What counts as a historical Jesus?

[tkmikkelsen]

I see this discussion over the historical Jesus is running full blast and it seems to me that we can not determine with any good certainty whether Jesus was or was not.

Anyway, it made me think about something. Out of the 4 major religions that have come from Judaism, that would be Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mormonism. All of them have a central figure that (supposedly) started it all, for Judaism it is Moses, for Christianity it is Jesus, for Islam it is Muhammad and for Mormonism it is Joseph Smith.

Now am I the only that finds it funny that the only of these 4 faiths that can say with an extremely high degree of certainty that their prophet was, as opposed to was not, is Mormonism. The religion that all other than Mormons consider to be outrageously far fetched and totally unhistorical.

 

[eight bits]

Jayson

There are other religions, so I don't know that this aspect is unique.

What other religious story has three billion living adherents (2 billion Nicene Christians and 1 billion Muslims)? What other religion with 3 billion living adherents places its origin in historical time and terrestial place, with records (allegedly) of adherence dating from within decades of the supposed events of origin?

Clearly, either I am forgetting one hell of a religion, or you and I differ about what the word unique means.

And, even if the former, then the Jesus story would be one of two with more than three billion adherents, since we run of living people with a third example. So, the point I made stands: we have chosen the example because it is unusual, one of at most two instances of like kind.

Therefore, we are justified in concluding that the story has been unusually successful in attracting adherents. We would therefore expect that it would be unusual for its time and place in some of its features, not typical of them in all respects.

If it was absolute fiction entirely, purely; then that really needs to be documented and culturally (their culture) defined accurately, as otherwise we are suffocating a very big and radical change in their literary culture.

Of course. If you eliminate originality, then what is left is unoriginal. On what basis do you justify ruling out "a very big and radical change in their literaru culture"? That there are only three billion adherents and only two millenia of persistence - across a merely staggering diversity of other cultures on every inhabited continent?

It is, with all due respect, like evaluating the atomic bomb based on a survey of antecedent American military hardware production, and concluding that it probably didn't happen, because the atomic bomb was "a very big and radical change in their munitions culture."

Something big and radical actually happened, Jason. We need to come to grips with the actual character of that unusual event, rather than pretending that Los Alamos was just another typical gathering of 1940's American scientists with an interest in explosives.

No; was this a coy question?

You brought up Polybius. I asked a question about how living people deal with him. If it brought a smile to some readers' lips, then I can live with that. However, it was a yes-or-no question, and so you have answered. Thank you.

Exaggeration and embellishments were par for the course, but a complete imagining and fabrication would be something radically new.

Fine. The most successful propaganda story of all time was radically new in its time. So what?

If Jesus did not exist in any way possible, then the fault would lie in the bias of history proper and its force methodology for trying at all odds to not rest on "we don't know" as a final point due to the majority of history falling earnestly into that category by empirical evidence standards.

OK, most of us here are not professional historians. We are just people forming beliefs about an uncertain contingency. If history offers us nothing other than its current consensus best estimate of the single leading hypothesis, then that's fine. But since its purpose is not our purpose, then it is both proper and to be expected that we might look to history for what we might learn from how it formed its purpose-driven "conclusion," but decline to adopt that conclusion as our own.

This happens all the time when researching expert opinion in other domains. No biggie, and no offense meant.

Piggy

Carrier and Doherty aren't going to change jack.

Funny, I thought history was the study of the past. Then again, I thought you insisted that you don't present your uncertain beliefs as if they were for-certain facts.

 

[Piggy]

Thanks, Piggy! I'm grateful for the time you take to answer me.
Yes, indeed, that sounds like a scammer's classic advice to ignore anyone else's take on the subject/spiel/storyline but his.
I'm fascinated by the similarities to Paul's preaching and text-book scams based on religious structures.
You'd mentioned this idea has been explored and rejected by the academic consensus. At some later point I'd be interested in knowing why, if you'd care to point me towards the specific studies and papers which deal with debunking the resemblance.

Which gospel(s)do you reckon the Galatians had access to in Paul's time?
If you prefer to answer that when it's time to treat the gospels, no worries!

I think your opinion is about to change, as we move forward with the first letter to Corinth, hopefully this afternoon (I have some downtime in the city between my AM work here and my PM work there).

As you'll see, the gentiles in urban Corinth were accustomed to the practice of well-off Greeks taking on philosophers as patrons, and naturally some offered to support Paul in a similar manner, as well as they could given their means.

Jackpot! Right?

Nope.

Paul refuses, and chooses instead to perform manual labor to support himself.

If Paul were running a scam, that sort of offer is exactly what he would be waiting for. Nobody attempting to fleece people would plausibly turn down a willing offer of money for himself by people who believe it's the right thing to do.

But Paul does turn it down, and is forced to make a rather uncomfortable argument against accepting the proposal, as we'll see.

I think that any open-minded person will have to conclude, at that point, that Paul is sincere, and that what he's getting from all this is not cash, but rather (consciously) his own place in paradise and (unconsciously) a 10,000 volt jolt of ego boost from fancying himself as one of the chosen prophets on the level of Isaiah and Ezekiel.

To cling to the "scammer" notion after that revelation would require some serious intellectual gymnastics. And one could certainly no longer claim that it was either an evidence-based conclusion or the more likely conclusion.

But we'll get there.

As to the other "gospels" the Galatians would have been hearing (the term in this context refers to a theological dogma, not a book), he mentions these:

The gospel preached by Peter -- we don't know exactly what it was, but apparently Paul and Peter had their differences, and Peter had made a bigger impression on some than had Paul, and Peter would have had more prestige as Jesus's principal disciple.

The gospel preached by the "Judaizers" or "circumcision faction" (who seem to be linked, at least in part, to certain "people from James") who held that only those who convert to Judaism -- who get circumcised and keep kosher and otherwise keep the Law -- will survive the coming wrath of God.

The gospel preached by the Egyptian Jew Apollos, which held that Jesus's resurrection had already ushered in the new age (Paul says not yet) and that the spiritual gifts offered by the Holy Spirit at their conversion made them spiritually superior to others in the present age (Paul says absolutely not).

 

[eight bits]

Piggy

If Paul were running a scam, ...

Then he would realize that a patron might expect coherent answers to hard questions. Paul's forte is taking money from people to whom he tells supernatural stories, and then moves on to the next town. He apparently has a strong position in that market, even if there is some travel involved.

Who would associate never staying anywhere longer than necessary, preferably for no more than a few days at a time, with flimflam?

To cling to the "scammer" notion after that revelation would require some serious intellectual gymnastics.

He asked for money from people whom he promised that his imaginary friend would teach them to fly.

Dismount.

 

[Craig B]

Piggy
Then he would realize that a patron might expect coherent answers to hard questions. Paul's forte is taking money from people to whom he tells supernatural stories, and then moves on to the next town.

You just beat me to it, eight bits! Could Paul have convincingly played the role of a Greek-sponsored house philosopher? What happened when he went to Athens, and expounded his theology there?

 

[pakeha]

...As you'll see, the gentiles in urban Corinth were accustomed to the practice of well-off Greeks taking on philosophers as patrons, and naturally some offered to support Paul in a similar manner, as well as they could given their means.

Jackpot! Right?

Nope.

Paul refuses, and chooses instead to perform manual labor to support himself.

If Paul were running a scam, that sort of offer is exactly what he would be waiting for. Nobody attempting to fleece people would plausibly turn down a willing offer of money for himself by people who believe it's the right thing to do.

But Paul does turn it down, and is forced to make a rather uncomfortable argument against accepting the proposal, as we'll see.

I think that any open-minded person will have to conclude, at that point, that Paul is sincere, and that what he's getting from all this is not cash, but rather (consciously) his own place in paradise and (unconsciously) a 10,000 volt jolt of ego boost from fancying himself as one of the chosen prophets on the level of Isaiah and Ezekiel.

To cling to the "scammer" notion after that revelation would require some serious intellectual gymnastics. And one could certainly no longer claim that it was either an evidence-based conclusion or the more likely conclusion. ...

Piggy, please promise me never, ever to enter in communication with anyone claiming to a female orphan in a Red Cross refugee camp in Dakar.
Please!
One of the easiest ways to choke off a scammer is to promise them a safe home.
After all, the essence of an on-going scam is mobility, or rather elusiveness, because there's always more than one mark being played at a time.

Now, back to this fascinating man named Paul.
Thanks so much for your patience in answering me and I'm looking forward to reading more.

...As to the other "gospels" the Galatians would have been hearing (the term in this context refers to a theological dogma, not a book), he mentions these:

The gospel preached by Peter -- we don't know exactly what it was, but apparently Paul and Peter had their differences, and Peter had made a bigger impression on some than had Paul, and Peter would have had more prestige as Jesus's principal disciple.

The gospel preached by the "Judaizers" or "circumcision faction" (who seem to be linked, at least in part, to certain "people from James") who held that only those who convert to Judaism -- who get circumcised and keep kosher and otherwise keep the Law -- will survive the coming wrath of God.

The gospel preached by the Egyptian Jew Apollos, which held that Jesus's resurrection had already ushered in the new age (Paul says not yet) and that the spiritual gifts offered by the Holy Spirit at their conversion made them spiritually superior to others in the present age (Paul says absolutely not).

Thanks.
That gives a good idea of what gospels were circulating during that time.

Added:
eight bits and Craig B were faster off the mark than was I.
Still, I get credit for comparing Paul to the refugee camp orphan scam.

 

[Craig B]

You just beat me to it, eight bits! Could Paul have convincingly played the role of a Greek-sponsored house philosopher? What happened when he went to Athens, and expounded his theology there?

Here's Paul in Athens

Acts 17:18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus,where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

Indeed. Quite so.

22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

That has been strongly challenged, it being stated that the dedication was to, in effect, known and unknown gods.

... 29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” 32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”

Don't give up your daytime job, Paul!

 

[maximara]

Jayson

What other religious story has three billion living adherents (2 billion Nicene Christians and 1 billion Muslims)? What other religion with 3 billion living adherents places its origin in historical time and terrestial place, with records (allegedly) of adherence dating from within decades of the supposed events of origin?

We have to remember that Christianity had the advantage of being the state religion of the largest Empire of the time: Rome.

Once the Western empire went down the tubes the Church gave the only sense of stability in what was a chaotic mess. For a long time the monk followers of this Christ were the only ones (crazy enough) to travel the long abandoned Roman roads. Thanks to these monks the Church was the only thing that operated at an international level.

Christianity from the get go could be easily repackaged to whatever you wanted at the local level.

Also they had these Saints would could easily replace your local pagan deities so why not? (Katz, Paul R. (1995) Demon Hordes and Burning Boats SUNY pg 109)

 

[Piggy]

Piggy, please promise me never, ever to enter in communication with anyone claiming to a female orphan in a Red Cross refugee camp in Dakar.
Please!
One of the easiest ways to choke off a scammer is to promise them a safe home.
After all, the essence of an on-going scam is mobility, or rather elusiveness, because there's always more than one mark being played at a time.

And yet he stays in Corinth for some time, and continues to write to all his assemblies, to visit them, and to send his fellow travelers to them.

Keep in mind, he could have said "Oh, yes, indeed, that's a great idea", collected his installment, then vanished. But instead he refuses money and continues to perform manual labor.

The thing is, so far I've seen no "scam theory" here at all.

Nobody has yet articulated any coherent or plausible theory describing what Paul's alleged scam is or how he's pulling it off and, most importantly -- especially if the collection for the poor is the scam -- why he spends so little time on that and so much time on completely unrelated matters.

So far it's just "sounds fishy to me", but that's not a coherent, complete, plausible, evidence-based hypothesis.

As far as I can see, there simply is no "scam" theory to be rebutted.

 

[eight bits]

Piggy

The thing is, so far I've seen no "scam theory" here at all.

What is this "theory" you speak of? Paul asked for money, and apparently got it from people to whom he made promises which he did not and could not fulfill. This is not rocket science.

Apparently, your confidence that this cannot be a scam is because if it was your scam, you would manage it differently. Meanwhile, as you yourself have also remarked, modern scammers are still using the same techniques.

Talk about consensus among professionals, eh?

how he's pulling it off

I'd tell you, but it requires years of sepcialized study.

 

[tsig]

Piggy


What is this "theory" you speak of? Paul asked for money, and apparently got it from people to whom he made promises which he did not and could not fulfill. This is not rocket science.

Apparently, your confidence that this cannot be a scam is because if it was your scam, you would manage it differently. Meanwhile, as you yourself have also remarked, modern scammers are still using the same techniques.

Talk about consensus among professionals, eh?


I'd tell you, but it requires years of specialized study.

 

[pakeha]

And yet he stays in Corinth for some time, and continues to write to all his assemblies, to visit them, and to send his fellow travelers to them.

Keep in mind, he could have said "Oh, yes, indeed, that's a great idea", collected his installment, then vanished. But instead he refuses money and continues to perform manual labor.

The thing is, so far I've seen no "scam theory" here at all.

Nobody has yet articulated any coherent or plausible theory describing what Paul's alleged scam is or how he's pulling it off and, most importantly -- especially if the collection for the poor is the scam -- why he spends so little time on that and so much time on completely unrelated matters.

So far it's just "sounds fishy to me", but that's not a coherent, complete, plausible, evidence-based hypothesis.

As far as I can see, there simply is no "scam" theory to be rebutted.

I can see your point, Piggy.
I don't mean to put you off your stride with your analysis of the Pauline letters.
I've had a certain amount of experience with scammers posing as preachers and I can assure you, Paul's letters simply reek of scam.
Even down to dedicating more time to mundane details and the money ref tucked in as if by accident.

I can see my comments are disrupting the flow of your ideas and that wasn't my intention.
Still, you've given me an interesting idea for an essay comparing Paul's letters to publicly written up scamming cases.

In any case I can justify continuing to ask about something you yourself brought up

...But since the "scammer" idea has been studied and rejected, and since the evidence does not point in that direction, then until and unless someone comes up with a real hypothesis -- something more than "boy, that sounds dodgy to my 21st century ears" -- I see no need to discuss it.

Paul is certainly a strange person. But his letters reveal someone who seems to believe that he has been appointed by God to bring about the Day of the Lord by converting a critical mass of gentiles.
...

But even if he were running a scam, how would that contradict HJ theory? Just because a scam artist starts pulling affinity fraud among a group of believers, this does not somehow indicate that this pre-existing group of believers formed around an imaginary person.

If I pretend to be a skeptic in order to run some kind of affinity fraud among JREF'ers, does this cast doubt on the reality of James Randi?

I think not.

In reference to the hilited bit, I'd asked who had studied this idea and rejected it.
In any case, context is everything and I'm most interested in learning more.
I'll gather together my scammer alerts and post them all together at the end of the Pauline Letters, rather than interrupt you again.
After all, as you commented
"But even if he were running a scam, how would that contradict HJ theory?"
And the answer is, of course, not at all.
Cheers!

 

[Piggy]

In reference to the hilited bit, I'd asked who had studied this idea and rejected it.

I don't have the reference, it was mentioned by another poster upthread, perhaps CraigB. It was a very old reference, from back when the field was wilder and woolier.

 

[Piggy]

I can see your point, Piggy.
I don't mean to put you off your stride with your analysis of the Pauline letters.
I've had a certain amount of experience with scammers posing as preachers and I can assure you, Paul's letters simply reek of scam.
Even down to dedicating more time to mundane details and the money ref tucked in as if by accident.

I can see my comments are disrupting the flow of your ideas and that wasn't my intention.
Still, you've given me an interesting idea for an essay comparing Paul's letters to publicly written up scamming cases.

Oh, no, no worries at all. I don't mind.

To write the longer posts in which I'm analyzing texts in some detail takes a bit of prep time, but answering smaller questions is no problem, since I can do that when I steal a moment here or there.

It's no problem, pakeha, not in the least. Glad to do it.

 

[pakeha]

I don't have the reference, it was mentioned by another poster upthread, perhaps CraigB. It was a very old reference, from back when the field was wilder and woolier.

Ah, well.

Oh, no, no worries at all. I don't mind.

To write the longer posts in which I'm analyzing texts in some detail takes a bit of prep time, but answering smaller questions is no problem, since I can do that when I steal a moment here or there.

It's no problem, pakeha, not in the least. Glad to do it.

I'm glad it's not a distraction to you, as I learn a great deal from all this.
Cheers!

 

[The Norseman]

Nobody has yet articulated any coherent or plausible theory describing what Paul's alleged scam is or how he's pulling it off and, most importantly -- especially if the collection for the poor is the scam -- why he spends so little time on that and so much time on completely unrelated matters.

Maybe because we very well don't have a complete record of the exchanges? The records have been passed down, copied, re-copied and so on through centuries by the people who have a vested interest in keeping them just so. It seems quite reasonable to me that other documents that deny or disprove the story (if they even had been written) were destroyed.

These theories are good considering how incomplete they are, but therein lies the problem; there appears to be a tremendous amount of assuming and suppositions trying to fill in the gaps instead of simply accepting that we really don't know.

 

[Craig B]

I don't have the reference, it was mentioned by another poster upthread, perhaps CraigB. It was a very old reference, from back when the field was wilder and woolier.

It was "Not Paul But Jesus" by Jeremy Bentham c 1830. Rattling good read!

 

[Belz...]

These theories are good considering how incomplete they are, but therein lies the problem; there appears to be a tremendous amount of assuming and suppositions trying to fill in the gaps instead of simply accepting that we really don't know.

Apparently, in historian talk, that translated to "certainty".

Of course, that's "as certain as we can be", but it's a bit misleading, and 60% certainty isn't very certain.

 

[The Norseman]

Apparently, in historian talk, that translated to "certainty".

Of course, that's "as certain as we can be", but it's a bit misleading, and 60% certainty isn't very certain.

If it's true that when historians say that there were many preachers (apocalyptic and other) in that time and that Yeshua was a very popular name, it's more reasonable to suggest that there were more than one preacher that were conflated into a single man.

Or Paul was scamming big time. Or both. Why not both? What's the conclusive evidence that there were not three Yeshuas that Paul was scamming about, hoping no one would notice?

 

[maximara]

Maybe because we very well don't have a complete record of the exchanges? The records have been passed down, copied, re-copied and so on through centuries by the people who have a vested interest in keeping them just so. It seems quite reasonable to me that other documents that deny or disprove the story (if they even had been written) were destroyed.

These theories are good considering how incomplete they are, but therein lies the problem; there appears to be a tremendous amount of assuming and suppositions trying to fill in the gaps instead of simply accepting that we really don't know.

It doesn't help that for the most part that fate seemed bent on giving the Empire that was Rome a historical lobotomy: The Great Library of Alexandria got burnt three perhaps as much as four times and as the Empire fell apart so did the infrastructure to copying the remaining records.

Then you had the issue of how copies were handled. As James Burke related in the "A Matter of Fact" episode of The Day the Universe Changed Christian copyists had a load of problems finding what they did bother to copy.

There wasn't enough knowledge in any one monastery to separate the works into separate subjects or categories (~12:08). As the result the "library" look more like the floor of some stereotypical bachelor pad then what we considered a library.

Then you have titles on page edges or on the first page of the book. And then the title might not tell you that much.

The example Burke gives, Sermones Bonventurae (Sermons of St Bonaventure) shows just what kind of mess things were. This book could be

Sermons composed by St Bonaventure of Fidenza

Sermons composed by somebody called Bonaventure

Sermons copied by a Bonaventure

Sermons copied by somebody belonging to church of St. Bonaventure

Sermons preached by a Bonaventure

Sermons once owned by a Bonaventure

Sermons once owned by church of St. Bonaventure

Sermons by various people of whom the first or most important was by somebody called Bonaventure--the rest of the book? No clue.

With this kind of filing system you didn't need to actively destroy anything...because you may not even know you have it in the first place.