What counts as a historical Jesus?

[IanS]

IanS


The Fourth Gospel claims an eyewitness to the crucifixion at 19:35. That may be untrue, but it does eliminate the possibility that Craig is the inventor of eyewitensses.

Does it! OK, great. So who was the eye witness?

 

[maximara]

Were people crucified then? Did virgins give birth then?

This is a non sequitur pair.

Also we need to remember that according to various scholars going back to at least the 4th century there was the belief in the Jewish community that Jesus was crucified in the time of Alexander Jannaeus.

The question that keeps being avoided is how did this happen if based on Paul's writings Jesus was a recent figure?

 

[Craig B]

IanS

So there is no real indication that anyone believed Paul saw Jesus on the third day. I believe the story of the crucifixion may be accurate. I say again: it's the sort of datum that might easily be remembered and passed on. No I can't give the names of a chain of people responsible for passing it on. It is plausible and corresponds to the known character of Pilate. If Paul recorded this matter, he too got it from some such source, I.e. the memory of some informant. And Paul's testimony, if such it be, in no way contradicts the gospel account. In suggesting the plausibility of this, I am not indicating a belief in a supernatural Jesus. There is nothing supernatural about being crucified.

 

[eight bits]

IanS

So who was the eye witness?

John doesn't say. The "Beloved Disciple," whose writing the evangelist cites for another point later on, appears in the crucifixion scene (only in John). So, there's a good chance that this "Beloved Disciple" is the witness being claimed.

Nobody now knows who the Beloved Disciple was, but he might have been the last man to die who claimed to know Jesus personally in the flesh. If I read John correctly, that would be to "know" Jesus in an appropriately Biblical sense, very personally, and definitely in the flesh.

Anyway, the point was that the Gospel material itself is the first source for the hypothesis of eyewitness sourcing, not something made up by anybody here on the webz. Luke also claims in its prolog that there were witnesses to Jesus' career generally, also unnamed, but doesn't exclude that the witness(es)' report(s) reach that evangelist only by hearsay.

Hope that helps clear up where some of the ideas we're working with come from originally.

 

[Piggy]

Well I hope Piggy explains a bit more about this "Mark got his info from Peter" business when he gets to Mark's gospel, because I don't get how it is obviously wrong.

DaveFOC linked to something saying that Mark doesn't read as if it was cobbled together from sermons, but what if g-Mark was a talented writer? If he travelled with Peter for a long time and worked for years putting everything he heard about Jesus into his book... And he wanted to write the best book ever... He would have been familiar with Homer and other Ancient epics and he might have structured his book along similar lines.

OK that is a lot of ifs and maybes, but so is this entire topic...

Oh, I may have misunderstood you, then!

I thought you were discussing the tradition that Mark actually wrote the Gospel According to Mark.

But yes, we'll drill down into that book just as I'm drilling down into Paul's letters.

The pace should pick up once we're past Corinthians and Romans.

 

[Belz...]

Does it raise it in the same way that the other statement raises the probability that Jesus' mother was a virgin?

I repeat: this doesn't have anything to do with my statement. I said "Well when you can't know what the facts were (e.g. was Jesus even crucified ?) then no, you can't distinguish them." We don't know if Jesus was crucified. We don't know if he was baptised. We don't know if ANY of the claims of the Gospels about Jesus, even with all of the impossible stuff removed, happened at all. So no, there's no way to distinguish the true claims from the false ones because we don't know which ones are true.

 

[Craig B]

I repeat: this doesn't have anything to do with my statement. I said "Well when you can't know what the facts were (e.g. was Jesus even crucified ?) then no, you can't distinguish them." We don't know if Jesus was crucified. We don't know if he was baptised. We don't know if ANY of the claims of the Gospels about Jesus, even with all of the impossible stuff removed, happened at all. So no, there's no way to distinguish the true claims from the false ones because we don't know which ones are true.

No we can't say with certainty that Jesus was crucified by Pilate. But we can say with certainty that his mother was not a virgin. That is what I mean. Historical accuracy is a possible explanation for the belief that Jesus was executed by Pilate; it is not a possible explanation for the belief in the virgin birth. That is the distinction I was attempting to indicate.

 

[IanS]

IanS

So there is no real indication that anyone believed Paul saw Jesus on the third day. I believe the story of the crucifixion may be accurate. I say again: it's the sort of datum that might easily be remembered and passed on. No I can't give the names of a chain of people responsible for passing it on. It is plausible and corresponds to the known character of Pilate. If Paul recorded this matter, he too got it from some such source, I.e. the memory of some informant. And Paul's testimony, if such it be, in no way contradicts the gospel account. In suggesting the plausibility of this, I am not indicating a belief in a supernatural Jesus. There is nothing supernatural about being crucified.

NO! ...dear oh lord, how many times! Look ...

... Paul is not saying he got his story from any other unknown unnamed witnesses. You must know that perfectly well.

Paul claims to be giving a first hand account of what he saw himself, and what he personally knew that others had also seen.

And that account from Paul long, looooooong pre-dates any of your gospel writing.

How much clearer do you want that explanation to be!

 

[IanS]

IanS


John doesn't say. The "Beloved Disciple," whose writing the evangelist cites for another point later on, appears in the crucifixion scene (only in John). So, there's a good chance that this "Beloved Disciple" is the witness being claimed.

Nobody now knows who the Beloved Disciple was, but he might have been the last man to die who claimed to know Jesus personally in the flesh. If I read John correctly, that would be to "know" Jesus in an appropriately Biblical sense, very personally, and definitely in the flesh.

Anyway, the point was that the Gospel material itself is the first source for the hypothesis of eyewitness sourcing, not something made up by anybody here on the webz. Luke also claims in its prolog that there were witnesses to Jesus' career generally, also unnamed, but doesn't exclude that the witness(es)' report(s) reach that evangelist only by hearsay.

Hope that helps clear up where some of the ideas we're working with come from originally.

Well, no, actually it does not clear it up. For example - what date is this copied writing attributed to John? That is - is this from an extant readable relatively complete copy of the gospel according to whoever wrote John? Because if it is, then it's almost certainly at least 300 years after Paul is supposed to have begun preaching about seeing the risen Jesus around 35AD.

And that's apart from the fact that gospel of John, like the other canonical gospels, is actually anonymously written and supposedly based on stories being told by anonymous sources.

 

[Craig B]

NO! ...dear oh lord, how many times! Look ...

... Paul is not saying he got his story from any other unknown unnamed witnesses. You must know that perfectly well.

Paul claims to be giving a first hand account of what he saw himself, and what he personally knew that others had also seen.

And that account from Paul long, looooooong pre-dates any of your gospel writing.

How much clearer do you want that explanation to be!

Make it as clear as you like. That doesn't mean I have to accept what you say.

 

[Belz...]

No we can't say with certainty that Jesus was crucified by Pilate. But we can say with certainty that his mother was not a virgin. That is what I mean. Historical accuracy is a possible explanation for the belief that Jesus was executed by Pilate; it is not a possible explanation for the belief in the virgin birth. That is the distinction I was attempting to indicate.

I don't deal in beliefs.

Here's the original quote by Tsig:

How do you know the beliefs are wrong? I'm amazed at your ability to not only discern the beliefs of 1st century people but to also tell the true from the false.

Of course if something is impossible, it's false. The question is, how about the things that are possible ? How can we tell the true from the false since we have zero evidence either way ?

 

[eight bits]

IanS

Paul is not saying he got his story from any other unknown unnamed witnesses. You must know that perfectly well.

Paul doesn't say where he got the facts which he interprets for his audience. He acknowledges considerable opportunity to have absorbed a basic understanding of a claimed historical Jesus during hostile contact with people like the James Gang before he had his own vision. He also often says that he currently disagrees with other teachers, which is impossible for him to say truthfully unless he knows what they teach. He's also had at least three meetings with one or more principals of the James Gang since the visions and before writing Galatians.

And, of course, there's a coordination mechanism: the Jewish scriptures which all the teachers are presumably exposed to and familiar with.

So, for example: where did Paul get the idea that Jesus rose on the third day?

- Did a vision tell him?
- Is that what the James Gang was teaching back in the pre-vision, persecution days?
- Is that what Paul thinks happened, based on his understanding of Hosea 6: 1-2?
- Is it something that crept into the story after one of the Jerusalem or Antioch skull sessions, to salt up the story with riffs from prophecies about other things altogether, like Hosea?
- Or...?

There's nothing in surviving Paul that excludes any of these possibilities. All Paul denies is that his personal teaching is derivative of any Jerusalem teacher's. The scope of Paul's uniqueness claim in Galatians could be as narrow as Galatians 2: 15-21. He never comments on where he got any of the quasi-factual backstory from.

 

[IanS]

Make it as clear as you like. That doesn't mean I have to accept what you say.

No. You can believe what ever you like.

But it does not change the FACT that throughout this thread both the HJ side and the sceptic side have never questioned the universally agreed claim that Paul is the earliest source on any of this.

And “Paul” was supposedly agreed by almost everyone (and never seriously disputed here), to be a real living person preaching around 35AD.

Whereas the gospel authors are completely anonymous, never claimed to have seen or met Jesus, only ever therefore wrote much later hearsay stories about Jesus, and never named their sources for any of what they wrote.

Which is precisely why, all throughout this thread, both the HJ side and the sceptical side, have agreed that all the stories really go back to Paul, and that Paul is the key source for any of these claims about Jesus.

 

[IanS]

IanS


Paul doesn't say where he got the facts which he interprets for his audience. He acknowledges considerable opportunity to have absorbed a basic understanding of a claimed historical Jesus during hostile contact with people like the James Gang before he had his own vision. He also often says that he currently disagrees with other teachers, which is impossible for him to say truthfully unless he knows what they teach. He's also had at least three meetings with one or more principals of the James Gang since the visions and before writing Galatians.

And, of course, there's a coordination mechanism: the Jewish scriptures which all the teachers are presumably exposed to and familiar with.

So, for example: where did Paul get the idea that Jesus rose on the third day?

- Did a vision tell him?
- Is that what the James Gang was teaching back in the pre-vision, persecution days?
- Is that what Paul thinks happened, based on his understanding of Hosea 6: 1-2?
- Is it something that crept into the story after one of the Jerusalem or Antioch skull sessions, to salt up the story with riffs from prophecies about other things altogether, like Hosea?
- Or...?

There's nothing in surviving Paul that excludes any of these possibilities. All Paul denies is that his personal teaching is derivative of any Jerusalem teacher's. The scope of Paul's uniqueness claim in Galatians could be as narrow as Galatians 2: 15-21. He never comments on where he got any of the quasi-factual backstory from.

Well Paul says he got all his information from his own visions and from scripture, and not from any living man.

So Paul is perfectly clear where his info. came from. And he is not relying on belief in any claimed unknown witnesses etc. He describes very clearly how he saw the vision of Jesus for himself. So there's no getting away from that "fact".

I don’t say Paul is right about anything. But Bible scholars say he was. And the HJ side here have spent all of this thread taking Paul seriously as the first and primary source of the Jesus stories.

If you want to chuck out Paul, then I think you will end up having to chuck out everything ever written about Jesus lol.

 

[Craig B]

... Which is precisely why, all throughout this thread, both the HJ side and the sceptical side, have agreed that all the stories really go back to Paul, and that Paul is the key source for any of these claims about Jesus.

I am willing to assert that in addition to Paul, the gospel writers had other sources, whether these were accurate in part or not at all.

 

[eight bits]

IanS

Well Paul says he got all his information from his own visions and from scripture, and not from any living man.

No, he didn't.

Galatians 1: 11

Now I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel preached by me is not of human origin.

The phrase "The gospel preached by me" does not imply that it describes all of the information about the subject available to him, and "not of human origin" does not imply that the only visions he consulted were his own. He discusses more than 500 other personal visions that he knows about elsewhere. It also does not exclude that he has adopted some of the others' views about which scriptures are relevant, and in what way.

And as I pointed out in the earlier post, Paul did not isolate himself from other sources of information before he had his first vision, nor does he portray himself as having done so afterwards, except to avoid visiting Jeruslem. Which is fine, because he runs into competitors away from Jerusalem, and his congregations do, too, and tell him all about it - apparently with annoying regularity.

He describes very clearly how he saw the vision of Jesus for himself.

Really? Where is that description? Letter, chapter and verse, if you would be so kind.

Surely you don't mean 1 Corinthians 15: 8

Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me.

That's as clear as mud.

 

[Brainache]

Well Paul says he got all his information from his own visions and from scripture, and not from any living man.

So Paul is perfectly clear where his info. came from. And he is not relying on belief in any claimed unknown witnesses etc. He describes very clearly how he saw the vision of Jesus for himself. So there's no getting away from that "fact".

I don’t say Paul is right about anything. But Bible scholars say he was. And the HJ side here have spent all of this thread taking Paul seriously as the first and primary source of the Jesus stories.

If you want to chuck out Paul, then I think you will end up having to chuck out everything ever written about Jesus lol.

Yes, but did the people Paul was writing to get all their info from Paul? Paul seems to assume that they know what he is talking about.

 

[Piggy]

I am willing to assert that in addition to Paul, the gospel writers had other sources, whether these were accurate in part or not at all.

Also, I don't think any informed reading of Paul contends that Paul is the actual source of the Jesus traditions.

 

[maximara]

No we can't say with certainty that Jesus was crucified by Pilate. But we can say with certainty that his mother was not a virgin. That is what I mean. Historical accuracy is a possible explanation for the belief that Jesus was executed by Pilate; it is not a possible explanation for the belief in the virgin birth. That is the distinction I was attempting to indicate.

By this wonky logic historical accuracy is a possible explanation for the belief that Jesus was crucified in the time of Alexander Jannaeus. Your point?

 

[Craig B]

By this wonky logic historical accuracy is a possible explanation for the belief that Jesus was crucified in the time of Alexander Jannaeus. Your point?

But the gospels say he was executed by Pilate. And - have we not established this? - Epiphanius of Salamis says too that Jesus was put to death by Pilate. I do not accept your view that there was ever a belief that Jesus was executed under Alexander Janneus.