What counts as a historical Jesus?

[maximara]

I don’t think I disagree with any of the above. But it just highlights once again how completely unreliable all of this claimed early writing from Paul and the gospel authors really is. And in particular how completely unreliable the quoted dates are.

For example, I agree P46 is supposed be the oldest surviving relatively complete copy of Paul’s writing, generally dated to around 200AD (with a fairly wide range around that date from various authors, some saying much earlier, some saying significantly later). And it’s also true that unfortunately the key relevant letters regarding Pilate and Paul’s vision etc. appear to be amongst the relatively few that are missing from P46. That really is most “unfortunate”.

However, if we are going to point that out re, the date of circa.200AD for extant relatively complete and readable copies of most of Paul’s letters, then we must also point out that there are no gospels known from anywhere near the 1st century AD.

As I’ve said several times on previous pages - apparently the fact of the matter is that the earliest surviving relatively complete and readable copies of any of the four canonical gospels date to the 4th century and later, and mostly from the 6th century onwards. Prior to those dates (4th to 6th century onwards), all that exists are fragments from what are thought to be the gospel writing, and various “quotations” (whatever “quotations” is meant to mean in that context).

And the same seems to apply to all of the non-biblical writing on this subject. That is - none of it is anywhere near the dates commonly given as the original lifetime of the authors. Eg, Tacitus and Josephus, who are probably the two best known and most often quoted sources re. Jesus, are known only from copies dated from the 11th century and not from anything earlier, ie 1000 years after those authors had died.

IOW - none of these sources really seem to be reliable in much if any useful sense at all. And certainly not as far as any detailed claims about Jesus are concerned (inc. his claimed execution under Pontius Pilate).

I agree we do have the appearance of fox guarding the hen house situation but we must be sure we don't go off the deep end ala Joseph Wheless' Forgery In Christianity (1930) and claim there was some form of mammoth conspiracy by the Church to create the Gospels and supporting documents.

The one thing that helps is the fact living languages change. Not only meaning and grammar but rhythm, meter, and structure.

Even with modern spelling Shakespeare's English of just 400 years ago has a different grammar, rhythm, meter, and structure then the English used 200 years ago or even today.

Compare the novels the 19th century to those of today of any genre you like and you will see this difference though it is less pronounced. This is why fans of a particular era of literature get this uncanny valley effect when someone tries to mimic that era's style; they can't put it into words but they known that something is wrong.

The letter of Pauls and the Gospels in their original language (Greek) don't seem to have that disconnect nor do the works of Tacitus and Josephus.

Sure Tacitus and Josephus may have 11th century Greek spelling but the grammar, rhythm, meter, and structure of seems to fit what we know 1st to 4th century Greek to be (except when you get to the Testimonium Flavianum which in its current form does a spectacular crash and burn in that regard)

 

[davefoc]

Those seem like good points Maximara.

I think another argument that changes to the text haven't been that significant (compared to the other issues associates associated with the reliability of the evidence) Is that the versions of the text that at the beginning of the era when printing presses came in aren't that different from the earliest versions of the text that are known.

There are many exceptions though like the additions to the end of Mark. One other area that I just read about where edits could be significant is with the Peter/Cephas stuff in Paul's letters. One theory I read was that a copyist in an effort make it clear who Paul was talking about changed Cephas references to Peter, but he accidentally left a few of the Cephas references in. Possibly a bogus theory, but yet again, another idea that can't be ruled out with confidence.

 

[Brainache]

I would also imagine that substantial changes to the main teachings might cause a schism within a community. Little additions here and there might go unnoticed, but suddenly flipping from one set of beliefs to another doesn't sound likely to me.

 

[davefoc]

I would also imagine that substantial changes to the main teachings might cause a schism within a community. Little additions here and there might go unnoticed, but suddenly flipping from one set of beliefs to another doesn't sound likely to me.

Another good point, I think, but to play devil's advocate for a moment. From the viewpoint of trying to figure out the history of what went on some of those little changes might be very significant. Like the Peter/Cephas stuff or the stuff added to puff up Peter so that he was of suitable stature to found a church in Rome.

 

[Brainache]

Another good point, I think, but to play devil's advocate for a moment. From the viewpoint of trying to figure out the history of what went on some of those little changes might be very significant. Like the Peter/Cephas stuff or the stuff added to puff up Peter so that he was of suitable stature to found a church in Rome.

Yes. Ironic how all of these early alterations to the stories by people trying to prove that they had the "Truth" only serve to obscure the actual truth.

 

[maximara]

Those seem like good points Maximara.

I think another argument that changes to the text haven't been that significant (compared to the other issues associates associated with the reliability of the evidence) Is that the versions of the text that at the beginning of the era when printing presses came in aren't that different from the earliest versions of the text that are known.

There are many exceptions though like the additions to the end of Mark. One other area that I just read about where edits could be significant is with the Peter/Cephas stuff in Paul's letters. One theory I read was that a copyist in an effort make it clear who Paul was talking about changed Cephas references to Peter, but he accidentally left a few of the Cephas references in. Possibly a bogus theory, but yet again, another idea that can't be ruled out with confidence.

Interestingly there is a book coming out in 2014 that may help:

Casey, Maurice (2014) Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths? Bloomsbury T&T Clark

Table of contents

Chapter 1. Introduction. From Fundamentalism to Mythicism. Issues, ‘Scholars' and Bloggers

Chapter 2. Historical Method

Chapter 3. The Date and Reliability of the Canonical Gospels

Chapter 4. What is not in the Gospels, or not in ‘Q'

Chapter 5. What Is Not in the Epistles, Especially Those of Paul

Chapter 6. What Is in the Epistles, Especially Those of Paul

Chapter 7. It's All Happened Before, in Egypt, India, or Wherever You Fancy, But There Was Nowhere for it to Happen in Israel

Chapter 8. Conclusions

Perhaps it is hoping for too much but I want this to give us some kind of baseline with regards to the Historical Jesus position as to the logic to concepts such as where the dates for the Gospels come from.

 

[maximara]

A little further to that point about g-Mark not knowing Palestinian Customs, I assume it means details of Jewish Religious Rituals, It could be that before hooking up with "Peter's Travelling Circus of Apocalyptic Fun" g-Mark was not very religious.

Apparently a lot of Jews then, as now, didn't take the religion all that seriously. We know this because of the amount of space the surviving Religious Texts devote to telling us how wicked these people are. I imagine them as more like the Jews I see on TV or meet in everyday life...

In fact, I wish someone would make an Historical Jesus movie; casting all Jewish Actors... Preferably Commedians... I can see Larry David as Paul, Jerry Seinfeld as Peter and Adam Sandler as g-Mark. (Jesus = Seth Rogan or Jonah Hill).

I'd buy that for a dollar!

How about what amounts to Jesus Christ Superstar meets Life of Brian done through the Dr. Strangelove lens?

I quoted Richard Carrier regarding Revelation in another thread:

"Five hour acid trip so bizarre if you actually made it into a movie it would actually outdo Eraserhead for the title of 'Most Annoying Weird Movie Ever Made'. It's basically the ramblings of a guy who has an hours long conversation with the dead spirit of Jesus who appears in the form of ********** up mutant that makes John Carpenter's The Thing look cuddly." (Richard Carrier regarding Revelation)

Well guess what? Somebody actually make Revelation into a movie! At least two of them. One live action and the other animated and Carrier was right about everything except the length. Annoying Weird Movie is putting it mildly especially if you watch either one with the volume turned off

 

[eight bits]

davefoc and Brainache

Just a few thoughts. Peter and Cephas are parallel nicknames in two different language groups (Greek and Syriac), meaning "rock" or "stone." The situation is like James in English and Jacques in French, both being the local form of "Jacob." In other words, it's not a big deal, especially not if you're from Quebec, and might find yourself answering to both.

It is possible that Paul's Cephas and Peter aren't the same person. We are confident that there is confusion among the Jameses and Johns, for instance. On the other hand, it is entirely plausible that Paul used the two forms of the nickname interchangeably. (In real life, I use both the given name and nickname of a friend, who uses one socially and the other professionally.)

There doesn't seem to be much point for anybody to "clarify" this situation by revising manuscripts. From the first Gospel forward, Jesus is depicted as giving Simon the nickname (Mark 3: 16). If something needs to be explained, then it just is (so, in John 1: 42, Jesus gives Simon the "Cephas" version of the nickname, as makes sense for a pair of Aramaic speakers, and the author makes a parenthetical comment that that is translated as "Peter," the form that the Greek-speaking author had already added to Simon's name at verse 40; the author also noted nearby that "messaiah" translates to "annointed.").

Supposing that "building up" of Simon would be for the benefit of Rome has the causal arrow backwards. Simon needs the build-up, not Rome, at the time in question. There was no "Church of Rome" opposed to the rest of Orthodoxy until long after the canon closed.

Simon Peter is the nominal founding "leader" of all Orthodox churches, and revered as such to this day. Making Simon the "bishop" (it is unlikely that there even was such a thing in his lifetime) of the Hub of the Ecumen gave him heft, along with the entire instituional church. Also, the new office, regardless of location, could be sold as something that Jesus allegedly created personally.

The living Orthodox recognize Francis I as Peter's legitimate successor, and as such recognize his primacy within the orthodox Christian world (the comfortable majority of Christianity, according to number of adherents). What is disputed is Francis' supremacy. Roughly, in secular terms, the difference is between between being "first among equals" and "commander in chief."

And again, the mechanism for "making facts" seems to be to make new writing, rather than try to update all the copies of existing manuscripts of earlier works (ask any object-oriented database designer about the relative practicality of the two approaches). 1 Peter 5:13 depicts Peter as writing from "Babylon," which "everybody knows" really means Rome. For apocryphal support for Peter's adventures in Rome, see the Acts of Peter, and in patristic tradition literature, maybe 1 Clement, read with some imagination.

 

[IanS]

IanS


Let's review the chief complaints, then:

- The falsehood that another poster invented the idea of possible eyewitness sources for Gospels,



- The falsehood, dumped here earlier in a different formulation by Piggy, that Paul denied having any human sources for any parts of his teachings,



- The falsehood that Paul described his principal vision in any detail - not what he perceived, not where he was when it happened, and not when it happened, except that it was after some others'.



Luke describes the event and says it happened near Damascus. He doesn't say that Paul saw Jesus' body, by the way. Few say differently from Luke about place and sensory modality, and Paul's letters don't say, period. 35 CE is an estimate that most people are comfortable with.


That certainly is an interesting reading. The claim was (see above) that Paul's description was very clear. Evidently it isn't. For example, I think you'll find some people think that Paul was referring to himself as the one untimely born, not Jesus.

Either way, the remark is cryptic, and not a clear description of any perceptual experience.


How nice. Alas, it's some other things you've "said several times before" that I diasgree with.


No, actually the point that divided us was that you said that another poster made up the idea of eyewitnesses informing the Gospel writers, and that isn't so.

OK, well just to start with your accusation of “falsehoods” - if you are trying to imply some underhand dishonesty from me, then you are simply wrong. And that is the end of that one.

However, it’s completely misleading to describe any of this as “falsehoods”. Because what I have said to Craig, is not false, and it was not in any case something that I was personally claiming.

What I said to Craig was that it is an “invention” to suggest that Gospel authors knew from genuine eye-witness reports that Pontius Pilate had executed Jesus.

The reason I say that, as I explained numerous times, is that afaik it is widely accepted on all sides, ie both from sceptical authors and from biblical historians who believe in HJ, that the gospels are not eye-witness accounts and they are not reporting genuine factual eye-witness accounts of history. They are not that sort of factual historical writing at all.

However, as another point on all this, where you gave that brief quote from g-John re. an eye-witness - it seems to me that is not in fact claimed to be an eye witness to Pilate, is it?

When I tried to check that, I came up with the following -


http://biblehub.com/john/19-35.htm
John 19:35
…34But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and immediately came there out blood and water. 35And he that saw it bore record, and his record is true: and he knows that he said true, that you might believe. 36For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.

John 15:27 And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

John 20:31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 21:24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.



What the above says is - firstly, this is a claim that an eye-witness says he saw Jesus on the cross. It is NOT in fact a claim of any eye-witness to Pontius Pilate (which is what Craig and I were arguing about).

But the second thing to notice about that, is that it is not in fact an eye-witness account in any normal sense at all. Instead this appears to be the anonymous author of g-John saying that John himself was an eye-witness to Jesus on the cross. And that’s hardly surprising since throughout all the gospels the named disciples of Jesus are said to have to have personally seen and heard almost everything Jesus ever did.

But afaik, "nobody" claims those to be factual eye-witness accounts given to the authors of the gospels. They are just gospel stories of what the disciples were supposed to have seen, heard and said to Jesus etc.



footnote - I put "nobody" in quotes because amongst the hundreds of thousands of authors on this subject, you can inevitably find some who will say virtually anything.

 

[IanS]

Sure Tacitus and Josephus may have 11th century Greek spelling but the grammar, rhythm, meter, and structure of seems to fit what we know 1st to 4th century Greek to be (except when you get to the Testimonium Flavianum which in its current form does a spectacular crash and burn in that regard)

Those seem like good points Maximara.

.

I’m in the sceptic group which says that copies produced 1000 years after the events, said to be from authors like Tacitus and Josephus who were not even themselves born at the time of Jesus, are simply far too late to be of any reliable use about what such authors may or may not have originally written in a few very brief sentences about Jesus.

It’s seems that people in threads like this all have different opinions on what should be regarded as credible or worthwhile. And judging from recent posts here, I doubt if many are open much to changing their minds, at least not on the central issues.

But, the idea that bible scholars could tell what changes, additions and deletions have occurred in 11th century copies like that, and without any original copies from Josephus or Tacitus to compare that with, seems to me to be simply untenable. IOW - I don’t think there is any way to know what Josephus or Tacitus originally wrote (not from copies as late as 1000 years after the events … events to which Tacitus and Josephus could never have been witness anyway).

 

[IanS]

I would also imagine that substantial changes to the main teachings might cause a schism within a community. Little additions here and there might go unnoticed, but suddenly flipping from one set of beliefs to another doesn't sound likely to me.

Another good point, I think, but to play devil's advocate for a moment. From the viewpoint of trying to figure out the history of what went on some of those little changes might be very significant. Like the Peter/Cephas stuff or the stuff added to puff up Peter so that he was of suitable stature to found a church in Rome.

Oh, we are not talking about huge changes. We are talking about a chain of copying over many hundreds of years during which small “corrections” were gradually made. Such as deleting a few words, or adding a few words to the end of a sentence as an explanation (an “explanation” which my in fact have been entirely mistaken … eg as suggested earlier when we discussed Paul’s words about just adding the explanatory words “the Lords brother”).

It would only need a very few words changed, added or deleted (over centuries of continual copying & re-copying etc).

 

[eight bits]

IanS

OK, well just to start with your accusation of “falsehoods” - if you are trying to imply some underhand dishonesty from me, ...

John says he has an eyewitness to the crucifixion of Jesus. Craig didn't "invent" that. Luke also says that there were general witnesses who talked. Craig didn't "invent" that, either.

So, if your point is that it is possible that a witness to the crucifixion and witnesses to unspecifed events in Luke could have failed to provide enough information for evangelists to infer the time and place where the crucifixion occurred, on the assumption that the witnesses were telling the truth, then that's peachy. Could be.

"Yup, he was crucified alright. I don't know where I was when I saw it, and I don't remember when I saw it, but I sure did see it. You don't forget something like that."

OK, then, I'll just write it up as Jerusalem sometime between 26 and 36, then.

"Super."

But, even if that grittily realistic dialog actually took place, Craig still couldn't fairly be said to have invented the idea that there are witnesses. That's because the reports that reach us say that there were witnesses, upon whom the reporters said they relied.

 

[maximara]

I’m in the sceptic group which says that copies produced 1000 years after the events, said to be from authors like Tacitus and Josephus who were not even themselves born at the time of Jesus, are simply far too late to be of any reliable use about what such authors may or may not have originally written in a few very brief sentences about Jesus.

It’s seems that people in threads like this all have different opinions on what should be regarded as credible or worthwhile. And judging from recent posts here, I doubt if many are open much to changing their minds, at least not on the central issues.

But, the idea that bible scholars could tell what changes, additions and deletions have occurred in 11th century copies like that, and without any original copies from Josephus or Tacitus to compare that with, seems to me to be simply untenable. IOW - I don’t think there is any way to know what Josephus or Tacitus originally wrote (not from copies as late as 1000 years after the events … events to which Tacitus and Josephus could never have been witness anyway).

Not Bible Scholars but Linguistics totally different field.

But IMHO it is better to show even if you assumed Josephus or Tacitus were totally genuine they are far too late to do any good.

John Frum shows that in a period as short as 10 years it is possible for possible non existent cult's founder to inspire some follower to take up his name and some 17 years after that for that mythical founder to pick up a real world brother and said inspired follower to be all but forgotten by the followers of the cult and its various factions.

Josephus is 94 or nearly double the time from 36 CE that it took the mythical John Frum to inspired someone to preach as him and for him to pick up a real life brother. Put Josephus in the best light possible... and you can still torpedo the idea that he gives you anything useful.

Tacitus at 116 CE is even worse as you are now at nearly triple the time it took the mythical John Frum to inspired someone to preach as him and for him to pick up a real life brother. "You sunk my Tacitus argument!"

Which leaves the only person who qualifies as a known contemporary to when Jesus supposedly lived: Paul himself.

Based on P46 (175-225) there is no way to know which...if any of Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon were part of P46. All we do know is there you cannot fit the 19.25 pages required for 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon into the 10 pages we know are missing from the end of the work.

This leave us with Romans, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First Thessalonians and Second Thessalonians as the best option for the definitive Paul (We can throw in Philemon if you want...it's short enough).

Paul gives us practically nothing to work with regarding Jesus life.

 

[Craig B]

... But, even if that grittily realistic dialog actually took place, Craig still couldn't fairly be said to have invented the idea that there are witnesses. That's because the reports that reach us say that there were witnesses, upon whom the reporters said they relied.

Thanks. And also it is intrinsically possible that if Jesus was crucified - an entirely plausible event - that this fact could have been noted, remembered and transmitted to others over a period of some decades. So if you ask: how could people possibly know two generations or more later that their leader had been executed? the answer is that that is the sort of information - striking, simple and important - that lends itself to transmission of that kind.

And indeed, that is what we are told happened.

 

[davefoc]

eight bits, thank you for the response. First, I am not proposing something that is provable. It is conceivable to me that the standard view that Simon equals Peter equals Cephas is correct.

davefoc and Brainache

Just a few thoughts. Peter and Cephas are parallel nicknames in two different language groups (Greek and Syriac), meaning "rock" or "stone." The situation is like James in English and Jacques in French, both being the local form of "Jacob." In other words, it's not a big deal, especially not if you're from Quebec, and might find yourself answering to both.

...

I realize that Peter and Cephas can be translated as two different forms of the same name. Despite that there is debate as to whether Paul saw them as one person or two different people. In addition, it is at least debatable as to whether the connection between Simon and Peter is valid.

This is a paper by K. Lake published in the Harvard Theological Review on the issue:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1507662?seq=1

He doesn't claim to have disproved either the Simon/Peter connection or the Peter/Cephas connection but he provides reason to be skeptical of both traditions I think. The Simon/Peter connection first probably appears in Mark and it is difficult if not impossible to reliably sort truth from fiction in that. Lake makes note of the fact that the connection in Mark seems a bit clumsy to him and looks like it might have been a later interpolation. He goes on to say that the other synoptic Gospels clean up the reference and for him that seems enough to make him conclude that there is "no reason to doubt the universal tradition". But then he goes on to provide a few more reasons to doubt it.

His arguments that Peter might not equal Cephas are more persuasive I think.

The question of Cephas is even more difficult, as will be seen if the evidence be taken in approximately chronological order. The apostle Peter is only mentioned once in the Pauline Epistles; Cephas is mentioned eight times. Does Paul mean that they are the same person? In the Epistle to'the Galatians' he writes . [Greek text removed]. Is it Paul's intention to identify Peter and Cephas? To call the same man by two names in the same sentence is, to say the least, a curious device, and Clement of Alexandria is quoted by Eusebius as believing that Cephas is intended to be different from Peter; he suggests that he was one of the Seventy. The Epistola Apostolorum and the Egyptian KO go further and produce a list of the Twelve containing the names of both Peter and Cephas.

Supposing that "building up" of Simon would be for the benefit of Rome has the causal arrow backwards. Simon needs the build-up, not Rome, at the time in question. There was no "Church of Rome" opposed to the rest of Orthodoxy until long after the canon closed. ...

I'm not so sure about this. It was surprising to me to realize that it was probable that there were interpolations in the NT that were late enough that they were done to prop up Peter to justify Rome as the seat of the Christian leadership but I believe that might be the standard scholarly view.

The article below lays out what I believe to be something of a secular consensus about the fact that the "Peter, and on this rock I will build my church" stuff is a later interpolation in Matthew.

http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/peterpope.html#matthew

I have Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus" and I believe he lays out a similar case in that book. I'm going to look up what he has to say about it later.

 

[IanS]

Not Bible Scholars but Linguistics totally different field.

But IMHO it is better to show even if you assumed Josephus or Tacitus were totally genuine they are far too late to do any good.

John Frum shows that in a period as short as 10 years it is possible for possible non existent cult's founder to inspire some follower to take up his name and some 17 years after that for that mythical founder to pick up a real world brother and said inspired follower to be all but forgotten by the followers of the cult and its various factions.

Josephus is 94 or nearly double the time from 36 CE that it took the mythical John Frum to inspired someone to preach as him and for him to pick up a real life brother. Put Josephus in the best light possible... and you can still torpedo the idea that he gives you anything useful.

Tacitus at 116 CE is even worse as you are now at nearly triple the time it took the mythical John Frum to inspired someone to preach as him and for him to pick up a real life brother. "You sunk my Tacitus argument!"

Which leaves the only person who qualifies as a known contemporary to when Jesus supposedly lived: Paul himself.

Based on P46 (175-225) there is no way to know which...if any of Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon were part of P46. All we do know is there you cannot fit the 19.25 pages required for 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon into the 10 pages we know are missing from the end of the work.

This leave us with Romans, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First Thessalonians and Second Thessalonians as the best option for the definitive Paul (We can throw in Philemon if you want...it's short enough).

Paul gives us practically nothing to work with regarding Jesus life.

I don't think we are disagreeing much (are we?).

I just think that, as a reliable source of evidence, something written as a copy 1000 years after the original writer is thought to have died, via. a chain of presumably countless missing copies, and where we have nothing earlier from the original author to compare with, cannot under any objective consideration be worth anything much at all.

But in the writing of Josephus and Tacitus, and afaik all the other early non-biblical historians of the time, that already hopeless situation of elapsed time, is made even worse by the fact that none of them make more than minimal mention of Jesus anyway. So it's not as if 1000 years of constant copying would need to change large sections of their books ...

... all that's required to render the extant copies thoroughly misleading, is for very small "corrections" to have been made at various times, by what afaik were mainly Christian copyists anyway? (.shrugs)

 

[IanS]

IanS


John says he has an eyewitness to the crucifixion of Jesus. Craig didn't "invent" that. Luke also says that there were general witnesses who talked. Craig didn't "invent" that, either.

So, if your point is that it is possible that a witness to the crucifixion and witnesses to unspecifed events in Luke could have failed to provide enough information for evangelists to infer the time and place where the crucifixion occurred, on the assumption that the witnesses were telling the truth, then that's peachy. Could be.

"Yup, he was crucified alright. I don't know where I was when I saw it, and I don't remember when I saw it, but I sure did see it. You don't forget something like that."

OK, then, I'll just write it up as Jerusalem sometime between 26 and 36, then.

"Super."

But, even if that grittily realistic dialog actually took place, Craig still couldn't fairly be said to have invented the idea that there are witnesses. That's because the reports that reach us say that there were witnesses, upon whom the reporters said they relied.

No, we are slightly at cross-purposes here, on two counts - First, I was not saying Craig had actually invented eye-witnesses, and secondly Craig and I were in any case not talking about the execution ...

... what I said to Craig was that if he thought that where the gospels named Pilate as the executioner/judge of Jesus, those gospel writers would have had actual eye-witnesses information naming Pilate, then he/Craig would need to be "inventing" those eye witnesses, because the gospels are widely agreed not to be reporting any such genuine eye-witness accounts. They are simply not that sort of factual eye-witness reporting about any of the Jesus stories ... I was not saying he had invented actual eye-witnesses (because there are none!), I was saying he would need to invent them if he thought the gospels were actually providing real eye-witness accounts (because they are not!).

But, also - the dispute was about the naming of Pilate. Not about what an anonymous author of g-John said that the disciple "John" was supposed to have seen and done when he was accompanying Jesus on his various activities (inc. being present at any crucifixion).

 

[eight bits]

davefoc

Peter-Cephas-Simon

It's not that I know whether they're the same, or that I was unaware that some serious people argue for them to be distinct, it's just that I'm not worried about Paul using the two nicknames, in the same sentence or otherwise. I do it IRL. It's a slim reed, IMO, and peripheral anyway, since Peter doesn't actually do anything before Mark except lose an argument to Paul - as Paul tells it.

There's no question that all the Gospels come after Paul, so maybe Mark felt a need to straighten that out (sort of). Or maybe it is an interpolation (but if so, then what's up with Jesus also nicknaming James and John jointly as "The Thunderboys?"). Nicknaming isn't unusual, and the three recipeints in Mark all, not just Simon Peter, get "special treatment" from Jesus, according to Mark.. (Mark's Twelve also has another Simon, if that helps muddy the waters.)

... for him that seems enough to make him conclude that there is "no reason to doubt the universal tradition". But then he goes on to provide a few more reasons to doubt it.

There seems to be an awful lot of that in this field. They must go to school to learn how to write that way.

The church

Similarly, I wasn't vouching for the authenticity of anything in the received Matthew. My point was, if it were faked, then who benefits? Cui bono? Surely not the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the crime, because there was no such thing. Besides, the "other side" after there finally were distinct Eastern (two of them) and Western orthodox churches has the same Matthew, and they're fine with "On this rock." Hell, even Protestants, from Rome and each other, have the same Matthew, and they don't show until a millennium after any switcheroo would have had to have been completed.

On its face, the passage has nothing to do with what's in controversy, which is supremacy. Jesus doesn't say anything about others obeying Peter (and elsewhere says otherwise - but this isn't a thread about the pretensions of Rome). And it has very little to do with the Roman see getting what isn't controversial, primacy - that simply reflects the ritual requirements of the established church of the Empire, whose sentimental but deteriorating ancestral capital was Rome.

Peter doesn't come from Rome, the (all but extra-biblical) story is that he went to Rome. Jesus didn't tell him to go to Rome. He goes to Rome in legend because doing that confers stature on him. Rome already had ritual stature. Rome had prestige.

So, back to cui bono. What happens here and in the Great Commission? Jesus acknowledges that there is a church that's supposed to be founded on the apostles. So Peter and all his colleagues are (implicitly) empowered to consecrate succesors, specifically bishops. If you checked this with Jesus, he'd have asked what's a bishop? If you had asked Peter, then he, too, would have asked what's a bishop? He might even have asked, "What's a successor to the apostles, plural, if Jesus is coming back during our lifetimes?"

OK What's a bishop? Somebody who claims authority because he is the latest in an (alleged) unbroken chain of consecrations that stem from Jesus' appointment of the Apostles (Peter along with everybody else). Which claim, BTW, continues to this day, east and west.

The first link in that chain would be worth getting in writing, and everybody just might agree to pay for the distributed data integrity assurance exercise. It is as much in the interest of the-then "bishop" of Rome as the-then "bishops" of Antioch or Alexandria. They don't know that their remote successors will excommunicate each other centuries later, and that the future Roman guy will reinterpret this passage way beyond anything that these guys actually wrote down there. Right now, they need Jesus saying that they're the bosses. Jesus doesn't object. Amen.

 

[davefoc]

davefoc

Peter-Cephas-Simon

It's not that I know whether they're the same, or that I was unaware that some serious people argue for them to be distinct, it's just that I'm not worried about Paul using the two nicknames, in the same sentence or otherwise. I do it IRL. It's a slim reed, IMO, and peripheral anyway, since Peter doesn't actually do anything before Mark except lose an argument to Paul - as Paul tells it.

There's no question that all the Gospels come after Paul, so maybe Mark felt a need to straighten that out (sort of). Or maybe it is an interpolation (but if so, then what's up with Jesus also nicknaming James and John jointly as "The Thunderboys?"). Nicknaming isn't unusual, and the three recipeints in Mark all, not just Simon Peter, get "special treatment" from Jesus, according to Mark.. (Mark's Twelve also has another Simon, if that helps muddy the waters.)

All reasonable points. I did look for what Ehrman had to say about this in Misquoting Jesus and I didn't find anything, but it might have been there and I didn't search carefully enough. However, he does have an on-line article where he argues that Cephas and Peter aren't same guy:

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.23...2&uid=3&uid=3739256&uid=60&sid=21102416009861

The article is behind a pay wall, but the first page is listed and you can get at the whole article for free using JSTOR's free plan that allows one to have three articles on their "shelf" at any one time.

Ehrman roughly makes the same points others have made but he provides more details than others plus he makes an argument I hadn't seen:
1. Several early sources suggest that several early Christian writers didn't assume Cephas and Peter were the same person.
2. Paul's reference to Peter and Cephas in the same sentence suggests that he thought they were not the same person.
3. The Peter that Paul refers to is an apostle to the circumcised, but Cephas, (from the incident at Antioch) associated with gentiles.

I have not done Ehrman justice with the simple summary above of his long article. In particular, he puts forth a more detailed argument about why Paul's use of Peter and Cephas in the same sentence suggest strongly that Paul meant that to mean he was referring to two different people.

...
The church

Similarly, I wasn't vouching for the authenticity of anything in the received Matthew. My point was, if it were faked, then who benefits? Cui bono? Surely not the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the crime, because there was no such thing. Besides, the "other side" after there finally were distinct Eastern (two of them) and Western orthodox churches has the same Matthew, and they're fine with "On this rock." Hell, even Protestants, from Rome and each other, have the same Matthew, and they don't show until a millennium after any switcheroo would have had to have been completed.

On its face, the passage has nothing to do with what's in controversy, which is supremacy. Jesus doesn't say anything about others obeying Peter (and elsewhere says otherwise - but this isn't a thread about the pretensions of Rome). And it has very little to do with the Roman see getting what isn't controversial, primacy - that simply reflects the ritual requirements of the established church of the Empire, whose sentimental but deteriorating ancestral capital was Rome.

Peter doesn't come from Rome, the (all but extra-biblical) story is that he went to Rome. Jesus didn't tell him to go to Rome. He goes to Rome in legend because doing that confers stature on him. Rome already had ritual stature. Rome had prestige.

So, back to cui bono. What happens here and in the Great Commission? Jesus acknowledges that there is a church that's supposed to be founded on the apostles. So Peter and all his colleagues are (implicitly) empowered to consecrate succesors, specifically bishops. If you checked this with Jesus, he'd have asked what's a bishop? If you had asked Peter, then he, too, would have asked what's a bishop? He might even have asked, "What's a successor to the apostles, plural, if Jesus is coming back during our lifetimes?"

OK What's a bishop? Somebody who claims authority because he is the latest in an (alleged) unbroken chain of consecrations that stem from Jesus' appointment of the Apostles (Peter along with everybody else). Which claim, BTW, continues to this day, east and west.

The first link in that chain would be worth getting in writing, and everybody just might agree to pay for the distributed data integrity assurance exercise. It is as much in the interest of the-then "bishop" of Rome as the-then "bishops" of Antioch or Alexandria. They don't know that their remote successors will excommunicate each other centuries later, and that the future Roman guy will reinterpret this passage way beyond anything that these guys actually wrote down there. Right now, they need Jesus saying that they're the bosses. Jesus doesn't object. Amen.

You seem to accept the build my church on a rock stuff was a later interpolation but you reject the idea that it could have been done late enough to bolster the position of Peter to give a basis for why the Roman Church should be the lead organization.

Of course, you might be right, but the argument is made in several places that this was the probable reason for the interpolation. I assume that their argument is that the interpolation is made as Rome is trying to establish their credentials to be the lead church even though the establishment of any kind of Christian movement in Rome seems to be after the establishment of a Christian movement in several other places. I need to read more about this to understand exactly what the arguments are but an interpolation any place in the early second century seems plausible to me right now and that would have been in the range of the time when Rome is making a move to become the seat of Christian leadership.

ETA: You also seem to be arguing that the fiction of Peter's trip to Rome was created to bring stature to Peter. You and I have a different view here. The more plausible story to me is that creating the story of Peter in Rome was to give Rome a credible basis for claiming primacy and later interpolations to the Gospels pumped up Peter's role to justify Rome's claim to primacy.

 

[eight bits]

dave

Thanks for the info on Jstor. A lot of people here also have it through colleges and other libraries. It's a great resource.

You seem to accept the build my church on a rock stuff was a later interpolation but you reject the idea that it could have been done late enough to bolster the position of Peter to give a basis for why the Roman Church should be the lead organization.

That, and because it doesn't help the Roman case in any controversy a Roman Church would actually have until the 1500's or so. We know the line was there before that.

You're looking at "on this rock." I think the money passage is "I will build my church." What Peter can do, his peers can do just as well: consecrate successors. The Roman see was a nice gig and all, and you get to walk first in any church procession, but it wasn't unusually important in a practical way to be Bishop of Rome instead of some other richer see or bigger community until long afterwards.

give Rome a credible basis for claiming primacy

Rome already had it. Primacy is a bucket of warm spit. Rome's eventual rival as an Imperial center, Constantinople, wasn't more than a wide place in the road until 330 CE. We seem to agree that the interpolation would be sometime in the 100's. Who the hell would Rome need to impress in the Second Century? Antioch?

But Peter? Being the Bishop of Rome - hey, that's pretty sweet for a retired Jewish fisherman from Galilee. He must be a special guy. Rome is a symbol of worldwide reach - the symbol of worldwide reach. In the Secod Century, there was no question of church worldwide rule. But it was to be the light of whole world.

Now, unlike primacy, supremacy would be worth having in a practical sense, and no bishop had it. But Jesus making a pun about your nickname doesn't give you supremacy, and the pun sure as hell didin't give supremacy to any schismatic Bishop of Rome centuries later. As a talking point against Protestants much later on? Sure. They're stuck on the Bible, sola scriptura.

Protestants were the first rivals Rome had to deal with who were sola scriptura. No Eastern Orthodox bishop gave or gives a rat's patootie what a Roman functionary thinks a Bible passage means. Holy Tradition says what ecclesiology shall prevail, against black letters in the Bible if it comes to that (which the Matthew pun isn't even close to being). Rome agrees with the principle, it's just that they rely on other Traditions when they deal with the Schism.