus was an amalgam of more than one historical person.

As to the gospels, their narrative material is based on four basic sources: the Jewish scriptures, particularly the miracles attributed to Moses, Elijah and Elisha; Jewish apocalypticism and the politics of the day as seen in apocalyptic terms; pagan myth; and Greek literature, particularly the Homeric epics and Euripides play, The Bacchae.

As to the whether those asserting that Jesus is entirely mythical are reputable scholars or not, some are, such as G. A. Wells, and some are not, such as Dorothy Murdoch / Acharya S. However, it seems to me that asserting that Jesus is entirely mythical is a good way to get yourself marginalized. Hence, many reputable scholars, who might privately believe Jesus to be entirely mythical, might well avoid coming out with their true feelings just to stay in the club.

 

[Craig B]

... However, it seems to me that asserting that Jesus is entirely mythical is a good way to get yourself marginalized. Hence, many reputable scholars, who might privately believe Jesus to be entirely mythical, might well avoid coming out with their true feelings just to stay in the club.

If an author had evidence for something that would overturn conventional thinking in this matter, and immediately make him or her famous, then he or she would write nothing about it, to stay in the club?

 

[Belz...]

That's curious: Blatant shameless anti-intellectualism doesn't seem to have killed know-nothing mytherism.

Stone

How long did you look before finding this old thread, and how relevant to you think your post still is ?

 

[Belz...]

Personally, I suspect there was a real guy named Jesus upon whom the gospels wee based. That said, about all we can imply from them is that he had a Cynic philosopher's view, which meshed well with his apocalyptic mind set and messianic pretensions. It is also quite possible that Jesus was an amalgam of more than one historical person.

Indeed. And I agree that he was most probably a real person(s). However, I'm curious about your second statement: how do you manage to derive his view ?

 

[JaysonR]

If an author had evidence for something that would overturn conventional thinking in this matter, and immediately make him or her famous, then he or she would write nothing about it, to stay in the club?

No, despite Scott Wolter's wishes to convince the world that such is the case; most such cases are rather benign.
This isn't a Tom Clancy novel or Indiana Jones movie.

Most people in academia react to controversial ideas about as flustered as Spock to an interesting proposition.

Which, in one quite entertaining episode of America Unearthed, Scott Wolter attempts to convince a town museum curator & historian that a structure in the town is proof of the Knights Templar being in the town, and the curator simply just smiles a bit and says that he disagrees, but he's willing to test the idea if Scott has any propositions.

That's pretty par for the course; not the heated (smalltime) celebrity historian throw-downs that get the attention occasionally.


So, no; no one would hold back from writing a paper for fear of ridicule like that over something like this.

On some other matters; yep, this kind of implied bullying occurs and it's really sad that it does.
Jesus, sorry to say, is too unimportant to History (not religion...History) for anyone to care about pressuring someone in the field from writing in opposition to the standard view.

The kinds of things that get this treatment is the theory of ________ (dammit...sorry...my brain is "farting" on me at the moment as I stayed up all night playing Fable 2 for the first time...yes, for the first time [hey, it only cost $3! ])....
Well, either way; it's a theory that states that Ancient peoples from all over the globe had been traveling back and forth to the Americas (North and South) for a very long time and that the Americas were not closed off from Asian or the Mediterranean (some also toss in African) societies completely, and the theory stretches to a variety of date "claims" (propositions).

This idea is pretty hot, and many won't touch it.
The reason for this to be a hot item and Jesus not to be is for a simple reason: if Jesus doesn't exist, it affects the Historical, Archaeological and Anthropological record about this much:

However, if the theory of Ancient peoples traversing to the Americas were to be right, then it would affect the Historical, Archaeological and Anthropological record about this much:

The amount of rewriting text books, and re-cataloging the archaeological record would be massive and a ton of work; not to mention, absolutely destroy tons of papers and academic publications' stances regarding the reality of human history.

And because of this; this particular theory gets allot of resistance - at times, people can be denied museum access (and have been many times).


But Jesus?
No...no one really has to redo a crapload of work if that standing changes.

 

[TimCallahan]

Indeed. And I agree that he was most probably a real person(s). However, I'm curious about your second statement: how do you manage to derive his view ?

Cynic philosophers practiced separation from the world and worldly ties - such as families, letting go of possessions, leading lives of voluntary poverty, non-violence and non-retaliation.

There was considerable Greek influence on Jewish culture in the Hellenistic period. We can see traces of this today. For example the word "synagogue" is from the Greek synagoge (sp.?), meaning an assembly. Two of the most common names among Jewish males are Philip and Alexander. These are both Greek names. So also is Andrew (Gr. Andreas = "manly").

That said, it's next to impossible to figure out what any historical Jesus might have said, as opposed to what words were put in his mouth.

 

[TimCallahan]

If an author had evidence for something that would overturn conventional thinking in this matter, and immediately make him or her famous, then he or she would write nothing about it, to stay in the club?

The problem here is, I think, is that all we have is the lack of evidence for a historical Jesus and his similarity both to earlier Jewish teachers and the mythic parallels to other dying and rising gods. I think the debate has shifted as time goes on, to three basic positions: Jesus was historical, but only barely; Jesus is an amalgam of various historical characters, with a lot of mythology, jewish and pagan, thrown in; and Jesus was totally mythical, a composite of Old Testament miracle workers (Moses, Elijah and Elisha) dying and rising gods (such as Osiris and Dionysus) and Jewish apocalypticism.

About the only historical support for Jesus, outside of Christian writings, are a brief allusion by Josephus of the execution of James, the brother of "Jesus, who was called the Christ," and the description by Tacitus of Christ has having been put to death by Pilatus. As to the first, the phrase, "who was called the Christ," has been called into doubt. As to the second, Tacitus was only writing, in all probability what he had heard second or third hand, possibly from Christians.

 

[tkmikkelsen]

Don't know much about the Jesus Seminar, but don't think many members were Christ Mythers. The Jesus Seminar took the existence of a HJ as a default, as 150 years of study in Biblical Criticism has made it one of the strongest cases as I said in 1st century history. The next stage the Jesus Project is due to study such things in an agnostic spirit, but has already run in to major issues - not least the fact that very few major experts publishing in the peer reviewed literature seem to have signed up based on the very little information now available. It is also funded and run by CSR, part of the CSI-CSR organisation the third part of which is the Council for Secular Humanism (CSH), and when I checked the works of those involved, I noticed a strong emphasis for people who have published through Prometheus Books. Now Prometheus are an excellent publishing house, again affiliated to CSH/CSR/CSI, but are clearly ideologically driven in this respect.


Where is Dunn? NT Wright? Geza Vermes? Fredriksen? Sanders? Ehrmann? and many more household names in this era? Mind you I'm not saying the JP is not a useful and interesting contribution - but my point is you are possibly confusing it with the Jesus Seminar. The JP website now lists no news, and this is the most recent statement i can find --
http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/response_rjh.htm


Anyway, good luck to it. The only people i can think of off the top of my head who have argued passionately for no HJ were


GA Wells - Professor of German at Birbeck, University, author of several books. Last I heard he had accepted a likely HJ as a composite of two figures, but I'm not certain, so is no longer in this category.


Earl Doherty - his book caused controversy but his arguments require a considerable degree of complexity to get round these issues, and are not mainstream scholarship,. May have merit - I'd have to go through them point by point, which weould take a very long time.


Geoff Price - who published Jesus A Very Jewish Myth, and discussed his hypothesis at length we me on the Dawkins forum. He sees the HJ as created in response to mesianic prophecies - and though his book is well worth reading, and i encourage you to do so, it can be countered effectively I believe for the reasons I posted above.


There may be others, but let me say a good place to start would be the presumably not religiously biased SkepticWiki --
http://skepticwiki.org/index.php/Existence_Of_Jesus#Conclusion


The whole article is well worth reading.


cj x

There are a few that you left out of your list that hold degree's in relevant fields.

First there is Robert M. Price who has a PhD in the New Testament and a PhD in Systematic Theology. Price is highly skeptical of a historical Jesus.

Then there is Thomas L. Thompson who is professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen. He wrote the book The Messiah Myth where he is highly skeptical of a historical Jesus.

Finally there is Richard Carrier who has a PhD in Ancient History, with his specialty being ancient philosophy, religion, and science. Though personally I think that Carrier is a bit foghorn. He has all the right credentials and does not think there is any evidence for historical Jesus at all.

 

[Stone]

The people who have a real problem are the "strong" mythicists who state that Jesus was never believed by Paul and others to have existed as a human being, and that he was thought of as a purely spiritual entity residing in a non-physical dimension.

Such mythicists don't have any "problem" at all. They're just keeping their bread buttered by publishing sensationalistic tracts that gain them attention and traction. In fact, it's the mythicists who are looking out for Number One -- getting a quick buck by selling anything and saying anything that can cause a stir -- far more than the professional academics who start with a genuine interest in the subject. It may even be that some of these sensationalist mythers don't really have any personal opinion as to what is more or less likely to be historical at all. They just spout whatever makes them feel good and gets them noticed and published -- and historical accuracy be damned.

As I say, anything for a buck.

Yes, there is a big "problem" in a myther's trying to prove that "Jesus was never believed by Paul and others to have existed as a human being". After all, all the data flatly contradicts such a knee-jerk assertion. However, these assertions remain exactly that, knee-jerk, because they proceed from ideological bias and not rigorous scrutiny of historical data.

No, the dishonest mythers have no problem with all that because they are dishonest and proud of that dishonesty. Rather, it's the honest devotees to real history who have the real problem because they detest amateurish lies. Unfortunately, that allergy to amateurish lies is as relevant (read: irrelevant) to mythers as are the cries of agony from rape victims to their rapists.

Stone

 

[tsig]

Such mythicists don't have any "problem" at all. They're just keeping their bread buttered by publishing sensationalistic tracts that gain them attention and traction. In fact, it's the mythicists who are looking out for Number One -- getting a quick buck by selling anything and saying anything that can cause a stir -- far more than the professional academics who start with a genuine interest in the subject. It may even be that some of these sensationalist mythers don't really have any personal opinion as to what is more or less likely to be historical at all. They just spout whatever makes them feel good and gets them noticed and published -- and historical accuracy be damned.

As I say, anything for a buck.

Yes, there is a big "problem" in a myther's trying to prove that "Jesus was never believed by Paul and others to have existed as a human being". After all, all the data flatly contradicts such a knee-jerk assertion. However, these assertions remain exactly that, knee-jerk, because they proceed from ideological bias and not rigorous scrutiny of historical data.
No, the dishonest mythers have no problem with all that because they are dishonest and proud of that dishonesty. Rather, it's the honest devotees to real history who have the real problem because they detest amateurish lies. Unfortunately, that allergy to amateurish lies is as relevant (read: irrelevant) to mythers as are the cries of agony from rape victims to their rapists.

Stone

Produce the historical data or this post is just an hysterical knee jerk.

 

[geni]

Produce the historical data or this post is just an hysterical knee jerk.

The main line of argument is that Paul seemed to think that the jerusalem chritians were in some way relevant.

 

[Resume]

Thread resurrection noted at least.

 

[catsmate]

Produce the historical data or this post is just an hysterical knee jerk.

He's utterly failed to do do in previous threads.

 

[pakeha]

...Yes, there is a big "problem" in a myther's trying to prove that "Jesus was never believed by Paul and others to have existed as a human being". After all, all the data flatly contradicts such a knee-jerk assertion. However, these assertions remain exactly that, knee-jerk, because they proceed from ideological bias and not rigorous scrutiny of historical data.

No, the dishonest mythers have no problem with all that because they are dishonest and proud of that dishonesty. Rather, it's the honest devotees to real history who have the real problem because they detest amateurish lies. Unfortunately, that allergy to amateurish lies is as relevant (read: irrelevant) to mythers as are the cries of agony from rape victims to their rapists.

Stone

Are you saying the only reasons to doubt the existence of a rudimentary figure who was later clad in the trappings of a Christian Messiah is dishonesty and ideological bias?

 

[HansMustermann]

Sort of Agreed. Paul is writing 20-35 years after events, and the Gospels are 40-70 years after the Crucifixion at best guess. What we need to consider is how these oral traditions coalesced. These stories, told and circulated form two parts - pericope, little stories that appear in the Gospels and were told and retold in relation to one particular sitz in leben (I think thats how you spell it) or "life situation", a problem faced by the Church, and the kerygma. or doctrine of the Apostolic Church. However in the early churches vast emphasis was placed on Apostolic status, that is having been a witness to events - see the seven authentic Pauline Epistles for how important this was - and so they have a strong tradition which is passed down and preserved by the communities.



Sure. However, here we have the testimony of a group of people committed to the truth claim of their story, and as someone with a great deal of experince of folklore narratives (and many of the classic motifs actually originate in Biblical stories, and some older folklore is preserved therein - many of the naming stories are great examples) this is a rather different case.

The problem with that argument is that it's bovine excrement. It's a complete ass pull.

We don't actually know whether there were any witnesses, nor any emphasis on having witnesses. Even Ehrman agrees that Mark didn't use witnesses, for example.

Moreover, everything we do know about the time, actually seems to contradict the BS notion of such a devotion to the truth. Papias for example is pretty much the first we have who actually stated his criteria, and it just boiled down to: he collected the stuff that confirmed his version. Any being able to produce witnesses was just not a part of it.

We also know that the early Christians were not above forging stuff to prop their version over competing versions. (Again, even Ehrman would agree there, since he wrote at length about forgeries and interpolations.) Even in our bible, about half the epistles attributed to Paul are actually forgeries in his name, and some distort his message significantly. (See the pastorals.) Furthermore, it seems that the trend to forge letters from Paul actually started during his lifetime. Those tiny communities that fit in someone's living room were already having mini-schisms and resorting to making stuff up.

We also have evidence like Eugnostos vs The Sophia Of Jesus Christ that, far from insisting to include only the true stuff, they had no problem attributing to Jesus what they KNEW was actually said by someone else. They copied stuff verbatim from Eugnostos, and put it in JC's mouth.

Furthermore, even if some group may have had such a skepticism bias, although there's nothing to suggest that for Xianity or any other cult back then, we have no reason to claim that exactly that group is the one that eventually turned into the Catholic church.

All of those boiling down to the one problem that we don't know who the people were that transmitted the story, nor who the people were that wrote it down. We don't know if they favoured the truth or not. We don't know if they insisted on witnesses. Actually, scratch that, we KNOW they DIDN'T give a crap about verifying with witnesses, because they included stuff like zombie invasions in a major city or world-wide 3-hour long eclipses on a full moon. The latter wouldn't even need witnesses from Jerusalem to verify, since one could just find an old person in their own city and ask if they ever saw anything like that.

So trying to prop the story by an appeal to how skeptical and committed to the truth those people were, is just bovine excrement.

 

[HansMustermann]

Such mythicists don't have any "problem" at all. They're just keeping their bread buttered by publishing sensationalistic tracts that gain them attention and traction. In fact, it's the mythicists who are looking out for Number One -- getting a quick buck by selling anything and saying anything that can cause a stir -- far more than the professional academics who start with a genuine interest in the subject. It may even be that some of these sensationalist mythers don't really have any personal opinion as to what is more or less likely to be historical at all. They just spout whatever makes them feel good and gets them noticed and published -- and historical accuracy be damned.

As I say, anything for a buck.

Yes, there is a big "problem" in a myther's trying to prove that "Jesus was never believed by Paul and others to have existed as a human being". After all, all the data flatly contradicts such a knee-jerk assertion. However, these assertions remain exactly that, knee-jerk, because they proceed from ideological bias and not rigorous scrutiny of historical data.

No, the dishonest mythers have no problem with all that because they are dishonest and proud of that dishonesty. Rather, it's the honest devotees to real history who have the real problem because they detest amateurish lies. Unfortunately, that allergy to amateurish lies is as relevant (read: irrelevant) to mythers as are the cries of agony from rape victims to their rapists.

Stone

Stone, do you actually have an argument, or are such Bulverisms STILL the best you can do. Before you get to speculate about what's wrong with those who claim X, you first have to show beyond reasonable doubt that X is false.

Otherwise, sad to say, being abusive instead of presenting actual evidence isn't a substitute for evidence.

 

[HansMustermann]

That said, here's once more what's my problem with the minimal Jesus approach.

Let's say I told you I know an economist named Maxine. Well, the name is somewhat less common these days, but out of literally millions of Germans, it's actually quite probable that one would exist even by sheer chance alone.

Now let's say I told you I know an economist named Maxine, who worked as a programmer, is in her mid-60's, has two children and two grandchildren, is a devout Marxist in spite of having a degree in economics, lives in Hamburg, etc, etc. None of those are supernatural or unbelievable in any way, but the probability of all those being true in the same person just went down a heck of a lot.

While there's nothing wrong with accepting the former by sheer probabilities alone, it wouldn't be wrong to want corroboration evidence before accepting the latter. Especially when something depends on it. E.g., if I were to say that my left-wing views are right because I know that economist and she agrees with me, you might be well advised to check if she actually exists and actually does agree. E.g., if I were to sell you a book about the amazing life of Maxine, you might want to check if I'm not making up most of the content.

That's my problem with arguments that start from some form of "there must have been a guy named Jesus because the name was common", but then from there proceed to tell you who he was, what he actually said, where he went, what his personal philosophy was, how he died, etc. Once you add all those details, the probability of it being true even if by chance alone goes down a lot. Arguing the former version doesn't mean one proved the latter.

And even then that doesn't show that even if such a guy existed, the story was actually based on him.

I mean I could argue that some arab with a name close enough to Abdul Alhazred existed (in fact, valid names exist that are closer to that than Yehoshua is to Jesus.) And it's not unbelievable that he would have lived for a while in Damascus and died there. Millions did over the centuries, after all. And maybe he did study and copy texts about ancient heathen cults. After all, in the golden age of the Abbasids or Fatimids, such studies were normal and even encouraged. And maybe he did write a book called the Kitab Al Azif (book of the whistling), even if with such a vague name maybe its contents aren't exactly the necronomicon. Or maybe just a title that was close enough, but got distorted later in the oral tradition. (E.g., "Kitab al Asif" would be the book of forgiveness.) Etc. So maybe a good enough equivalent of Abdul Alhazred might have existed by sheer chance alone.

But that doesn't show that Lovecraft actually based his story on the historical Alhazred, nor more crucially the existence of a chain of information so Lovecraft even COULD base it on a historical Alhazred. And in fact, we know he didn't.