What counts as a historical Jesus?

[davefoc]

I hear a lot of "I think".

I don't hear any evidence or analysis.

The arguments for the reliability of various arguments for the existence of an HJ have been discussed many times in this thread. They are also widely discussed in the various secular articles about the HJ on the web. In previous posts I have made a detailed description of my view about many of the arguments relating to an HJ. In other posts I have presented detailed information about what I based my view of a particular argument on.

Even, if I went through this thread, and pulled out every one of the arguments I've made and every one of the links I've posted and every one of the arguments made by posters that I agree with, you and I would not find common ground beyond what we already hold (which is actually quite a bit).

I don't think there is reliable information about the HJ outside of Paul and I don't find Paul so reliable as to preclude the possibility that an HJ, based on the definition I posted above, didn't exist. You disagree with at least some of this and I don't think there is anything that I could say that would change your mind. However, I might change my mind a bit, in the face of a better understanding of what is knowable about the earliest period of Christianity.

 

[Greediguts]

What is not an "invention"?

What do you think my word "invention" was referring to?

I took it you were implying that HJers somehow manufactured the idea of Paul's messiah being different than John's. The texts support this.

Paul did not think Jesus=Yahweh. The apotheosis of Jesus takes a little bit of time to happen.

 

[IanS]

What is not an "invention"?

What do you think my word "invention" was referring to?

I took it you were implying that HJers somehow manufactured the idea of Paul's messiah being different than John's. The texts support this.

I don’t think Paul or any of the gospel writers were really talking about a completely different messiah, were they? I think they were all describing belief in the same individual.

There may be various differences in what they say about Jesus. But that’s because none of them knew who Jesus was. None of them had ever met Jesus. And as far as those authors were concerned, Jesus was a figure of past legend.

But what seems to be crucial to all of the biblical accounts, is that the beliefs in fact all come from interpreting various passages of the OT. So whoever wrote the manuscripts attributed to Paul, Mark, Mathew, Luke and John, those writers were all basing their descriptions of Jesus on what they read and understood from much earlier prophetic writing in the OT. The differences seem to arise from what each of them thought they could, or should, believe from the OT.

 

[Belz...]

I hear a lot of "I think".

I don't hear any evidence or analysis.

Neither do I.

So far your "long-winded" posts just analyse the biblical text and historical background of the region. We're still waiting for step 1: evidence.

 

[maximara]

Or does "gospel" mean what we think it means ? Maybe he's refering to something very different. Would Paul call his visions "gospel" ?

Doubtful as in Against Heresies (Book II, Chapter 22) Irenaeus quoting passages seen in our Gospel to support his position.

Irenaeus makes a passing reference to Luke in paragraph 4, directly cites it in paragraph 5 and cites John 8:56-57 in paragraph 6.

Yet he still said "For Herod the king of the Jews and Pontius Pilate, the governor of Claudius Caesar, came together and condemned Him to be crucified" (in Demonstration (74)) at over 50 years of age (Against Heresies 2:22:4).

Yet Pontius Pilate was recalled back under Tiberius (36 CE) so where is this idea that he was a governor of Claudius coming from?

 

[maximara]

Neither do I.

So far your "long-winded" posts just analyse the biblical text and historical background of the region. We're still waiting for step 1: evidence.

Simply put there isn't any.

The John Frum cargo cult shows that you don't need a founder.

In fact if the February 15, 1931 vision story is to believed then the cult existed with little notice for nine years until an illiterate native named Manehivi took up the name John Frum and aggressively started preaching the cult's ideas.

Around 1957 John Frum picked up Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh as a brother despite the cult's view that John Frum was a US serviceman and the fact Prince Philip has no brother.

Going back to Wells I think odds were there was group of Christ cults possible based on the ideals of the Teacher of Righteous.

Paul persecuted these cults. Then Paul had his vision and Christ gained the name Jesus.

Many years later (70-100 CE) the author of Mark finds records of an obscure teacher in Galilee named Jesus who disappears near the end of Tiberius reign and connects the two based on Paul's comment of meeting Jesus' "brother". Since Christ was crucified Mark invents out of whole cloth the trial using Herod and Pontius Pilatus as historical window dressing.

Mark is so popular that it is the go to work for the life of Jesus and many other Gospels using it as source material or inspiration are written

 

[pakeha]

Well …. What do you think?

You’ve seen most of what has been written in this thread. How do you think the name of Pilate got into our extant copies of the gospels?

I'm thinking the Sheriff of Nottingham also ran.

IanS

I did a roundup of hte Gospel authors' claimed sources just above, in post 3338....Pilate is mentioned in 1 Timothy 6: 13, which is, as you say, confidently believed to be a Second Century fake. That Jesus' death involved some Jews' mortal dislike of him is 1 Thessalonians 2: 13-16, but phrased in a way that doesn't nail down the time, so to speak.

Paul's readers would very likely have known his professed opinion about the matter, whatever that was. The surviving letters are the tip of an iceberg of Paul's performances. That the letters do not conflict with a recent date, and that everybody who aspired to build on Paul's work seemed to like Pilate for the hammerman, suggests that Paul may well have taught Pilate. ...

Thanks, eight bits.
Still, Frank Thring was fabulous in the role.

No prob.

I'll post more tonight, but we're not even 1/3 of the way thru Corinthians -- told you it was dense!

And you didn't lie!

I Corinthians, continued

...Next time we'll pick up at the thorny issue of celibacy.

Til next time...

Thanks as always.
I'd never fully appreciated Paul as a Jewish hell-fire preacher and your posts are giving me a lot of insight into this complex personality.

When Pakeha has finished with his time machine, I wonder if I could borrow it... ...

You're at the top of the list, Brainache.

 

[IanS]

I'm thinking the Sheriff of Nottingham also ran.
.

The Sherriff of Nottingham huh? Hmm. OK, I will raise you, and suggest Adolf Hitler … he usually seems to make an appearance in most debates like this.

 

[Craig B]

OK, well perhaps that was not the clearest sentence I’ve written in this thread.

Thanks.

However, leaving that aside, though at risk of perhaps confusing the matter further - when you were saying that the gospel writers believed that Jesus had recently died … although I was not actually contesting that they may well have believed that, or at least given the impression that they believed it, just on that particular point - I’m not sure that interpretation actually makes any sense anyway.

You've sort of lost me again.

… IOW, all of this biblical writing, is from people who quite literally choose to be unable to tell fact from fiction. They were mixing up fact and fiction as if there were no difference between those things.

That doesn't help. According to you, these people not merely wrote wrong things because they had inadequate information, or wrote fiction because they were liars or romancers; or because for some reason they were unable to tell fact from fiction ... They randomly mixed up fact and fiction because they chose to be unable to tell them apart!! I simply can't get my head round that.

 

[Piggy]

The arguments for the reliability of various arguments for the existence of an HJ have been discussed many times in this thread. They are also widely discussed in the various secular articles about the HJ on the web. In previous posts I have made a detailed description of my view about many of the arguments relating to an HJ. In other posts I have presented detailed information about what I based my view of a particular argument on.

Even, if I went through this thread, and pulled out every one of the arguments I've made and every one of the links I've posted and every one of the arguments made by posters that I agree with, you and I would not find common ground beyond what we already hold (which is actually quite a bit).

I don't think there is reliable information about the HJ outside of Paul and I don't find Paul so reliable as to preclude the possibility that an HJ, based on the definition I posted above, didn't exist. You disagree with at least some of this and I don't think there is anything that I could say that would change your mind. However, I might change my mind a bit, in the face of a better understanding of what is knowable about the earliest period of Christianity.

"Secular articles on the Web"?

Sounds to me like an insinuation that what's published in the peer-reviewed journals is somehow not secular.

That happens to be wrong.

The "secular articles on the Web" are better described as amateur armchair speculation.

So far, I've presented an extensive historical background, relevant findings from archaeology, an overview of the life of the historical Jesus as viewed by modern scholarship, and the first parts of an extensive and detailed overview of the writings of Jesus's followers, and I've been explaining how historians can tell from these writings that these people were followers of a real person, and why the most fundamental planks of mythicism are factually incorrect.

As we go on, it will become clearer and clearer that no proposed mythicist theory holds up, and that all the evidence we have is neatly and concisely explained by a historical Jesus -- who, btw, should be our first guess at why this group claimed to be followers of a crucified apocalyptic Jew.

If that's not good enough for you, then I'll just have to leave you to your websites.

 

[Piggy]

When Pakeha has finished with his time machine, I wonder if I could borrow it...

What I'd like to know is how reliable "Tradition" is when I hear things like: "The tradition is that g-Mark assembled his gospel based on the sermons of Peter". Where do these traditions come from? How close are they to the time in question etc etc...

I don't know how others use the term, but I use the term in two ways, which are not uncommon in this field.

When discussing the content of the texts, we speak of the "traditions" which are active in different communities. So the Markian community expresses no birth tradition, for example. It simply refers to beliefs -- accurate or not -- which have been accepted by a given group which have been handed down to them.

We can also talk of traditions in terms of belief about the texts and groups themselves. For example the tradition that Mark was the author of the Gospel according to Mark, or that Peter founded the church in Rome.

So tradition in these contexts simply refers to beliefs that have been handed down. In some cases, these traditions are accurate (Jesus was crucified by Pilate) and in other cases they're not (Jesus was raised from the dead).

 

[Greediguts]

I don’t think Paul or any of the gospel writers were really talking about a completely different messiah, were they? I think they were all describing belief in the same individual.

There may be various differences in what they say about Jesus. But that’s because none of them knew who Jesus was. None of them had ever met Jesus. And as far as those authors were concerned, Jesus was a figure of past legend.

There is a progression through the texts - Jesus does not start out as a god. That is a pretty big difference. It was common in the Greco-Roman world that if you wanted to show how important/special someone was you added on miraculous tales when talking about their life.

 

[tsig]

Neither do I.

So far your "long-winded" posts just analyse the biblical text and historical background of the region. We're still waiting for step 1: evidence.

In the HJ research, bloviating is evidence.

 

[tsig]

"Secular articles on the Web"?

Sounds to me like an insinuation that what's published in the peer-reviewed journals is somehow not secular.

That happens to be wrong.

The "secular articles on the Web" are better described as amateur armchair speculation.

So far, I've presented an extensive historical background, relevant findings from archaeology, an overview of the life of the historical Jesus as viewed by modern scholarship, and the first parts of an extensive and detailed overview of the writings of Jesus's followers, and I've been explaining how historians can tell from these writings that these people were followers of a real person, and why the most fundamental planks of mythicism are factually incorrect.

As we go on, it will become clearer and clearer that no proposed mythicist theory holds up, and that all the evidence we have is neatly and concisely explained by a historical Jesus -- who, btw, should be our first guess at why this group claimed to be followers of a crucified apocalyptic Jew.

If that's not good enough for you, then I'll just have to leave you to your websites.

We start with no evidence for an HJ then conclude that an HJ is the best answer.

 

[IanS]

Thanks. You've sort of lost me again. That doesn't help. According to you, these people not merely wrote wrong things because they had inadequate information, or wrote fiction because they were liars or romancers; or because for some reason they were unable to tell fact from fiction ... They randomly mixed up fact and fiction because they chose to be unable to tell them apart!! I simply can't get my head round that.

You can't get your head around it?

Why not. It's not a difficult concept to understand.

Perhaps, you just need to think about it a bit more, rather than me explaining it again for the 20th time.

 

[Craig B]

You can't get your head around it?

Why not. It's not a difficult concept to understand.

Perhaps, you just need to think about it a bit more, rather than me explaining it again for the 20th time.

They chose to mix truth and fiction: that I understand. They chose not to be able to distinguish truth from fiction: that is a more difficult concept. They could do it, but they chose not to do it, fine. They could do it, but they chose not to be able to do it. Not so fine.

 

[eight bits]

We start with no evidence for an HJ then conclude that an HJ is the best answer.

Of course. If it's the only hypothesis you genuinely consider, and mount only a charade alternative, Piggy's "mythicist mystery cult" strawman, then yes, the only answer will be the best answer, every time.

 

[IanS]

They chose to mix truth and fiction: that I understand. They chose not to be able to distinguish truth from fiction: that is a more difficult concept. They could do it, but they chose not to do it, fine.They could do it, but they chose not to be able to do it. Not so fine.

You seem to be arguing only about which are the best words to use! You are now reduced to just arguing about the word “able”!?

Look, here is the full quote that you’re now objecting to -

What all that appears to boil down to, is that (as I said about 20 times before in this thread), as we have seen in the Dead Sea Scrolls from 200 years before Jesus, and is also apparent in Paul’s Letters, the gospel authors like Paul and the DSS writers, were quite deliberately refusing to accept the difference between fact and fiction…. they thought that 500 year old interpretations from the OT could simply be attributed to someone who they wished to believe as a recent messiah … and the same with Paul’s visions etc., ie he thought his visions were the same as real events (or even better, since they were direct communication from God) …

… IOW, all of this biblical writing, is from people who quite literally choose to be unable to tell fact from fiction. They were mixing up fact and fiction as if there were no difference between those things.

I make it perfectly clear there what I am saying.

I am saying the above appears to be the case from what was apparently written in the Dead Sea Scrolls (as well as the way Paul describes visions etc. in his letters).

Presumably like everyone today, people in biblical times did know there was a difference between events that really happened each day vs. religious thoughts they had imagined in the their minds.

But it seems that they choose not to distinguish between those two things as far as “reality” is concerned. That is - they presumably had the human mental ability to distinguish between fact and fiction, but they chose to disable that thinking ability and regard their religious fictions as real facts … or even better than real facts, since they were thought to be direct communication from God himself.

They were mentally able to tell the difference. But they choose not use that ability in their thinking.

 

[maximara]

They chose to mix truth and fiction: that I understand. They chose not to be able to distinguish truth from fiction: that is a more difficult concept. They could do it, but they chose not to do it, fine. They could do it, but they chose not to be able to do it. Not so fine.

We must be careful not to put our 21th century outlook on the world into the world of the 1st through 4th century Roman Empire.

"Truth" is NOT fact but as James Burke showed throughout his "Day the Universe Change" series dependent on the model of the universe being used.

I again point to Horace Miner's satirical 1956 "Body Ritual among the Nacirema" article as a base point:

"The holy waters are secured from the Water Temple of the community, where the priests conduct elaborate ceremonies to make the liquid ritually pure." is used to describe the various scientific based methods used to purify our water and shows the mindset you use in research can set how you view what you are seeing.

Sure you had “Alexander the Quack Prophet” by Lucian and the lost work of Celsus detailing the tricks used by magicians but as Carrier pointed out in Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels (1997) works like that were few and far between.

Heck, look at our own modern world and look at all the unsupported (or even refuted) ideas that many people today believe in: The Bermuda Triangle, Homeopathy; Ancient Astronaut; Alien Abductions, New World Order Conspiracy, and the list goes on and on.

In fact, the Bermuda Triangle is a perfect example as that thing is a wild mish mash of distorted history and outright fabrications. Yet despite this people BELIEVE. How is that any different from 1st through 2nd century Christianity?

 

[Belz...]

Many years later (70-100 CE) the author of Mark finds records of an obscure teacher in Galilee named Jesus who disappears near the end of Tiberius reign and connects the two based on Paul's comment of meeting Jesus' "brother". Since Christ was crucified Mark invents out of whole cloth the trial using Herod and Pontius Pilatus as historical window dressing.

Where did we get these "records" ?

For all we know Mark just took Paul and made the whole thing himself based on hearsay.