What counts as a historical Jesus?

[maximara]

I absolutely agree. I have used that very argument against the authenticity of the "edited" TF.

What I am arguing against here, however, is the notion that because our sources give us a mythologised account of something, then to attempt to demythologise it is merely to produce a modernised fantasy which has no support even in the original sources, and therefore cannot possibly contain any historical reality.

This is what Schweitzer and Price have both said:

"The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, and died to give His work its final consecration, never had any existence. He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in an historical garb." (Schweitzer 1910)

"Second, the "historical Jesus" reconstructed by New Testament scholars is always a reflection of the individual scholars who reconstruct him. Albert Schweitzer was perhaps the single exception, and he made it painfully clear that previous questers for the historical Jesus had merely drawn self-portraits. All unconsciously used the historical Jesus as a ventriloquist dummy. Jesus must have taught the truth, and their own beliefs must have been true, so Jesus must have taught those beliefs. (Of course, every biblicist does the same! "I said it! God believes it! That settles it!"). Today's Politically Correct "historical Jesuses" are no different, being mere clones of the scholars who design them.

(...)

My point here is simply that, even if there was a historical Jesus lying back of the gospel Christ, he can never be recovered. If there ever was a historical Jesus, there isn't one any more. All attempts to recover him turn out to be just modern remythologizings of Jesus. Every "historical Jesus" is a Christ of faith, of somebody's faith. So the "historical Jesus" of modern scholarship is no less a fiction." (Price (1997) Christ a Fiction)

 

[IanS]

That's a different statement from your earlier one which i was responding to: You are "moving the goalposts".

No, I am not moving any goalposts.

I am saying that the gospel authors did not know when Jesus lived. They appear to assumed an approximate date for the crucifiction from reading of Paul's vision of Jesus.

That is a quite bizarre argument. Are you sure you mean it?

It's not an "argument". I am pointing out the fact that all the many authors such as Wells, Ellegard, Carrier, and scores of other much earlier authors who think Jesus may have been mythical, all knew perfectly well that the gosples say that Pontius Pilate agreed to the execution. But of course none of them think that those gospel authors actually had any idea of anything Pilate did with Jesus.

Source please. You "suspect" this? I think you need to let us have more evidence, and I would be grateful if you could provide it.

Why on earth do I need to give you more evidence? For a start (to repeat), none of the gospel authors were (apparently) witness to anything Jesus ever did, inc. his supposed crucifixion. So they could not have personally known that Pilate did anything with Jesus.

Secondly, the only earlier source for the claim of the crucifixion, appears to be Paul’s belief. Though, afaik, Paul says he understood all such things from his visions & according to scripture, and not from any man.

So the gospel stories of the crucifixion seem to derive from what had earlier been written by Paul … unless you know of another earlier source telling of the crucifixion?

But as I just pointed out - without checking, iirc, (a) the genuine letters of Paul do not mention anyone called “Pilate”, and (b)Paul only says he had a vision of Jesus after Jesus had died, but afaik he does not actually say that he knew when Jesus had died.

 

[Craig B]

No, I am not moving any goalposts.

I am saying that the gospel authors did not know when Jesus lived. They appear to assumed an approximate date for the crucifiction from reading of Paul's vision of Jesus.

What you said was

What is the evidence from anything in any of their writing where they give a date for the lifetime of Jesus?

The evidence from the gospels on this point is a) Pilate. b) Luke 2:2

This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.

Now that is something "in their writing where they give a date for the lifetime of Jesus" isn't it? When I point this out you move the goalposts and start talking about eyewitnesses and stuff. That's another issue. You asked if dates are given in the gospels. They are. That means that the authors of the gospels believed that Jesus lived in the recent past.

 

[maximara]

Yes; I do take this assumption.

I do not take the assumed position that Paul invented Christianity completely and fooled a bunch of people into perpetuating his creation.

There's more left in textual evidence that we have yet to finish cleaning up and translating; and it's going to take a long time to get through all of the texts that we have to, so perhaps one day we'll get more textual information.

This still makes the Great Man assumption...that someone "invented" Christianity. For all we know Christianity was like the John Frum cargo cult---a Great Moment event.

Despite John Frum being said to be a literate US service man around 1957 a splinter group known as the Prince Philip Movement came into being claiming that Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was the brother of John Frum. But Prince Philip (who has no brothers but four sisters) did not join the British navy until 1939 and there doesn't seem to be any indication he was near the island in 1940 when the trouble with the native calling hiself John Frum started. This does show how a potential non existence founder could be plugged into history.

Also John Frum and Prince Philip Movement are not the only cargo cults. There is the Roosevelt Cargo cult of New Hebrides (1942), the Lyndon Johnson cargo cult of New Hanover (1960s), and a host of other with founders who are easily verified as having existed as flesh and blood people...but who were NOT on the island when the cults said they were.

The Tuka Movement of Fiji (1885) and Vailala Madness in the Territory of Papua (1919-1922) show striking similarities despite the first having a founder and the later not.

Given the wild fragmentation of Christianity noted for c140 and c180 one gets not the impression of religion with a clear founder that has schismed but of a collection of related social-religious groups with a very broad theology that latched on to Jesus as their "founder" ala the cargo cults of the 20th century.

 

[maximara]

The evidence from the gospels on this point is a) Pilate. b) Luke 2:2

And b slams into Matthew 2 and has problems. Never mind that Marcion of Sinope's version of Luke didn't have the birth story.

Also as shown by the John Frum splinter group Prince Philip Movement in as little as 17 years John Frum got himself a flesh and blood brother: Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Yet Prince Philip has no brothers and didn't join the British navy until 1939 (John Frum is supposed to be a US serviceman ie army not navy).

 

[JaysonR]

Jayson
I disagree. The epistulary form, accompanied by the episodic live performances described in the letters, are a perfectly fine literary form. The Gospels come later, and their christology disagrees among themselves as well as with Paul's. (As is unsurprising, since with the passage of time it becomes increasingly obvious that Jesus isn't really coming back). There are no oral tales in evidence, and Paul's letters deny that he relied upon antecedent human communication.

What I was stating was that Paul's writing isn't the literary form in question; I wasn't stating that it wasn't a form in its own right.

If you insist that Paul is untruthful, then that would considerably simplify my task. Under the circumstances, then, I would expect you to take Paul at his word.

I don't take any text at its word.
I've read far too many ancient texts to take any such object at its own word.
I'm not sure how I gave this impression to you, but no; I don't tend to do that.

I will take an axiomatic position under specific analytical examinations, but that is not a permanent grant indefinitely. That is a temporary grant for the purposes of following a possibility to see how well that possibility is cable of lining up to reason and known anthropological material.

When I wrote about the literary texts, I was referring to the Synoptic texts, as well as the volume of texts that were not accepted into canons that were of the same form and relative content.

I was not referring to Paul.
Everyone else keeps bringing Paul up in relation to what I'm saying.

Except that's not Paul's genre. Paul tours the ecumen, giving live performances of his work. What survives for us to examine are either prospectuses (Romans) for a performance about to be given, or retorspective reinforcers (many of the letters), or just plain business correspondence (Philemon - usually read today as Paul's acquiescence in slavery, but also an example of his appropriation of a follower's property - we don't see that part as clearly, since we are so viscerally repulsed by the very idea that a man could be property. Paul, not so much.)

I don't know if Paul gave performances or not. I wasn't addressing Paul, though.

Tom Clancy is a great example, since he pioneered an unprecedented subgenre. The Hunt for Red October is a novel that was published and then marketed through a serious naval non-fiction imprint, a house which had never before published fiction.

The Hunt for Red October was a hugely successful book, a career-maker for Clancy, the debut of a signature character, and a money-spinner for the publisher, too. So, under your theory, we should see lots of scholarly imprints bringing out fiction topical to the brand's niche.

About a generation has passed (1984), and we don't see that (feel free to correct me if you have another example). Why not, if that is the way of human cultures?

Simple: the performance is, by its nature, difficult and perilous to repeat. For one thing, the firm took an enormous risk that could easily have backfired. That's a barrier to Brill, say, publishing a novel about early Christians... or The Da Vinci Code.

And, while we're here, that is also a mechanism for why examples chosen to be unusual in one way might reliably be unusual in another. Enormous financial windfalls (and ruinous losses) are typically accompanied by unusual financial risks. Therefore, if you choose some conspicuously successful enterprise (Mormonism), then you are apt to find somebody who had a lot of skin in the game (Prophet Joe, until he was shot, while in jail).

Again, you are talking about a singular book and then subsequent clones of the singular text.

I am referring to a conceptual form.
Tom Clancy was used as an example, not exclusively, of contemporary fiction.
I could easily state the same about Michael Crichton, David Brown, or even Steven King at times, etc...

What gets repeated in human evolution is the conceptual form; not the specific iteration (sometimes that happens, but that's not guaranteed).

For example; anthropologically, we pin novel form contemporary fiction to around the 6th and 7th c CE.
Once it arrives, it continues because it catches on and the form gets repeated.

Just as once Algebra was created, that caught on as a form of mathematics.

A way of doing something that lacked before is what catches on; not a specific instance or iteration in clone.


To outline either Paul or the Synoptic texts et. al. as contemporary fiction would be revolutionary for anthropology as it would shift the dating period for the form back roughly half a thousand years earlier than what we currently hold it as being created.

Further, it would also produce the "first" and earlier literary 'dark age', as a new literary form of contemporary fiction would be said to have been created in the 1st c CE and then died immediately for nearly 400 years or so until an unrelated string of literature would resurface employing the form of short story and novel-like contemporary literature once again.

That's a pretty sizable shift anthropologically, and one that if such is true, needs to be accounted for as currently we do not hold that such took place anthropologically.

The anthropological account of these texts is that they are in line with apocolyptic literature, which were pieces of literature highly exagerated off of given figures whom the groups devoutly followed and believed were their savior in some fashion; but this form of writing was not akin to contemporary literature anthropologically.
It was a form that, so far held in anthropology, very much believed the individuals they wrote about (whether Jesus, Simon, or any other individual) were actual people who had lived among the reading demographic; not fictionalized figures that did not exist.

To state that the Synoptic et. al., or Pauline even, texts were contemporary fiction would make them not apocalyptic literature, as they are classed currently, and a break from the culturally known surrounding of apocalyptic literature and the first and only (so far as I'm aware) known instance of contemporary literature half a thousand years earlier than our current dating of the genre's beginning.

Meaning; we can find lots of apocalyptic literature that is similar to these texts.
We can find no such instances of contemporary fiction literature until half a thousand years after these texts.


As such, I do tend to (until something else comes up anthropologically to justify changing the dating we have) consider these to be apocalyptic literature and not contemporary literature.


I'm MORE than willing to accept them as contemporary literature if that can be proven.
That would be kick ass in my book as it would something that I would be part of by proxy in discovering that we created contemporary literature far before we currently hold that we had done so; and that would be fricken awesome to overturn a precedent like that!

So far, however, I don't have nearly enough indicating evidence to support a claim like that to the anthropological community.
There's basically nothing in here that makes these any different than the volumes of akin apocalyptic material of the time.

 

[JaysonR]

This still makes the Great Man assumption...that someone "invented" Christianity. For all we know Christianity was like the John Frum cargo cult---a Great Moment event.

Despite John Frum being said to be a literate US service man around 1957 a splinter group known as the Prince Philip Movement came into being claiming that Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was the brother of John Frum. But Prince Philip (who has no brothers but four sisters) did not join the British navy until 1939 and there doesn't seem to be any indication he was near the island in 1940 when the trouble with the native calling hiself John Frum started. This does show how a potential non existence founder could be plugged into history.

Also John Frum and Prince Philip Movement are not the only cargo cults. There is the Roosevelt Cargo cult of New Hebrides (1942), the Lyndon Johnson cargo cult of New Hanover (1960s), and a host of other with founders who are easily verified as having existed as flesh and blood people...but who were NOT on the island when the cults said they were.

The Tuka Movement of Fiji (1885) and Vailala Madness in the Territory of Papua (1919-1922) show striking similarities despite the first having a founder and the later not.

Given the wild fragmentation of Christianity noted for c140 and c180 one gets not the impression of religion with a clear founder that has schismed but of a collection of related social-religious groups with a very broad theology that latched on to Jesus as their "founder" ala the cargo cults of the 20th century.

OK, so you're basically saying a bunch of people mixed up a bunch of stories and accounts and eventually believed in a person being real who wasn't.

I can't disprove that possibility either.

I was only stating that the texts are unlikely to have intentionally written of the individual in question with direct intention of writing of a fictional person who they full well knew did not exist (contemporary fiction form).

That's all I can say about it due to the anthropological timeline for that form of fiction.

I am not stating this proves Jesus was real.
It only would indicate that the writers believed him to be real.

 

[Piggy]

1 Corinthians, part 4

Let's pick up where we left off, with a little bit of overlap:

If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved — even though only as one escaping through the flames.

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

We must always be mindful of the process of spiritualization in our own reading of these ancient texts.

This might seem to be metaphorical language to us today, but for the most part it is not.

As I said, this dispute between Paul and Apollos is not a quibble. What Paul is saying here is that the difference between trusting his gospel -- which he says he's merely relaying from God himself -- and the gospel of Apollos -- which Paul claims is merely the word of man -- is quite literally the difference between life and death.

When God's army comes, those who have gotten it right will be saved. But those who have followed the wrong doctrine? They will be "saved" (Paul often has a sarcastic tongue, and he employs it here) but as one "escaping through flames"… not much fun, that. In other words, if you're wrong when the Day of the Lord comes, you'll wish that God had annihilated you, because you'll be in torment. Out of the frying pan of this world and into the fire of hell.

This isn't some polite debate over doctrine here. It's a bare-knuckle brawl.

In that last bit, Paul is echoing the theology developed by Ezekiel -- you see how we keep coming back to the same few books, over which all the Christian groups, not just the Pauline assemblies, obsessed -- which held that God was not tied to the Temple in Jerusalem, but "tabernacled" with his people wherever they were. Paul says that this group, the righteous remnant, are the new Temple of God.

(I hope the 1200 years of historical background is making more sense now.)

And this echoes the religious politics of the time. The apocalyptic group at Qumran, for example, poured out all kinds of venom against the Temple. Not because they hated the institution of the Temple, and certainly not because they hated God, but because the Temple had been usurped by Rome and the Temple priesthood stripped of Levitical control, which according to scripture was the ONLY group authorized by God to serve at the Temple.

It is extremely likely, given not only Jesus's own fate but also the fate of his mentor John the Baptizer, that Jesus also preached this doctrine, that the Temple had been corrupted and was no longer an acceptable abode for the one true God.

So, if God no longer abided in the Temple, where did he abide? As Ezekiel had written during the exile in Babylon, the righteous Jews themselves were the Temple, and God tabernacled with them.

And who, in Paul's opinion, were the current righteous ones? Those who had faith in the resurrection and return of Jesus, both Jewish and gentile.

As for Jesus, he very likely would have preached that his group of followers, and they alone, were the new Temple.

Now here's an interesting bit:

Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

Most of that's a repeat. The citations are from Job and Psalms, by the way.

But the important bit comes at the end. "Christ belongs to God."

Note that he does NOT say "Christ is God".

Paul does NOT believe that Jesus is God.

There is, as always, a hierarchy: God --> Jesus --> The faithful --> Everybody else.

This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.

Paul's doing a little two-step here, what we might call "humblebragging" today.

On the one hand, he has the true gospel, and his assemblies are not as spiritually mature as he is, but on the other hand, he's in the 3rd tier just like the rest of them and that will be proven when God arrives at the Day of the Lord.

He is a "servant" of God and Jesus, but at the same time he has been "entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed". And as we've seen in our earlier examination of the scriptures which Paul incessantly cites, that "mystery" is the coming of the end time.

What comes next might be a dig at a different sort of belief in "mystery", on the part of the Egyptian Apollos, whose teaching -- at least as Paul views it -- may be tinged with gnostic overtones:

Now, brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, “Do not go beyond what is written.”

Paul constantly quotes Hebrew scripture, and attacks Apollos for claiming some sort of "wisdom" apart from that. According to Paul, Apollos is preaching something not backed by Jewish prophecy, and anything that doesn't come from there is not to be trusted.

(And this, btw, is why it is so highly ironic that some mythicists view Paul as the leader of some sort of non-Jewish, or even anti-Jewish, mystery cult, because that is precisely what he is so vehemently arguing against!)

Now he launches into an attack on Apollos's followers within the Corinthian assembly, who seem to have interpreted their baptism and their gifts from the Holy Spirit as signs that they have become spiritually superior in this life, in the here and now. This is antithetical to Paul's theology, which holds that the righteous (according to prophecy) will be persecuted as long as the Powers of This Earth are allowed to hold sway "for a time", and must remain humble in order to be worthy of God's mercy when the divine army descends from Heaven.

(Btw, I love reading those first two sentences in a New York Jewish accent. )

Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have begun to reign — and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we also might reign with you! For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world — right up to this moment. I am writing this not to shame you but to warn you as my dear children.

Again, the "we" in this passage refers to Paul and the evangelists who travel with him.

In Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every assembly. Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you. But I will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a rod of discipline, or shall I come in love and with a gentle spirit?

So now we find out who carried this letter -- Timothy, whom we've met before.

And again, we see that Paul envisions himself as the head of a Hellenic household, the one who has responsibility for the wife, children, and slaves.

He promises to show more than words when his travels bring him back to Corinth.

I would love to know just what kind of charismatic services Paul led. He must have been quite adept at it, like a master tent show evangelist. (I know some people associate all such folks with hucksters, but as a lifetime resident of the deep South, where this kind of thing still goes on, I can assure you that many of these people fully believe what they preach. For a riveting account of such groups, I highly recommend Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia by Dennis Covington, who set out to report on snake handlers and ended up being converted by the ecstatic experience. In my opinion, it is here, and not Marjoe, where one should look for contemporary parallels to Paul.)

I think that's enough for this installment. Next, Paul will launch into a description of the goings-on within the Corinthian assemblies, and Lakeview Baptist it ain't!

More later….

 

[Craig B]

And b slams into Matthew 2 and has problems. Never mind that Marcion of Sinope's version of Luke didn't have the birth story.

No doubt. I am aware of the problems. I am simply answering a point made to me. Not any other point!

What is the evidence from anything in any of their writing where they give a date for the lifetime of Jesus?

OK? I have answered that question. Not any other possible question. This is all very frustrating!

 

[Brainache]

This still makes the Great Man assumption...that someone "invented" Christianity. For all we know Christianity was like the John Frum cargo cult---a Great Moment event.

Despite John Frum being said to be a literate US service man around 1957 a splinter group known as the Prince Philip Movement came into being claiming that Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was the brother of John Frum. But Prince Philip (who has no brothers but four sisters) did not join the British navy until 1939 and there doesn't seem to be any indication he was near the island in 1940 when the trouble with the native calling hiself John Frum started. This does show how a potential non existence founder could be plugged into history.

Also John Frum and Prince Philip Movement are not the only cargo cults. There is the Roosevelt Cargo cult of New Hebrides (1942), the Lyndon Johnson cargo cult of New Hanover (1960s), and a host of other with founders who are easily verified as having existed as flesh and blood people...but who were NOT on the island when the cults said they were.

The Tuka Movement of Fiji (1885) and Vailala Madness in the Territory of Papua (1919-1922) show striking similarities despite the first having a founder and the later not.

Given the wild fragmentation of Christianity noted for c140 and c180 one gets not the impression of religion with a clear founder that has schismed but of a collection of related social-religious groups with a very broad theology that latched on to Jesus as their "founder" ala the cargo cults of the 20th century.

I think, given the circumstances in 1st Century Judea, a more apt comparison from recent times of the rise of similar movements is the Native American Ghost Dance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Dance

 

[Piggy]

OK? I have answered that question. Not any other possible question. This is all very frustrating!

That's why I just had to walk away.

I mean, being executed by Pilate pretty much covers it right off the bat. As do Paul's references to Peter and James being alive when he wrote his letters.

 

[eight bits]

Jayson

What I was stating was that Paul's writing isn't the literary form in question;

Then I misunderstood what you were saying; thank you for clarifying. Nevertheless, there does seem to be a disagreement between us about Paul's perfomance. You seem to take the letters themselves as the "genre," while I view the letters more like the script or stage manager's "notes" for a touring theatrical production. They are a contributing part of the delivered performance, but are not, by themselves, the whole productive act.

I don't know if Paul gave performances or not. I wasn't addressing Paul, though.

He says he did, and that he was planning to give more, or sometimes was sending a second road company instead. I was addressing Paul, and some of your posts have my user name atop them. Granted, I do inject things you've said to other posters into our exchange. That is, in my view, appropriate for concurrent dialogs conducted as open messages.

Again, you are talking about a singular book and then subsequent clones of the singular text.

On the contrary, obviously I was doing no such thing. What I did was to identify what is innovative in a specific literary act of production whose author you brought up.

My point was that there are severe limitations to how much of that innovation could be imitated successfully. Since you have now brought up cloning, clearly, to clone The Hunt for Red October is, for at least two more generations to come, illegal. That's a very formidable barrier to doing that, wouldn't you say?

But cloning has nothing to do with what I was discussing, and wouldn't capture what was actually innovative in that publishing episode. It wasn't about the black marks on a page, but how the pages were delivered to the first paying customers who were interested in reading them.

What gets repeated in human evolution is the conceptual form; not the specific iteration (sometimes that happens, but that's not guaranteed).

The problem with that as a fact claim is that concepts reside in the mind of the analyst, and are therefore labile. That has several dangers, especially that the analyst typically knows more than the historical actors ever did. No contemporary of Paul could have had the faintest idea of how successful an author-performer Paul would turn out to be, for example. Retrospectively, Paul was a huge success (especially if the reward is accounted without regard for the full costs of production and for the risk involved, which retrospectively turned out well).

In any case, what I understand to have been Paul's "concept" was imitated. That's what the Gospels are. That's what the "heretical" gospels are. That's what the Koran is. That's what the Book of Mormon is. How much imitation do you require before you declare victory?

To outline either Paul or the Synoptic texts et. al. as contemporary fiction would be revolutionary for anthropology ...

That simply cannot be true of the synoptic texts, since those authors cannot know that they aren't writing "fiction." The situation is asymmetirc - if they are consciously making something up, as "Matthew" seems plainly to have done in some cases, then they could know that. But if not, then they simply do not know whether or not what they have heard is true.

It was not revolutionary to produce a magical-realist prose narrative, or for that matter a consciously idealized "life." What distinguishes fiction from non-fiction is whether the events being narrated happened or not. We are quite sure that some of the narrated events didn't occur, and reasonably sure that at least some of those events were consciously fabricated.

Thus, some part of your "revolution" actually happened, Jason. You and I are now dickering about what proportion of the received work is "revolutionary" in the sense you propose.

 

[IanS]

What you said was The evidence from the gospels on this point is a) Pilate. b) Luke 2:2 Now that is something "in their writing where they give a date for the lifetime of Jesus" isn't it? When I point this out you move the goalposts and start talking about eyewitnesses and stuff. That's another issue. You asked if dates are given in the gospels. They are. That means that the authors of the gospels believed that Jesus lived in the recent past.

No, afaik that is not actually evidence that the gospel authors knew the lifetime of Jesus.

On the contrary, the "evidence" regarding the gospels appears to be that none of the gospel writers were eye-witnesses to the execution of Jesus (or anything else to do with Jesus). Or perhaps you disagree with that?

And secondly, the evidence appears to be that Mathew, Luke, and John were in any case largely copied from an earlier gospel attributed to Mark. So where those gospels mention Pilate as the executioner of Jesus, they really only appear to be copying from g-Mark. Do you disagree with that?

But then we have to ask - if the unknown anonymous writer who actually wrote what is called the "gospel of Mark" was not himself writing as any kind of witness to the execution of Jesus, then where did that writer get the idea that Jesus had been executed at the time of Pilate?

And the answer to that seems to be, that the only known earlier source are the letters of Paul, where apart from a fake letter written in the 2nd century AD, Paul's description of ever meeting Jesus does not actually mention anyone called Pontius Pilate at all. And where Paul only says that he had a vision of Jesus communicating to him at some time after Jesus had died ... but he does actually say that the vision took place 3 days after the execution. Or perhaps you disagree with that?

What I am saying to you is that the reason sceptical writers, for over a century, do not automatically accept the involvement of Pilate as the executioner of Jesus, is for reasons such as the above. Namely, that the whole idea seems to have come from Paul's letter describing his vision of Jesus.

IOW - the name of Pontius Pilate seems to have been added afterwards, by gospel writers who thought Paul had said that Jesus must have been executed some time around 30 to 36 AD, ie a time when they believed Pilate was the prefect for the area.

But, throughout any of this, you might also note that Paul’s vision is clearly make-believe anyway. So, it's probably very unwise to trying to conclude any dates from a fictional vision like that.

 

[Craig B]

No, afaik that is not actually evidence that the gospel authors knew the lifetime of Jesus.

For the very last time: I was not commenting on whether the gospel writers knew about the lifetime of Jesus. I was commenting on this.

What is the evidence from anything in any of their writing where they give a date for the lifetime of Jesus?

They did indicate such a date. That is to say, they assigned the lifetime of Jesus quite unambiguously to the recent past. Were they eye witnesses? Not relevant to the question you asked, which was, Did they give a date?

 

[IanS]

No doubt. I am aware of the problems. I am simply answering a point made to me. Not any other point! OK? I have answered that question. Not any other possible question. This is all very frustrating!

Craig - I think you and I are at cross-purposes here. Lets, recap this a bit -

- the comment that you are complaining about, and for which you say I am moving goalposts, appears to be this one -

In the case of Jesus - how did Paul or the gospel writers know when Jesus had lived and died?

What is the evidence from anything in any of their writing where they give a date for the lifetime of Jesus?
Or is it actually the case that we have subsequently guessed when Jesus lived, eg from thinking Pauls' vision must have been only a few days after Jesus had died? Is that the assumption?

That is the full and entire quote of the post you are objecting to.

But look again at what that quote actually says. I am not there disputing that g-Mark (and the other gospels copied from Mark) say that Jesus was executed at the time of Pilate. What that quote actually says, is that it simply asks you a question … it asks you -

“ What is the evidence from anything in any of their writing where they give a date for the lifetime of Jesus? “

For a start, that is very clearly a question, and not a statement from me.

And secondly, the point is that it is it is asking you specifically - “what is the evidence in their writing” for whatever they may say about the lifetime of Jesus … it’s asking you what evidence they gave for any stated belief that Jesus was executed and died at any particular date.

 

[Belz...]

I mean, being executed by Pilate pretty much covers it right off the bat. As do Paul's references to Peter and James being alive when he wrote his letters.

The Pilate reference, sure. But the other two ? What does that tell us ?

 

[maximara]

No doubt. I am aware of the problems. I am simply answering a point made to me. Not any other point! OK? I have answered that question. Not any other possible question. This is all very frustrating!

IanS in in post 3322 post addressed all this.

More over Irenaeus c180 in Demonstration (74) stated "For Herod the king of the Jews and Pontius Pilate, the governor of Claudius Caesar, came together and condemned Him to be crucified" at over 50 years of age (Against Heresies 2:22:4) and he is the first extensive quoter of the Gospels we have.

At best only three Herods had the actual title "king of the Jews": Herod the Great (37–4 BCE), Herod Agrippa I (42-44 CE), and Herod Agrippa II (who didn't really rule Judea so we can dispense with him (Gelb, Norman (2010) Kings of the Jews: The Origins of the Jewish Nation pg 205)) (Crossan, John Dominic (1996) Who Killed Jesus?: Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story pg 94)

The fact the Christians readily accepted this temporal nonsense shows they had no idea when events happened and were picking the names of leaders they thought fitted.

 

[eight bits]

... asking you what evidence they gave for any stated belief that Jesus was executed and died at any particular date.

If I may help (straps on helmet and Kevlar vest)...

Mark doesn't say how he knows anything, but allegedly there was an early tradition (described in Eusebius' Church History at III; 39.15) that his source was Peter (for incidents, but not for the order of the incidents, which Mark made up, says this tradition).

Matthew doesn't say how he knows, but for a lot of the story, his source is visibly Mark, plus what may well be "Matthew's" own personal improvisations (whether Mary had had sex, how many donkeys Jesus rode, what Jesus wore when mocked, the blood libel, etc.).

Luke describes his research right at the beginning:

Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.

Which I parse to be that he consulted with disciples or other associates of Jesus' disciples (that might include Mark and possibly Paul or his staff - see remark below on Acts) and possibly later generations of disciples in the chain. Other views are possible.

John claims to have an eyewitness to the crucifixion, at 19: 35

An eyewitness has testified, and his testimony is true; he knows that he is speaking the truth, so that you also may believe.

John also claims that the "Beloved Disciple" wrote something that is the basis for at least the contents of chapter 21, at 21: 24

It is this disciple who testifies to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.

Although tradition holds that "John" (that is, the author of the Fourth Gospel) is the "Beloved Disciple," there is no unambiguous textual support for that, or that the Beloved Disciple is the source for anything more than chapter 21. However, the "Beloved Disciple" could be the witness mentioned at 19: 35, since he is in the scene as reported in John.

None of the Gospels mentions Paul as a source. Of course, he plays a large role in Acts, where there are some evocative "we" passages which suggest (but do not compel) the conclusion that a young Luke may have met a traveling Paul personally.

I think that's pretty much it.

 

[Craig B]

IanS in in post 3322 post addressed all this.

More over Irenaeus c180 in Demonstration (74) stated "For Herod the king of the Jews and Pontius Pilate, the governor of Claudius Caesar, came together and condemned Him to be crucified" at over 50 years of age (Against Heresies 2:22:4) and he is the first extensive quoter of the Gospels we have.
...
The fact the Christians readily accepted this temporal nonsense shows they had no idea when events happened and were picking the names of leaders they thought fitted.

The material in question was the gospels and not Irenaeus.

 

[Craig B]

Craig - I think you and I are at cross-purposes here. Lets, recap this a bit -

And secondly, the point is that it is it is asking you specifically - “what is the evidence in their writing” for whatever they may say about the lifetime of Jesus … it’s asking you what evidence they gave for any stated belief that Jesus was executed and died at any particular date.

Well, if I have misunderstood, so be it. But the way you expressed yourself was extremely ambiguous.

ETA The ambiguity survives even into your current message, "any stated belief that Jesus was executed and died at any particular date". But they clearly stated the belief that Jesus was executed by Pilate. That is a particular date, or at least narrow time band. They did not vaguely express, or not express, any old belief about Jesus' death, but that specific belief, clearly.